Transcript of a Sermon on Hebrews 12.1-2
The transcript of a sermon on Hebrews 12:1-2 has been lightly edited for ease of reading.
Please turn in your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 12. Today we are going to be looking at verses 1 and 2 of chapter 12. While you’re turning there, there have been two young men that have been worshiping with us for probably five or six years on and off and are getting ready to move to Princeton.
So please keep David and Robbie in your prayers. If you haven’t had an opportunity to say hello to them, they’re sitting there in the back. But David and Robbie, we are glad and happy and thankful to God for the time that he has given us with you.
And we do pray that your move goes smoothly and that you can find a church there as well to worship and to enjoy your new home. So we do pray for you in that.
Please read with me as we turn to God’s word in Hebrews chapter 12, beginning in verse 1.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Let’s pray.
To the gracious God, you have given us the intellectual capacity to know and to learn things about your creation.
We can learn the circumference of the earth. We can learn the distance of the earth to the sun, all the cycles of life, the molecular and atomic building blocks of creation. And there are so many other things about this world that we have the capacity to know.
But the greatest knowledge that you have given to us is the capacity to know and to love you. Lord, through your accommodation, you have made it possible for us finite beings to know you, the infinite God. So as we study this word, we do open, ask that you would open our eyes more and more to the glory that was made visible by Jesus, the author, the perfecter of our faith.
Let us glimpse the future glory that awaits your children. And through this word, keep us running the race that you have put before us in Jesus name. Amen.
INTRODUCTION
In August of 1974, a man by the name of Gordy Ainsliegh started a race on a dare. In 1955, Wendell Robbie founded the Western States 100, and he founded that race in 1955 to prove that horses were still capable of running 100 miles in a day. In 1971 and 72, Gordy had completed this race on his horse Rebel.
In 1973, he began the race on a different horse who came up lame at mile 29, and he had to drop out. A friend of Gordy’s who was an ultra-marathon runner dared Gordy to run the race next year, but without a horse – to run on foot. Now, Gordy considered himself to be a pretty reasonable guy, and he thought this was a crazy idea.
But sometimes there is something in a man’s mind that works on crazy ideas and tricks us into thinking that they are reasonable and attainable. So with some planning and some training, at 4.50 a.m. on August 3, 1974, Gordy Ainsliegh lined up at the starting line of the Western States 100 on foot.
He had a plan.
He had done the math and determined that he needed to average 14 minutes and 17 seconds a mile to complete the race in the allotted time. However, around mile marker four, the course narrowed to a single-file trail. The horses could not pass him, so he was forced to run a seven-minute, 30-second pace for the next 25 miles.
A good friend had planned to meet him at mile 29 with a fresh pair of shoes that were better suited for the rest of the race. She met him, but without the shoes. She couldn’t find them.
He had taken time a couple days ahead of time and strategically placed 10 bottles of Gatorade along the first 52 miles of the course, expecting electrolytes and water and food at the aid stations for the rest of the race. This was a horse race. They had water and hay and grain at the aid stations.
By mile 55, he was ready to quit, but two things kept him going. At that 55-mile marker, a friend of his met him and just happened to have a couple of electrolyte powder packets in her pocket, along with a bottle of Pepsi, and that energized him for a little bit further. But the thing that really kept him going was the fact that his girlfriend had promised to meet him at mile marker 75.
Runner’s World says this, “As he moved forward step by step, the thoughts that crossed his mind were not about growing up without a father, nor did he dwell on the memories of his teen years of endlessly trying to fit in, only to be routinely rejected. Instead, he thought about the promise his girlfriend Pat had made to him before setting off. I’ll meet you at Michigan Bluff.”
The author of Hebrews has given us a list of men and women who have finished their race by faith in the promises of God. Now he turns to his original audience, and he turns to you and I, to say they have run their race. You have a race to run also.
To strengthen you on that race, consider those that have gone before you. Take off the things that hold you back, and keep your eyes on Jesus. You and I are called to run the race set before us by faith, looking to Jesus who has not only paved the course, but has completed it, and who empowers us to endure the hardships that we find along the path.
RUN THE RACE
So first, let’s consider running the race. The main appeal of a passage that we are considering today is just that. Let us run the race with perseverance marked out before us.
The context here that the author is expecting his audience to know is the context of the original Olympic Games. Every five years, athletes would gather to compete against one another for the winner’s crown. The endurance races would be run, and the winners of those endurance races would join the spectators for a time, until at the end of the day, all of the winners were gathered together and given their winner’s crown.
This is a metaphor that shows up throughout Scripture. Paul uses it in places like 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, and Philippians 3:14. So as we consider our Christian life as a race, it will help us if we unpack this metaphor a little bit further.
The foot race that the author is referring to here is not the 100-yard dash. It is not a sprint. It is a long-distance race similar to a half-marathon or a marathon-length race today.
It’s a race that takes training and work, and oftentimes the most work is expended as you are actually running the race. John Brown of Edinburgh describes the race. He says “the race is active, laborious, regulated, progressive, and persevering exertion.”
A RACE OF ACTION
The race is one of vigorous action. We are not passive in this race. We are called to work in this race, to exert both physical and intellectual faculties as we run the race set before us.
The work of running the Christian life is going to take great work on your part. We work out our salvation. We learn and study the things of God.
We wrestle with the truth that God has placed before us in the Bible, fighting to squeeze every drop of knowledge and encouragement from it. Yes, God promises that I am working in you according to my glory and my will, and that is a glorious truth that we are not alone in the active race, but he also calls us to work out our race.
A LABORIOUS RACE
As we’ve already referenced a little bit, the race is laborious.
The race is hard labor. The call in this race is to die to yourself every day. The call in this race is to put off the old man, to put off, as we’ll see in a few moments, those things that hinder us, good things that we need to set aside so that we can more easily run the race.
A REGULATED RACE
It’s a regulated race. The race is a course that is set before us. Several years ago in the running world, news came out that a man had been stripped of his title in running a marathon, a major marathon.
It had been found out that he ran the first 10 miles. A friend picked him up and drove him about four miles from the end, and he waited until an appropriate time to get out of the car and run the rest of the race. There are no shortcuts.
The race course has been laid out before us. We cannot cut corners. We cannot pick and choose which parts of God’s law we want to follow and which parts of our lives we want to be sanctified.
We must run the race according to God’s marking it out before us.
A PROGRESSIVE RACE
The race is progressive. I’m not talking politically here, folks.
There should be progress in your life. We do not run in place. Several years ago, a friend of mine who’s an Air Force chaplain decided to run a marathon, but due to all the unpleasantness of 2020 and 2021, he was limited to where he could run the and by the time he was done with his training, the only option open to him was the 400-meter track on the base that he served on.
That’s 105 ½ laps around the track out there in front of the hospital. 26.2 miles to go nowhere. The Christian life is one where we see growth in knowledge, where we see growth and holiness, where we see growth in love as we do the work, as we make the progress.
We should love God more now than we did when we started.
AN ENDURANCE RACE
And this is an endurance race. We persevere that word that is that is given to us there.
“Let us run with perseverance.” That is an active endurance. That’s not the kid in the back of the car going, “I just wish this ride was over. Please just tell me when I could open my eyes again.” This is an endurance where we work to continue to follow God.
Yes, we work in the power of the Holy Spirit. We work in the knowledge that Christ has completed salvation for us, but we are still called to work and to work hard in this race. Like Gordy Ainsleigh, you and I have an ultra-marathon set before us like the original audience.
Persecution will tempt you to sit down. Laziness will tempt you to sit down and to not finish the race. But the author of Hebrews calls us to persevere in that race, whatever it may be.
THREE AID STATIONS ALONG THE WAY
But not only does the author of Hebrews call us to persevere and to run the race, he also points out to us three aid stations that God has given to us. Whether you run a 5k, which is 3.1 miles or that 100 mile race like Gordy Ainsleigh and many after him have run. If you ever run a foot race, you will notice that it points along the route.
There are stations where you can receive aid in your race. On the shorter races like the 5k’s and the 10k’s, there may only be water at those aid stations, but at the longer races there are electrolyte powders and food. And if you’ve gotten there early enough to send a package ahead to the aid stations in the longer races, you may even have changes of clothes and shoes to help you along the way.
These aid stations are places to find sustenance and strength for the endurance race. And in our passage today, we see three of these aid stations.
AID STATION #1: A GREAT CLOUD OF WITNESSES
The first is the great cloud of witnesses that we have.
Now, immediately in the context of this passage, the great cloud of witnesses that we have is that list of people that we’ve been studying for the last couple months in Hebrews chapter 11. Typically, you and I look at this passage and we said, hey, there’s a great cloud of witnesses. My beloved family member who has gone on to meet his or her eternal reward is up there in heaven looking down upon my life and just giving me all the help and whatever I need, giving me the good feelings to get through life.
Your beloved may be in heaven if they have believed in Jesus as their only hope, they are in heaven, but they are not looking at you. They are looking unto Jesus as we are commanded to do, which we will look at here in a few minutes. And they are a testimony to you that living by faith in the promises of God, no matter how long and hard and arduous the race is, they are a testimony, they are a witness to you that it is worth running the race.
I think of men and women who have gotten terminal diagnoses and have traversed all the way to the end with a smile on their face, even in the deepest of pains, because they know that this is a temporary thing and that God will honor their their life and their faith in Jesus Christ. We look to those who have gone before us, we look to those who have lived faithful lives, and we look to the fact that they are now receiving their reward in the presence of God, in the presence of Christ, and we take comfort and encouragement in that. And so we look to the great crowd of witnesses for encouragement.
AID STATION #2: LAYING ASIDE DISTRACTIONS
The second aid station that he highlights for us is the work of the Holy Spirit in helping us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. In the context of the original audiences, they thought about those games at Olympia in Greece. They would be reminded that the athletes would run almost completely naked in order to reduce the amount of friction in the in the air that would hold them back.
Even today, in the Olympic Games, the runners will wear clothing that is designed to reduce friction and air hindrance. And so we are called by the power of the Holy Spirit to set aside the things that hold us back. And there are two things that he focuses on.
One is everything that hinders. These are good things that sometimes get in the way of our race. The Western States 100 climbs out of the Olympic Valley in California, climbs to the top of those mountains there in California and then descends into the next valley over and ends in Auburn, California.
The Rockies and the Sierra Nevada mountains have some of the most glorious views of creation that you can see in this world. But there’s a time limit on the Western States Endurance Run. And if you stopped at every view, every vista and you pulled out your cell phone and you took a picture, you might not finish the race.
It is good for us at times to take good things in our lives, to set them aside so that we can pursue better things according to God’s will and according to God’s word.
The second thing that we set aside is sin. As I mentioned before, the race is set out before us. God has set the parameters for the race. And some of us, myself included, are choosing our own will over God’s route. We are choosing sin over progress in the race.
And we are called to put those things aside.
AID STATION #3: LOOKING UNTO JESUS
But the third and most important aid station that we come to is the command to fix our eyes on Jesus. He is the author and perfecter of our faith.
He is the one who has pioneered and paved the road of faith that, yes, goes through insult and rejection, persecution and suffering. It says here that he scorned, he endured the cross, scorning its shame. Why and how did he scorn its shame? By undergoing it according to God’s will so that you and I can have salvation.
By understanding what Paul said, not only understanding but pioneering what Paul said. When Paul said, everything I suffer here is nothing compared to the eternal weight of glory that is mine in Christ Jesus. And we’re also called to consider, as we put our eyes upon Jesus, that he endured all of this for the joy set before him.
What is the joy that is set before Jesus? It’s a twofold joy. Take out that prayer, “Love, Lustres at Calvary,” that we handed out earlier. This joy that is set before him is a twofold joy.
As you look at the beginning of that prayer after the stanza that it begins, enlarge my heart. There are four statements that begin with the word there, T-H-E-R-E. Where is there? Well, there is Calvary.
There is at the place of the cross. He says, “There [at Calvary] grace removes my burdens and heaps them on thy son, made a transgressor, a curse and sin for me. There the sword of thy justice smote the man thy fellow. There thy infinite attributes were magnified and infinite atonement was made. There infinite punishment was due and infinite punishment was endured.”
The first aspect of the joy that Jesus set before him was the joy of God’s glory and satisfaction.
God has declared sin must be punished and God is a just God. He is gracious. He is loving, but he is also just and we cannot separate those things.
And so for God to offer forgiveness, justice must be satisfied. God’s infinite attributes must be satisfied and glorified. And it brought Jesus great joy to know that in his life, in his sacrifice, he was satisfying God’s attributes.
We are called as humans, the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy or to take joy in him forever. And we should take joy in God when his attributes are satisfied and glorified in this world.
But the second aspect of joy is highlighted as we move on through this prayer.
“Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy. Jesus was cast off that I might be brought in. He was trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as friend.
He surrendered to hell’s worse that I might gain heaven’s best. He was stripped so that I might be clothed. He was wounded that I might be healed.
He was a thirst that I might drink. He was tormented that I might be comforted, made a shame that I might inherit glory, enter darkness that I might have eternal light. My Savior wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes.
He groaned that I might have endless song. He endured all pain that I might have unfading health. He bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory diadem.
He bowed his head that I might uplift mine. He experienced reproach that I might receive welcome. He closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness expired that I might forever live.”
Brothers and sisters, you and I are the second aspect of the joy that was set before Jesus that led him to endure all of those things. He endured those things for you and he endured those things for me so that we might have salvation, so that we might know that we are reconciled with God, so that we might know that we have peace with God through him and through him alone. And when the way gets tough, we keep our eyes on him.
We keep our eyes on the promises that are ours in him. We keep our eyes on the truth that he has satisfied all of God’s attributes so that you and I might be drawn close as sons and daughters of the Most High God. Yes, we gain encouragement from the great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us.
Yes, we do the hard work of setting aside sin, but none of those things are possible without the work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And if that is not your only hope, your race will be long and weary and depressing and pointless. We run fixed upon Jesus.
CONCLUSION
He has paved the path. He has completed the race for us, and he empowers us to run our race. We are called to run the race, and God gives us these three aid stations along the way.
Well, Gordon Ainsleigh started at 4.50 a.m. on August 3rd, 1974, and 23 hours and 42 minutes later, with about 18 minutes to spare before he would have been disqualified for taking too long, Ainsleigh crossed the finish line.
Today, the Western States 100 has become the Western States Endurance Run, and horses are no longer welcome.
Now, this excites me. I know many of you probably won’t be excited too much by this, but in 2024, the winner finished in 14 hours and 13 minutes. I’ll never get there.
How long and how… That’s 100 miles in 14 hours, folks.
Anyway, how long and how difficult is your race? And what’s holding you back today? Maybe you’ve got a diagnosis, physical or mental, that you are letting stand in the way of feeling the love, the grace, and the joy of God.
Some of you maybe have bought into the hillbilly stereotype that keeps you from doing the work to grow in knowledge and love and holiness.
Some of you are harboring sin that takes your focus off the glorious future that awaits.
Your race is hard. Your race is uphill. Your race is long. Stop looking to the world. Stop looking at your limitations.
Look to the glorified and reigning Jesus Christ. He has secured your status before God as a beloved child. He has broken the power and abuse of the world.
He has saved you from the abuse of sin in your life. And he has paved the way through insult, rejection, and suffering. And he has finished your race so that you can endure to the end.
Look to him and be encouraged.
Let’s pray.
God of glory, God of joy, God of light, in our own strength, we will never look to Jesus.
And so we pray that you would fix our eyes on Jesus, that you would lift our gaze to him who has authored, who has pioneered, who has perfected and completed our faith. May we look to him so that the distractions and temptations of the world will, as we are about to sing, grow strangely dim as we consider that he is and has pursued the joy of your glory and the joy of our salvation. Keep us, O Lord, on the track that you have for us.
In Jesus’ precious name, amen.
As we go this week, I do give this blessing from God to you today. “May all who love the Lord be like the sun when it rises in its strength.”
This applies to all the promises of God. He who testifies to these things says, yea, I am coming soon.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Information on the history of the Western States Endurance Run is found here.
“Love Lustres at Calvary” is found here.
For other sermons in this series, please see our Sermon Archive.
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The transcript of a sermon on Hebrews 12:1-2 has been lightly edited for ease of reading.