Chapter 12. There was a service held today
in Boston for the families of those that were killed and injured
in the Boston Marathon bombing on Monday. Many leaders, religious
and civil, spoke. And I listened And nobody, none
of the religious leaders said anything concerning the gospel,
nothing concerning Christ. And then our president stood
to speak, and he opened his speech quoting from Hebrews chapter
12, verse 1. And he said, the scriptures say,
let us run with patience the race that is set before us. And I waited. but he stopped
right there. And I decided then I'd save what
I had prepared for another time, and I preach tonight from Hebrews
12, verses 1 through 3. Let's read these together. Wherefore,
seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of
witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth
so easily beset us, And let us run with patience the race that
is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. Who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set
down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him
that endured such great such contradiction of centers against
himself lest you be wearied and faint in your minds. I realized
that the president was trying to comfort and he was trying
to strengthen those who were suffering as well as the whole
country who was watching while trying not to offend anybody.
Obviously the president's speech writers chose that verse of Scripture
because of the marathon, because when this bombing occurred, there
was a race being run. And indeed, running a race is
a good analogy of the race that believers run. It's a good analogy. And under the inspiration of
the Spirit of God, Paul uses that analogy very often throughout
the Scriptures. And indeed, we saw on Monday
at the Boston Marathon, a good analogy of this race that believers
run. We live in a sin-cursed world
full of sinners, and therefore the race that believers run is
a marathon full of bombs. That's exactly what it is. Bombs
that come when we least expect them to come. Bombs that cause
great suffering and cause great sorrow. But true comfort and
true strength and true refuge, regardless of who gets offended
or who doesn't get offended, is found one place, and that's
in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Scriptures tell
us all flesh is grass. The goodliness thereof is as
the flower of the field. They wither, they fade, they
burn up, they're cast into an oven. This whole world is perishing. It's dust and it's going to return
to the dust. That's me. That's you. And not
only that, but this world is going to be destroyed. The whole
thing is going to melt with a fervent heat. That's what the scripture
says. But the word of the Lord endures forever. The Word of
the Lord endures forever. Christ, the Word of God, is the
refuge for sinners. In Him, we will remain forever,
eternally. When all these perishing things
are gone, He'll remain, and those that are in Him will remain.
He is the strength, He is the comfort, He is the refuge for
sinners. So tonight I want to preach what
I wish I heard someone say today in that service. And if I could
speak to the victims of their families, this is what I'd say
to them. And if that was my eight-year-old son that died up there Monday,
was killed up there Monday, this is what I'd want somebody to
remind me of. It's by the grace of God that we enter the race
of faith, so it shall be by the grace of God that we're kept
till we cross the finish line. His grace is only in Christ Jesus,
and therefore, Believers must run this race that's set before
us, looking only one place, and that is to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ. All right,
let's look at verse 1. He says, wherefore seeing we
also are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.
These cloud of witnesses are found in chapter 11, where the
Spirit of God gives us this list of men and women who long ago
lived and ran this race set before them and they lived in faith
and they died in faith. They faced a lot of trials and
their trials differed from each other. Their trials were not
all the same, the sufferings were not all the same, but they
did all suffer. And they all finished this race
the same way. Every one of them finished the
same way in faith. And the reason they finished
it the same way is because they began the same way. They started
the same way. That was by the grace of God. That's the first thing I want
us to talk about tonight. It's solely by the grace of God
that sinners enter the race of faith in the first place. It's
by God's sovereign and free grace. When we own something, we do
with our own whatever we will. It's ours. We can do with it
what we please. Same is true with God. He says,
is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is
thine eye evil? Are you offended? Are you angry
then because I am good? The true and living God created
everything that is. And everything that is belongs
to Him. He owns everything. And God is
God. So God can do with His own whatever
He's pleased to do with them. And therefore, it was His sovereign
grace, His sovereign right as God to do with His own what He
would. And that's that sovereign grace
by which He chose whom He would in Christ before the foundation
of the world. All blessings that God has is
in Christ. That's why we run this race looking
to Christ. Everything's in Christ. When
God truly revealed Himself in this sinner's heart, When he
revealed himself in my heart, he revealed to me that he didn't
have to choose me. He didn't have to. He was under
no obligation to choose me. And that creates a reverence
in the hearts of his people. and that creates a submission
to him. And it also creates a grateful gratitude, a praising of him
that he did choose us. That's what happens when you
hear this message, when he really reveals himself in the heart.
So believer, let the bombs blast. Let them blast. It's our constant
comfort, it's our constant assurance, our constant security that that
same sovereign power that had the right to choose us in the
first place will also keep us to the end. Now, at the Boston
Marathon, only those who meet a qualifying time, according
to their age and various circumstances that puts them into one group,
they have a qualifying time for this group, another qualifying
time for this group, another qualifying time for that group.
And if you meet that qualifying time, you can run in the race.
Well, God's grace is not that way. It's free grace. It's free
grace. And free grace means God didn't
choose us because we met a certain qualification. That's not why
He chose His people. God chose His people freely.
He chose them simply because He would, not because there was
anything qualifying them to be chosen. Nothing at all. So then,
it's not of Him that willeth, nor of Him that runneth. but
of God that showeth mercy." Believer, the sufferings of this life often
cause us to doubt. They cause us to doubt. And though
we're still plagued with this body of death in which is nothing
but sin, we have this assurance, we have this comfort because
God chose us by free grace, not based on anything in us. Nothing
in us is going to cause God to reject us. It was His doing. And then we enter this race by
saving grace. Our text tells us there that
Jesus Christ came to where we are and it says that He, who
for the joy that was set before Him, That joy that was set before
Him was the joy of glorifying His Father. It was the joy of
coming to this place and declaring that God is just. You see, He doesn't have a qualifying
thing for this certain group and a qualifying thing for this
group and a qualifying thing for that group. This is His qualification. You've got to be just because
God's just. He's holy. But we're not. We don't meet that qualification.
So the only way God could show us mercy is if Christ comes to
where we are and He takes our sin and He puts it away and justifies
us so that God's law is upheld, it's honored, it's magnified,
justice is satisfied. And because that's God in human
flesh that did it, God is the justifier. That was the joy set
before Him, to come and declare God just and the justifier. The
joy that was sent before him was the joy of that elect people
that was given to him. He shall see of the travail of
his soul and shall be satisfied. The travail of his soul is what
he endured to make it so that those children are righteous
and those children are holy and they're justified and they're
They're made perfect to be accepted of God. And that travail are
those children that He brings forth just like a woman in travail
brings forth children. That was the joy set before Him,
to bring forth those children and present them all to the Father.
And it was the joy set before Him that when He finished His
work, He would have the glory with the Father that He had before
the earth was, before the world was made, but He would have it
as the God-man. He had it before as God the Son,
but now He would have it as God and man in one body. And that
was the joy set before Him. So He came to where we are, and
it says there, and he endured the cross. In order to do this,
he had to go to Calvary's tree. First, he had to be like the
lamb of old under the law. He had to be put up and examined
to be found perfectly spotless and without blemish. And so he
was from the womb He was conceived of the Holy
Spirit so that He was holy from His birth all the way up through
His life. There was no sin in Him, no sin
found in Him whatsoever. Then He entered into His public
ministry, and all He did was go about doing good. He preached
everything the Father sent Him to preach. He trusted the Father
to draw those to Him that the Father had given Him. He went
everywhere he did doing good. The government, the civil rulers,
first time in history, only time in history, that both a secular
judgment seat and an ecclesiastical judgment seat came together to
judge a man. And they came together and judged
him. And they couldn't find any fault in him. They couldn't find
any fault in him whatsoever. He was without sin. but he had
to be proven faultless, faultless because only a fit man could
take the place of his people. And then he went to that cross
and he had to be made sin because God's just and he won't pour
out judgment upon one who's not first been found guilty. So he
had to be made sin for his people to stand guilty in our room instead
for God to even pour out judgment upon him. And then He had to
take our sin upon Himself and be made sin for us in our room
instead, that when God poured out His judgment upon Him, That
would be the fulfilling of God pouring out His judgment on us,
on His elect people, so that now the judgment is put away
for His people. And He endured that cross, it
says here, despising the shame of it. The shame of it was not
just those, it was shameful, those things we see where He
was shamefully treated and spit upon and mocked and had His hands
and feet nailed to the tree. That was shameful. He did that
willingly. He endured that willingly. But
the shameful thing of it was to be forsaken of his father,
to have the one he loved turn his back on him because it was
a must that he suffer that separation for his people. But he did that,
and now it says he sat down at the right hand of the throne
of God. You know why? Hebrews 1.3 says,
when he had by himself purged our sins, he sat down. Not until
the work was finished. When the work was finished, He
sat down. He entered in having obtained
eternal redemption for us. Because by that one offering,
He has perfected forever them that are sanctified. And then
He sat down when the work was finished. Now it's that saving
grace, that redeeming grace, that regenerating grace by which
we're saved. If when we were enemies we were
reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more than being
now reconciled, being now His friends, we shall be saved from
wrath through His life. And this we joy in because we
have now received the atonement, the reconciliation. We're one
with God in Christ. And then thirdly, we enter this
race because of God's effectual grace, His irresistible grace.
It's the Spirit of God who births us a second time in regeneration,
giving us faith to believe Him, and we enter the race of faith
in our experience of it. That's when we enter the race.
And this new birth is a must. Whenever the Lord Jesus says,
Verily, verily, He's saying this is a must. And He said to Nicodemus,
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God. A sinner is not born again, he's
not called, he's not converted by his will or by these works
of our flesh. Not at all. We've heard a lot
of talk this week about the goodness that is in man. I've heard it
on every broadcast because of the folks that rushed to the
aid of those who had been bombed and helped them. And that was
good. That was a good thing to do. That was a right thing to
do. We ought to do something like that. That's just what we
ought to do. But that don't make us good with
God. That don't make us good with God. In our flesh, in this
natural man that we're born with because we're conceived in sin,
because Adam sinned and we fell under the curse, and then we're
conceived in sin, we come forth from our mother's womb dead in
trespasses and sins. The Scripture says there's none
good, no not one. That's not comparing this one
to this one. If we compare ourselves with
another, we might say, well, he's good in comparison with
him. But we're talking about before God, who's righteous and
holy and just and demands perfection. Before Him, there's none good,
not one. Our flesh contributes nothing
to this new birth. Nothing. It's the spirit that
quickeneth. The flesh profits nothing. The
Lord said, the words I speak, they are spirit and they are
life. Does that mean then that since
Christ doesn't walk the earth anymore, that and he's not speaking
the words anymore himself in person or physically right here
with us? Does that mean that the words
he speaks are no longer spirit and life? Not at all. Because effectual grace, irresistible
grace, is accomplished by God the Holy Spirit in the day of
Christ's power. That's what the Lord said. Thy
people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in His power.
And this power and grace is worked through the gospel being preached
in truth. Look at James chapter 1. James
chapter 1. It's not just any preaching,
it's preaching in truth. James 1.18, Of His own will begat
He us with the word of truth. Of His own will begat He us with
the word of truth. That we should be a kind of first
fruits of His creatures. Look at 1 Peter chapter 1. 1
Peter chapter 1. And look at verse 23. Verse 23 says, We're born again,
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Look at the end of verse
25. And this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you." It's preached unto you. It's
not just any preaching. Paul said, you have 10,000 instructors
in Christ, yet you have not many fathers. For in Christ Jesus,
I have begotten you through the gospel. Woo! Boy, that would
stir up a stink with a lot of folks. Paul said, I have begotten
you through the gospel. Boy, that's a heretic talking
right there. According to some, he would be. For one, folks don't
believe they're saved through the preaching of the gospel.
But to have a man say, I begotten you through the preaching of
the gospel? You know what he means. He means that I came to
you preaching the gospel, and Christ, through the word I spoke,
blessed that word by His Spirit to your hearts and rebirthed
you again in spirit and in truth, and that's how you're begotten
again. Now, you hear me well. No man can save a sinner. No man can do anything for a
sinner. No preacher will avail you anything. Even if I stand here tonight
and preach the truth to you, it won't avail you anything unless
Christ blesses it to your heart, sending forth the Spirit. He
prays the Father who sends forth the Spirit, and the Spirit enters
the heart and causes us to bow to Christ in that new birth.
And the only reason men deny this is because they try to take
their experience and their reason and their thoughts to bring God
to their reason and their thoughts and their experiences and make
God line up with that. Take your reason and your thoughts
and your experiences to God and make it line up with God. And
if it don't, we've got to get in line with God. It's just how
God saves now. And when God reveals His grace
in the heart of His child, it's the most comforting thing there
is. Because this world, this race
of faith is a race of suffering. That's what it is. We're often
troubled by current events like the thing that happened on Monday.
I'll sit there and watch that and I thought, what if that was
my eight-year-old son? The only way I could go on in
faith, running this race, is by God's grace keeping me. That's
the only way. The only way. I wouldn't have
strength in myself to do it. The only way. Our own sin troubles
us greatly. Our persecutors who hate our
God and persecute us, trouble us greatly. But the believer's
greatest comfort is this, since it was by God's sovereign, free,
saving, effectual grace that I entered into this race, that
same sovereign, free, saving, effectual grace is going to keep
me until the end. It's going to keep me to the
end. That's the message of comfort and what a comfort it is. It's
lasting comfort. It's eternal comfort. It's the
comfort of God, our God. All right, here's the second
thing. Believers must lay aside everything that will hinder us
from running this race. Verse 1, he says, let us lay
aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us
and let us run with patience this race that is set before
us. One thing I noticed in watching
the videos of the runners in the marathon this week is how
they didn't have on anything on their body that was extra.
They just had the bare necessities on. Some of them didn't have
much on. They were just as light as they
could be running a race. There's a lot of weights that
a believer has to lay aside in order to run the race of faith.
The number one thing, the number one weight we have to lay aside
that the Hebrew letter's dealing with throughout this letter is
trying to carry the weight of the law. That's the number one
thing. That's what he's dealing with
throughout the Hebrew letter. It's impossible to look to the
law and to look to Christ. Because when you're looking to
the law, you're really looking to self. And when you're looking
to Christ, you're looking away from self. It's impossible to
do both and run the race of faith. You can't look in two directions
at the same time. That's impossible. It hindered
the Galatians. Paul said in Galatians 5, 7,
Ye did run well. Who did hinder you that you should
not obey the truth? What were they doing? They were
mixing law with grace. Men were saying, it's okay to
believe on Christ. It's okay to believe that He's
the end of the law for righteousness. But now, if you're going to be
sanctified, you've got to go back to the law and be sanctified. And Paul said, who has bewitched
you? Who is using this witchcraft? Who's using this dark, backwoods,
stump-worshipping witchcraft in bewitching you and telling
you that once you have begun in the spirit of which the flesh
profits absolutely nothing, now somehow you're going to be made
perfect? in the flesh by going back to the law. He said, you
did run well. Who has hindered you? Who's hindered
you? One of two things happens when
we turn from Christ back to the law. One of two things. One,
we're either constantly broken down and sorrowful and doubting
and unable to take a step because we see that we fail to meet the
requirements of the law. or we're puffed up and swollen
with pride and self-righteousness because we vainly imagine that
we're keeping the law. And either way, we can't run
the race because the race is run by faith and the law is not
of faith. That's just as plain as it gets.
The law is not of faith. I can't be looking to my will
and my works and my law keeping and my obedience and the things
I'm doing and looking to God's will and God's work and Christ's
obedience and what Christ has done. I gotta hang on to one
or the other. We've got to let go of ours.
This is why men deny these things I'm saying about how we're saved
by grace. Men will deny the electing grace of God. Men will deny the
redeeming grace of God. Men will deny the regenerating
grace of God. And how the means and method
that God uses to do it. Because somewhere along there,
they're wanting to say, I had something to do with it. somewhere
along that way. We've got to let all that go.
We've got to let it all go. Paul said this in Hebrews 6.1. He said, let us go on unto perfection. He's talking about let us go
on learning more and more of our Redeemer, not laying again
the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith
toward God. Don't make it so that we have
to constantly go back and tell you You can't be saved by your
works. You can't be saved by your works. You can only be saved by faith
in Christ. He said, when we look at the
various baptisms under the Old Testament law, He said, when
you look at those different kinds of washings, rather than saying,
hey, let's incorporate that into our worship, Let's start baptizing
and doing those different kinds of baptisms under the law and
those different kinds of washings. Instead of wanting to do that,
look to see how it glorifies Christ. Look to see how it glorifies
Christ who was baptized, immersed in the sin of His people and
the judgment of God so that by that He thoroughly washed away
our sins and purged us of all iniquity. He said, when you look
at the laying on of hands in the Old Testament under the law,
let's don't turn again to those things literally. If a man lays
his hand on you now, in this gospel age, it's just one dirty
sinner laying his hand on another dirty sinner. That's all it is.
In the Old Testament under the law, it pictured the imputation
of sin from the sinner to the lamb. Let's look at it and learn
how that by God's grace, He's taken the sin of His people off
of His people and put that sin on His Son. And how that He's
taken the righteousness of His Son and imputed the righteousness
of His Son to His people, so that now they're righteous in
Him. This is what Paul is saying. This is what the whole letter
is saying. Look at the Sabbath day. He said, our rest is Christ. It's not a day. In Hebrews 4.10,
he said, he that's entered into his rest, into Christ's rest,
he also has ceased from his own works just like God did from
his when he rested on the seventh day. That's what the seventh
day pictured. Let us labor therefore. You want to work at something?
Work at this. Let us therefore labor to enter
into that rest, into Christ, lest any man fall after the same
example of unbelief. Let's enter into His rest. Let's
rest in Him. Let us go on to learn and to
digest strong meat such as the resurrection of the dead and
of eternal judgment and the glory of God in these things. That
we go on and on and on as we're learning more and more of Christ
and Him and His perfection and our completion in the firstborn
who's made us righteous. For there's verily a disannulling
of the commandment going before, for the weakness and an unprofitableness
thereof. For the law made nothing perfect,
but the bringing in of a better hope did, by the which we draw
nigh unto God." And you know who that better hope is? That's
Christ. That's how we enter and draw near to God. Another weight
that we carry with us is our loved ones. Our loved ones, mom
or dad, sister or brother, son or daughter, may not believe
the gospel. They may not believe the gospel. But our dearest loved
ones can never come between us and Christ. I know that almost
seems like surely the Lord would say that, but they have to be
laid aside. They do. He that loveth father
or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He that loveth
son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. You imagine
if you loved your son more than you loved Christ, and that quick a bomb took him
away. Now what? You love that loved one more
than you love Christ, and you say you love Christ, you say
you worship Christ, but in your heart, you love that one more
than Christ. And that one's taken away. Now
what? Same with our law-keeping. Looking
at that law-keeping, trying to carry that weight, when God reveals
that, here's my righteousness, it's my son, and that bomb goes
off and destroys all your vain law-keeping, then what? Then
what? Another weight is you may have
many cares in this life. You may be concerned about many
riches in this life, or maybe you enjoy the pleasures this
world offers. What happens whenever the cares
that you're so caring about, what happens when the bomb destroys
them? What happens when all those riches
that you're putting all your trust in and truly loving above
Christ, what happens when a bomb destroys those? What happens
whenever all those pleasures that you enjoy in this life,
what happens when you're the one whose legs get amputated
and you can't enjoy any of those pleasures anymore? It's easier for a camel to go
through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter in the kingdom
of God. Those seed that were sown in that parable of our Lord
and those that were sown among thorns, the cares of the world
and the riches of the world and the pleasures of the world choked
it out. And so they couldn't bring forth
any fruit. See? Believers must lay aside
sin. It says there, verse 1, the sin
which does so easily beset us. We should lay aside all sin.
We're not going to be able to do that until this body of death
is laid aside. But we don't want to sin, we
don't want to walk in sin. James said, lay apart all filthiness
and all extra naughtiness and receive with meekness the engrafted
Word which is able to save your souls. He said, Paul said, put
off concerning the former conversation, conduct, the old man. Put him
off, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be
renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man,
which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
He's telling us Walk in the light God's given you. Feed that new
man. Eat the bread. Be constantly
in the Word. Be constantly seeking Him to
feed you and commune with you. And those things that God has
said are good and right and holy, He said meditate on those things. Walk in those things. Give your
time and attention to those things. And lay aside these other things.
These other things aren't going to profit us. One day they're
going to all be destroyed that fast. And if those things are
what we're trusting in, when that grass is withered and thrown
into the oven, it'll be gone. But the Word of the Lord endures
forever. Christ endures forever. And especially
lay aside the sin of unbelief. If any one of God's people suffer
like those folks suffered on Monday, we doubt. You can't help it. It's just
we got so much of the old man in us still that you can't help
but have just a flood of doubts to run in, in your mind and in
your heart. And then you, you know, if we
just see something like that happen, it causes us to doubt.
But our suffering is no reason to doubt God. There's no reason
to doubt God. God our Father and His Son Christ
Jesus is faithful. He said, I'll never leave thee
nor forsake thee. That's what He said. Christ is
our consolation. Christ is our comfort. Christ
is our all. Our suffering is not reason to
doubt Him and go away from Him. It's reason to draw nearer to
Christ and cling to Christ more. And if we're His child, by His
grace, that same grace, that same power in keeping grace,
that's where we're going to end up, at His feet, clinging to
Him more and more. And then we're to persevere in
this race of faith. Verse 1 says, let us run with
patience the race. With patience. Patience means
cheerful, hopeful endurance. Constancy. Waiting. Waiting. Look at Hebrews 6 and verse 12.
Hebrews 6 verse 12. He says, Let's begin in verse
11. We desire that every one of you
do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until
the end. That you be not slothful, but
followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the
promises. For when God made promise to
Abraham, and if you remember, it was Christ the angel of the
Lord who made this promise to Abraham. And he says, because
he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself, saying,
surely, blessing, I will bless thee. And multiplying, I will
multiply thee. And so after he had patiently
endured, after Abraham patiently endured, after he patiently ran
the race God set before him, he obtained the promise. He obtained
it. Today, by the end of the speech
that the president gave, he had the whole room on their feet
clapping and applauding. Because what he was saying was
a message of persevering, of about how we're going to, as
a country, persevere. And what he was saying was how
we will, we will, we will. But that's no lasting comfort
and strength. Not at all. Not for God's people.
Because the lasting comfort, the lasting strength with God's
people, as Christ said there is, He says, He will. He said, He will. When we suffer,
it may appear like Christ has left us. It may appear like He's
left us alone. That He's not going to bless
us. He says, just wait. He says, just keep running with
patience and wait. He promises His child, I will
bless thee. Whenever we suffer as we're running
the race, we think sometimes, this is not going to turn for
my good, this is going to diminish me. He says, just wait, just
run with patience. He said, I will multiply thee. And when we suffer and it gets
to appearing like this race is long and it gets to appearing
like we can't see the end and it seems like Christ is not going
to return, He says to us, just wait, just be patient, keep believing
the Lord, because Abraham, after that he patiently endured, he
obtained the promise. And so shall we. So shall we.
And here's another great comfort in this race. Look there back
in our text in Hebrews 12. He says, in verse 1 that this
race is set before us. It's set before us. You know,
the runners in the Boston Marathon showed up and they got there
and they were handed a map that showed them where the race was
going to be run. The course was already set. It
was marked out by somebody that had already gone before them
and marked it all out in the course. They didn't have to worry
about any of that. You know what all they had to
worry about? Putting one foot in front of the other one. That's
all they had to worry about. Well, you know what God is telling
us? God our Heavenly Father has set the course before us. Every
mountain, every valley, every hurdle, every obstacle, the length
and the finish line, He set every bit of it. And the same God who
set it will supply the grace to run it. Every bit of it. The
same predestinating hand who ordained and set every obstacle
in our way. is not going to set an obstacle
in the way of his child. That's too much for his child
to handle. He's going to put something in our way. That's
what we need to teach us to hold on to him and look to him and
turn us from our false way. But he's the one who's going
to supply us that grace. He is that way. We shall escape
it. He is that way. And then thirdly, this is the
most important of all. This is the part the president's
speechwriters left out. Run this race, verse 2 says,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We run this race by faith. That
faith is given to us as a gift of God for the reason, sole reason,
of looking to Christ. You know, If you had never seen anything
a day in your life, and God gave you eyes to see, and he said,
I'm giving you these eyes to see for one purpose, for you
to look to my son. Wouldn't you look to him? Wouldn't
you look to him? That's what he's done. He's given
us eyes to see who were blind. And He's told us, this is why
I've given them to you, to look to My Son. And so we look to
His Son. And this is the precious Word
He tells us. He says, you're dead and your
life is hid with Christ in God. So, there He sits at the right
hand of the Father in heavenly places. And He says now to us,
that's where you look. That's where you look. Don't
be like Peter and start out across going to Christ and then look
down at the waves and at the trial and at the sufferings because
we'll surely sink down when we do that. Keep our eye on Christ
and don't stop looking at Him. And we'll arrive at Him. And even when we sink down. We
see whose hand's really holding who, don't we? He's holding us.
Why is that? Because Christ is the author
and finisher of our faith. Christ Jesus our Lord is the
first, the author, and He's the pioneer, the perfecter of faith. He ran this race as the only
man who ever ran it, the God-man, the only man in human flesh that
ever ran this race and ran it absolutely perfectly. And He is the perfection of our
faith. He's the perfection for His people. Hebrews 6.20 says, He's the forerunner
for us entered. That's who He is. He ran ahead
of us for us. And He's entered. He's entered.
It's by the faith of Christ that we run this race. Look at Galatians
2.20. Galatians 2.20. By the faith of Christ that we
run it. Galatians 2.20, Paul said, I
am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. Now the next thing he's going
to say is just expounding on that thought. Christ liveth in
me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. That faithful
one who ran this race physically in this earth for his people,
he says, now that same Christ lives in me, and by that same
faith of Christ, that's how I'm living. That's how I'm walking.
That's how I'm remaining faithful. By the faith of Christ who loved
me and gave himself for me, that's how I'm walking. That's my strength.
He is. He is. And Christ is that joy
that's set before us. I said to you there that the
joy that was set before Christ was that He was going to glorify
His Father. That was the joy set before Him. He said, for this cause came
I unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy name. Well,
the joy set before us is to glorify God, the triune God, in Christ
Jesus. That's the joy set before us.
That's why we run this race desiring for all glory to be His and Him
to have all glory. The joy that was set before Him
was the joy of bringing all His children to His Father. That was the joy set before Him.
see the travail of his soul and be satisfied. He's left us in
this earth to run this race, you and I right here together,
to give ourselves for the cause of preaching his gospel as his
ambassador so that Through Him, He sends forth the Spirit and
He births His child into life and joins them with us. And He'll
do that until He's joined them all into His body. That's the
joy set before. That's the joy of running this
race we're running. It's to give ourselves to the
cause of the gospel being preached. Now, a man that doesn't say he
believes in our gospel usually won't continue with that because
he don't think he needs it. He don't think he needs it, but
those of us who need it know this is joy. He's given us a
privilege to do something. We don't have any power to do
it. We don't have any power to keep ourselves assembled together,
but where two or three are gathered, are where two or three are gathered
by Christ Himself, by His hand, fitly framed together, in whom
He abides, the habitation of God the Holy Spirit. And He keeps
these living stones together. And it's by the ministering of
the gospel, by His grace and His power, that He births others
into spiritual life and fitly frames them together with us
too. Don't that just thrill you? I mean, that's just a joy. What
a joy! And then here's the joy. He ran
this race for the joy of eternal glory, which He would have with
the Father. He said in John 17, verse 5, Now, O Father, glorify
Thou me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with
Thee before the world was. You know what the joy set before
us is? We're going to one day be in that same glory with Him,
enjoying the glory of the Father with Him, perfectly conformed
to the image of our Redeemer. Worshipping with Him. Communion
with Him. Truth. Nothing. No interference
of our sin. No interference of our doubting.
No interference of anything of this world. Just perfect communion
with Him. What a joy. I mean, what a joy
we have set before us. Well, finally, let me say this.
We shall suffer. There shall be persecution. There's
going to be a uniting of every religion together against the
Lord's true church. Today was called an interfaith
service. I think that's what they called
it. You know, there's only one faith. That's what the Scripture
said. But they all came together today and something I noticed
about it. The Muslim gave credit to his God. The Jew gave credit
to his God. The one who was supposed to be
a Christian didn't say a word about Jesus Christ. Not a word. Not a word. And that's the way
it goes. That's the way it goes. We want
to get along with others. Their God's going to continue
to be worshipped, because that's what we're doing. We're worshipping
their God. But our God's not going to be mentioned. That's
the way it is. That's the way it is. And that's
going to happen, and it's going to happen against the Lord's
true church. There's going to be more bombs. But when you find
yourself becoming weary in this world, in this race that we're
running, he says, verse 3, Consider him that endured such contradiction
of sinners against himself, lest you be wearied and faint in your
minds. So here's what he tells us. He
says, Lay aside every weight, every sin, and run looking to
Christ in faith. All God's grace is in Christ.
All God's love is in Christ. All God's spiritual blessings
are in Christ. He's given us eyes to look to Christ. Look
to Him for justification from all our sins, for the righteousness
of the law, Look for him for sanctification from this world.
Look to him for redemption from all captivity of every kind.
Look to him for preservation and strength to run the race
set before us. And look to him for eternal glorification
to bring us into his presence with the Father. And run perseveringly
with endurance. Paul said, Know ye not that they
which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize.
so run that you may be obtained." And he means by that what he
said in Philippians 3.14, I press toward the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. I guarantee you
in that marathon, be turning to Psalm 23. I'm going to end
with this. Psalm 23. I guarantee you in
that marathon that there were some there who said, I don't
really I don't really care about coming in first, I just want
to finish. And they just ran the race steady,
steady to finish the race. There were some there who said,
I want to finish first. And they pressed, they pressed
to be the first one to finish. Well, we may be running just
steady. And just some days faster, some
days slower, some days barely moving, but we're still going
toward him. And that's pressing. We're gonna
all arrive there when he'll have us to arrive at his set time,
that he set for each of us. That's when we're gonna arrive.
And our one main concern is that we cross, that we cross the finish
line, that we enter into glory with him. And this is how we're
going to do it. Be always considering Christ. Be always looking to Him. Always
thinking upon Him. Always thinking of what He endured
for us. We look to Him for grace. We look to Him for strength.
But we look to Him also to remember that what He endured, He endured
it for us. For His people. The shame, the
suffering, all that. And all those three things help
us. But here's what He's going to
do for us. Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth
my soul, he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his
namesake. Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, and that's where we walk every
day of our life. I'll fear no evil, for thou art
with me, thou rod and thou staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest
a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. You're eating
at it right now. Right now. And all around here
is the presence of our enemies. And we're sitting right here
in the middle of this wilderness having a feast. Having a feast. Thou
anointest my head with oil and my cup runneth over. Surely,
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life."
Everything he said before, he was talking about Christ leading
us. Here he's saying, and surely goodness and mercy will follow
me too. Christ is going to lead us and he's going to be our re-reward,
our reward. He's going to gather the slow
ones in his arms and carry them in his bosom, come up from behind
and make sure that we're all going and arrive and not lose
one, not lose one. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the
house of the Lord forever. Christ said to him that overcometh,
will I grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame
and have sat down with my father in his throne. You see, I would
love to be able to tell that to those people suffering. I
would love to see somebody stand up publicly on a broad platform
like they had there today and say that, and say it. I'd love
it. Let the chips fall where they
may. Just get up and say it. Lord, we pray that you'll keep
us. Father, we pray you continue to bless us by your grace. Continue
to strengthen us and continue to keep our eyes set on Christ. Keep our hearts on him. Keep
our feet walking toward him. And Lord, we thank you how we
thank you. We have everything needful. In
Christ Jesus, by your grace. We thank you, Father, in the
name of the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, our Great Shepherd,
our comfort and our consolation, Jesus Christ, Amen.