The title of the message this
evening is, this morning, excuse me, this morning, is The Encouragement
of Fainting Runners. The Encouragement of Fainting
Runners. The scripture says in verse one,
wherefore seeing, we also are compassed about with
so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight
and the sin that does 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 sat
down on the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him
that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest
you be wearied and faint in your minds. You have not yet resisted
unto blood striving against sin. The Apostle Paul here is setting
forth the metaphor of the believer's life as a race, a race. He says, let us run with patience
the race set before us. As another translation puts it,
let us run the appointed race. Let us run with patience the
appointed race that is set before us. Each believer has a race
to be run. Has a race to be run, a life
that must be lived, and it must be lived in faith, which is how
we run this race. And he says this at the beginning,
we are encompassed about with a great cloud. I'll remind you
of this. That word means spectators. We
are encompassed about with many spectators, encouragers, those
who stand as witnesses to encourage us to continue. These examples
are those written in the 11th chapter, those heroes of faith
that went before us. Their testimony of faith and
their character of faith encourage us to run this race. Encourage us. When you read the
Old Testament, are you not encouraged? I am. I'm encouraged. When I see that my brethren have
ran and finished this race of faith, I'm encouraged that I
too shall finish, even as God himself is faithful. To finish
their race, he is also faithful to finish mine. Bear me through. The second thing is that runners
are to put off all weights. Lay aside every weight. And the apostle is talking about
this, the weight of this present world. The weights of this world
and the relationships of this world, the things of this world,
the people of this world, weigh the believer down in this race. They hinder us from our service
and worship of God. I'm saying this with all my heart
as I see this among the church. There are many who are hindered
from worship. Now, what does hinder you from
worship? Well, I've got this thing, set it aside. Lay it off. Well, I can't go because I live
to move. You've set on yourself a weight.
And the reason that you're not experiencing all that is good
for you is because you're hindered by these weights that you've
put on yourselves. And the apostle says, cast them
off, put them off. And listen, if we don't put them
off, it's not because we can't, it's because we won't. Not because we can't, because
we won't. Just be honest. We live where we live because
we want to live there. We have what we have because
we want it. And so we should lay aside every
weight, everything that hinders us from worship. You realize
that worship is commanded of us, not just for ourselves. but for others. Forsake not the assembling of
yourselves together as the manner of some is. Why? Because it encourages
others to love. It moves others to love and to
serve. And this is why we should not
do these things. If you've got something laying
you aside from worship, you need to put it off, whatever it is.
Put it off. Lay it aside. And he said this, lay aside the
flesh. Is that not a weight? This dead body, this old man?
Paul said put off the old man, put on the new. Put off the old
man and his deeds and his flesh. Stop looking to self, look to
Christ. Put off whatever it is that hinders
us from running this race. And he says this, put off that
sin that doth though easily beset us. You know what that sin is?
Remember, he says the sin, not sins, multiple, the sin. You know what the root sin is?
Unbelief. Unbelief. Why do we sin? It's because we don't believe
God. That's just the root of all sin, is put off unbelief. I know this, you shouldn't trust
yourself, but you have no reason not to trust God. He doesn't
lie and he can't lie. We should put all our trust in
God. So put off that weight and unbelief. Friends, it is a weight. It is
a weight that hinders you from running the race. And what's
the remedy for unbelief? Belief. That's the remedy. That's how you put that one off.
Listen, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. This is how we run. That's what
he says in verse 2. Looking unto Jesus. How are we
going to start this race? Looking unto Jesus. How are you
running this race today? Looking unto Jesus. How shall
you finish this race in death? Looking unto Jesus. Now, why do we look to Jesus?
He is the author and finisher of our faith. He himself is the author of our
faith. Matter of fact, our faith is
his faith. The faith you have is the gift of God. It is the
gift of Christ to you. It is his faith. He gives it
to you and you have it. And I'm thankful He doesn't give
like the world gives. Whatever He gives, He don't take
back. He gives you faith, and He gives you faith, and He'll
give you faith to the end. So we're looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith. Friends, our Savior, as we run
this race, we are to remember He is our federal head. And what
I want you to know this, every day you should be looking to
this. This race that you are running, these obstacles that
you face, these troubles that you experience, I want you to
know that there is someone greater that has already run this race.
And I'm not even talking about the Old Testament saints because
they failed in many things, didn't they? They experienced many self-inflicted
troubles, but there's one who ran this race perfectly. And
that is your Savior, ran the race of faith perfectly. He ran it as our federal head. See, I'm gonna finish this race
because it's already been finished. Christ finished this race for
me. He is our federal hand, ran in perfect faith and patience. And he fulfilled the will of
God. Lo, I come in the volume of the
book it is written of me to do thy will, O God. And he says,
by the witch will, we are sanctified. holy, made holy by
Christ and the will of God was established in that Christ honored
and magnified the law for your righteousness. And this should be alleviating
you of all weight right now, is that you have the righteousness
of God in Christ. That should alleviate all weight
of trying to earn righteousness, doesn't it? We don't need to
try to earn righteousness. We have righteousness. Why? Because he's ran this race for
us and he obtained it for us. The scripture says in Isaiah
42, he shall magnify the law and make it honorable and the
Lord will be well pleased for his righteousness sake. And not
only did he perfectly obey the law in positive obedience, active
obedience, but the law required a payment for sin that we could
not make. Therefore, your Savior, now this
should alleviate you of a lot of weight. This should take a
load off of you, is this, he took all that load of your sin
and he bore it in his own body on the tree. How we should skip to glory.
How we should be so light as to understand that there is no
impediment between us and God. There is nothing to separate
us between us and our Father. The veil had been rent. The way
is open. And every obstacle we may freely
bring before our Father and He will hear us. Why? Because you have the righteousness
of Christ and your sin has been removed. What a weight has been
lifted off of your shoulders. You don't bear that anymore. My sin, oh the bliss of this
glorious thought, my sin not in part, but the whole, is nailed
to the cross. And listen, I bear it no more.
Praise the Lord. Oh my soul, it is well with my
soul. He bore our sins. Jesus came
to make His soul an offering for sin and He bore it upon the
tree. God made Him to be sin for us
who knew no sin. That the righteousness of God
should be revealed in us. That the righteousness of God
should be ours. And the wrath of God's justice
did not fall on you. It fell on Him. And listen to what the apostle
says, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith,
listen, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising
the shame. You see, He was made sin for
you. Do you realize the joy set before
Him? Was us? I know that every ounce of your
old nature kicks against that thought because you know who
you are. But again, what's the remedy
for unbelief? Faith. The joy set before him was your
salvation, that you and him should be made perfect together. that
he should fulfill the will of God and honor God for you. And for this purpose, he suffered,
he endured his race. He endured the cross. Is there
anyone that despised sin more than Christ? No. He knew no sin. Let me ask you this, you who are
believers, How do you feel when you are convicted of sin? It is a weight that you seemly
cannot bear. But I want you to know this,
how much more did he feel it when he was made sin for us? even though he despised it more
than you do. He despised sin more than you
do. And yet God had made him to be
sin for us. Oh, the grief and the sorrow
he must have endured on the cross. The agony and pain for our sakes. And he cried, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? He endured. He bore the wrath
of God in his righteous soul. Jesus, our Savior, had finished
his race in victory, crying this, it is finished, it is finished,
it is finished. And so the father willingly showed
all the glory and greatness of Christ in that he raised him
from the dead. That's what our scripture says.
He endured the cross, despising the shame. And listen, he sat
down on the right hand of the majesty on high, sat down on
the right hand of God. And so then, he endured it all. Without dispute,
without debate, our Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead
is now sitting on the right hand of God. So then, again, I'm gonna
take you back and remind you why the apostle is writing these
words. He's writing it to believers
who are fainting. He's writing this to believers
who are running a race and are tired. Believer, are you, is
your race hard? Does it seem long? Is your path steep? Are you pierced about on every
side with thorns? Are you so weak that you cannot
bear to take another step? I'll tell you, many of those
saints before us They experienced this. I think of Asaph, you know,
that's my go-to guy on this one. But he just knew. He said, I
know God's good to Israel, bad for me. I just don't know. He
was so weary in his race, he had envied the wicked, he had
sinned against God, and he said, oh, I must have washed my hands
of any sins in vain. I must have believed in vain. I think of Elijah. After he had
had that great victory of faith over those prophets of Baal,
he laughed at them, he mocked at them. Remember how much faith
he had at that one time. Slew 400 prophets of Baal in
that one instance. Fire came down from heaven and
consumed the sacrifice. You know what happened to him
next? That wicked woman Jezebel went out to kill him and he ran
and hid like a little child. And he cried out to God and he
said, God, I've been jealous for you. They've knocked down your altar.
They're the ones that don't worship you. And now they seek to take
my life and I'm the only one left. Woe is me, woe is me. Anybody feel that? You relate
to that? Great faith. Oh, weakness. Great faith. Oh, weakness. That's our experience in this
life all the time. What'd God say? He said, you're
not alone. I got 7,000 didn't bow the knee
to Bill. This should encourage you that
there are more of us than you. That's good. God has a remnant. God has a people that should
encourage you. David said this, I'm going to read it to you in
Psalm 77. He not only puts out his complaint,
but he gives himself the remedy. Isn't that good? You pour out
your complaint and all of a sudden you give yourself the remedy.
That's what he does in 77 and verse 7. He says this, Will the
Lord cast us all forever? Will he be favorable no more?
Is his mercy clean gone forever? Doth his promise fail forevermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he in anger shut up his tender mercies?" Then I said, this is
my infirmity. That's my weight on belief, isn't
it? But I will remember the years
of his right hand of the Most High. I will remember the works
of the Lord. Surely I will remember the wonders
of all. I will meditate also of all thy
work and talk of thy doing. Thy way, O Lord, is in the sanctuary. Who is so great a God as our
God? You see, he cried out, is God
gone? And he said, look, I remember
what he did. I'm going to remember his mercies.
Now look at your text and see if that's the apostle doing the
same thing. Look at that. Verse three. For
consider him. Consider him. Are you weary? And if you're not now, just wait.
You will be. This is our lot. This is where
we are. We are running the race of faith and I am here to encourage
you to continue. How can I continue? The way is
too long. It's too hard. My path is too
full of sorrow. What am I going to do? Listen,
consider Him. That's what you should do. You
should take your eyes off of you and consider Him. Now I told
you He ran a race, didn't I? Well you should consider His
race. Now listen to this. Consider His person. Isn't that
a good place to start? You want to consider Him, you've
got to consider who He is. Who He is? Who is Christ? He is God. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And all things
were made by Him. Not anything was made that was
made without Him. He spoke. You can imagine the
power of that. He spoke. Wouldn't you be amazed
if somebody spoke and they just had, you know, had a cupcake
in their hand? You would be amazed, wouldn't
you? You say, let there be a cupcake and boy, we would all run around
and we could perform this trick for millions and millions of
people and they just, wow. My God spoke and everything came
into a being. The universe came into a being. Power, now that's power. All power, all wisdom is His. Consider His person, that no
life or knowledge comes from apart from His power, His deity. And now look yonder in eternity,
His person's an eternal being. He from eternity and see the
glory of this one we're talking about, one with the Father and
the Spirit. He was worshipped of His angels
and of His creation. You know the only one didn't
worship Him? Fallen man. They're the only
ones. You know, the trees, the birds
all give their praise. The stars sing praise unto their
Creator. And what is man? He said an ox
knows where his home is, but man, he don't have any clue who
God is. He don't have any clue. You're
dumber than an ox is what God said. You're dumber than an ox.
That's what man is. But he is worthy of all praise.
And look yonder in eternity and see that all things move by his
omnipotent power and strength. Everything in time and providence
is according to his own sovereign decree. And listen, it was upon
him that God put all the salvation of our souls. What responsibility! The glory of God rested on the
shoulders of Jesus Christ. The salvation of all his church
he gave to him. He made one his church with his
own self. And what did this deity do? He
came down to be a man. Consider that! I know it's hard for men who
are wealthy to come down to poverty. Don't you think it'd be hard?
Even in the way we live, consider if we had to come down from where
we were. But consider His condescension. He who is worthy of all things,
created all things, came to be a man. And when He came into
the world, don't you think He deserved all
the praise of man? all the honor and riches that
man could give, but yet He did not come in such a way. He came
as one of us. He came from the virgin's womb
to crush the seed, crush the head of the serpent by the bruising
of His heel. Consider how He came to us being
born in a manger, rejected in the end, born in a cave. He was acquainted with poverty. I think about when he had to
be subject to his wicked parents. Preaching God's Word, doing God's
business, and his mother's out there yelling at him. Where were
you? Wish you not to be about my father's
business? Yet, what did he do? He subjected
himself to their rule. He went about doing good, healing
the sick, Preaching the gospel. Consider how good he was. And what was his reward for all
the goodness that he gave? He said this, I tell you the
truth, and you seek healing. Consider his race. Consider his
race, that he was a man despised and rejected. Isaiah chapter
53 says, he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, as a root
out of dry ground. He hath no form of comeliness.
And when we shall see him, he hath no beauty that we should
desire him. He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. You think you have it hard? You should consider his race.
You should consider him who was worthy of all praise and got
none. He hungered, he thirst. He had all power and yet he laid
it aside, believing God for even his daily bread. Now I'm gonna
ask you, is that not, I know this was for our salvation, but
Christ is also an example for us, is he not? Is that not the
example of how we should be running this race by faith? Believing
God even for every morsel of food that we have? We should
be believing God. He endured such contradiction
of sinners. Consider him, that he endured
such contradiction of sinners against himself. And so what
the apostle is now telling us is this, I want you to take your
race and you put it by side his. Now compare the two. Now how grievous are your afflictions
compared to his? Didn't Paul say this, that our
light afflictions are not worthy to be compared with the glory
which shall be revealed in us? Our light afflictions, that's
what they are. How do you know they're light? Well, look at
His. Compare them to His. And when we do so, I want you
to know this. Consider this when you do that. I want
you to understand that because of his sufferings, believer,
consider you will never ever suffer the wrath of God. Ever. Never. When our Lord Jesus Christ took
our sins and his own body on the tree, he satisfied the justice
of God forever. This is why the apostle in Hebrews
9 and 10 says this over and over again. He says in Hebrews chapter
9 and verse 12, he said, but this man, after he'd offered
one sacrifice for sins, sat down. In verse 28, he says, so Christ
was once offered to bear the sins of many. And unto them that
look for him, he shall appear the second time without sin into
salvation. So how many times did he need
to suffer for our sins? Once. I read this earlier. I thought
it was a good illustration of it. The martyrdom of Polycarp. He was a man that was an acquaintance
actually with the Apostle John, but he was 86 years old. They
took him out there and they threatened him with everything. And he just
said, bring it on, bring it on. Beast, ah, no big deal. Let them
eat me. Fire, bring it. Bring on the
fire. And they did. They put those
sticks together and they tied it. They were gonna tie me. He said, don't do that. Just
leave me alone. I'll stay here. lit that flame
and the flame surrounded Polycarp and they noticed this, he wasn't
burning. So they took a knife or a spear
and they gouged him out and his blood gushed out of his body
so much, it extinguished the flame. What a picture of Christ,
isn't it? That's a picture of Christ when
his blood flowed, it extinguished the flames of God's wrath forever. You are never going to suffer
under the flames of God's justice, ever. Therefore I say to you,
as God tells me, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith the
Lord. Speak comfortably unto them,
for their warfare is accomplished, for they have received double
of the Lord's hand for all their sins. Consider that. And listen,
lastly, consider where he is. He says this in our text, consider
him, Endures his contradiction of
sinners against himself lets you be wearied and faint in your
minds consider where he is verse 2 he has sat down on the right
hand of the throne of God now, what does that mean? Means he's
running the show That's what it means he is running the show
everything is under His direct authority. No man lives and no
man dies. No man does anything without
His sovereign decree. There will not be a puff of wind
or a drop of rain without Him. And so then when you consider
Him, consider your troubles are of Him. Is that not right? You know it is. And what is He doing? So in the
midst of your troubles, what is he doing? Why am I experiencing
troubles? Go to John 17 and look at this.
I want you to keep this in mind as you endure your race. And this should encourage you to know what your Lord is doing.
John 17 and verse 1. These words spake Jesus as he
lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, the hours come glorify
thy son that thy son also may glorify thee as thou has given
him power over all flesh here it is that he should give eternal
life to as many as thou has given him. So what is he doing? What is He doing with all of
our suffering? With all of this providence, what is He doing?
He is moving everything for the salvation of His people. What have you not suffered that
God has not delivered you from that you do not praise Him and
encourage other believers? Isn't that what we do? We suffer. He delivers. We praise. Believers are encouraged. You see, we're surrounded by
witnesses even now that cheer us on. You realize you and your
faith cheer me on? Encourage me? Is it not encouraging
as I preach the gospel to you? Are you not encouraged? Strengthened? Believe me, preaching is not
without suffering. And why do I suffer? I'm looking
at it. You. We suffer so that we might
be examples and encouragements to others. So then let us run
the race. How do we run it? Faith. Faith
in Christ. Laying aside every weight. Laying aside unbelief. Let us run with patience, looking
to Jesus, who is the author and finisher of our faith, considering
Him, so that we might be encouraged to keep running. You realize
that this race is not optional? The only alternative to running
is apostasy. And we know for us, That is no
option at all. We must have Christ. We must
be found in Him. And if we're to run with any
type of zeal, any type of fervor, we must be always believing in
Christ, always looking to Christ, always setting aside everything
else. May God encourage us to run. Run. May He by His Spirit cause us
to be lifted up on eagles' wings, to run and not be weary, to walk
and not faint. I pray God encourage you to do
so.