I'm going to take your Bibles
and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, continuing
our study in this wonderful book that God has given us. Hebrews
chapter 12, reading verses 1 and 2. Scripture says, wherefore seeing
we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight
and the sin which 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." Now, the title of my
message this morning is, The Race of Faith. The Race of Faith. I have both messages in this
book, and I have it turned to the wrong one. There we go. Now, as we've studied through
this book of Hebrews, we've noticed, first of all, the necessity of
faith. The necessity of faith. Without
faith, the Scripture says, it is impossible to please God. He reveals the necessity of faith,
even as it was witnessed by the saints of the Old Testament. The saints of the Old Testament
were not saved in a different way. They were saved by faith
in Jesus Christ. They were saved by faith looking
forward to the coming of the Messiah as they were given light
to see that by the grace of God. Without faith, it is impossible
to please God. Therefore, we must believe that
God is. And God is the rewarder of them
that diligently seek Him. We must believe. Faith is a necessity. Second, we see that faith is
a gift. Faith is not something that men
generate. You hear this term, the simplicity
of faith, as though faith were something simple. I tell you,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That may, to your ears, sound
simple. But actually, it is impossible
for you and I to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in our own
strength, in our own capacity. If you believe in Christ just
because of your own will or because you desire to, it won't be long
and you won't want to hear this message. You'll continue for
a short time and then you'll fall away. So faith is a gift
of God, the scripture says, not of works. Why? Lest any man should
boast. You see, faith, it is by faith. That we must believe. In Hebrews
10, if you go back over there, Hebrews 10 and verse 38. It says,
Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my
soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them that
draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving
of the soul." We who believe presently, presently. Faith is always present tense
in the Scriptures because our faith that we had If we have
faith in the faith that we had, it is nothing. It's already gone. If we are planning to have faith
in the future, that faith in the future will do us no good
because it does not exist. The only thing that exists is
faith now, believing in Christ now. And we are able to believe. by the grace of God. And we see
these examples. The Apostle says, the just shall
live by faith. And then he gives examples of
what true faith looks like in these Old Testament saints. Faith is sure. Faith is uncompromising. Faith endures all things. It endures even the loss of all
things. The loss of all things. all the suffering that these
men endured. Look at this in the 11th chapter
toward the end. See what these men endured by
faith. Not yet having seen the Christ
that they believed in, not yet having seen Him come into the
world, they believed and look what they endured. They were
stoned, verse 37. They were sawn asunder, they were cut in half. They were tempted and slain with
the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins
and goatskins, being destitute and afflicted, tormented, of
whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and
in mountains and dens and caves of the earth. All of these, having
obtained a good rapport through faith, received not the promise. God promised the Messiah. God
promised He was coming. They believed God and endured
such hardships and troubles and difficulties, even to the loss
of everything, including their life. What do you believe so strongly
in that you'll die for? Do we believe in Christ with
this kind of faith? Daniel, when he heard the prophecy
that it would not be in his lifetime, he wept. He wept. But God gave him comfort and
peace. God comforted him with the word
that he was accepted. And these men of great faith
believed on Christ, although they never in their lifetime
saw him." Why? Verse 40 of chapter 11, God having
provided some better thing for us. What is this better thing?
Is it a better salvation? No. No, their salvation was just
as good as our salvation. Their Christ is our Christ. Their
faith is our faith. We are one body, one church,
one Lord, one Savior. So that's not what was better.
The better thing for us is that Christ who was to come has come. What they looked forward to and
never saw, we know this, that He already has come. He already has come as God promised. And not only did He come, He
fulfilled every prophecy that was spoken of Him by these men
in the Old Testament. Every prophecy, so that we are
sure and know that this Jesus of Nazareth, this One that was
crucified and raised again from the dead, sits at the right hand
of the throne of God on high because He has fulfilled the
promises. He has fulfilled the Scripture. I say this to my own shame, are
we not ashamed of our weak faith? Having been given the complete
and entire revelation of God, the complete canon of Scripture,
and yet we still are weak in faith. These men had so little light
and so little understanding, and yet they stood firm. And
here we are, we have the whole canon of Scripture, and how firm
do we stand? Are we fully persuaded? We have now the darkness gone. The light has shined out of darkness
into our hearts to reveal the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. Now, going from these examples,
he says this, wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so
great a cloud of witnesses. I focused on that word cloud
for a little while, and I thought about it. Why would he say a
cloud of witnesses? What purpose was this? There
was a purpose behind this, and I thought of Israel when they
had walked in the wilderness. Remember that it was God that
led them by a pillar of cloud, not the day. It was God that led them by a
cloud. And I thought about a cloud.
Is anybody afraid of a cloud? When the sun is shining, and
I know we don't know this now, it's so cold outside, but when
the sun is shining and it's hot, you enjoy when a cloud passes
by and covers the rays, the heat of the sun. It gives you rest
from the persecution. The witnesses of God give us
rest from the persecutions that we face. We've not endured under
blood. We've not resisted under blood.
These men have. What should stop us? From having
such faith. Refreshing. And I'll tell you,
we follow after these witnesses, don't we? We read the word of
these witnesses. And we believe the word of these
witnesses and we follow that word. Because that word speaks
of a person, speaks of Christ. And all their witness of Him
was true. And so even these saints, these
witnesses of Christ, are refreshing to our souls. Isn't it refreshing
to look at the Old Testament saints and know that they were
not some super saint? That somehow they were more powerful
than we They were men of light, passion, such as we are. I tell you, that's refreshing
to know. It's refreshing to know. Because
I tell you, I fail so much. I fall so short of everything I know I should
be. But I know this. that God has saved me, not because
of my abilities to do well. He saved me by His grace. And
my faith rests in the person and work of Christ. We who live
on this side of Calvary, truly, we have no excuse for any lack
of love, service, or devotion to Christ. We have no reason
or cause. Now, Paul uses the illustration
of running a race. Runners in a race, if you will
notice, those guys wear about nothing. Their clothes are as
light as they possibly can be. You don't see a runner in a race
carrying weights. You don't see him put on weights. on his feet or on his legs and
says, now I'm ready to go. No, he sheds all of those things
away so that he may run and perform
well in the race. When Andrew was doing his cross
country, he was really doing well, and I went out and bought
him some ankle weights. You put on your ankles and you
run with those weights. And he didn't like that very
much. It was a lot more difficult to run with those weights. But
that was training. I would never put those weights
on him during the race. Those rates, they were just for
a purpose. A training purpose. But then
they're put away. Believer in Christ, we are in
a race. Are you a believer in Christ?
Are you saved by the grace of God? And friends, you're not
beginning a race. You're in it. You're in it. You're running it. The just shall
live by faith. And so we run. How do we run?
We run by faith, by faith. We are in a race and we are runners,
and if we're going to finish, We know this, we must lay aside
every weight, every weight. This has reference to any person
or anything of this world. This has reference to our own
sin, to our pleasures. to anything that would hinder
us from believing in Christ. Anything that would hinder our
love, our service to Jesus Christ must be cast off. He is not using this Well, you can cast it off if
you want to. Now, you can keep it if you want
to, but no, this is a must. We must cast this off. We must
lay aside every weight. If we're going to finish this
race, now this word weight, it has reference to a growth or a tumor. If you had a growth or a tumor,
would you not want it to be removed? Who would not want that removed? This world is appealing to our
flesh. Anyone denies that, they're a
liar. Every one of us, this world appeals
to us. It appeals to our old nature.
It appeals to our old man. Our family appeals to us. The
pleasures of this world appeal to us. They allure us. They draw us in. And usually this is not something
that happens right away, is it? This is something that happens
over a small Little thing. It's a little fox that sits for
the vine. And gradually, little by little,
we move away. We slow down. We don't run and
we're not as faithful as we were. Why? Because we've taken the
weight of the world and not cast it off. Not cast it off. Friends, we cannot compromise
with the world. We cannot compromise with the
flesh. And we cannot compromise with
Satan. I've used this illustration because
I think it's just a wonderful one. A hunter was going out to
hunt. And he saw a bear and he pulls
his rifle up to the bear to shoot. And all of a sudden, the bear
stands up and turns and looks, and he speaks to the man. The
man's so surprised, he puts his gun down. And the bear says,
wait, wait, wait. What is it that you want? Maybe
we should talk about this. You're going to shoot me. Why
would you shoot me? What is the purpose? And he said,
well, I want a coat. Winter's coming. It's going to
be cold. I need a coat. And the bear said, that's good. I know
you need a coat. That's right. You need a coat. Well, what I need is something
to eat. So let's just sit down and compromise
and work out a compromise about this. And so they sat down and
talked a little while. And after a while, they both
had what they wanted. The hunter had his fur coat.
Because the bear had his meal. That's what compromise does. We cannot compromise with this
world. It will eat us up. It will eat
us up. Because our flesh is so attracted
to the world. Scripture says, if any man thinketh
he stands, Take heed, lest he fall. What about a brother who is taken
in a fall? How should we treat him? The
Scripture says you should be mindful of yourself. You should
try to restore such in one. If you are spiritual, you should
restore such in one with gentleness, considering your own self, lest
you fall. In the temptation, we are all
prone to it. And we can't deny it. We were reading in Second Timothy
yesterday, I noticed this. It's talking about the second,
I think it's Second Timothy, chapter two. Second Timothy,
chapter two. Well, I've lost the place, but
he's talking about the the work of the pastor, the preacher of
the gospel, the demeanor of a man preaching the gospel. And we
are to be gentle. We're to be long suffering with
those in aptitude, ready to teach. And the scripture says that they
may. Recover themselves out of the snare, the devil, that word
recover. Was interesting to learn that that means intoxicated.
Intoxicated, those who are intoxicated with the world, this world is
intoxicated to the flesh. And if we don't lay it aside,
friends. We'll soon be falling out of
the way. We must lay aside every weight
and run to the finish. We must make haste and set our eyes on the prize, which is eternal life. Now, notice
this in your text. Let us, wherefore, lay aside
every weight and the sin that does so easily beset. What is
this sin that easily besets us? What is it? Now, a lot of people
believe it could be any particular sin, but we're talking about
faith. He's been talking about faith
for two, now three chapters. So the sin in reference here
has to do with unbelief. Now, what sin that do we commit
that is not rooted in unbelief? Every one of them. We do something
and then we lie about it because we don't believe God would forgive
us or that we could make it through. We're trying to save our flesh
somehow. Trying to save ourselves hurt
or trouble. Not believing God to deliver
us. See, it's all rooted in unbelief.
Lay aside. Cast off the sin of unbelief. Has not our Lord Jesus Christ
removed every obstacle between us and God? Why then do we keep looking and
seeing obstacles? Unbelief. Why do we look at the circumstance
of what we're going through and say, well, you know, how could
God love me and put me through this? Unbelief. Unbelief. See then, we must lay aside the
weight of this world and the sin that easily besets us and
run the race that is set before us." How do we run this race
of faith with so many intoxicating things around us? So many allurements. How is it that we run this race?
How can we be confident? The racetrack was set by God. The race that is set before us. Stop looking at someone else's
race. Man, their track is easy and
I've got it so bad. That's just murmuring against
God who set your course. All the providences of our life
have been set by God. Now run with patience. Patience. Do you want patience? Really, do you want patience? Well, you know how patience comes,
don't you? Trouble. That's how patience comes. And so God puts troubles in front
of us so that our patience. And faith may endure, continue. God has set the race before us. And if we don't lay aside these
things, then pretty soon we're going to get so drained and tired. Who gets weary? Why do you think the apostles
said? Be not weary in well-doing. Why? Because being well-doing
is weary. Andrew asked me the other night,
we were praying, he said, how come every time we talk about
God, I get tired? I do the same thing. The flesh, lay it aside. Friends, we cannot serve God
in manhood. Is that true? Do you really believe
that? Do I really believe that? Then
I think whatever hinders us from worshiping God should be let
go. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is
we run the race of faith. We believe God. We cannot run the race of faith
and compromise with the fledge. We're to run this race knowing
that God has set the path before us and to murmur against our
path would be to murmur against God. Remember the disciples when
they were rowing that Jesus told them to go across the lake and
they were rowing and that storm came up and his scripture says
in Mark that they were toiling in rowing. Have you ever felt
that way? Like you're running in a hamster wheel. Round and
round it goes. The faster you run, the faster
the wheel spins, but you don't go nowhere. You don't go nowhere. Sometimes running the race of
faith, you feel like you're not going anywhere. Just keep running. Just keep running. These disciples toiled and rowing
because they were in obedience to God. It doesn't matter how
this race feels to us. It only matters that we're obedient
to believe God. If God wants us to move forward,
believe me, we'll move forward. If God wants us to run in place,
we'll run in place. And if we don't, I know this,
that all of God's elect are saved and that Jesus Christ has already
finished the race, won it for us, received into glory, forgiven
us of our sins, we've escaped the wrath of God, but I know
this, we have not escaped the chastisement of a God, have we? If we do not lay aside the things
of this world and let them go, God will pry them from our hands. And that hurts. How in the world can we run this
race looking unto Jesus? That's how. Looking unto Jesus. A runner always looks toward
the finish line. I run this race looking to Jesus
who is the author and finisher. of my faith. I don't expect in
my own strength to finish this race of faith. Because I have no faith in my
faith. My faith is in Jesus Christ. In Him I gain strength. In Him I gain the ability to
continue and lay aside unbelief, lay aside the world and its enticements. If I'm looking to Jesus, the
world doesn't appear very appealing. He is the author of my faith
and He's the finisher. I'm going to finish this race. I don't know what lies ahead.
I don't know what obstacles are set for me. I don't know what
temptations will try to allure me and may even do so. But I
know this, that I will finish the race looking unto the person
and work of Jesus Christ and sacrificing and suffering the
loss of all things for His namesake. Having said that, may God give
me grace to do it. May God give you grace to run
the race set before you. How my faith, looking to Christ alone. I pray God will bless this to
you.