Running the Race

The Arena

The Olympics are upon us, and for now, I’m going to avoid further discussion about the opening ceremony. Instead, I want to draw your attention to an athletic event that seems slightly odd to me, but is going to be a good analogy for me this morning.

I want you to think of the 3000m steeplechase. In fact, if you’re interested, the heats of this event are going to be on tonight.

Now the steeplechase is an interesting event because they as they run laps around the track, there are five hurdles. Four of the hurdles are on the standard dry track. But one of them has a pool of water on the other side.

Perhaps at the Olympics, that might all navigate this hurdle with skill, but it can make for some epic fails.

But, the difference between the steeple chase compared with the more standard hurdle race is that if you hit the hurdle, it doesn’t fall over… you do!

But just to make matters worse, unlike the standard hurdles, you don’t stay in your lane, and so you have all of the other competitors jostling for position. When you jump over the steeple, you don’t just have to clear the bar, you have to make sure your legs don’t get tangled with the competitor next to you.

And then you have to do this for seven laps. It requires skills, endurance, and I’d suggest quite a bit of courage as well.

Life can sometimes feel a bit like one of these steeplechases. You keep getting these hurdles placed in front of you. Sometimes you feel like you clear them really cleanly. But then, soon enough, your toe clips the top and you come tumbling down.

We come to church. We get all fired up. I’m going to be on fire for God. I’m going to pray more. Read my bible more. I’m going to be less angry. I’m going to control my sexual urges.

You go home. You check your phone and there’s a message. It’s that person that always irritates you. They’re having a go at you. They’re picking out a fault in something you’ve done - a fault you know is there, but they don’t know how hard you’ve been working on that.

It’s the first hurdle. You know your natural tendency is to react… to give that nosey so-and-so a piece of your mind.

But you take a deep breath. You remind yourself that God is working on you… your loved and accepted by Him. You let it go. You clear the first hurdle.

Later that night, you sit down to watch the news on the TV. That politician who always frustrates you comes on. What’s more, this politician is supporting an issue which goes against our Christian values.

We’ve come to the second hurdle. Anger starts smouldering inside you. You want to throw something at the TV. But you take another deep breath. You remind yourself that God is bigger than this. His will will be done. You decide not to write that angry rant on Facebook because perhaps it wasn’t going to help anything anyway. You’ve cleared the second hurdle.

The next day comes. You’re innocently browsing the internet. But then an ad pops up. It’s got a sexualised image. You know, you got there innocently. You didn’t meant to. So it’s not going to hurt anyone if I just linger a little while around these images.

It’s the third hurdle. The temptation is to minimise it all. I’m not hurting anyone. I didn’t even mean to get here. But you take another deep breath. You remember God has given you what you need. In Him all our desires are satisfied. We quickly close the page. You’ve cleared the third hurdle.

But then we’re about to come to the water hurdle.

You meet up with some friends. These are some long time friends, but they aren’t believers.

The conversation turns to Christianity, and you’re friends are ready to make a few digs. They make fun at your belief in a magic sky daddy. They talk of the hypocrisy of Christians. They highlight all the bad things Christians have done.

It all starts to well up. This is not just a regular hurdle. This one has lots of water to clear on the other side.

How are you going to clear this one?

The challenge in Hebrews

Well, I want to leave you on the approach to this big hurdle, because this is where I want to come to our passage this morning.

You see, for the recipients of the letter to the Hebrews, while their specific hurdles are going to look different, the same basic underlying issues are going to be the same. That is, they’re going to be dealing with issues like anger and lust.

But more specifically, we were actually told what some of their hurdles were back in chapter 10.

In chapter 10 verse 33, we’re told how they were publicly exposed to insult and persecution.

In the verse after that, we’re told how sometimes they even had their property confiscated.

I’d say these are some pretty sizeable hurdles they are jumping over. Sometimes you might even ask, is there a point at which it is all too much?

Well, after we’re told of some of these hurdles that these readers needed to jump through, the author of this letter then reminded the readers of the great heroes of the faith who have gone before them.

And this is going to become important as we get to our little passage at the start of Hebrews 12.

You see, as we move into this twelfth chapter, the author of this letter is going to be giving a big encouragement to those who are facing some tough times.

And it’s this encouragement that I want to give to you this morning, as you run this steeplechase we call life.

Cloud of witnesses

Well, the author starts this chapter with a therefore, and we you see that word you should be straight away thinking that what we’ve just read is meant to inform what we’re about to read.

The author then says: “since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses”.

The word “witness” is actually the Greek word Martyr, which today we’ll use to refer to people who have died for their faith. But the word actually more generally refers to those who provide a witness, in this case, a witness of God’s goodness and his might and his love.

In the context, it’s quite clear - these are the people the author has just described in the previous chapter.

So how are we to picture them?

Well, it’s generally considered that the Greek words that were used here, strongly imply a stadium full of people. It’s quite possible that in the authors mind is the type of stadium that would have been used in the Ancient Olympic games. Particular as the image of a race is about to be used, this image is quite likely.

So let’s transpose that image to our modern Olympics, with the crowd being filled not with spectators from various countries around the world, but rather with people who have run this race before.

Now, often when you watch sport, you’ll notice the cameras will often point out some of the past greats of that particular sport who are sitting in the crowd.

Now for the participant of the sport, knowing that those past greats are now watching you, it could go one of two ways. It could make you feel very nervous, knowing that you’ve got a lot to live up to.

Alternatively, it could actually spur you on, knowing that these people know what it’s like to go through what you are going through. They’ve been there and got through.

I suspect for most athletes, they would find the presence of past greats as an inspiration.

We might not physically be in an arena. Those past heroes of the faith might not physically be surrounding us in the same sort of way, but yet, in a sense we do have these people who have gone before us. People who have faced ridicule. Even more, people who have died for their faith.

They’ve gone before us and shown us that it is worth it.

You might think - well, if they died for their faith, how can that be worth it?

But this is just the thing. Even in death, they find blessing. Because in faith, they discovered something more than life itself.

How do we know this? If people weren’t realising this blessing of faith, this whole concept of suffering for Christ would have died out a long time ago. It’s because we are surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses that reminds us that there is something in this. This is worth it.

Throw off everything that hinder

So, we’re surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, we’re then encouraged to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.

The athlete will often come out in a tracksuit. They will not run in a tracksuit, because this will hinder them.

These elite athletes are going to do everything they can to avoid anything that is going to slow them down.

Now, here’s the thing… as Christians, we often love to highlight how we are people of grace. And this is true. We are very thankful that it is true, because those hurdles would be impossible to jump over. We would have given up a long time ago, or possibly, to continue the metaphor of the steeplechase, we would probably be drowning in the pool of water.

But, just because we are people of grace, this does not mean that should just do what we want.

Let’s take for example reading a horoscope. On one level, you could quite easily argue that the horoscope means nothing. You’re just reading it for a bit of a laugh. You’re not really taking it seriously and it carries no power over you.

But why would you put something in your life that can so easily shift your focus from where it should be to some dangerous area.

Think through your struggles

Think through your life and think about the places and things you do where you often struggle. Do you need to be there? If not. Flee!

Do you struggle with looking at pornography on the internet? Put a filter on your devices that prevent you from visiting such sites.

You know, our race is already going to have enough hurdles in it - why add more than there already is.

Sadly, some of the hurdles we face are actually of our own making. We stir up conflicts that don’t need to be stirred up. We habour anger where we shouldn’t.

What is it in your life?

Who are you hanging out with? What are you watching on TV? What are you focussing on?

Don’t put more hurdles in the race than is already there.

Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.

Perseverance

This is a long race. I earlier described some hurdles we might readily face in just a few days.

The reality is, we all know that you keep repeating those hurdles almost every day for the rest of your life.

This is not a sprint.

And so the encouragement continues. “…let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”

It required perseverance.

You don’t get over one hurdle and think you’ve won. You thank God that he helped you over that one, then you keep moving forward.

The athlete needs to be both physically fit as well as mentally well-prepared. This is what is going to help them to keep going, even when it’s hard.

How do we do this? Well, can I suggest getting in a good routine. Develop patterns of prayer and bible reading. Hang out with people who are going to encourage you. Keep a journal to help you reflect on what works and what doesn’t work.

Exactly what your patterns will look like will be unique to you, but having good patterns can help with persevering.

The race has been marked out for you - but you need to keep stepping forward, one step at a time, as we allow the Spirit to help us over each hurdle as it comes.

Fix eyes on Jesus

Now, the author of this letter in verse 2 has a particular bit of advice which is going to help the reader understand how to maintain the required perseverance.

Fix your eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

You want to act like Jesus? Then keep your focus on him!

You know, I talked before about avoiding the sin that so easily entangles. I stand by that advice, but you actually find that when we focus on avoiding the negative, it’s those negative behaviours that dominate our thinking. And there’s this strange thing that happens… even when we so desperately want to avoid it, when we keep thinking about it, the temptation can sometimes become too much.

The way to avoid that… rather than focussing on what you don’t want to do, focus on what you do want to do.

Jesus is it. He is the perfect model for us. More than that, he is the one that has broken the hold that sin has on us. It is in Him that it is even possible to live the way that we were intended to live like.

He is the pioneer and perfecter. He established it for us. And he has made it perfect for us.

So how do we keep our eyes on him?

Well, there might be lots of ways that can help. Having Bible verses on things that you look at regularly is a good idea. If you look at your computer screen a lot, then add a verse that can help you to focus on Jesus on it. Have a bible verse on your fridge door.

Make it a practice to regularly talk to Jesus in prayer throughout the day. A longer, more defined period of prayer is to be encouraged, but yet it is really good if at regular intervals throughout the day you just have short quick prayers to Jesus. It can help to just keep the focus where you want it to be.

It means when that next hurdle comes your way, your focus will be in the right place.

The joy set before him

With Jesus, we also have the supreme example of someone who endured the hardest of all challenges - the cross. And yet, we get this linking of joy with it.

Something which is strange to our modern ears, but it fundamental to the Christian understanding. There is joy in the persecution, because in it, we are drawn closer to Christ - the one who now has sat down at the right hand of the throne off God.

Jesus knew opposition… he knew suffering… but yet he showed us what it was to endure it, and in doing so, when we look to him, we too are able to not grow weary and not lose heart.

And in that perseverance we find joy.

How we handle the hurdle

So let me come back to the picture I painted earlier.

I described a case where we managed to successfully get over some of the early hurdles in the week, but then we face the friends who start ridiculing our faith.

It’s hard to endure. We can either fire up and get angry. Or we can go quiet, willing it to end.

It can leave us with scars. It’s not fun. We can try to avoid these friends.

How do we handle it?

Well, let’s think about it from the encouragement we find in these three verses.

First, we remember those who have gone before us. While it might not make it easier, but we recognise that we are not the first to have endured this. We gain confidence from those around us.

We then become aware of the temptation to react in an unhealthy way. We want to denigrate them. But we don’t. This is the sin that will entangle.

Instead, we remember Jesus, the one who endured much more insults than what we are receiving. We remember that he has provided a way.

These friends of yours don’t see it, but you do. In Jesus, you have already received a blessing that far exceeds the hard time you are facing.

In Jesus, we find strength.

This can be a tough hurdle to face. But in Jesus there is hope.

You hold your tongue. You know the right time will come when you get to speak to them. It may be later in the conversation… it may be on a different day.

Your objective is not to win every argument. Your objective is to maintain a Christ-like attitude in all you do.

Conclusion

It is not easy. There are going to be times when your foot clips the top of the bar and you make a spectacular fall. There are also going to be times when you don’t even get close to getting over the top.... almost like you run straight into the barrier and get winded along the way.

But don’t let these stumbles take you out of the race.

Unlike the Olympics where everyone wants to come first, our task is just to finish and finish in a way that honours Christ. We want to hear those words on judgement day - well done, good and faithful servant.

Life is hard, and the enemy wants to take you out.

But God is there to carry you through and he makes it good.

So fix your eyes on Jesus and you will not grow weary or lose heart, and you will know a blessing beyond anything this world can offer.

Let me pray...