Keeping Our Eyes on Jesus

Run with Endurance: Keeping Our Eyes on Jesus

Introduction

As I prepared for our gathering together on this final Sunday of 2025, in seeking the what the Lord would have for us this morning, I believe what the Lord would have for us today is a word of encouragement.

The end of the year is a wonderful time to pause and reflect, but it can also be a difficult time.

We can celebrate the things that have gone well, but we also grieve the things that have not, or that we hoped to accomplish but were not able to.

Who started a read the Bible in a year plan last January and got lost in Leviticus?

It is good to take a moment and reflect.

Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

1. Prioritize Preparedness

Hebrews 12:1 ESV

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

Hebrews reminds us of something that matters deeply for the end of a year and the beginning of a new one: if you are going to run a race, you must prepare.

Not with vague intentions.

Not with spiritual wishful thinking.

With deliberate action.

And we are not alone in doing it.

Hebrews 12 flows out of 11, the Hall of Faith, examples of many faithful believers.

But more than that, we have faithful brothers and sisters sitting right here together in this room.

The truth is.

A. The Christian Life Is Not a Leisure Walk. It Is a Race.

And we are racing towards the same goal - Christlikeness

In our thoughts and our deeds.

This race has direction.

It has purpose.

It has a finish.

This race demands preparation.

The truth is, you can be a sincere Christian and still unprepared.

You can love Christ and still carry weights that slow obedience.

You can believe the gospel and still tolerate sins that trip you up.

But what Hebrews is telling us us you are in a race.

So act like a runner.

We don’t get off the couch and go run a marathon.

As we see in this verse -

B. Preparation Begins With Subtraction

“Let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely.”

The first thing Hebrews commands is not “run.”

The first thing Hebrews commands is “lay aside.”

That is preparation language.

That is runner language.

A runner strips off anything unnecessary.

They do not ask, “How much can I carry?”

They ask, “What must be removed so I can finish?”

Hebrews names two kinds of obstacles.

The first is

1. “Every weight”

When we consider our Christian lives, some things are not openly sinful, but they are heavy.

They drain attention.

They consume time.

They dull hunger for God.

They crowd out prayer.

They make Scripture feel optional.

They keep you always busy and always behind.

If we are honest, we know how easy it is to live with constant weight:

Work weight.

Family weight.

Schedule weight.

Device weight.

Media weight.

Worry weight.

Resentment weight.

Unresolved conflict weight.

Exhaustion weight.

Good things become weights when they begin to:

Dominate our time

Control our attention

Shape our priorities

Dull our hunger for God

Crowd out spiritual disciplines

Excuse spiritual neglect

A weight is not defined by what it is, but by what it does.

Two believers can engage in the same activity:

For one, it is harmless.

For the other, it is heavy.

Because the issue is not permission.

The issue is control.

This Is Why the Question Is Not “Is This Allowed?”

That is the wrong question.

“Is this allowed?” is a minimal question.

It asks how close I can get to the line without crossing it.

But this passage is not about minimal obedience.

It is about endurance.

So the better question is:

“Does this help me run?”

When we have a decision to make we must ask,

Does this:

Strengthen my faith?

Support obedience?

Increase clarity, not clutter?

Free me to follow Christ with focus?

Help me finish the race God has set before me?

If something is allowed but makes you slower, distracted, exhausted, spiritually dull, or constantly behind—it is a weight.

Let me put some flesh on this.

Work is good.

But when work leaves no margin for Scripture, prayer, worship, or family—it becomes a weight.

Family is good.

But when family activities sports, recreation, hobbies all good things, but when they crowd out fellowship in the body of the church—it becomes a weight.

Rest is good.

But when rest consistently replaces gathered worship and spiritual discipline—it becomes a weight.

Technology is useful.

But when screens quietly consume our attention, fragment our focus, and shape our desires—it becomes a weight.

Even ministry can become a weight.

Serving can slowly replace devotion.

Activity can replace attentiveness to Christ.

None of these things are sinful by default.

But they can still keep us from running well.

Next we are told to lay aside

2. “Sin which clings so closely”

The word picture we are mean to have here is of something wrapped around your legs.

You try to run, but you your legs are tied together.

You keep stumbling.

Sins don’t just ruin endurance, they don’t allow you to begin the race.

Bitterness that you have masked as discernment

Lust that you excuse as stress relief

Gossip that you call “concern”

Anger that you call “honesty”

Laziness that you call “rest”

Pride that you call “strong convictions”

Fear of man that you call “being wise”

Sin entangles us all.

It always promises relief, but it delivers bondage.

Hebrews does not say, “Manage it.”

Hebrews says, “Lay it aside.”

If we each look to our own lives, we must ask,

C. Practical Examination: What Is Hindering Your Race?

This is where we must be specific.

A runner who never names the hindrance never removes it.

So let me ask the kind of questions Hebrews forces us to ask.

Diagnostic Questions for Weights

What consistently crowds out Scripture and prayer in my life?

What do I reach for first when I feel stressed, tired, lonely, or bored?

What activity leaves me less hungry for God afterward?

What pattern keeps me from worship, keeps me from community, keeps me from serving?

What am I carrying that Christ never asked me to carry?

Some of us are not in open sin, but we are carrying weights that make spiritual growth painfully slow.

Diagnostic Questions for Sin

What sin do I keep excusing instead of confessing?

What sin do I keep hiding instead of bringing into the light?

Where do I keep stumbling in the same place on the course?

What relationship, habit, or secret pattern keeps tangling my legs?

Hebrews is loving enough to tell the truth: you cannot run well with your legs tied up.

D. What Does “Lay Aside” Look Like in Real Life?

Hebrews uses specific language: strip it off.

That means at least four practical steps.

Name it

You cannot fight what you will not identify.

Confess it to God

Not vague confession. Specific confession. Honest confession.

Cut it off

This is where intentionality shows.

If it is a weight, reduce it, limit it, restructure it.

If it is sin, repent of it, flee it, remove access, invite accountability.

Replace it with disciplined devotion

If you remove weights but do not replace them with focused habits, the space fills again.

This is where the race metaphor becomes very practical: runners do not just stop bad habits.

They build training patterns.

So a Christian running with endurance will fight for:

Consistent Scripture intake

Regular prayer

Weekly worship with the body

Honest relationships where sin is brought into the light

Rhythms of repentance and faith

The model for preparedness is not an athlete though, rather the model is Jesus.

In the next verse Hebrews tells us to look to Jesus, but even here we can say: Christ did not drift into obedience. He moved toward the cross with intentional resolve.

Jesus walked a path set before Him.

Jesus refused distraction.

Jesus endured by fixing His heart on the joy set before Him.

2. Look to Jesus

Hebrews 12:2 ESV

2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Verse two now tells us where to look.

Hebrews does not merely command endurance.

It tells us how endurance happens.

“Let us run with endurance… looking to Jesus.”

A. Endurance Requires Focus

A runner cannot run well while constantly looking around.

If you look at the crowd, you drift.

If you look at the other runners, you lose your lane.

If you look at your feet, you stumble.

If you look backward, you slow down.

So Hebrews gives one of the most practical commands in the Christian life:

Fix your eyes on Jesus.

Not glance.

Fix.

Not occasionally.

Continually.

The Greek word carries the sense of fixing one’s gaze, but with an added nuance: looking away from other things in order to look steadily at one thing.

Not a single glance, but a sustained, repeated, continual refocusing.

That tells us something: endurance is not mainly about being strong.

It is about keeping the right object in view.

If we fixate on politics, we will become anxious.

If we fixate on our failures, we will become ashamed.

If we fixate on our comfort, we will become soft.

If we fixate on other people, we will become either proud or discouraged.

But if we fix our eyes on Jesus, we find both inspiration and stability.

Because Jesus Is the Founder and Perfecter of Faith

He is the pioneer.

He went first.

He opened the way.

He ran the course ahead of us.

And He is the finisher.

He completes.

He perfects.

He brings faith to its intended end.

If Jesus only showed us an example, we might admire Him and still despair.

But Hebrews says He is not only the pattern.

He is the One who starts and completes our faith.

So our running is not solitary.

We are not running alone.

We are running as those who have been saved by Christ and are being carried to completion by Christ.

C. Look at how Hebrews says Jesus ran

Joy set before Him

Cross endured

Shame despised

Throne attained

That sequence matters.

Jesus did not avoid suffering to get glory.

He went through suffering to get glory.

And that is often the path God sets before His people.

The Christian life is not: comfort now, crown later.

It is: cross now, crown later.

So when you are discouraged, Hebrews is saying:

Do not interpret hardship as abandonment.

Interpret hardship through Jesus.

Fixing your eyes on Jesus is not a vague spiritual feeling.

It is a discipline of attention.

It means that when fear rises, you deliberately look to Christ’s promises.

When guilt accuses, you deliberately look to Christ’s blood.

When weariness drains you, you deliberately look to Christ’s endurance.

When distraction multiplies, you deliberately refocus.

This is how faith keeps running.

It is transformative because what you fix your eyes on shapes what you love, what you fear, what you pursue, and what you become.

If we fix our eyes on Christ:

We gain perspective on suffering

We gain courage for obedience

We gain stability in uncertainty

We gain assurance that the end is secure

Some of you are running and you feel alone.

You look around and you think,

“Am I the only one fighting sin like this. Am I the only one weary. Am I the only one struggling.”

Hebrews reminds us: look to Jesus.

Look to Jesus.

Conclusion

Hebrews reminds us of something we desperately need to hear when the race feels long:

We do not endure alone.

Christian endurance is not isolation.

It is not silent suffering.

It is not pretending we are stronger than we are.

Christ has already:

Gone before us

Endured more than we ever will

Secured the outcome of the race

That changes everything.

When Hebrews calls us to endurance, it is not calling us to grit our teeth and push through in our own strength. It is calling us to draw strength from Someone who has already finished.

Jesus is not standing at the finish line with a stopwatch, critiquing your pace.

He is the One who ran ahead of you, suffered for you, and now sustains you.

Endurance, then, is not white-knuckled survival.

It is hope-filled perseverance, sustained by Christ Himself.

A Word to the Weary

Some of you are finishing this year tired.

Not dramatic tired.

Not crisis tired.

Just quietly, deeply worn down.

You have been faithful in ways no one sees.

You have carried burdens others do not know about.

You have kept going when stopping would have been easier.

Hebrews speaks directly to you.

It does not shame you for being weary.

It warns you for your sake—so that weariness does not turn into quitting.

And it says: consider Christ.

He understands exhaustion.

He understands opposition.

He understands obedience that costs more than you thought it would.

And He is still with you.

A Word to the Discouraged

Some of you are discouraged because you feel like you are not running well.

You look back at this year and see:

Inconsistency

Missed opportunities

Spiritual drift

Habits you meant to change but did not

Hear this clearly:

Hebrews is not calling perfect runners.

It is calling persistent ones.

The race is not about flawless performance.

It is about continuing forward.

If you are still running—even slowly—you have not failed.

And Christ is not finished with you.

A Word to the Comfortable

And some of us are honest enough to admit we are not weary—we are comfortable.

We are not exhausted.

We are distracted.

Weights have crept in.

Focus has softened.

Urgency has faded.

Hebrews lovingly interrupts that drift and says:

Lay aside what slows you down.

Fix your eyes again.

Run with intention.

Not out of fear.

But because the race matters.

Running Into the New Year

As we stand at the edge of a new year, Hebrews does not call us to grand resolutions.

It does not say:

“Try harder.”

“Do better.”

“Be stronger.”

It calls us to faithful endurance.

So hear these words not as pressure, but as invitation:

Lay aside what hinders you.

Not everything. Just the things that slow obedience.

Fix your eyes on Jesus.

Again. And again. And again.

Keep running, even when it is hard.

Especially when it is hard.

The Christian life is a fight—but it is a hopeful one.

Because the One who calls us to endure has already endured for us.

He has gone before us.

He runs with us.

And He will bring us home.

Final Exhortation

So church, as we step into a new year:

Run with endurance.

Keep your eyes on Jesus.

Do not quit.

Not because you are strong enough.

But because Christ is faithful enough.

And He always finishes what He begins.