A role model for the race
The Role Model For The Christian Race
Hebrews 12:1-2
America has a role model crisis. 16 year old Jamie Lynn Spears has just revealed that she is pregnant. Before that Britney Spears' younger sister used to have a squeaky-clean image. And her character on the hit show "Zoey 101" was someone that teen and preteen girls wanted to be like. But now that she has gone public with her pregnancy, Nickelodeon has cancelled her show because “it sends out the wrong message”.
A couple of weeks ago George J. Mitchell’s report on performance enhancing drugs in baseball rocked the professional sports world. In one fell swoop, the Mitchell report took out the likes of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield and Andy Pettitte as role models for aspiring young baseball players. The report identifies dozens of current and former ballplayers as users of steroids, human growth hormone, or other banned substances.
Michael Vick is no longer punishing opponents on the gridiron. Instead he is serving a 23 month jail sentence for running a dog fighting operation.
Track star Marion Jones faces up to 6 months in jail after pleading guilty to lying to federal investigators about doping. The papers state: "She has been cast from American hero to national disgrace. "She has been stripped of her gold medals, her wealth and her public standing."
Yes, America has a role model crisis. Throughout his professional career, Sir Charles Barkley argued that athletes should not be considered role models. Barkley said, "A million guys can dunk a basketball in jail; should they be role models?"
If neither athletes nor actresses make good role models, where are we to look to find appropriate role models? After all, role models are important. We need someone to identify with who has the qualities we would like to have. We need someone who is in a position we would like to reach. We need someone who has gotten to where we want to go.
Young black men are dying by the droves on city streets because their only role models are drug lords, pimps, and gang bangers. There are entire city blocks without a single two-parent home, because there are no role models. Children are left to fend for themselves in crowded chaotic homes, because there are no role models.
God knows that role models are important. Even those of us who are trying to make heaven our home need someone to look up. The good news is that if you are trying to make heaven your home, God has given you the best role model you can have. For those of us on our way home to glory, there is no better role model you can have than Jesus. With Jesus as our role model, we can faithfully run the spiritual race.
Turn with me now to Hebrews 12:1-2 and let’s see why Jesus is such a good role model for Christians. The author of Hebrews uses an interesting metaphor. The scene is a great coliseum. The occasion is a footrace, a distance event. The cloud of witnesses that fills the stadium are none other than the great spiritual athletes of the past. Each one has run well. Each one is a member of the great Hall of Faith. Each one has medaled. And although they have gone on to claim their eternal reward; each one by faith still speaks to us today. Each one through the lives they lived encourage us. Each one roots us upward and onward.
Abel is saying, “Keep on giving God your best.” Enoch is saying, “Keep on walking with God.” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are saying, “Keep on journeying towards the Promised Land.” Noah is saying, “Keep on doing what he told you to do.” Sara and Rachel are saying, “Keep on believing that there’s nothing too hard for God.” Rehab is saying, “Keep on lining up on the right side.” Moses is saying, “Keep on looking for the Lord to make a way out of no way!” David is saying, “Keep on trusting Him to take down the giants in your life.” Joshua is saying, “Keep on expecting the walls to come down!” Elijah is saying, “Keep on looking for your help even when it seems like you are on your own”. I can hear the apostles saying, “Stay with Jesus when others turn back. Stay with Jesus when others turn aside!”
These are but a few of those who make of the cloud of witnesses in the grandstands of glory. Each one of them by faith encourages us to run on and see what the end shall be. And seeing that we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, the author of Hebrews says we ought to run our best race! We ought to put forth a maximum effort. We ought to lay it all on the line.
When I was in high school at Eastern Alamance High School, I played basketball. I remember during my junior year, we played a home game against Oxford Webb. I wasn’t a starter but from time to time the coach would put me in the game. On this particular night, Lee Allison was in the stands. Lee Allison was my childhood hero. We were born and raised in the same community. But there was a big difference, Lee had at least a 40 inch vertical and held all sorts of records at Eastern Alamance. He used to take time with me and give me some pointers about my game. And when I realized he was in the stands that night, it motivated me to give it all that I had.
Sometimes we are going to grow weary. Sometimes we are going to get discouraged. Sometimes it’s going to seem like serving the Lord is not going to pay off. And you might not feel like running any more. Just remember in the grandstands of glory, a great cloud of witnesses is cheering you upward and onward.
Seeing that we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside whatever is weighing us down. Tell somebody in 2008, I’m getting rid of the weight. In order to run this race well, we must divest of all that holds us down and hinders us. The writer says, “Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us.”
Let us lay aside every weight. A weight is whatever is keeping you from running your best race. Good things can hinder us if allow our priorities to get out of order. Our careers, our possessions, our hobbies, and our relationships can hold us down if we let them. If we allow them to become our preoccupation, we’re in trouble! Anything or anybody, you put before God is a weight. No amount of money is worth losing your soul. No man or woman is worth sacrificing your salvation. Don’t put Jesus on the backburner because you’re trying to fit in. Don’t put Jesus on the backburner because you’re trying to further your career. Don’t put Jesus on the backburner to curry the favor of a certain crowd.
Let us the sin that which so easily ensnares. If we must lay aside the good that gets in the way, how much more must we lay aside sin from our life! Makes no mistake about it, sin ensnares us. Sin traps up. This Thursday night I had the privilege of hearing Rev. Dr. Lee Evans preach on sin, during revival. He spoke of sin being like mold. You start out with a loaf of bread, but soon you notice a little mold on the bread. If nothing changes and that bread is left in the same environment, over time, the mold will completely take over the bread. And you won’t have bread any longer. All you will have left is mold.
If you keep on living in sin, you will become that which you loath. It might start small, but over time sin will consume you. The sin that ensnares you might not be the sin that ensnares me but all sin ensnares. We each have characteristic sins that more easily entangle us than others. Some sins that tempt and degrade others hold little appeal for us—and vice versa. Some of us have a problem with sexual immorality, but not all of us. Some of us have a problem with substance abuse, but not all of us. You might not have a problem with jealousy, but you’re your prone to be a gossip. Whatever the sin is it that so easily entangles you or me? The writer of Hebrews says let us lay it aside. Let us lay aside covetousness, criticism, laziness, hatred, lust, and pride.
Having dealt with the negative aspects, the text now turns to the positive. The writer goes on to admonish, “Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” The Christian race is not a 100 yard dash. The Christian race is not a sprint. The Christian race is an endurance run. The race is not given to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but to the one who endures till the end.
Thanks be to God, who has provided in Jesus a role model for the Christian Race. The writer of Hebrews says we ought to run the Christian race 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 has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
I like what one preacher had to say about it. Pyromaniacs are infatuated with fire. Nymphomaniacs are infatuated with sex. Kleptomaniacs are infatuated with stealing. Egomaniacs are infatuated with themselves. But Christians ought to be Jesus maniacs because we are infatuated with Jesus.
Why? Because Jesus is the role model for the Christian race! The key to finishing the race is concentrated attention that turns away from all distractions and fixates on Jesus. In Jesus we have the incarnate God of the Bible, coming down through 40 and 2 generations, wrapping himself in human flesh to show us how to run the Christian race. The writer of Hebrews describes him as the archegos of our faith. Jesus is the pioneer of our faith. In other words, He has gone before us into unchartered territory and made a way where there was no way. Humankind was on its way to a Devil’s hell. But Jesus came in the flesh and ran the race that had been set before Him.
He said I didn’t come to run my own race. I didn’t come to do my own thing. My course has already been mapped out. When time was still being nursed in the bosom of eternity past, God the Father laid out my course. Before humanity got into trouble, God had already determined the purpose of my life. Jesus told everybody, I came to do my Father’s will. I came to lay my life down for you. I came to shed my blood for you. I came to suffer that you might live. I came to endure humiliation. I came to be wrongly accused, tried, and crucified. The pain I felt for you was real. The tears I cried for you were real. The blood I shed for you was real. The life I laid down for you was real. But I didn’t come just to die. I came to hog tie sin. I came to pull the stinger out of death. I came to snatch victory from the grave. I came to make a way for you that where I am there you may be also.
If you need a role model for the Christian Race, look no further than Jesus. Where is your focus this morning? For those who don’t know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, there’s no better way to start this year. For those who are weary in your walk, abandon wasteful preoccupations and rid yourselves of sin! Let’s fix our eyes on Jesus, considering all He endured; He will give you a second wind!
Why did he do it? The bible says he did it for the joy he knew would be his.
Jesus is the role model for the Christian race.