The process of salvation

Last week we discussed us abiding in Christ and that through doing that will bring about difficulty through God cutting away certain things in our lives. This is a continual process in which we grow to mimic Christ in every aspect of our lives.

This is a process that is full of difficulties but it is a process that brings about joy. The Christian life is not easy and it was never promised to be easy but it is promised to be worth it!

Hebrews 12:1–4 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. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

1 Corinthians 9:24–25 NLT

24 Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! 25 All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.

As Christians we are in race and it is a race in which we will finish. The race begins the moment we put our faith in Christ and ends the moment we see him face to face.

The race that we are running can be completed because we have account of the many people that have ran it before us.

All Christians have started the race so we should all run the race in order to complete it well. The good news about the race is that we have heroes in the faith that have shown it to be possible!

1. The race is Possible!

Hebrews 12:1 NLT

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

If you have ever read Hebrews 11 then you know that it has been called the Hall of Fame for our faith. The important thing to know about the people in that chapter is that none of them lived a perfect life but they lived a life that was faithful to God’s calling until the end.

The Christian life that we live is going to be far from perfect but we are called to be faithful to his calling. We are called to keep on running the race until our race is completed.

The believers in the Hall of Fame for our faith held on to their faith and ultimately saw that their faith was true and who they had placed their faith in was true. They ran the race and finished the race well!

This should help us hold onto the assurance of our faith because we are able to look at people who completed the life of being a Christian and this should urge us to keep on pressing on to the finish. The life of a disciple is a difficult life but it is a life that is possible not because we are super humans but because we are not living this life on our own.

So many times we can get discouraged by looking at the difficulties of the christian life but when ever we look at the testimonies of people who have walked by faith we should be encouraged to keep on pressing forward.

The great cloud of witnesses that is talked about encourages us to keep the faith. It encourages us because the witnesses held on to the faith despite their own shortcomings. The christian life is not going to be a perfect life but it is worth it in the end. We must hold on to what God has called each of us to do.

We can look to the people that have completed the race as encouragement to finish strong.

To finish the race strong we must have endurance.

2. Endurance

Hebrews 12:1 NLT

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

We must run the race with endurance to finish it! The christian life is not a sprint at all but a marathon in which we must pace ourselves and keep moving forward to then end.

If you are running a race what are you not going to have on you during the race?

Weights! You are not going to be wearing heavy clothes! You are not going to be dragging something behind you hindering you from running the race with ease.

The sin that the Christians of Hebrews dealt with the most is the sin of returning back to the law! They knew the freedom of Christ and knew they were free from the law but they kept going back to wanting to return back to the jewish beliefs. They wanted to return back to keeping the unkeepable in order to earn their salvation.

What is that we are holding onto that is hindering our race towards Christ?

The problem is that we make the christian life so much more difficult due to us being weighed down with sin to the point that it seems impossible to move forward.

We must get rid of the sin that is in our lives that is hindering us from running freely towards the end. It is possible to run the race with the weight of sin holding onto us but it is so much easier to run freely.

The christian race is hard as it is already why would we add extra difficulties to the race. In a race the winner is the racer that travels the greatest distance the quickest if the winner started the race with weights attached to him he would not be the winner by the end.

We must cast away our sins that are hindering our race. The major sin that we all must put aside is our pride.

Our pride is what holds us back from submitting everything to God. Our pride is what keeps us from sharing Christ! Our pride keeps us from letting God use our entire lives for his glory.

Our pride is something we must lay aside daily because it hinders us daily!

We lay aside our weights in the race and endure towards the finish.

We are able to endure through our christian life through looking to Christ.

3. Encourager

Hebrews 12:2–4 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. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

We have people who have completed the life faithful that we can look at! We have the plan for how to endure through the end. Now we look at how we are able to do it. The funny thing about the Christian life is that it is literally impossible to run the race because we are people who are failures at life but we are able to do so through Christ.

We need to fix our eyes on Christ daily because we are only christians through him! He is the author of our faith! Our faith is only possible through him!

Without him what would we have faith in?

Since he started our faith then it is only logical that he will continue growing our faith and perfecting our faith!

We are to look to Jesus above all else just like Peter whenever he was called out of the boat and focus all of his sight on Christ or else he will fall.

We are called to focus on Christ and Christ alone in our race. We focus on him due to him being the only person who can perfect our faith.

Jesus endured his faith until the end of his life for the joy of our salvation. Jesus endured the most excruciating life faithfully to God in order that we may be saved!

Jesus ran joyfully to the cross knowing that the finish line brings about salvation for the world.

We should joyfully run the race knowing that the finish line concludes with our life eternally being with Christ.

We can endure the difficulty of the Christian life because Christ enables us to continue forward.

Jesus is the reason we can endure this race until the end. Jesus is the reason that this race is even possible!

Our Christian life is life that is constantly looking to Christ.