All right, well, beautiful singing. I’m glad you’re here today. I know a lot of us are sick this week, and so I’m glad that you’re with us. I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron, and I’m the preaching pastor here. As mentioned, I’m really happy that everyone is here in this room, in this space today.
So if you have a Bible with you, which I hope you do, please open up the book of Hebrews. If you turn to Hebrews 12 today, our text to study will be verses 1 and 2. If you don’t have a Bible with you, it’s okay. There are Bibles scattered throughout the pews. It’s on page 585. So, Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 through 2.
As you open your Bibles up, please keep them open throughout the entire sermon. I will do my best to help us walk through the passage in this time. Let me read this for us, and then I’ll pray, and then we’ll get to work.
So, this is what God’s Word says, starting in verse 1: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race set before us, 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.”
Okay, that’s God’s Word for us this morning. Would you pray with me?
Lord, thank you for bringing us together. We are here together because we want to hear from your Word. So, God, please help me to be a good communicator this morning. Please help me to rightly divide your Word of truth. Lord, we pray for your Holy Spirit to be alive and active in this time, ministering your Word to our hearts, which we desperately need. Please bring much glory to Jesus. Help us to look to Him. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
So, we live in a very complicated world. We have so many complications within our own hearts. Some of the things we looked at in a sermon last week included all the various complicated characters in our text at the end of chapter 11 of Hebrews. We have plenty of complicated decisions to make, where we would love for every decision to be very simple, black and white, with very simple conclusions and no negative potential outcomes or fallout. But we know that often, the decisions we have to make are colored in gray, where there are a lot of factors to consider, and one factor may affect another factor.
Complicated. Assume all of us are involved in complicated relationships, whether they be relationships with family members, coworkers, friends, or neighbors. Complicated relationships even exist with others in the church. How many of our relationships are ones where we feel completely settled, completely secure? How many relationships are at least a bit complicated?
I’m not on Facebook, but I know at least at one point you could define your relationship status with Facebook friends. You label it like husband or wife or cousin or coworker, and so on. When I was on Facebook, I always thought it was funny that one of the options for relationship status was “It’s complicated.” In truth, that status is true for so many of our relationships—they’re just complicated.
This is the world we live in, where hardly anything can feel simple or easy or straightforward. Everything just feels so complicated. Complications can tie us up in knots. Complications can cause us to be filled with anxiety, worry, and fear. Complications can lead us to want to throw our hands up in the air and pull away from it all.
Now, I say this to you this morning because we come to a text of study that includes some very simple instructions for us to follow in life—instructions that give us clarity amidst all our complications. However, that being said, as simple and helpful as the instructions are in our text, they are just not easy for us to follow. At least, it’s not as easy as it should be.
Even though I think, if you’re a Christian, you recognize that these are things—instructions that we should be doing—things that I think, in large part, we actually want to do. Because we know that these things not only bring us clarity but also give us perspective, hope, encouragement, and peace in our complicated lives. As mentioned, they are not always easy for us to follow.
Now, real quickly, before we get to our text of study, let me take a few moments to set again the context of the book of Hebrews for us, which will help us see how our text would have been helpful for the first readers and the complexities they were dealing with in their lives.
As a way of reminder, this letter is written to early Jewish Christians who are living in a time of increased suffering and persecution because of their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of the suffering, some of this persecution, was coming from the Roman government, which, at the time of writing this letter, was becoming increasingly hostile to the Christian faith. This was largely because the Christian faith confesses Jesus—Jesus alone—to be Lord, while the Roman Empire wanted Caesar to be Lord.
It wasn’t just the Romans who were putting the squeeze on the early Christians. It also appears that the Jewish people were persecuting these early Jewish Christians, as they rejected Jesus of Nazareth as being the Christ, God’s eternal Son, the Savior of the world. In this rejection of Jesus, they were angry at those who actually did believe in Jesus, who did believe that he was the Christ and who were actively spreading his message.
Through various persecutions, the Jewish people were trying to stamp out Christianity, even persecuting Jewish Christians. The rising suffering of persecution that the first readers faced was obviously making life very complicated for them. As we learned in the past in our study, they had things like their property being plundered. They were even being thrown in prison for their faith in Jesus Christ.
Let’s think for a moment about how hard that had to be. Think about the persecution on the rise. Imagine how complicated that would have made life for them. If they had kids, think how complicated that would have been, how worried they would have been about their kids. Or if they were kids, think about how fearful the kids had to be, worried that perhaps someday their own home would be plundered.
Consider just the complications of living under the threat of being thrown into prison. If they had kids, those kids could wind up as orphans. Think about just the complications that all these threats would have created in one’s life. Now, just think how complicated it would have been if they were actually experiencing persecution where they actually did have their property plundered or actually did spend time in jail for Jesus.
Can you imagine the acute stress they must have been under? Think about all the different traumas they were battling through, working through for the Lord because of these persecutions. As a church, let’s consider just how hard church life must have been for them. I really think every time they gathered together as a church, they were exposing themselves to greater risk of being caught by those seeking to harm them.
Think about how complicated it had to be to live in community. For us, we can feel complicated just trying to figure out how to work through our busy schedules to be together. How much more complicated did they have to work through to get together? By the way, I think this is why the writer of Hebrews wanted to encourage them to continue to meet together in chapter 10, to not forsake meeting together, which was becoming the habit of some, as the writer could sense that these complications were leading these early Christians to conclude that it would probably be safer and easier to just isolate, which is never a good thing, even in times of suffering, persecution, and tribulation.
As complicated as those things might be, we still need to meet together as God’s people. So for us, before we get back to our text today, the text of study, just imagine all the complications that these first readers had to be working through. Real heavy, complex decisions—decisions that must have left them weary and perhaps filled with anxiety. I mean, just think, it had to be hard just to even get a good night’s sleep as they were trying to figure out how to navigate all of this because of the complications they faced.
Just as a reminder, it appears that not only were these early Christians considering the idea of stopping their meetings in community, but even more seriously, they seemed to be contemplating abandoning the faith altogether—throwing their hands up in the air and concluding that following Jesus was just too complicated right now. Perhaps if they left Jesus, left the faith, life would feel less complicated, and they could get the much-desired breather they were looking for.
For the writer of Hebrews, leaving Jesus is not the answer. It never is. Rather, the opposite is true: in life’s complications, we are actually to press further into the Lord Jesus, to press into our faith. Throughout this letter, in a variety of different ways, that is what the author is instructing his readers to do: look to Jesus. Press into Jesus. Trust in Jesus.
This morning, our short two verses we’re going to look at really summarize the entire book of Hebrews in terms of application that includes some simple instructions, which we’ll see are three of them. Instructions to help us find hope and comfort in a complicated world.
So, with that introduction, if you look back at the text again, starting in verse 1, we see that the first word is “therefore.” This is a word we’ve come across multiple times in our study of Hebrews. As mentioned in the past, let me mention again that this word “therefore” is actually a really important word, as it acts almost like a hinge where there’s information on the front side of the “therefore” that is meant to drive us to an application on the other side of the “therefore.”
So, if I can just take a few moments to give you a little bit more review and remind us what the information was on the front side of the “therefore,” which we’ve been working through for the last few weeks—this is all that we covered in Hebrews 11, which is a chapter often referred to as the Hall of Faith. Hebrews 11 is referred to as the Hall of Faith because it testifies to a bunch of different characters who have lived by faith.
Now, if you were with us last week, I mentioned that a good portion of the Hall of Faith is made up of Old Testament characters who are basically the who’s who of the Old Testament—some of the great heroes of the faith, whose stories fill our children’s Bibles. However, as I also mentioned last week, some of these great heroes, some of these who’s who of the Old Testament, were also pretty complicated people, where as we read their stories, we see how they were used by God at times in some pretty incredible ways. Yet, some of these great characters also had some serious issues and sins, which makes the Hall of Faith filled with complicated heroes—heroes who, on one hand, provide inspiring examples for us to follow, but on the other hand, present serious warts and sins for us to avoid.
That’s one of the things we worked through last week on the front side of the “therefore.” Another thing we worked through in our text last week was some characters at the end of chapter 11—characters who are not part of the who’s who of the Old Testament, but are instead a group of nameless characters. These are characters who are just like us—normal, everyday, average people—not well known, not famous names, lost to history, but nameless people who give us inspiring examples of what it looks like to live by faith.
If you remember, we read last week that these nameless characters, as they lived by faith, did so in ways where they were suffering, where they had to endure, where they had to persevere through really hard things in their faith, which, by the way, will be important for us in our text study today.
Okay, so that’s where we were last week. That’s where we ended. That’s the information on the front side of the “therefore.” All that information is there to help us see what the back half of the information of the “therefore” is, which is the application.
So, we’ve seen in our text that “therefore,” we see what it’s driving us to. The text says that God commands all of his people of faith, no matter if they are famous or not famous, however God uses them. Therefore, in the text, because we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, which refers to all those who have faith in Jesus Christ, there is a cloud of witnesses—a large group of people who are there to testify to the truth of God’s Word, who, in a sense, are now cheering us on to persevere, to endure in our faith, even in the face of complexities.
This group of witnesses, that heavy cloud in the text, the author of Hebrews is imploring us as readers. As we see this great cloud of witnesses in the text, we are to lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, which is the first instruction of our passage today—to lay aside every weight and sin. That’s the information on the back side of the “therefore.” That’s what God is instructing his people to do. That’s what the cloud of witnesses is imploring us to do: to lay aside weight and sin.
That’s part of our application. By the way, this is always good and right for us to do—to lay aside weight and sin. But for us this morning, if we don’t lay aside weight and sin, that only adds to the complexity of our already complex life. When we hold on to weight, when we hold on to sin, it makes things even more complicated.
Now, just a few thoughts here before we move on. First thought: just notice that to live by faith means we’re to lay aside weight and sin. What you want us to notice here is that there are two categories we are to lay aside: weight and sin. Now, when it comes to sin, that’s a little easier for us to understand what the writer of Hebrews is referring to. We’re to lay aside sin. Sin is simply failing to do what God commands us to do.
At times, we sin when we do something that God commands us not to do. Other times, we sin when we fail to do something that God commands us to do. Whatever that sin may be, the instruction of the text is to lay it aside, to repent, and to move on from it. These two things in the text that we’re to lay aside—sin—is easier to understand. For the most part, we know what sin is. But what about weight? What does that speak towards?
I think weight speaks to anything that is preventing us from pursuing God, that is dragging us down. This could be sin but not necessarily. Perhaps there’s just a weight, like an unnecessary weight, that’s hindering us from more closely following after the Lord. Tom Shriner, a New Testament scholar, in his commentaries on Hebrews, says this about weight: “The author is probably referring to anything in general that can hinder us in the race, whether it be sin or other things in life, though not evil in themselves, but they can hinder us from running the race with perseverance.”
Now, in this life, some of the weight we do have to carry, right? Life does come with burdens. It comes with responsibilities that we are to walk in. However, the question for us in the text today is how much of the weight that we are carrying, at the end of the day, is simply unnecessary weight. Rather, it’s like a weight, a burden that we’re unnecessarily putting on ourselves that we need to let go of, that we are to lay aside.
Because that unnecessary weight is like hindering us in our Christian walk. Maybe some examples in the day and age we live in could be like the weight of social media or podcasts that just consume us—where they’re really not helping us in any way to become more like Christ, but they’re just distracting us, maybe even creating a false reality that we’re trying to live in.
Or perhaps a weight is some type of unhealthy relationship that we’re consumed by. Maybe on one end, it’s some type of codependency, and on the other end, maybe some type of bitterness. Or on both ends, where we’re consumed by a certain relationship, which is a weight that’s keeping us from pursuing the Lord. The relationship is all we can think about.
Maybe a weight revolves around a hobby or an interest that we’re putting more and more of our joy, hope, and time into, to the point that we actually have no time for God or others. It’s an unnecessary weight. Or maybe a weight is some type of goal that you’re working towards, which could be a good goal in itself. What has happened is that this goal has become so consuming to you now. It’s a weight; it’s a barrier from pursuing the Lord Jesus Christ.
Or maybe a weight is just some type of ideal that you want in life. You know, an ideal that maybe you’re putting your hope in. If I just had this, or if this was just taken away, or if things just worked out in this certain way—maybe that’s just a weight where you’re so focused on the ideal that it’s bogging you down because you’re so frustrated that the ideal has not been realized.
Church, whatever the weight is, it may not be in itself wrong, but it’s become a hindrance to you in your walk with God. It’s an unnecessary weight, a weight that we need to lay aside.
Second, in this instruction, I think it’s important for us to understand that sin really is a big deal. I briefly touched on this last week, but I want to circle back today just to ensure we’re on the right page here. I mentioned a few times today, through all discernment last week, that a good portion of the cast of characters in Hebrews are pretty complicated characters, where some of the characters have pretty deep issues with sin.
This gives me hope. It gives you hope with our own sin issues. That God, in His grace, if He can use complicated sinners like He can use me, then, as a complicated sinner myself, hopefully, that gives you hope. But that does not give us an excuse to be complacent with our sin. We need to see that sin is still a big deal. We are still to put it off. As it says in the book of Romans, “Should we keep sinning that grace may abound? Certainly not!” Scripture is clear that as we sin, we are to be aggressive and faithful in putting away our sin, making no provision for the flesh.
In our text today, this is what the cloud of witnesses is telling us: to lay aside weight and sin. Meaning, when we read the story of complicated people of faith and see their sin, our mindset should not be, “Well, we saw them carrying weight and sin, and we saw how God used them, so if they could be in sin, then so can I.” That’s not how we’re to read the cloud of witnesses.
Rather, what we are to see in the cloud of witnesses is that they are there not to give us an excuse to sin. Rather, the witnesses are there to implore us to not sin, to leave weight and sin behind, because they’re not worth it.
Third, this first instruction underscores the reality that our text says about every weight and sin, which is the reality—the truth that they can cling so closely; they can easily entangle us. Friends, weight and sin can be so close. They can deceive us into thinking that the unnecessary weight is somehow necessary, or that the sin can be so close we become entangled in it, where we might not even think, “Maybe it’s not that bad,” or even question if it was sin in the first place.
This is why, when people come to us out of concern about unnecessary weight they see us carrying or sin we are walking in, because it’s so close at times, we don’t understand what they’re saying to us. Or likewise, when we go to others in love, when we see them carrying unnecessary weight or walking in sin, it’s so close. This is why, at times, they don’t hear us or perhaps get upset with us—because of how closely weight and sin can be to our hearts.
Now, that being said, to be clear, when we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Scripture tells us that we are now dead to sin, that the Spirit of God is living inside us to guide us to all truth, to help us grow in areas where we need to grow. However, that truth is also tied to the truth that, in this life, unnecessary weight is still deceitful. Sin in this life is still present. It is still alluring. These things still have the ability to pull at our hearts, to lead us astray, to entangle us in ways that we feel twisted up in knots.
So, for us, part of fighting the good fight of faith is when unnecessary weight and sin are exposed. Friends, we need to be humble enough to lay them aside. We need to cut off that which is not healthy. We need to be humble enough to let things go. We need to be aggressive enough to flee temptation and sin. We need to be quick to repent when we fall into sin’s traps. We need to be willing to confess our sins to one another. We need to be bold to make no provision for our flesh. And we need to receive the forgiveness that Jesus Christ offers to us.
This, by the way, is really important for us as we fight the good fight of faith, as we seek to lay aside every weight and sin. We must nail our sin to the cross, doing so in ways that we receive the forgiveness that Christ alone can offer. Friends, when we confess our sin, when we nail our sin to the cross, when we receive the forgiveness of sin that Jesus gives, what happens is that the weight and sin become exposed. And as they’re exposed, they tend to be not as close as they once were. Their power to entangle us is maybe not as strong as when we try to keep them hidden from us.
For us this morning, that’s the first instruction. As we see the cloud of witnesses, we’re to lay aside weight and sin.
Continuing on in the text, we see the second instruction, which is very much tied to the first instruction. We see the cloud of witnesses imploring us to run with endurance the race set before us. For those taking notes this morning, the first instruction is to lay aside weight and sin. Because we lay aside every weight and sin, it helps us with the second instruction: to run with endurance the race set before us.
This race that we are to run is a race of faith, where throughout this race we are trusting in Jesus Christ. This race of faith is a race of pursuing Christ. This is a race that finishes with eternal life with Christ, which is really important for us to remember as we run the race. This is a Christ-centered race, which we’ll talk about more in just a bit.
But first, let me give you a few thoughts on this section. For the first instruction, I think the second instruction of running the race set before us further stresses to us that the cloud of witnesses are there for us. They’re like spectators cheering us forward.
So in your mind’s eye, think of some type of coliseum where a great race is taking place. Throughout the coliseum, there are fans cheering the runners on with great enthusiasm, wanting to see their favorite runner succeed. Commentaries I read this week have noted that this is a picture in our text, right? This cloud of witnesses, this great group of people of faith from all time, all pointing us together and cheering us on in the race set before us.
Now, at my kids’ school, there’s always a student section for different sporting events where kids get dressed up with whatever theme is for that game. They have signs, they have posters, and there are organized cheers. In the most intense moments of the game, the loudest, most passionate cheers come when our team needs it the most. They’re trying to cheer the team on to succeed in whatever difficulty or challenge arises during the moment.
Now, I’m not sure if the cloud of witnesses go to that extent. I’m not sure if there are signs and costumes in the great heavenly cheering section. But I do think the sense we get in the text is that the cloud of witnesses, right, they are very much for God’s people of faith. They are there to help us endure through all of life’s challenges and difficulties, to help us press on in the complexities that the race of life may have. They are there because they want us to succeed, especially in the most intense times when we must hear them the most.
Second, let me just point out the word “endurance” in the second instruction, right? We are to run with endurance, or other translations might say we must run with perseverance. These words, like “endure” and “persevere,” capture one of the themes running throughout the book of Hebrews. The writer of Hebrews hopes to grab the attention of his readers in ways that God is using this letter to help his people endure, to persevere in the faith, to not give up on the Lord Jesus Christ because of the complexities they are facing.
As mentioned, this was something they were entertaining doing. The writer wanted his readers, by extension us, to endure, to keep going, to not give up, to hold fast to the profession of faith in Christ. For the sake of time, I won’t go through all the places where we see this theme in Hebrews, but maybe next time you read through this letter, just look for it—the theme of enduring, of holding fast, of persevering. This is one of the great themes of this book.
Third, let me also mention that this word “endure” or “perseverance” reminds us that our faith is not always an easy faith for us to live out. To have to endure, to have to persevere—these words are tied to struggle, difficulty, and real challenges, at times intense challenges. We know this. We don’t have to persevere or endure when we’re on a dream vacation where every plan we made for the trip is turning out better and more amazing than we ever hoped for.
Rather, for us to have to endure, to have perseverance, these words point to struggles, difficulties, challenges, and overcoming. Friends, that’s the truth of the race of faith. It’s a race that calls us to endure through challenges and obstacles. It’s not always easy.
Here’s a quick personal story on this. I became a Christian when I was in college. When I first enlisted in the faith, everything was new and exciting. I remember having so much zeal, joy, and energy in my Christian faith. But as time went by, the excitement, zeal, joy, and energy became so much harder to find.
For a while, this became very frustrating and discouraging for me because, at first, I didn’t understand how hard the Christian faith might be. It’s one of struggle. It can be one of great difficulty. It can make us weary. Just think of someone who enlists in the army, perhaps feeling excitement when they first sign on. But that excitement starts to wane if that person heads to war or is at war for a long time.
Friends, the reality for us is that this verse and so many others like it call us to endure in the faith. The longer we fight the good fight, the more intense we fight the good fight, the wearier we become, and the more difficult it can be to persevere.
Friends, our faith is one that requires us to endure in the race set before us. By the way, say it again: that’s why it’s so important for us to lay aside every weight and sin. It’s hard enough to run the race set before us with all the difficulties, challenges, and complexities that can come our way naturally. How much harder is it to run the race if we’re carrying unnecessary weight and sin on top of us?
Like we know, we don’t see runners competing in races wearing weighted vests. Don’t run the race of faith carrying unnecessary weight and sin that would keep you from running well.
The fourth thing, also mentioned here, is that because this race calls for endurance, and because it can be hard to run this race well, it’s so important for us to remember the prize that awaits us when we cross the finish line.
This is actually one of the most important necessary things we are to do for each other as a church—to help each other remember the prize that awaits at the end of the race, which is the prize that is Jesus Christ. This is why this is a Christ-centered race, right? This entire race is all about Him in the end.
I say it again: He’s the prize of the race—the prize who is completely worth it. The prize that is worth enduring all that we have to endure.
This leads to verse two, the third instruction of the passage, which is the instruction ultimately where the cloud of witnesses is pointing us to. This is ultimately where the first two instructions are helping us toward: the instruction to look to Jesus—friends, to look to Him in ways that you’re setting the gaze of your heart towards the Lord Jesus Christ.
He alone is the one who is the goal, the prize, the great treasure—the one that we’re seeking after, who is worthy of all things. Friends, that is at the core of all that we should do. That is why we do what we do and why we don’t do what we don’t do. Why? Because we have set our gaze on Jesus Christ.
So, we willingly and joyfully lay aside every unnecessary weight and sin because our gaze is upon Jesus Christ. We willingly and joyfully run with endurance the race set before us, even though at times this race can feel impossible to run. But we run it because our eyes are on Jesus.
In our text, the reason why Jesus is the one that we set the gaze of our hearts towards is that He is the founder and perfecter of our faith. This means that, as great as the examples might be in Hebrews 11, Jesus is the best, the truest, the perfect example. We set our gaze on Jesus because He is the One who, for His great and eternal joy, ran the race that was set before Him.
This was a race established before the foundations of the world were created—a race where the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s eternal Son, would run this race for us in our place. He did this as fully God and fully man. As we already learned in Hebrews, He ran this race where He was tempted in every way, yet without sin.
However, even though Jesus Christ ran the race sinlessly and perfectly, as part of God’s good eternal plan, the great God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, in our text, had to endure the cross so that on the cross He could take on all of our shame. On the cross, He could take on all of our guilt for all the times that we have failed to lay aside every weight and sin, for all the times that we struggled to run with endurance the race set before us.
Because on the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ became sin for us to take on the judgment of God for us—to be the propitiation for our sins—so that through Jesus, His death in our place, friends, we could be forgiven of all of our sins, every last one of them.
Because the Lord Jesus Christ endured the cross, because He took on the shame that we deserved, because He died in our place, the text ends with such great encouragement to us that the Lord Jesus Christ is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God, where He will rule and reign for all eternity.
From that right hand of the throne of God, this is where He will receive His people of faith—those who have endured all the way to the end. Friends, that will be sweet. What we see in Scripture is that this is so sweet. Because within the race, as we reach the throne, we will receive all that which is promised to us, which is life with Christ.
And there’s nothing sweeter than that—nothing better than that. It will make the race totally worth it, no matter how hard or how difficult the race might be. At the end of the race, when we meet the Lord Jesus Christ at the throne, He gives us the victor’s crown. Friends, it will be there that we’ll fully be able to set our gaze on Jesus—not just by faith like we do now, but our gaze will be by sight.
Friends, the goal, the prize, the cloud of witnesses is pointing us to and cheering us on towards is a prize wrapped in all of who Jesus is—a prize that is worth it. So this morning, please, dear friends, follow the instructions in the text—good instructions, because they lead us to the great prize, which is Jesus.
Now, as I draw to a close, I do want to offer a few encouragements that are found in the text—things I just want to continue to bring before us. I keep saying that life is often complicated. Our faith at times feels very complicated. My hope is to bring a bit of simplicity that offers help and encouragement to you.
First, amidst all the complications in life, let God’s people speak to you. That’s what witnesses do. The cloud of witnesses in the text is made up of all of God’s people throughout the Old Testament, including those named and nameless people that Hebrews 11 speaks about. But it’s not just Old Testament characters who make up the great cloud of witnesses; it’s also made up of New Testament characters who also lived by faith, as well as the myriads of believers who have come to faith in Jesus Christ and fill up church history books.
It doesn’t even stop there. It includes even people we know today—people in this room who have faith—we’re part of the cloud of witnesses, testifying to Jesus Christ. We are all to be there to cheer each other on, to point us to Christ. Friends, this morning, we have to listen to the collective voice to help us feel the weight of the cloud of witnesses to help us in our faith.
Now, this starts first by reading God’s Word, where we can read the stories of faith found there. But also, let me encourage you to read history books or biographies of others who have gone before us. They can be really encouraging and helpful to see how others lived out their faith amidst their own complexities.
But also it’s important for us to continue to live in community. As a church, we’re speaking into each other’s lives in ways that help us in whatever complicated situations we may find ourselves in. Friends, let God’s people speak to you. Don’t find counsel in your own heart. Let God’s Word and God’s people help.
Second, let me encourage you to let things go that are hindering you from your pursuit of Jesus Christ. As mentioned in the text, these things could be unnecessary weight—unnecessary burdens that you’re carrying that are consuming so much of your mind and heart that you’ve abandoned your first love.
Not only let go of unnecessary weight, but let go of sin—whatever the sin may be that has a grip on your heart. Stop trying to justify it, make excuses for it, or find ways to try to hold onto it. Put it away. Friends, this morning, whatever is hindering you, lay it aside. Let it go. It’s not worth it.
Rather, you’re hurting yourself and likely others around you.
Third, let your heart be focused on what is in front of you—specifically, the race of faith that is set before you, wherever you may be in that race. When it comes to the race of faith, this is a race that God’s people, in a lot of ways, we do together. We endure, we persevere together, we run the race set before us together.
But within that, the race that is set before us for each of us is a little different, a little unique, where we have different trials, different challenges, and different tribulations in front of us. My encouragement this morning is to run the race that God has set before you.
One of the temptations we have is to try to run someone else’s race or maybe judge them in their race, which is unhelpful. The other temptation is to get so focused down the road on what might come in the race that we forget what’s actually in front of us.
So, friends, just run the race. Do so in ways that focus on what is in front of you. Listen, each day has enough difficulty to endure. Don’t get caught up in what’s going to happen at this or that somewhere down the line in the race. Just focus on the race where God has you in this moment. Be faithful in this moment, trusting that whatever race He has set before you, whatever trial, challenge, or tribulation God brings to you in the race—trust that He is good and is there to help you in your time of need as that need comes.
Fourth, let Christ on the throne give you comfort and hope. No doubt, at times, life feels impossibly complicated. Decisions feel impossibly complicated. But friend, take heart. Find comfort and hope. As complicated as life may feel, Christ is still on the throne.
While life may be complicated to you, it’s crystal clear to Him, and He knows what He’s doing in your life. If you’re in Christ Jesus, He will accomplish His purposes even in all the complications. Don’t get so focused or bogged down by whatever complications may be in front of you. Rather, set your sights on the sure and steady anchor of your soul—the One who is faithful and true, the one that you can trust, no matter how complicated life may be—the One who’s on the throne.
Church, in all these things, may we do them in ways that we’re always seeking to cling to Christ, trusting that through the Holy Spirit, He’s actually the one who’s clinging to us in ways that are far closer and far more powerful than the ways we could ever cling to Him.
As He clings to His people, He’s actually so much closer than every weight and sin that we may feel close to our own hearts.
We live in a complicated world—one that’s complicated on so many fronts. But within all those complications, there are simple yet profound truths in God’s Word that help us walk through the complications. And more importantly, these truths in God’s Word help us pursue Jesus Christ—to see Him for who He is—to see that He’s glorious, beautiful, good, and kind towards people.
Church, may we walk in these truths for His glory, for His kingdom, for His righteousness, and for our joy in Him.
Let’s pray.
Lord, I do pray you help us to look to Jesus in all things. I pray for those who are wrestling with different complexities in life, whatever they may be—that today you would give them hope and comfort, helping them to look to you and to trust in you. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.