Motivation for Life’s Race 10/1/00

Hebrews 12:1-4

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 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. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls” (Hebrews 12: 13).

JESUS CHRIST is our worthy example. A appropriate goal of life is to be like Him.
If you wish to be disappointed, look at others.
If you wish to be discouraged, look at yourself.
If you wish to be encouraged and experience victory, look to Jesus Christ.

Athletes are objects of admiration and veneration globally. As Christians, that is, Christ partisans, let us by looking to Him; the ultimate one deserving our devotion.

Nations of the world send some of their finest athletes to compete in the Olympics. The Sydney games are the largest Olympics ever. They are larger than the Barcelona, and Los Angeles games combined. Athletes came from over 200 countries. We Americans can better understand the enormity of the size of the games by comparing it to hosting 10 Super Bowl Games a day for 17 days.

However, ancient Rome offers us an example of competition on an even larger scale.

The ancient Romans conducted contests in the Circus Maximus built by King Tarquin Priscus about 500 B.C. The arena was 700 yards in length and 140 yards wide. It consisted of three tiers. Before being expanded by Titus it seated 150,000. He enlarged it to seat 250,000. Later in the Fourth Century it was expanded to seat 385,000. Their water sports were conducted on artificial lakes. Whole flotillas contended. Fleets of ships with more than 19,000 seamen fought to the death in these contests.

Nearby Emperors Vespasian and Titus built the Flavian amphitheater known to us as the Colosseum because it was erected near the colossal statue of Nero.

In the 120 days marking the dedication of the Colosseum 12,000 animals and 10,000 gladiators died therein.

Come with me and enter the Colosseum!

Notice that special enlarged seating area. It is the place for the Caesar known in Latin as the “podium,” meaning “place of honor.”

On your left is the great arch of the PORTA SANAVIVARIA, “the Door of the Living.” Soon the procession of the gladiators will enter through it.

On your right is the PORTA LIBERTINA, “the Door of the goddess of corpse.” Through this arch the corpse of the fallen warriors will be dragged with hooks.

The parade of athletes is always a stirring moment. Enter the gladiators. In cadence they chant as they have hundreds of times: AVE, CAESAR; MORITURI TE SALUTANT!” “Hail, O Caesar; those about to die greet thee!”

How could they do it with such a sense of satisfaction?

They did it because they believed Caesar was divine. He was their god and they were willing to die for their god. What an example! What a challenge to us to live for our God. To live “looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”

The expression “looking unto Jesus” means to be dependent upon Him for inspiration, support, encouragement, and strength.

There is a magnificent work of art that depicts a beautiful young woman in the arena being stalked by a hungry lion. She is stooping to pick up a single rose thrown into the arena at her feet. As though oblivious to the presence of the lion, as she stoops to pick up the rose, she is looking up into the stands for the one who loves her and tossed the rose.

Like her we must look to Jesus for our hope.

Part of the promotional theme of the Para-Olympics in Atlanta was “faith is a decision.” Won’t you make faith in Christ as Savior and Lord a decision. That means to profess your dependence upon Him to forgive your sins and give you new life. Look to Him for salvation and as the source of strength for life.

Into the Colosseum there began a march of a different kind of people. They bore the name of their benefactor, their God. They were mockingly called “Christians,” meaning “Christ’s partisans” or “belonging to the Christ.” That was their primary reason for being there. They refused to swear allegiance to any one but Christ.

The procession of devotees to Christ continues today.

Explore our text for insight and inspiration. It speaks of:

I. WITNESSES VS. 1
The “great cloud of witnesses” is a reference to the persons listed in chapter 11. The word “witness,” MARTUS, means one who bears witness by death. A casual reading of Hebrews has led many to think of these “witnesses” as heavenly spectators observing us earthlings. They are not noted as observers but as examples. They are witnesses in the sense they bear testimony. Their earthly lives are testimonies to the fact God will see you through.

They are not simply depicted as being in a stadium observing our acts to be inspired thereby, but to inspire us by their action. It is as though those who have gone before us are shouting words of encouragement. “God enables us to be winners. He will do the same for you. Don’t quit.”

By their lives they testify to the fact God is faithful.

II. WEIGHTS VS. 1
Weights is a reference to things that are not necessarily sins but they are hindrances to spiritual victory. They are things that restrict us like an athlete’s warm-ups would be a restriction in competition. They are to be taken off.

There are some things that are neither good or bad, but neither are they helpful. Remove them from your life. A good athlete doesn’t choose between good and bad, but better and best. A “weight” is anything that weighs us down, diverts our attention, saps our energy, or reduces our enthusiasm for Christ. Notice reference is made to “the sin which so easily ensnares us…” “The” means in every life there is an area of weakness. Satan desires to exploit it. As an athlete works on any area of weakness so we must know our area of vulnerability and work on it. Control it.

III. THE WAY VERSES 1, 2
Now comes the basic nitty and fundamental gritty of the race.

A. AN EXHORTATION = “run with endurance”
Almost anyone can enter the most difficult race. It takes endurance to finish. The Bible is full of stories of people who started the spiritual race and didn’t complete it.

John Mark who started on the missionary journey with Paul and turned back.

Demas of whom it is written, “Demas, has forsaken us having loved this present world.”

To endure and run to win requires:
DETERMINATION. Make the decision to compete for Christ.
DISCIPLINE. Submit to His life-long disciplines.
DEDICATION. Resolutely be dedicated to stay the course.

B. AN EXAMPLE = “looking unto Jesus”
Jesus Christ is the ultimate witness. He ran the same race course of life you are running. Verses 3 and 4 describe His racecourse:

“For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin” (Hebrews 12: 3, 4).

“Looking unto” describes an attitude of trust. It speaks of a continuous attitude that prevails, not just a single act.

As Christ was motivated by pleasing the Father so we should be motivated by pleasing Christ. Then all that the Father was to the Son the Son will be to us.

Verse 3 contains the appeal to “consider Him.” That is, analyze your own life as compared to Christ.

To “consider Him” means to take Him into account and concentrate on Him; focus on Christ. Keep Him in mind.

He is the source and sustainer of our hope.

Come back to the Collosseum again. Hear the echo of the chanting gladiators, “Ava, Caesar; morituri te salutant.”

Let the two vast arched doors represent the door of eternal life or spiritual death. Through which will you enter into eternity?

Today, this very day, let’s take an imaginary walk into the arena.

There in front of the podium you will see a white cross erected around 1300. It bears this inscription: AVE CRUX SPES UNCIA, “Hail to thee, O Cross, the only hope!”

The many who died there had faith stronger than the hatred of those who killed them.

The cross which was in their day the symbol of their suffering is now the symbol of their victory.

The fallen faithful are part of the “great cloud of witnesses” that testifies: “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me” (Hebrews 13: 6).

For them the Colosseum was merely the foyer to heaven.

“Since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Hebrews 12: 28). They served God as martyrs to demonstrate God’s sufficiency in the worst of circumstances. Historians record many gladiators were won to faith in Christ by the
radiance on the faces of the Christians.

In Christ we are more than conquerors.

“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

The expression “more than conquerors” translates the word “hyper-nikemos.” “Hyper” means “super.” The word “nike” means “victor.” In Christ we are more than winners.

We are eternal victors.

Belief in a Creator God

God created by His “rhema,” meaning “word,” His divine utterance. What did He create? Worlds, “aion,” plural, indicating the physical universe and the order which controls it, and its administration. The word also conveys the concept of ages. It includes time/space/matter/purpose.

There is no science that can disprove Hebrews 11: 3, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”  (Hebrews 11:3).

The things seen, everything there is, are composed of things which we cannot see, atoms. This statement was made long before scientists knew there were atoms.

Those who believe in evolution do so by faith. For a thing to be a science it must pass two tests: it must be observable and demonstrable. Evolution is neither. Therefore, it is not a science and those who believe it believe it by faith.

Likewise those who believe in creation believe it by faith and the fact Christ said, “from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.”

We live by faith.  We drink water from a faucet, eat in a deli, place our pay in a bank, fly in a plane, drive in the rain, undergo surgery, and take medicine by faith.

Evidence means proof.  Our faith is in the unseen but not the unknown.  A photon illustrates this. Scientists believe in photons. Yet, they have never seen one. They only exist when traveling at the speed of light, 185,000 miles per second. At that speed they have never been photographed. Though unseen scientists still believe in photons.

There is no science that can disprove, “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible”  (Hebrews 11:3).

“Belief” and “trust,” two words used frequently in Scripture to identify how we should respond to the Lord.

The Hebrew word for believe is “amen.” It means “to use God as a foundation; to lean on Him.”

Another word translated “trust” is BATAK. It was originally a wrestling term meaning to “body-slam” or in modern parlance “suplex.” Applied to our faith-life, it means to pick up your problems and body-slam them before the Lord.

“Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.”  (Col. 2:8)

Running On Empty

Jesus Christ left His lodging in heaven because of His longing for fellowship with you. Look at Him hanging on a blood-soaked Calvary, there you can see Him just dying for fellowship with you. 

He so earnestly wants this to be a lasting fellowship that He has prepared a permanent place in heaven for you. He said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you…”

You have even been given a heavenly summons to enjoy fellowship with Him: “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (I Corinthians 1:9).

This fellowship is intended to provide for the greatest longing the human heart can experience. It is to enable persons to avoid an empty longing feeling. It is intended to make yours a gratified and satisfied life.

He said, “I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly.”  He wants you to experience abundant life; life with supernatural additives. This is what everyone wants and needs. 

The drama of life turns to a tragedy or at best a comedy of errors at this point. We have been deceived to think there are ways of having a full and meaningful life apart from fellowship with God.  It doesn’t work and God has given us a case study to prove it. It is the life of Solomon. For a glimpse of life out of sync with all that is right turn to the most pessimistic writing every penned. It is the Book of Ecclesiastes.

The book opens with the expression, “The words of the Preacher…” It is literally “The man with a message…” That is what the preacher should be. In a technical sense he is not a preacher and his income is but one indication of that. He had an annual income from one source of $20,000,000. Keep that in mind as the story progresses.

Solomon was a king, not a preacher. He was a believer, but he was out of fellowship. In his life, as in every life, this caused an emptiness; a sense something was missing. Being out of fellowship with the Lord, he had a yearning for this fulfilling feeling. Unfortunately, he unwisely began to search for a substitute for fellowship. 

The reason the book is so pessimistic is that most of it was written while out of fellowship. Being out of fellowship he writes to tell of seven experiments he tried as pseudo substitutes for fellowship with God. The opening verses depict the void in the life of one out of fellowship.

“Vanity of vanities” (1:2), means “emptiness of emptiness.” Being out of fellowship with the Lord and trying to find a substitute for fellowship is like trying to fill a vacuum with a vacuum. Life without Christ is empty. Five times he uses this expression. A sense of futility results.

Life without the Lord is a merry-go-round of nothings (Vs.4).

Nature is used as an illustration of life’s emptiness out of fellowship (Vs. 5).

The water cycle is used as an illustration of just going around in cycles. Rain comes down, runs into the streams that run into the oceans. The oceans evaporate and moisture is taken inland as clouds and descends as rain and the cycle is repeated.

Incidentally, this was penned thousands of years before scientists understood the hydrological system in nature.

This man had everything physically one could ask for in order to complete experiments for substitutes for fellowship with God and describes this in verse 12.  He exhausts himself, as many still do, in trying to find a substitute for fellowship with the Lord that will be as fulfilling; something that will give life meaning.

Crossing Jordan

Does Joshua’s experience in crossing the Jordan ever typify your situation. For years the church sang the old hymn (remember them), with these words:

“Often times I’m forsaken, and weary and sad,

When it seems that my friends have all gone;

There is one tho’t that cheers me and makes my heart glad,

I won’t have to cross Jordan alone.”

My concept of the crossing of the Jordan was formidable. At flood time it was. However, I have stood on its banks many times and have always marveled at how small it. Many places it is less that 25 feet. It posed a major obstacle when Joshua and the Israelites got there. It was flood time when it is sometimes a mile wide, shallow, but wide. However. the crossing wasn’t the main issue. It was an issue, but it wan’t the major issue. The big issue was facing the unknown on the other side.

Joshua, along with Caleb, had spied out the land and reported it was populated by giants. The real story is that in our dealing with the unknowns we face, we don’t have to face them alone, giants and all. We have an invisible, but invincible guide, our Lord Jesus. He scouts it out in advance.

Arriving there at flood time may have looked like God scheduled it at a most inappropriate time. Do you ever have an experience causing you to question God’s timing? That is time you can put real meaning to the little chorus:

“God’s been in time, on time, every time for me.”

Reflect on some of your bad timing that has resulted in God acting on time.

They may have questioned why God took so long to get them there. Why had God waited forty years while Joshua had aged until he was 80? There is no indication that on the evening preceding the crossing they complained. We must emulate their faith when facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles. God made a way for them and He will make a way for you. You won’t have to cross your Jordan alone.

Do as Joshua charged the people: “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5) 

Now the reason for the untimely and impossible challenge of crossing the Jordan. God set them up so that after the crossing they can look back and realize what had happened could not have been achieved without God enabling it. It was to bring them to the point they were willing to consecrate themselves.

Now, do some of your life experience come into focus? Consecrate yourself.

“Consecrate” is the Hebrew qadash and it means, “be hallowed, set apart, consecrated” or “consecrate, set apart, prepare, or dedicate.” Do it!

Count Your Blessings

Jesus Christ wants to give you a “Faith Life.” The starting point is found in the will of God. When doing God’s will, one is most happy. The explicit will of God is that “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (I Thessalonians 5:18) It is the will of God that you have a thankful disposition. Do those around you consider you to have one? 

Your disposition can be changed by your resolve to begin being a person who is expressive of appreciation; a person who expresses thanks to God and people. Our predecessors realized this and set aside a day of Thanksgiving.

It is good that we have such a day. However, Charles Dickens had an alternate idea. He proposed that we reverse the practice and have a day for griping and use the rest of the year for daily expressing thanks to God and people.

If you resolve that your disposition and mental attitude will be of a thankful nature it will amaze you, refresh your friends, and please God. That is —- 

When we start to count flowers, 
we cease to count weeds.

When we start to count blessings,
we cease to count needs,

When we start to count laughter,
we cease to count tears.

When we count happy memories,
we cease to count fears.

William Law lost his position at Emmanuel College, Cambridge when his conscience would not allow him to take the required oath of allegiance to the first Hanoverian monarch, King George I. He later asked, “Who is the greatest saint? It is not the one who prays most or who does most, it is the one who is most thankful.”

Thankfulness and happiness go together like a hand and glove. It is not happy people who are thankful, it is thankful people who are happy.

Wouldn’t it be good if at the end of life your epitaph could be like that of Oliver Goldsmith: “He touched nothing he didn’t adorn.” Thankfulness does that.

Scripture exhorts us to give thanks in all things. All things? Yes, all things. We may not feel good in all things. To consistently give thanks acknowledges not all things are good, but God is always good. Therefore our focus must be on God, not things. The great drama of the Bible is that God is at work on behalf of His people at all times, no matter what happens. Remember that.

We might well pray, “Along with your many gifts, give me one thing more, a thankful heart.”