Running the Race: Hebrews 12:1-2

Hebrews 12:1-2

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

"Run the race marked out for us." What is this race? It is the command of the Lord Jesus given in Matthew:

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." (NIV) (28:19-20a)

We frequently have marathons in the community where I work. These races are always "marked out," that is, the direction and place where the runners are to go is clearly marked so that they all run the same race and they will stay safe. When Father God determined, in His great wisdom, to leave His Church on the earth, He devised a specific direction for His Church to take. He didn’t just say, "Okay, now that you have been reconciled, now that you have the power of the Holy Spirit, go live your lives the best you can until I come for you." No. He had a purpose, a specific direction for us, and the characteristics of that purpose are delineated in Hebrews through the idea of a great race in which believers are all participants.

Notice the characteristics of this race:

* Throwing off everything that hinders
* Throwing off the sin that entangles
* Running with perseverance
* Fixing our eyes on Jesus


Throwing off everything that hinders
The Greek word is onkos and is defined as "whatever is prominent, protuberance, bulk, mass" (Strong’s G3591). Think about that for a moment. This is, in a very real sense, anything that comes between us and God, anything that is more important to us than obeying Him, anything that distracts us from the task at hand, which is to run the race with perseverance.

The writer to the Hebrews gives us two things to throw off. One is the thing that hinders and one is sin. So, it is possible to have something that distracts us from the race but which isn’t necessarily sin. It could, in fact, be something that appears to be totally fine and, in a different circumstance, might actually be, but in this case, is hindering us from fully running the race set before us. It could be culture. It could be relationships. It could be obligations. It could be something as simple as what we eat or drink.

Paul encouraged the Church to not be hindered by even the things we are allowed to do (those things which are not sin), but rather to be constantly thinking about serving each other, even through our actions (even in what we model):

"You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’" (Galatians 5:13-14 NIV).

We are to throw off those things that distract us from running the race set before us. If we are offending those around us, if we are demanding or fighting for our own rights or opinions, if we are refusing to serve others humbly, we are distracted from the race and we cannot encourage others to follow behind us with confidence. The cause—whatever it might be—might appear to be valid, even noble. But the race has been lost when we fail to humbly serve those around us, when we lose our kindness, when we fail to be gentle, when we aren’t self-controlled.


Throwing off the sin that entangles
The Greek word is euperistatos and is translated as "skillfully surrounding as in besetting" (Strong’s G2139). The definition of "beset" is to trouble, harass, to hem in (Merriam-Webster). I like the NIV’s translation "entangles." That certainly is what sin does. It entangles us to the point that often we feel we have no way out, nowhere to go, no solution to find.

The original Greek was translated in the KJV as to "lay aside" the things that hinder, the sin that besets. But I like the NIV better. The Greek word apotithemi also means to "cast off" (Strong’s G659). The idea that there is a sense of violent repudiation, I think, is important. We need to strongly and emphatically throw off those things which keep us from running the race with perseverance. We need to turn our backs on them and never again even consider that they might become part of our lives.

I’ve had to do that with chocolate.

Now when I share with people that I can’t eat chocolate, their responses are almost always the same. They can’t imagine a life without chocolate! "How do you do it? I can’t even think about never eating chocolate." But in my case, I have a severe allergy that puts me in the hospital if I eat even a tiny amount. The pain is akin to a heart attack (which is what the doctors thought I was having the first time I had a reaction to eating chocolate). It wasn’t always this way in my life. I loved many kinds of chocolate and ate it with great regularity. But now it’s like poison to my body. I wouldn’t dream of voluntarily eating even a small bite, the consequences would be too great, too painful.

We need to make that kind of final decision with many things in our lives. We need to say, "Never again!" and mean it. We need to turn our backs on those things which hinder us from running the race set before us. We need to throw off those things which hinder including all sin. We need to turn our backs on our old lives and embrace that new life to which the Lord has called us.


Running with perseverance
The Greek word is hupomone and is translated "the characteristic of the person who is not swayed from their deliberate purpose and their loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and suffering" (Strong’s G5281). This is the race to which we are called. It is a deliberate purpose. Our loyalty shouldn’t waver, regardless of whatever we face. Whether we are maligned, persecuted, attacked, or even killed, we are to maintain our loyalty to the faith and to worship of God Almighty.

What’s interesting is that scripture doesn’t demand that we fight for our rights or try to change our circumstances. Rather, the emphasis is upon our response within difficult situations. We are to remain kind, generous, loving, forgiving, patient, and self-controlled. This is a hard thing. And, frankly, it’s easier to judge someone else’s response to their circumstances than it is to remain patient within our own. Patience, by definition, requires suffering and we don’t suffer well. We would rather bring any and all efforts to bear to remove our suffering rather than to remain in that pain for one second longer. And yet, as a Church, we are called to share in the sufferings of the Lord and of other Christians:

"So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me His prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel by the power of God." (2 Timothy 1:8 NIV).

We are called to run with patient enduring in the midst of suffering. We are called to persevere.


Fixing our eyes on Jesus
Who is Jesus? This verse tells us that He is the one who modeled our faith for us through His life here on earth. The KJV says "the author and finisher of our faith." The NIV says "the pioneer and perfector of faith." The Greek word for "finisher" is teleiotes and means "one who has in his own person raised faith to its perfection and so set before us the highest example of faith" (Strong’s G5051). I think about the Lord Jesus who cried out from the cross: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46 KJV), but who then moments later said to the same God, "Into Your hands I commit My Spirit" (Luke 23:46). Jesus who was totally rejected by God so that He could bear our sins but then fully entrusted Himself to that same God, the God who had rejected Him.

It is this Jesus who modeled faith for us in these pivotal moments. Jesus who showed us that we can fully trust God, regardless of the circumstances, that we can fully follow God even in the darkest moments, that we can fully run the race set before us knowing that God’s will is perfect and holy and wonderful!

As Christians we have a high calling and we often forget it. We become so immersed in our own egocentricity, in our own emotions, that we fail to look past that moment to see that we are called to run a race already set out. We are called to live lives that beckon others to follow us. We are called to persevere through this life, casting off the muck and mire, and joyously trusting God regardless of what lies around us.

We are called to be the Church that He intended, a Church that is the light on the hill, the light that cannot be extinguished. We need to determine today, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to become that light so that others might follow us without reservation, that others might join in the race set out before us, that others might follow into the Kingdom of Heaven because our faith is sure and the way is clear.

© 2016 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Modeling

Matthew 28:19-20a

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." (NIV)

As soon as someone becomes a Christian, they should be informed that their primary duty is to become both a student (a disciple) and a teacher. We were never left on this earth to receive blessings, but instead to become a blessing to those around us by teaching them how to obey everything. And the only way we can teach how to obey everything is if we do it ourselves.

Stuart Briscoe, in The Fullness of Christ, writes:

"Men and women born of God, rich in Christ, blessed beyond their wildest dreams, who have failed to develop normally into the ‘measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,’ are tragic misrepresentations of all that life in Christ could and should be." (p. 18).

Part of why this has happened is because we have reduced Christianity to a fast food drive-through window. All one has to do is raise their hand or walk down the aisle, say the "sinner’s prayer" and heaven is guaranteed. We have become salesmen that sell fire insurance against hell rather than true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have failed to understand that being a Christian is work, hard work, which includes learning how to obey, how to grow, and how to teach others what we have learned. And it’s more than simply an obligation which we can conveniently forget. To teach others how to obey is a command given to us by the Lord Jesus Himself: "teach them to obey everything I have commanded you." This wasn’t a command given to only the leadership of the Church or only to the early apostles. This is a command given to every believer. It is what we are here for.

You know, God could have determined that once a person becomes saved they would be transported immediately to heaven. We know that He is fully capable of doing that because He did it twice in history, once with Enoch and once with Elijah. But God doesn’t do that. Instead, He commanded that we stay on this earth and make disciples from all nations.

The apostle Paul understood this mandate intimately. In his early life, as Saul, he was a disciple of Gamaliel, a famous Jewish rabbi. After his conversion (and name change to Paul), he saw the Lord’s command with new understanding. "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1) and "Therefore I urge you to imitate me" (1 Corinthians 4:16). The writer to the Hebrews also wrote: "Imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises" (Hebrews 6:12b).

Part of teaching is more than explaining; it’s modeling. Modeling means to show someone else how to do something. It’s not enough simply to tell how to do it. In fact, simply telling is often not teaching because we can tell someone how to do something and that "telling" can be totally off-base, totally ineffectual.

Years ago, after I first got out of college, I entered a recipe contest. Now understand, at that point in my life, I was not a cook. In fact, I could ruin a box of macaroni and cheese! But the contest peaked my interest, so I whipped out a recipe that sounded wonderful and entered it in the contest. Lo and behold, I won! (No one was more surprised than I was.) But the fact was, this was a recipe I had made up. I had never made it. So when my very proud father asked me to make my "winning" recipe for dinner, it was a disaster. The recipe didn’t work at all! Of course, after many tears later (and in the privacy of my room), the Lord and I had a talk. God convicted me of the sin of passing myself off as someone other than who I was (a good cook) and then told me something I’ve never forgotten: "Don’t share a recipe that you haven’t first cooked."

Of course, the lesson I needed to learn was far greater than simply about cooking. The Holy Spirit was reminding me that I should never teach something I hadn’t first lived, that the finest kind of teaching comes from modeling what I have already mastered.

As believers, our first and most important duty to those around us is to teach them how to obey God’s commandments. But we can’t teach what we haven’t learned ourselves. When the writer to the Hebrews talks about running the race, the passage is explicitly about how we should live as believers.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Hebrews 12:1-2).

Think about a race. In a race, we are doing our best to stay ahead of those behind us. That is the same for Christians. We are growing spiritually as fast as we can so that those who follow us can follow a true course and imitate us as we are imitating those who’ve gone before, including Christ!

Notice the characteristics of this race:

* Throwing off everything that hinders
* Throwing off the sin that entangles
* Running with perseverance
* Fixing our eyes on Jesus

When we learn how to run the race, when we can call out to those around, "Follow me. I know the way," when we can teach others how to obey God’s commands . . . at that point, we will have truly become the Church that God established on this earth, the Church that will one day become His bride.

© 2016 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

We Sin Against God Alone

"Sin is an attitude of heart, common to everyone, which repudiates God’s right to possess what He made, control what He designed, and fulfill what He planned. . . . Forgiveness for sin can only come from God." (Stuart Briscoe, The Fullness of Christ).


I’ve often wondered why King David, in Psalm 51, wrote: "Against You, You alone, have I sinned" (v. 4a) when it was obvious that David’s sin was far more reaching than just against God. David had, through his adultery (and through the immoral use of his kingly authority) sinned against Bathsheba. He had, through murder, sinned against Uriah. He had, through his preference for this new wife, sinned against the other members of his family. He had, through his lies and desire to hide his actions, sinned against the nation. But in Psalm 51, he stated, "Against You (God), You alone."

Stuart Briscoe succinctly hits the nail on the head: When we sin, we rebel against God’s authority, an authority that is not only logical (since He is the Creator), but is foundational to this very creation. God made, God designed, God planned. And yet, we want to rip out of His hands the inherent rights and authorities of possession, of control, of fulfillment and take those rights as our own.

We want to rule what we haven’t created. We want ownership of our lives when our lives aren’t ours to own. We want to make our own plans and let God sit forgotten on the sidelines (or better yet, become invisible). We want to live as if we actually can take credit for who and what we are.

The Internet is filled with articles about us learning to forgive others and to forgive ourselves. But I think that our problems lie directly in the truth Briscoe wrote: "Forgiveness for sin can only come from God." 

When we look to find peace by forgiving ourselves or asking others to forgive us, we ignore the point. Sin always begins when we rebel against God. Everything else is a by-product of that one point. And yet, as believers, how much time do we give to spending time with God, asking for His forgiveness. The Bible clearly teachesthat He will readily forgive:

"The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion" (Numbers 14:18a NIV)

"Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them." (Psalm 32:1-2a NIV).

"You, Lord, are forgiving and good abounding in love to all who call to You" (Psalm 86:5 NIV).

To those who call to You.

The Lord’s forgiveness comes when we call on Him, when we come to Him in prayer and ask Him for forgiveness. He is readily willing to forgive, but He isn’t tolerant. He doesn’t excuse our sin; He forgives it. And that forgiveness comes when we come humbly to the Throne, repent of our sin, and ask for His forgiveness. Forgiveness comes when we recognize, once and for all, Who God is and who we are.

© 2016 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.