Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2007 : August 26, 2007

Theme: Run for Your Life

Church year occasion: Pentecost 12

Running -- some people love it; others hate it. Those who like it point to the quiet time you can spend with yourself as you keep in shape. You can have a sense of accomplishment, especially if you finish races or even marathons. Others point to the fact that you wear down your joints with all the constant pounding and even that it's a bit dangerous running on the road with cars so close. Those are helpful excuses to keep them from running, which they probably just don't want to do anyway.

Well, actually, everyone in the world is running a race right now, even if they don't know it. It's called the race of life. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that our Christian lives are much like a race. But you as a Christian have two good words of advice to follow from Scripture as you run for your life. Look at your surroundings and focus on the finish. And as we study this portion of Scripture, you will find out how important those words of advice are for us.

My uncle always told me, "Look before your leap," and as you run for your life, the writer to the Hebrews is telling you basically the same thing. First of all, look at your surroundings while you are running. As you take a look at your surroundings, you notice the crowd. They are on the sidelines cheering you on. But as you look a little more closely, you see that you recognize many of them. There's Abraham, the father of believers, and King David and Samuel and Ruth and a whole host of others who have come to show you that your race in this life is not in vain. Our text says that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. These are all the Old Testament examples we have of great faith. They ran their race and won. Hebrews 11, the chapter before our text, gives a whole list of heroes of faith. Among those heroes of faith are many who were victorious as they lived. They are described as those who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. (Hebrews 11:33-34) Notice that they did all these great things through faith. But there were other believers who didn't fare so well on earth, but suffered greatly for their faith. The writer describes them as those who were tortured. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated. (Hebrews 11:35-38) They are described as a cloud of witnesses. The word in Greek for witness is marturus, which gives us the English word martyr. And it doesn't really surprise us that these witnesses of the truth about God and his Son, Jesus Christ, also ended up dying for their faith, because if there is one thing in this world that is worth dying for, it is our faith. That probably won't happen to us, but we will still endure ridicule from others for not living like them or acting like them or talking like them. But when that happens during our race, we can look around in Scripture and remember all the faithful believers who went before us and follow their example.

It's a good thing we have them as good examples to follow, too, because as we look around us on our race we also notice other things -- things that want to trip us up as we run -- especially our sins. As you run, you don't want to be wearing long, baggy clothes that drag on the ground because eventually they will get tangled around your legs and trip you up and cause you to fall. In our text it is described as sin that so easily entangles. Those sins come in a variety of sizes and shapes, and for every Christian they are different. Some Christians will be able to jump right over certain sins like laziness and pride, while others fall down every time that sin attacks them. But the ones who weren't affected by pride or laziness might be tripped up by the love of money and prestige in this world. All of these sins have something in common though. They all start out small, with just a thought. But they can grow and grow and, if left unchecked and unrepented, they can even take us off the path of our race and get us sidetracked and running the wrong way. Then we lose our saving faith and get what we deserve because of our sins -- eternal death. No, this race isn't just an easy 100-meter dash to the finish line; this race is the marathon of marathons. The word that the inspired writer uses for race here is agagwn, from which we get the English word agony. This is a struggle. How can we even think we can make it to the finish line without giving up and falling prey to Satan and our sins? How can we "run with perseverance the race marked out for us"? By remembering who marked out this race for us because he is waiting at the finish line. It's Jesus.

As we run the race of our lives, we are to look at our surroundings and discover our situation -- a hopeless situation, if we were left to our own strength, even with the cloud of believers cheering us on. So we need to look up and focus on the finish. Verse 2 in our text says, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

There is a story about a little boy who was on a train out West. It was a hot, dusty day, and very boring for a little boy to sit for hours watching the scenery go by, but the boy sat patiently mile after mile. An elderly lady felt sorry for him, and asked, "Aren't you tired of the long ride, dear, and the dust and the heat?" The little boy looked up brightly, and smiled, "Yes, ma'am, a little. But I don't mind it much, because my father is going to meet me when I get to the end of it." This is basically what Christians are assured of -- that heaven is a place where we're sure to be greeted and embraced after a long, sometimes arduous journey.

The path is straight for us to follow already because Jesus was the one who paved the way for us. He "endured the cross, scorning its shame." He ran the race we are running, but he never got tangled up by any sins. He never went off in the wrong direction. He was always about his Father's business. He ran straight and persevered -- all the way to the cross. He knew what the cross held for him. The scorn of men. Ridicule from the sinners he was there to save. Physical pain and agony as nails and thorns pierced his beaten body. But as horrible as those things were, they were nothing compared to the scorn of God. God turned his face away from his holy Son when he was on the cross because his Son was covered with all the ugliness of the world's sins. Jesus had every sin plastered to him, but he persevered. How could he do it? What kept him going, even as he knew the pain and agony that awaited him, the suffering he would endure that can't even begin to imagine? What kept him going was you. You! If ever think that you don't amount to much of anything and are worthless, if you've ever thought that your life with all its problems and setbacks and failures doesn't amount to much of anything and is worthless, look at the high price Jesus put on it. He thought you were worth enough to die for. He shed his holy lifeblood for you. And that's how he saved you.

We are told that he "sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." Jesus endured the cross, but he was victorious. He destroyed the hold that the devil and our sins had on us as they tried to trip us up. Jesus took them all away. It's amazing. Even though by ourselves we would have run dead last and never even gotten a sight of the finish line, yet Jesus has already won the first place trophy -- eternal life -- and has given it to you as a completely free gift. It is as if you had done it all yourself in God's eyes because you have Jesus' righteousness covering you and your sins.

Then how is it that we still grow weary of running this most important race in our lives? Life is hard. There are some days when you just don't want to get out of bed -- not because you're lazy but because you don't know if you can make it through the day without breaking down. You might be thinking of all the times you missed an opportunity to give your son or daughter a hug or a word of encouragement, but instead were too busy at the office or with your own life. Now it's too late because they're out of the house and out on their own, and you regret the days you failed them. You have days when you think of how you failed as a wife or husband. You can't have those days back either. And for some, that is made worse by your spouse having already left this world. You have days when you look at how you've been living and realize that above all you've disappointed your Savior, the very One who loved you so much that he gave everything for you. You look at the times you forgot about him and his sacrifice for you, when you let the sins of your life tangle you up and trip you up with not much of a fight at all. Oh, it's very easy to grow weary in this race as you are running for your life.

Several years ago during a Monday night football game between the Chicago Bears and the New York Giants, one of the announcers observed that Walter Payton, the Bears' running back, had accumulated over nine miles in career rushing yardage. The other announcer remarked, "Yeah, and that's with someone knocking him down every 4.6 yards!" Sometimes we feel like that, don't we? It makes life almost unbearable. We want to just quit our Christian race.

But that is again where Jesus comes in. Not only was Jesus the one who lived and died to forgive us our sins and give us his righteousness and rise again to assure us that our sins are forgiven, but Jesus is the only one who can give us the strength we need to live our Christian life and faith. He is "the author and perfecter of our faith." He is the beginning and ending of our faith. Jesus knows what it's like to lose a loved one. He knows how sorrow and pain can stop us dead in our tracks. He's been there. He underwent the same sufferings that we do. But he persevered. He kept going. He loved you that much. And that love hasn't ever changed. Our final verse reads, "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." He is much more than the examples of the believers who have gone on before us who are cheering us on from the sidelines. Jesus is with us every step of the way. His Word and sacraments are his promise to us that his love for us will never change.

Don't lose heart as you run the most important race of your life. Don't give up! The finish line is in sight and Jesus is waiting there for you and is running with you every step of the way as well. No one summed up this word of Scripture better than the Prophet Isaiah where he says, "Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." (Isaiah 40:31)