Let Us Run
Download MP3If you would, turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 11. We'll pick back up in our study in the Gospel of Mark next week. But with us commissioning out Trinity and also with us having an elder retreat this week in which we're gonna be praying through some of the future things of this church, and really just where we are as a church, the Lord just kept redirecting me back to Hebrews 11. And so I wanted I wanted to be faithful to that. So we're gonna look at Hebrews 11.
Jeffrey Heine:As you know, or maybe you don't, but it's called the Hall of Faith or the chapter of faith. And it's which the author of Hebrews, he lists all of these people of faith. We don't have time to read through the entire chapter, but I'm gonna begin reading in verse 23. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for 3 months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
Jeffrey Heine:He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. By faith, he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch them. By faith, people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land. But the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.
Jeffrey Heine:By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for 7 days. By faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sore sword. Were made strong out of weakness.
Jeffrey Heine:Became mighty in war. Put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment.
Jeffrey Heine:They were stoned. They were sawn in 2. They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth. In all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had promised provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.
Jeffrey Heine: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, 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. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. This is the word of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:Thanks be to God. Please pray with me. Father, I pray that through your spirit, you would honor the very reading of your word and that even now it would begin doing its its work in us, stirring up in us affections to you, affections to to join in the race and to run. Run hard after You, Jesus. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Jeffrey Heine:But, Lord, may Your word remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So a number of years ago, I went to go visit my brother. He lives in the house that we grew up in.
Jeffrey Heine:And so when I was over there, it's in Alpharetta, Georgia, and I'm going through the garage. We're helping clean up some things, and I came across my old Michael Jordan basketball. It's it's a black rubber ball. I couldn't believe it was there. It had been so worn down that you could actually see the little rubber band, like straps around it.
Jeffrey Heine:And I just thought, you know, well, let's see if it holds air. And and so I I went ahead and I pumped it up, and sure enough, it held air. It shouldn't surprise me. Air Jordan. So just so held it in there.
Jeffrey Heine:And and so I thought, well, I gotta shoot some baskets. And I went out to try to find my old free throw line that I had painted. And sure enough, it was super faint there on the asphalt. And so I, like, you know, put my foot up to the line. I spun the ball.
Jeffrey Heine:And when I did that, the strangest sensation came over me. I mean, I was completely overwhelmed with emotion. I mean, I had the the chill bumps, the hair standing up. I mean, it was crazy. I had no idea what was going on, and so I just I just sat down, and my eyes were getting misty.
Jeffrey Heine:And as I was thinking about it, this is what hit me. Of all the places in the world, this is where I called home. This one spot right here, this is where I came from. More than the house, more than our front porch, more than my old room, that small little patch of driveway right there was my old home. And so many events in my life have actually happened right there.
Jeffrey Heine:Before the driveway was ever poured, I can remember as a little kid, my dad, he said he had bought some land way out in the sticks, out in the country in this place called Alpharetta. And, and so we used to go there as when I was a child, we would go there on our Saturdays and we would just explore the land. Sometimes we would go out there and we would camp, and we would camp right on top of the hill, right where that driveway would someday be poured. After 10 years of doing that and waiting, we finally began to build the house. And my dad let me put stakes down as to where the driveway would be.
Jeffrey Heine:And so I I marked them right there. When the bulldozer came and was clearing the path as a 12 year old boy, I ran out there and I was like, okay, hold on. It's like, you gotta make sure this is completely flat here because I'm gonna put a basketball goal here, and I want it to be perfect. And he did. He made the most perfect place to play basketball.
Jeffrey Heine:First thing I did after the driveway, asphalt was poured, I put up a basketball goal. I hung a light over it so I could play in the night, and also I could shoot free throws before school every morning. I can remember the first date that I had with Lauren. I was 16, a junior in high school. It was Thanksgiving night.
Jeffrey Heine:And she came over, and we were gonna take a walk down to the lake. And, it was dark, so I held out my arm. And she put her arm in mind, and I walked her down the driveway. I've had 2 car wrecks in my entire life. 1 of them was in the driveway, and I totaled my car.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a long story that I will never share with you. I can remember, some joyful moments like seeing my brother. He was he was kind of the prodigal son. And he left one time. He just went off to Alaska without, my parents' permission.
Jeffrey Heine:And he lived there for quite a while. And he hitchhiked home at one point, and I remember seeing him walk up the driveway with a big thick beard, walking stick just grinning as the prodigal brother returns. We also had a number of sorrow happen on that driveway. My my father actually had a heart attack, and he died on that exact spot. The night before my wedding, 20 guys kidnapped me.
Jeffrey Heine:And, they took me to the drive, and they made a circle around me. And they brought out a deck of cards. But this time, the deck, the the face of the cards all had Lauren's face on it. And they said, you have to pick 5 cards. And behind each one of these cards is something we're gonna do to you tonight.
Jeffrey Heine:And I chose poorly 5 times. My brother, once he flew home from Australia because his heart was broken in a relationship and he just wanted to talk. And you know what we did when he got home? We went out on the drive, and we just shot baskets together, and we just talked. And I can remember every time I'd visit my mom and I'd leave home, my mom coming out to that spot on the driveway, and she would just wave goodbye to me.
Jeffrey Heine:And I could go on and on just talking about that that small little piece of land there, that driveway, and why it's had such a a significant place in my heart throughout my life. And to this day, when I go back there and I pick up the ball and I spin it in my hands, I'm still flooded with emotion. Because I get this clarity in my life. I begin to see all the major events in my life that have shaped me, that have made me who I am, the way that God has shepherded me all my life, guarded me all my life. And then I reach to this one point here, and I get this clarity as to what he's been doing.
Jeffrey Heine:And I ask the question, what's next, Lord? In light of all that you've been doing in my life, and you've brought me to this one moment, where from here? What am I supposed to be doing? That's exactly what the author of Hebrews is doing here. We're getting to the climax of this letter in chapter 12.
Jeffrey Heine:And, and God has taken this author of Hebrews to a certain place where he is flooding him with all these memories, with all of these emotions of of what he's been doing throughout his people throughout history. And suddenly, as a follower of Jesus, the author of Hebrews, his life gains great clarity. He looks at the people of God, not as some, objective historian, but he looks at them as their story is his story. It's what God's been doing in his life to bring him to this moment. And so he thinks back, if you were to go through the whole chapter, he goes back to the very start, Adam, and he says, by faith, Adam offered a better sacrifice than Cain or Enoch who never died.
Jeffrey Heine:Noah who built this giant boat, even though it had never rained. Abraham who left his home and by faith was even willing to sacrifice his son. Isaac, who blessed Jacob and Esau. Jacob, who blessed each of Joseph's sons. Joseph, who spoke of the exodus way before the exodus happened when he said, take my bones out of Egypt.
Jeffrey Heine:Moses, who refused to be known as the son of pharaoh's daughter, but instead, he chose to be mistreated with the people of God rather to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. People of God rather to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Rahab, who out of faith welcomed the spies, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel, those aren't just names. Every one of those names evokes a memory, evokes a story of their faith and God's faithfulness. Those who were delivered for their faith, delivered from lions and flame and sword.
Jeffrey Heine:Some were even raised from the dead. Those who were not delivered for their faith, but persecuted or killed for it. Those who were tortured, flogged, imprisoned, stoned, sawn in 2, killed by the sword. Some became poor wanderers of the earth of whom the world was not worthy. And so the author of Hebrews, he's thinking through all of all of these people, all of these events, and he's he's just flooded with emotion as he's thinking through all the things that have molded him, that have shaped him, that has led him to this one moment.
Jeffrey Heine:And as he's thinking through these things, he asks the Lord this. He's like, Lord, as a child of your kingdom, in light of everything you've done throughout history, to bring me to this one point, what's next? Where from here? What's next? And the Lord answers, run.
Jeffrey Heine:Run. Considering everything that I've been doing up to this point, everything that has led to this moment, run. Join these saints in the race. Don't grow numb to my workings in this world. Don't grow tired of doing good.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't settle down to the passing pleasures of this world. Don't keep your head down and just try to play it safe. Get in the race and run. I want you to set your face to the wind and run. Yes, you might be kicked down.
Jeffrey Heine:Yes, you might be persecuted. Yes, you might be killed. But I want you to run till your last breath. Run. It's the focal point of the entire letter of Hebrews.
Jeffrey Heine:The whole letter's been slowly building up to this climax in chapter 12, and run is the focus of that chapter. What the author of Hebrews is saying in this moment is we need to wake up, church, wake up from the myth of the Christian life being a Christian walk. It's not a walk, it's a race. It's not a walk in which we just idly stroll through life, numb to what the Lord wants to do with us. We wake up, we pursue him, and we pursue him hard.
Jeffrey Heine:We don't walk through life as if there's no sacrifice, there's no struggle, as if there's no passions for the Lord that really matter. So we're in a race and there's a definite finish line in sight. If you remember, when we went through the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon, he talked about hevel, vapor or mist. And he said, Our life is hevel. It's just a little mist, a vapor.
Jeffrey Heine:It's here one moment, and it's gone. And the author of Hebrews, he's reminding us, what are you gonna do in this little moment, in that little beautiful vapor of a life? Because God did not breathe life into you. He did not become flesh and blood to die for you so that you could sit around and endlessly scroll for the rest of your life. The book of Hebrews was written to a church that in many ways resembles the American church.
Jeffrey Heine:It's the one that was getting older, established. It's getting complacent. They'd become comfortable. They were beginning to drift without focus. We looked at that last week when we saw Hebrews 2, and we read, therefore, pay much closer attention to what you have heard, lest you drift from it.
Jeffrey Heine:They were drifting. Not only that, but in Hebrews 5, he says, though by this time, you ought to be teachers, You actually have someone in need to teach you. You're longing for solid milk or solid food, but what you need is milk. I mean, you get that? He's saying, you think you're maturing, but you're not actually growing in Christ.
Jeffrey Heine:You're digressing. You're becoming an infant again. And I can't even give you solid food. I have to just give you a little bit of milk from the bottle. And so the author of Hebrews, he wants to stir them up by a way of reminder because these people were coasting.
Jeffrey Heine:They said the prayer. They walked the aisle, and now they put it on cruise control. And that coasting has now led to drifting. And so he stirs us up, reminding us that we are part of the people of God and what God has been doing through people for for centuries and that we are made to do greater things than just coast through life, living out some bland, safe form of what we call Christianity. The word race here in verse 1 is the Greek word agona.
Jeffrey Heine:You don't have to be a Greek scholar to know what that means. Agony. Agony. Agonizing. Saying that this race we're called to, it's gonna be strenuous.
Jeffrey Heine:It's gonna be hard. It's not easy. It could take all of your energy, all of your effort, all of your time. It could take everything you have, possibly even your life. But know this, you uniquely of all the people on earth are equipped to do this because you actually believe in the resurrection.
Jeffrey Heine:We can joyfully spend our lives because we know what waste waits for us on the other side. We uniquely can can do this task. We can run this race. Hear me. I do not know what your family history is.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't know where your ancestors came from. I don't even pretend to know your family of origin and all those things that have shaped you. But I can tell you your heritage, and it's right here. Hebrews 11 is your heritage. You're part of a great long line of saints.
Jeffrey Heine:You're part of the the history of God's people. And they ran the race, and so are you. So how are we to do this? How do we run? One of the first things I want you to notice here is in verse 1, there's this phrase, set before.
Jeffrey Heine:Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. It's a simple point here, but we are to be a people who move forward. The race is not beside us. The race is not behind us. The race is in front of us.
Jeffrey Heine:And let me tell you why this is important. I have seen so many Christians just living off of past spiritual successes and experiences. We're like Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite. I wasn't sure if that reference still worked. You guys you guys know the movie.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, Uncle Rico living in the, you know, the trailer. He's he's out in the field. He's setting up the video camera. He's out there just throwing balls to, to the llama or whatever it is out there in the field, trying to relive the glory day saying, man, I could I could throw that ball a mile. He's living in the past, but not only that, he's living in an embellished past.
Jeffrey Heine:And when I look around at Christians, that's often what I see us doing. We're we're living off not just past Christian experiences, but past embellished Christian experiences, convincing ourselves that we really did these great things, that we really had these amazing spiritual successes. But embellished memories of past faith will not sustain us in the present. I have found that I often say this. I mean, this is me included here.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not just you. This is me. I'll say things like, well, the Lord is teaching me this. Well, the Lord is really leading me to do this or, you know, saying these things to me. And the only problem is this, that was years ago.
Jeffrey Heine:It was years ago. It was all part of some distant path. We might we might, at one point, have been an amazing woman or man of faith a few years ago, but the question is, who are we at this moment? That's what matters. Who are we this how about this week?
Jeffrey Heine:How about today? Because we cannot live on bread that is weeks old. We see this in scriptures, daily bread. Daily manna is what we need. And can I just confess this?
Jeffrey Heine:As the as the founding pastor here at Redeemer, this is especially dangerous for me. Rarely does a week ever go by in which I'm not asked. Would you tell me the story of of how y'all started Redeemer? It's a beautiful story. I mean, it's a story where, had to risk a whole lot, had to take some pretty large steps of faith to do this.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not easy at hard at all. It was just a it was a struggle. It's it's a beautiful story. It just happened 16 years ago. That was 16 years ago.
Jeffrey Heine:The question is, am I taking those same steps of faith today? Or do do I or do you see past spiritual experiences like trophies you can bring out and show people and brag? Look look at who I was. Look at what I did. Past spiritual experiences and acts of faith are not supposed to be trophies.
Jeffrey Heine:They're supposed to be stepping stones. So it could keep moving forward into bigger and greater things of faith. So I have to look myself in the mirror and be like, what is the Lord doing today with me? Am I running even harder now than I was 16 years ago? So we run the race before us.
Jeffrey Heine:Verse 1 also says that we are to lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely. Well, throwing aside that sin that clings closely, it's easy easy to understand, not easy to do, but it's easy to understand what he means. We're to cast off sin. But what are these weights he's talking about? My girls, they have said this several times about men, said, you know, the more men wear, the better they look, which is a true statement.
Jeffrey Heine:The more clothes we have on, the better we tend to look. And yet there are times when I am working out, times when you're at the gym, like I will take off my shirt. I wear shorts. I don't wear that much because I actually I need freedom of movement. I don't wear a suit and tie when I work out.
Jeffrey Heine:And women, you don't wear a dress when you work out. We wear clothes that are appropriate to what we're doing, and it needs to give us this freedom of movement. That's what the author of Hebrews is saying here. He's saying we gotta cast off the things that restrict us from doing the things that the Lord wants us to do. Can I say that coming to an understanding of this changed my life?
Jeffrey Heine:Because I realized I've been asking the wrong questions. Usually, I would always go into a situation. I'd ask, is this a sin? Is this is this doing this? Would it be considered wrong?
Jeffrey Heine:And that's a good question. It's just not nearly enough. A better question is, is me doing this, will it help me run faster? Or will this bog me down? There are weights we need to be throwing away, not asking is this sin, but will this help me run?
Jeffrey Heine:So so don't ask, you know, things like, is it right or wrong for me to watch this new Netflix series that's on? I mean, I know it's, like, rated MA 18 for, you know, strong violence, graphic sex, and language. But, hey. What isn't these days? So, wrong question to ask.
Jeffrey Heine:Is it right or wrong? Question is, will this help me run? Will this help me run? Will dating this person help me run faster? Will spending money on these things help me run faster?
Jeffrey Heine:Will taking this job or moving into this neighborhood help me run faster? Look at all the things in your life and not ask is this sin or not sin. Just ask me, is it is it freeing me up, or is it bogging me down in my pursuit of Christ? And the author is telling us of Hebrews, he's saying, hey. If we see weights, cast them off.
Jeffrey Heine:And if I were to be completely honest with you, I would have to confess this, that I have spent the majority of my life pursuing things that will bog me down. Maybe you have to. And the only thing that's really cost me is my joy. So we cast off those weights. It'd be wrong of me to to end this message here as, like, kind of a pep talk.
Jeffrey Heine:Get out there. Go do it. Run harder. Pull yourself up your bootstraps or or lace your Nikes and go run Because you gotta hear me. You can't do this.
Jeffrey Heine:You absolutely cannot do this. You can't make yourself into a better person. You cannot conjure up the faith needed for this. You can't. This passage is crystal clear that it's Jesus, not you, who gives faith.
Jeffrey Heine:It's Jesus who perfects your faith. I mean, to be blunt, if you could do this on your own, you wouldn't need a savior. If you could just get rid of sin, get rid of weights, you wouldn't need Jesus, but we need Jesus. Even the great saints that we read about here, they didn't have the strength to do this. We call this, you know, the the hall of faith or the chapter of faith, but it just as easily could have been the hall of shame going through these names.
Jeffrey Heine:You could have had Abraham who lied about his wife, Sarah, not once, but twice. Jacob who lived an entire life lying and deceiving people. Joseph, he was a spoiled brat. Moses, who was a murderer, had a short fuse. Gideon, who had so little faith, he had to keep asking the Lord to perform sign after sign.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's not forget about King David who committed murder, adultery, lied to cover it up. None of these people are witnesses to their own strength. They're actually witnesses to this, that God uses their weakness as a platform for his glory. That he could take such weak, pathetic people in this race. He will strengthen them, and he will take them to the finish line.
Jeffrey Heine:That's what their lives testify to. They couldn't run-in their own strength, and you cannot either. You look to Jesus. Verse 2 here says, you look to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith. That word founder is a really interesting word.
Jeffrey Heine:It's the Greek word. The time it's used outside of scripture is actually to describe Hercules, half God, half man. He was an arkagos. In scripture, it's used translated a variety of ways. You'll find it translated as author, leader, captain, champion, or here in Hebrews 12 as founder.
Jeffrey Heine:If you have the ESV, it might be translated as another word if you use a different translation. The reason it's so hard to translate and there's all these different words used for it, it's because it's a really full rich word and and it's hard to to connote that meaning in just one word. But if I were to do it, I would say probably the best translation we have of archigos is hero. Hero. I think that pulls together a lot of things.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus is our hero. So as we're running this race, we're to look to Jesus, our hero. And by hero, I mean that he's already the one who's run it, and he ran it perfectly. He is our example, and he is also our savior because we can't run it. And he comes and he rescues us.
Jeffrey Heine:He is both our example, and he is our savior. He is our hero. I ran cross country in high school, hated it. Basketball coach made us as a form of conditioning. I came not in last, but close to last every race we ever did, And our team won 1st in almost all of them.
Jeffrey Heine:Didn't know that cross country was a team sport, but thankfully it is. And we won because we had the fastest guy in the county by far. And you only take the the score of, like, the top 3 or 5 people. I can't remember. So my score didn't really matter.
Jeffrey Heine:All I had to do was finish. And this guy, he he was my hero. I aspired to try to be like him, but I couldn't. There was no way I could run that fast. But thankfully, his time counted for me.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, he he was my example, but he was also the one who rescued me. This is Jesus. He's the one who runs the race for us. And I'll end with this. Do you know what motivated Jesus to run the way he did?
Jeffrey Heine:And if this doesn't set you on fire, I don't know what will. We read it in verse 2. There was something foot put before him. There was this carrot dangled in front of him. It's why he raced the way he did, ran the way he did.
Jeffrey Heine:Says it was for the joy that was set before him. He endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Joy was set before him. That's why he ran. I used to think that that joy, that carrot that was out in front of him was that he would someday be glorified.
Jeffrey Heine:But that's not the case because he already had glory before he ever came to this world. He also, he had perfection. He enjoyed a perfect relationship within the Trinity with God, Father, Son, and Spirit. He already had all of that joy, all of that glory. There's only one thing that he did not have before he came to this world, and that is us, the joy set before him.
Jeffrey Heine:He didn't want to have all that glory apart from us, but he wanted us to forever bask in that glory. So the joy that was before Jesus was knowing that he was redeeming us and that we would spend eternity with him. Doesn't that make you wanna run the race? Doesn't it? Jesus ran it so he could be with us.
Jeffrey Heine:We are His joy and He is our joy, strengthening us in this race and also waiting for us in glory at the finish line. Pray with me, church. Thank you, Jesus, for being our hero, our example, and the one who strengthens and rescues us. I pray for every person here, we would, ask ourselves, are we on the sidelines or are we racing? Are we killing time or are we running hard after you?
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus, would you, through your spirit, ignite something in this moment in each of us to commit ourselves of running hard after you for your glory and for our joy. We pray this in her name, Jesus. Amen.
