The “great cloud of witnesses” given in Hebrews 11 (and all our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout time) ran the race that God put before them, learning to lay aside every weight as they ran; and we too have a race unique to us that we must run as well.
But how exactly do we run this race? Today, I want us to see three things we are told to do in Hebrews 12 that will help us run with endurance the race set before us. We are to 1) listen to testimonies of Christ’s work, 2) lay aside anything that might slow us down, and 3) look to Jesus as we run.
Listen! “Since so great a cloud of witnesses surrounds us.”
Witnesses give testimony, they tell us their experience of living by faith, what it is like to believe God’s promises and trust in Him. If we want to run our race with endurance, it is helpful to listen to the witnesses, those who have gone before and have crossed the finish line.
We listen to these witnesses by reading the Word of God and hearing their lives testify of God’s grace, of His sovereignty and strength for them and His help in their lives. We listen by reading biographies of Christians who have gone before us, seeing how they trusted the Lord and we get to view the result of their life of faith.
The second thing we are called to do is:
Lay aside sin! “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely…” God is calling us to lay aside pornography and self-gratification, put aside sexual immorality and all impurity. These things trapped me for years, hindering me from running my race, tripping me up and causing me to fall flat on my face numerous times.
Question 2. Are you laying aside all forms of impurity so you can run this Christian race?
So, we need to listen to the witnesses, lay aside sin and anything else that hinders us.
The final instruction is this:
Look! “…looking to Jesus, the founder, and perfecter of our faith…”
This “looking” that we are to do is not a passive or casual thing; the word implies that we are to look with a “focused stare.”
If we want to run to the finish and thus win the race, we need to have a relentless preoccupation with Jesus, a planned and purposeful obsession with Him.
And when we fix our eyes on Jesus something amazing and miraculous happens:
2 Corinthians 3:18 AMPC "And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit."