On to chapter 12 and verse 3. This is the word of God. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with a sword, they went about in sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, men of whom the world was not worthy. wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, Let us also lay aside every encumbrance in the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy 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 has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Amen. This is the word of our God. Before I begin the sermon this evening, I would like to just say two or three things. First, I'd like to thank you so much for your warmth and your response to the Word and your listening to the Word this weekend. People don't realize how important that is to a minister. John Calvin said that we should be as actively engaged in the act of listening as the minister is in preaching. which is an astounding statement. But when people really listen, it is a tremendous encouragement to a minister. And I think every minister will tell you that, like the old Dutch divines used to say, you pray me full, I'll preach you full. The more we feel as preachers hunger from the pew, the more freedom the Lord normally gives in preaching. I felt some of that this weekend and I'm grateful to you for your listening. The second thing I want to say is that I was very touched by seeing number 486 this evening. This week I was With my family, which is about once in a decade experience where everyone in the family can come, my brothers and their wives from Canada, one from British Columbia, one from Ontario, and we all met at my mother's house. My mother is facing severe memory loss. She can't remember my father, married to him for 52 years. Those are not easy experiences to go through. She repeats herself every other minute or so. And about the only bright spot in all of this is that when she is awake, she does nothing but read the Bible. And when we gathered around, and I had my arm around her on the couch this week, and all my brothers and sisters around, I said, Mother, maybe we can sing Psalter 140, which is 486, in your hymnal. That is the most common psalter we learned as little children in our church. And she sang every word, every stanza. So you nearly had me choked up singing that tonight, because we choked up this week as she sang, I remembered every word. Actually, she was a little ahead of us at points. I think she was maybe showing off a little bit. saying, I do remember something. And after she was all done, she looked at us sheepishly. She says, well, I guess I haven't forgotten everything. And how precious how precious it is that the things we fill our minds with young people, that's a lesson for you. The things you fill your mind with when you're preteens and in your teen years, those are the things you'll remember for the rest of your life. You fill it with bad music, that bad music will come to haunt you the rest of your life. You fill it with good music to praise God, that will come back to strengthen you for the rest of your life. Teen years and preteen years are the years to store your memory with the things of God. The final thing I just mentioned to you, there are still some books left on the table. And I realize now that there were some under the table, which I didn't mention. I just want to mention to you that there is a series of books for children called Building on the Rock. And if you don't have them, they're 19th century stories retold in contemporary language with prayer points and a Bible chapter to read and Q&A. to be daily devotions for children 7 to 14. And children love the stories. They just won't read them as a daily devotional though. They'll read a whole book in one day because the stories are exciting and they're true. And they help mold children to show them that God is real and worthy to be worshipped. So I commend these children's books to you and pray that you will do much to promote reading in the lives of your children. I want to bring you God's word this evening from Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience 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 is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." If we are going to live fully for Christ, we have to endure to the end. My very dear friend, Jeff Thomas, from Wales, has said to me so often, My greatest fear is that I'll lose some of my zeal and vigor for the gospel before the end. As I get a bit older, I begin to understand that fear. Oh God, keep me on the racetrack. Keep me running. Keep me excited about the gospel. Keep me full of zeal to the end. Don't let me fall. Don't let me get injured and sit by the wayside. lose heart for the living God. And surely, that is the fear of many Christians. If you know your own heart and your own fickleness, as we just heard prayed for by our dear brother David Gilbert, and you know your own weaknesses and your proneness to wander, you will have this fear. In fact, the Bible tells us if we don't have that fear, we probably will fall. So we need the preserving grace of God. We need God's perseverance to the end, that we may persevere to the end. And so, living for Christ fully is something we can never say, I've been there, I've done that, and it's over with. It's something that's lifelong. As Martin Luther said in one of his 95 theses on the church doors of Wittenberg, God would have His people live lifelong repentance. We may say Christ will have us live lifelong fully to Him. But how do you endure? How do you endure when your hands hang down and your knees grow feeble? How do you persevere believing in the absence of anything tangible to confirm your faith? How do you hang on when it seems you're afflicted on every side, when you're persecuted, when you face loss for the gospel's sake? How do you endure when you feel weak and tired emotionally, spiritually, perhaps somewhat depressed, tempted to give up? How do you endure when you look around at the world and it seems to prosper and you have to say with aseph, verily I have cleansed my hands in vain, How do you endure when the afflictions overwhelm you, and your heart seems broken, and everything seems to work against you, and you are discouraged? When God doesn't answer your prayers, how do you, as Winston Churchill put it in one of his great graduation addresses, keep on keeping on? Well, the answer is in our text tonight. We endure as Christ endured when he was tempted to surrender in the battle of spiritual warfare. So I want to speak to you this evening about enduring, about running with patience the race set before us to the end. We want to look at three thoughts with you, simple thoughts. First, its mission What the goal is in endurance. Second, it's manner, how we go about it. And third, it's motives. What keeps us motivated to endure in running the Christian race to the end. Endurance, it's mission, it's manner, it's motives. The author of the book of Hebrews wrote to Jewish Christians who were being pressured to return to the ceremonies, sacrifices, and customs of Judaism. He denounced vehemently such a return as apostasy from Christ and a denial of the grace of the gospel. For this reason, he writes to the Hebrew Christians who are discouraged by persecution Because the non-Christ-believing Jews were persecuting the Christ-believing Jews. Not giving them jobs when job openings came along. Throwing some of their pastors in prison. Marginalizing them socially. Taking away benefits of various kinds. And he writes this series of sermons. That's what Hebrews is. sermons to encourage those discouraged Hebrew Christians. At a conference I was once asked to give an overview of the book of Hebrews and I read through the book and I noticed this theme popping up everywhere like I never noticed it before. The theme of endurance, the theme of keep on, holding fast to your profession. And then I went back and read it again and I counted the number of verses where this theme comes to the foreground. And I counted 96 verses in 13 chapters. Basically what the author of Hebrews is doing is responding to the accusations the Hebrew Christians were getting. Because the Hebrew Christians were being told by the non-believing Jews What kind of a religion do you have anyway? You don't have a high priest in his fanciful robes, performing colorful ceremonies and rituals. All you guys do is you worship in a plain building with some guy behind a podium and speaking some dull, dry words. What's the excitement of your religion? Where's your high priest? You have nothing. Your religion is a sham. The book of Hebrews is a response, saying, our religion is not a sham. We've got THE high priest, to whom all the other Old Testament high priesthoods were pointing. A high priest that's better than the priesthood of Aaron. A high priest that's better than the priesthood of Melchizedek. We have THE high priest, and here's the climax of the book, Hebrews 4.14-16, Jesus, the Son of God, whose pastor penetrated into the heavens and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, Therefore, hold fast your profession. For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Which means we definitely have a high priest who is touched with all our trials. For he was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace to find grace and mercy to help in time of need. So that's the theme of Hebrews. Be encouraged, Hebrew Christians. You have THE High Priest, the one to whom everything else was pointed. That's chapters 1-9. And then chapters 10-13 are all these imperatives that flow out of this. Telling them in so many ways, don't give up. Don't curl up in a ball and say it's hopeless. I've had this huge disaster in my life. There's no future for me. No, no, no. Look to Christ. Endure in the Christian faith. Perhaps some of you need to hear that message really badly tonight. Maybe you've gone through trials in your life that are unspeakable. Maybe you even think nobody knows the kind of trials I've gone through. Here, I've tried my best, and I'm afflicted on every hand. I'm marginalized. I'm rejected. Even those I love seem to reject me. I'm out of touch. I'm not in the inner circle anymore. I feel like no one understands. My friend, I'm here tonight to bring you the Word of God. Keep on keeping on. Endure. Run the race set before you. And you see, that's what chapters 10-13 are all about. Chapter 11. The author of the Hebrews sets before us all these Old Testament saints. You know the chapter well, of course. By faith, Enoch. By faith, Abel. By faith, Abraham. By faith, Joseph. All of these Old Testament saints lived by faith. They persevered through great trials. They were sawn asunder, we read. They were stoned. They were tempted, slain by the sword. They continued. when there seemed to be no hope. And they continued without even seeing or at least knowing the cross to come. Well, they had it by prophecy, but you Hebrew Christians, you're ready to give up and you live on the other side of the cross and you know what Jesus has endured for you? Are the Old Testament saints in the lesser era and dispensation, are they going to outshine you in faith? They're not even perfect without you. Look at it. It says, God having provided some better thing for us, that they, verse 40, without us should not be made perfect. The Church of All Ages needs New Testament believers who can look back on the cross that has been accomplished and we of all people should endure and be strong and live by faith and live fully for Christ who has come. and who has now risen from the dead and is at the right hand of God and keeps us by His Godhead, Majesty, Grace and Spirit as we saw Friday night. Why would we of all people give up? Why would we of all people not keep on keeping on? And so in all the first three verses of Hebrews 12, you actually see this word endurance. At least it's the same word in Greek. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Verse 1. Remember him who endured the cross. Verse 2. Consider him who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. Verse 3. You see, endurance is the mission. We must endure. We must keep on keeping on. The word endurance in the Oxford Dictionary means to hold up, to remain, to continue under pain without flinching. to live fully for Christ no matter what comes our way. That's the mission. And that mission is to be engaged in like a race. A race that is run with patience. Now obviously the author to the Hebrews has in mind here, not a sprint. but a marathon, the Grecian Marathon Games, in which people would come and fill the stands. Thousands of spectators would come to watch the Grecian runners. It was a big thing. It was a long thing, sort of like the French bike-a-thon that goes on for days and even weeks. That's what these Greek racers did. People ran for miles and miles, steadily, deliberately, actively, every day. passing the baton on to another. And so the mission is to endure, but to endure by running the Christian race steadily, deliberately, actively, every day. How do we do that? Well, we do that by reading and searching the scriptures. We do that by personal intercessory prayer. We do that by reading sound literature and letting it imbibe our life and penetrate our souls. We do that by fellowshipping among the saints. We do that by Sabbath-keeping. We do that by evangelizing others and reaching out and living antithetically to this world. We do that by being good stewards of the gift God has given to us. We do that by using all the spiritual disciplines entrusted to us, the means of grace. Every day you feed your body. You don't say tonight I'm going to take out and then I won't eat until Tuesday. At least I hope you don't say that. Spiritually, You must not think that even though you have this wonderful day we call the Sabbath, that that means, well, from Sunday night to the following Sunday morning, I don't need any spiritual food. You've got a race to run this week, this coming week, brother, sister. And when you run that race this coming week, you need to be in the Word daily. You need to be fellowshipping with the saints. You need to be in prayer. You need to be reading Psalm literature. Now, we don't set a whole bunch of rules about each item, but these are the means you've got to use to run the Christian race, not passively, but actively, to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing it is God who works in you, through these means, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. So that's the mission. Now, what about the manner? How do you really engage in this and make it work in your own life? Well, our text tells us. It gives us both a negative and a positive manner. Let's do the negative first. Basically it's this. Rid yourself of everything that hinders you. in the race. Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience to race that is set before us. Now the sin that so easily besets us here is often misunderstood. I misunderstood it myself. I used to think that that meant what our forefathers called your darling sin, or your besetting sin, or your bosom sin, or that special sin that you have particular weakness that you easily fall into. But actually, the Greek makes it plain. It's not sin, of course, but it's every sin. It's every infirmity. It's anything that trips you up on the racetrack. Everything that trips you up, that slows you down, is a problem. And so what he's saying is, set aside not only those blatant sins, which we all know are wrong, and I'm not going to focus on those tonight. You know they're wrong. You know you have no business doing them. For example, you know you've got no business committing adultery. You know that you've got no business even, I mean Jesus says it plainly, even flirting with a member of the opposite sex as a married man or a married woman. You know that's completely out. I trust you're putting all those things aside. But what about other things? Things that will hinder you? You see, here's the problem. Well, here's the picture. The picture is, these are Grecian runners, and you know how the Grecian runners ran, they ran with just the barest stitch of clothing on, nearly naked we would say. But they did that because they didn't want any paraphernalia on them to slow them down. And we can get so much stuff in our lives, and so many things that we've got going, and such busyness, and such overwhelming concerns, that we get slowed down in running the race. We take too much paraphernalia with us. Especially we in the West, in our affluent society. It's unbelievable. Fifteen years ago, when we moved into our house, the people helped us move, and it was great, everything was going well, and all of a sudden, I found my wife crying. I said, what are you crying about? She said, I just can't believe you have this much stuff. I don't know what to do with all this stuff. That's true, isn't it? We've all got way too much stuff. We've lost the simplicity of life. As you know, we train men from different countries. Not so long ago, I met a couple of men coming from Malawi. They bring all their life's belongings when they come to us. Everything. On the plane. They can all fit on the plane. Everything they own. So we're standing around the carol at the airport and I'm saying, and all the baggage comes out and he says, oh no, I'm so sorry. Your baggage didn't arrive. I guess we'll have to go and figure out where it is. The guy looks at me and says, no, no, my baggage is right here. He's got this little broken wooden, thing that was a carry-on. I said, yeah, but I mean, you brought your other stuff too, right? No, no, he said, this is all we have. All they owned in life could fit into one carry-on. I'd go on a four-day trip and I'd take more than that. Do you understand? Do you understand how simple life can then be? That's not the whole answer. But they've got so many fewer things to trip them up. We do. And we often think, well, as long as I don't indulge in any sin like flirt or commit adultery or engage in pornography, I'm okay, I'm running the Christian race. But we forget about our stuff. About our excessive time we spend, I don't know, you fill in the blank. Perhaps you surf the internet too much, or you give an undue proportion of your time and heart to certain relationships, or to professional duties, or to recreational pursuits, or to the love of things, or to the cares of this life, or you spend too much time worrying. Worrying is defined as sitting in a rocking chair and going nowhere, and rocking away. Or you spend too much time just wallowing in unbelief or in fear. When I was a young man, my life was very entwined with basketball. When God stopped me and called me to the ministry, right at that point, quite frankly, I had a great future in basketball, but I had to give it up. It was entangling me. It was impacting my pride. It was getting in the way. I couldn't study theology like I wanted to. I was called to the ministry. I was playing three hours basketball every day. And finally it became too much for me. I said, I can't do this. I have to give it up. And people said, are you crazy? I wasn't crazy. I'm really glad I gave it up. So I'm here to ask you tonight. What do you need to cut out in your life? What's tripping you up in your relationship with the Lord? My dear friend Stuart Allyot from England. By the way, he's not legalistic whatsoever. He wrote a book called The Way to Godliness. This is what he said. For some of you, talking about this text, this will mean cancelling your subscription to the Internet, getting rid of your TV, or stopping reading certain sorts of books or magazines. For others, it will mean giving up football or favorite sport, or even ending unhelpful friendships. We're all vulnerable, and here's the point, but we're not all vulnerable in the same areas. So you may play basketball and it will be fine for you. I've got to be careful. I could easily get very involved in watching pro teams play basketball, but I deny myself that. I don't want it to trip me up in my walk with the Lord. You see, things that are not necessarily sin in themselves can easily become sinful for us when they hinder us in running the Christian race. As John Owen put it, sin is always at our elbow, and it always wants to get back the lost territory. It compasses about. It clings to us. It comes out onto the racetrack with us, and hangs on our neck, and clings to us like clothing. And we need to lay it aside. We need to be aware of sin. We need to be aware of Satan's devices. We need to hate sin with holy hatred. We must not dumb sin down. We must not trivialize it. We must not marginalize it. We must kill it. Sin is disastrous. Sin takes our eyes off our Savior. Sin interrupts our relationship with God. Sin is anti-God. Sin makes us worldly and selfish and proud and unbelieving. Sin is spiritual insanity. As we heard this morning, it's a slapping in the face of Jesus. A kissing. A hypocritical kissing of Jesus. You know, my dad was still alive. I asked him one day, I said, Dad, what do you think is the greatest problem in the Christian church today? You know what he said to me? A worldliness that doesn't see sin as sin anymore. You see, the difference between a believer and an unbeliever is that An unbeliever clings to sin. A believer experiences that sin clings to him. He doesn't want to sin. If you're a believer, you don't want to sin. You don't like sin. In a way, you hate sin, but are you earnest in fighting against it? Are you laying it aside? Are you pushing away in your life everything that entangles you in this race? That's what the author to the Hebrews says. This week we had Conrad Mbewe in our seminary preaching a sermon for us. It was a wonderful sermon. Conrad Mbewe is a great man of God. In Zambia, a great preacher. He's actually called, you probably know that, the Spurgeon of Africa. When he was in South Africa one time doing a conference, there was a man who came up to him and said to him, Conrad, why is it that people in Zambia seem to be so much more holy than people in South Africa? You have to know that South Africa is not nearly as affluent as America, but a lot more so than Zambia. I need an answer. And the person asked the question three times, finally said, do you really want to know the answer? Are you really prepared for the answer? The person said, yes. He said, look, in Zambia, our people just have dirt floors. Farmers come out of the fields in the evening. There's no entertainment there. There's no television. There's no internet. Nothing. All we've got is our Bible. We eat a simple meal and we sit down and we discuss the Bible. This is our daily life. And so there's a much greater godliness because they use the means. They don't get tripped up with all this other stuff. I know this can sound hard to some of you and I'm not here to tell you what you have to cancel out I'm just here to tell you the Bible says let us lay aside every weight in the sin which so easily besets us and you have to work it out between God and your soul what is getting in your way and be serious about it my friend when you get serious about it you will experience that when you do lay aside certain things that are getting in the way, you will be blessed. You will be. You know, one of our greatest problems today in the Christian life is that we don't deny ourselves hardly anything, do we? Now in America, we're reaching the point in many churches, I'm sure not this one, but many churches, we actually don't even deny ourselves on the Sabbath anymore. Go to church in the morning, then out golfing in the afternoon, going to restaurants, living it up the rest of the day, and we no longer even dedicate that one day out of seven, which the Lord said is my day, and take your delight in the Sabbath. We don't even do that. We don't even worship Him from morning to night. We say, well, if we put an hour in in the morning, then the rest we can have. Instead of seeing the wonderful joy of the Sabbath, Isaiah 58, 13 and 14 call the Sabbath a delight. What a gift, what a privilege we get to set aside one day where we do nothing but worship God. It's a gift of God and we're throwing that away. So we come to the point where we think we can be Christians without denying ourselves anything. How far removed are we from the Reformation? John Calvin once said, self-denial is the first step of grace in the Christian life. It's the beginning. We've got to get rid of sin. Now, the Holy Spirit has to help us to do this, of course. And you can't do it apart from His help. I mean, monasteries are evidence of that, aren't they? People go to the monastery to get rid of everything. They just pray to God, think they can get rid of sin, but they take their own wicked heart with them. So I'm not promoting that, of course. But what I'm saying is we should treat sin always as a forward intruder. If we are Christians, we saw that Friday night, we should reckon ourselves alive with the sin and dead to sin that we may be alive unto Jesus Christ. I wonder, I really wonder, do you hate sin? Are you in holy war against sin? Remember how George Bush used to stand in front of the cameras and say, this slightly exasperated look on his face, we are at war! Let's not forget we're at war! We're at war with terrorism! Because the liberals acted like we weren't at war. Sometimes it frustrates me, and I'm sure you're a pastor as well, that so many in our congregations act like we're not at war with sin. Like we try to cozy up to the world as close as we can and not get burned. We play with fire. If you want to seriously run the Christian race, lay aside the weights The sin which so easily besets you. You never will run a race successfully if you just do it negatively. The negative may remove certain things, but that's the problem with many religions in the world. It's negative, it's guilt-producing, but there's nothing positive to fill in the vacuum. When you have nothing positive to fill in the vacuum, what's going to happen eventually, as you see through monastery-type religion, Sin rushes in where that vacuum is. Every true religion in this world, well there's only one true religion, but every true Christian in this world who lives this true religion experiences in one way or another that the positive dominates the negative. A true Christian does not, is never able to say, well I wish I could give up my Christianity for the world. No, you've got more in Christ then you have to deny yourself, then you have to lose by giving up this world. So the positive is of course Jesus Christ. He is the positive. Look at verse 2. The way we run the race is we set aside the sin which always besets 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 that sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. So he's the Alpha and he's the Omega. He's the beginning and the end. He's our model runner himself. And he's our coach. And he's our savior. He's our pioneer. He's our perfecter of faith. He evokes our faith. He stimulates our faith. He perseveres with us in our faith. He will not allow a single one of his children to fall to the side of the road because he's the finisher of the faith of his runners from origin to completion. He is everything. That's the beauty of running the Christian race. We're always looking to Jesus. When I ran track in high school, our coach used to say to us, as you come around that last bend, don't look back to see where the other runners are. You'll lose a little bit in your stride. I'll be standing at the end of the race. Look at me. Keep your eyes on me. And you see, that's what Jesus says to us as we run the Christian race. Look at me. Look at your future. Look at the end goal. You will be with me forever. Run for my sake. Run for my glory. Persevere. Keep on keeping on looking to me. That's the manner. Remembering Jesus is always the supreme exponent of faith. But now thirdly, what are the motives? What are the motives? Well, in our text we actually have two big motives. But the first motive we can break down in three parts. The first motive is Jesus himself, the example of Christ. He is exemplary for us. But he is exemplary in three ways. First of all, we are motivated by what He endured. Do you notice that in verse 2? Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross. So when you run the race, you look to Jesus and you remember what He endured. And that will motivate you. And we've been looking at that a bit in the last few days. Also this morning, Gethsemane. But let's go straight to the cross tonight. Jesus hung naked in the flame of His Father's wrath for six long hours on the cross. No eye of mercy looked at Him and said, Jesus, we understand. He was rejected by heaven and earth and hell, but He endured the cross to the bitter end. He descended into the essence of what hell is. When He cried out that great cry of dereliction, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? This was the most climactic moment of suffering ever endured. The nadir point of suffering. An hour so compacted. An hour so infinite. An hour so horrendous as to be seemingly unsustainable. An hour in which he was overwhelmed. He couldn't even call God Father at that moment. It wasn't that he didn't know that God was his Father anymore while he began the first word of the cross with, My Father, and then the last word with, My Father. But when he came to the nadir of his suffering in that fourth word from the cross, you see, he cried out, My God. He didn't lose the sense of the Godness of God, but he was so overwhelmed with the sins of his people. that his sonship, as it were, receded in his consciousness. He was more aware of his sinnership in bearing the sins of you and me than he was of his sonship. He felt your sin and my sin, dear believer, so that in his self-image he was not the beloved in whom God was well pleased, but the cursed one, vile and foul and repulsive and an object of dread. And that is what God thinks of sin, of your sin and my sin. Oh, the price our Savior had to pay. No angel now to strengthen Him. No breaking open of the heavens now and hearing the great voice, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him. No drop of the cup removed. No grace extended. No favor shown. No comfort administered. God is only present as one displeased. As one bearing down. upon His Son with profound wrath. Every detail of the cross declares irrationality, the heinousness, the dread character of sin, and yet Jesus endured to the end. And if He endured all that to the end for you, will you not endure to the end for Him? If He died for you, will you not live for Him? In all, Jesus' huge cross bearing makes all of our crosses look rather small. How shall we not endure the cross? How shall we not be motivated? My friend, you think you can't endure another day? You can. You can. You can endure right now by looking to Jesus and remembering what He endured and be motivated by what He endured. Secondly, we can be motivated by what he rejoiced in. Notice what the text says, who for the joy that was sent before him endured the cross. You see, Jesus on the cross, even in the cry of dereliction, knew that the cross was not his terminus point, not his end point. He knew. And He rejoiced even under the cross that He would be the victor in the battle with the powers of evil. That He would be resurrected by His Father. He would be taken home to glory to receive His promised reward. The joy that was set before Him was the joy of His own homecoming. The joy of reunion with His Father. The joy of being crowned with honor and glory. And having all things put under His feet. It was the joy of bringing many sons to glory. It's the joy, even now, in His heart. of that great day when he will resurrect everyone from the dead and he'll bring also you, dear believer, and say, Father, Holy Father, here am I and all those whom thou hast given unto me. And present them without spot or wrinkle before his Father as the grand assembly of the elect elected unto life eternal. Oh, the joy! sat before Him, motivated Him to endure. And shouldn't that same joy motivate us? Jesus rejoiced knowing that He would gain more than He lost in glory. And so we should go forward on our way rejoicing, knowing that the best is yet to be. Knowing that we will gain more than we will lose. Knowing we have a glorious future. Her future is to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ forever. There was once a young lady in her 40s. She got seriously ill. She's on her deathbed. She began to hallucinate a little bit. She had never been married. She had always desired to be married. Her father was sitting at her bedside. Suddenly she turned to him. She said, Father, I'm about to be married. He said, oh my dear. He tried to calm her down. He thought she was hallucinating. No, no father, she said, you don't understand. I'm going to be married to the Lord Jesus Christ forever. The best is yet to be. One of my favorite illustrations is, maybe you've heard it already, but of William Montague in the 19th century. You remember That was a century of great aristocracy. And William was in that line. Aristocrats, his father was an admiral. There was a notable surgeon who came to him and said, I think I can do a surgery that could help your son, William, who's blind, to recover sight. William had fallen in love with a young lady who was engaged to her and about to be married. William agreed to undergo the surgery. But he had to have bandages for two weeks over his eyes and he said well let the surgery be done then two weeks before my wedding day because father I want you to be my best man and when my bride walks down the aisle I want you to come forward and unwrap the bandages because if I can see I want the first thing I can see to be my bride. And that's what happened. It was an aristocratic audience and people were kind of tense and nervous of course what was going on. The bride walks down the aisle William's father comes forward, unwraps all the badges, and he can see. And in this aristocratic audience, you're not supposed to say anything out of the ordinary at a wedding. But William cannot contain himself. And he says, You are more beautiful, my dear, than I ever imagined. And I think it will be something like that, don't you? When we enter into glory and we see Jesus. As Samuel Rutherford said, he'll stand at the gate with a soft cloth in His hand and wipe away every tear from my eye. And I'll behold Him. And I'll gaze not at my garments, but I'll gaze into my bridegroom's face. And I'll be married to Him. And I'll be sinless in this perfect marriage. Oh, can I take a few afflictions here? For the joy that is to come to be with Him, to praise Him, to center on Him, to be done with all my sin and all my selfishness and all that wretched pride, and to be focused wholly on Jesus, and there in glory to have everyone else be wholly focused on Jesus. To have all my God-fearing friends be perfect. What communion we will have! Here we come, we say hello, we say goodbye, we get to know each other a little bit, and there's so much we don't know, so much more we'd like to know, but we don't have time. But there, there the joy is yet to be! We'll have endless time to speak to one another of the wonders of our God, Oh, the joy that is set before us should motivate us to endure in the race. And then thirdly, we're motivated by Jesus in an exemplary way, not only by what He endured and by what He rejoiced in, but by what He despised. Notice what it says, despising the shame that is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. I just find this amazing. There is nothing so despicable as to die alive on the cross. And to do that on the outskirts of Jerusalem. They wouldn't even hang the bodies inside the city limits because it would be a curse on the city. So they put it on the main thoroughfare so people could walk by and look at Jesus. Mothers walking by, for example, little kids saying, look at that man up there, don't ever be like him. is an object of shame. Now, shame is a big deal in our culture, but it's not nearly as big deal as it was in Middle Eastern culture. You need to know that. That's true of many places in the world today. Western culture, civilized Western culture, operates mostly by guilt. If I really want to get you to do something, I could motivate you by guilt, couldn't I? And you could motivate me by guilt. But in many Asian cultures and Middle Eastern cultures, it operates by shape. Let me give you one quick example. This will help you understand. First time I had a publisher that wanted to translate one of my books into Korean. He wrote a friend, a Korean friend in the States. And the Korean friend wrote me. But the address of the publisher was on the bottom. So I thought, well, I'll just save that friend some trouble. And I responded to the publisher. A little while later, the friend came back to me and said, well, how come you're not responding to me? I said, oh, I'm sorry, but I wrote to the publisher. He said, no, no, you didn't. You did. You wrote directly to the publisher. I said, yeah. No, no, no, no. In our culture, you don't do that, he said. I said, what do you mean? Well, if you were to say no, you see, you would shame him. So you have to come back to me, you see. And then I would communicate the message, and there would be less shame if you said no. And we go, huh? This makes life very complicated. But in their culture, you see, that's the way it is. And still today, I mean, we've got a number of Asian students in our seminary, and one of the trickiest things is I'm president of the seminary, so they have great respect for leaders. And if I say something to them that they don't agree with, they can't say they don't agree with it, because that would shame me in some way. So they'll nod their head yes when they really mean no. It's very confusing. So, yes doesn't necessarily mean yes. You see, because they operate by shame. Shame is huge. That's the way it was in the Middle East. And Jesus despises the shame. Despises the shame. That's amazing. He's the Son of God. He's the Sinless Almighty. He could have destroyed all his enemies in a moment. But what a lesson for us. What an example for us. You know, you young people, you get influenced by your peers at school, don't you? Or other friends. Even down to what you wear. My daughter doesn't want to wear something that's out of style. Two years out of style. Dad, your tie doesn't match your shirt anymore. That's out of style. That's the wrong kind of tie. We're so caught up with what other people think. But you know what, you're in high school perhaps, and you're so concerned about what that friend, that peer thinks of you, and two years later, you're in college, you don't even see that friend anymore. It doesn't matter. But one day we will all stand before the holy judge of heaven and earth. What he thinks of us matters, my friend. Don't live by that shallow fear of man. Live by the fear of God. the childlike fear of God. You know what John Brown said? John Brown gave the best definition of the fear of God I've ever read in my life. He said, the fear of God is to esteem and value the smiles and frowns of God to be of greater weight and value than the smiles and frowns of men. People are going to poke fun of you for being a Christian in high school. Let them poke fun of you. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You don't stand on the day of judgment in front of them. You stand on the day of judgment before the living God. Despise the shame and keep running the race. Remember in Pilgrim's Progress, I hope you've all read that book. If you haven't, make sure you do. It's a great, great Christian classic. But remember, Christian, at the beginning of the way, he puts his fingers in his ears. The neighbors are saying, come on back. They're shaming him. You're going crazy. They're telling him he's going insane. They're trying to shame him in the coming back. But he puts his fingers in his ears and he says, life, life, eternal life. And he runs onward. That's how you are to live. People try to shame you for being a Christian. Just put your fingers in yours and run on. Live for the Lord. Be motivated by despising shame and living for the gospel's sake and living for Christ's sake. Well, those are the three exemplary motivations to run the race that we learn from Jesus. But there's one more thing in our text, a second big motivation, and that's in the first part of verse one. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Let me just develop that a few moments and then I'll be done. What does this mean? Well, remember, we're picturing a racetrack, we're picturing runners going around the racetrack, we're picturing people in the stands. Who is in the stands in this picture? Well, in the stands, says the author of the Hebrews, are all these Old Testament saints. Now, not physically, of course, they're in heaven, but figuratively. And he's saying, Here they are, Hebrews 11, Enoch, Abel, Noah, so on, so on. All of these people, we read the last few verses of Hebrews 11, or Pastor Gilbert did, and here's all these examples, people that were tempted, people slain with a sword. All these people are in the stands, all of them who walk by faith, and they're cheering you on. They're saying, we persevered to the end, you can persevere to the end. That's the picture he's painting. And isn't that true still today? I mean, you read the Old Testament. Jesus marveled at the faith of Abraham, taking his son early in the morning. I still remember, as a teenager, when I read about Enoch in Genesis 5.24, how that verse struck me. I was 17 years old. Enoch walked with God. He was not. I thought, Lord, that's what I want. I want to walk with you. Show me how. How did Enoch do it? Enoch motivated me. You see, You get motivated to run the Christian race by considering not only Jesus, but also considering the saints of all ages who are in your stands, cheering you on, motivating you by their own life story, their own example. But the amazing thing today is that we have more than the Old Testament saints. We've got the New Testament saints too. Hasn't Paul motivated you when you read what he endured and he kept on going? What about John, the apostle of love? Hasn't he ever motivated you? And then we've got 2,000 years of church history. I have my doctorate in church history, so I've got tons of... My stands are bulging with people from 2,000 years. But so are yours. I'm sure John Bunyan's in your stands. At least I hope so. And John Calvin. My stands are also many women. Ruth Bryan, 19th century great godly woman. Mary Winslow, another one. They're in my stands. I hear them speak to me through their writings still today. But how about loved ones who passed on to glory down to our own generation? My father's in my stance. I still hear him say to me, son, you can't preach Christ enough. He's cheering me on. Again, not physically, but literally, but in my mind. Who's in your stance? Living people are in our stance, in a way. They're on the racetrack with us, but they're also part of our stance, so to speak. This church, if you were the only one in church here tonight, it would have a whole different pathos. You'd feel very different about this service. But you're surrounded by others. You know each other. And you know other people sitting here, godly people. Some of them are your mentors. Some of them are in your stands, cheering you on. Maybe it's your pastor. Maybe it's an elder. Maybe it's a seasoned child of God. Maybe it's a peer for your teenager. Maybe you admire some other teenager sitting here who's really walking with the Lord, and they're in your stands, and they help motivate you. Maybe it's somebody in your family. My wife is in my stands. Oh, what a godsend she is. You know, sometimes I'm on my way to church and I'm overwhelmed. It happens to me three or four times a year, usually. I just overwhelm. I feel like I can't preach. I give a thousand dollars that morning, not to have to go on the pulpit, and I get very quiet and I'm just driving along. She looks at me and, you got it again, don't you? I say, yeah. Kids are quiet, things are a bit tense. And she leans forward and she puts her hand on my wrist and she says, it's okay. He'll help you one more time. That's all she says. One more time. She motivates me. She's in my stance. You know, my mother motivates me. You know her simplicity. One of my relatives said to me recently, why does God keep mother alive? She seems to be of no use in this world. And I said, oh yes, she's useful. I see her awake and all she's doing is reading the Bible. She's motivating me. When I have to do my father's funeral, I'm so overwhelmed. I didn't know if I could make it through. How am I going to get up there and do my own father's funeral? But the whole family was motivating me. The whole family said, you have to do it, Joe. You have to do it. The last person I saw was my mother. She looked me straight in the eyes. This is what she said. She said, honey, remember when you get up there now. Just remember one thing. We can't wish dad back. He's better off. Wow. That gave me so much strength. It motivated me. I could get up and preach the word of God. My own mother said we can't wish him back. I preached on his ex. These are they who have come out of great tribulation and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. You see, people motivate you. And this is wonderful. This is how God wanted it to be. Who's motivating you? You see, surround yourself with witnesses. That's what you need to do. Invite people into your stands. Look out for those godly people whose lives you admire. Go over and talk to them. Sit at their feet. Let them become in your stance and be an influence on you for good. Run the race set before you by looking to Jesus, what He endured, what He despised, what He rejoiced in, and by looking to the cloud of witnesses all around you. And keep on going. And soon it will happen. Soon it will happen. The angels will come, cast in the sickle, and call you home. And oh, to hear in that day, out of free and sovereign grace, well done thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. That's the hardest text for me to read in the Bible, I think, without weeping. What a day that will be. The race will be done. You will enter into the joy of the everlasting marriage with the Lord Jesus Christ. What a homecoming. What a homecoming that will be. Let me close this sermon with two illustrations. The first is this. A few years ago, you know, Gerald Ford died. President of the United States, and Gerald Ford was a homegrown Grand Rapids boy, where I minister. And Grand Rapids is kind of proud of Gerald Ford. Probably the biggest tourist thing we have is the Gerald Ford Museum in Grand Rapids, and a lot of people go there. It's a pretty big deal in Grand Rapids. When the day came that his body, because he wanted to be buried in Grand Rapids, was flown into the Grand Rapids airport and the hearse went down the highway, there was astonishingly a huge amount of people on both sides of the highway. all the way from the airport to the museum. Our family was out there too. There was a little boy on the other side of the highway. He had a sign bigger than himself and he was just kind of going like this with it. It just said in big letters, Welcome Home President Ford. I got to thinking about that sign. This is amazing. This boy is so happy to welcome home. a dead body. And imagine all these people paying respects. And when the hearse went by, everything was quiet. Everybody was welcoming home President Ford. Then I started thinking, what would it be like on the Great Day? When we get welcomed home, when we get welcomed home alive, we get welcomed home in soul and body. If we can welcome home with rows and rows of cherubim and seraphim, millions upon millions, and all the redeemed made perfect, what a homecoming! Oh, run the race! For far the best is yet to be. You see, a child of God is the best of both worlds. He's got the best of this world, because he has communion with God, and that's far more than this world ever offered anyway. And he's got the best of the world to come. My last illustration is to you who are not ready to enter the next world. Some of you sitting here tonight are in the stands all right, but you're not in the racetrack. You're in the stands, perhaps some of you judging people of God, judging Christians in their faults and blunders on the racetrack. But you're not on the track yourself, you're not running. That's a huge problem. If you're not on the racetrack, you're on your way to hell, my friend. On your way to hell. Would you please let that sink in? You know, Christianity is either worth everything or it's worth nothing. Isn't that right? If it's all a hoax, it's worth nothing. But even then, Christians are happier than non-Christians. But be that as it may, if it is true, if it is true, it's worth living completely for Christ. To the very, very end. Because He's everything. If it's true, He's everything. So we must live fully for Him. But the good news for you tonight is you can still get on the racetrack. Not by your own strength, but he can put you there and he offers it to you. In the 19th century, northern Scotland, there was a major train line that crossed the Great Ravine and the viaduct that bridged it was one of the wonders of the north. One night there was a terrible storm that raged in that area and the viaduct broke and the stream under it turned into a raging torrent. By morning, the track was laying in the valley. A northern shepherd boy who tended to his sheep awoke early in the morning and with horror he saw what had happened. He ran up the embankment in time to stop the coming train. He waved to the conductor to stop. The conductor just waved him away and went right on. The boy did the only thing he could do. He ran to the track and threw his body across the track. The conductor slammed on the brakes and ran over the boy and stopped just in time. The people on the train were sleeping. They were jolted awake. They ran out to the front of the train. They got to the front and saw the mangled remains of the shepherd boy. They were instantly quiet. They looked down into the valley, they were shocked. Nobody said a word for a long while, until one old man said, that boy there, he saved my life. And you see my unsaved friend, you're going 90 miles an hour in this life, and you're sleeping the sleep of death, and you're about to descend into the abyss of destruction. But tonight, Jesus Christ throws himself across the track of your life. Will you hit the brakes? Will you consider your ways? Will you repent? Or will you just go over into the abyss? Oh, I would to God that you would not rest until you could point to the cross and say, that God-man there, he saved my life. Amen. Great God of heaven, help us not to spurn the invitations of thy word, to reject the infinite condescending love of the gospel. Please let every unsaved person in this place tonight consider his ways and repent and believe and flee from the wrath to come into the arms, the open evangelical arms, the open gospel arms of the Lord Jesus Christ. And please let everyone who is on the racetrack, who is running the race, every believer Help them to run, so run that ye may obtain the high prize of the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Please let us be faithful, deliberate runners, day by day, using the means of grace, the spiritual disciplines, looking to Jesus, being motivated by Jesus, cutting out sin, casting it away, and looking to the cloud of witnesses running the race set before us. Lord, help us to fulfill the mission, to know the manner