Hello again and welcome to the program. This is our second in a series on running the race that is set before us. Hebrews chapter 12 and verse number one says, let us run with patience the race that is set before us. God has a race for every Christian in this world. If we were saved just to go to heaven, Then we should have gone there one second after we got saved. What's the sense of hanging around this whole world? Well, there's a lot of sense in hanging around. God has a purpose for every Christian. Let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Paul the Apostle said, I therefore so run, not as uncertainty. The phrase, let us, occurs 13 times in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 4, 1, let us therefore fear. 4, 11, let us labor. 14, let us hold fast. Verse 16, let us therefore come boldly. Chapter 6, verse 1, let us go on. 10 and 22, let us draw near. 23, let us hold fast. 24, let us consider one another. And then in chapter 12 and verse 28, let us have grace. Verse 13 of chapter 13, let us go forth. And verse 15, let us offer the sacrifice of praise. And then the verse we're looking at, Hebrews 12 and one, let us lay aside every weight and the sin and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. In Hebrews 11, it says we are to do three things, first of all. Number one, lay aside every weight. Number two, end the sin which does so easily beset us. And number three, let us run with patience. the race that is set before us. So it begins by saying we're to lay aside something, and the first thing it says to lay aside is every weight, every weight. Now, notice that's plural, and it's a weight, it's not necessarily a sin, it would just be something that would hinder us in the race. And then second, it says we are to lay aside the sin which does so easily beset us. Notice that's not plural, that's singular. It's a besetting sin and we know right away what that is. We don't have to think about it. There's something that hinders us. The devil will find some weak spot and he'll go for it. So we need to lay aside every weight, not necessarily sin and the sin which does so easily beset us. And the third thing we are to do is run the race that is set before us. We each have an individual race to run. So in verse number one it says, wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Now the first word we have here is the word wherefore. It's usually translated therefore. The word therefore is found 1,237 times in the Word of God. When we see the word therefore we need to ask ourselves what it's there for. Well it's referring to the previous chapter which talks about all those people who had a lot of faith. Now it goes on to say, wherefore seeing we also are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. That word also has been translated likewise 13 times. Wherefore seeing we likewise, like the people in the previous chapter, we are encompassed about with a great cloud of witnesses. We are the only Bible that most people are reading. It's very important that we live according to the Word of God, because they're going to judge the Bible by our Christian lives. First of all, it says, let us lay aside every weight. Lay aside, that phrase has been translated cast off in Romans 13, 12, where it says a night is far spent The day is at hand, let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. And then it says run with patience, the race that is set before us, that word patience has been translated endurance. Paul the Apostle said in 2 Timothy 4, 7, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.