Hebrews chapter 12, please, in your Bibles. Hebrews chapter 12, while you're turning, let me extend my thanks to Mr. Greer and Session for inviting me to come along and to preach the Word of God. I can assure you it has been my privilege to be here in this church throughout this week to stand up each night confessedly with fear and trembling, literally, but there's been nothing like this to be with the Lord's people around the Lord's Word. I especially have been grateful for the times of prayer before the meetings. Each night I have to tell you that God drew very near to me and touched my own heart, overwhelmed me, overwhelmed me. with His grace, strengthening me in the inner man so I could come and preach to you. As I said last night, I'm used to preaching to around 30 people if everybody's out, including cats and dogs and everything. So to come to a congregation this size is a bit daunting, but Christ each night has stood beside me and I thank Him for it, for helping me along to bring the Word of God to you. And I want to thank those of you who did come night by night through all the cold and the wind and the rain and sat here to listen so patiently to the Lord's Word being brought. I trust, no I can say I know, that God has done a work of grace in many of your hearts. I know that. And I am fully convinced that the work that He's done will go well beyond this conference. He's begun a work. He will carry it on as He promised. Sad for me in one sense to come to the end, but I've got to work back in America. I've got to go to and the family responsibility is there, but it's been great to be here with you. And we thank you for your Ulster hospitality in every way. It's been a great time to be here. One final time, Hebrews chapter 12. We'll begin reading in verse 1. 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. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Amen. God add His blessing to that reading from His Word for His name's sake. Now would you please once again bow your head and your heart with me tonight around the Lord's throne and now ask God to open up a way for His Word. Ask God to give you ears to hear what the Spirit of God has to say this evening. Let's all pray. Loving Father, and our eternal God. We thank Thee for Thy grace. We thank Thee for Thy power. We thank Thee for Thy truth. And we thank Thee for the Spirit of God who comes and administers all of those things and many more to Thy people, who comes and attends the preaching of the Word and bears witness with that Word in our own souls. And tonight, Lord, our need is just as great as it was last night and the night before that and so on, but Thou dost know that right well. We tell Thee not, Lord, to inform Thee, but just to confess to Thee that without Thee we can do nothing. We pray that Thou wilt once again draw close to us. Come and sit down beside Thy people. May there be that individualizing power of the Word of God tonight. We'll not think about somebody else. We'll not think about someone beside us or someone in front of us or behind us, but we will sense that the Lord has come to deal with each one of us individually. In one sense, Lord, it will seem like there's no one else in this room, but our soul in Thee. We pray, Father, in heaven for liberty in the preaching. There be unction as well in the hearing of Thy word. Let this be a word, our God, tonight that will be as it were a seal of all that has transpired through Thy truth, through Thy grace this week. In Jesus' name we pray and for His glory alone. Amen and amen. Many years ago I sat in the living room of a woman who had been saved by that point in time over 40 years. She had served on the mission field in Africa for about 10 years and she had been a pastor's wife for over 35 years. I had known her all my life. She was one of those who babysat me while my mother and father worked full-time jobs. She was always a pleasure to be around. My memories of her are always good. She always loved to speak about the Lord and she did it with a gleam and a glimmer in her eyes and a holy joy in her heart. She certainly had a very well-known, bright, joyous testimony among those who knew her. But there she was in the autumn of her life, sitting there in her living room with tears flowing down her cheeks because she was so troubled, so upset, troubled by her sin. Her sharp tongue, her impatient spirit, and even feelings of resentment toward God for her present situation, which was very trying. She said she had tried so hard to fight against these sins, but she found herself failing time and again. So much so that she wondered if she was a child of God at all. As I was speaking with her, I thought about the Apostle's words here in verse 2 of Hebrews chapter 12. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. The Apostle has just called upon these Hebrew Christians to put off every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset them, so easily slows them up in the race. so easily trips them up in this effort to be like Jesus that we've been looking at for a number of nights. To run with patience that race. That is not easy. To run with patience the race. If you knew anything about the kind of running that he was describing in that day, These were the first Olympians. When he said run the race, it was not a hundred-yard dash. It was not a five-mile. It was a marathon like you can't believe, the marathon of life. It's not easy. The Christian race is not child's play. It's solemn and serious business. It calls upon every Christian to give all that they have to press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, no matter how difficult life is. Those words were written by the Apostle Paul, who knew what it was like to be in trouble. Trial on top of trial on top of trial. one discouragement after another. Yet he said, forgetting those things which are behind, I pressed toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. He did not let his circumstances, he did not let his battle with his flesh, which he calls the wretched man we saw on the first evening, he did not let that get in the way of running the race, fighting the fight with patience. This is the way, by the Spirit's power, that we're going to make spiritual progress in looking like Jesus Christ. That even though we are sinning saints, we can be victorious saints. But it will not be without much effort. But the question that plagued that dear woman to whom I was speaking that day many years ago and the question that so often plagues the child of God in running the race is how? How can I do it? How can I put off these sins that trip me up? How can I overcome the lusts of the flesh? The lust of the eyes and the pride of life. How can I conquer my sharp tongue and my short temper? I feel so weighed down by my troubles, by my sins, by my temptations, by my trials. I feel like I'm not even making any progress in this race. Any advancement in likeness to Jesus Christ? How can I get this patience, this patience which seems to be so elusive to me, right when I think I have a handle on it, and the next time someone that would normally get under my skin, I think I'm going to have a handle on it and speak calmly to them, yet it doesn't seem they get three words out of their mouth and I am irritated to the nth degree. and I lash out. How? Brother, tell me how that can be done? Perhaps that's been a question that you've been asking as we have met night by night and as the Lord has brought us to the myriad of His Word this week. As we have seen what manner of men and women we are, as the Holy Spirit who is called in Scripture the finger of God, as God has put His finger on various things in our lives that are hindrances to us, that are holding us back in our efforts to be like Christ Jesus, We've been asking this same question. Let's all admit it tonight that the standard that God has set for us is high. And would we expect less from God than the highest standard? Do we actually think that God should be lowering His standard? Remember what Paul said? I delight in the law of God. I don't have any problem with the law. I don't want, when you delight in God's law, you don't want God to change the standards. You don't want Him to bend the rules for you because of your troubles, because of your weaknesses. Would you actually ask the Almighty to lessen His requirement? I hope not. Not if you delight in His law. The Spirit of God said, the Lord Himself said, Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy. I'm holy, you be holy. Jesus said to His disciples, Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. The standard is high. The God who set down in His Word what we are to be, how we are to live, what we are to do as we live this Christian life, as we make this pilgrim journey, as we fight this fight, as we run this race, also told us how we are to do it. We have not been left to ourselves. You have not been left to yourself. God has not left us up to figure out how we are to overcome this world and this flesh within and overcome the devil or to take the same idea in the text before us tonight. He has not left it up to us how to figure out how to run the race with patience and cross the finish line. In this last message of our Bible conference, this theme of sending saints, I want to speak as long as the Lord's Spirit gives me liberty. I want to speak on running to win the crown. Running to win the crown. I said last night at the end of the whole message, if I can sum it up, it's what happens after the final amen that what really matters. What happens in your life, it's what you do with the truth that God has given you from His Word that really matters. Because you have to go on running the race. Not only so, it's running the race to win the crown. One day at a time. First, please look at me with me. The Christian runner's preparation If you're going to run to win the crown, you've got to look at the preparation. Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us. The allusion, of course, that the Apostle is making is what the Greek runner would do in preparation to run the race. He would take off any extraneous clothing. Anything that would impede him, anything that would slow him down that might trip him up, he got rid of it. So he could run freely at full speed. The application to the Christian is quite obvious. You don't have to be a Greek exegete to know that. We all have sin. that we need to put off in order to run this race of faith and win the crown. The apostle said, notice, let us, he includes himself, among those who had this weight of sin, who had these tendrences, let us lay aside, put off. Anything and everything that would hinder us as we seek to run the race to win the crown, as we seek to live each day more and more, more and more, and more and more like Jesus. Paul had the same struggles that we have. Indeed, I would say he had struggles on a level that we know nothing about. because God gave him an insight into the requirements of his law that set out for him how holy this God is. And you see, the more you see how pure, how holy God is, you see more of what really is required by what is holiness. And it becomes something very internal, something very spiritual, not the nice little set of do's and don'ts as we looked at in this past week. He had struggles. He speaks of weights. Let us lay aside the weight. And then he speaks of sin. I conclude, therefore, that they're not the same thing. The weights are not the sin. That hinders us in the race. Lay aside every weight. The word simply means an impediment to anything that would hinder us. Get in the way. Slow us down. hurt us. Paul says that in order to run the race we must immediately abandon and carefully avoid anything and everything that would hamper us spiritually, that would grieve the Holy Ghost, that would quench His work in our lives. We are to Lay it aside to put it off. I've got a question for you for those of you who have been here throughout the week. I want to know something. I want to know first, has the Holy Ghost put His finger upon something in your life this past week or things in your life that you say, the Lord has been convicted me and that has got to go. I have got to lay that aside if I hope to be more like Jesus. Now I want to know the second question, have you laid it aside? I want to know, have you put it off? I want to know, have you actually taken steps? You've taken steps. You've dealt with the hindrance, the weight. If you haven't, you're playing with fire. When the Lord speaks, when He puts His finger upon that in your life, and you feel that conviction, and you know it's God saying, deal with this. This is coming in between you and between me. It is hurting your walk in life. It's affecting your growth in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Son. And you don't deal with it. It becomes much more difficult the next time. Everything sinful must be put off. And as I've already pointed out, Paul is making a distinction here. These weights, I take it therefore, these weights that are to be laid aside are not necessarily sinful in themselves. Indeed, they may even be commendable. But when they become the focus of our lives, when we're not doing what we're told to do in verse 2, because we're focused upon something else as we seek to run the race, when we give them place, these pursuits, instead of giving place to pursuing this race, then they become weights to us. It's our duty to be conscientious, for example, at work. our business, our job. We're supposed to be hard workers and shame on you if you have a reputation where you work as being lazy. If you say you're a Christian, one of the worst things that you can do is be lazy at the workplace. They expect higher of you because you profess to be a child of God. Therefore, they expect you. They expect a lot of work from you. The standard is high. Matter of fact, they expect more of you than they would of the law. But hey, that's how it is folks. That's reality. So I say shame on you if you have a reputation for being lazy. We are to be conscientious, hard workers in whatever employment God has put our hand to. But if that duty of being a conscientious worker becomes a devotion of your life. If you begin to devote so much of your time and your energy to the business, to the affairs of this temporal world, where it actually pulls you away from the affairs that are going to make a difference in your walk with God, in your growth and grace, then guess what? It is a weight that you must lay aside. It doesn't matter the price, because there's a far higher price to pay if you do not lay it aside. I want to say it again. There's a far higher price to pay if you do not lay it aside. If you're really serious about living like Christ. There's nothing wrong with engaging in sports activities. Wanting to keep your body healthy. I didn't take care of my body for a long time. It wasn't until I was in my early 50's that I began to exercise and go to the gym and work out. I was showing the Greer's some old pictures back in 2006 and if you remember me at all, I was a mini elephant. But the Lord gave me a wake-up call and I began to exercise and to walk. Nothing wrong with that. But when that becomes the topic of your conversation and that becomes the pursuit of your life, where you have time for an hour or an hour and a half at the gym and you don't have time for 30 minutes in prayer or the Word of God, That's become a weight that has got to be set aside. It's tripping you up. When the literature that you read so much is concerned with your body, your health. My, how many health magazines are there out there? Anybody caught up in that? You get four or five or six different ones from all over the world assuring you of this remedy and that remedy and this health thing and that health thing. And you have all the time in the world to read all up on all your health and you do your research on the internet, but you can't spend 15 minutes in the word of God with a concordance open before you to find out how is that word used in scripture. It's a way, if you want to run to win the crown and you want to be like Christ, You lay it aside. And please, please don't tell me I'm just not a good reader. I don't buy it for a second. You can read. Don't you have the Holy Ghost in you? Don't you have a desire to read the Word of God? Surely you do. You can read. Lay aside not just the weights, but the sin which doth so easily beset us. This phrase, which doth so easily beset us, is one that's given commentators a fit for decades. which doth so easily beset us. It's only one word in the original language. And what's given them a difficult time is it occurs nowhere else in the New Testament but here. One time. And it's not even found in the classical Greek literature. It appears to be one of those Greek words that the Holy Ghost coined. He does that, you know, several times. You won't find it anywhere but in Scripture. It doth so easily beset us. It's a word that is a compound of three words. Those three words are well, around, and stand. Putting them all together, you have the idea of something that stands well around us, or if I can shorten it, that well surrounds. Taking the idea again of this runner because that's the context. He would rid himself of any loose garment that would cling to him and cause him to be entangled in it, thereby slowing him down. But then Paul speaks of the sin. He didn't say the sins, he said the sin. that doth so easily beset us. Now it may indeed be true that everyone has a besetting sin. You know, we talk about, well that's my besetting sin. That's my particular weakness. It may well be true that we all have these besetting sins that trip us up, but I do not believe that that is what the text is suggesting. The text. in the context of the immediate surrounding, which by the way, remember there aren't any chapter divisions. It was one long letter. And what immediately precedes this is Hebrews 11 with the great hall of faith. By faith they did this. By faith, by faith, by faith. And when you look at the overall context of the book of Hebrews, what you find out is there is an emphasis upon, as Paul says later on, a warning given to them about departing from the living God because of an evil heart of unbelief. Unbelief. They had, you see, these Hebrew Christians They had an inbred prejudice for Judaism. They were suffering for their profession now as Christians. Many had already gone back. They had come into the circles for a while, professed faith in Christ, but when the heat got turned up, when persecution came on, both from the Jews and from the Roman government, many turned back and walked no more with Christ. They apostatized. They denied the very things they professed to believe at one time. That is apostasy. The temptation was. All of that was a powerful force that would draw them, and keep in mind there's this sinful flesh inside of them, it was shaking their faith. I mean, when you have your children ripped out of your arms and taken from you, when you have your wife or your husband torn from you and hauled off, how would you feel? And, I don't know, Mr. Greer and I, have a little different views on some things in eschatology, but he'll find out in glory that I was right and he was wrong. But I know where one thing here that there's coming a persecution upon the church, and we're going to see that again. I want to know what you're going to do when they want to come in and take your children from you because of what you're teaching them. They say you're brainwashing them. and you're not a fit parent. That's what's being set up now by our governments. You are not a fit parent. It takes a village to raise a child, so Hillary Rodham Clinton said in her book. It's all about getting control of the children. You get control of the children, you've got it all sewed up. What are you going to do then? We sit back and ease now, no comfort, nothing like that as far as trouble is concerned. Your faith needs to be grounded. These believers were being shaken. The temptation was, let's go back to, we can still believe in Christ, but let's go back. It's safer there, to Judaism. What was the source of that? It was the sin of unbelief. You're supposed to run the race, and running the race means always going forward, not taking some steps backward. Keep pressing and pressing and pressing. No matter, even as the runners say who run marathons, the time when they hit the wall. You've heard that expression, haven't you? You hit the wall. It's at a time in a marathon where you feel you can't run one more step. And when you hit the wall in the Christian race, you must keep on, as we sang tonight, you must keep on believing that Jesus is near, or you will fall apart. Running the race, the biggest trip up, the sin of unbelief. My interpretation of that text, it's not just these besetting sins. This is the sin that so well surrounds us. Didn't Matthew Henry say, I believe I'm right here, in his commentary on Genesis chapter 3, that the seedbed of all sin is unbelief. questioning God. The statement, Genesis 3, the temptation to Eve. Hath God said? Hath God said? And he'll put it and he will inject it into your mind when you find yourself, you know, struggling with the flesh, when you find yourself having tripped up and it was going so well. You just had been enjoying the Lord's presence, and you fell. You fell. What's vital, what is so vital is to believe, to believe the promise of God. It's not over. God has said, When the righteous man falls, He'll pick him up again and again and again. If you don't believe that, it's very hard to keep on going. And you'll give in to unbelief, and you'll be discouraged and live in despair and defeat and depression. I know because I have been there. Unbelief is the sin. We live by faith. We walk by faith. We fight the good fight of faith. And yes, we run by faith. Without faith, we go nowhere in the Christian life. If we do not lay aside this sin which doth so easily beset us, then in the spiritual sense, we are just cutting the muscles of our spiritual legs. There is no prayer that the Christian needs to put up God more frequently than this. Increase my faith. Everything comes to us through faith. Everything. Christ comes to us through faith. Faith is the vehicle. It's not that which saves us. It's not that which sanctifies us. But it is the vehicle that God uses to bring to us the power, the grace, the might, everything that we enjoy. The just shall live. And that means, yes, they will really live by faith. I want you and I want me to really live not what the world thinks what it is to really live the life. Brothers and sisters, I have had this week a little taste of really living. You see, I have been preaching to myself as well as to you. I have felt the Lord with me throughout the day. drawing near to me in prayer, giving me help like I haven't known in a long, long time. Haven't you? This is just a taste. Isn't there more? Oh, I believe there is, and it's ours by faith. We've been talking for three nights about overcoming the world and its lusts. What does John say? And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. But, and this is a very big one, We must never isolate faith apart from its object. We must never put faith in the place of the object. Faith is the means, faith is the vehicle, faith is not the object. There are a whole lot of people, you know, who are believing in their belief. They are trusting in their faith. They are depending on their faith. You hear them talk about, you know, my faith kept me strong. What a load of bunkum. Faith doesn't keep you strong. I'm not looking to my faith. That brings me, of course, to the Christian runner's pattern. That's the preparation. Lay aside the sins. We've talked about them all week long. You know what the Spirit of God has said to you. They must be lay aside. Anything that hinders, kill it. Get rid of it. Don't stick it in a closet. Don't stick it in the trunk of your car. Don't put it under the bed. All that, of course, means so many things, depending on what it is. You have to kill it. If the Lord told you, if the Lord, not because Mr. Wagner told you, but if the Lord told you, you need to get rid of your television, then if you haven't done it, I want to know why. I am, I mean, I have my own personal convictions about those things, but I'm not going to be up here tonight and say like, eh, you know, pass some law. But I will tell you this. If God spoke to you about that this week, and he brought those things that you watch with your eyes and you know it's not doing you in a lick of spiritual good, and you felt the twinge, then why would you not get rid of it? Why would you not lay it aside if you're really in earnest If you're really in earnest about running to win the crown, if you're really in earnest about being like Jesus, if that internet is causing you problems, shut it down, get rid of it. If the world's music is causing you problems, whatever you have to do, get rid of it. If you've got CDs or DVDs with that, I'm not some old fogey up here, you know, talking about, you know, this old guy with gray hair. I want these young people to know I was ended up to my, as you would say here, oxters. I was a drug head. We called it head music. Very eclectic for druggies, you know. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of that kind of music. I know what it's all about. I've been there and done that. I know the sound. And you're not going to put any kind of Christian words to it that's going to make it holy. I will tell you that. You know, I was, when the Lord brought me back to Himself, the first thing I did was take all those record albums, didn't have CDs in those days, record albums, destroyed them into the trash can. That was it. Done with it. Because I knew what that music would do to me. It's done. I was, that following Saturday morning cleaning up my apartment, You know, when you're living that kind of a lifestyle, you don't care about anything clean, you're like a slob. But, you know, the Lord had brought me back to Himself, and I wanted everything to be right, and I was cleaning up and listening to Christian radio, somebody preaching. Now, I've been away from the Lord for three years, and this is all, you know, neat. I would have never had a Christian radio station on a Saturday morning, let alone cleaning my room. And there was a commercial break and I'm dusting the furniture and all of a sudden the music comes on and I just stopped in my tracks. That's what I just threw in the bin a few days ago. I didn't know anything about Christian rock. I recognized it immediately as satanic. I didn't need to go to Bob Jones University and have music appreciation class to find that out. Maybe I'm getting under someone's skin right now. I hope it's not me. I hope and pray it's the Holy Ghost because it's destructive. It appeals to the flesh. You want to walk with God? Then you do it with clean hands and a pure heart. Music is not amoral. Don't let anyone tell you that music is amoral, that there's no right or wrong to music. It just depends on how you use it. And they love to take the alphabet as an example. You know, the alphabet is amoral, A, B, C, D. It's amoral. So are the notes of music. It's all amoral. But of course, you realize when you put certain combinations of letters together, it can be moral or very immoral. And you put certain notes together, and it can be very moral or very immoral. And there is immoral music, and it has nothing to do with the words. Hadn't planned on saying any of that, but I thought the Lord had me to say to it because obviously there's someone here that's messing around with that medium of Satan, and I'm not speaking from theory. I have been there and done it. What do you listen to on the radio when you're in the car? What do you listen to on your iPods, your iPads, your smartphones? What do you listen to? I want to know if it's that which actually draws you to Christ or draws you away from Him. Does it draw you to the things of God or does it draw you to the world? Simple answer, which one? Once you give me your answer, I will tell you that's either going to build you up and make you more like Christ and help you to run this race with patience or it's going to take you away from the Lord. the Christian runner's pattern, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. I'm going to remind you, he's still giving this allusion to the Greek runner in the Olympics. At the end of that race in Paul's day, there was a raised platform, and on that platform sat judges. And the judges on that platform were made up of previous runners who had run that race and had won that race. That's the picture now. That's the imagery he's using, looking off as they run, run, run, run, run, with patience, looking off at that platform. These judges, winners of past events, were the ones who awarded the prizes to those who won the races at the end of the day. Now Paul takes what was to them a very well-known fact and weaves it into this truth about what was so critical to these Hebrew believers who were being tempted to stop running the race. They were also in a race of faith. They had to prepare by putting off the weights and the sins. They had to run the race with patience, the appointed course. That's the idea, the course that is set fixed, appointed by God before us, no matter how difficult it might be. And the way they were going to do that was by looking to Jesus. The one at the end of the course, the one who himself who had already run the course and had won the race and was waiting there to award the prize. That's what we're talking about tonight. Running the race to win the crown. That is what's suggested by referring to Christ as the author of faith. The word translated author occurs three other times in the New Testament. Let me give them to you. Acts 3, verse 15. Christ is called the Prince of Life. Same word. Prince of Life. Acts 5, verse 31. God exalted Christ to be a prince and a savior. Again, that word here. Same word. Author. It speaks of one, of course, a prince as a leader. Hebrews 2.10, For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain, there's our word now, author, prince, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Now if you'll just put that verse into its context, you will discover that the idea of captain is one who is the leader who goes before them and sets the example because he is the leader. That's what you do as a leader. You set the example for everyone coming behind you. The final reference, of course, is right here, the author of our faith. I know that many interpret that to refer to Christ being the originator of faith in His people. Well, He indeed is. Rather, His Spirit is. It's the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Christ that creates faith. We don't work it up. It's not within fallen man. He does not have the ability to naturally believe God or believe his word. Faith is a grace freely given by God, just like repentance is a gift freely given by God. We're dead in sin. We can't believe until we're born again. Then he gives us this glorious grace to believe the word and to turn from sin and to flee to Jesus Christ. I understand that Christ by His Spirit creates faith, but I don't think that's what Paul intended by this text. He's still alluding to the Greek runner, and that analogy is lost if we begin to speak of Christ as the originator of faith. If we're looking at this as the author of faith. However, once we see the references to the judge who is at the end of the race, the judge who has already run the race, who has already won the race, then we see that Paul is referring to Christ as the leader, as the exemplar, as the pattern for his people. So how did Christ run? I know you all have heard, I mean, you've read this verse how many times in your lifetime as a Christian? I get it. You'd cut it off by heart, couldn't you? So tell me, what does it mean to look unto Jesus as you seek to run to win the crown? What does it actually look like in your life and in mine? How do we actually live and run the race with patience by doing that? Well, we know one thing, Christ is the example, so let's look at Him. Looking unto Jesus. Like Jesus, we must look away from certain things. Because that word look, I'm sure you've heard Pastor Greer mention this, or your minister, wherever church you go to, looking actually means to look off. It means to look away from everything else, and that's what you would expect a runner to do, to look away from everything. Did I mention this recently? Forgive me if I'm redundant, but you preach for this many times in a row, you forget what you say, where you say it. But I just saw recently a blog where it had, it was a whole series of races. And the runners in these races that are on track, they were going to win. They were going to, it was so clear, they were going to win the race. And you know, they look back like that. And they sort of slowed down as they got to the finish line. And the next guy blew by them and beat them. It happened over and over. They look back. So we get it. We are to have that forward look, never looking off, looking away from everything else, because why? It's going to hinder us. Now, okay, let's dig down. What does that mean, looking off from everything else? Well, what did Christ look away from? Please look down with me again at verse 2, looking unto Jesus, looking off unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame Now, it doesn't mean that Christ, oh, this is awful, this shame is so awful. That's not what that means at all. The word despise, old English word, means he thought little of the shame. It was as if it was nothing to him. He wouldn't even look at it. He wouldn't consider what he had to go through in order to redeem us from our sin for the joy that was set before him. the joy of the redemption of the people that the Father had given to Him to redeem. And because of that joy He had, He thought the shame, the disgrace, and I'm talking about being stripped naked and hanging on a cross for all to see, to mock Him. That's nothing. That's nothing. Because I am redeeming my people and that shame means nothing to me. I will not let that get in the way of redeeming my people. I will let nothing get in the way. He, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery, thought it not something to be held on to at all cost, to be equal with God, but took upon himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of man. and being found in the fashion of man, he became obedient unto death, even the death, even, even, even, Paul says, that awful, horrible death of the Roman cross. He thought little of it. He looked away from it for the joy that was set before him. It's the race again. It's the runner. So that means You and I have to look away, look away from anything that will get in the way of us looking at Jesus. Anything that will take our eyes off of Christ, we are to look away from it. For instance, you have got to, I have to, you must look away from yourself. That'll be hard, won't it? Look away from yourself. You see, the devil has these tactics, he's so well to keep the child of God from looking ahead, looking to Christ and the race. One of the most oft-used tricks in his bag is that he uses with great success to get believers to focus their attention upon themselves. The inward look. The inward look. How am I feeling? How am I doing? You see, when you look away from yourself, you have to look away from your feelings. You can't trust them for one moment. You'll feel one day, I'm on my way to glory. Hallelujah. You'll come into a conference like this where the Lord draws near. My, how wonderful it is. But let me tell you, you tripped up. And maybe you already have. And how did you feel? Have I lost all the blessing? If I just go on right backward, is it all gone for me? When you feel, when you're looking at your feelings and you feel good, you feel confident, you feel sure, my, how you will come to the throne of grace, will you not? And you'll pray with mighty power. Liberty, freedom. But I want to know this, what happens when you get that sight of your sin and those feelings of confidence disappear on you? I want to know how you pray then. I want to tell you, if you then go there and say, oh, I can't pray, I'm such a failure. You're nothing more, it's nothing more than following the religion of Rome. You're being a good Roman Catholic. Is he actually saying that? You're dead right I'm saying it. Because you think your acceptance is based upon how you feel. And that's based upon performance. My standing never changes. Your standing never changes. You have sin, you have corruption within you. It will rustle with you till the day you die, but, but... I am secure in Christ. The door to the throne room of God has no bars upon it. It's never shut to the Lord's people. I can go in all of my sin and all of my bad feelings about myself and know the Lord's gonna listen to me because I'm his child and he can't turn me away. For to turn me away, he's gotta turn his own son away. Such is the union I have with Christ. He cannot, he will not turn me away. So I'm not now basing my acceptance and my freedom in prayer upon my feelings. I've looked away from those things. You don't want to be a free Presbyterian Romanist, do you? What a contradiction of terms. But I want you to see it for what it is. Of course, that means you must look away from your failures. We know what that's like, particularly if we've got people around us that like to point them out. That's why I was saying the other night, whether it's the husband or the wife, do not, do not go about in your marriage and keep pointing the faults out of your husband or your wife. It ruins more marriages than you can ever imagine, guilt. Fault finding. It destroys relationships. No one can take it. And I have counseled couples, this is the problem. You know, you never feel like you're accepted. That you're not, you haven't reached, you haven't attained, you're not good enough. You try, but you never are satisfying. And you feel like you beat your head against the wall. when you keep hearing your failures and your faults. You see, the answer is the gospel. The gospel that tells us we're justified. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? I am not saying for a moment, husbands, wives, that you don't have faults that you don't need to work on. If you do think that, Your marriage is miserable. You and I keep focusing upon our failures. We're not going to make a whole lot of progress. If we focus upon all that's wrong with us, the devil laughs up his sleeve because that's what he wants to focus on, all that's wrong with us. Do you know how much Satan hates a happy Christian? Do you realize how much he hates a rejoicing believer? Well, you've got to look away from your failures. And on the other side, you have to look away from your fruit. I mean, you have to examine yourselves, and how is my spiritual life doing? But after you do that, you look away from it. Because I will tell you, the longer you look at your fruit, the more you're going to see, I got a real big lack here. I don't have that kind of love. After being saved this many years, I should have a lot more love in my life than I have right now. I should have a lot more joy. I should have a lot more peace in my heart. After this many years, well, okay. I can look and I can see the deficiency, but I don't stop there. I didn't move on. Let me look off to Jesus. Why do I do that? Because He alone is perfect. He did what I could never do. He had perfect love and perfect joy and perfect peace. Everything He had perfectly. And from Him my fruit is found. And that's where I look. Don't you see? That's how you become like Him. You keep looking at yourself. That's depressing. I wonder how many of you have been doing that? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? There's plenty wrong with you. And there won't come a day in this world where there won't be plenty wrong with you. But the gospel says there's everything right with Christ. And my eyes are upon Him. I'm depending on Him to do what I can't do. But if I keep looking in the wrong place, I'm just not going to make the advancement. I'm just not going to be the kind of Christian, the kind of prayer warrior, the kind of believer that I can be, the kind of useful tool in the hands of God. And I'll make it to heaven, and you'll make it to heaven, but don't you want an abundant entrance into heaven? I don't want just to scrape through by the skin of my teeth. Because I live for the wrong things. Because I had my eyes in the wrong place. I don't want that. I don't want it for you. Stand up, please, you all. Stand up who wants just to get into heaven by the skin of your teeth. Okay, you're committed now. You're telling me, I want an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom. Take the words of 2 Peter chapter 1. We on the same page? Well, there's some amens there. I guess you're awake. Folks, this is the gospel. This is glorious truth. This is the doctrine that makes all the difference in how we live our lives in this world. I know you've heard it, but I'm going to tell you again. Go ahead and fight that sleep a little bit longer, would you? You must look away from yourself, but you must look to the Savior. The word that's used is Jesus. Not Christ. Not Christ Jesus. Not Lord. It's Jesus. Looking often to Jesus. The name so associated with His humanity. Christ and His weakness. God, yes, but man. This Jesus has sympathy for us. I said this this past summer. I don't know if it sank in or not. Maybe you didn't buy it, but I'm going to try to give it to you one more time. We have this high priest, his name is Jesus, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, who was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. I do not believe that that's simply referring to Jesus Christ, who has compassion upon us in our sorrows and our sufferings. He does have that. But when I look at that text and its context, I find out that saying, Jesus Christ sees us in our weakest state, in all of our sins, our failures, and He doesn't get angry with us. He actually pities us. We need more of that as parents with our children. They would see from us a little more pity. Maybe it's a vicious circle that we were so pounced upon when we were kids because of everything we did wrong and we expect God to treat us that way, but He doesn't. He knows how weak we are. He knows our frame. He remembers that we're dust. We're like the grass of the field that's here today and gone tomorrow. He doesn't have this bat in heaven just waiting for you to fail so he can hit you, knock you in the head. He's actually moved with compassion. I won't see that if I don't look unto Jesus. The look must be continual. Not stop and start. It's in present tense. Looking continually off unto Jesus. Not just on Sunday morning when you come to church or on Sunday night, on the prayer meeting night, looking continually unto Jesus when you go to work on Monday morning, when you're at home with the kids, in the midst of your trials, good times and bad times, mountaintops and valleys. It's continual. It has all this impact on just how the day is going to go for you. How has the day gone for you today? Did you have a good day? You know in my country they say that whenever you check out the store, have a good day. I've known some people from Ulster who have come to America and they would just say thank you so they would get to hear it, have a good day. Did you have a good day? I don't ask if you made a lot of money today, I don't care about that. I don't ask the young people if you did well on your test, if you had exams, I don't care about that. I mean I do but that's not what I'm asking about. I'm not asking if your husband took you out to dinner, if he brought you flowers. Husbands, you should do that. I don't care how long you've been married, but that's not what I'm talking about. Did you have a good day in your walk with Christ? Did you look to Him? Did you pray? ere you left your room this morning, did you pray? Did you read the word? Did you get alone with God? Or did you just get up in enough time to shower, get dressed, have a cup of tea, a piece of toast, and you ran out the door? And you've been running all day long, and you ran to the meeting tonight, and here you are. You're tired and you're exhausted and you're kind of half listening because you've just been running, running, running. But you didn't take the time to look off unto Jesus today. And you know what I know? It wasn't a good day for you. Did you spend your day watching silly old things on the television? And it wasn't a good day for you. You spend all kinds of time surfing the web, but you didn't take time to think upon Christ. It wasn't a good day for you. Continually looking off onto Jesus. Needs to be a complete look. Complete. Not a little glimpse now and then. Not a little bit of Jesus. Never be satisfied with a little knowledge of Christ. Little. Go ahead and dig down. Go ahead and develop now, young people, an interest in studying the Scriptures. Forget about the Xbox and P3 if it's going to take you away from this. I wish I had another hour, but my time is well gone. Meditate Christ as prophet. That means He's the preacher. He's the preacher. He's the one that comes and speaks to us His Word. He preaches to our souls. He preaches to our hearts. Have you not heard Christ preaching to you this week? Have you not heard Christ? It's not me. It's not me. It's been Christ preaching to you as your prophet. He's been revealing his word, making you understand, bringing it home with power and application. That's the prophet. Learn about the prophet. Learn, focus upon, look at the priest, the one who is, ever lives to make intercession. When you can't pray, he's praying. When you come to the foot of God's throne having failed and those tears are just rolling down your face, it's Jesus who says, Father, this child has sinned. He feels so unworthy. But I can't lose him. I won't lose him. He's mine. Receive him. Forgive him. Oh, that's the practical side of looking often to Jesus. The King, the King is the one who's in absolute control. The King is the one who is conquering, conquering now and still to conquer. Who is this one that rides in his might, the glorious King? It's Christ. Christ, I hope, I pray, I know. He's been conquering this week in this church. He's been conquering, subduing. The Christian runner's prize. I'm done. The prize. Run the race with patience to win the prize. Paul said there was laid up for him, again the race, the imagery of running in the race, laid up for him a crown of righteousness. that the Lord himself, that's the judge at the end of the race, shall give him on that day a crown, running to win the crown. Our problem is we forget all about a crown. We get so focused on the world, we get so focused on the work, on our problems in our homes, and our problems at church, and problems inside everywhere, and we forget about we're running, we're running, we're running for a crown. That's what Paul was doing. He was just, I finished the course. I've kept the faith. I fought the good fight, which the Lord Himself shall give me that day. I want you to note especially 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." Set down at the right hand of the throne tells me two things. Number one, Christ sat down because as the king he won the war. He sat down. He won the war. Now I'll tell you why. I was really gutted. It was the Lord coming along and saying, you got the right message. Because last night, folks, and I shared this with a couple of people, I had no idea what I was to preach tonight. And that's scary. The message when I came from Columbia for this light, I thought it was it. But as the week developed, I realized that is not the message. You know, it comes to panic time. But I just went to God this morning and said, Lord, here I am. I have no idea. And the Lord laid it upon my heart. And when those men sang tonight, sang Psalm 24. This is about the King. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. Do you understand what was going on in that psalm? When the kings would come back from war where they were victors, there would be people upon the walls of their cities, and they would shout, Who is the King? Lift up your heads, O ye gates, lift them up, The Caliphate is coming back! He's vanquished the enemy! That's the imagery in the Hebrew. Lift up your heads, all ye gates. That's what happened when Jesus ascended to glory after his death and resurrection. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come through. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory will come through. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts. He is the King of glory. That's one part. John speaks of another war in Revelation chapter 17, verse 14. And His supporters will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them, for He is King of kings and Lord of lords. The Lamb shall overcome them. What have we been looking at all week long? This flesh, this sin, this battle, this war, the struggle, the conflict, the race. These shall make war. I want you to see it's with the Lamb they're making war. Satan makes war on us to tempt us to sin. He's making war against the Lamb. It's coming, of course, a future Conflagration, a big time war, but here this is the application. The lamb shall overcome them because he is king of kings and lord of lords. And what else does John say? And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. That means everything to me. I have read the last chapter of human history. I have read the last chapter of my life and I know how this is going to end. King of kings and Lord of lords forever and ever. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. That's great. That's why I know the Lord's going to care on a work here. Just confident about it. Because He's King of kings and Lord of lords. That's where your sight must be fixed on. It's not going to be, folks, sometimes we think that we have to be in a certain place a certain set of circumstances to give us this feeling we look for. It's utter nonsense. You can walk with Christ no matter where you are. I've enjoyed the week. It's been great for me to be here. But I don't have to be in Balaamina to walk with God. I don't have to have 300 people to preach to to walk with God. It's not location, it's the Lord.