Our scripture for this evening is taken from Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. I have a confession to make that as the years have gone on and on in the decades, it's gotten harder and harder for me to preach in English. It's been now more than 40 years preaching in Spanish, and I have been known to get stuck trying to preach in English, and so I have instructed the Costa Ricans to sit close to me, and if I get stuck and have to be translated, I'll say the word in Spanish, and you need to help me out. I preached a series on Hebrews 11 and 12 recently and this message is part of that series and we remember Hebrews 11, we call that the chapter of the heroes of faith, it is the chapter of faith, those who by faith lived and fulfilled their mission, their race in terms of the first verses of chapter 12. And we'll just read two verses of chapter 12, verses 1 and 2. Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, therefore we also Now notice what the author is saying, he's linking us with chapter 11. They by faith did what they had to do, therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, we'll talk about that in just a minute, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance 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 has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. the author invokes the great cloud of witnesses. Why? Those who are defined, those who are described in chapter 11 are proof. They are indubitable proof that faith in the promises and the faithfulness of God can take us to the end, to the fulfillment of our mission, of our vocation, of the purposes of God for our lives. Now, according to the, to worldly standards, you know, if you just glance back in the chapter, We know all these heroes of the faith, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham. Some of them didn't have it so easy. Moses despised the riches of Egypt to suffer the vituperio of Christ, to suffer the, I can't find it here, endured the wrath of the king, the persecution of Christ. Some, you know, did great things, David, Gideon, they routed armies, they conquered kingdoms. But look toward the end of the chapter and verse 36 talks about others with no name. Others with no name Had trial of mocking, scourging, chains and imprisonment stoned? Sawn in two? The Jewish tradition says that was Isaiah who prophesied against the wicked King Manasseh and he got so fed up with him that he had him sawn in two alive. Does this sound like faithful fun? They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts, mountains, dens, caves of the earth. Why is this cloud of witnesses brought before our mind's eye? What's great about them? Some of them ended their life in what would seem to be disaster and ruin. But the author of Hebrews says there is one thing in common. They fulfilled, they fulfilled the purpose to which God called them through faith. Some of it was glorious and some of it was terrible. But they finished their race. And now Hebrews presents all those witnesses as if they were runners. And now it's like we're in the stadium. And there's a cloud of witnesses that is the, what do we, the fans as it were. And now it's our turn. And now it's our turn. And we're in the racetrack. And the cloud of witnesses surrounds us. and they witness to the power of their God in whom they trusted. My message only has two points. I hope that won't be a stumbling block for Orthodox people. I don't have three, I just have two. And the first one is very short. The author to the Hebrews says, There's a causal relationship. They didn't receive the promised end. They haven't received the prize yet. They finished. Now they're waiting in the stands. Therefore, therefore we also let us run. And he specifies the way we have to run. In any race, there are rules. You run by the rules or you're disqualified. And in the race of faith, it's very important to place attention on this. And he says there's two things we need to do. Put aside every weight and also the sin. Now this is important, people of God, because God is saying through the Holy Spirit, through the author to the Hebrews, that we do not invent our own way to run. That's a temptation. We're familiar with other religious circles, they call themselves churches, that invent all sorts of aberrant Christianity. But let's not talk about them, let's talk about ourselves. Because the temptation for us to tell God how we want to run is inside all of us. And maybe we don't say it out loud, but do we ever think, well, God knows I'm sincere. I may not be doing the right thing, But God knows my heart. Yeah, he knows our heart all right. Jeremiah said what our heart was like. Corrupt above all things. Who shall know the human heart? God, who weighs the spirits. Sometimes we just come right out and say, well, I just don't like to do that. I don't, I don't like to pray. I don't like to read scripture. I don't like to share the gospel. I don't like that. And we expect God to accept that. We think that's a justifiable reason. And so the author to the Hebrews says, get rid of weight and sin. These are two different things. Weight isn't necessarily sin. A runner obviously tries to get rid of any excess weight because it's going to weigh him down. We wear lighter shoes, etc. What is weight? What would be extra weight in the Christian life that is, that weighs us down, or as our version says, and it's a good translation, ensnares us, it tangles our feet up and we trip. What could that be? Distractions of the world. Things that are totally legitimate in themselves. Activities. diversions, things that are in and of themselves totally legitimate, but we become so engrossed and so involved and so enamored that pretty soon we're forgetting our call by God to fulfill our vocation that he's given to us. Some of you know that my hobby is building violins and guitars. I really like to build violins and guitars. That could easily become a distraction to me. I could spend lots of hours building violins and guitars. That's what we're talking about. Something that's legitimate, even good. but can distract us. It can ensnare us. We can become so consumed in that, we forget to be Christians of salt and light in this world. The other is sin, of course. That doesn't take too much explaining, does it? Sin ensnares us. Sin not only trips us up, but when we get up from our sin, we find we're facing the other way. We're not even running the right direction. And so the author to the Hebrew says, you have to beware. We got to get rid of weight. We need to keep in perspective anything which could be legitimate but might weigh us down and certainly sin so that we keep our eyes on the track. Now my second point then is what the author says then. Let us put aside weight and sin that easily ensnares, and let us run with endurance our eyes on Christ. Now I looked in most of the other standard English translations, and maybe you remember from other versions of the Bible, does anybody remember how many of, or most of the other ones, let us run with Anybody remember what the other versions say? Let us run with patience. All the other versions say patience. Now, for those of you who like Greek, the word is hupomone, and it is translated many, many times, virtually always, as patience. But the patience of the Bible and the patience of Old English isn't what we, what patience has turned into today. And so this translation, endurance, is very good, but we can even better this translation, so bear with me. The Christian race consists in a negative and a positive. We put off We put off, and this is pure Heidelberg catechism, isn't it? What is repentant? What is conversion? Putting off the old man, putting on the new. It's pure Ephesians chapter 4, Romans. We put off weight and sin and we put on a new attitude of looking to Christ and running with patience or endurance. But this patience with which we must which we must put on, which we must practice, this patience is not some superhuman power that I can practice if I concentrate enough. This term is a key term in Scripture and in the Christian life. But how has it changed in our own time? Patience. We might think how someone might use this idea. Our neighbor, Maria, everybody in Costa Rica, when you're going to talk about the neighbors, Maria. Our neighbor, Maria, it's not going too well. in her marriage and we know that, for instance. And in the morning, Maria is sweeping her house out and tending her flowers. And you were doing the same thing and you ask, Maria, how's it going? And Maria stops and leans on her broom and rolls her eyes and sighs deeply and says, you know, One needs a lot of patience in this life. That's not the patience that we're talking about. That sort of patience, what is it? It's just hopeless resignation to a situation they expect never to change. Hopeless resignation is not the patience, the endurance, the hupomone of scripture. Biblical patience is absolutely, is actually absolutely the opposite. I got interested in this and I wanted to know how Hupel-Monet was used from the Old Testament through the New Testament and the author to the Hebrews was thoroughly familiar with the Greek translation of the Old Testament, he cites the Septuagint many times. And I want to read various verses. If you're taking notes, you might be interested in writing some of these down, because this is the way the translators translated some concepts in the Old Testament into Greek with the term hupomone. I'm going to read Ezra 10, 2. Ezra chapter 10, verse 2. See if you can see where the word comes up. Patience. Let's see if it's obvious or not. Shekeniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, spoke up and said to Ezra, we have trespassed against our God and have taken pagan wives from the peoples of the land, yet now there is hope in Israel in spite of this. Where's patience? You know what term it is? Hope. There is hope in Israel. I'm going to read another one, Psalm chapter 9, verse 18. For the needy shall not always be forgotten. The expectation or the hope of the poor shall not perish forever. That's the word, the expectation. The hope of the poor shall not be forgotten. Psalm 39, verse 7. Psalm 39, verse 7 says, And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you. Again, my hope is in you. Psalm 62, verse 5, My soul Wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from him. And the last one I'm going to read, because there's lots of them, I'm going to read them all, but Jeremiah chapter 17, verse 13. Jeremiah 17, 13. O Lord, the hope of Israel, All who forsake you shall be ashamed." The hope of Israel. The patience of Israel. How are those things related? Well, they are. Because biblical patience is exactly this. How about if we translate the Going back to Hebrews 12, how about if we translate this verse saying, let us lay aside weight and sin and let us run with hopeful perseverance. You see, that's what all those verses contain, hopeful perseverance, expectation. We wait upon the Lord, hopeful perseverance. And so we see that biblical patience, biblical endurance, is far from hopeless resignation. It contains hope, and it permits enduring with a completely different attitude. What does the author say? How we should embark upon this race? What does he say? Let us continue the race? No. Let us continue walking? No. What does he say? He says, let us run. Let us run. Why do we become weary in our Christian life? Why do we feel at times we've become stagnated and we've stopped? We're not continuing forward. Well, we've seen that sometimes we permit distractions, weight, to ensnare us. We know that sin can ensnare us and stop us from continuing forward. But do you know that there's a worse thing than distractions and sin? Well, actually, it is sin, but it's the worst sin that will impede us from joining that cloud of witnesses in fulfilling gloriously our mission. We permit a black cloud of doubt to enter our soul. And that black cloud of doubt begins to suffocate our faith, our joy, our strength. It strangulates the fresh air of life that God's Spirit gives to us, and the father of lies and the father of doubt seeks to suffocate us in the fetid sulfuric gases from hell itself. The Bible only knows Two directions, doesn't it? We go forward or we are actually retreating. We are called to run the race forward. Our eyes on Jesus, not to be distracted, ensnared, weighed down, or to retreat. when we run with hopeful endurance or hopeful perseverance. The only way to do that, as the author continues, is having our eyes placed on He who is the author and the finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ. The hopeful endurance in us is not produced by me, We cannot produce it. It only comes through what the author is seeking to get us to understand from chapter 11 through chapter 12. It comes from Jesus Christ. And in a beautiful description of Jesus, he is the author of faith. We understand that, but he is also the finisher of our faith. That's why we can run with hopeful. endurance, hopeful perseverance, joyful, hopeful perseverance. And this is the doctrine, of course, the difference between biblical doctrine, what we call our beautiful Reformed doctrine, and the other versions. Call it Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism, whatever other version you wish. All that teach that man in cooperation with God. So God puts a part. I have to contribute another part. What happens when my part fails? Luther said that if God put 99.9% and he only had to put 0.1%, he's still done because he's going to fail at some time in the 0.1%. And that's true. We know that. What does the prophet Isaiah said? You know this passage. It's a familiar passage to all of us. Isaiah 40. Lift up your eyes on high. See who has created these things, who brings out their host by number. He calls them by name. Talking about the stars and the constellation, God has them all named. They're his creatures. By the greatness of his might and the strength of his power, not one is missing. He gives power to the weak and to those who have no might. He increases strength. Even the youth shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run. We're back to the race. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint. Run with hopeful perseverance means feeding your soul on he who is the fountain of strength and joy and hope. Jesus Christ. In conclusion, God's call, dear friend in Christ, God's call to us is not compliment, complicated. We're the ones that complicate things so many times, aren't we? What have we learned in these two verses? Three things, finally. First of all, The faith that we received from God has a particular characteristic. Jesus, as author of the faith, gives us a faith that we are seeing described in this passage. Jesus gives us a faith that permits me to live, obey, and fulfill his calling, his purposes, with an attitude that is described as hopeful perseverance. Now, that attitude is beautiful. Yes, we face trials in life. We weep. at the graveside of loved ones who die. We are in anguish over suffering and sickness at times. We grieve over the waywardness of family or friend. There are lots, many obstacles, many challenges that we face. And yet, God God is saying to us, run. Run with hopeful, hopeful endurance. That's God saying it because God provides it. Jesus, he's the author, and he's the finisher, and he's the one calling us to that attitude. And so in the midst of tears and anguish and trials, we can still say Jesus is author and finisher of our faith, and we can persevere. We can persevere like the cloud of witnesses, some of whom were stoned and beaten and persecuted and sawn in two, and they finished with hopeful endurance. So can we. Secondly, there is a mortal enemy worse than the distractions of this world. It is the worst of all sins, and it is doubt. When you doubt that Jesus is author and finisher of the faith, beware. It's very close to blasphemy. God says Jesus, our Lord, is author and finisher of the faith. Now, there's a way that you can know. We can all know the measure of doubt that we are harboring in our life. You know, there's a very simple measurement. The amount of pretexts or excuses that we use The devil is very happy to help us make excuses and pretexts. He's happy to help us lie because he's the father of lies and he's the father of doubt. Right from the beginning, he planted doubt in Adam and Eve's heart, and he's still doing that, trying to do it, in God's people. Doubt will certainly turn us around in the race. We just studied the pilgrim's progress for our Reformation week in Costa Rica in our high school, and pilgrim Christian had to face many disasters and the slew of despondency and the castle of doubt in his life. I recommend that you read it again. It's always stimulating. John Bunyan understood, John Bunyan understood the horrific power of doubt. And we can know the level of doubt that we're harboring by the amount of pretexts and excuses we make to not obey, to not run with hopeful perseverance. And the reason this is so bad is because Christ has effected a real, a divine, and an eternal salvation. And the faith that God gives in that Christ produces truly hopeful endurance. And thirdly, let us hear The Holy Spirit's call to run the race. This is figurative, of course. Do you feel you've become stagnant in your advance of your Christian life? Do we say, I don't feel the joy I used to feel, the confidence I used to feel? It might be symptoms of weight. You're distracted by things that aren't necessarily sinful. Maybe that's why you didn't detect it. Might be symptoms of sin that you're permitting in your life. It might be that you are permitting pretexts, satanic pretexts and excuses to suffocate faith. The author to the Hebrews says, put your eyes on Jesus Christ and run. It's figurative, of course. My 91-year-old mother doesn't get out. She's still in her home. She doesn't get out very much anymore. She doesn't do any running, that's for sure. Her race is in her chair, five hours a day, praying Praying for God's people, praying for the world, praying for missions. She has her notebook and her prayer. That's my mother's race at this stage of life, but she's still running the race. We're all called to continue running. God has laid out the track. The cloud of witnesses have finished. They finished their part of the race. They're waiting for the rest of the team. They're waiting for the rest of the team. Let us encourage one another then, brothers and sisters, with these words. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance, with hopeful endurance, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Amen. Let's pray. O Lord, forgive us when we permit the distractions of this life. or when we permit sin itself to set us back, to ensnare us, and forgive us, O Lord, certainly, if we have ever doubted that Jesus Christ is author and finisher of the faith. Father, we pray for ourselves, our families, and our congregation. that You will grant us the hopeful endurance to persevere to the very end, fulfilling, O Lord, Your vocation, Your calling, Your mission that You have given to each Christian. And we pray it in Christ's name. Amen.