Father, we pray that thou wouldst indeed keep us even as thou didst keep David in the wilderness when he was pursued by Saul and the army of Saul in his day. And we confess that indeed many times the race that has been set before us seems to us to be difficult, to be fraught with many perils, to be quite dangerous even to our lives. And yet We confess that with Thee is safety. With Thee we may have all boldness. For Thou dost cause one to be raised up and another to be cast down. Thou art able to keep David until the day of his exaltation. Thou art able to keep Thy Christ until the day of His exaltation. And Thou art able also to keep us until the day of our glorification. We pray, therefore, that Thou wouldst keep us in Christ, that Thou wouldst grant to us a great measure of Thy Spirit, that we may walk in Thy statutes and in Thy judgments. We pray that Thou wouldst grant to us a heart that takes pleasure in giving Thee pleasure and not in seeking our own. For we ask this in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. Well, in one sense, you are going to hear what I've been doing for the last four weeks, because I suppose I have probably preached the sermon I'm about to preach, oh, eight or 10 times anyway in the last four weeks. But that's OK. I don't get tired of preaching it. And for the most part, the people that I was preaching it to didn't get tired of hearing it. I think my translator got better and better at it. I noticed that the people were more and more responsive. But that's not a bad thing. The translator has a very difficult job because he has to translate in real time now, not just looking on a printed page and thinking, what's the best phrase for this? But he has to translate in real time not only the words of the preacher, but also the ethos and the pathos of the preacher as well. Remember that the preaching consists of logos, ethos, and pathos. And he has the translator of word, and of exhortation, and of passion. And the preacher must communicate these things or else he's just lecturing. And so also the translator must communicate these things as well. I had two different translators while I was in Burma and it was very clear to me that one was doing a better job than the other because he would adopt my gestures, he would adopt my stance, he would adopt my posture in order to convey at the same time he was speaking the words he was translating in order to convey also the things that are communicated to our eyes by gesture and by posture. They have a way of speaking their language that is really quite charming. The same way that we would extend a syllable in order to emphasize it. That's very interesting. They do the same thing by raising their voice to a higher pitch, almost a falsetto pitch, in order to indicate an emphasis. And so actually my preaching sounds much better in Falam than it does in English. I'm like the author who said, yes, my works lose something in the original. Turn now to the Word of God. Hebrews, the 12th chapter. We shall pick up where we left off. 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. He hath not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." May the Lord add His blessing to this reading and to the subsequent preaching of His Word. Before I left, I had finished the last two sections, really, of Hebrews, the 11th chapter. we saw the conclusion was that many times faith was able to work great works, subdue nations, bring down kingdoms, deliver people from their tormentors and their oppressors. But we also saw in the closing verses of chapter 11 that sometimes it was the will of God that in faith Those people would be afflicted continually until the end of their lives, even giving up their lives to their tormentors. Some of them wandered in caves. They were imprisoned. They had no place in this present world. And so now in chapter 12, the author is going to take that great coterie of saints that he has listed for us in chapter 11, and tell us why that example is pertinent to what he's talking about. Because the wherefore does not refer only to the witnesses. It does not refer only to those in chapter 11, but it refers to those of whom he spoke in 10.36-39. There he says, For ye have need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." And then he proceeded in chapter 11 to give us example upon example of those who have gone before and not believed simply with a speculative faith, but rather lived lives of faith. lives that sometimes were brought to a sudden and painful end because of that faith. And so he concludes in verse 4, you have not yet, if you can read this letter, if you can hear the preacher's words, you have not yet striven to death. You're still alive. There's still some portion of your race that is left. And so, In this passage, the inspired author has just reminded us of all the Old Testament saints who ran the race of faith successfully. Yes, all of them were successful. All of them were victorious, though many of them died for their faith. Let us never, let us never confuse the kind of victory that the world seeks with what God calls victory. What God calls victory is walking with Him blamelessly all the days of our lives. And if that means we end up in prison, then hear the words of Joseph as he cries out, don't you know they hurt my legs with their irons. If it involves standing with few, then hear the words of Gideon. As he cries out, the only problem with my army on the first day was it was too big. You know, when I was first converted, and it's been about 35 years by now, I was not converted as a tiny child. And I grew up in a home that was only nominally Christian. If you were to have asked me, what is a Protestant back in those days, I would have explained to you, well, it's someone who hates Roman Catholics. That's an easy question to answer. I had no concept, whatever, of the Christian religion. It was not until I became an adult that the Word of God came to me in power and convinced me of my sin and convicted me of my need for a Savior. of my need for a righteousness not my own, of my need to turn to Jesus and walk the life of faith. And when I was first converted, oh, the joy that filled my heart! Some of you may remember a similar experience. Some of you may recall that at some time in your life there was a genuine turning from darkness to light. that there was a time in your lives in which you put aside everything that had gone before. You laid aside every weight and you turned to God. Maybe not in a dramatic way, perhaps not even in a tearful way, but in a way that jerked you into the kingdom of God. You took the kingdom by storm, as it were. You assailed the kingdom with onslaughts, and you began casting down strongholds. Some of you have had an experience just like that. And if you have, then you remember the joy of knowing, oh, my sins, though they were many, are all forgiven in Christ. And you may remember that at such a time as that, you think to yourself, I have now entered into a race, one that requires exertion, one that requires great strength. But if that has been very many years for you, you begin eventually to realize that it's not a 100-yard dash. It's not a hundred meter sprint, is it? And so as we live longer after our conversion, more and more, we begin to realize, this is not a sprint, this is a long distance race. This is a race that is taking up not just a part of my time, this is not a race that I engage in only on Sunday mornings, This is a race that engages me at all times from now on. And may I dare to prophesy that those of you who live long enough to have children and then grandchildren, and if by reason of strength, great-grandchildren, while you're still alive, that you will then come to realize experientially what the author is saying in this passage. That it's not even a long-distance race, it's a generation by generation by generation relay race. That the baton has been handed to us from generations past. They have witnessed to us by the laps that they ran. And now it is up to us to run that same race in our lifetimes and then in the end of our days to hand that baton to the generations to come. And so much more than a sprint, even much more than a marathon, this is a relay race. The Christian life extends back to Adam and extends forward until the final coming of Christ. And generation by generation, there are witnesses called by Christ in every generation to testify of Him. And you, if you know the grace of God in your hearts, have been called as those witnesses in this generation. These witnesses that are being spoken of here are many times treated by Christian expositories and by Christian commentaries as though they were sitting in the stands witnessing our race. And there is a sense in which that can be said. But I put it to you that what is actually being taught in this passage has nothing to do with something like that. That what we have here is a cheering section from the past. We have a cloud of martyrs. And if we were to transliterate the Greek here, instead of translating it, that's what we would have. Not a cloud of witnesses, but a cloud of martyrs. a cloud of those who have gone before us and have given everything they had to give, even many of them to the point of being sawn asunder, slain with the sword, wandering about being destitute, afflicted and tormented. That is the victorious Christian life. The victorious Christian life is not one of ease. In fact, the only time that the Lord ever speaks about those who are at ease in Zion, it's a condemnation. No, we are not called to a life of luxury. We're not called to a life of ease. We're not called to a life of victory as the world counts victory. We are called to take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Him. This morning I want to talk to you about four things in this passage. First of all, that there is a cloud of martyrs. Secondly, that we are to prepare for the race that we are to run, that we do not run it willy-nilly, haphazardly, We do not make up the rules as we go along, but that we prepare for the race. And that there is a particular manner of running that is required of us. We must strive, we must agonize lawfully. And then finally, I want us to see that these witnesses being spoken of in this passage, they are not the object of our faith. They are examples of faith, but they are not the object of our faith. The object of our faith is that great forerunner, Jesus Himself. The wherefore, at the beginning of this chapter, introduces an inference. And that inference is along the lines of this, So then, I've given you example after example after example, of patience, of enduring, of continuing on. So then, having this great cloud of witnesses speaking to you, God is telling us here not simply to admire the faithful as much admiration as we may have for them. He's telling us to follow their example. We do not sit back and say, oh, they were great in those days, there were giants in the land. Rather, he says, we are not merely to admire, we are to follow their example. We are to emulate them. You, he says to the Hebrews, and by application to us if we are faithful, you will be going under the track next. It is your turn now. This generation has come up. Now hear the testimony of those who have already run their legs, who have already run their race. Learn from them how the race can be won, how the race can be finished, how you can cross the finish line not as one who has become distracted but as one who has been steadfast. We tell our children the story of the hare and the tortoise, don't we? And we normally think in a race between a hare and a tortoise, the hare is going to win because it's a faster animal. The reason the hare lost was because he became distracted. He quit partly through. That was the problem with Amaziah in one of this morning's readings. He became distracted. In the land I just came from, when I went up north, most everything is pulled by horse cart. There are a few trucks, but mostly horse carts. They have to put blinders on the horses. And the reason they put blinders on the horses is to keep them in the road. If the horses can see something over here out of the corner of their eye, they'll turn that direction. And then they have to fight the horse all the time. So they put blinders on the horse, so he's not distracted first to one side, then to the other. The Word of God should be blinders to us, so that we're not distracted by the things of this present life. And yes, the things of this life are numerous. There are many. And they are distracting. We must hear the testimony. We must learn how to strive from them. And we must learn that that striving, that agony, that running must be done lawfully. We can hear them crying out to us, can't we not? Can we not hear Joseph crying out from his jail cell? I was sold into slavery by my brothers. I was falsely accused by my employer's wife. I was mistreated by those I helped the most. But I ran on. And now he cries out to us. Run on with patience. Run on. Oh, perhaps some of you have been falsely accused. Perhaps some of you have been mistreated by neighbors, by friends, even by family. Does the testimony of Joseph then ring in your ears? Run on. Some of you remember in the story of Eric Little that was filmed a number of years ago, that in one of the races he was involved, he was fouled in the midst of the race. Do you remember this? And he picked himself up and sprinted to the end, finishing with the pack, even ahead of many. And the coach character played by Ian Holm, said that was not the prettiest race I've ever seen, but it was the most heartfelt. Are there fouls that take place in your life? Of course there are. For those of you who have observed that life is not fair, you're right. And aren't you glad? Because if life were fair, you would already be breathing the fire and brimstone of hell. No, life is not fair. And when we are fouled, we should hear the words of Joseph ringing in our ears. Run on! Run with patience! You've not reached the finish line yet. Or as our author says here, you have not yet striven unto blood. Or perhaps we might hear the words of Gideon. when we think to ourselves, we're so few. We live in a nation in which the customs are altogether different from our own. Or at least our customs ought to be different from those who are around us. Can we hear then the words of Gideon saying, God told me, if the men do not have a heart for battle, send them home. You do not need such with you in the day of battle. They will simply discourage the true soldiers that are in the field. All the witnesses, all the martyrs of Hebrew 11 shout out, like Abel, whom the author says, though he is dead, yet he speaks. And so all of them, though they are dead, Yet they speak to us by their example. They say, run on. Run on with patience. God can sustain you all the way to the finish line, just as He sustained us. And there is such a great cloud. And especially at such times as we think ourselves too few to matter, even alone, wandering in the desert as it were, even perhaps in peril. Is it just such times that the words of the witnesses of Scripture should be ringing loudest in our ears to run on? I faced a particular trial in my most recent trip to Burma. I won't speak of it just now, but I will, Lord willing, speak of it in a week from today. But some very kind brothers came to me and explained why they had done something that was really inexplicable otherwise. I believed their testimony. They said, we did this to protect you, Dr. Bacon. And I believed them. I believed that was their motivation in doing what they had done. But my reply to them was, that should be the last of your concerns. Your first concern should be, what does it take to glorify God? And what does it take, secondly, for me to pastor the people he's placed under me? Those are your concerns. And what happens to Dr. Bacon? Well, for these 35 years, God has taken care of Dr. Bacon. Some of you know this. I've had trucks fall on me, and God took care of me. I've had my heart quit beating within my chest, but God took care of me. God will take care of me until I cross the finish line. Now the day I cross the finish line, He'll simply perfect my soul in holiness. And I'm not the loser then either. And so at times when it seems that situations are unbearable, it seems we must do something of our own devising in order to protect ourselves or our loved ones. Listen to the words of Gideon. Listen to the words of Joseph. Listen to those saints who have gone before. Remember their example, that they were willing to be sawn asunder. They were willing to wander in the deserts. They were willing to lose fame and family and fortune. And so also should we. This is the life of persevering faith. This is the race of faith. But such a race, as I said earlier, is not run haphazardly. It's run with preparation. And the author tells us how to prepare for such a race. He says, cohortably, let us lay aside every weight In Myanmar, they don't buy rice in the grocery store in little one-pound packages. They buy the big 24-kg bags. Imagine, if you will, putting one of those up on your shoulders, and they will fit. Imagine putting one of those up on your shoulders and then running the race. Can you imagine it might be more difficult to do that way? It might slow you down just a bit. it might tire you out a mite soon. Then what do you do? You lay it aside. You put it away. You hand it off. You make sure that there is nothing encumbering you that will slow you down, that will tire you too soon, that will prevent you from crossing that finish line. So we lay aside every weight. We lay aside every encompassing sin. That's what the word besetting means here. Everywhere you look, there's sin. If you look to your right, you look to your left. If you're distracted in the slightest, there's sin in that direction. No runner would begin a race with that bag of rice on his back. And in fact, some runners actually use ankle weights. They'll put anywhere from one to five pounds around their ankles and train with their legs weighted down so that when the race day comes, they lay aside those weights and can actually run their race more rapidly. Well, in the Christian life, in the Christian race, anything that slows us down, Any impediment. It does not have to be sin. Any impediment. Anything that gets in our way. Anything that slows us down. Anything that distracts us. Anything that becomes a weight must be laid aside, leave it in the locker room. Do not take it out on the track. Do not try to carry it with you in this race. It is a distraction. And you must not heed that distraction. You see, the cloud of witnesses encircles us, but so too does sin. Satan has set a snare for our feet. In the same way that the runners in the ancient Olympics would set aside their flowing and billowing robes, so too must we set aside anything that would trip us up in this race. Now later in this same chapter, and we will come to it eventually, Lord willing, Scripture tells us how God chastens us in order to remove those besetting sins. Many times the afflictions that come into our lives, the persecution that comes into our lives, is either as a result directly of that sin, or is put there to cause us to think about that sin and lay it aside. But we'll come to that. We're exercised by chastening when we are exercised by it. We are exercised by chastening in order to make straight paths for our feet. Did you notice in Psalm 37 this morning how like the Proverbs it is, that it gives us saying after saying after saying, which as you pointed out, those sayings are antithetical. That if we hold on to sin, we cannot hold the baton that's been passed to us. We cannot believe both truth and lie. We cannot believe both falsehood and truth. We will either serve Christ or we'll serve Delile. There is no neutral ground in the Christian life. We're running for the finish line, or we're running off the track. So, don't despise the chastening of the Lord. Don't despise, don't contemn the work of God in making a straight path for you. But when I say that, don't think that you can handle it. Don't think that I'm a grown-up or I'm a guy. I can keep a stiff upper lip. No, you won't see emotion in my eyes, except maybe determination. No, if you think that way, you'll not be broken, you'll be ground to powder. We fall on the rock or the rock falls on us. The chastisement, the affliction is not set there so that you can withstand it. It is set there so you can be broken by it, so you can learn to fall upon Christ, so that you can be broken by Christ lest the rock fall on you and you be ground to powder. And so I say there is a preparation for this race. And the preparation for this race does not happen once in our lives. No. The preparation for this race takes place day by day by day. When do we deny ourselves? When do we take up our cross? Was yesterday good enough? No. Today's cross must be born today. And tomorrow's cross will be a new cross to bear on that day. Day by day we prepare for this race. And so that brings us third then to the manner of the running of this race. In a word, we must run it with patience. That is to say, constantly, enduringly, perseveringly. In fact, if we were ever to come up with a one-word theme for the book of Hebrews, it would have to be perseverance. That is the theme of Hebrews. You see, the indication here is not only that it involves a long race, and we must strengthen our legs, we must strengthen our arms, rather we must strengthen our minds. Because the racer finishes in his mind way before he finishes with his body. He knows that he has to run through pain. He knows that a certain grace is required if he completes the race. And patience is that grace. We talk about the perseverance of the saint, and we believe that doctrine. But the reason that we believe that doctrine is because patience and perseverance, endurance, is a grace of God. This is not a sprint. It's an endurance race. And only those who hold out to the end will receive the victor's crown. Not all who begin a race finish it. Did you learn that yesterday morning? Not everyone who begins a race finishes it. Yes, there have been 107 shuttle flights. And up until yesterday, 105 of them have landed safely. But that's no guarantee. There's no guarantee that those who begin will also finish. And that's what the writer of Hebrews is trying to explain to us. That it's to the victor that the crown goes, the Stephanos, the Laurel. It's only to the one who finishes the race, not to those who are distracted. We are strangers and pilgrims, but you know the difference between this and being a stranger and a pilgrim is it brings to mind this fact. A stranger and a pilgrim is always welcome to sit down and rest. We are pilgrims. We're not hobos. We're pilgrims. We have some place we're going. But this example, this illustration that the author uses here of a race, allows for no dallying. It allows for no resting. It allows for no sitting down for a season. It is a constant running. In verse 3, he says there is a danger of being wearied and fainting. Where? In your minds. The danger in the Christian life is not of becoming wearied in our bodies, but of becoming wearied in our souls. Do you know what soul weariness is? Have you ever experienced that? Some of you younger ones, perhaps you never have. But if you've been on this earth for very long at all, you know something of soul weariness. Have you ever thought to yourself, I'm just tired of this? Well, how were you tired? Maybe physically you weren't tired at all, but mentally you just felt like, Sometimes we say I'm fed up I've had all I want I Don't want any more of this. That's what it is to become wearied and faint in your minds And he says don't do that Never ever think of the Christian life as a burden Never think of it as a weariness never snuff At the Christian life He tells us that we must endure chastening or we will have debilitated souls. We will have wearied souls. We will have faint souls. He says we must endure chastening so that we will eventually bear fruit in our lives. What kind of fruit? The peaceable fruit of righteousness. Why is the chastening there? Why is the affliction there? Why is it that some of these people were stoned? Why is it that some of them were sawn apart? Why is it that some of them were placed in prison and wandered in deserts? Oh yes, it's easy for us to understand the Gideons who drive an army out of the land. It's easy for us to understand the Jephthahs and the Davids. But what of those who are sawn asunder? What of those who are stoned? What of those who wander in deserts and wear skins all their lives? What do we say of them? We say of them, they strove unto blood against sin. Though it cost them their lives, they would not flinch. They would not turn back. They would not be distracted. They said to themselves, none of these things move me. Neither count I my life dear to myself, that I may finish the course that God has set before me." That's the peaceable fruit of righteousness. The martyrs who went before, who strove against sin, were killed, many of them. And we may be called upon to do so in the future. I can't see into the future one second we may be called upon to do so. Meanwhile, not yet, not so far, if you can still hear my voice, you're alive and you're awake. You haven't yet been slain for your faith. Meanwhile, That's where we live, isn't it? We live in the meanwhile. We're called upon to run this race with patience. And more than that, it's a course that's already been laid out for us. And this struck me again as I was meditating with you on Psalm 37 in light of this, that it seems to us many times as though the wicked have an easier course laid out for them than the righteous. But not only so, many times it seems to us that others of the people of God have an easier course laid out for them than we do. I was struck by the words of a Korean missionary when I was in Myanmar. He was in Myanmar now, that is to say he is there now, but he came there after ministering in the Sudan for many years. And I was commenting to him about the compassion that we ought to have for the poverty of the people of Myanmar. Those people live with the rice they have in their hands. They truly know how to pray for this day's bread. And he said to me, yes, you're right, the people are very poor in Myanmar. So much so that if they have two handfuls of rice, their neighbors will envy them for it. But he said, where I came from in the Sudan, if a man had two handfuls of rice, his neighbors would kill him for it. Yes, there is poverty in Myanmar, but it's not the greatest poverty that there is. And so, God has laid out a different course for the Christians of America. than He has laid out for the Christians of Myanmar, than He has laid out for the Christians of the Sudan. But God has laid out a course just for you. And He did so before the foundation of the world. This is not a course that God changes things while you sleep, or listens to your prayers and changes the course of events because He listened to your prayers. No. Your course, your race, was laid out for you before the foundation of the world. And it is a course that was particularly designed for you. You were born where you were born, because God decreed it. You were born to the parents to whom you were born, because God decreed it. You were converted, if you are, the day you were converted, because God decreed it. And so it is with your whole life of sanctification. Each day brings to you precisely those things that God decreed before the foundation of the world. He is the One. He is the umpire who laid out your course for you. But the author wants us to know this. The same umpire who laid out the course is now our coach and friend who teaches us how to run it. And so he says to us finally, look to the greatest example of all. He says, look to Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith. Consider Him! Meditate upon the Lord Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean have some picture of some long-haired guy hanging from a cross on your wall. No, what it means is think about what he's done. Think about what he thought. Make your thoughts become subject to his obedience. That's how you tear down strongholds in your life, is by thinking his thoughts, by doing what he did. Bumper stickers. What would Jesus do? I'll tell you what Jesus would do. He would do all God's will. He would keep all God's commandments. He would make all the sacrifices He was called upon to make. He would deal with affliction day by day, though the foxes had dens and the birds had nests, and He did not have a place even to lay His head. He dealt with those afflictions day by day. And so, Paul says to us, look to Him. He's the author and finisher of our faith. He's the one who started it. He's the one who ran it. And He's the one who shows you how to run it now. Look to Him. Oh, there are many examples in chapter 11. All of them. Good examples. All of those who ran this race with enduring faithfulness, who lived lives of faith. But now He places before our eyes the greatest example of all. Look to Jesus, he says, for he's the one who ran this race perfectly. Did Noah run the race faithfully? Yes, but he became drunk and cursed a son. Did Abraham run this race? Yes, but he lied about his wife. Did David run this race? Yes, but remember his sin with Bathsheba. All of them ran races of faith, but here is a runner who ran this race perfectly. Never faltered, never failed, and he is an example for us until yet. Anything that might beset us in the course of our race, Christ has already borne. He bore the cross practically and patiently. He endured it, and now he's seated in glory. Consider him. Think about what he underwent during the days of his humiliation. Consider how he was despised of men and rejected. Consider that men who were themselves among the most wicked in the world called him a sinner. Consider that he was spoken against from all quarters. Consider that he was betrayed by some of his closest friends. And all of his disciples, at the end, deserted him and denied him. Consider that he was alone on the cross. No one held Him up. In a sense, even God forsook Him that day as He cried out, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Yes, My friends forsook Me. Yes, My family forsook Me. Yes, My disciples forsook Me. Of course, the religious leaders forsook Me. But why hast Thou forsaken Me? Consider Him. Oh, do you have sick children? Jesus came into a sin-sick world and rose from the dead with healing in his wings. Are you often tired? Are you weary? Do things just wear you out sometimes? Consider that Jesus was not only wearied by work, but that He bore our load, and He had no place to lay His head. Do we face daily trials in our lives, daily temptations to sin? Consider Jesus, who withstood the very snares of the tempter face to face. Do people speak against us? as individuals and as a people. They scourged Jesus. Some of you don't know what a scourge is. It's a whip with many different thongs that come out from the handle. And at the end of each one is a piece of bone or a piece of jagged glass. And as it rips into the flesh, it tears the very flesh from the bone. Are you tired? Do they speak against you? Then consider Jesus, who endured patiently the load that was laid upon Him. Sometimes it seemed to you that your mind is about to come undone because of all your troubles, because things are simply not going the way you would like for them to go at school or at home or on the job, then remember that He who deserved to wear the crown of glory received instead a crown of thorns, not just a painful crown Although it was certainly that, as it bore into his scalp. But emblematic as it was of the curse, when God said, because of man's sin, The earth will bring forth thorns and briars and weeds. And those very thorns and briars were placed upon the brow of Jesus Christ. No victors wore all that. No Stephanos. No. A crown of thorns. So you may think you deserve more than you get. And when you think in that way, consider Jesus. They finally nailed Him to a cross. His cross became so heavy as He bore that load that He stumbled under it. Oh, I say to you, our crosses are much lighter, and He holds them up for us. Christ promises to carry our load along with us when He says, Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, I will give you rest." He goes on to say, take my yoke upon you. Why does he say take his yoke upon us? It's so that he can carry with us the load that is upon us. Consider him, the Bible says, who endured the gainsaying of sinners. Consider him who ran the race patiently. Consider him and look to him for comfort. Look to Him for patience. Look to Him for endurance. Place your trust in Him, lest you be wearied and faint in your souls. Let's stand and call upon the Lord. Father, we confess that indeed we do not look to the Lord as we ought. We do not look to Jesus as we ought. Our besetting sin is many times thinking that we can deal with our besetting sins on our own. That pride of life that causes us to think that we are somehow strong enough. We pray forgive us and grant to us that endurance that comes only from running with Jesus. Grant to us that we might have Him ever before our eyes, even as that horse who wears blinders that we would not be distracted by the lusts of the flesh, or the lusts of the eye, or the pride of life, but rather we would run with patience the race that is set before us. We pray, grant to us, that day by day we might learn more and more to take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Jesus. For we ask this in His name, Amen. You have been listening to a sermon by Dr. Richard Bacon of Faith Presbyterian Church Reformed in Mesquite, Texas. For more information on FPCR Ministries, visit our website at www.fpcr.org or contact us by mail at 8301 Lakeview Parkway, Suite 111-164, Rowlett, Texas 75088.