Reading

Remember last week?

Hebrews 11 caused us to look back and remember people in the bible who had been faithful to God in the face of difficult times. The faith they were commended for was risky action based on a promise that God would bring something better in the future. The examples were all people whom we can respect for their faithfulness, but who the author reminds us never got the fullness of what they were promised.

When things are difficult, when things are not so clear for us, Hebrews 11 reminds us of people whose lives were changed by their risky trust and faith in God. We can be encouraged to stick it out, just like they did.

We did some remembering last week, too. Several of you have talked with me about how important it was to remember the people in your lives who are YOUR examples of faith. This week, even if you weren’t here last week,, remember the names of people who have shaped your life, your spiritual life before God.

We want to connect this week with last week…

…because Hebrews 12 is so closely connected with Hebrews 11. As we look back and see all those people who are examples for us, now we are challenged to run OUR race, to live OUR lives, in the same way. But the focus of our attention gets changed. Last week, we looked back to those in our past; now, we look to the one who was there at the beginning, and to the one who will be there for all eternity…Jesus, our champion, our winner, the author and perfecter of our faith.

I’m going to read Hebrews 12:1-3 in just a moment, but I’m going to pause in the middle of it for you to help out. The very first phrase in chapter 12 refers back to the huge cloud of witnesses, the wonderful examples that surround us from chapter 11. It’s one last look back before we shift our gaze forward to the goal, to Jesus.

I want to invite us together to make it more real, more current. I’ll pause after reading the first phrase, and in that pause, I want to invite you to speak out from where you are the names of the people in your life who have been part of that cloud of witnesses. Speak out some of the names you wrote last week, the people who are your examples for living for God.

After leaving space for you to speak out those names, I’ll then read all three verses, and we’ll continue with our worship. It will give us a chance to make this passage of the bible more directly applicable to who we are today.

READ Heb. 12:1-3

I once was accused of only using examples and illustrations from baseball or fishing.

I work hard at NOT having that be true, but I will admit that since they are things that I know and love, those examples come more readily than just about anything else.

Weeks ago, thinking about today, two illustrations came to mind for chapter 12…and, true to the accusation, one is a baseball example, and one is a fishing example. So of course, I pushed them down and at first rejected them. But then something great happened!

Baseball and fishing, being outdoor sports, are the perfect types of examples to use for Hebrews 12! Because the author is drawing heavily on words and imagery from athletic contests. Ok, maybe I exaggerate by saying PERFECT, because the imagery in Hebrews 12 is running imagery, not baseball or fishing. But if it were ever an ok day to use baseball and fishing analogies, today is the day. You’ll be able to spot them when they turn up a little later, but first I want to invite us to have Hebrews 12: 1-3 open in our bibles right now.

There’s a passion here for us to live life as God wants it to be lived.

The author wants us all to live differently, wants us to succeed. After all the theology and thinking and remembering, now comes the time to live.

Here is a challenge to take our own choices seriously, a challenge to do all that we can to live faithfully before God.

This is straight talk that says, let’s raise the bar. Let’s tough it out. Let’s pull out all the stops and really try to run with purpose. Let’s play to win.

I think that’s the tone of this chapter.

It isn’t hopeless. It isn’t only a harsh drill sergeant screaming at us. But it is like a coach asking us to dig deep, to take life seriously, to throw aside everything that might trip us or tangle us or distract us, and persevere in running the race of life like Jesus did.

Without a doubt, we cannot forget everything that has come before in Hebrews. Jesus has been our hope and our focus. Only Jesus can bring forgiveness, only Jesus has made it possible, once and for all, to enter into God’s presence and be changed.

But now is the reminder that we are partners in this journey of faith. Now is the reminder that keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, where they should be, takes effort on our part.

There is a lot of richness and diversity in the words used here.

You can see that in the different ways these verses are translated. For instance, let’s just take one phrase out of verse one. The New International Version says, “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles...”

What do some of the other translations that you have say? [ASK]

NRSV: lay aside weight, sin that clings. KJV: lay aside weight, sin that besets. NASB: lay aside encumbrance, sin that entangles.

Summing it all up… there is a lot that can get in the way of running the race of life like Jesus would.

There is sin…disobeying God. Sin tangles us up, clings to us, besets us. And, there are other weights and encumbrances, other things which keep us from running as we should…hurts that have been done to us, habits that hold us back.

If you want to win a race, you wouldn’t run with the laces of your shoes tied together. That’s what sin does as we try to live for God. If you want to win a race, you wouldn’t run with a down jacket, gloves, and a wool hat. It would slow you down. That’s what our hurts and habits do as we try to live for God.

What things, what sin in your life is clearly holding you back? And what things are weighing you down, what things are you carrying that should be set aside to run more effectively?

I’m pretty convinced that just about everyone of us has some sin we could easily name that is keeping us from living as God intends. Hebrews 12 asks us to throw it off.

I’m just as convinced that just about everyone of us is carrying around a weight that we don’t realize is taking its toll on us. We need to throw that off, too. Those wounds and weights sometimes take awhile to figure out.

When I was in high school, I had a baseball break my nose.

We were warming up before the game, and a ground ball my coach hit took a bad hop off a rut in the field, and smacked me in the nose. The wound made me miss 5 games, as I had to have surgery and wear a brace and let it heal.

The weird thing was, when I did get to play again, everything was fine. I wasn’t scared of the ball, I had no ill effects. I just jumped right back in, finished the season, and figured the worst was behind me.

I didn’t even think about my nose when we started up the next year, but it quickly became apparent to everybody that I was struggling. About half the time a ball got hit to me, my head would flinch and I would miss the ball.

My coach was incredibly sympathetic and understanding. Not. First, he screamed at me to quit being afraid of the ball and do my job. When that didn’t work, he pulled me aside, and said: “Look, we have two choices: I can stick a nail in your chest and a nail in your chin and tie a rope between them to keep your head down, or you can move to the outfield.”

I remember my dad and I going out to our garage that night. We both knew that something was going on in my head, some after-effects from breaking my nose almost a year before. My dad and I sat on the floor about 5 feet apart, and he threw little one-hoppers to me.

Anything that bounced more than two feet away from me, I had no problem catching. Anything that bounced closer than a foot, no problem either.

But when my dad bounced the ball 18 inches from me, my head yanked out of there uncontrollably. I could not stop it.

Unconsciously, my eyes and brain remembered exactly what kind of bounce had broken my nose the year before.

Evidently, that bad hop had been about 18 inches from me, and every time it came again, my head wanted out of there.

I wasn’t consciously afraid of the ball; but being hurt in the past flared up in a weird way.

I’ve watched myself, and I’ve watched all kinds of people have that exact thing happen with emotional wounds, too. When we’ve been hurt in the past, our minds and bodies react in unexpected ways. Old hurts flare up in weird ways, and they keep us from living life as we want to live, as God wants us to live.

Our old hurts are weights that slow us down and hold us back. Past rejection leads to present bitterness. Angry words toward us in the past can lead us to lash out to others, first, before we even realize what we are doing.

My only option with baseball was to push through my fear.

My dad would throw ball after ball 18 inches away from me, night after night until we overcame my head jerk with sheer will power.

But Hebrews 12 offers us a different and a better solution for dealing with the wounds and habits that weigh us down.

“Fix our eyes on Jesus”…this Jesus who loved us enough to walk in our shoes, who loves us enough to speak on our behalf to God. “Fix our eyes on Jesus”…not on the past wounds and hurts, but on the savior who brings healing, who has conquered the power of death, and who sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor.

Are we willing to fix our eyes on Jesus, and make an effort to throw aside the weights, the hurts, the habits that slow us down? Are we willing to run the race set before us with patience and perseverance?

If so, we also need to do something about our sin.

It says here that sin entangles us…some versions say distract us. It tangles and distracts and keeps us from the goal.

For Christmas, my brother got me this fishing pole. The pole is really nice, but he warned me that the reel was really cheap. And it showed.

When I think of things tangling, the first picture in my mind is tangled fishing line. You know what I mean? I’m sure that over the course of my life I have literally lost DAYS from untangling fishing line.

What usually happens is when line gets old, when it’s been sitting wrapped tightly around the spool of the reel, those tight loops get frozen into the line. And those loops find the most nasty ways of tangling up with each other. A tangled, rat’s nest of a line doesn’t let you do much fishing.

Well, this reel, the very first time I used it, showed me how distraction can get in the way, too. My brother and I were fishing for steelhead over Christmas break, and after only a couple of hours, the bail broke on the reel.

It’s an important piece. After every cast, when you start reeling, it’s supposed to flip over and catch the line. But it wouldn’t flip by itself any more. I had to reach down and flip it myself.

I made a cast, and everything went bad at once. Because the bail didn’t flip, too much line came out and got tangled. So I’m trying to untangle the line and flip over the bail…and my brother starts yelling, because a steelhead has taken the bait and my bobber has disappeared!

Well, let me tell you, I don’t care whether the proper translation is “tangle” or “distract”.

I had both a tangle AND a distraction going on, and when I realized my bobber had disappeared, I took action. I threw off the tangle AND the distraction, got the reel working, and landed a 7 pound steelhead!

I can accomplish a lot when a fish is the goal. And I suppose that’s a good analogy for us.

When we fix our eyes on Jesus…when we remember the race of life is long and hard and the goal is to run it like Jesus, our champion, the author and perfecter of our faith…when we keep our eyes on the goal, we’re motivated to do a lot.

We can take action to let God heal our hurts so they won’t wear us down. We can throw off the sins and habits that tangle us up and distract us from the things God has for us.

This gets to the heart of what life with God is about.

How long will we let past hurts define us and weigh us down? How long will we put up with sins and habits that tangle us up?

Throw them aside. Not just the ones that get labeled as the “biggies”…not just sexual sin and murder. But throw aside the jealousy we feel towards our best friend. Throw aside the hurt and the bitterness from rejection. Throw aside gossip and greed and the “grass is always greener” mentality that leads us to never be satisfied with what we have.

How?

By fixing our eyes on Jesus.

By letting Jesus be the goal and the means to healing.

Tonight at 6 pm is a chance to practically work towards throwing some of this aside. We’ll gather in this room, anyone who wants to, and we’ll pray together for the healing of hurts. We’ll name before God the things we need help casting aside, so that we can live as God intends.

Our goal is not just being pretty nice people, or being a little bit better than most of the people around us.

Our goal is to live life like Jesus. And over the weeks ahead, we’ll look at some of the specific sins and struggles we are called to throw off so that we can live like Jesus.

For the rest of this service, as we fix our eyes on Jesus in song and through scripture, let God bring to mind what you need to set aside.

I want to invite you to strongly consider returning tonight for our prayer gathering, to let others help you fix your eyes on Jesus and set aside everything that weighs you down and tangles you up.

Let’s run long and hard together!