← ArchiveSunday, December 27, 2015DateDecember 27, 2015Speaker—TextHebrews 12Passages in this sermonHebrews 120:21Ephesians 6:115:401 Peter 2:26:32Hebrews 12:17:12TranscriptMachine transcribed. Click any line to jump there.0:00we're going to look at three verses of scripture today and i'm here to seriously encourage you not persecute you i promise in the name of jesus today hebrews chapter 12 and i started to think through what all we could discuss on this last sunday together and it just kept drawing me to0:29this passage because i think it gives us a kind of a launching point for us to leave and also a launching point for you to journey on to be an encouraged in the word hebrews chapter 12 beginning with the first verse to the third verse the bible tells us therefore since we have so great kind of witnesses surrounding us let us also lay aside every encumbrance and sin which so easily entangles us let us run with endurance the race that is set before us fixing our eyes upon jesus you met your0:59translation may say look to same translation though same narrative look fixing our eyes on jesus the author perfect and perfecter of faith who for the joy set before us endured the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of god for consider him who has endured such hostility but centers against himself so that you may not grow weary and lose heart i was thinking through1:25today and i knew that matt was going to be leading us in worship today and it is a joy to serve with him what a blessing he is he's an encourager to me because he's a runner i'm not a runner i don't like running i don't like running at all never did like it never liked it when i was playing sports i just didn't think it was a necessary thing to do but he loves it it reminded me of a story of a doctor friend of mine1:54told me recently who is also a runner he uh he said he was going to his clinic one day and i when i was thinking of matt leading this uh this is in his honor today i i was uh thinking about that he said he was on his way to the doctor his clinic and he was driving down the highway and he saw these two runners out in front of him out running one was a rather young shapely nice looking young lady it seemed like2:21and then the other looked like a guy that was struggling an old old man struggling along with little shorts on a little tank top and he was just trying his best to keep up and he was struggling to run and so as he was running alongside him he drove past him and he looked over just as a doctor thinking man this guy it's a hundred degrees out what in the world is he doing and he noticed that2:48it was a patient the old gentleman was one of his patients so he finally got to a place where he could stop he pulled his car off to the side of the road he got out waited for them to run up to them and the young lady was just all energetic and she was so pretty and all exciting even you know even with sweat rolling off he said she looked great she was in great shape and all of that and i looked over at the old gentleman he was struggling he was barely breathing he said what in the world are you3:14doing he said doc i'm following your orders from yesterday when i was at the clinic he said what did you what what orders he said you told me to get me a hot mama and to be cheerful he said no no you misunderstand i said you have a heart murmur and you need to be careful when i think of matt i have a heart murmur and i need to be careful not really i want to talk to you today about running the race3:43i want to talk to you about running with endurance the race that is set before you i want us to look at these three verses of scripture and i want to be an encouragement to you today to kind of pass the baton off to the next generation that's coming the next vision that's coming as i said when i got here the mission that i will be on is a short-run mission until a greater vision comes i've even put that on our website that's4:09what our intentional ministry is about it's a short-run mission we're on mission to accomplish some short-run goals to accomplish that goal is to get you prepared to receive the next senior pastor the permanent guy that is the work that i have in our intentional in our ministry or transitional pastor that is being called now is that we transition the church from one senior to the next and so i'm here to encourage you today and i want us to look at the word because the word lays4:38it out effective teaching makes many uses of figures of speech and we find a great many of them in scripture the paul the writer the apostle paul who is one of the new testament writers obviously two-thirds of the new testament he used a lot of different figures of speech now we don't know for certain that the apostle paul wrote this we're not certain of that it's not declared many theologians believe that he had something to do with the book of hebrews many5:05think he was the author of the book of hebrews i i have my own personal opinion i'm going to keep it to myself and it really doesn't matter but the book of hebrews is there for us to take for us to grab a hold of and so when you look at these figures of speech it helps us to understand that god has a race that we are all involved in several times for example christian living is compared to warfare paul talked about that enduring hardships as a good soldier to his young friend timothy put on the5:34full armor of god he wrote to the church at ephesus in ephesians chapter 6 verse 11 he used boxing comparisons when he was riding to the church at corinth by boxing such a way as not beating in the air so christians are referred to as slaves to christ paul referred to himself as such he called himself a bondservant or in the greek a doulos a bondservant of jesus christ he referred to himself as that we5:58have these hardships christians referred to slaves to christ christ referred to us as light and salt in matthew's gospel chapter 5 we we studied that in the beatitude series where let your light shine before men so that they may see your good work so the father may be glorified in heaven so christ referred to us as salt and he also referred to us as light uh peter refers to christians as babes or living6:23stones in first peter chapter 2 verse 2 and 5 however paul loved to use the term the race term he loved using these type of phrases run the race running well run in vain this is the same figure of speech that the writer of the book of hebrews uses as well so in these next few verses over the next few moments and this will not be a long message i promise you no more than an hour so i want you to6:52buckle in and understand some of you saying yeah i know he's got one last time he's going to let us have it no i'm here to encourage you in jesus today i'm here to encourage us so in these next few verses i want us to unpack this theme that we see in hebrews chapter 12 verses 1 2 and 3 the central theme of the christian life the central theme of the christian life is to run the race that is set before us7:21folks let me tell you something i'm here to encourage you to run the race that you are set before the one that is set before you i can't run your race for you you can't run my race for me you can't run josh's race josh has his own race so we all got a band together and run the race that is set before us endurance is the key to every race that we run to withstand the pressures of the world to finish strong should be the ultimate goal for every christ follower finishing the race strong standing7:50before the lord jesus one day and him say well done thou good and faithful service that should be the theme for every one of us to run with endurance the race that is set before us and endurance keeps us leading toward leaning towards finishing the race strong so as we begin this brand new chapter in your church life in a few weeks you begin this brand new chapter i want to give you four things three things8:16from this passage and four words of encouragement before we leave here first word of encouragement receive josh and his family with the same love that you extended to me and mine i'm challenging you to receive him with the same love that you extended to me i can tell you that i've been loved by you more than i believe i loved you i believe that beyond a shadow of doubt many of you encouraged me you put8:46your arms of love around me you extended your love to me you gave me the opportunity to love you unconditionally because you made yourself available to me and that was a joy to me so receive josh and his family with the same kind of love you extended to me so when we look at these three look twos i want us to not just look to but i think there's something even greater in this passage if you'll notice with me in9:11verse one therefore since we have so great cloud of witnesses surrounding us let us let us that phrase rings of a unity let us not let me but let us collectively look at the winners and the encouragers that are around us that's what he's telling us he said we have all these winners all these people9:36around here there are many sitting in this audience today that have been on this race this christian journey for many many years and those of us that are young those of us that are young who said huh those of us that are young we can look to some of you senior adults out there that are young that are running that race ahead of us folks let me tell you something josh needs for you to come alongside him and to run the race with him but also also to hold him accountable also to enjoy the journey with10:02him to encourage him he's going to make some mistakes he's going to so are you so let us run the race lay aside every encumbrance and sin which so easily entangles us when we look at this key phrase let us run the race the with endurance the race that is set for us endurance is a steady10:30determination to finish or to keep on going that's what that simply means it's a steady endurance when i talk to matt matt tells me that this running this marathon thing is not that big a deal i think it's a huge deal i think it's a massive deal he says it's not that big a deal watch you get 20 miles it's no big deal man it's the first 18 19 and a quarter my 19 and three quarter miles it's a big deal to me10:58right the 26.2 is a big deal but the way that marathon runners do it they don't sprint they get on a steady pace and they run the race that is set before and putting one foot in front of the other it let us can be used in speaking of believers and non-believers by the way hebrews for chapter 4 verse 4 1 uh chapter 14 verse 16 17 all these chapter 6 verse chapter 10 all of these are11:24speaking of believers and bullies this passage i believe this let us is referred to the jews who have professed christ but have not gone all the way in faith with him so he's encouraging him after you look at 11 chapter 11 all the by faith by faith by faith then he gets to this passage therefore since we have so great crown of witnesses surrounding us let us lay aside the every encumbrance and the sin which11:49so easily entangles us let us run the race with endurance so we need to lay aside we need to look to the winners and look to the encouragers in our lives many people are not even in the race have you noticed that we have a lot of spectators and let and less participants we have a lot of people that are sitting12:12on the sidelines time now to get in shape to run the race get in the game many christians could hardly describe themselves as running much less being in the race at all many christians are sitting on the couch we need to get off the couch and get into the race some of us need to start with a mere walk in this run some of us need to get into a a small 5k and to get to this thing don't start the whole12:41marathon but at least get up and get going some walking slowly would be something better than they've done thus far some need to stop sitting down all the time waiting on somebody else to do it it's time for us all race is is in the greek word agony which becomes the word agony it is tough it's hard the christian life is hard and let me tell you something folks if you think the christian life is easy it's going13:08to be easy it's not because the world does not want us to succeed we've got to get in the race together let us look to the encouragers let us run the race that is set before us so rejoice in what god has done at bethel baptist church but let's look to what he's taught us to do in the future we need to rejoice when i came here the first thing i do and i come to an interim is13:35i always look around the facility i take this wonderful staff that's been handed me and we start walking around the building and and one of the things one of the things we look is some aesthetic things that need to be changed do we need to do some sprucing up what do we need to do because not that that not that your building was in bad shape it wasn't it just needed some paint put on it this building hadn't been painted since it's been built so we needed to put some paint on it we need to do some things and generous gifts and contributions that were given and and beautiful things we got14:05some parking lot changed we got some new shrubbery out we got some new terminology uh painted this back wall and by the way eric you see that seam up there but anyway that's just one final thing i just want to share with you eric there's a seam right up there we need to have them brothers back to fix that but anyway and we fixed all this and new screens a lot of neat things god has done some wonderful things in this congregation we and all of you look at the seam right now and then put your eyes back on me go ahead look at see the scene right up there that's okay god's in this too14:34nobody's gonna get lost because we got a seam up there right yeah that's not gonna save anybody but it does it did catch my eye and i thought i'd share that with my brother eric because he's all about that but i we have done some wonderful things here we god has just blessed this congregation we've seen some growth we've had baptisms we've had new members join people coming back it's been an exciting journey so we need to rejoice in what god has done in us as well as what god has done15:01to teach us so we need to look at the winners and the encouragers around therefore since we have so great cloud of witnesses surrounding us let us also lay aside every encumbrance and sin which so easily entangles us so not only do we need to look at the winners and be an encourager but we also need to look at ourselves let us look deep within ourselves we're starting a brand new year this15:30is a perfect time of year perfect time of the season of the church to us to do some introspect to look inside what is it that i need to change god what are you pointing at to me we need to look at ourselves one of the greatest problems that runners have they tell me is that too much weight that's why i'm not a runner it's because too much weight not to say if i would run the weight would go away it probably would16:00but you see after we've had sausage and biscuits and donuts for breakfast i'm wondering how is this going to work we need to look at ourselves we need to have a spiritual checkup from the heart up not just the neck up we need to say god what is it in my life to make the next generation of this church work collectively what is it that's in my life that's what the writer is telling us look unto g look lay16:25aside every encompass and every sin which so easily entangles us let us run with endurance the race that is set before us so we need to look at those spiritual things those things that are not helping us grow we need to have a confessional in our own personal life not one that you need to come to an altar you need to make an altar in your heart so what is it that's keeping you from growing in the grace and16:52knowledge of jesus christ don't blame it on your pastor don't blame it on your ministers don't blame it on your deacons don't blame it on your life group leader blame it on you if you're not growing spiritually it's your own fault we have an opportunity to get in the word we have an opportunity to grow in the grace and knowledge of christ it was unbelief that kept israel out of the promised land it is unbelief that keeps us out of heaven it's not the baptist way it's unbelief that keeps people out of heaven17:18folks we need to lay aside what is the sin that is waiting you down i would grab one of our athletes but i'm not going to take the moment but if we took one of our athletes and we brought him up here and we stood him on the stage and ask him as you get ready to go into spring training you get ready17:42for spring ball you're working out they're in the weight room right now they're working out they're getting going and they're lifting the weights and they're they're they're doing all the calisthenics and all the the the weight uh training to get ready for spring ball and then all of a sudden we would set the weights aside but then what would what would we do if we took one of those guys and say you know what all the weights you've been dead lifting all the weights curls you've been doing and all the18:10bench presses you've been doing all the squats you've been doing we're going to put that weight on top of all the uniform that you're going to put on we'll actually go out there and play in the spring game they'd make it maybe one play why because they've got the weight that's exactly what happens we're not growing in the grace and knowledge of christ we're not moving forward in christ it's because we have not confessed all the sin we got to ask god to take the sin off of us so lay aside every sin and every encumbrance for the race that is set before us faith that fizzles18:35before the finish may not be fireproof from the first meaning we may not have enough faith we may truly truly not be saved i'm challenging you today to to look deep within your heart are you truly born again if so are you growing in the grace and knowledge of christ if you're saved by his grace and you're not growing then i wonder even if you're saved by his grace i had that same introspect19:0320 30 plus years ago and said lord is this really am i truly your child am i truly saved by his grace and when i really nailed that down that growth yes it came in spurts and sometimes it was great and sometimes it was less but it was a constant growing process folks let me tell you something we need to look to ourselves what is in our lives that needs to be laid aside so we need to look at the winners19:25and the encouragers and secondly we need to look at in within ourselves rejoice in what god has done in you and what god has taught us and finally when you look in this passage that third passage the third point is if we need to look to jesus let us look to jesus look with me in verse two the writer in the19:48hebrews says look unto jesus fixing our eyes upon jesus he had to be a southerner fixing our eyes upon jesus right fixing your eyes on jesus the author and perfecter who for the joy set before him endured the cross despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of god have you noticed that he sat down he hadn't gotten up one time he got up to usher stephen in and he sat down20:14he is not a moving target christ is not a moving target he is a fixed point in space we can keep our eyes agglued to him he's not moving we don't have to search for him he's right there preparing a place for us and that one day the bible says that one day he'll come for the church one day but until then we need to keep our eyes fixed on jesus in every sporting event ever a sporting event known to man there's20:39always a prize at the end of the game the national championship the southeastern conference championship the relay races we have friends whose kids are swimming in college and they're winning those medals and they're winning those ribbons in in sports folks every time you win you get something and the prize for the believers and when he stands it says well done when he ushers us into his kingdom21:06well done thou good and faithful servant so we need to look to jesus the author and perfect perfecter that means the alpha the omega the beginning and the end of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross surprising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of god for consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you and i may not grow weary and21:32lose heart church listen to me we need to look to the encouragers and the winners that are in the race we need to look within ourselves to see what needs to be laid aside but we must we must look to jesus the author and perfecter of our faith so we must rejoice in what god has taught us and what god has led us to21:55do and what god has done in us but we also need to rally around the vision for the church and for your life and we need to respond to that vision if we're going to be a part of this team we got to respond when the vision's laid out we got to respond now there's nothing wrong with22:20us questioning anything along the way and i guarantee you josh being a smart kid and he's a kid he is i got socks older than that boy and that's absolutely wonderful i'm not disrespecting your new pastor he is a fine young man but let me tell you something when he lays out the vision we need to wish nothing wrong with us to question it just a little bit that makes it sharpen his iron just a little bit sharpens and hone him in just a little bit but folks let me tell you something once22:49it's settled the church says let's go then we need to get behind the vision or we need to get gone get behind the vision rally behind the vision that god has laid out for this congregation and respond to the call to the world the nations are begging for the new testament church in north america to stand up and make a statement and it can start right here at bethel baptist church23:15some of the greatest revivals that took place in the history of the united states inside this continent were started in congregations about this size asbury revival in kentucky just took off church about this size folks let me tell you something great revivals start within our hearts first great awakenings of god start with him infusing the vision into us and us responding to the call of god so we must23:43look to jesus the author and perfecter of our faith matthew gospel 28 verse 19 and 20 goes on down says making disciples of all the nations not just some 1.6 billion people have not heard the name of jesus not heard the name of jesus had been left out of the gospel conversation i'm challenging you let's not just look at moody let's not just look at the infrastructure here in this community let's look24:10around the world folks let me tell you something we need to look to jesus the author and perfecter of our faith who for the joy set before him endured the cross despised into shame and has sat down and he is sitting down there giving us clear direction of what we should go we rejoice that one day we will all live together with him but we have a command today command today to live for him and serve for him24:33around the world i have been crucified with christ that night i live no longer do i live but christ lives in me galatians galatians tells us the life which i live now in the flesh i live by faith in the son of god who loved me and gave himself for me if he gave himself for me can we not give our lives in return24:57so we need to look to the winners we need to look within ourselves but the most important thing we look at let us look to jesus the author and perfecter of our faith when i arrived here i think one of my25:15opening statements were i'm going to do three l's i'm going to do three l's i'm going to love you unconditionally i said it i'm in it i still do warts and all do not care where you're from do not care25:36where you've come from could care less about your past i'm more concerned about your future i'm going to love you unconditionally i hope you'll love me if you don't you're lost i'm going to love you anyway amen i think i've done that i believe with all my heart this week i had some time to to just kind of26:00adjust my thoughts of towards our time here and started writing a letter that you'll receive this week and i i just i just started thinking about some of the things that we've gone through we've we've had some heartaches we've had some tough times as a congregation we've united said goodbye to some wonderful people or see if soon we should say to some wonderful wonderful people we've had some tough26:27times we've had some phenomenal times we've not baptized near as many as i wanted to but i will never be happy with that number we can always reach one more amen always reach one more right but i've loved you unconditionally really do not care about your past i am so concerned about your future the beauty part of what i get to do is that you allowed me to lead you and i told you that i was26:58coming when i sat with the committee that's in that conference room and i said guys don't let me don't call me here don't ask me to come and not let me lead because you can't take a leader and not let him lead and you graciously allowed me to lead and i thank you for that thank you that you allowed me to lead thank you that you allowed me to lead your staff i i've worked with a lot of different staff people27:22and and and some are good and some are not so good and you've got some wonderful people in your staff and i have been blessed to work alongside them with my harebrained ideas they just look at me and nod and most of them would go i could see their they didn't roll their eyes but i know they wanted to because i probably would have but they have been fantastic brad has been a right arm to me as27:47associate pastor and just blessed me and uh laughed at my stupid jokes and just encouraged me along the way and as he just has a great heart for the lost and a great heart to making disciples of all the nations miss sharon just keeping the glue in the glue can and keeping us stuck together and helping us to stay focused on some areas administratively she's been a joy and eric's just been a a god sent28:13i have never had a guy that would just do so much and help so much in so many different areas and so gifted uh we've not even tapped the resources that's in his life miss jess miss jessica she's just been phenomenal with our kids i call her the rock star children's ministers you won't keep her long i can just tell you that right now because somebody's gonna come grab her because she's real good not that these others aren't maybe not but anyway and and miss kathy's it's been a blessing28:40to work alongside it's been a joy to work in this staff this has been a joy to work alongside them and work through all the difficulties and in preparation for each week of celebrating and equipping the saints deacons are just amazing it's been a joy thank you so much so when i said i'm going to come i'm going to come and love you unconditionally you allowed me to do that and i said i was going to lead29:08you and you allowed me to lead you and that was a joy a joy to lead and then i told you at the appropriate time i was going to leave you and that time is now it's now we've had a good run it's been an amazing amazing 16 months and i will always forever debbie and i will always remember29:33riveted into the soul into our souls the 16 months every second has been wonderful god bless you god bless you let's pray you29:49god bless you god bless you let's pray youMore sermons on Hebrews →
