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Finish The Race Heb. 12:1-3 (The Message)

“Do you see what this means--all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we'd better get on with it. Strip down, start running--and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed--that exhilarating finish in and with God--he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”

Hebrews 11 is known for being God’s hall of fame. In this chapter you will find a record of some of the people that God honor’s for their faithfulness and their ability to finish the race that God called them to run.

When you visit the Motor sports Hall of Fame in Novi, Michigan you can follow the history of racing. It is easy to be impressed with how far we have come in the area of automobiles in the last one hundred years.

When you leave chapter 11 in Hebrews and enter chapter 12 it is not so much a feeling of how far we have come but how far we can go with God’s plan playing out in our lives.

For many hundreds of thousands of racing fans the weekend of the Daytona 500 is the super bowl of racing. Forty three drivers are strapped into eight hundred horsepower machines and drive at speeds in excess of 200 mph. This is the race that every driver wants to win.

What lesson can we learn from this scripture and from these drivers?

1. Racers listen to their spotters. “. . .pioneers who blazed the way. . .cheering us on.”

Spotters are critical to racecar drivers. A spotter is someone who is connected to the driver by radio. They are in constant contact with their driver. Spotters are always located in the highest position at the track so they can see what is happening at all times. It is their job to watch out for other cars which might not be seen by the driver of their car. It is not unusual to hear them say things like: Stay low, stay low or Go low or go high. It is the spotter who will remind the driver to slow down when entering or leaving pit row. When crashes are happening on the track ahead it is the spotter that will alert the driver to the changing conditions on the track ahead. It is not unusual for these spotters to be someone who has raced before or someone who has been around racing for a long time.

You and I have been given a tremendous gift in the form of a record of many Christ followers who have gone before us.

I have often referred to Heb. 11. It is a great chapter that is full of admonition and it serves as a reminder to us. When we read of what God has done through other people and with other people it helps us to understand what He will do with us.

The Bible is clearly our example of how we are to live. The stories in the this book have not been included to just give us something to talk about in Sunday School. Every story, every person is used by God to point us in the right direction.

We are to learn from them.

From some of the people who have gone before us we learn how to do life and from some of them we learn how not to do life.

How can one not learn from reading about the faith of . . .

Noah: Listened to God, turned his back on this world and did something that no one understood when he built an ark. He was ridiculed and scorned.

Abraham and Sarah: Went where God was calling him to go. They believed that they could have a son because God said they could even though they were too old.

Moses: By faith he chose to be mistreated with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.

David: We learn how to do some things and how not to do others. We learn how to slay giants and how to trust in God when we are being tested but we also learn how indulging in sin can bring heartache and death into our lives.

All of the people mentioned in Heb. 11 have one thing in common besides faith. They had a destination in mind. They were all strangers and pilgrims to this earth. They were all looking ahead to a greater reward. You and I must pay attention to the spotters God has provided for us.

We do this to avoid the wrecks and crashes that come to our lives when we don’t pay attention to God word and the commands and principles that we are to live our lives by.

Live the Word.
Read the Word.
Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.

2. Racers carry no extra baggage. “. . .strip down, start running.”

NASCAR racing has turned into a science. It is no longer a bunch of “good old boys” who like to work on making cars run faster. There are many people who would have no place in NASCAR if it weren’t for their college engineering degrees. Racing has become a science. Figuring out fuel mileage often means the difference between winning hundreds of thousands of dollars and going home in last place with a very small amount of money.

A couple of summers ago Levi and I talked Lenore and Emily into a quick stop at the huge complex of garages where former driver Dale Ernhardt’s cars were manufactured and maintained. I was truly amazed at the level of expertise that was evident in the men and women who were working to make these cars run effectively.

One thing I can assure you is that there is nothing added or allowed to remain on a race car unless it is absolutely needed.

Listen again to the words of our scripture, “. . . Strip down, start running--and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.”

The lesson here is two fold.

a. No extra spiritual fat: Sometimes you and I can accumulate so much for ourselves that we become weighted with everything we are carrying around. We have heard messages and songs and teachings that tell us what we ought to do and be but somehow we never get around to doing anything with what we have heard.

b. No parasitic sins: in the NIV it says, “the sin which entangles.” You and I must be very careful to not let sin exist in our lives when we know that it is wrong and that it is dragging us away from an effective witness for God. Some of us are so entangled with sinful behavior that while we want to be a Christ follower we are unable to really make any progress spiritually because we have not allowed the power of Jesus Christ to change our lives.

What are the things in your life which pull you away from God?

It could be a relationship that you are having with someone that you know violates God’s word. Often people fall into relationships that lead to sexual acts that clearly disobey God’s standard for Christian living. How do you do that when you know it is wrong and a violation of God’s rules.

Every now and then a NASCAR team will try to add or take away something illegal to their car which will give them an advantage. Invariably they will get caught and when they do it will cost them money, points and even position in the race. You can’t continually live in a situation where you are going against God’s rules and expect to come out ahead in your spiritual life.

It could be any number of things that you need to get rid of out of your life so that you can run the race that is right in front of you.

You have been given the words of life. The secret, if you will, to living the way God intends us as humans to live. His way is best for us spiritually, mentally, physically and in every other way.

3. Racers know how to stay in the race. “. . . never quit.”

Drivers who are driving today in the Daytona 500 will all have one thing in common. They will do everything they can do to stay on the track. It is not unusual to see someone wreck and yet emerge from the pits or garage area with the car minus parts of the body and held together by duct tape but they know the importance of finishing the race.

Last year Jay Sauter recovered from this damage to the front end of his #21 Pontiac to finish eighth at Memphis. He kept on going. He didn’t stop and begin to lament over the fact that he had wrecked. He kept it on the track.

You and I must also know how to stay in the race.

We must not let life’s situations get us down or drag us to a place where we give up on the one thing we need the most and that is our faith.

The scripture we read said, “Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed--that exhilarating finish in and with God--he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”

Really the last two points of this message go together so let me give you the last one and then we will deal with them together.

4. Racers who win keep their eyes on Christ. “. . . keep your eyes on Jesus.”

NASCAR Driver Mark Martin in an interview with Sports Spectrum Magazine had the following to say about his relationship with Christ.

"You have to feed that relationship or it starves to death," Martin said. Ask Martin what keeps him close to God, and he immediately answers, "My prayers." "In my prayers every day or every night, I ask Him to keep His presence in my mind," Martin said, "so that I don't forget, so I don't become 'in my nature.' When He's there, I'm different than when He's not there. The more He's there, the more I train myself to act and react as if He was, as if He's present in my mind. You learn, and you change, and your habits change. If he's not present in my mind, then I'm just like I was before I got to know Him. But if I can keep that presence in my mind, then I act and react differently. It has made a difference to pray. If I keep praying for an answer or a decision I need to make, sometimes it comes right away, sometimes it's two months down the road; but one day it's not a problem any more. There's a clear decision for it. That's an example of how it has helped me manage my life and try to make the most out of each day instead of being miserable every day trying to make the most out of the future."

A couple of years ago Levi and I bumped into former Washington Redskin Coach and now NASCAR team owner, Joe Gibbs. As people were gathering around him to get an autograph or a picture he began handing out both.

He was handing out beautiful four colored, signed brochures that included his autograph but more importantly they included his testimony.

In this tract, Gibbs shares the highs and lows of sports and life. The exhilaration of winning a Super Bowl and NASCAR championships and the lows of loosing everything financially as well as quality relationship with his family. Very clearly and without reservation he points people to repentance and a relationship with Jesus Christ. Gibbs wrote:

“I would sum up the most important lessons I've learned like this: When I quit listening to the world's myths about success and happiness and left in God's hands the job of promoting me to a head coaching job, He did it. When I quit listening to the world's myths about money and material things and learned the hard way to trust only in God for my future, He bailed me out and helped me start over. And even though I've always felt that my family was important, it wasn't until I got my priorities straight in other areas that I realized my wife and family needed to come before my career.

Like anyone else I had wanted to be happy and successful, and that was the path I had been on my whole life. I took the long road but discovered that what I was looking for was not something to be pursued. Success and happiness were by-products of a life given over to God. It seems I had to learn that lesson more than once, and in many ways I'm still learning it.”“Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we're in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed--that exhilarating finish in and with God--he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he's there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”

We are going to experience things in this life that are unpleasant and in come cases they will rip our heart nearly in two.

Maturity and the Bible teach us that it rains on the just and the unjust.

Life has no favorites although sometimes we are tempted to think so. We often look at those who are famous and are tempted to think that their lives must be so perfect.

A few years ago I was startled to learn how many NFL quarterbacks had children who were suffering from major physical problems. You never know what other people are going through. Hospitals are filled with people from every walk of life. Sickness, death, problems, heartaches, disappointments come to everyone if we live long enough.

Everyone in the world has crosses to bear. The question is are you bearing them alone or with Christ as your helper?

People who win must know how or Who is their source of strength. The last part of this scripture is the how to part of this sermon.

a. Never quit. Don’t give up. Even if you crash find a way to keep on going. Fall forward. Fall with your confidence in God who will help you to avoid that wrong turn the next time. Never quit say to me one word: Determination.

b. Keep your eyes on Jesus. He never lost sight of where He was headed. He endured many things to achieve the prize at the end.

c. Go over the story again and again. In other words, live the life that Christ left us for an example.

The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Philippi and said, “Not that I have already obtained all this or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13-14)

In his final words to Timothy, Paul pours out his heart in last minute instructions on how Timothy should conduct his life and ministry. Paul is facing execution. His life and ministry is about to be awarded with the highest award a Christ follower can achieve. He is going to be murdered for his faith.

This is what he wrote, “. . . do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (II Tim. 5-8)

We are in a race. You and I are in the race of our life.
We are all going somewhere.
We spend are days and hours and weeks with all kinds of things.

I want to ask you today,

Where are you going?
What is your final goal?
How are you going to finish your race?

Do you need a little work done in your life to get you back in the race?

Do you need to get your eyes back on Jesus? Maybe you need to let Him into your life for the first time.

I invite you to join the race. Open up your heart and mind to God as we hear the words of the song, I Fix My Eyes on You.

The outline for this message was provided in part by the Rev. James Schroeder.

2003/02/23