The Discipline Needed for Running the Race

In this church season of growth after Pentecost and before Advent, we’re continuing on in the book of Hebrews and learning more about persevering in the faith. We have a choice to make: to live the life of faith in relational trust in God and his promises or we can make 1 of 2 bad choices: to throw it all away and live in unrighteousness or to try to justify ourselves with a righteousness that tries to leave Jesus out of it. The author of the Book of Hebrews is making the case for the life of faith. And there’s a bit of a gap in the lectionary between where we ended last week and where we’re going today. Those verses show up around All Saints Day, Holy Week, and in the daily office readings. Since these verses are the basis of the “Therefore” in today’s passage, it’s worth summarizing them a bit. Those verses are Hebrews 11:17-39 and they expand the examples of life by faith already given last week when we looked at Abraham. The author looks at some more people who lived by faith: we get more of the story of Abraham and then Isaac and Jacob, Joseph, Moses and his parents, the faith of the people of Israel in crossing of the Red Sea and bringing down the walls of Jericho, and then Rahab the prostitute. And then in verse 32 it says:

Hebrews 11:32–40 ESV

32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

And then now in our passage:

Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

So we have all the saints of the Old Testament, the witnesses or martyrs of the faith. Some see the great cloud of witnesses as a group of saints watching over us and cheering us on. And there is room in the text for this possibility. But the text doesn’t really flesh that out. If we take the text in its plain sense, which we should do wherever we can, we can at least say with confidence that because of Jesus we are in the line of the saints of old and we have them as examples of what humans who have been blessed with the gift of faith are able to accomplish, to the glory of God. And when we begin to see ourselves in the bloodline of faith, being made perfect along with them, we can take heart when we face challenges to our faith like they did and overcome like they did, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God.

And to run that race of the life of faith, we need to lay aside every weight and sin that clutches on to us.

We can see a great picture of sins effect on running the race in the superhero movie The Incredibles, of all places. In the movie Mr. Incredible finds himself in enemy territory setting off an advanced security system. This system had guns that didn’t shoot bullets, but a material like expanding foam. As he runs for the door, he gets hit multiple times and these foam balls attach themselves to his legs, his arms, his head, everywhere. And the material starts to expand. And as it expands, it begins to surround his whole body, joining on to other sections of expanding foam until this superhero with super strength is unable to continue running. The scene ends with a shot from his perspective as the foam expands from multiple angles around his face and mouth and eyes. Sin can be like this and as it takes hold it can take away our ability to run well, or even at all. So we need to steer clear from it and ask God to remove it from us so we can run the race set before us, unhindered.

The text tells us that as we run, we look to Moses? No. To Abraham? No. To the saints who apart from us are not perfected? No. We look to Jesus: the founder and perfecter of our faith. He endured being crucified, despising the shame, for the joy that was set before him. And that joy is being seated at the right hand of God, knowing that he was pleasing unto God, and accomplishing the mission of our redemption. From the right hand of God, Jesus gives you himself as the thing, the person to fix your eyes on and as the way to take away our discouragement as we keep running. As we run, we are not running around randomly, haphazardly, in circles, without a destination; we are running to him. He is our joy and prize in this race.

Running this race takes discipline. We have blind spots. We try to put our head down and power through. But like Peter who sees the wind and waves and despairs, we need to turn our eyes on Jesus. And he will do whatever is needed to make us able to finish the race, to keep our eyes fixed on him until we reach the promises he has spoken to us in his word. Sometimes that means a course correction. Sometimes that means training, which can be painful. In this next section we see the word “discipline” quite a few times:

In my life of faith it took me a long time to see the difference between the word discipline and the word punishment. Discipline and punishment both hurt. Both of them break you down. But unlike punishment, discipline breaks you down in order to build you up, to make you stronger, to make you able to succeed in this race of faith we run. And discipline is what we as true children of God receive. Because our punishment was put on Jesus. The justice for our sin was not given to us, but it was put on Jesus. So that means that when we face trials and difficult times,  we can’t take them as God breaking us down so that justice is served. Justice was already served at the Cross. No, when we face hard times, the earthly consequences of sin and the fall, when it seems like God has removed his protection from us, it’s not to see us taken out and destroyed. The moments and seasons of the life of faith that cause us pain truly are meant to build us up. They are the Lord’s discipline, not punishment. They are making us fit to continue in the race. 

For the Jewish believers who first heard our passage, they had run into consequences for following Jesus, probably some early form of persecution. We may very well experience that in our lifetime. There are certainly Christians all over the world who do, even today.  Are we going to walk away and say, “That’s hard!”? Are we going to strike out to be righteous on our own? 

Or are we going to find strength in the examples of God’s faithful people of whom we are a part and turn our eyes to Jesus? In the face of God’s discipline, we have to remember the love of Jesus for us. We have to look to the cross of Jesus and remember his love for us unto death. And just as he did in the tomb on the third day, we take a new breath with him, the breath of life, in the Spirit of God, and move down the straight path of the race. Because of our new identities as sons, the pain that comes from the correction of God, is no longer experienced as punishment, but discipline. It’s no longer for our brokenness and ruin, but for our being remade in the likeness of Jesus, as new creations! So let us press on in holiness, by the power of the Holy Spirit, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, until we attain all that he has promised us as his well beloved sons and daughters.