Running the Race: The Need for Endurance

In a long race, like a marathon, it’s easy to grow weary or distracted, right? It’s easy to start, but it takes discipline and endurance to finish. The first mile of a race is exciting. You’re focused. There’s cheering crowds. It’s new. But by mile 8 or mile 17—with cramps, blisters, pain—the excitement’s faded, and the finish line sometimes feels impossibly far away. The Christian life can sometimes feel like this.

The Bible regularly uses imagery of a race to describe our life as Christians. The consistent message of the Bible to Christians in this race is: endure. Endure. Finish the race. Run it well all the way to the end. It’s not the ones who start the race only, but the ones who finish the race who are saved.

Finishing doesn’t earn salvation, but like we read from First John, it evidences God’s preserving work. Think of James 1:12: “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial. For once he has stood the test, he’ll receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.” It’s the one who perseveres who receives the crown. Or Colossians 1:22—we know that God has saved us, that he’s reconciled us to him, if we continue in the faith, steadfast, unmoved.

And then Jesus, describing the tribulation saints who will face the most challenging struggles imaginable, encourages them with the words, “The one who endures to the end will be saved.” So if you’re a Christian here, this message is for you. And if you’re a Christian, you have to know that you are in a race and you must finish it.

God Sets the Race Before Us

Christian, when God saved you, when God saved me, he set a race before us. It’s a race path that goes through the narrow gate. It’s not an easy path. But for those who want to see God, finishing is assured, but it’s not optional. All that God has promised, especially eternal life with him, is at the finish line, and it’s there for those who finish. If we don’t endure, destruction awaits us. But when we endure, Jesus awaits us.

To be clear, it’s not our faith or our endurance that saves us. You have to remember that as we read the passage and as we consider the command that we’re going to think about as we study Hebrews 12 this morning. It’s not our endurance that saves us. It’s not even our faith that saves us. Rather, we have put our faith in the good news of a trustworthy savior. And the only ones who are saved by that trustworthy savior are those who trust in him by faith and endure, run every step, and finish the race that’s set before us.

Faith isn’t merely a belief. It’s not a set of facts mentally assented to. It’s not a theology that you know, but it’s a belief—it’s trust, it’s faith in God and his promises and all that he has disclosed to us, all that he has said is true, that’s shown in action. So think of your life. Every thought, word, action, the way you respond to temptation, each good work that you do or don’t do—that’s added up. It’s like the 50,000 or 60,000 steps of a marathon. Each step is the action done, word said, thought thought, and it defines the way that you run and whether you finish.

Each one of those 50,000 steps a marathon runner makes might not seem to matter, but they do. And the culmination of them determines whether or not he finishes. If the runner stumbles, does he get up? If she doesn’t, she doesn’t finish. If the runner starts running the wrong direction or veers off course, he won’t finish. So, in this race of our lives, the race towards eternal life—this race of faith—how can we not grow weary? How can we not lose heart?

That question and its answer is what Hebrews 12:1–4 seeks to answer. Open your Bibles, turn there. Hebrews 12:1–4.

Context: The Audience of Hebrews

You have to know that this book was written to a group of Christians that generally started their race well. But the trials of life, persecutions for their faith, and temptations to sin threatened to make them want to stop running, to turn back or meander. The author opened the book recognizing that many were now drifting, meandering in the race of faith. It says in Hebrews 2:1, and by 12:12, he describes the situation. He says it’s like they’re on the race, their hands are drooping, their knees are weak, and their race path began to go wobbly.

The end was so close. The end where they get to see the Lord, it says in 12:14. And they needed help. We need help. Some here are in desperate need of help. And everyone here will need help at one point in our race of faith. So, let’s read Hebrews 12:1–4 together:

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that’s set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of faith, 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. For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary, fainting in heart. You have not yet resisted the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin.

Let’s pray.

God, thank you for your word. God, thank you that you are a God who loves sinners, who’s made a way through Christ that we could come to you. God, thank you for many of us, so many of us, for granting us this gift of faith, for lovingly putting every circumstance in our life—the blessing and the trials—in front of us and persevering us along the way. Thank you for Jesus, who ran his race, endured to the end faithfully, who’s now waiting for us, sat down at your right hand, and has secured all of the promises, especially eternal life with him that await us at the end of our race. God, I pray for the next half hour or so, 40 minutes, God, I pray that you would keep our minds engaged, that we would listen well, that I would teach accurately, guard me from error. Pray that my words would conform with your words. But God, I pray it wouldn’t merely be information received. God, I pray that we would believe it. God, I pray that we would as a result of hearing this run better, trust you more fully. May you be glorified through the preaching and receiving of your word this morning in Jesus name. Amen.

Looking Back: The Flow of Hebrews Leading Up to Chapter 12

So, we need a running start at Hebrews 12:1. We’re dropping into almost the end of the book and I’m going to do my best to help you understand the flow of thought that’s helped us get to where this precious passage lies. So turn with me and underline—we’re going to have to go back to chapter 10 verse 12. Underline or take note of the key words you’re going to constantly see. We’re not going to be able to hit all of them, but you’re going to see things like a promise from God. So the word “promise”—for those who endure in faith. So we’re going to see a promise that we trust in, that we have faith in, and the need to endure. So in the face of suffering and temptation, the Hebrew believers like us need to endure.

In chapter 10, verse 23, we see the command, “let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.” Not because our strength or endurance is what gets us through to the end, but because he who promised is faithful. Hold fast to the faithful one. Put your faith in the faithful one. The tired runners here are reminded to remember the beginning of the race. Look at 10:32. It’s like a runner on the 20th mile of a marathon looking back at all that he’s gone through. 10:32, “remember the former days when after being enlightened,” after they were saved, their minds changed, they put their faith in Christ, “you endured a great conflict of suffering.”

These Hebrew believers, they started well and they had evidence of their faith. God had already demonstrated his faithfulness through their demonstrated faith in the face of trials. There were sufferings like being publicly mocked and afflicted, standing with those who were being mocked, showing love to others while they suffered. They were even willing to lose their stuff for the sake of the gospel because they knew that they had been promised so much more.

You started the race. The author says you have endured. You can see that in 10:35. So don’t throw away your confidence, which has great reward. That confidence is a confident faith in the sufficiency and faithfulness of Jesus to bring those who trust him to God. Don’t throw that away. He says, don’t fall away. Don’t turn to sin. Fight it. The reward that’s at the end that God has promised, that Jesus secured, it’s worth it.

And then 10:36, “you have need of endurance, so that when you’ve done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” So, so this is where he has the thought: you have need of endurance. And so he effectively closes that chapter saying, we Christians aren’t people who shrink back, right? We Christians are the ones that endure. We’re the ones who don’t shrink back. We’re not the ones who are destroyed, but we have faith. We persevere.

And then he gives us some examples of those who’ve put their faith in God. These are the kinds of people who persevere, like those who’ve gone before. And then we have the hall of fame of faith—Hebrews 11—that so many of us know so well, right? Hebrews was written to weary, pressured believers tempted to fall back. And the writer consistently says there’s one better. Jesus is better: he’s a better revelation, better priest, better sacrifice, better covenant, a better runner. But before he shows us Jesus and the race that he ran and why we look to him, he says, “Let’s look at those who’ve run before in faith.” And they didn’t even receive the promise in their lifetime. Yet they endured by faith, awaiting the perfection that we now taste in Christ.

These Old Testament saints, they endured. They gave witness. They gave testimony to the faithfulness of God as they endured. So the author of Hebrews parades these examples and says now in chapter 12:1, “Look how they endured. They looked forward to a better country. They didn’t count the pleasures, the riches of this world, worth living for.” And so many of them went all the way to dying for their faith. And we’re surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses.

The “therefore” at the beginning of chapter 12 ties us to what went before. Look back. We have need of endurance. Look at those who endured. Therefore, we’re surrounded by this cloud. I used to think of this, or maybe you do, right? We’re runners. You think of who surrounds runners—it’s like runners in a stadium. There’s a crowd cheering them on. You might think, “Look, we’re surrounded by all the saints that have gone before us, and they’re saying, ‘Ay, boy, keep going.'” And we’re running as if to entertain them, please them, like a crowd surrounding runners in a race. That’s not exactly what’s going on here.

The runners—the cloud of witnesses—they’re not spectators cheering from the stands. They’re not people who are looking to us, but they’re people to whom we can look as we run. The witnesses are the faithful who’ve gone before us, who’ve completed their race. And it’s not a testament to their faith, “look how strong they are.” What are they witnesses to? That’s the word that’s elsewhere translated “martyrs.” It’s literally “martyrs,” the ones who—they’re witnesses not of themselves and their own faith and their own endurance, but of a faithful God who ensures our endurance.

We’re surrounded by witnesses whose lives testify to us that persevering faith is possible and worth it. So look to them, but look to an even better witness: Jesus. But I’m getting ahead of myself there.

Run with Endurance: The Command of Hebrews 12

So, on the strength of their testimony, the author issues two clear commands. But he starts with the first command: Run with endurance. There’s lots of words in verses 1 and 2, but there’s one command. Let us run. This isn’t a burst. It’s not a sprint, but it’s an endurance race that lasts from new birth to final breath. No Christians get to coast. We don’t get to stop. We don’t get to sit down, bow out, and we better not turn around.

What does it mean to run? We are commanded to run. And the author of Hebrews doesn’t merely say, “You guys run.” He says, “Let us run.” And it’s a command that includes the first person. Every Christian, no leader, nobody’s arrived at a point where they say, “Hey, I don’t need to run anymore. I’ve arrived.” No, we run—every single one of us—until we die. And let us run with endurance, he says. So what does it mean to run? Well, running well is simply living a life of holiness—a life lived by faith, bearing the fruits of righteousness. Like I said, it’s every step of this race. Every step of running is what you think, what you do, what you say. It’s the sum total of your life aiming at the goal towards which you’re running.

It means to trust and obey God. To seek to please God rather than pursuing the passing pleasures of sin. Working hard for Christ in this life, looking forward to the rest with Christ in the next. It means living life in the way that God saved you to live it—as salt and light, bringing glory to our Father.

And there is a very real risk of growing weary, of not enduring. Like I said earlier, not all who start out on this race—not all who say, “I have faith in Christ”—finish. Everybody here needs to finish. And all who have been saved will finish. But what threatens your finishing? Weariness.

The Race Set Before Us: Sovereignty and Trials

And if we are commanded to run the race that’s set before us and to complete it, we have to ask who set the race in front of us. Some people’s races are really, really hard. Is that just bad luck, happenstance, dumb chance, just the capriciousness of the universe? No. By asking the question—”the race set before us”—who set the race? All Christians get so much comfort. They say, “This isn’t random. It’s not, you know, it is what it is.” No, it is exactly as my loving and wise heavenly Father determined it to be. Every blessing, but more importantly, every trial was put in front of the race runners of faith by their heavenly Father who loved them, who sent his own Son so that all who believe in him could have eternal life, so that we could be his children.

We know this course isn’t random and you need to declare that to yourself when you face unexpected trials. We will and we must trust: This trial is from my Father. If we read through the end of the rest of the chapter—we’re not going to get there today—you can see the connection between the trials that come on this racecourse and the discipline, the training (not punishment for sins), but the discipline, the training of us for righteousness that we have to endure. And it comes from our heavenly Father. He’s treating us like sons. The race set before us was set by our Father. He knows exactly what we need, what is best.

It was this passage that sustained me multiple times in personal trials—when my son got cancer for the fourth time and I’m like, “God, I can’t go on. I feel like this is too much.” Or sometimes in the less critical things, like my car won’t start or this week at work isn’t going how I want it to go or I wish this relationship would just be easier, would go right. The things that threaten to make us weary, to weary us, to make us want to stop running. Say like I try to say: “Jacob, this was placed in front of you for your good by your loving Father who knows what you need better than you do. Therefore, this is good. It’s best. Keep running.”

And yet knowing that, it’s still so easy to grow weary. You can get a moment’s burst of energy and then get weary on the next step. You can be faithful for a mile and the next mile seems even harder. So what are we commanded to do? Run with endurance the race that is set before you, laying aside every weight and sin which so easily entangles. Do you see that in front? The command is: let us run with endurance. How? Laying aside every weight and sin that entangles. Lay aside impediments.

Laying Aside Weights and Sin

What are the weights that hinder—the things that you need to set aside? He doesn’t merely say “set sin aside,” although he does, but “weights”—things that hinder. These weights are maybe morally neutral things, or at least not overtly sinful things, but things that slow you down, that distract you. Time sinks, overcommitments, entertainment, maybe even good things that are out of place or out of balance or pursued for the wrong reasons. When you are trying to decide what to do, what the next step of your race is, don’t merely ask, “Is it sin?” or “Am I allowed to do that?” That’s like asking, “Am I allowed to wear this weighted vest on this marathon?” Well, yeah, it’s not against the rules. You’re allowed to do it, but it’s a really dumb idea. It’s going to slow you down. You’re going to get more tired. Or “Am I allowed to run this race in a suit and high—or a dress and high heels?” That’s what we ask when we set the standard: not “Am I allowed to do this? Is it sin?” but rather, “Ought I to do this? Will this please the Lord? Will this help me run better?”

Students, I get questions from you so often—and I’m not admonishing you here, but I’m encouraging you, I’m saying what I need to hear. So many of you come and say, “Am I allowed to do this thing? I want to date this boy. I want to go to this movie. Can I play these video games? Is it okay if I do one more sport?” Do you hear what’s behind that question? What might be behind that question is: “Is this going to hinder me in my race of faith?” If that’s what you mean, praise God. But I fear that what most of you mean is what I mean sometimes when I try to ask that question: “Is there a verse in the Bible that very specifically says I can’t do this thing because I’m going to do it unless I’m really, really not allowed to?”

Don’t put the bar at “is this sin?” You should ask that. That is the first and most important grid that you need to pass your decisions through. But ask, does it help me run? Does it help me run or does it hinder me? And this takes prayerful wisdom. It takes understanding what would please the Lord.

As we run faithfully, we begin to learn more and more what’s beneficial. Right? Athletes who’ve been running for a long time—beginners, they get all this gear, all this stuff that the magazines say to get, so much of it doesn’t help. It’s just a waste of money and drags them down. And you see the really experienced runners—they know what to throw away and they know what to keep. Praise God, we don’t run this race alone. There’s one guy in this room, I don’t know who it is, who’s run longer than all of us. But for the rest of us, there’s somebody else to look to who’s already run probably the kind of path that’s in front of you. You can say, “Help me know what to lay aside. Help me know what to throw off.” Go to small group with that kind of thought in mind. And you wiser people who’ve run, lovingly, patiently help and encourage those who need it.

Surround yourself with the fellow race runners, especially the more mature ones. This is the admonishment. Just remember, we started this is a crescendo from chapter 10. In the context of that is the verse that we all think of—don’t neglect gathering together. Not because you need a box to check because Jesus said or because God said, “Hey, go to church.” It’s because we need each other at church. You might need a race runner to help you know what to lay aside. And you might need to be there to help ones who are being wearied by entanglements or impediments that they don’t even know are there.

And you don’t only lay aside weights, but lay aside sins. Those are guaranteed to entangle. They will weary you. You have to lay it aside. That’s the very context in James 5. James 5:16—you don’t have to turn there. But the very context of the command, “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed,” is in the context of wearied saints in the face of persecution and trials of various kinds.

Confess your sins to one another. Pray for one another. Help each other turn from sins. Christian, the Bible is clear. When you sin, you are not living like who you were saved to be. You are living like who you were saved from. Sin is the way in which you formerly walked. It was the race course on which you formerly ran. So Ephesians 2 says, when you run like that, when you’re dead in your sins, that’s the course of this world. You’re on a different race course, Christian.

When you walked on that course that the world walks on, you did whatever the desires of your flesh and mind wanted to do because we were children of wrath, destined for wrath like the rest of mankind. The race course that’s marked by sin runs to wrath. The race course that you’re on, Christian, that’s marked by repentance from sin and pursuit of righteousness, culminates in eternal life with Christ.

In Ephesians 2 that talks about those two racecourses, it says, “But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, while we were dead in sins, while we were on that race course heading towards death, he made us alive together with Christ. We’re chasing him. By grace, you’ve been saved.”

And he did that so that at the end of that race, we can receive the just—the overabundance of riches that we’re going to receive forever in the age to come—the innumerable riches. So if you see sin in your life, think of this race course. You are turning—you’re running the wrong way. You’re doing worse than getting tangled up by the weights. You’ve actually turned around and run backwards. Stop. Repent. Turn around. That’s what repentance means. It doesn’t merely mean confess—acknowledge, “Yep, that’s sin, I guess I should do that less.” You’re running the wrong way. Throw that aside. Say, “Whatever this is that I’m chasing, it won’t help me run. At least not the way I’ve been saved to run. Throw it off.”

Application: What Do You Need to Throw Off?

Oh Christian, lay aside sin and not sin only, but anything and everything that entangles—that is an impediment that would trip you up. If anything will get in the way of pleasing God, in the way of purity, of love for God and your neighbor, if anything will make it harder for you to endure, get rid of it. It’s not worth it. Paul says in 1 Timothy 6, we brought nothing to this world. We can’t take anything out of this world. So run naked if you have to—get rid of everything if it keeps you from running well.

Think of an application here. I don’t want you to think of this concept generally, but think about your life specifically. What’s one weight or one sin that you need to throw off? There’s probably more, but think specifically, especially the one that you don’t want to acknowledge, the one that’s really hard to give up. Write that down and share it with somebody before you leave here today—or at least before you go to bed.

Remember, faith isn’t merely knowing the right thing, but it’s doing it. We must run with endurance, laying aside all that would threaten our endurance with our eyes fixed on Jesus.

Run, Eyes Fixed on Jesus

Run, eyes fixed on Jesus. Do you see that’s the other modifier of the first command? Let us run—fixing our eyes on Jesus. The idea is looking away from everything else to Jesus—a sustained, exclusive gaze. It’s the posture of the runner who refuses side glances at the race course, at pain, at competitors or crowds.

Charles Simeon helpfully comments here: “We are not merely to look unto Jesus, but in so doing to look off from everything else. We are apt to look at our own weaknesses, difficulties in our way, at the strength of number of those who are endeavoring to cast us down or at anything that tends to discourage us. But we should look off from all those things and keep our eyes steadily fixed on Jesus.”

No distraction. You cannot have your eyes simultaneously fixed on Jesus and also distracted. So if you see things that distract you from Jesus, those are the kinds of things you throw away. You lay off—or even better, that you relate to rightly. You relate to them as gifts from Jesus or as things to honor Jesus with.

The race of faith towards holiness—it’s not a scenic walk where you’re looking at the nice surroundings, but it’s a race of endurance. And your eyes must be fixed on only one object, and your feet run in only one direction—towards Jesus.

In the trials of life and in the blessings too, where pleasures and money threaten to pull you off course, where is your gaze directed? Thankfully, God knew that we lose sight of what’s important so easily. As an aside, that is why we take the Lord’s supper every week—why we do communion at least weekly—but it should remind you, not merely weekly, but always, every day in all that you do: eyes fixed on Jesus.

In a trial, where are your eyes? When you face sufferings, when something tempts you to anxiety, where are your eyes? Are they on the difficulty? Are you considering—if you have disease, are you spending all your time on the internet, Dr. Google or ChatGPT, looking up the symptoms and how to get it fixed? As you face financial trouble, you do have to be faithful and make a living, be faithful and work hard. But is your thought constantly on the struggle, the difficulty in front of you? Or is it on Jesus and our Father who put that race course in front of you? When we have our eyes on Jesus, it’s an expression of trust in and a magnification in our own hearts of the one in whom our strength lies.

Robert Murray McCheyne wisely counseled, “Learn much of Jesus. For every look at yourself, take 10 looks at Christ. Live near to Jesus and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities.” We sang it: Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Get your eyes off yourself. Get your eyes off the race course, the circumstance of life, and onto Jesus.

We fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. The idea here is that he is the one who worked to begin your faith and to complete it. Just like the race course isn’t chosen by you, but by your Father, your race didn’t begin with you, and it won’t be brought to completion by your power. The word translated “author” here literally means “originator” or “instigator.” Who originated and instigated your faith? God, Jesus. Similarly, the Greek for “finisher” has a meaning beyond what our English word “perfector” might seem to mean, but it means “finisher.” From my favorite lexicon—that’s a Greek dictionary—it says that this word refers to one who brings something to a successful conclusion. That’s Jesus. He was the originator, instigator of our faith and he will bring it to a successful conclusion. The saving faith that our Father purposed in predestining us before the foundation of the world, the Son authors and then completes through the working of the Holy Spirit in us as he runs.

Our enduring isn’t about us. We must endure. So don’t quit. But it’s about God who started it and will finish it. So trust in him and faith. He initiates and completes our saving faith. Our beginning and enduring in faith is necessary but it’s derivative. Do you get that? Our beginning and enduring in faith is necessary. You have to believe in Christ. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” “Endure to the end and you will be saved.” And when you do it, that necessary faith doesn’t glorify you but the Lord. It’s a derivative enduring.

We fix our eyes on Jesus. Do you see what it says? “Who endured the cross.” The Father’s wisdom and love that sets the course in front of us also put the cross in front of Jesus. Right? We have a race course set in front of us. Jesus had a course set in front of him that he had to endure. Think of Gethsemane. It wasn’t easy. If there was any other way, Jesus asked for that. The Father put this in front of him and Jesus endured to the end for the joy that was set before him. The joy that was on the other side of the cross for Jesus enduring the agony was to do the Father’s will—Psalm 40:8, to bring many sons to glory—Hebrews 2:10, to justify the many by bearing their iniquities—Isaiah 53:11, to be exalted to the Father’s right hand—Acts 2:33, as the resurrected king, conquering Satan, sin and death—Hebrews 10:13, to purify a people for his own possession—Titus 2:14. There was a joy set before Jesus.

And it says he despised the shame. The word “despised” means to consider something not important enough to be an object of concern, especially when evaluated against something else. It’s a caring, a disregard, or being unafraid of—the cross wasn’t easy for Jesus. We see that as he sweats blood and pleads in prayer at Gethsemane. Yet the pain and shame of the cross—he despised that. He didn’t consider it of concern when evaluated against the joy set before him.

So look to Jesus and think of the joy set before us in comparison to the trials, the difficulties in front of you. In Paul’s last letter when he was about to die—2 Timothy 4:6–8—he says, the time of his departure had come. He says, “I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not to me only, but to all who have loved his appearing.” That crown of righteousness and the Father’s words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s worth it, Christian.

The sufferings of our present time are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. We can run through difficulties in joyful anticipation of the award that awaits at the finish line when the author and perfector of our faith says, “Well done, good and faithful slave. Enter into the joy of your master.”

And we fix our eyes on Jesus who sat down. When Jesus’s work on the cross was done, he cried out, “It is finished.” The race was over. And what did he do? He rested. On mile 24, 25 of a marathon, the rest that’s on the other side is so sweet—it can help you endure. We don’t know how many miles are in our race, but we know that on the other side is rest because Jesus, when he finished his race, rested.

This echoes back again to Hebrews 10 where this all started: “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sin, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” When we think of Jesus, that he sat down, we remember that sacrifice is finished. The king reigns. That means our race is not to earn anything. It’s to persevere in what was already purchased. We run under a sovereign, interceding savior who will keep his people to the end. Listen to the command of Hebrews 4:11—similarly to the command here—it’s: “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by disobedience.”

We can’t look to Jesus with our physical eyes. That’s why we have to read our Bibles. You have to believe your Bibles. You don’t just read your Bible in the morning and go about your day, “Good, I checked the box, I got that done.” You read your Bible because you need to see Jesus and you say, “How will this affect my day?” And you keep Jesus in front of you, not to keep you from going about your life, but as you go about your life—eyes not on this world and the things of this world, but eyes on Jesus.

1 Peter 1:8, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. And though you do not see him now, you believe in him and you rejoice with joy inexpressible, full of glory, receiving as the outcome of your faith at the end of the race—the salvation of your souls.”

Fix your eyes on Jesus.

The Second Command: Consider Jesus

And the second command of the passage is very similar. Verse three—there’s only two commands here. The first was “run.” The second is “consider.” Consider him. “Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you do not grow weary and lose heart.”

Jesus endured persecution from the sinners of this world. And he said, “If the world hates you, know that it hated me before you. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” So as you go through suffering, consider him.

And we’ve already considered the pinnacle of Jesus’s endurance of hostility from sinners. When in Jerusalem there were gathered together against Jesus—Herod, Pontius Pilate, all the Gentiles and the people of Israel—to do exactly as God had predestined to take place. In the face of the worst of humanity’s sins, God still reigned and Jesus endured. Consider Jesus’s sufferings and the purposes for them. Isaiah 53 says, “He was despised, forsaken of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” Why? So that as he was pierced for our transgressions, being crushed for our iniquities, by his wounds we would be healed. Consider him in his suffering by sinners so that you won’t grow weary.

We consider him so that we don’t grow weary. The command is consider—think on deeply. Back to Bible study. There’s a kind of thinking that I’m tempted to do, maybe you are, that’s disconnected from reality. The kind of thinking where you can recite, rehearse big theological truths, even explain them to somebody and go out and live like they’re not true.

Oh, Grace Bible Church, don’t study Jesus. Don’t know Jesus that way. Don’t ever separate your Bible reading or your theological contemplation from your life. The purpose of considering Jesus—at least one purpose among many—is so that you would not grow weary and would not lose heart. Consider Jesus and his endurance and endure.

Don’t grow weary. It’ll say later in verse five, because it’s for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. What did God do to Jesus, his son? For great purpose, he put a path that had endurance and suffering. He’ll do the same for you. Different purposes, but really wise, good ones. So when weariness and faint-heartedness threaten you, threaten weariness, look to Jesus who endured so that you don’t grow weary.

Encourage One Another as Fellow Runners

As we run, that weariness is very real. It can be there. You may be weary right now. There may be some in the church around us who are weary. God put us together in a church. Consider a passage that’s so helpful for us. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 is helpful here. We need to keep an eye out for our fellow runners. Admonish the idle. Think of your fellow runners. Admonish the idle—those who’ve stopped, those who’ve turned back into sin. Encourage the faint-hearted and help the weak. This isn’t a race to see who wins. It’s a race that we all help each other finish.

So at small group, in church throughout the day, when you see a fellow runner, say, “Stop sinning, throw that aside.” You see somebody weak, you’re like, “It’s okay. Let’s look to Jesus together. Here, I’ll help you.” You’re faint-hearted. Let’s consider Jesus together. And if you’re weary, call for help. Say, “I need help.”

We must not neglect meeting together. We must not run this race alone.

Keep Striving: Our Struggle Against Sin

And finally, know that you haven’t yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. This tells us that the race that we run against sin, or that we run at least, includes a striving against sin. That word is one that calls to mind hand-to-hand combat, like to the death. Think of those who’ve gone before—the saints of old who were stoned, sawn in two, tempted, were put to death with a sword. They went about in sheepskin, goatskins, destitute, afflicted, mistreated. They fought against sin, fought to please God all the way to death. If you’re here and you’re hearing my words or you can read this, you haven’t yet died, which means you still run.

We can look back to those who did run all the way to the point of death and shedding blood—and more importantly, to Jesus who ran and shed his blood. His perfect, sinless blood endured to the very end to win our battle against sin. You haven’t fought. Your race isn’t so hard that you’ve died yet. Jesus did, and God raised him from the dead, and he’s now resting, waiting, helping us finish. So, let’s finish.

Faith—faith is looking to the unseen, right? That’s the definition of faith: looking to unseen with a heart of faith, a trusting in things not yet seen. It’s faith in the unseen promises of God that sustains the cloud of witnesses that surround us, testifying to God’s faithfulness. Faith in our beloved author and perfector of faith who bore our sins, endured the cross, and finished the race—that’ll help us endure to the end of ours.

Closing Exhortation

Chris and the band, can you guys come up? We’re going to proclaim together as a church our faith in God and his promises. What a privilege and joy it is to be a church, to run together, to encourage one another with these words. We’re going to fix our eyes on Jesus, our soul’s reward, until the race is finished and the work is done. We walk by faith and not by sight. In doing so, the point is not our endurance. It’s not our sins, not our trials or our suffering. It’s not even our faith.