Hands up and says, I started at 75.
Somebody says, well, I can't put myself on
the altar.
Isaac said, I did.
Somebody says, well, I can't serve the Lord.
I got family problems.
Jacob says, tell me about them.
Would you love to have four wives, having
a lottery, who's going to get you?
That's what Jacob had to put up with.
And yet God used Jacob.
We criticize Jacob and we shouldn't do it.
God has deigned to call himself the God
of Jacob.
And so in Hebrews 11, the writer gives
us a catalog of heroes.
The Olympic heroes of the faith.
And every one of them says to us,
now if you live by faith, you can
make it.
You can make it.
You can knock down walls.
You can conquer enemies.
Surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight.
That word weight bothers me.
Last Wednesday, I think it was, USA Today
had a front page story on the health
of America.
Did you read that?
One third of the American public is overweight.
Those are round figures, of course.
If a person's going to run in the
Olympic, he trains.
There's the discipline of it.
Let us lay aside every weight.
You don't go into the races carrying 50
pounds of flour.
And the sin which so easily ensnares us,
which I think is the sin of unbelief.
And let us run with endurance.
Ah, that's a great word.
Endurance.
It's always too soon to quit.
The race that is set before us.
Now, in the Greek Olympics, everybody who was
going to run was given a lane.
You had to stay in that lane.
That was your lane.
You stay there.
That's why in Galatians, Paul said, Who got
in on you?
Who bumped you out of your lane and
got into your lane?
And not only that, in the Olympics, only
one person won.
There was no second place, third place.
Now, in the Christian race, we aren't competing
with each other.
There's no place in the Church of Jesus
Christ for the kind of competition the world
has.
There's just no place for it.
We are laborers together with God.
And the race that I'm running in the
lane that God has given me, I'm not
running against you, I'm running against myself.
I'm competing with myself.
I want to be a better prayer person
today than I was a year ago.
I want to be a better writer than
I was six months ago.
I want to be a better preacher than
I was yesterday.
So I'm competing with myself, not with you.
Any ministry that's built on competition is built
on the world.
How do you run with endurance the race
that's set before, looking unto Jesus?
Well, why watch Him?
He ran the race of God.
Who, for the joy that was set before
Him, endured the cross.
We've never had anything quite that bad.
We've endured a lot, but we've not had
to endure the cross.
Despising the shame that is sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God.
That's why He can be called the author,
the originator, and the finisher, the perfecter of
our faith.
When He starts, He finishes.
Having this confidence that He who has begun
a good work in you will complete it.
God doesn't manufacture losers.
We may think we're losers sometimes.
Jesus Christ endured the cross for the joy
that was set before Him.
What was that joy?
Well, Jude 24 tells us, Now unto Him
who is able to keep you from stumbling,
and to present you faultless before the presence
of His gloriously exceeding joy.
He endured the cross and looked beyond the
cross for the day when He would take
His bride and say, Father, I want you
to meet my bride.
And we're going to be there.
So the writer is telling us that if
we look to Jesus by faith, through the
Word, He helps us to keep running the
race and we'll finish well.
Dr. Culbertson used to pray, Oh Lord, help
us to end well.
Not everybody does.
Saul, King Saul, made a great beginning.
Tragic ending.
Demas made a great beginning.
Paul said, Demas, my fellow servant.
Tragic ending.
Praying that we might end well.
F.B. Meyer, whose books you have read,
whose sermons we have preached, when he was
getting old, said to a friend of his,
I prayed to my father to keep the
river of my life flowing.
I don't want to end in a swamp.
And yet some of God's servants have ended
in a swamp.
Because they did not look to Jesus and
let Him carry them through.
Now the whole book of Hebrews is written
on the theme, Let's go on.
Chapter 6, verse 1.
Not let's go back.
Let's go on.
And in Hebrews chapter 1, He starts with
the word God.
Can't start much higher than that.
Hebrews chapter 2, verse 9, He says, we
see Jesus.
How about that?
Chapter 2, three little words.
We see Jesus.
Chapter 12, three little words.
Looking unto Jesus.
So, the beginning of the book, the end
of the book, The author says, When the
outlook is grim, try the uplook.
Keep your eyes on Jesus.
Don't keep your eyes on Warren Risley or
John Calvin.
Keep your eyes on Jesus.
Don't keep your eyes on Billy Graham or
anybody else.
Keep your eyes on Jesus.
Alright?
Let's suppose we do that.
Let's just walk through the book of Hebrews
and find out what is Jesus doing for
us right now to keep us going.
Now I know what He did for me
on earth.
What is He doing for me now up
in heaven?
God, who at various times and in various
ways spoke in time past to the fathers
by the prophets, has in these last days
spoken to us.
Spoken to us by His Son.
Oh, here's the first ministry Jesus is performing
for us right now.
He's speaking.
God speaks to us.
The President doesn't phone me.
When we call the bank, you don't get
the President's bank.
You don't even get a person.
When we call the airport to see when
our friends are going to be flying in,
you get that numbers game, you know.
Thank you for calling Lincoln Airport.
If the flight is coming in today, punch
two.
If the plane is blue, punch seven.
The Cartoon and Publishers Weekly showed a man,
obviously he was a writer.
You could see a computer and paper and
everything.
He was holding the phone.
He was holding the phone and the phone
was saying, thank you for calling Acme Publishers.
If you are ordering books, punch one.
If you are checking on an order, punch
two.
If you are an author inquiring about royalties,
please hold.
God talks to us.
When you open your Bible, God opens His
mouth.
God talks to us.
To us.
Because we're His children.
I was very busy working on a book,
and our Judy came in to talk to
me about something.
I said, honey, can you wait just a
short time?
I want to finish this.
She looked at me and said, and she's
the one who reads my mind all the
time.
She looked at me and said, well, you
took time to have me.
Why don't you take time to talk to
me?
Yeah, she's the one.
I was taking my pills in the morning.
We all take, at this age, you take
pills.
I said, these pills are the secret of
my great beauty.
And Judy said, I hope they're industrial strength.
Now, the basic theme, a basic theme of
the book of Hebrews is God's talking.
God talked to Abraham, and God talked to
the prophets, and now God's talking to us
through Jesus.
Through the Word.
When you get to the end of Hebrews,
in chapter 12, verse 25, he says, See
that you refuse not Him who speaks.
I mean, if you walk up to me
to talk to me, and I turn and
walk away, you'd be insulted.
God talks to us every day.
He wants to talk to me.
One of the great joys of my life
is to begin the day opening my Bible,
and I mean, God talk to me.
I don't hear a voice.
If I hear anything at all, it's the
ringing in my ears from an auto accident
I was in many years ago.
A drunken driver about killed me.
They have a cure now, though, for ringing
in the ears.
You get an unlisted head.
God talks to us.
And I meet these people who have built
fences in my Bible.
They say, that's not for you.
That was for the Jew, and this is
for the Assyrian.
All Scripture is inspired of God, and all
Scripture is profitable for doctrine.
That's what's right.
For reproof, that's what's not right.
For correction, that's how to get right.
For instruction in righteousness, that's how to stay
right.
All of it.
What is Jesus doing to keep you going?
He's speaking.
If you want to keep going in the
work of the ministry of God, live in
your Bible.
Live in your Bible.
Take time to be holy.
Beyond the sacred page I seek Thee, Lord,
my spirit pants for Thee, Thou living Word.
Let's move on.
He's speaking through Jesus, whom He has appointed
heir of all things, through whom also He
made the world, who being the brightness of
His glory, and the express image of His
person, and upholding all things by the word
of His power.
Here's the second ministry He's performing.
He is upholding.
Now, that word is so marvelous, it has
three meanings to it.
It means, first of all, Jesus is holding
everything up so it doesn't fall down.
He hangs the world on nothing.
On nothing.
That's great.
He's holding everything up.
Secondly, it means He's holding everything together so
it doesn't fall apart.
This platform I'm standing on is primarily space,
according to the scientists.
All these electrons and protons and neutrons and
quarks and all these other particles down there
are in some kind of array, and this
is space.
What holds it all together, Jesus?
Paul said, in Him all things consist.
He holds it all together.
The stars don't run into each other.
The planets go on their orbits.
In fact, things up there are in better
shape than they are at O'Hare Field.
You can predict years in advance when a
comet's going to come.
And it's so accurate, the way He's put
it all together, that we can shoot people
up there and know where they're going to
land.
You can't do that at O'Hare Field.
So, He's holding everything up and He's holding
everything together, and that word also means while
He's holding it up and holding it together,
He's carrying it along to its ultimate destiny.
That's great.
I'm not worried about atomic bombs.
I'm not worried about earthquakes and things.
We think about those things, but we don't
worry about them, because Jesus is holding everything
up and holding it together and carrying it
along.
Now, if He can do this for the
whole universe, can't He do that for my
life?
Can't He hold me up so I don't
stumble?
Can't He hold me together so I don't
fall apart?
And can't He not carry me along to
accomplish what He wants to accomplish?
Can't He do that for my family?
Can't He do that for the church?
What's He doing?
He's speaking.
He's upholding.
Upholding all things by the word of His
power.
That word has power.
When He by Himself purged our sins, sat
down.
The right hand of the majesty on high.
Five times you'll find that in the book
of Hebrews.
He sat down.
That's His third ministry.
He's sitting.
Our Lord is not pacing the golden streets.
Worry.
In the year that King Uzziah died, I
saw also the Lord high and lifted up.
His train filled the temple.
In a great year of sorrow, Isaiah said,
I saw Jesus and He was quite calm.
He was sitting.
Most of the problems in families and churches,
yea, in society are caused by people who
can't sit still.
The test is can you sit still?
I don't mean because you have to.
You're in the dentist's chair.
I don't mean that.
Or you're arthritic and can't walk.
I don't mean that.
I'm talking about that inner peace down inside.
Three verses of scripture have been a great
encouragement to me because I'm an activist.
I'm the kind of person who wants to
keep moving.
I get nervous when the red light is
a long red light.
And when they announce that a plane is
delayed, which is normal, I get nervous.
I shouldn't.
Moses said to the children of Israel, God
told them to say this, Stand still and
see the salvation of the Lord.
Just stand still.
Naomi said to Ruth at the end of
chapter 3 of the book of Ruth, Sit
still.
Sit still.
Boaz is out there making arrangements for the
wedding.
You just sit still.
Psalm 46, be still.
Be still and know that I am God.
The word be still means take your hands
off.
Our problem as servants of God is too
often we want to get our hands in
there.
We make a mess out of it.
Some of you are worried about children or
grandchildren.
And you want a medal.
Take your hands off.
Let God take care of it.
You're in a situation that's difficult.
Let God work.
He'll show you what to do.
Jesus Christ is sitting.
He's sitting on the throne of glory.
He's sitting in the place of authority.
Far above all principality and power.
No name in Encyclopedia Britannica has a greater
name than His name.
And He's sitting.
And that keeps me going.
Because my Savior is up there in control.
Chapter 2.
You say, are we going to cover every
chapter?
No.
But I want to tell you what Jesus
is doing for you now to keep you
running the race.
He's cheering you on by speaking and upholding
and sitting.
Chapter 2, verse 10.
For it was fitting for Him, for whom
are all things and by whom are all
things, in bringing many sons to glory, to
make the captain of their salvation perfect through
suffering.
He is bringing.
Bringing what?
Bringing many sons and daughters to glory.
It doesn't say He's trying to bring them.
It doesn't say He hopes to bring them.
It doesn't say that if things work out
okay, He will bring them.
It says He is bringing them to glory.
Peter wrote, but the God of all grace,
who has called us to His eternal glory,
whatever begins with grace ends with glory.
After you've suffered a while, make you perfect.
So here we are.
God in His grace called us, and He
called us to glory.
And He is bringing many sons to glory.
If you have more than one child in
a family, one of them is impatient.
We had four children, and Judy was the
youngest.
She's the one who reads my mind, and
she's the impatient one.
That is until she had two sons of
her own, and she's learning patience the hard
way.
We'd get in the car to go off
on vacation.
We'd read a psalm, and then we'd pray,
and off we'd go.
Stop at the first stoplight, and Judy would
say, Are we there?
When will we be there?
In about five hours.
I'll never make it.
Ever feel that way?
God says, Let's go.
I'll never make it.
I've got news for you.
You're going to make it.
Jesus Christ is bringing many sons and daughters
to glory.
And He's written our names in heaven, and
He's got us in His hand, and by
the hand, and no one, said Jesus, shall
pluck you out of my Father's hand.
And He's bringing many sons and daughters to
glory.
That encourages me.
When I get tired on the race, I
say, I'm not going to make it.
He said, We'll make it.
We'll make it.
Chapter 4, and verse 15.
The Lord Jesus is speaking, and upholding, and
sitting, and bringing, and sympathizing.
Let's start with verse 14.
Chapter 4.
Seeing then that we have a great high
priest, who has passed through the heavens, Jesus,
the Son of God, let us hold fast
our confession.
For we do not have a high priest
who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was
in all points tempted as we are, yet
without sin.
He said, Let us therefore come boldly to
the throne of grace, that we may obtain
mercy and find grace to help in time
of need.
Jesus is sympathizing.
Now, let me define the term.
The Lord Jesus does not pamper His people.
Sympathizing doesn't mean that He says, Oh, I'll
kiss it and make it well.
Oh, you broke your doll.
I'll get you another one.
That's the way we grandparents grow juvenile delinquents.
It does a child good sometime to learn
that a doll costs money.
It does a child good sometime to discover
that a bicycle left on the street is
not replaced that easily.
My Lord sympathizes with my weaknesses, not my
sins.
He'll never sympathize with sin.
Spurgeon said, God does not allow His children
to sin successfully.
Boy, David found that out.
Any sinner in Jerusalem could have pulled that
thing off, not David.
God will not allow His children to sin
successfully.
He sympathizes with my weaknesses.
He looks at me and knows that I
have the weaknesses of clay.
But that's the kind of people He uses.
He chooses the weak things of the world
that confound the mighty.
And every situation you and I have been
through, He has been through, everyone.
You come home from a meeting and say,
boy, they lied about me down there.
They lied about Jesus.
He had more trouble with the religious crowd
than anybody else.
They lied about Him.
They called Him names.
One of the Messianic Psalms, it says, I
am the song of the drunkards.
They called Him a glutton and a wine
gibber, the friend of prostitutes and publicans and
sinners.
They lied about Him.
They falsely accused Him.
They even said that His ministry was of
the devil.
It's rough.
So, when people talk about you and lie
about you, the Lord Jesus says, I know
how you feel.
I went through that.
His disciples failed Him.
One of them was a traitor.
More than one church has had to find
a traitor on the staff or somewhere in
the officer's list.
And your heart is broken.
Here's somebody that you're working with, mentoring.
And then, crash!
Peter denied the Lord three times.
That hurts.
Here's Peter.
You are Simon.
You're going to be a rock.
And so, Jesus is making this clay into
rock.
And then, he fails the Lord Jesus three
times.
That hurts.
But in His grace, the Lord Jesus didn't
hit him with a baseball bat, didn't zap
him with a stroke of lightning.
It says, And Jesus looked at Peter.
And Peter went out and wept.
That's greatness.
God said to David in Psalm 32, I
will guide you with my eyes.
What Jesus did, He just looked at him.
My mother used to guide me with her
eyes.
She'd just look.
I got the message.
The Lord Jesus is sympathizing.
Now, He's seated in heaven on a throne,
but it's an accessible throne.
We have walked past Windsor Castle.
I've been out to Windsor Castle.
We've walked past Buckingham Palace.
Many times.
Never been invited in.
Never.
In fact, I can't even get in the
White House without a special ticket from my
senator.
The places that we pay for, we can't
get in.
I mean, I'm paying the bill.
And yet, the Lord of the universe says,
The door is always open.
You don't need an appointment.
You don't have to talk to my secretary.
Let us come boldly to the throne of
grace.
Our God is the God of all grace.
See, what I need is grace.
God in His grace gives me what I
don't deserve.
God in His mercy doesn't give me what
I do deserve.
And so I come to the throne of
grace.
To the God of all grace.
This book is the Word of His grace.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of grace.
And James says He gives more grace.
What we need is grace.
All kinds of grace in the Bible.
Saving grace.
By grace are you saved through faith.
Serving grace.
1 Corinthians 15.
Paul said, By the grace of God I
serve more than all of them.
But not I.
But the grace of God.
Serving grace.
You say, I can't go to one more
meeting.
Sure you can.
I cannot preach one more sermon.
Yes you can.
They're serving grace.
They're suffering grace.
My grace is sufficient for you.
My strength is made perfect in weakness.
Suffering grace.
They're singing grace.
Singing with grace in your heart.
Sometimes it takes grace to sing.
Sometimes it takes grace to listen to people
sing.
But it takes grace to sing.
We pastors understand this far better than some
other people.
Because we know our people.
At least I hope you know your people.
I recall the first church we pastored.
There had been a tragic death in a
home.
And we had the service.
Had the funeral.
And for weeks afterward I saw the children.
The three children of that man and his
wife.
It was hard to sing.
But God gave them grace.
Paul and Silas were in prison.
And they had been beaten.
And they were mistreated.
They had their civil rights taken from them.
And if I had been there I would
have been writing my resignation.
But they were singing.
God gives songs in the night by his
grace.
So Jesus is sympathizing.
And he's saying, come to the throne of
grace.
The spirit of grace will guide you in
your praying.
The word of grace will give you the
promises that you need.
I am the God of all grace.
And I give grace upon grace upon grace.
And of his fullness have all we received,
wrote John.
And one wave of grace upon the other.
And yet we live like paupers.
And we complain.
So he is speaking and upholding and sitting
and bringing and sympathizing.
Chapter 10.
Here's another ministry our Lord is performing.
Verse 11.
Chapter 10.
And every priest stands ministering daily.
And offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can
never take away sin.
There were no chairs in the tabernacle.
No chairs in the temple.
Because their work was never done.
But this man, after he had offered one
sacrifice for sins forever.
Sat down at the right hand of God.
From that time, waiting.
Expecting.
Until his enemies are made his footstool.
Our Lord is expecting.
He's waiting.
Now that word means he is prepared and
capable of handling whatever is going to come.
For he must reign until he puts all
of his enemies under his feet.
He is expecting.
Every time we pray, thy kingdom come.
We're a part of this.
The Lord Jesus is waiting.
We've often said, oh even so come Lord
Jesus.
Come quickly Lord Jesus.
Why is he waiting?
He's accomplishing things.
He knows what he's doing.
He's not inactive.
It's not the waiting of inactivity.
It's the waiting of preparation.
And when things begin to happen, folks, they're
going to happen.
He is expecting.
He is waiting.
Chapter 11.
Verse 16.
Talking about the patriarchs.
That now they desire a better, that is
a heavenly country.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called
their God.
For he has prepared a city for them.
What's he doing for us today to keep
us going?
Preparing.
I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place
for you, I will come again and receive
you to myself.
That where I am, there you may be
also.
He is preparing.
When the Lord Jesus was here on earth,
he was a carpenter.
He said I'm the good shepherd, but he
never took care of sheep.
He was a carpenter.
His father Joseph, his foster father Joseph, was
a carpenter.
They looked at Jesus and said, is this
not the carpenter's son?
So from early childhood, Jesus was associated with
carpentry.
One of the many things I cannot do
is carpentry.
I don't have the kind of skills.
My two brothers are skillful with their hands.
They can make and fix anything.
I can break anything.
When I was in seventh grade, we had
to take wood shop and make footstools and
little book racks and so forth.
At the end of the semester, you know
what I had to show for all my
work?
A pile of shavings.
Other people were making that.
I just don't have that skill, but Jesus
does.
He built the universe.
And he's building a church.
And doing a good job.
He knows what he's doing.
And he's building a home for us, a
place for us up in heaven.
He's building a place for his bride.
And so as I'm running the race, I,
like the Lord Jesus, have to look at
the joy that is set before me.
One of these days, entering into the presence
of Jesus with great joy and receiving the
place he has made for me.
Now, please don't believe all of these ballads
about if you don't live a good Christian
life, you're going to live in a dog
house.
But if you live a real good Christian
life, you're going to live in a palace.
No, no.
Mahalia Jackson used to sing about the people
who would have a rusty old halo and
a skinny white cloud.
No, no.
Your salvation is by grace and your heavenly
home is by grace.
Now, the Lord is saying to us, I
love you.
And while you're down there running the race,
I'll be preparing a home for you.
So when you cross the finish line, I'll
be there to welcome you.
He is preparing.
Chapter 13, verses 20 and 21.
Now may the God of peace who brought
up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that
great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood
of the everlasting covenant, make you complete.
Make you perfect.
Perfect you in every good work to do
his will.
Working in you, right now, what is well
pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to
whom be glory forever and ever.
Amen.
It's a great benediction.
Here is a ministry my Lord is performing.
That word, make you complete, means to equip.
It means to perfect and equip.
It's a beautiful Greek word.
It's the Greek word katartidzo.
And right in the middle of it is
the word artist.
We get our word artist from this word.
Katartidzo.
It was a familiar word back in those
days.
Of course, we don't speak Greek today.
But to the people in that day, it
was a very familiar word.
If I were reading that passage in the
Greek to a congregation back in the first
century, and I got to that word katartidzo,
the doctor would have jumped up and said,
hey, I know that word.
We use that word when we set a
broken bone.
You know what the Lord Jesus is doing?
The great master artist up in heaven, when
he sees that some place in the body
of Christ things aren't working, he starts to
set that.
He's equipping.
He is repairing.
He does it for me.
Sometimes I get a little out of kilter
spiritually, and I can't walk like I ought
to walk.
And then the Lord has to come, and
he says, look, I want to set that
the way it ought to be.
And then a sailor would jump up and
say, oh, yeah, we use that word.
That means to rig a ship for the
journey.
The Lord looks down at me and says,
well, there's where he's being his ship.
He's about to set sail, and he doesn't
realize that right down there is a storm,
terrible storms coming.
I know it.
He doesn't know it.
I'm going to equip him and get him
ready for that storm.
Isn't that great?
We never have to be afraid of what's
going to happen.
The future is your friend when Jesus is
your Lord.
And a soldier would jump up and say,
well, wait a minute.
The doctors and the sailors aren't the only
ones who know that word.
We soldiers use it.
It means to equip an army.
We're an army.
Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the
grace that is in Christ Jesus.
No man who wars entangles himself with the
things of this world, that he may please
the one who's called and drafted him to
be a servant, a soldier.
We are soldiers in the army.
And Jesus looks at me and says, now
there's a battle coming right down there, but
you're not ready for it.
Let me equip you.
That's why we come together in church to
worship.
He equips us.
That's why the Word of God is taught
and preached.
It equips us.
That's why the saints pray together and encourage
one another.
We're helping to equip.
Fishermen use that word.
The fishermen used it.
It means to mend a broken net.
It's used in the Gospel of Mark, where
it said that Peter and his friends were
mending their nets.
Now, what makes a net break?
Work.
See, you and I, as we serve the
Lord, our equipment sometimes gets frazzled.
That's why we have meetings like this.
We've got to come apart.
If a fisherman doesn't wash his nets and
mend his nets, he's soon out of business.
And if a servant of God does not
take time to mend his spiritual equipment and
let Jesus mend the nets, he's going to
be in trouble.
That's why we've been here these two days.
And so Jesus Christ is speaking, and He's
upholding, and He's sitting, and He's bringing, and
He's sympathizing, and He's expecting, and He's preparing,
and He's equipping.
And folks, if that isn't enough to keep
me going, something's wrong.
The problem that we face, however, is the
problem that the people faced who got this
letter written to the Hebrews.
Dr. Donald Ray Barnhouse used to say in
his own inimitable style, the book of Hebrews
was written to the Hebrews to tell them
to quit being Hebrews.
Did he mean that they should forsake their
race?
Of course not.
What a privilege to be born a child
of Jacob.
No, what he meant by that was everything
that the Jews trusted wasn't going to last.
Oh, behold this beautiful temple, said the disciples.
And Jesus said, yeah.
The day's going to come when not one
stone will be on top of another.
You trusting in a building?
Look at our beautiful priesthood.
Notice the garments of our high priest.
He's gorgeous.
Oh, the day's going to come when you
won't have a priesthood.
You won't have an altar.
You won't have a sacrifice.
It'll all come to an end.
Then what?
You're holding on to the things you can
see, says the book of Hebrews, when the
things you can't see are going to endure
forever.
Live by faith.
The book of Hebrews is one of three
commentaries written on one verse of Scripture.
Habakkuk 2.4, the just shall live by
faith.
Romans explains who the just are.
Galatians tells us how they live.
And Hebrews tells us it's by faith.
And our tendency is to lean on crutches.
Oh, the church is going to go well.
We have some wealthy people in the church.
Don't depend on that.
Overnight they could become your enemies.
And so the Lord Jesus Christ is doing
everything necessary to keep me running the race,
and so I won't give up.
I suppose all of this could be wrapped
up in one word.
He's interceding.
Interceding.
Which means He's representing me before the Father's
throne, and He's rooting me, cheering me onward
to finish the race.
Abraham made it.
Nehemiah made it.
The galaxy of the greats in Hebrews 11
made it.
Did they make mistakes along the way?
Sure.
Remember, the victorious Christian life is a series
of new beginnings.
And if you're running the race and you
trip and fall, you don't lie there and
whine.
You get up and run.
All the while, by faith, looking to Jesus.
And saying, He's the author.
He's the finisher.
He's the alpha.
He's the omega.
He started this.
He will finish it.
I'll trust Him.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your faithful, untiring,
unending ministry.
While we sleep, you stay awake and take
care of the whole universe.
Thank you.
You understand us, and you sympathize with us,
and you encourage us.
And I pray, Lord, that all of us
will end well as we run the race.
Grant this.
Father, in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.