“...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, 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.” (Hebrews 12:1b-2)
Endurance. The ability to withstand hardship or adversity; the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful activity or effort; the ability to do something difficult for a long time.
In high school I got the bright idea to join the track team. I was much more inclined toward academics but I wanted to fit in with the athletes. I wasn’t very good at sports (still am not). I had tried basketball. I was completely confused by the game and the different plays. Volleyball - I kept ducking every time the ball came my way. Track and field was the only option left for me. Surely anyone can run! I already knew I was not a fast runner, so long distance running, I thought, would be the best for me. I enthusiastically joined the track team anticipating that I had at last found a sport that I could possibly do and perhaps even excel in. That is until the very first practice and we had to actually run! It was awful. My knees hurt. My back hurt. My head hurt. Pretty much my entire body hurt. I had a pain in my side and I couldn’t breathe. And I hadn’t even made it ½ way around the track! My career as a runner on the high school track team ended the day it began because truthfully I am a quitter. I had no ability to endure. As I reflect on that time of life, I recognize that endurance is achieved through the discipline of training, of pushing through the pain, with the prize of winning ever before me. But to me the prize wasn’t worth the pain and so I quit.
The author of Hebrews tells us that the life of a Christian is much like running a race. It is hard. It is painful. There are times when you can’t even breathe because of the pain. This is what it means to walk by faith and not by sight. It’s hard. It hurts. And God through the Scriptures is calling us to run with endurance. He calls us to not quit our race when it is painful and when it gets hard. How do we do that? How do we run our race with endurance?
By fixing our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith! He ran the race called life as well! And His race was a difficult one filled with suffering. Think about the life of Jesus. He was raised in poverty in the town of Nazareth. "Nothing good comes from Nazareth" is the local gossip. He was born under suspicious circumstances and was the talk of much gossip and discrimination. His father died sometime after he was 12 and before his earthly ministry began. He knew the grief of loss. His siblings rejected him. He was misunderstood and mocked. People used him and abused him. He was a migrant preacher and teacher who “had no place to lay his head.” He was an anomaly, drawing crowds who wanted something from him, but rejected him for his teaching. He was betrayed and denied by his close friends. He was humiliated, beaten, publicly mocked, unjustly tried, and ultimately killed. This was the race that Jesus ran. Fix your eyes on Him. With our eyes fixed on Jesus, let us see where His eyes are fixed. How did He do it? How did He set His face toward Jerusalem to endure the cross denying its shame? The writer of Hebrews tells us how in verse 2: “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.” He endured His race by looking to the joy set before Him.
What was the joy set before Him? What was the prize at the end of His race that was worth all the pain He would endure? In the great doxology written in the letter of Jude, Jude writes these words: “Now to HIM who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with GREAT JOY...” did you catch that? Do you hear what Jude is saying? He is talking about a future day...a day when the salvation of the people of God will be fulfilled and will be completed...the day when Jesus Himself will present His bride ... the bride that He had died for, the bride that He had purified with His blood...that day when He would present His bride before the Father - He presents her with GREAT JOY! His bride (the church - which happens to be made up of people like you and me) was the prize of great value that made it worth it all.
This is the joy that was set before Him. The joy that He looked forward to that helped HIM run His race with endurance. This moment when He would present His bride pure and spotless before His Father was the prize that He thought was worth all the suffering. It was worth the cross...it was worth the shame. It was to this day and this time that He fixed His eyes.
Ladies, we are called to run our race with endurance as well. This truth has come home to me especially in the last few months that have felt like years. This is a hard race. It is a painful race. It is filled with self-sacrifice, denying ourselves our wants and our dreams; it is a race filled with grief and loss; it is a race with broken dreams; it is a race where hope is deferred or delayed or put off until a future event. And our Lord Jesus is calling us to endure. Every time we chose to deny ourselves and obey the Lord and wait on Him, we do that by fixing our eyes on the joy that is before us. Every day that we keep running through the pain, one step in front of the other, and endure, we do that as we fix our eyes on the joy that is to come. You see, the joy that is coming will be even more wonderful because of our suffering today. The joy that is coming is even greater because of the hope having been deferred today. Proverbs 13:12 tells us that “Hope deferred makes the heart sick; but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” As we wait on God to meet our needs, to fill us with joy and to give us peace by obeying Him, we often delay the fulfillment of our desires in the here and now, creating heartsickness. But we find our endurance as we fix our eyes on Jesus and on the joy that is set before us. There is a day coming where we as the bride, having been presented before the glorious Father by Jesus with great joy, will respond also with great joy with these words found in Isaiah 25: “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for Him, that He might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for Him; let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”
Oh what a day of rejoicing that will be. "The Spirit and the Bride say, 'Come.'" “He who testifies to these things says, 'Surely, I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:17 & 22)
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