Transcript

Good morning, church. We're continuing our series through the Book of Hebrews. We'll be in chapter 12 today. So we're getting close to the end of our journey going through the Book of Hebrews. This is actually the 22nd sermon in our series that we've entitled Jesus Greater.

We've been going verse by verse through the Book of Hebrews. It's been a wonderful journey. And today we've entitled this particular message a Greater Endurance. A Greater Endurance. And it is a greater endurance because Jesus is greater and because he's greater, his endurance is greater.

And it's available to us so that we are able to rely on him for our endurance. Now, many believers today, they begin the race of faith. Well, they start off strong, but when trials come, they often feel like giving up. Perhaps they lose focus. Perhaps they stumble under the weight of sin or some addiction.

Maybe they misunderstand the Father's discipline in their life and it causes them to want to give up. They feel exhausted, discouraged, and tempted to quit.

Perhaps we see others running life's race without effort. It seems like, why do they have it so good and I have it so hard? We struggle to put one foot in front of the other. But what we need is not more grit. It's not more of the Nike commercial, just do it.

It's not more of that. It's not more self effort. What we need is a spiritual endurance that comes from Jesus. We need Christ in us to help us face life's challenges because the truth is left to ourselves. There's just too much quit in us.

And so we need Jesus. Our strength fails, our resolve falters, Our hearts grow weary. But Jesus never gives up. He never quits. He always endures.

His endurance is greater. And this book of Hebrews reminds us of this. It reminds us not only as we learned in the last couple of weeks, of how by faith the saints of the Old Testament endured, but even greater than that as we get into chapter 12, that Christ is the pacesetter. He's the one who has both authored and finished the race of faith that we might follow him in the book of Hebrews, chapter 12. After portraying the faith of the saints of the Old Testament who endured hardship, the author of Hebrews exhorted his hearers that they might run the race of life with endurance by looking to Christ Jesus as both their example and their source.

And I believe today that we can look to Jesus for endurance to run our life's race. As we look at the text today, I think we'll see three ways that we can follow Jesus in this let's look at the text. We're looking at Hebrews 12:1 13. 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, 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. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted in your struggle against sin.

You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons, My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom His Father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live for they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. This is God's word.

We're looking for three ways we can look to Jesus for endurance to run life's race. Here's the first way. By considering his example. By considering his example, I want you to look and take notice. First of all, verse three it says, consider him who endured.

Consider him who endured. Who's the him? It's Jesus. He's speaking of Jesus. Consider Jesus.

Consider his example. The idea of to consider has the idea of to ponder upon, to contemplate, to meditate upon, to look unto. Consider Him. It's the first Greek imperative in this passage, although there is an imperative implied in verse one where it says this, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. It's not in the Greek imperative, but it's Implied.

It speaks as if it's in the imperative. And that's really the meaning of this passage, verses 1 through 13. The invitation for us to run life's race, the race of faith, without quitting, without giving up, to do it with endurance. Let us run life's race. Let us run it with endurance.

Now let's back up the bus a little bit and start at verse one. And it begins with a word that we've taught our church to always ask a particular question. What's the question, church that we should ask when we encounter the word therefore in the text? Yeah, that's our question. We should ask, what's it there for?

Why is it there? And so it's always like an equal sign in the text that what was said prior equals what is being said next. And so therefore points back to chapter 11. Chapter 11. We called it the Reader's Digest version of the Old Testament because it began with the patriarchs, went all the way up through Moses and all the way to the prophets.

And so chapter 11, verse by faith, by faith. By faith. They endured and believed in one that was to come, but they'd never seen him. They endured without receiving the full promise. But now, therefore, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.

Who's this great cloud of witnesses? Chapter 11, chapter 11. But not only chapter 11, not only the saints from chapter 11 who kept the faith, endured hardships, right? And kept on looking forward to the one who didn't come during their lifetime. But they kept believing that he was to come.

And now here we are. Therefore, now he wants to talk to us. We've studied chapter 11. He's saying, we've studied the saints of old and how they, by faith, look forward. Now.

How can we look back to Jesus who has come? And how can we have endurance from him? How can we have the kind of endurance for him? So we're not only looking to the saints that went before us for the model of endurance, but to the primary one who can give us this endurance. Well, I can't go past verse one without making a personal comment.

It's a verse that I first encountered in my memory when I was 8 years old.

My father died that year. He was 39. He died of cancer. I'm the oldest of four. I had a couple of questions for my family.

I was a daddy's boy. I'm the firstborn. He was a hero. He was strong. How in the world did this happen?

I had two questions. One is, where's my daddy now? And the Other question was, can he see me? No one could answer it. They called in the preacher, Preacher Potter.

He came over to the house. We sat at my mom's kitchen table. He said, gary, I understand you've got some questions. I said, yeah, where's my daddy now? He said, he's in heaven.

In First Corinthians, we read, absent from the body, present with the Lord. The minute he closed his eyes, he opened them to the Savior, Jesus. He's in heaven now. Okay, can he see me? Because he was always the one who would tell me, you know, I'm proud of you.

You know, a lot of my self image came from his comments, his blessings, that he would speak over me. He was gone. Can he see me? He goes, son, I'm not sure. But if we go over to the Book of Hebrews, chapter 2012 1, it speaks of a great cloud of witnesses that surround us as we run life's race.

Now, your daddy's already completed life's race, but we're still running it, son. We're still running it. And there's a cloud of witnesses, a cloud unusual language that surrounds us again. Unusual language. He said, perhaps, I don't know how much he can see, but perhaps he's cheering you on as spectators who have already completed life's race.

They've already finished the race. They've already crossed the finish line, and now they're waiting at the finish line cheering us on. And chief among them is Jesus, the founder and finisher, the author and finisher, the perfecter of our faith.

And I said, okay, and I believed him. Now, it's primarily contextually about the saints we just read about in chapter 11. But may I say to you, I think the cloud has grown over the past 2,000 years. I think it includes my mom and my dad and my grandparents. And I could name many saints who have come to faith in our church who are now part of that great cloud of witnesses.

And I bet you could name some too. And so now we're running the race, therefore we're running this race. And there are these witnesses that have this testimony. How they didn't give up, they kept on believing. And chief among them is Jesus.

I couldn't get past verse one without sharing that with you.

Let us lay aside, therefore, every weight. One commentator I was reading about did a study of the Greek games, the Olympics, the marathon, and how they would come into the stadium wearing these brightly colored robes. But as they approached the starting line, they would strip almost to nothing, but just be essentially naked, because anything that would weigh them down, would slow them down. What would weigh you down from finishing life's race? By faith.

Sin certainly clings to us closely. Those sins that degrade and cling to us, that keep us from believing and moving forward. Let us therefore lay aside every weight. Let us lay aside every sin which clings to us.

Let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us. We all have a race set before us. Your race is not my race. My race is not yours. We all have a path, but we all have the same finish line if we choose to run it.

Jesus is waiting. The word race is of interest in the Greek. It's agony. That's where we get the word agony. This is not a sprint, friends.

I wish it were. Get saved. Get baptized. Hallelujah. Go to glory.

It's not that it's an agony. It's painful. Life is difficult. It's filled with joy too. But it's a mixture.

Come, he calls us to endure. Let us run with endurance, the agony, the marathon. This is not a sprint. This is a marathon that is set before us. How are we going to do it?

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The word founder has the idea of an author or one who began a thing. It has the Greek word architecture, arche. It's where we get the word archaeology, if you will. The alpha, the starting point, the first.

And then the word perfecter has at its root teleos, which is the idea of completer finisher. The capstone, the omega. He's the alpha and omega. He's the author and finisher. He's the one who began our faith and puts the capstone on our faith.

Let's look to him. Yeah, we can look to these examples that we saw in chapter 11. But now the author gets us to the very root of the whole thing. Actually, what kept them going was they were looking to him too. They didn't know the details that we know, but they knew enough to look.

But now we look back.

Who? For the joy. He did it for the joy. The joy of being able to bring us into his kingdom. The joy of being obedient to his Father.

The joy, the unconquerable joy. Did it for the joy he endured the cross. The word endured is the Greek word hupomone. It means hupo means something that's over you.

And mone means to abide under it. So to endure means to live under a weight or a pressure. Endured the cross. He endured the cross. It wasn't the weight of the Wood that was so heavy.

But it was the weight of our sin that he bore. It wasn't the pain of the nails, but it was the pain of the separation that he endured with his Father. It wasn't the hateful, blasphemous comments that he endured, but that he couldn't hear his Father's voice for that moment that he became our sin. He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become his righteousness. That he bore under endured the cross, despising the shame.

Let's not forget that they stripped him of his clothes, they hung him before heaven and earth.

He did it for the joy, but he hated the shame. And now he's seen seated at the right hand of the Father. He crossed the finish line this marathon and he ran past the finish line up on the podium and took a seat at the right hand of the Father, which is the seat of authority and power. Let's look to him as we run life's race. Let's look to Jesus.

And then verse three says, consider him who endured. Think on him, know him, consider him. What does it mean to be a Christ follower? Get your eyes on Jesus.

He endured from sinners such hostility against himself. Hostility literally the idea of those who speak against us.

Therefore, don't grow weary or faint hearted. I'm at the end of verse three there. Don't get weary or fainthearted for the joy. Can we run for the joy of the finish line. Can we run for the joy of Jesus?

Jesus, do you see me? This really hurts right now. But I believe in you anyway. I don't have evidence right now because I really feel down.

But I still believe in you. As Job said to his wife when she said, why don't you curse God and die, old man? He said, even though he slay me, yet will I serve him.

I still believe.

I've met people before that when they were children, they lost a parent. I met a lady some years ago who had lost her mother and it had kept her from the kingdom for all the years of her life. She held it against God. I don't know why I didn't hold it against God. I didn't.

I believed. I think it was all about him, not me. He trusted me with faith at an early age. But this lady and her elderly young years, he gave her faith to believe too. You know what helped her was to hear my story, which was a similar story.

Can you bear witness like that? Can you say, I'm not going to grow weary, I'm not going to grow faint. Hearted. I'm going to look to Jesus. I'm feeling like quitting right now, but I'm not going to.

And then he throws this verse at us.

Besides, in your struggle against sin, you've not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. We've got people back here in chapter 11 that got sawn in two, stoned to death. You haven't been sawn in two like Isaiah. You haven't been stoned in the temple courts like Zechariah. You haven't been thrown into the lion's den like Daniel.

That's back there in chapter 11. You haven't been thrown into the fiery furnace like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. That's back there in chapter 11.

Do you know there are more Christians today dying for their faith than perhaps any other time period in the last 2000 years? There are Christians dying by the thousands in Nigeria right now, being murdered by a movement of Muslims burning down churches. But here we are in America, we get discouraged. Listen, I've been made fun of. I've been demeaned.

I've been excused from invitations to things. I've been left out. I've been talked about. I've never bled.

It speaks to me too. So don't quit. You haven't bled yet in your struggle against sin. Well, let's look to his example. Peter says this in First Peter, chapter two.

If you suffer for doing good and endure it patiently, God is pleased with you. For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example. And you must follow in his steps like a marathon runner who locks his eyes on a pace setter in front of him. I ran long distance in high school.

I was on cross country team one year. I say one year because, man, that stuff hurts. But I was on cross country and the best guy on the team because I also ran the mile and the two mile in the spring on the track team and, and the best guy on the team was a guy named Ernie. Ernie was a good friend of mine. And Ernie, he would go out early.

So some runners, they'll lay back and wait till the end, they'll have a good kick. But Ernie would just go out so hard early that he would just. He would cause everybody to just get discouraged right out of the gate like there's no way he can hold up that speed. But Ernie could. And so what I knew is if I can get behind Ernie, if I can just match his pace, I have a shot to Place at the end.

I couldn't set a pace like Ernie. Ernie. I would be so tired. I think I was going to cough up a lung. I'd start getting a side stitch, but Ernie's still running.

I would just be like, looking at his feet, and his feet were like a metronome. And I'd be like, gosh, I gotta Come on, Lord, just keep going.

That's. Who's your. Who's our Ernie? Who's our pacesetter? Look to Jesus.

Corrie Ten Boom, who survived. Her sister died in a Nazi gulag, but she survived. Here's her comment on the marathon of life. She says, if you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look inside, you'll be depressed.

But if you look to Jesus, you'll be at rest.

When you grow weary in this life, look up, fix your gaze on Jesus. Draw strength from his example, grace from his spirit. He endured for you, and now he endures in you.

Here's our second way. The first is to consider his example. The second is by submitting to his discipline. We're at verse five now, and we're going to go through verse 11 on this particular point. Submitting to his discipline.

A couple ideas to circle here. First of all, the word discipline is here nine times in the next few verses. It makes you start thinking we've switched topics, but we haven't, because discipline and endurance go hand in hand. You'll not have endurance if you don't have something to endure. And you'll not grow in endurance unless you have discipline that has disciplined you to endure.

He quotes in verses 5 and 6 from the book of Proverbs. He quotes Proverbs chapter 3, verse 11 and 12, where he says, my son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord. That's our second imperative, by the way, in this passage where he's saying, don't regard lightly God's discipline. If we stated that in the positives, take it seriously. Look down at verse nine and you can see so shall we not much more be subject to the Father.

And so we can see submission here. Let's be the ones who submit to his discipline. Now, let's be clear. Discipline hurts. Everyone who's ever worked out in the weight room probably sees a sign on the wall that says, no pain, no gain.

And so the way you grow muscles is by tearing them down and then resting and. And they grow to meet the next level because your muscles are like, oh, my goodness. I don't know if the muscles are thinking, but if they Were thinking, they're like, I've got to grow in order to meet this next. This person's trying to kill me, right? And so the way God, as our Father grows, our endurance, our faith is through testing, through discipline.

The way our endurance grows is by going through stuff. My son. Don't take that lightly. Don't be weary when reproved. It says as he's quoting proverbs here, verse 6 says, the Lord disciplines the one he loves.

It's evidence of his love for you. The word there loves is the agape word. It's his tender love, his un. Conditional love for us. He chastises everyone that belongs to him, everyone he receives.

You will in this world there will be trouble. And Jesus goes on to say, but I have overcome the world. And so he disciplines Growing up without a father. After age 8 hit my teenage years, the oldest of four kids rebelled.

I thought I was the head of the house. Gave my mama a fit. I remember when my son Stephen became 13, 14, started talking back to me. Turned one day he was my best friend, the next day he's talking back to me. I called my mama, I said, mom, did I ever ask you to forgive me for age 13 through 18?

Because I feel like some seeds I planted back then are coming to fruition.

Because I still remember what you used to say to me. I hope you have one just like you when you have kids. And I'm looking at him right now, it's like looking in the mirror.

Children need fathers and mothers. Fathers are often the ones that have us special gift for discipline.

Mothers have a special gift for devotion and tenderness and taking care. Sometimes that's reversed. I see that sometimes, but that's generally true. Not having that as a teenager, God had to really work extra hard on me.

Because when you don't have that, you'll quit easily. You don't have someone to tell you, no, that's not what we do as men and women of God. We don't quit. We keep going. We endure.

We don't quit on our relationships. We don't quit on our commitments. We don't quit. Not because quit isn't in us. Oh, I'm full of quit.

I've been at this 34 years. Next month, next month, 34 years. When we started that little group in my house, my wife Robin's house, seven people in our living room started this church. I quit every Monday for years. Signed up again on Tuesday.

Never made it. Never made it more than 24 hours before I said, okay, okay, I'll keep Doing it one more week. Lord, I'll give it one more week.

Here we are. That's right. Whoever said that here we are today. I haven't been quitting on Mondays for a while though. I'll say that to you.

Been disciplined by my Father.

It is for discipline, Verse seven that you have to endure. They're connected. Are you going through something today? Like why me? God?

What about him? That's what Peter said about John.

Stop comparing yourself to other people. You got your own agony to run. You got your own race to run. You got your own marathon.

In me, he got a hold of a hard headed firstborn. My race, by my shape had to be harder than maybe some of yours. Maybe some of you here have had a harder race than mine. You must have a really hard hit.

He trusts us with that which would allow us to grow and endure to become more like Him. I want you to think about this. His discipline is as a loving father. It's not to punish, but it's to raise up. It's not punishment, it's preparation.

His discipline is not punishment, but it's training. It's preparation. And as we see, it's that we might share in his holiness in verse 10, that we might become more like Him.

He's treating us as. As those are part of his family. If you're left without discipline, it means you're illegitimate, man. I don't want to be illegitimate. I want to be a child of God.

Which means my faith will be tested. There will be discipline. There will be seasons that he'll trust me with. On the windy road of life that I'll have to go. Oh my goodness.

Where are you, Lord? Why is this happening to me?

But I will not quit believing in youn. I'll keep trusting. There's a great cloud of witnesses waiting. And chief among them is my Lord Jesus. And for the joy I will keep running.

Besides this verse nine, we've had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them.

He asked this rhetorical question. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of Spirits and live? Father of Spirits? That's a strange phrase. But in context, not so strange.

It's more like this. Did you respect your earthly father? You ought to submit to your heavenly Father just like that. It's your spiritual father. You had a biological father.

And if you're a believer, you got a spiritual father. Not so strange. Not in context. It makes sense.

For the moment, all discipline seems painful. It sure does. Rather than pleasant. Not pleasant. But later, when you look back on it, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

The word train is a Greek word where we get the word gymnastic, that's a great Greek word, gumnadzo. That's where we get the idea of that athletic kind of training.

James says this. Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. So we look back and we realize what God has brought us through, has brought us to this moment where we have greater endurance as we've trusted him.

No pain, no gain. As an aspiring guitarist, when I was young, I grew up in a very musical family and I wanted to play the guit. And I remember the first time I started trying to play, I got blisters on my fingers and I'm like, that hurts. So then I didn't want to play anymore. But then I would see that guitar and I would want to play again and I would try again and then I would get blisters again.

And I remember my Uncle Basil was a guitarist. Believe it or not, my grandmother was a great blues guitarist. She was really good. I really wanted to play like her. And she would say, well, Gary, you got to build up your calluses.

Well, how do you do that, Granny? You just keep playing through the pain and then you build calluses and then you won't even notice it anymore. You'll have the endurance to keep playing. Then you'll get better. It's the reason little kids, you don't usually see little kids playing the guitar.

It hurts. But somewhere along the line, if you'll overcome the pain, you can start playing the guitar. You have to endure blisters before you can play pain free.

Even a tree must be pruned in order to bear more fruit. CS Lewis, in his book the Problem of Pain, says this. God whispers to us in our pleasures. He speaks to us in our conscience, but he shouts to us in our pains. Pain is God's megaphone, he says, to rouse a deaf world.

Are you going through something today? Is God trying to get your attention? And it's the only way, only way to bring you to himself, to say that, that you'll trust him. Why not listen today? Allow his discipline to shape your endurance for the race ahead.

Here's number three. By relying on his strength, look to his example. Submit to his discipline. Relying on his strength, having Endured and having been trained, the exhortation now turns to renewal. And he gives us a double imperative here in the Greek, it's lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees.

So see, here we are, verse 12. We have another therefore, don't we? This therefore points to verses 1 through 11. Since you're running life's race with endurance, and since you've recognized the need for discipline in order to allow you to have more endurance. Because now you've got a story.

If you've been alive long enough in Christ, you've got a story, you've got a testimony of how God brought you through this. Some of it was self, you brought it on yourself. You make bad choices, but God got you out of that and you've couldn't. Here you are today. And some of it was, you don't know why it happened to you, but God brought you through that too, and all along the way.

But now, because of this, because you're looking to Jesus, you're looking to the example of the saints who've gone before you. Because you've endured discipline. Now renew yourself, be renewed. And so therefore lift up your drooping hands if you're running, one of the things that will happen to you. It seems strange that running requires movement of the arms.

Try running like this, they wear you out. So get those hands back up and run.

When I ran cross country, one of our coaches liked to do the thumbs up run. I don't know if that helps, if that's more aerodynamic, but thumbs up running, we're talking, we're still in this race motif that the rider is using.

Get your hands up, get them way up. Strengthen your weak knees, you got wobbly knees.

You guys know three years ago I got new knees, right? I tell people I got a 67 year old body with baby knees. My knees are only three years old. I'm still tenderly bringing them along, trying to rebuild those legs, trying to be obesity to God's word. Strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet.

Man, your feet will hurt when you're running a marathon. Especially if you step off the path and get over on the side. You can fall down and really skin yourself up. Especially when you run cross country, you fall off in a ditch, you get really tore up. Need to stay on the straight path so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but be healed.

See, this is a time of renewal here that he's talking about. Now that you've said, I'm going to follow the pacesetter. Jesus, he's the author and perfecter of the faith. I'm going to endure the discipline of the Lord, knowing that nothing touches me unless it first passes through the hands of the Father who loves me. If he lets it touch me, it's according to his will.

And therefore I'm going to endure it, knowing that it'll cause me to grow and perseverance and maturity. Now I'm at the place, though. But I'm weak, Lord. I can't keep my hands up. I'm going to be renewed by him, by the Spirit of Christ.

Help me get my hands up. I don't want to run like this. Help me get my hands up. I want to run like you want me to run. And I'm going to strengthen my running for you, for life's race.

And I'm going to step on the straight path so I don't step off and tear something else up.

Man, this really speaks to me as an old guy. I don't know about you young people, but verse 12 and 13, man, I'm feeling this. You guys know I love the language of the Bible. You know, the New Testament's written in Koine, Greek, and so many of our English words come from Greek. It's just beautiful.

But like the word orchestra, ortho is all through 12 and 13 here. Ortho means to make straight. And so if it's orthopedics, then it's straight bones, right? And if it's orthodontist, it's straight teeth, but straight. It's all through here.

Make straight, strengthen your knees. It's all throughout a joint. All of this imperative here is don't be crooked. Keep it straight. Renew yourself.

How do we do this? By renewing not according to my strength, but his strength. Really. The writer here is quite obviously well versed in the Old Testament. He has quoted Proverbs earlier in verses five and six.

Now he's really quoting Isaiah, who wrote this in Isaiah 35, strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees.

How? By relying on his strength, by allowing him to work. After discipline comes empowerment. After discipline, God doesn't leave us drained. He renews our strength by His Spirit.

Endurance is sustained not by willpower, but by resurrection power.

It's his power that works so mightily. We work out what he works in.

Isaiah writes later in chapter 40, he gives power to the faint. And to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youth shall faint and be weary. You can be young. I'm old now, but when I was young, If I pushed hard enough, I'd get tired.

Even youth shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint like a runner catching a second wind.

Who ran through the south stitch and finally found, oh, I can keep going. I didn't realize I could run through this. My faith has grown. Or like Elijah, who laid down under the broom tree after a woman named Jezebel threatened his life, he had already stood up against all the prophets of baal. He'd run a race and outrun a chariot, outrunning King Ahab down to Samaria.

Then he heard that the old queen Jezebel. By this time tomorrow, you'll be dead, she said to him, or something thereof like it. And it just discouraged him. He'd come off the mountaintop, literally got down the valley and wasn't afraid of 400 prophets. But he was scared of that one spicy woman, and it discouraged him.

He crawled under a broom tree and he says, lord, just let me die. I'm the last prophet. Woe is me. Let me die. It was a long Monday for Elijah, but the Lord was gentle with him.

He sent an angel. And this angel set up a buffet for him there under the broom tree, brought him some angel food cake, some holy water, and he woke him up, let him sleep for a while. Woke him up and said, eat, drink. He did. And then he.

I think he rubbed his head a little bit and he went back to sleep because he was whooped. God will meet you there if you're there. He woke him up again, served him another meal. He said, better eat it to all of it. You better clean your plate because you're getting ready to run again, getting ready to take you somewhere else.

He'll do that for you. You remember Jesus after 40 days, 40 nights in the wilderness, and then the temptation of Satan. He endured those three temptations. And then it says, and then the angels came, came and ministered to him. You want the angels?

You got to go through the wilderness. You got to go through and endure. You want to see the cloud that surrounds us? You want to see it? It's right here.

A veil separates us, but it's right here.

And one day the veil will be pulled back and you'll see.

So for the joy set before us and the Jesus who leads the way, let's run the race with endurance until he calls us home.

Let's pray. Lord, thank youk for your word. But more than anything, thank youk for your son, the founder and finisher of our faith. The Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end for Jesus. I pray for that person that's here today.

You've never surrendered your life to him.

You can do it right now. You can make a decision to believe today. An act of the will. An act of the heart.

Pray with me like this. Pray like this. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sin, but I repent of my sin. I turn away. I lay that aside.

I want to follow you all the days of my life. I believe you died on the cross for my sins, that you were raised from the grave. I believe that. Come and live in me. Forgive me.

Adopt me into your family. I want to be a child of God. I want to follow you. I surrender my life to you. If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing Jesus will save you.

He'll come and live in you by His Holy Spirit and seal you for redemption.

Others are here and you're a follower of Jesus. You know what I'm talking about. But you're going through it right now. You're really hurting. You're tempted to give up.

Lord, forgive me, Lord, for the joy. Help me to endure, Lord, because I trust you and I believe that you won't let anything touch me without it being according to your purpose and your will. Lord. I trust even the pain, Lord. Use it so that you might be glorified and I might be made even more holy and righteous, which you've promised.

Lord, help me in this relationship. Help me in this situation. Help me in this place that I'm feeling like giving up. Not to give up, but to endure. For that great name of Jesus, according His strength, in his name we pray.

Amen.