Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ.

Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville North Carolina. Come to me again this morning wherever you see that in the bible, stop and look at what you just read because what you just read before this verse ties into what we're getting ready to read. Now what is chapter 11 in Hebrew?

Chapter 11 is what we call the hall of faith. It gives a lot of individuals and literally God gives examples of people in the past that endured great things and finished their race that God had laid out for them in their life. So he gives all these individuals, he mentions some of the things that they all went through and how it took faith and it took endurance and it took patience and all these things. So then he comes to chapter 12.

In other words, why did I tell you about all these people? Verse one, here's why. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Now look at verse three. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. Notice this phrase. Lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Wow, why would he say in your minds?

I tell you why. Rarely have I seen Satan just tire a Christian out. He discourages a Christian out. It's usually not our bodies that just give away, that's why we quit serving God. And we do get tired. But it's usually the battlefield of the mind that Satan wins.

And I'll tell you why. I think oftentimes in our circles and churches like ours, people stay busy and they're active and if you're active in a church and you get involved, your body is busy, but where Satan gets the victory is in the mind. And we sometimes will have people doing things in their bodies, but they've already lost the battle in their minds and before long, you're gonna quit. You just will.

And it's not because your body gave out, not because you're just so tired. It's because Satan won the battle up here. And so he gives us a three-step process that literally we use our minds to do to keep us from growing weary in our race. Okay, let's pray and ask God to bless us this morning.

Lord, we love you. Help our folks, Lord, to gain from this what you would have them to gain. May they apply it to their lives in Jesus' name, amen. Let me say this. Nowhere in the Bible are we promised that the Christian life was going to be easy.

Do you know that? Nowhere were we promised it was gonna, now God did promise he would go through it with us and he'd never leave us nor forsake us, that he'd give us the grace and that he would always have enough grace and always have enough mercy and he would always forgive us and he's always promised that if you draw nigh to me, I'll draw nigh to you. He's given all these promises, but he never promised that it was going to be easy. In fact, I'm not gonna read the verse.

You wanna look it up, John chapter 16, verse 33. In fact, he promises it's gonna be very different than that. He promises it's going to be difficult. And serving God is difficult. It's not easy. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. But it's hard, it's difficult.

Can I, maybe I can tell you this. Getting saved is the easiest part of the Christian process. No, it was the hardest thing for Jesus to do.

He had to give his life. But Jesus has made salvation so simple and so free and so available. It's literally the easiest thing we will ever do. The hard part's just to get people to believe. But salvation is easy. You don't have to earn it.

You can't buy it. Salvation's the easy part. But if you get saved and you determine, you know what, because of what Christ has done for me, I wanna live for him.

I wanna give my life to him. That's difficult. That seems to be the ideal here in the book of Hebrews. And what's interesting about this book is that in chapter 11, he mentions Christians that were enduring a terrible time of persecution. In fact, Hebrews was written during a time that the church on a whole was going through great tribulation and great persecution just to be a believer, just to claim the name of Christ.

You faced persecution, you faced death, you faced all kinds of things. And Hebrews was written right in the middle of this. And it's written by an individual, I believe, named Paul. And I believe that he wrote it because he's an individual that used to persecute Christians.

He's the very one that used to do it. Now he's a Christian. Now Christians are being persecuted.

And Paul was stoned too, by the way. And he's writing to Christians that were going through great tribulation. Now, can I tell you something I believe with all my heart? And I'm thankful for every person here that's faithful and I need to be more faithful.

But you and I do not suffer persecution right now. You can say, well, the boss isn't very nice to me at work. Well, to compare that with being stoned. You're like, that boss just gives me a headache. Well, how would a nice six inch boulder do for you?

That'd give you a headache too, wouldn't it? Let's be honest, it's not necessarily easy to be a Christian right now and it's not popular, but it's certainly not, we're not being persecuted here in America. Now there are people, Christians in other countries right now that are being killed, that are being slaughtered, that are being imprisoned just to claim the name of Jesus. We have it very good right now. And yet it seems one of the hardest places to have people stay faithful to God's in America.

Because we have it so good and we have it so comfortable. Now, Paul gives us, and there's so many things I wanna say more about this, but I believe here that Paul gives a three, well, the author, excuse me, gives a three step process of how you and I are supposed to stay faithful. It's a battle in our minds. Number one, he says, number one, that we are supposed to see the saints. He says, in your mind, he says, consider or look at the saints. Look at verse one. Wherefore, notice he says, seeing. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses. So he's talking about here seeing. Now, we can't see them physically. But Paul here says, see our great cloud of witnesses.

Well, wait a minute. How can we see it if we can't see it? It's in our mind. That's what faith is. But you know what faith is? Faith is believing even things you cannot see. That's what the Bible says faith is. That's when we believe in Christ, although we haven't seen Christ physically and we didn't see him die on the cross, we believe the Bible. It takes faith to believe. Even though we haven't seen it, we believe it. And the Bible says without faith, it's impossible to please God.

So we've gotta have this. So he says first that we need to see the saints, this cloud of witnesses that are apparently witnessing what is going on right now. Now, you say, preacher, what really does that mean? Well, as I dug into it, I found out it doesn't necessarily mean what I always thought it meant.

Let me say this. As he begins this chapter, he starts with referring to chapter 11, as I've told you. Seeing this cloud of witnesses, who is this cloud of witnesses? It's the individuals he was talking about in chapter 11. And he literally lists these dear saints of God, men of God's word and women of God's word that went through in tremendous endurance and discipline and sacrifice and persecution. And they literally stayed faithful to the very end, which is what every one of us ought to want to do. Let me say some things about this.

Number one, I want you to see when he's talking about these witnesses, these saints. Number one, I want you to notice they have run their race. They have run their race. All these folks in chapter 11, they ran their race.

Now, look at me. If they endured what they endured to stay faithful, you and I can too. They ran their race. Listen, as soon as you say, well, I just don't think I can keep on.

You look at these folks in chapter 11 and see if you went through half the things they did, and if they can stay faithful, we can too. They have run their race. Now, listen to me. They did not run it perfectly, but they ran it. God never said you and I have to run perfect.

He just told us to run till we finish. They have run their race. Second thing I want you to notice is they have received their reward. Isn't that encouraging to you to notice that all these folks that followed us and preceded us, and I don't just mean the folks in chapter 11. I mean some of you, it's your own mom, your dad, your grandma, your grandpa, people that were spiritual influences on your life that might have already gone on to heaven. You gotta realize that they ran their race, number one, and second, they have already received their reward. You say, how do you know that?

You can't see them, because the Bible says they do, and I believe the Bible. Let me tell you something. My mom has received her reward, and the Bible speaks of many crowns that we have earned, and I've really been praying. I talked to my staff this past week. We're going for a staff planning session for all next year this week, and we're trying to get things organized, get everything lined up, and I talked to them about some suggestions for sermon series for this next year, and I personally have been praying about doing a series on all the crowns that you and I can earn as we serve God.

I think it would be motivation to you, and so we might do that, but I'm gonna tell you something. I think God came up with a different crown, because my mom lived with my dad all those years. I think she has one of these huge crowns. It's the same one my wife's gonna get one day when she gets to heaven, living with me.

Listen, my mom has already received her reward, and I'm gonna tell you something. She's in the presence of the Lord. You say, well, you can't see it. You don't know it.

Yeah, I do know it. You're not gonna convince me anything different, because I believe the Bible, and the Bible makes it clear, and you know what? That encourages me to wanna finish my race, because if my dear mom can go through sickness, and all the things that she did, and literally every week of her life lived in a different room, lived in a different room in the church, or a motel room, traveled in a van, traveled over three million documented miles just to serve God.

If she can do that, and finish her course, and receive her reward, certainly I could, and sometimes you and I get so focused on our trials that we forget some of the folks in our lives that have finished their race before us, and if they could do it, you can too. Not only that, number three, they've received the reward, but number three, they have revealed that God is reliable. Now let me tell you something. Every one of these people in chapter 11, the only way they made it is because they proved that God is faithful to them. Look at me, you know how you can be faithful to God? Because you oughta know that God's faithful to you. Every one of these individuals, because they finished their course, that proves that God is reliable.

Now, let me tell you this. I always preached, and I always felt, and this certainly might be the case, look at me, that in verse one, he says, "'This great cloud wherefore seeing we are compassed about "'with so great a cloud of witnesses.'" I always obviously said, it's the people in heaven that have gone on to heaven before us, those that have been saved, and that's obviously who we're talking about, but you know what? I believe that is probably the case, but that is not who this verse is referring to. This verse isn't necessarily saying that maybe if your mom died and went to heaven, that she's watching you. Now, I believe that certainly might be the case, but that's not what this particular verse is teaching. This verse is saying that all the saints in chapter 11, all that they went through, look at me, they are witnesses.

That means just look at me. It's not that folks before us are in heaven watching us witnessing what we do. These people in chapter 11 were witnesses to the fact that God is faithful. We are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses. What do you mean witnesses? They are individuals in heaven that are witnesses to the fact that God did what he promised he would do.

That oughta encourage us. It's not necessarily, and they probably are watching us, and they can see things, and I don't know. I'm not gonna pretend that I know everything, but I just have a feeling that people that have died and gone to heaven, that God allows them to see certain things.

I'm sure he does. But this verse is saying that there are witnesses in heaven that are witness to the fact that their entire time on earth, God was faithful to them. God gave mercy when mercy was needed. God gave grace when grace was needed. God paid bills when bills needed pain. God provided health when health was needed.

God did what needed to be done. They're witnesses to that fact. It's like if I'm in a court of law, and I wanna prove that somebody did something, I am gonna provide witnesses. And those witnesses are gonna witness to the fact that this person did such and such. And the witnesses he's talking about in verse one are these dear saints in chapter 11, and they are all witnesses to the fact that God allowed them through all that they went through. He was faithful, and he allowed them to finish their course. You can too.

You know why? God is as faithful to you as he is to any of these people in chapter 11. See the saints. They have finished their race. They have received their reward.

They have proved that God is reliable. Number two, he gives us the next step. Number two is see self.

So we're to see the saints, all right? Look at what he says in verse one. Wherefore, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, so look at them, remember, now he tells us to do something. Laying aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, let us run with patience the race that is set before us. So now we move for where he says, let me tell you how you stay faithful. Number one, you see the saints.

Number two, you need to see yourself. This is what he says for us to do. This is our job. Number one, he says to lay aside all weights.

This one's a toughie. This refers literally to a runner making sure that all extra weights have been removed from his body. Now, I don't think that they're able to be here this morning, and I might be wrong, I don't want to see them, but Matt Granus in our church, he runs marathons. You can look at me and know that I do not run marathons.

Now, I am now running every day, but it's just to the store and back. But anyway, so you know, he runs marathons. Now, let me tell you why I don't look like I run marathons, and Matt Granus looks like he runs marathons, because he doesn't have extra weight. And I'm gonna stop right there. That's enough of the illustration.

I look like I do, and you know what? He is gonna run a race much faster, much better than I could, if for no other reason, because I have so much extra weight. This is what Paul, look at me. Paul is not saying that you have to lay aside things that are wrong. He said you've got to lay aside things that are weights. In other words, this, there are some things in your life that aren't wrong, but they're keeping you from running the race God wants you to run. It means this, that it's not wrong for you to take trips, but if taking trips keeps you out of God's house so much, that's wrong for you.

Not because I'm the boss, I'm not. God says that his house should have the priority. I'm not saying that golf's wrong, or fishing's wrong, or none of those things, God forbid.

I like all of them, I do. We have a couple here this morning that just moved up here from Florida, and they were talking with Tim Barton about fishing, apparently something like that. And man, I was an avid fisher when I lived in Florida, and my particular county where I lived has over 1,000 lakes just in that little county. I mean, you got anywhere you wanna go fishing, and I love it, but look at me, I'm here to tell you that fishing, golf, hunting, whatever the case might be, none of those things are wrong in our lives. But if those things keep us from running the race that God wants us to run, then we need to lay them aside. It doesn't mean you can't ever do them, it means that you've gotta prioritize things.

Does that make sense? And Paul here is saying, you're gonna give up if you let too many things weigh you down. Look at me, if there's too many things that keep you out of church too much before long, you're gonna lose the desire to come to church. You can blame your sick, you can blame your hurtin', whatever the case you wanna be, and some people are, that's not what I'm sayin', but when it turns into the fact that you can go do other things, and you can go here, and you can go there, and you can't come to church, dear friend, there's a problem. What it means is that you don't desire to come to church, and why is that?

Because things have weighed you down. It could be discouragement, it could be all kinds of things, but I'm here to tell you, you and I will never run our race like God wants us to run our race, and we will never finish the race if we allow ourselves to become too weighed down. I'm right about this, folks.

We're not jumpin' on anybody. I'm just sayin', am I not just sayin' exactly what the Bible said? Lay aside every weight, notice this, and the sin which doth so easily beset us. What's amazing, he says, weights and sin beset us. That means this, weights aren't wrong, sin is wrong, but both of them stop you. Both of them do the same damage to your life. Even though somethin' might not be a sin, it can do the same damage as a sin, and you've all heard this, you all heard, I'm not gonna belittle it, but some of you might be new or whatever the case may be.

Let me illustrate this way, and I used to illustrate. Let's say I'm a runner, and I'm gettin' ready to go run the next morning, and I've got a big race, and when I line up that next morning, I've got a big overcoat on and a big belt with weights on it and I got big army boots and I got things and I'm holdin' big shoulder pad things and I got weights holdin' my arm and I'm ready to start this race. Well, I'm not gonna do very good and I'm certainly not gonna win because I've got too much things weighted down, but if I go out the night before my race and I party and drink and do all this kind of stuff, and man, I gotta hangover the next morning and I show up at the line and all these runners have gotten their rest and they've eaten right and they're ready to go and here I've got all this stuff because I've been partyin' and drinkin' all night long, I'm not gonna run very good either, why? Well, one is because of sin, the other is because of weights. The weights weren't wrong and they're not sin, but they're gonna keep me from running just as much as the sin would. You all understand that? So Paul says for you to finish this race, you've gotta get rid of the wrong things. And there's some things that aren't wrong you've gotta get rid of too because they're stoppin' your race.

That's not fun to hear, is it? Because I'm gonna tell you something, I'm the pastor of this church and I'm tellin' you right now, I have weights. I'm gonna admit it to you. And you hear that, I'm like, oh, Lord, it's convicting just to read it. Don't get the idea, I'm up here and I'm preachin' to you, bless God, you need, let me tell you somethin', I read this and it's like, oh, Lord, you talk about convicted, I think we all have weights. And we all have some sins. You say, pastor have sins? Yeah, pastor have sins.

We all do. And I don't know about you, I wanna finish my race because I've seen people that finish it that went through far more than I have and if they can do it, I can do it and if God was faithful to them, then God can be faithful to me. But I'm here to tell ya, as much as I want to, if I let sin and weight in my life, as much as I want to, I'm not gonna finish.

Because they'll stop ya. So Paul says two things, he says lay aside the weights, then he says lay aside all the sins. So that means first, you gotta run with preparation.

You've gotta prepare. I've gotta lay aside the weights and I've gotta lay aside the sin. That's how you prepare for your race. Second, he says this, notice if you would, verse one, and I love this, he says lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, notice this, and let us run with patience. That means this, I've gotta run with preparation by laying aside my weights, by laying aside my sins. Number two, I've gotta run with patience. Now you say preacher, what does it mean to run with patience? This is a picture of a runner, listen to me, that is literally settling in for the long haul. It's a runner that realizes I'm not just going to run part of this race or half of this race. I'm going to finish this race. And so their mind is set, this is what I'm going to do. And you know what I have told you before, there's something about us human beings, whatever we decide to do or set our mind to do, we normally do it.

We normally do it. There's, you know, you all know I've always, my whole life, struggled with my weight, I'm not trying to make this personal, but after I, my shoulder surgery, then my bicep snapped and I went through therapy and I, you know, nobody will know probably the emotional hardship it was on me the beginning of this year. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. And on July the first, they took my cast off and I said, that's it. My mind clicked.

I was like, that's it. And three months later, I was down 47 pounds. And I'm down some more now, and I'm gonna tell you something, I'm gonna keep going till I gain it all back, but I'm gonna keep going.

Now you look at me, I gave away over a thousand donuts Friday night, and I did not eat one while I was on this property. That is running with patience. Let me say this, notice this phrase, and this is very important of this whole thing with running with patience.

Notice what verse one says, now please look at this. Let us run with patience the race that is set before us. You've gotta understand that phrase, the race that is set before us, which means this.

You and I each, we have a personal race to run. Now let me tell you how you run this race with patience. Number one, you've gotta understand. Number one, you gotta understand these things.

Now please, get this. Number one, you have to realize that we each have our own race to run. I'm not running your race, you're not running my race. We have our own races to run, and listen, I'm not gonna run in your lane, and you're not to run in my lane. You're not to tell me how to run my race, and I'm not to tell you how to run your race. You know why, because it's not my race. Now as a preacher, I can get up here and tell you how God tells us to run our race.

But Daniel Hotry doesn't have a whole bunch of say so to you. That's why people say, you're a little bit different when you get in the pulpit, and you get out of the pulpit, and people are like, you're just not, and I still get this just about every week, somebody will say, they'll be around me finally, and they're like, you know, you're not a very judgmental person. I'm like, yeah, no I'm not. I got my own stuff. But you know what, when I'm in the pulpit, I gotta say, this is what God says for us to do, but I'm gonna tell you something, I got my own things, you got your things.

I'm gonna pray for you, you pray for me. We all have our own race to run. Number two, you've gotta realize this, that we are not in competition. We are on the same team. Hey, if you're running your race better than I am, bless your heart, but this isn't a competition. As I'm running my race, look at me, folks, I'm not against you, and you should not be against me, and we shouldn't be against each other in the church, and we shouldn't be over here, I'm running my race raising kids, and they're running their race raising kids, and we're over here like, ah, I'm telling you how they raise their kids, whoo.

Boy, I saw that they do this. Let me tell you something, you are damaging and hurting the very people that are trying to get to the same location you are. They're your teammates. We have our own race to run, and you gotta understand that we are not in competition. We're on the same team, folks. Number three, you gotta realize this, that our course has been personally and individually designed.

Do you know what? The race God has asked you to run has been designed for you, and the race God has asked me to run has been designed for me, and the Bible, that's why God says that my yoke is easy, and my burden is light, because it has been custom made for you, and you know what? I still have people, sometimes they'll come up and say, I preached for a pastor up in Delaware, and that last night he came, he was talking to people, he said, I don't know how Brother Daniel and Miss Julia, I don't know how they handle, he says, I'm a pastor, and the stresses that a pastor has, trying to pastor a church, and he said, our church is a fourth of the size of Kerwin, and he said, I don't know how they do it with Kayden, and the therapy, and the medicine, and the doctors, he said, I don't know how they deal with all that and stay sane, and I'm sitting here thinking, I got people in my church sitting right here, I don't know how they deal with what they go through. I look at what we go through, and I don't think it's much with Kayden, it's not much at all compared to what I watch some of you go through, but you know why some people look at me and say, I don't know how you do it, because that's my race, and that's why I'll look at you and say, I don't know how you do it, and you'll be like, hey, God gives grace, because that's your race, it's been designed personally and individually for us, dear friend, that's why you can be faithful, and that's why you can finish your race, because God hasn't asked you to run a race that has not made you able to finish.

It's been designed for you. Let me say this thirdly, that not only do we have to run with preparation and run with patience, but number three, we have to run with priorities. I want you to notice, look at verse two, he says this, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

That's our priority. The only way you and I are ever gonna finish our race is if we look to Jesus. He has to be, if we look at our race and our circumstances, and we look at our troubles and our burdens, we're going to quit, and we're going to stop, but if we look unto Jesus, that's our priority, which brings us up to point number three.

See the saints, see yourself, number three, can you guess it? See the savior. Notice, if you would, and I love this, look at verse two, looking unto Jesus. Remember he first said seeing the witnesses. Now he says looking unto Jesus. Well, I can't see Jesus, nope, but we can look unto him. We can't look at him, but we can look unto him. You say, preacher, I don't really fully understand that. That's what faith is all about. That's when I get down to my knees and I pray, I believe beyond the shadow of a doubt God hears what I'm saying, because his word said he does. Notice what he says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. That means, number one, you have to look and see his race.

He is the author and finisher of our faith. So just for a minute, what was the race that he had to run? Now listen to me, he had to run a very hard race.

Let me describe it just for a minute. It began in poverty and it ended on a cross. His race, and I took one commentary and I thought this was good. His race was a race that led him around a track lined with hatred, bitterness, opposition, and people that desired to see him dead. His was a race that set the perfect example of how a race should be run. His was a race in which he never faltered. He never lost sight of the goal. He never quit running until the goal had been achieved. When you feel like quitting, just look to Jesus and consider the race he ran for you.

You see, what oughta keep me faithful in my race is when I see the race that Jesus ran. Thank you for listening today. We hope you received a blessing from our broadcast. The Kirtland Baptist Church is located at 4520 Old Hollow Road in Kernersville, North Carolina. You may also contact us by phone at 336-993-5192 or via the web at kirtlandbaptistchurch.com. Enjoy our services live and all our media on our website and church app. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you.