Run the Race with Endurance

Let's not go back. Let's not be slack. Let's pick up the pace.

Let's move ahead. Let's move from walking to run and running with endurance, looking not backwards, not to the side, but looking at the finish line and watching for Jesus. Hebrews 12 begins with the exhortation to run the race with endurance, and to encourage us on this race, in the preceding chapter, the writer of Hebrews walks us through the Hall of Faith, reminding us of faith-filled men and women from the past. This is the Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind as we conclude three days in the book of Hebrews.

Hebrews is a New Testament book that can be confusing given how much background information is assumed by the writer, so I hope you have found these messages in Hebrews beneficial in your study of Scripture. You can continue listening to these messages when you request the entire collection with your donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org before this offer ends at midnight tonight. To further fuel your Bible study, we'll also send you the DVD set of Dust to Glory, which is R.C. Sproul's overview of the entire Bible. I'll be sure to remind you of these two resources after today's message.

Well, here's Dr. Sproul on the exhortation to run the race with endurance. We ended in our last session with the statement in verse 13 of Hebrews 11 that these all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. No matter how many times I read that verse of the New Testament, I am moved in my soul every time I see it to think that those saints in the Old Testament devoted their entire lives to the pursuit of godliness, in obeying God, in trusting God. People like Abraham, whom God takes through all of this experience, and they never receive the promises. They only see them off in the distance like Moses standing on the mountain looking into the promised land. He doesn't enter the promised land. He doesn't inherit the promised land, but He sees it. And God gives Abraham a vision, a glimpse of the future Messiah. Do you remember when Jesus was fighting with the Pharisees and they claimed to be children of Abraham? He said, you're not children of Abraham. Don't tell me you're children of Abraham. If you were children of Abraham, you would have received me because Abraham rejoiced to see my day. I don't know what it is, but the older I get, the longer I live, the more I appreciate those people who don't just have showy, ostentatious, exciting moments of faith and then pass away, but those who are faithful over the long haul.

The ones who have gray hair are the ones who have my respect and my admiration and who inspire me because they are faithful day after day, month after month, year after year, over the long haul. That was what was true of these people in the Old Testament. And the point is, as long as they lived, they didn't receive the promises, but that was okay. God gave them a glimpse of what was in store, of what the future would hold. And that's what they believed.

That's what they received. And that's what it says they embraced. They saw the promises of fall off, and they were assured of them, they embraced them, and they confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly, if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But 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. Do you know that little gospel hymn, this world is not my home?

I'm only passing through. That's who we are, pilgrims and sojourners on this earth. We're looking for a better country whose builder and maker is God. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. Oh, what an image!

What an image! This guy is dying. He's on his deathbed, and he's not going to miss the worship of God. Give me that staff. He grabs that staff, and he pulls himself up, and he leans on the staff. He props himself up so that he can be in a posture of worship before God. That's faith. That's somebody who pleases God.

By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave instructions concerning his bones. He's saying, look, there's going to come a time when you're going to leave Egypt. Right now you came to Egypt to get fed because of the famine.

Everything's great. You've got the land of Goshen. But there's going to come a time when you're going to want to leave. You're going to be in bondage. And when you go, take me with you. Joseph's saying, I don't want to miss the exodus. Pack up my bones and take me home to the Promised Land.

Do you realize how important that was? God promises Abraham this country. It doesn't come to Abraham. He promises it to Isaac. It doesn't come to Isaac. He promises it to Jacob. It doesn't come to Jacob. He promises it to Joseph. Joseph said, hey, we're getting close. It's not that far along, and I know I'm not going to make it body and soul, but at least take my bones into the Promised Land. Wow.

Now, what does that mean? It almost sounds questionable because it seems so different from the actual historical narrative of why Moses left Egypt. Remember, he's adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh, which means that Moses is raised in the palace of Pharaoh as a prince. Look at how the world gets all excited about Princes Di and Bonnie and Prince Charlie, huh?

I mean, every move that this guy makes, the press is following around, and I can remember when Charles was growing up, if he fell off a horse, the UPI wire service would report it, and they'd want to know how he was playing polo and how he was sailing and how he was flying planes or whatever it was he was doing because he was the prince of the king of England, who is a king only in the world. Only in title, a king who reigns but doesn't rule or a queen who reigns and doesn't rule. But we're talking now where Pharaoh is the most powerful monarch in the world and presumably the wealthiest. And who is reared as Pharaoh's son in the splendor of Pharaoh's court with all the rights and privileges thereunto appertaining. Moses is instructed by the most gifted tutors in the world.

All of the science and literature and craftsmanship of the Egyptian nation is poured into this young boy. All his clothes are from the finest tailors in the land. He wears the best clothes. He rides the finest horses. He is trained in military combat. He is the knight.

He is the heir apparent, adopted to be sure, but he has everything that any fairy tale holds forth for a person. And the scriptures say he gives it all up. He makes a choice to give it up.

Well, the choice is indirect. It's not that all of a sudden Moses looked at all this and he said, well, bag it. I don't need all this business about being a prince.

I'm going to just go and be a shepherd someplace out in the wilderness like Albert Schweitzer gives up his organ career and goes to the jungles of Africa to be a missionary. That's not what happened. The choice was made in a matter of seconds. The prince is walking around one day and he sees a guard brutally mistreating a Hebrew slave. And Moses didn't forget who he was. And Moses had the choice at that moment to turn his back on this injustice and just let one more Hebrew slave be one more victim. Or he can take a chance and intervene and do something about it.

Well, you know what happens. Moses responded from the depths of his being. He was enraged and he went over, and he pulls that guard away from that slave, and the slave breaks free. And there's a struggle. And Moses, remember, now Moses is skilled.

He's trained virtually as a knight. He punches the guard and he kills him. And so what happens? He looks around.

Nobody there. He grabs a shovel, digs a shallow grave, sticks the body in it, and we have the first biblical Watergate. We're going to cover this up because really what Moses wanted was to put a stop to this injustice but at the same time protect his position in Pharaoh's court. But somebody saw it and tried to blackmail him.

And so because Moses acted with integrity, risking his status, his position, his life in the royal court, he lost everything. Overnight he goes from riches to rags, from the penthouse to the outhouse. He goes from the court of Pharaoh to the Midianite wilderness. Now he's a fugitive. He is nobody. Can you imagine him walking around out there in the Midianite wilderness for the next six months as the clothes of the prince begin to fade and grow grimy and dreary and people meet him on the way and say, who are you? Oh, I'm a prince. Yeah, sure you are.

They think he's a lunatic. And he's thinking, what's happening? Where's God? What happened to my destiny? My mother told me what happened, that I was spared from the wrath and the death sentence of the king by being spared in the bulrushes and all of that stuff.

Now God certainly had a purpose in life. It was my whole purpose in life merely to save one Hebrew slave. I saved one Hebrew slave from a beating and what happens to me?

I lose everything. I'm an outcast, a fugitive. I'm out here in this stinkin' desert, not just for six months, but I'm in exile forever.

I'm sure he was asking those questions the first six months. I wonder what he was thinking decades later when there hadn't been a peep out of heaven and his face is like leather from too much sun. And he sees that bush and finally God speaks and said, Moses, Moses, put off your shoes. This is holy ground. I have a job for you. You have a date with destiny.

You're out here. You've suffered for decade after decade of decade in loneliness and deprivation out here in the wilderness because you cared enough to save one slave. Now Moses, listen to me. We're going to save them all, and you're going to be the one to lead them to freedom. You're going back home. You're going back to the palace, not as a fugitive, not as one who is in exile, but as the envoy of the Most High God. And when you speak, they're going to jump. And when they don't jump, they're going to wish they did jump.

So let's go. Man, be not a man of faith. By faith, Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh, so choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. By faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king he endured as seeing him who is invisible. By faith, he kept a passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith, they passed through the Red Sea, as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians attempting to do so were drowned.

Don't you get what's going on here? The whole history of redemption is the history of God acting through and in and with and by people of faith. It's by faith that they crossed the Red Sea. It's by faith that Joshua led them into the Promised Land. It's by faith that the walls of Jericho fell down when the people marched around it seven times. By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish for those who did not believe when she had received the spies with peace. By faith, the harlot was redeemed.

That's how anybody's redeemed is by faith. Now the author of Hebrews is sort of running out of steam, running out of breath. He's all excited with these great heroes of the Old Testament.

He says, What more shall I say? Time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jefferson and David and Samuel and the prophets. What prophets? Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, and Joel.

I mean, hey, what does he say? I could go on all day because this is nothing but a record of faith of people in a God who is worthy of our faith, a God who responds to faith, a God who is pleased by faith, a God who creates faith in us. And there's a reason why he's going over all of this material because every person who has faith is assaulted daily by unfaith. And we've talked a lot already about what faith is, but in addition to pleasing God and trusting God for the future and all of those things, faith means being faithful. These were people whom God could count on, not only people who trusted God, but God could trust them because they were faithful people.

Because faith, this is part of the lesson, that is true faith always yields the fruit of obedience. Now, I'm always forever talking about the Christian need for heroes, and I get some criticism about that. You know, people say, R.C., you know, we should just look to Jesus.

What are you always talking about? Calvin and Edwards and Luther and these guys. We should look to Jesus.

I tell you why. Because the Bible tells us to look to this cloud of witnesses for inspiration. That it pleases God the Holy Spirit to give us this record of faithful people. Not so that I am supposed to model my life after David to be another David. I can't be another David. I'm R.C.

's pro. I'm not David. I'm not Jeremiah. I'm not Ezekiel. But in every one of those people, we see elements of virtue that are inspiring to us.

We see ways in which they honored God and pleased God and the way in which God used them. I think that that encourages people, encourages me. I mean, nothing discourages people faster than to feel that they are alone in the struggle. The Elijah syndrome, I alone am left. Why should I keep fighting this battle all by myself?

Maybe Jesus can make it for 40 days in the wilderness alone. I can't. I need support, human support, because these kinds of actions are contagious. What happens in battle if the leader panics and flees?

What happens? Panic is contagious. Fear is contagious. Cowardliness is contagious.

Every military general knows that. But so is heroism contagious. When we see somebody else with the guts and the substance of faith to do the heroic, we are inspired to march with them. That's why we have a roll call of faith like this, that we see these people just like ourselves who do these things. Bariks, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, prophets who through faith, listen to what they did, subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle.

Are we talking about pussycats here? Huh? I mean, people think that people of faith are people who drop out of life and that the real faithful person is the person who becomes Mr.

Milk Toast. Here, the Bible celebrates faithful soldiers, people who were valiant in the midst of warfare. Not because the Bible glorifies war. The Bible doesn't glorify war. But the Bible glorifies courage.

People go in there and stop the mouths of lions. That's what faith can do. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight. Let's lay aside the sin that so easily besets us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

This is the grand exhortation, the grand finale to the book of Hebrews basically. In light of all this, let's run. And let's run the race that God has set before us, not falling out every six feet, but running it with endurance, looking to Jesus, who is the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Let's not go back. Let's not be slack. Let's pick up the pace. Let's move ahead.

Let's move from walking to run and running with endurance. Looking not backwards, not to the side, but looking at the finish line and watching for Jesus, who has gone before us through the heavens, who's endured the shame, who's endured the suffering, who's endured the affliction, and who stands at the door and beckons us to keep coming, keep moving to the promised land. What an encouragement that is, and how important it is to have reminders like this from Scripture, as we're bombarded by so many distractions and with so much noise today. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, and today's message was from R.C.

Sproul's Themes from Hebrews series. If you'd like to listen to all 12 messages in this series, we'll unlock access for you in the free Ligonier app, plus send you the Dust to Glory series in a special edition DVD set when you donate today by calling us at 800 435 4343 or by using the link at renewingyourmind.org. Your support will be used to help spread trusted teaching around the world through this daily listener-supported outreach and all of Ligonier's global efforts. So thank you for your generosity at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes.

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