Westwood Presbyterian Church

September 14th, 2008

197 Browning  Boulevard, Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3K 0L1

REV. PETER BUSH's SERMONS

Principles for Successful Living 2: Tie up those shoelaces! - Hebrews 12: 1-13

 

     I am sure that we have all heard statements like the following. “If my parents had been better parents, then I would have been able to have the self-esteem to finish school.” Or “My boss at work hates me, and that is why I can never get a promotion.” Or “I made some bad choices in my life, and those choices keep haunting me.” We all know the kind of thing – where the predicament I am in is the result of something or someone that appears to be beyond my control. And thus my lack of success, my lack of getting the job done, my inability to do what I would like to do is the result of circumstances and situations that I can do nothing about.

     We so easily run through the things that prevent us from reaching our potential – the things that we wish would change but don’t – the things that run again and again in our minds that we know if they were different life would be different. We know the way the conversation goes: “If only my relationship with my children were better, then things would be better in my life.” “If only I had the courage to try this new adventure I have been wanting to do, then I would know if was for me.” “If only I had the time to spend more time in prayer, I would feel stronger in my spiritual life.” But these so often remain things that run in our heads – wishes that we do nothing about.  

     And so I sit down and have a pity party, because I believe I can’t do anything about changing any of this. There seems no solution to my problems.

     The writer of the book of Hebrews challenges that view – the writer believes that in the race of life there are things we can do so that we can run the race effectively.

     The image the writer is using is of a stadium – like the Olympic Stadium – and we are in the race of life. To be clear, and we will return to this, in the race of life it is a race in which Jesus goes before us – and we are running following Him. Jesus is the lead runner in the marathon we call life and we are in the race following Him.

     So in this race the goal is not to win -- the goal is to finish. One of Debbie’s brothers is a marathoner and a tri-athlete. He has run in the Boston Marathon. His goal in the Boston Marathon was not to win – he did not get into that race to win. His goal in that race was to finish. So in the race of life – we already know who the winner is – Jesus Christ, our goal is simply to follow Him across the finish line. 

      As we get ready to run this race – like all good athletes we prepare to run.

     Athletes get rid of anything that might weigh them down. The Jamaican runner Bolt didn’t wear work boots and overalls when he was getting ready to run the race. He got rid of all the things that might weigh him down – and then he ran.

     In the race of life, we sometimes use the things that weigh us down as excuses for not running the race. The things that weigh us down come in many forms.

• “If I were to step out and lead, people would start talking about me, start wondering who did I think I was to do that.” The things we think other people are thinking weigh us down, we spend hours worrying about their perceptions of us, and that takes much energy away from running the race, from doing what we have been called to do.
• “I can not do this job, I am going to fail; therefore I am not going to answer the call.” Our self doubts overwhelm us; hold us back from being able to reach the potential to which we have been called. Our self doubts sap us of energy and slow down our steps.
• “I am too busy collecting more stuff to do this thing that is being asked of me. I know it is important, but I don’t have the time.” One of the challenges in the race of life is determining priorities. Often our lives are full of things that do not matter – that don’t matter in the long run. Things that fill in our days so that there is no room for running the race of life well.

     We are invited to throw off those things that weigh us down – those things that prevent us from running well the race that has been set before us. It is not easy to throw off those things that weigh us down – they are often tightly held. We have become so used to them that we think they are part of our lives – part of our identity – and the thought of laying them aside is so strange as to seem impossible. But that is exactly what God invites us to – to lay aside those things that weigh us down as we run the race of life.

     It will not be easy to do that. It may even cause pain to get rid of those things that weigh us down. But as every athlete knows success in the race does not come without sacrifice and effort.

     There is a second danger to runners of the race of life – and that is sin. Notice that the things that weigh us down are not wrong, they are not about sin, rather they are unhelpful. This second set of things are sin.

     We are invited to get rid of the sin that clings so closely. It is like trying to run with your shoelaces undone – sooner or later either you step on a shoelace and go flying – or the shoe laces wrap around your ankle and trip you up. It is the same way with sin. Sin wraps itself around us and stops us from effectively following God.

     God wants us to live up to our potential, to live up to the gifts we have been given, and those patterns of life which stop us from reaching the vision God has for us – are sin. Some sins obviously impact the way we live – abuse of alcohol and drugs clearly limits our ability to reach the potential God has for us.

     Other sins are more subtle. If I have allowed bitterness into my life, a bitterness that I am unprepared to deal with – it will start to show through in how I do everything – it will impact the way I run the race. And until I deal with that bitterness – until I confront it, I will not be able to run the race effectively. I will be constantly being tripped up.

     In the race of life we need to be serious about dealing with the sin that so easily entangles us. The passage from Hebrews is clear that dealing with sin is not easy – but the good news is that because of Jesus Christ – the power of sin has been broken.

     It takes discipline and dedication to deal with the sin in our lives.

• We need to recognize the sin and decide that we want to live differently. We take responsibility for our lives and say “no” to sin.
• We need to develop new patterns of life that replace the old destructive patterns. It is not enough to say “no” and leave it at that, there has to a new pattern of life to replace the old pattern of life.
• We need to ask God the Holy Spirit to give us the discipline to keep to the new patterns of life. We can not struggle against sin all on our own, God comes to us and gives us resources beyond our imagining to deal with sin.

     We are not left to deal with the problem of sin and the things that weigh us down all by ourselves – in our own strength. Rather, the God of the universe, has made a way for us to deal with the things that weigh us down, the sin that entangles us. In Jesus Christ we find there is a power to deal with these things – for in God there are power and resources beyond our imaging.

     Some of us may be saying, “I am too tired to run the race of life.” “I am too worn out to do this.” “I have been so battered so far that I can not continue.” The good news is that God is in the business of strengthening weak knees and giving the energy so that hands can be lifted up and become useful again. God acts in miraculous ways to bring healing and renewal to our lives. God gives us the strength to take on sin, to get rid of those things that weigh us down, and to heal those parts of us that have been broken in the struggle against those things that would stop us from running the race of life.

     The writer of Hebrews says that as we run the race of life there is a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. For a long time that part of this passage has seemed pressure packed – the whole world is watching how I run this race – making sure that I don’t mess up. I was never quite sure that I liked that image. And then as I was reading what other people have said about this passage I found a different way of looking at this. What if it is not that they are witnessing what we are doing – but instead they are bearing witness to what God has done in their lives – and so as they tell their stories we find the strength and hope to go on. Therefore they become witnesses encouraging us.

     Witnesses like the woman who came to Elisha with a problem. She was a widow; her husband had died leaving her two sons and a good sized debt – and that was all. Her creditor was going to sell her sons into slavery. It would have been easy for this woman to say there was nothing she could do – the situation was bleak beyond imagining. But she went to Elisha – the man of God – and asked for help. Yes, what happened was a miracle – the oil kept pouring. But she also had to act – she had to take responsibility. She had to go out and gather up all those containers – she had to have enough faith to believe that gathering all the containers had a purpose. She had to do all of this while her sons, who were old enough to help – and therefore old enough to know that their family was in trouble, would have been wondering how on earth this was going to help them get out of the mess they were in. She took action – she took responsibility – and she trusted God.

     Here then we have an example of the balance we need when we face problems in life – things that prevent us from running the race of life. We need to take responsibility – we need to say this problem – this think that is blocking me – this thing that is holding me back – this thing that keeps pulling me away from following God – this needs to be dealt with. And then we have to have the courage to actually deal with the thing – getting rid of the things that weigh us down – dealing with the sin and entangles us.

     But we do that knowing that God is with us – working ahead – running ahead of us to clear the way so that we can run the race more effectively. Jesus goes before us – we look to Him for He is the pioneer of this race – the first one to run it to the glorious completion in the cross and resurrection. As we keep our eyes on Him – he is our example of what it means to lay aside everything that might impede our running of the race.

     Thanks be to God that we can run the race of life – with our eyes firmly fixed on Jesus. Thanks be to God that Jesus shows us the way to deal with those things that might prevent us from finishing the race. Thanks be to the Holy Spirit who gives us the strength to run the race.