Dave Hentschel: Uh today for our summer in the scriptures series, we have our own youth director, Johnny Graves, who's going to bring a word from the book of Hebrews.
Dave Hentschel: And so before he comes, I'd like to offer a scripture reading today from Hebrews chapter 11 and a selected number of verses from that chapter.
Dave Hentschel: So if you're able, I would invite you to stand at this time in honor of God's word and listen to the sacred scriptures together.
Dave Hentschel: Hebrews chapter 11, starting in verse 4.
Dave Hentschel: By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain.
Dave Hentschel: By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had taken him.
Dave Hentschel: By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear, constructed an ark for the saving of his household.
Dave Hentschel: By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.
Dave Hentschel: By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age since she considered him faithful, who had promised.
Dave Hentschel: By faith, Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau.
Dave Hentschel: By faith, Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.
Dave Hentschel: By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king's edict.
Dave Hentschel: By faith, Rahab, the prostitute, did not perish with those who were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
Dave Hentschel: And all of these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.
Dave Hentschel: The word of the Lord.
Dave Hentschel: Father in heaven, thank you for preserving this text.
Dave Hentschel: Your word truly is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
Dave Hentschel: This is the imperishable seed that you have planted on the inside of us.
Dave Hentschel: We pray that today we would grow because of that seed.
Dave Hentschel: We pray your blessing upon Johnny as he brings the word to us and bless our time together.
Dave Hentschel: We pray it all in Jesus' mighty name.
Dave Hentschel: And everyone said, Amen.
Dave Hentschel: You may be seated.
Dave Hentschel: Warm welcome for our own youth and youth and young adult director, Mr.
Dave Hentschel: Johnny Graves.
Johnny Graves: All right, well, thank you, Pastor Dave, and reading some of the scripture found in chapter 11 of Hebrews.
Johnny Graves: So the reason we are went through some passages in chapter 11 is because we were reading chapter 12, and the first word in chapter 12 is the word therefore.
Johnny Graves: And usually when you see that word, you want to read the verses behind it and see what this author is kind of concluding here.
Johnny Graves: So that's why we read some portions of chapter 11, kind of the backdrop to what we will be preaching on here this morning in chapter 12.
Johnny Graves: So if you have your Bibles open, you actually don't really have to flip anywhere.
Johnny Graves: You should be right near there, because we are just on chapter 11.
Johnny Graves: So get that ready as we are about to get into some scripture this morning.
Johnny Graves: In today's passage, there is a lot of uh athletic imagery, uh motifs, and things like that, particularly running, which we see in a lot of other places in scripture, particularly used by Paul.
Johnny Graves: So maybe that's a little push to argue that Paul wrote this book potentially.
Johnny Graves: Um, but hopefully the the running, the working out illustrations don't bore all the narps in the room, uh the non-athletic regular persons that are here.
Johnny Graves: Uh hopefully you can still have some interest in this message here.
Johnny Graves: Uh, you can really use this towards whatever arena of life you find yourself in, whether it's academics, work, music, all that stuff, regardless.
Johnny Graves: I think this will be a great message for everyone here this morning.
Johnny Graves: So let's read that passage together in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1 and verse 2 is all we're going to be doing this morning.
Johnny Graves: So read along with me.
Johnny Graves: It says, 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 to 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.
Johnny Graves: Let's pray before we get into this scripture this morning.
Johnny Graves: God, we thank you for what we got to read in chapter twelve.
Johnny Graves: Just person after person, by faith following you.
Johnny Graves: Each step they took, they followed you.
Johnny Graves: So, Lord, we pray as we get into chapter 12 here this morning, you would open our eyes, open our hearts to your word, convict us, let us see how great and beautiful you are as our Savior.
Johnny Graves: And we pray all this in Jesus' name.
Johnny Graves: Amen.
Johnny Graves: So that first verse, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, what we just read in chapter 11 should be an encouragement after encouragement after encouragement.
Johnny Graves: Each reference is a person who is bearing witness to the faithfulness of God.
Johnny Graves: Each reference is a person who can testify to the goodness of the Lord.
Johnny Graves: Each person we read, right?
Johnny Graves: By faith, Noah, by faith, Abraham, by faith, Sarah, by faith, by faith.
Johnny Graves: They're here to let you know you can trust them.
Johnny Graves: They're all here to let you know it's all real.
Johnny Graves: All of it.
Johnny Graves: Everything you read, every story, every verse, and God's word that you've read about God, about Yahweh, about his character, about who he is, what he can do, it's all true.
Johnny Graves: You know when you go onto Amazon and you want to buy an item, and like just recently I had to buy like a big Cat5 cable for my internet, and you go on Amazon and there's like a thousand of them.
Johnny Graves: Just one cable, that's all I need.
Johnny Graves: I don't need a thousand of them.
Johnny Graves: Just give me one, give me one that works, that will work for a while.
Johnny Graves: And if you're like me, you the thing you look for then is you let's look at the reviews, right?
Johnny Graves: All right, well, this one has three reviews, not sure why.
Johnny Graves: And there's only three stars, but then the one below it's got like 30.5k, thousand reviews, four point eight stars.
Johnny Graves: Like those are the ones you want to get, because you know they've been tested and tried, and everyone says, this is good, this is this is gonna work, this is awesome.
Johnny Graves: However awesome a cat 5 cable can be, but I'm sure it'll get the job done.
Johnny Graves: That's kind of what we have here.
Johnny Graves: We have review after review after review saying, five star, five star, God is good, God is good.
Johnny Graves: We have a lot of people witnessing to how awesome our God is.
Johnny Graves: We see in the life they lived, even amidst the challenges, the trials, they still obeyed and they still followed.
Johnny Graves: They took their steps by faith.
Johnny Graves: By faith.
Johnny Graves: Their life was evidence of what they witnessed of God, because if they witnessed something else of God, they would have lived different lives and made different decisions.
Johnny Graves: But the choices they made is evidence of what they witnessed of God.
Johnny Graves: And that is a witness to us today.
Johnny Graves: That God is good.
Johnny Graves: We got evidence in this room, we got evidence in church history, we got evidence in scripture that God is good all the time.
Johnny Graves: And all the time, God is good.
Johnny Graves: Forrest Frank is singing that, they were thinking, singing that 2,000 years ago.
Johnny Graves: And that's what we're reading here in chapter 11.
Johnny Graves: So therefore, since.
Johnny Graves: So the author says, since we are, let us.
Johnny Graves: Since we are witnesses, let us run.
Johnny Graves: Let us cast aside is the next phrase.
Johnny Graves: Like we've experienced all this, now we've got to go do something.
Johnny Graves: And what the author is saying is, let us lay aside every weight and sin that clings closely.
Johnny Graves: So buckle up a little bit here.
Johnny Graves: Uh, we're gonna let the Holy Spirit move this morning.
Johnny Graves: Uh, because before we get into the depth of all of this, uh, you know, we we we want to walk out of here a change person, right?
Johnny Graves: That's why we're here, we're at church, and we want to allow the Lord to move in mighty ways this morning, and we want him to reveal to us what is necessary.
Johnny Graves: So let's let our guard down a little bit, prepare our hearts, be ready to reflect, repent, let the defenses down, and let's let God do his thing this morning here.
Johnny Graves: And I'll admit when I first read this verse, I kind of just read it as one thing.
Johnny Graves: Cast aside the weight and the sin, one thing, bad, get it out, not good.
Johnny Graves: But let's just look at the first part, and then we'll get to the second part.
Johnny Graves: The first part, they are two different words.
Johnny Graves: It's let us lay aside every weight.
Johnny Graves: Every weight.
Johnny Graves: Now, when this when this was written, races back then were ran much differently than today.
Johnny Graves: Praise the Lord.
Johnny Graves: Uh, because a run a runner back then would come into the race all dressed up potentially, you know, a little hunger game style, girl and file, fire, uh toga, whatever it is.
Johnny Graves: And then when the race would start, they would take all of it off.
Johnny Graves: And when I mean all of it off, I quite literally mean all of it off.
Johnny Graves: Uh, to the point where they would run naked.
Johnny Graves: No wonder they're running so fast, right?
Johnny Graves: Like I would too.
Johnny Graves: So they're stripping off the weight so that they could run faster.
Johnny Graves: You know, Spandex was not invented, Lulu was in a store yet, so they were like, this is the fastest way to run.
Johnny Graves: So what is meant by this?
Johnny Graves: He quite literally means anything with like weight, anything with pounds and ounces to it, take it off.
Johnny Graves: It's prohibiting you from running faster.
Johnny Graves: So I don't think weight and sin here are the same thing.
Johnny Graves: I think the author is trying to say two different things there's weight and there's sin.
Johnny Graves: So we're talking about weight right now.
Johnny Graves: So weight is not necessarily a bad thing.
Johnny Graves: Clothes are good, they keep us warm and covered, all that stuff.
Johnny Graves: So this one can be a little tough to reflect on.
Johnny Graves: So for us, I think that means is there anything in our lives that, okay, they're not sinful or bad.
Johnny Graves: Are there anything in our lives that are prohibiting us from running faster, from running better than we could?
Johnny Graves: So since school is around the corner, I figured we got to get uh you know ready for school.
Johnny Graves: So I have a backpack over here, but I need a volunteer.
Johnny Graves: We got some kids in the house today.
Johnny Graves: I believe kids are in church.
Johnny Graves: Is there a kid in the house that would like to come up on stage and be my volunteer here, or a teen, or I'll take a college student?
Johnny Graves: I I would.
Johnny Graves: I know your name.
Johnny Graves: So any any volunteers, put your hand up.
Johnny Graves: Any kids, anybody feeling bold here this morning?
Johnny Graves: Otherwise, I will call on somebody's name that I know.
Johnny Graves: Oh, is this the only one over here?
Johnny Graves: All right, this is not staged.
Johnny Graves: Come on, Bennett.
Johnny Graves: I promise.
Johnny Graves: Alright, so we're getting ready for school.
Johnny Graves: We're starting school September 8th.
Johnny Graves: Tell everybody your name.
Johnny Graves: This is Bennett.
Johnny Graves: Bennett's awesome.
Johnny Graves: Uh so Bennett is gonna wear his Bennett's also my my son.
Johnny Graves: So like I said, this is not stage.
Johnny Graves: She was the only one.
Johnny Graves: I looked everywhere.
Johnny Graves: Alright, so he's gonna put on this backpack and he's gonna tell us um how the backpack feels.
Johnny Graves: So let's get this backpack on.
Johnny Graves: And how's that feel?
Bennett: Heavy.
Johnny Graves: Heavy.
Johnny Graves: All right, so we're going to school.
Johnny Graves: Let's hold that for a second.
Johnny Graves: We're going to school next week, and he has a very specific race.
Johnny Graves: And when you get ready for school, you know, the night before, you're doing great.
Johnny Graves: The night before, you look at your backpack, you make sure you have all the necessary things for school, right?
Johnny Graves: That's what we do.
Johnny Graves: So, Bennett here is gonna help me with that and take this backpack off.
Johnny Graves: And some of this may look familiar because it's probably from our house.
Johnny Graves: Uh, so we're gonna take one thing out one by one, and we'll just show everybody what we got.
Johnny Graves: So let's take one thing out and we'll just go through this whole list.
Johnny Graves: All right, so uh we got a great beach toy.
Johnny Graves: If you need any ideas, you throw it, the wave brings it back.
Johnny Graves: Really cool.
Johnny Graves: All right, what else do we have in here, Bennett?
Johnny Graves: All right, we got sea goggles.
Johnny Graves: Can't imagine this being used super well in school, but I guess it's cool.
Johnny Graves: And we have a cat five cable.
Johnny Graves: So my story was true.
Johnny Graves: Also, I'll let everybody know these stories that we share up here are not made-up stories.
Johnny Graves: This is quite literally true.
Johnny Graves: Five stars, uh, I believe.
Johnny Graves: Um we have a single right tap shoe.
Johnny Graves: Um, so if you ever want to tap just at your right foot, and you're also one year old, that will work.
Johnny Graves: Uh, we got a Fisher Price leapfrog.
Johnny Graves: Uh that's very good.
Johnny Graves: Uh Bennett might actually have a song recorded of him singing on this one, uh, which is great.
Johnny Graves: Okay, we got a quite literal 10-pound standard weight in his backpack.
Johnny Graves: All right, so I'm not sure what school we're going to.
Johnny Graves: Uh we got a fun phone in here.
Johnny Graves: Uh doesn't have location services parents, but maybe we'll call you at some point.
Johnny Graves: All right, we got a uh cat five crimper for all those tech guys out there.
Johnny Graves: Really like the internet.
Johnny Graves: All right, we got coffee.
Johnny Graves: This might be uh necessary for me.
Johnny Graves: Yeah, we got some applause.
Johnny Graves: There's some coffee out in the back when you're done here.
Johnny Graves: All right, what else?
Johnny Graves: Crayons, all right.
Johnny Graves: Swear might do we need crayons for school kids?
Johnny Graves: Raise your hand if you need crayons.
Johnny Graves: Crayons or crayons?
Johnny Graves: But debate of the year.
Johnny Graves: All right, that looks that looks promising.
Johnny Graves: It actually says your name on it, isn't it?
Johnny Graves: Alright, uh go-go squeeze.
Johnny Graves: This is necessary for me.
Johnny Graves: Anybody else?
Johnny Graves: I'm a big go-go squeeze fan.
Johnny Graves: Not so much the peach flavor, but all right, we got glue.
Johnny Graves: Kids, glue?
Johnny Graves: Do we need glue?
Johnny Graves: Raise your hand.
Johnny Graves: Do we use glue?
Johnny Graves: We use glue.
Johnny Graves: All right.
Johnny Graves: All right, we got another book with your brother's name on it.
Johnny Graves: Judah, composition of Judah.
Johnny Graves: Uh, we got a pen.
Johnny Graves: Do we use pens?
Johnny Graves: Pencils?
Johnny Graves: All right, so we got some.
Johnny Graves: We're looking more like we're ready for school here.
Johnny Graves: We got like two more things.
Johnny Graves: We got a bad guy book.
Johnny Graves: Thank you for letting me borrow this, Bennett, for this story.
Johnny Graves: And we got one more thing.
Johnny Graves: We got a folder.
Johnny Graves: Do we use folders?
Johnny Graves: Yes, take on folders.
Johnny Graves: Alright, so here's our pile.
Johnny Graves: So, Bennett, tell me what you would need for next week when you start school.
Johnny Graves: And just grab it.
Johnny Graves: Take up whatever you think you need for school.
Johnny Graves: All right, crayons.
Johnny Graves: All right, glue, good.
Johnny Graves: Here you can put it in here.
Johnny Graves: Sorry, don't put it in there.
Johnny Graves: All right, we got a folder.
Johnny Graves: We got crayons, we got glue.
Johnny Graves: Yep.
Johnny Graves: What else?
Johnny Graves: A pen, yes, good, good choice.
Johnny Graves: What else?
Johnny Graves: School ready.
Johnny Graves: I have what your teacher sent us if we need to refer to that.
Johnny Graves: What else?
Johnny Graves: What do you want here in this book?
Johnny Graves: Here we go.
Johnny Graves: Uh throw the go-go squeeze in there.
Johnny Graves: That's my I'll need that.
Johnny Graves: Alright, anything else?
Johnny Graves: I think that's pretty good.
Johnny Graves: So let's put this backpack back on, and you'll let me know how this feels now.
Johnny Graves: Much lighter.
Johnny Graves: So, does that feel like a backpack you want to carry into school?
Johnny Graves: And you have all your stuff that you need?
Johnny Graves: Awesome.
Johnny Graves: Alright, well, let's clap it up for my man Bennett over here.
Johnny Graves: Thank you very much.
Johnny Graves: We can go back.
Johnny Graves: Alright, so all this stuff is still good.
Johnny Graves: We just don't need it for school.
Johnny Graves: That's what this race is ahead of him, 180 days.
Johnny Graves: Not bad, not evil, not sinful, but not needed.
Johnny Graves: But he he put in his backpack what was needed.
Johnny Graves: Do we ever do that with our own life?
Johnny Graves: Do we ever take an inventory of our backpack and say, alright, hey, hey, there's some good things here, but it's not what the Lord has for me on this race.
Johnny Graves: Right?
Johnny Graves: If we want to do our best, I need to be focusing on what the Lord has for me.
Johnny Graves: All these other things are quite literal weight, preventing me from putting in my full effort, my full focus on the things that are ahead of me, whether that's being a dad, being a spouse, being a good friend, being a good employee at this work that the Lord has called me to.
Johnny Graves: So, do you ever do an inventory of your life and see what's prohibiting you from running well?
Johnny Graves: Alright, we do that with our backpacks before school.
Johnny Graves: Do we do that with our own lives so we can remove the weight and we can run faster and run well?
Johnny Graves: Another example, you know, a couple months ago we were going through Jonah early this summer, and in Jonah 1, the and other stories and movies actually, we'll see the boat start sinking, and what does everybody scramble and start doing?
Johnny Graves: They start throwing stuff off the ship, they start removing everything.
Johnny Graves: Get rid of this, get rid of that.
Johnny Graves: Let's make the boat lighter, just get all the weight off so we can make it to our destination.
Johnny Graves: But what a lot of us do sometimes in those scenarios is instead of removing the weight, we try to control everything else.
Johnny Graves: Well, let me control the winds, let me control the rain, I want to keep all this stuff.
Johnny Graves: These are the things that I really want to do.
Johnny Graves: But that never works.
Johnny Graves: It just says, cast away the weight.
Johnny Graves: Not run faster, cast away the weight.
Johnny Graves: So pray about this.
Johnny Graves: Challenge you, go home, do an inventory of your backpack, look at your schedule.
Johnny Graves: This is, you know, Somerset County, New Jersey.
Johnny Graves: We're busy from the moment we wake up to even when we're sleeping.
Johnny Graves: We're we're we're doing something.
Johnny Graves: So pray about it and do an inventory of your backpack of life.
Johnny Graves: Cast aside the weight.
Johnny Graves: The second half of this verse says to cast aside the sin, like I said before, two different words.
Johnny Graves: So we're gonna look at to look at sin now.
Johnny Graves: And it says, sin which clings closely.
Johnny Graves: But that's it for a second.
Johnny Graves: The sin that clings closely.
Johnny Graves: Get rid of it.
Johnny Graves: Right?
Johnny Graves: And not not some of it, or when when you want to, well, as long as the sin's in moderation, or you know, it's an accident, or small ones, big, whatever it is.
Johnny Graves: It just says sin, cast it away.
Johnny Graves: Alright, if this is a coach, a running coach, he's trying to tell you some tips.
Johnny Graves: Trust me, do this.
Johnny Graves: It's going to help.
Johnny Graves: It's prohibiting you from running well, and that's the purpose of this statement.
Johnny Graves: The author is trying to say the sin is impacting you poorly.
Johnny Graves: Sin has an effect on you.
Johnny Graves: The Greek adjective here that is used is a eupharistatos, which means to control tightly.
Johnny Graves: It's binding, it's hindering you.
Johnny Graves: Right?
Johnny Graves: We are called to be controlled by the love of Christ, not be controlled by the sin in our life.
Johnny Graves: Sin is never neutral.
Johnny Graves: Well, it doesn't really impact me the way it impacts others.
Johnny Graves: I can handle it and be fine.
Johnny Graves: Isaiah, you know, if you look into scripture, it tells us a much different story about sin.
Johnny Graves: Isaiah 59, 2 says this But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.
Johnny Graves: James 1.15 says, Then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin.
Johnny Graves: And sin when it has fully grown, brings forth death.
Johnny Graves: Sin hurts.
Johnny Graves: Sin kills.
Johnny Graves: Whenever we see the word sin in the Bible, there's usually that word death somewhere nearby.
Johnny Graves: A few weeks ago at our young adult group, I asked this question.
Johnny Graves: I said, Do you dabble with unholy things?
Johnny Graves: And the reason I said dabble is because I think a lot of times when we think about sin, we go, okay, I didn't kill anybody today, so that's good.
Johnny Graves: Uh I didn't do a bank bank heist, I didn't rob any banks, um, what else?
Johnny Graves: I used all nice words, and uh I'm I'm staying faithful to my wife, so I'm like pretty good.
Johnny Graves: I I I'm I guess I didn't sin that much today.
Johnny Graves: But I like saying the word dabble because I feel like there's a lot of little things that like we're okay with.
Johnny Graves: For example, okay, like, no, I don't I I don't commit adultery, but I watch some movies with some stuff in it.
Johnny Graves: That's probably not great, but you know, it's not that bad.
Johnny Graves: Do I rob banks or hey, like we joke, but uh you know, maybe I clock in at work and I don't really work for the first few hours.
Johnny Graves: Not me.
Johnny Graves: Uh, and so on.
Johnny Graves: YouTube, I don't know.
Johnny Graves: Uh so here's the catch.
Johnny Graves: Sin impacts you.
Johnny Graves: Like whether you believe it or not, like your belief in that does not change its effect on you.
Johnny Graves: It impacts you no matter what.
Johnny Graves: Whether you're you're you're following Jesus or you're not.
Johnny Graves: Uh, whether you've been following Jesus since you were five or you just started, uh, whether it's a big sin or a small sin, a secret sin or an obvious sin, it's going to impact you negatively.
Johnny Graves: Like one sin entered the world and changed the course of humanity forever.
Johnny Graves: It didn't take 1,000 sins and oh, now everything's broken.
Johnny Graves: It took one.
Johnny Graves: So if one sin mattered in the garden, one sin matters today.
Johnny Graves: We brush one sin off all the time.
Johnny Graves: It was a long day, it was the weekend, all my friends were.
Johnny Graves: How many times do we just brush that one sin off?
Johnny Graves: So sin matters.
Johnny Graves: Sin affects us.
Johnny Graves: And we often don't really care or think that it does anything to us.
Johnny Graves: So why mention that here?
Johnny Graves: Why is the author saying, cast that sin aside?
Johnny Graves: So if we're staying with our running illustrations here, if you've ever run before, you know the importance of so many things that affect you.
Johnny Graves: What did you eat the night before?
Johnny Graves: Did you sleep?
Johnny Graves: Did you hydrate?
Johnny Graves: Did you eat carbs this morning?
Johnny Graves: Did you warm up?
Johnny Graves: Did you go to the bathroom?
Johnny Graves: Did you stretch?
Johnny Graves: All those things impact you and how you're gonna run.
Johnny Graves: All of it matters, whether you believe it or not.
Johnny Graves: That's what the author is trying to say here, that sin is clinging closely to you.
Johnny Graves: And when you run, you don't want any of that, trust me.
Johnny Graves: It'll impact you.
Johnny Graves: So how are you casting aside the sin in your life right now?
Johnny Graves: You know, a dangerous place to be as a Christian is to say I'm a sinner and have no idea what the sin is in my life.
Johnny Graves: Get rid of it.
Johnny Graves: And you have to know what it is before you get rid of it, right?
Johnny Graves: Let the Lord open your heart to that sin in your life.
Johnny Graves: Like we wonder sometimes why is life so rough and then why isn't things going well?
Johnny Graves: And well, sometimes we could be running with a bunch of sin clinging to me and controlling me, and it's making it really hard to run.
Johnny Graves: Cast it aside.
Johnny Graves: And what's cool is when you do, it actually shows how much you care about the race that you're running.
Johnny Graves: Right?
Johnny Graves: At a race, you'll notice, you'll notice at a race people that didn't train.
Johnny Graves: Uh, you'll notice people who stayed up late eating garbage, you know, the girl who chugged the chai latte before the race, uh, this guy's eating a big thing of fettuccine alfredo at the start line.
Johnny Graves: Like these people obviously don't care about the race that much, right?
Johnny Graves: Last week, uh, myself and a few students here, we ran a 5K, it was super fun, and one of our students is a cross-country runner, got us all ready, and we know did the warm-ups, we did the stretches, we did the electrolytes, the gels, you're like, Hey, this is all that you gotta do.
Johnny Graves: Because we all cared, and we saw other people doing the same thing because they wanted to do the best that they could.
Johnny Graves: So those that stretched, they got there early, they ate well, went to bed early, carbs, all that stuff, got rid of all the unnecessary things, took my phone out, took that out.
Johnny Graves: Guess what those people cared about?
Johnny Graves: The race.
Johnny Graves: They wanted to run well.
Johnny Graves: So, church, do you want to run well?
Johnny Graves: Do you want to run well?
Johnny Graves: Sometimes I feel like we just claim Christ's victory and we say, who cares?
Johnny Graves: Well, Christ already won, so who really cares what I do?
Johnny Graves: You know what that's like?
Johnny Graves: That's like a few years ago, uh, a few years after college, uh, one of my friends was getting married, and we were going out to dinner, and his dad was like, hey, I'm gonna pay for the dinner tonight.
Johnny Graves: We're like, oh yes, like this is incredible.
Johnny Graves: Uh went to a nice Mexican restaurant and we just ordered the entire menu.
Johnny Graves: I it was it was ridiculous.
Johnny Graves: We ordered every appetizer, every drink, every entree, every dessert, and the table was full, and it was sad because like we didn't really, only half of it was really touched, but we were like, he's paying, right?
Johnny Graves: Like we we didn't care, not our card.
Johnny Graves: We didn't care what the cost was because we didn't have to pay for it.
Johnny Graves: And sadly, unfortunately, sometimes as believers, we fall into that with our sin.
Johnny Graves: I don't really care what the cost is because Jesus is paying for it.
Johnny Graves: It's so sad if that is our mentality, right?
Johnny Graves: It's not that God can't cover the tab, it's we don't care that he is.
Johnny Graves: You know, it's like it's like looking at Jesus saying, hey Jesus, can you can you hang up on the cross there just for a few more minutes?
Johnny Graves: Uh I'm going off to college, I don't want any rules.
Johnny Graves: Just hang up there for a few more minutes for me.
Johnny Graves: Hey, Jesus, can you hang up on the cross just just for a few more minutes?
Johnny Graves: There's this really good HBO show.
Johnny Graves: Everyone's watching it.
Johnny Graves: I know there's some stuff in it, but just hang up there for a few more minutes for me.
Johnny Graves: Hey, Jesus, hang up there for a few more minutes on that cross for me.
Johnny Graves: You know, my marriage is okay, I have needs that you know, they're not meeting, so I'm I'm I need I need to go do some things.
Johnny Graves: Just hang up there for a few more minutes, Jesus.
Johnny Graves: But the most mind-blowing thing is he would.
Johnny Graves: He did.
Johnny Graves: For all of our sins we're not aware of, all of our sins we're making excuses for, all of our sins that we're justifying.
Johnny Graves: He did stay up there for us.
Johnny Graves: Paul David Tripp says this.
Johnny Graves: He says, it is impossible to minimize your sin without denying God's grace.
Johnny Graves: It is also impossible to deny, ignore, or minimize your sin without giving it more room to grow in your heart and life.
Johnny Graves: There was a big cost for sin.
Johnny Graves: And Jesus covered it.
Johnny Graves: And it's not, it's not, it's not legalism.
Johnny Graves: Like me, you know, not cheating on your spouse is not legalism.
Johnny Graves: It's loving.
Johnny Graves: All right, me as a parent, not allowing my kids to do certain things, is not me sheltering them.
Johnny Graves: It's me showing them how to be faithful to somebody that you love.
Johnny Graves: So let us care about that.
Johnny Graves: Let us care about the sin in our life and cast it aside.
Johnny Graves: Cast it aside.
Johnny Graves: And the author is saying the reason you're casting it aside is because you care and you want to love the person you're running towards.
Johnny Graves: And it says, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
Johnny Graves: Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
Johnny Graves: The Christian life is not a passive life or a sedentary life.
Johnny Graves: It's a called life.
Johnny Graves: It's a life with movement.
Johnny Graves: Right?
Johnny Graves: Decades ago there was the Jesus movement, because it required people to speak, it required people to move.
Johnny Graves: Commentator wrote this: that the race is marked out for us by God, implying that every believer's duty is to run the race.
Johnny Graves: This is everybody.
Johnny Graves: If you are a believer in Christ Jesus, you are here and you are running this race.
Johnny Graves: And I love the grammar that is used here, how it says, let us.
Johnny Graves: So the English majors in the room, this is not an imperative.
Johnny Graves: This is not someone saying, hey, you go do this.
Johnny Graves: It's a hortatory subjunctive word, which means the author is aligning himself with the audience.
Johnny Graves: So he's putting his arms around them saying, Let's go do this.
Johnny Graves: This isn't like for certain groups, or, you know, if you went to seminary or depending where you live in the world, like you do this.
Johnny Graves: Let us all go do this.
Johnny Graves: Let us run.
Johnny Graves: It's me, it's you.
Johnny Graves: Let's go run with endurance.
Johnny Graves: In that word endurance, all the commentators agree on this.
Johnny Graves: The word endurance is there, is meant to signal that this is a longer run.
Johnny Graves: All right, if you ever watch the Olympics, there's a hundred-meter sprint.
Johnny Graves: That's not really a long run, it's a sprint.
Johnny Graves: Just run as fast as you can.
Johnny Graves: 200 meters, same thing.
Johnny Graves: But here the word endurance is saying a long run, the mile, the marathon.
Johnny Graves: Those runs require endurance, which requires determination, focus, eyes are on the goal, like wisdom for the course that you're going on.
Johnny Graves: Philippians 3.14, Paul writes this: he says, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Johnny Graves: I press on.
Johnny Graves: That's a word need, you know, when we're talking about endurance.
Johnny Graves: I'm pressing on each mile after each mile after each mile.
Johnny Graves: So how do we do this?
Johnny Graves: How do we run with endurance?
Johnny Graves: So here's a few, three things that will that I'll say.
Johnny Graves: Uh, first one is patience.
Johnny Graves: You gotta run with patience.
Johnny Graves: If we want to run with endurance, we gotta run with patience.
Johnny Graves: And that might confuse you because you're like, well, aren't races you want to run as fast as you can and get to the end?
Johnny Graves: Each mile has a purpose.
Johnny Graves: Don't rush it.
Johnny Graves: The end is there, and you're here for a reason.
Johnny Graves: Do what you need to do here.
Johnny Graves: Like, have you ever seen those videos uh of marathons, and there's some guy in the front of the line that you know has no business being in the front of the line?
Johnny Graves: And and the race starts and he just books it way past everybody, and then about 30 seconds into the race, they pretty much just collapse and they don't finish the race.
Johnny Graves: No patience.
Johnny Graves: So you gotta run with patience, take your time.
Johnny Graves: You know, as Jimmy World famously said, it just takes some time, little girl.
Johnny Graves: You're in the middle of the ride.
Johnny Graves: Everything, everything will be just fine, everything, everything will be alright.
Johnny Graves: All right.
Johnny Graves: All right, millennials.
Johnny Graves: You hopefully you guys got that one.
Johnny Graves: We'll get there.
Johnny Graves: Run, run at with patience.
Johnny Graves: You'll eventually get to the end of the race, even if you're in the middle of it right now, just be patient.
Johnny Graves: Second, run at a pace.
Johnny Graves: So I started taking running a little more seriously a couple years ago, and I was with a former student from here, uh, Mark O'Glack, and he was a cross-country runner, and he was explaining to me like the importance of different kinds of runs, how fast you run, and so on.
Johnny Graves: And he said a majority of the time you go running, they should be slow.
Johnny Graves: Base runs, zone two, all this stuff.
Johnny Graves: I didn't know what that meant.
Johnny Graves: And I was like, that makes no sense to me.
Johnny Graves: Like when you go run, you're 100%, full cent, let's go, get to the end, like that's what I want to do, right?
Johnny Graves: And that's just not how it works with running.
Johnny Graves: Like, you want to have these slower runs, build your aerobic base, all this stuff.
Johnny Graves: And if you're going for longer distances, you got to go at what some people will call a conversational pace.
Johnny Graves: I was like, man, like, you know, if I'm gonna have a conversation with someone, am I really trying?
Johnny Graves: Like that was my mentality.
Johnny Graves: Uh but that is really important when you look into and get into running, is that's like a majority of the running that you're doing.
Johnny Graves: A few months ago, I went to California, visited some family, and my sister-in-law is like a like a professional marathon runner.
Johnny Graves: She's run dozens of them.
Johnny Graves: And she was like, hey, tomorrow at 5 30 a.m., I'm going on like a 10-mile run with my running club.
Johnny Graves: I was like, I guess I'm going.
Johnny Graves: And it was a conversational pace.
Johnny Graves: I was talking to people around me.
Johnny Graves: I was like, this is so bizarre.
Johnny Graves: Usually run by myself.
Johnny Graves: And I'm talking to people, hearing about their life.
Johnny Graves: And let me tell you, it was still hard.
Johnny Graves: Like, just because I was running slower, running at a conversational pace doesn't mean it wasn't hard.
Johnny Graves: It still required endurance, it required determination.
Johnny Graves: But a lot of us were sprinting by in life.
Johnny Graves: And we're missing out and we're collapsing with how fast we're running.
Johnny Graves: And I'm thinking my life should probably be at a conversational pace.
Johnny Graves: If not, I might be running by people I should be having conversations with.
Johnny Graves: My spouse, my kids, my friends.
Johnny Graves: Instead, right, we live in this area, I just want to be the best, get to the end, and win.
Johnny Graves: But maybe we're being called to run at a pace and do what the Lord has called us to do each mile.
Johnny Graves: It's not going 50%, it's it's doing 100% in that moment what you need to do.
Johnny Graves: And that's gonna look different for each person, right?
Johnny Graves: Season of life you're in, whatever it is, that's gonna look different, but let's run at a conversational pace.
Johnny Graves: Third and last, we have to run with purpose, not aimlessly, not running around, not lost.
Johnny Graves: 1 Corinthians 9, 25 to 26 says, Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.
Johnny Graves: They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
Johnny Graves: So I do not run aimlessly.
Johnny Graves: I do not box this one beating the air.
Johnny Graves: Paul's saying, there is a route we are on, and I'm gonna run on that one.
Johnny Graves: There's focus that is needed.
Johnny Graves: There's no drifting, no lulling, no wandering.
Johnny Graves: There's a clear destination ahead, and that's where I'm going.
Johnny Graves: I say it like this: like every day we wake up, every day we go out and we take a step.
Johnny Graves: Do you have any idea what direction you're taking that step in?
Johnny Graves: Here we are told to take that step on the course that Jesus has set before us.
Johnny Graves: And the best way to do that, the best way to do that, as we continue in verse 2, it says, looking to Jesus.
Johnny Graves: The founder and perfecter of our faith.
Johnny Graves: Like we're not guessing, we're not running blind, we're running, looking to Jesus.
Johnny Graves: Because he has already shown us the path in the course.
Johnny Graves: He set the example of how to even do it.
Johnny Graves: And we have this incredible book called the Bible.
Johnny Graves: It has a bunch of gospels in there, and there is example after example after example on how Jesus ran that race.
Johnny Graves: John 4, Jesus had conversations with outcasts from his day.
Johnny Graves: Mark 1, Jesus went up, took care of a man that was sick with leprosy.
Johnny Graves: Matthew 14, Jesus went, spent some time on a mountain to pray to the Lord.
Johnny Graves: John 11, Jesus went and loved his friends when they mourned the death of their friend Lazarus.
Johnny Graves: Jesus ran that race perfectly on our behalf.
Johnny Graves: He showed us how we should live, and he gives us the Holy Spirit to go and do that.
Johnny Graves: What's cool is if you go and you watch a marathon, you'll see a few runners.
Johnny Graves: They have this long stick or like a long pole, and at the top of it, there'll be a time stamp.
Johnny Graves: It'll say like three hours or three and a half hours, four hours.
Johnny Graves: And that what that is, is it's a marathon pacer.
Johnny Graves: So basically, if you want to run a marathon in a certain time, granted you've trained, uh you just run with that person and they'll get you to the finish line in that time.
Johnny Graves: So you'll see these guys running with a pole, and you'll see like this crowd around them, like they're a celebrity.
Johnny Graves: Because all those people are like, I want to finish this race in three hours, so I'm gonna run with this guy.
Johnny Graves: If he runs faster, I'm gonna run faster.
Johnny Graves: If he slows down, I'm gonna slow down.
Johnny Graves: If he gets some water, I'm gonna get some water.
Johnny Graves: If he gets a gel thing, I'm gonna get a gel thing.
Johnny Graves: Whatever this guy does, I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna get to the finish line in that time.
Johnny Graves: So when we're running, we're not running alone, we're running with the Holy Spirit with our eyes on Jesus.
Johnny Graves: That's how we're gonna get there.
Johnny Graves: Like those guys running with that pacer aren't saying, this is easy.
Johnny Graves: It's still hard, but they know they can do it because they're running with someone who knows the course, who knows how to do it.
Johnny Graves: You stick with me, we're gonna get there.
Johnny Graves: Keep your eyes on Jesus.
Johnny Graves: Means we're looking away from everything else and we're just focusing on that one thing.
Johnny Graves: Do whatever he does.
Johnny Graves: Go wherever he goes, do whatever he says, and you'll get there.
Johnny Graves: And as the founder and perfecter of our faith, as it says here, a commentator says it like this: George Guthrie says that he perfected our faith.
Johnny Graves: Means that the Lord accomplished fully what it would take for new covenant faith to be a reality.
Johnny Graves: So another commentator points out that he is the source of our faith and the model of our faith.
Johnny Graves: He's the source, as in his death and resurrection is where we receive it.
Johnny Graves: That's the source.
Johnny Graves: And the model, as in, he trusted God by his obedience and his work of atonement, that is the model of faith as well.
Johnny Graves: So Jesus ran well.
Johnny Graves: He ran it perfectly.
Johnny Graves: And we see what motivated him in Scripture.
Johnny Graves: We continue on in the verse.
Johnny Graves: It says, 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.
Johnny Graves: Every step Jesus took was one step closer to a cross.
Johnny Graves: But at the cross, he didn't see, he didn't see the end.
Johnny Graves: He saw you and he saw me.
Johnny Graves: Even though the race was tough, even though it required endurance, it required focus, it required denial of self, it was all worth it for Jesus to keep going because he saw what was at the end, at the finish line.
Johnny Graves: And that brought him joy to endure those tough miles.
Johnny Graves: It brought him joy, even when things were getting really challenging, to push through, to run with endurance, because he saw you, he saw me, he saw his people who could now come to him freely because of the sin that was washed away by the perfect grace he ran on our behalf.
Johnny Graves: Yeah, there were some hurdles, there were some tough miles here and there, but the joy ahead for him pushed him to keep going.
Johnny Graves: So is that joy of being with him for eternity?
Johnny Graves: Is that good enough of a motivator for you today to keep going?
Johnny Graves: Like for Jesus it was.
Johnny Graves: So it's not about our performance, it's about his.
Johnny Graves: It's not about our perfection, it's about his.
Johnny Graves: It's not about our position, it's about his.
Johnny Graves: So we just need to accept the grace that he has offered us and run the race right towards him.
Johnny Graves: So, church, let us run.
Johnny Graves: Let us run with endurance, with our eyes on the prize of Jesus Christ.
Johnny Graves: And I hope that's enough.
Johnny Graves: That's enough for me that we're gonna spend eternity with our loving Savior who bled and died for me.
Johnny Graves: Let's pray.
Johnny Graves: God, we come before you this morning and we just we confess and we say sorry that we've treated sin lightly.
Johnny Graves: That we've said, I don't really care sometimes, not a big deal sometimes.
Johnny Graves: So, Lord, to that we just say sorry.
Johnny Graves: So, Lord, I pray that you would convict us of our hearts, convict our hearts right now, Lord, if there's some sin in our life that we've just kept in our pocket.
Johnny Graves: And I pray that you you, by your power, you let us cast it aside.
Johnny Graves: Right now, Lord.
Johnny Graves: God, we thank you that you are a God who goes before us, you are a God who goes beside us.
Johnny Graves: You've shown us how to run, you've shown us how to live.
Johnny Graves: You are the source and the model of our faith, and we we praise you and we thank you.
Johnny Graves: So, Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, would you allow us to go out each day and run with endurance, Lord?
Johnny Graves: The days are long, the days are tiring, it can be exhausting some miles.
Johnny Graves: We might feel like we're gonna cramp up and fall over.
Johnny Graves: But God, you're so good that you you walk beside us.
Johnny Graves: You give us that strength that we need, you give us that hope that we need to keep going.
Johnny Graves: So, Lord, may we chase after you.
Johnny Graves: Every single day.
Johnny Graves: May our steps just be closer to you.
Johnny Graves: In Jesus' name.