July 19, 2026 - The Words That Form Us - Hebrews 12:1-3

Listen to this week's message from Pastor Nate Perry on Hebrews 12:1-3.

For further information about Fort St John Alliance Church, check out our website fsjalliance.ca

Our desire is to become a community of people who practice the Way of Jesus together, and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, live on mission to meet the social and spiritual needs of the world around us. Each week, we gather as a community to worship, learn from God’s Word, and be encouraged in our walk with Christ.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Fort St. John Alliance Church Sermon Podcast. I'm Aaron Peters, the Executive Ministry Director. We're so glad you've decided to join us today. Our desire is to become a community of people who practice the way of Jesus together and through the empowering of the Holy Spirit live on mission to meet the social and spiritual needs of the world around us. Each week we gather as a community to worship, learn from God's Word, and be encouraged in our walk with Christ. In this podcast, you'll hear the latest message from our Sunday service. Whether you're listening from right here in Fort St. John or from afar, our prayer is that God will speak to your heart and strengthen your faith. Let's lean in together as we hear today's sermon.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Hi, my name is Kinley. I am reading Hebrews 12, 1 through 3. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that is so easily entangled. Let us run with perseverance on the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scor scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand side of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

So you guys get to hear my lovely voice again this week if you weren't tired of it from last week. Well, buckle up. So I have a question as we start uh this morning. How many of you in the room uh are either currently runners or have been runners in the past? Okay, a handful of people. Handful of people. So when I was younger, I used to do a fair bit of long distance running. And recently, I decided that I should get back into running to hopefully lose a couple pounds, because you know, I'm I'm a little bit bigger. Clearly, it hasn't been working super well yet, but we'll get there. And man, I forgot how much running sucks. It's awful. It's not an enjoyable time pretty much ever. The only times that I've really actually found a ton of joy in running is playing sports, right? Like playing baseball or soccer or just like whatever it is. That's really the only time that running's enjoyable, right? Is when you're playing sports. Some days my lungs hurt, and I feel like no matter what I do when I'm running, I'm just not able to breathe properly. And other times when I'm running, my legs hurt the whole time. And I just don't want to do anymore. And then my legs hurt for like a day or two after, even though I'm not running those days. And some days every single part of me as I'm running wants to just stop and lay down on the concrete because it's probably a lot cooler than how I feel. One mistake that I often make while I'm out running is I just look down at my feet. I tell myself, if I'm not paying attention to how far I've gone, it's not gonna feel that bad. If I can't see how far I've gone, it's gonna go way faster. For experienced runners in the room, you know that that is wrong. That you shouldn't just stare at your feet while you're running, because it actually makes it way worse. Experienced runners know that as you're running, you pick an object that's off in the distance. You're like, okay, that tree, that's my goal. And then you make it to that tree and it's like a checkpoint, and then you're like, okay, make it to like that corner. And that's how you make it through your run, and you can actually see some progress, and it feels like you're getting somewhere. Whereas when you're looking at your feet, it doesn't feel like you're getting anywhere. The Christian life can sometimes feel the same as running. When you start following Jesus, there's excitement, there's a goal that's set, and you know that you can reach it. You're on fire for what's to come. It feels great. The first quote-unquote run feels easier than you expected it to be, and you're ready for the journey. As years go by, life gets busy. Suffering comes, disappointment happens, temptations that you thought were gone begin to grow, and faith sometimes just feels exhausting. Our passage in Hebrews this morning is looking at this. Not asking the question of, can you start, but how will you finish? So as we dive in, we're gonna look at a little bit of the context of Hebrews. So although there aren't any specifics that we know for sure about the book of Hebrews, such as who the author is, or the exact people that it was written to, or the exact time period, there are some things that we can pick up based off of some of the context from the book. The book of Hebrews was likely written to a book uh to a book, to a people uh of believers, a group of believers, likely Jewish, who had a good grasp of the Old Testament Torah. A group, but it was also likely written to a group of believers who were tired, who were discouraged, and who were being persecuted. Things for some of them were to the point that they were just thinking about abandoning their faith because of what they were doing, or what because of what they were enduring. Because abandoning their faith would have been so much easier than continuing on. And the point of the book of Hebrews was kind of like, hey, don't give up on your faith. Yes, it's hard, but it's worth it. That's kind of the whole point of the book of Hebrews. So let's dive in. Verse one starts off with, therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, we're gonna stop there. Most of us have probably heard this before, but when we see a therefore, what should we do? Stop and ask the question, what is it there for? Right? How many of how many have heard that before? Okay, not as many as I thought. That's something that my dad used to always say in youth group growing up, is that as soon as he would see therefore, he would pause everything and be like, what's it there for? And then we continue on. And that's exactly what we should ask when we see a therefore in scripture. I had originally thought about skipping this part of the verse because I was like, ah I could tie in other things better. And I was like, it's actually dishonoring to the text if I skip this part. So as I was sitting with uh what was being talked about by a great cloud of witnesses, I found that there was actually two potential meanings. The first is that this great cloud of witnesses is referencing back to chapter 11. So chapter 11 in Hebrews is seen as the hall of heroes in the Bible. This chapter is referencing Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel. All people who have displayed great faith in times of struggle. And now in chapter 12, they're being mentioned as a great cloud of witnesses, as an encouragement to other Christians, pointing to the fact that all of these people were on the path of following Christ. And each were going through their own difficulties that probably would have been really easy to give up on faith in. But they decided to continue to run the race of faith. They both witnessed to what it was like to persevere in faith and are now also witnesses to our faith as those who have run the race and have crossed the finish line. So this is the first way that it talks about this cloud of witnesses, that there have been people who have ran the race of faith who are now witnesses, who have been witnesses to what having faith is like and are now witnesses to our faith. And the second is that the cloud of witnesses is actually the body of Christ that we find ourselves in. The people that surround us are witnesses to the things of our lives. There are people to the witness, there are people that are witnesses to your confession of faith. It's very rare that somebody accepts Christ and nobody is around to either see it happen or to be told about what just happened, right? It's very rare that that happens. The vast majority of the time, there are people around who are witnesses to a person's proclamation of faith, right? And then once the person proclaims their faith, they're surrounded by people who are witnesses to their performance. So I know that word performance can maybe hit a little weird as I said that. Please don't hear me saying that. We're not putting on a performance. But we are meant to carry ourselves in a certain way as Christians. We are meant to act in a certain way. It's like when you're playing a sport, you're supposed to perform a certain way. You're supposed to do your job well, you're supposed to learn how to do your what your do whatever position it is well, and then perform well in that area. That's what I mean by performance. You're not putting on a show. Similar to those running a race, when somebody chooses to run a race, it's very rare that they don't tell somebody else that they made a decision to run a race. Right? Nobody really runs a race, and then afterwards they tell everybody that they know, oh yeah, I just ran a race. There's gonna be somebody who knows that they were choosing to do that immediately. Those people are witnesses to their proclamation that they're going to run a race and that they've made a commitment. And they're probably going to ask them, hey, how's the training for that race going? Hoping to hold them accountable. Then there are definitely going to be people who are witnesses to their performance. For those that might not have ran a race, there are always people standing there to watch runners. Whether it's people who are facilitating the race or people who just want to watch the race. I don't understand people who just like show up to a race to watch. That feels a little weird to me, but there's a lot of people who do it. I went to uh the States once for a relatively big race, and there were people watching literally the entire way. There was a huge crowd at the starting line, and then all throughout the race, because it was through like a huge neighborhood, all throughout the race, there was people literally just sitting on their lawns in lawn chairs watching people run. Those people were witnesses to the performance of the runners. So all of these people were witnesses, cheering them on, and those that surround us in a similar way are witnesses to our performance and will hopefully also be cheering us on in our race. The verse then moves on to say, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Have you seen the kind of things that some of us really seriously that serious long distance runners wear? Have any of you guys seen that? Some of what they wear is almost inappropriate. Like, I don't know, the shirts for the most part are fine. They're just like t-shirts or tank tops, they're fine. But some of the shorts that the guys wear, it's not to be too graphic, but some of those shorts, I honestly have no idea how things don't just fall out. They're really tiny shorts. Or another example, if you don't want to picture that that runner, think of baseball. A baseball player who is getting ready to bat. It doesn't happen so much anymore, but baseball players used to either have like a weight on the end of their bat, or they would have multiple bats uh that they would swing as they were practicing, waiting for their turn to go up to bat. And then once it's their turn to bat, they drop uh all of the bats if they had multiple except for one, or they take the weight off and then they go up to the plate. Why do runners wear such little clothing and why do baseball batters not get up with multiple bats? Surely runners can go and run a race in jeans and a t-shirt, right? You could, if you really wanted to. You could. It's not like jeans make it that your legs don't move properly. Like, if I wanted to, I could go outside and go for a run. I it would suck, but I could. And for a baseball player, you would think that swinging multiple bets would actually increase their chance of hitting the ball, right? More surface area, more things to be able to hit the ball. You would hit the ball more often than not, right? They do these things not because they can't do it any other way, because it makes it so much easier. I'm not sure if you've ever tried to go for a long run in jeans, but I can imagine it would be a terrible experience. You get incredibly warm so fast, the jeans would not feel good on your skin after like two seconds, and it they would just weigh you down. A baseball player doesn't swing with multiple bats because they just wouldn't be able to swing as fast. If they did manage to hit the ball, it wouldn't go very far because they wouldn't have very much power behind their swing. But with one bat, there's more accuracy within their swing, and you can have way more power behind the swing and make the ball go way further. When it comes to running our race in life, the same principles actually apply to us. There are things in our life that are a hindrance to our faith. Not necessarily all of those things are sin, but there are things that slow us down. Things that might pull our attention away from our goal. We can either intentionally or unintentionally pick up and carry things that may make our life so much harder. Like bitterness, constant busyness, comparison, unforgiveness, distraction, or like we talked about last week, the what-ifs or if-onlies. The author of Hebrews is saying there are things that we put in our life that are just weighing us down that we can set aside that will make running this race so much easier. We need to put aside our bitterness, put aside our busyness, our comparison, our unforgiveness. We need to set aside the things that will distract us from the race that we are trying to run. And we need to remove the sin that's in our lives. Races and baseball and all other sports all have rules that are meant to be followed. And when they aren't followed, it doesn't work the way that it was intended to. The race doesn't work the way it was intended. And the sport doesn't work the way it was intended. And they take away the joy that you actually might feel if you win or complete the race as you would have if you were to have done things the proper way. Same is true for our sin. Man, there are some things, some sinful things that sometimes feel awfully desirable. Right? And sometimes giving in to those sinful things feels good in that moment. But then you get to the other side and it's just like, man, I would feel so much better if I hadn't just done that, or if I hadn't, you know, given in to that sin. And it can be easy to get entangled in sin. And so we need to be in almost aggressive with getting rid of the sin in our lives. I listened to a sermon this week uh and uh specifically on this passage, and that pastor compared this specific passage uh to weeding a garden. If you have a garden, you know that weeds are terrible, they're awful. They get so entwined in everything else, and sometimes it's hard to get the weeds out because they're so entangled in everything. Sometimes you're like trying to pull out the weed and you accidentally pull out the plant that you wanted to keep because they're just like entangled into one another. But you need to be aggressive in getting all of the weeds out to make sure that you actually get them all out. Because if you miss even a couple, you might come back in a day or two and it's like, man, I didn't even do anything because now there's just a ton more weeds. Right? The same is true with the sin in our lives. We need to aggressively get rid of the sin in our lives. And if we don't if we don't get in sorry, if we don't sorry, yes, my nose got confusing there for a second. If we don't get rid of the sin in our lives, it can get entangled into the good things in our lives as well. And then even more sin, even more can come back quickly because we aren't being vigilant in getting rid of the original. The authors of the author of Hebrews doesn't stop there though. Removing the weight is good, and sometimes that needs to happen. And getting rid of the sin needs to happen, but that isn't enough. We can't remove every distraction and still never move on, right? We still need to actually then run. The next section says, and let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us. The Christian life is not a sprint, it's not a short distance that we can do in one quick burst. It's a marathon. And so we need a marathon mindset. So, what I mean by that is a sprint mindset would be I'll serve God while it's exciting. If we're honest, the really high highs and exciting times to serve God can seem like they're pretty short, right? It's a moment or a weekend experience. And then it's done, and regular life continues on. That's the sprint mindset. It's quick. But the marathon mindset is I'll follow Jesus for decades through thick and thin. It's a look at the road, knowing that it's long and it is going to be an adventure. Nobody accidentally starts a marathon and finishes it. Nobody goes out for a run and accidentally ends up running 42 kilometers. That just that just doesn't happen. It's a long distance. Running a marathon is intentional. Every single step matters. Every kilometer matters. Some kilometers feel amazing and you feel like you can go on forever. Others feel absolutely miserable and like you just want to fall flat, and that would feel so much better than continuing on. But you keep moving. So the race that I went on to uh in the States wasn't a marathon by any means. I've never come close to that kind of distance, but it was a 12-kilometer race. And for the most part, I felt really good during that race. I had trained hard, I wore the right gear, I didn't wear skimpy shorts, um, but I wore the right gear, and I was with my dad, and we were able to push each other on to keep going. And then we hit a dreaded hill. See, there there's a hill on this race that is famously known as Doomsday Hill. And it is very accurately named. So in my head, I was like, you know, it was a steep hill, but it wasn't that long. So I was like, I need to like go back and fact check how this hill was. And it's so much worse than I remembered. This hill. Was over one kilometer in length and a 6.5% grade. It was awful. It was terrible. Every second of this hill felt like an eternity. And most people end up walking this hill just because it's so long and it takes so much time to get up. Because one kilometer is a long time when you're trying to run, especially uphill. So to get up this hill, you have to persevere, to not give up because it's harder than the rest of the race. But to endure. It is very much so an uphill battle. But then once you get to the top, it feels great. Because once you get up to the top, you kind of turn and you can look down and be like, I was just there like five minutes ago. And it's like, man, look at the progress that I made. I made it up this beast of a hill. It feels like such a great accomplishment. Again, our faith is similar. We face hills and we face obstacles. We face times when it's going to be so hard, when it feels like a one-kilometer uphill run. But we don't give up when things get hard. This isn't a sprint. God isn't asking us to run fast or to have the top time. He's asking us to not give up, to persevere. He's asking for faithfulness. So what's the key to all of this? How do we actually endure this race and keep moving forward? I can tell you one thing for sure. It's not just try harder. Let me tell you, if anybody has told you in your faith to just try harder, don't listen to them. They haven't tried just trying harder because that it doesn't work. But it's to fix our eyes on Jesus. Next section says, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne. This is the heart of the passage. Everything builds to this. Notice the author doesn't say to fix your eyes on yourself or your circumstances, your failures, your performance, or other Christians, like we all so often do. He says to fix our eyes on Jesus. Going back to what I said at the beginning about a new runner versus an experienced runner, what they keep their eyes on is different. A new runner will often look at their feet, trying to distract from the things that were around them, trying not to focus on how far they've gone. But an experienced runner knows to keep their head up, to pick different things on their path as a checkpoint, and to move forward towards those things. What we set our eyes on, what you focus on, is going to shape and change the way that you run your race. If you stare at the problems in life that so quickly surround us, they can get bigger and they will feel like they are all consuming. If you stare at the people around you comparing yourself to them, you will become discouraged. If you stare at yourself, you'll become defeated because as you stare at yourself, you'll see the areas that you need to change that you just aren't sure how to change. But if you stare at Jesus, there you'll find peace and strength to make it to the next checkpoint. You'll find the strength to take more steps forward to what that next goal is. Verse 3 then finishes with these words consider him. To think deeply, reflect, study, meditate. Why should we consider him? So that you will not grow weary. Weariness isn't solved by trying harder, right? If you're in a space where you just feel weary, trying harder isn't going to make you feel less weary. It's going to make you feel more weary. It's solved by seeing Jesus more clearly. Some marathon runners don't finish the race because of their legs. They quit mentally. But the finish line changes everything. When runners see that finish line, they somehow find energy that they didn't have before. Back when I was a runner, often when I was running a race, I would just feel so done by the time I'm getting to the end of it. And then I'd see that finish line, and I would somehow have enough energy to sprint to the finish line to finish the race. Even though five minutes ago I was like, I don't know if I can keep going. The finish line changes everything. And the Christian finish line is this. The Christian finish line is Jesus. I'm going to invite the worship team up. And this week, our practice is just to take time to consider where our eyes are focused and then to bring our focus back to Jesus if it's somewhere else. So to do this, I just invite you to take time this week. I've got three different questions that at some point this week, just take time to pause and sit with them. The first is, what weight do I need to lay down? Is there something good or sinful that is slowing down your pursuit of God? Something that's weighing down where you should actually be running. The second is, where am I tempted to quit? Spiritually? In marriage, in prayer, in serving, in holiness? Am I tempted to give up on hope? Where are you tempted to quit? Then the third is, where are my eyes focused? Am I looking at my problems? Am I just staring at politics? Am I just focused on my bank account and how much money is there? Am I actually just looking at myself, focusing on how I'm doing? Or am I too focused on other people around me, focused on how they're doing in comparison to me? Or am I actually just focused on Jesus? One thing I've learned about running is that eventually every runner reaches a point where they want to stop. Every runner in race hits a wall. The question isn't whether that moment will come or not. The question is, what are you going to do when that moment does come? Because it will. And Hebrews has the answer to that. To throw off what weighs you down, to keep running, and to fix our eyes on Jesus. Let's pray. Jesus, each of us have different areas where we need to refocus, different areas where we need to set aside our own things, our own internal world, and to just refocus on you. So Jesus, I just pray that for anybody in the room this morning who already knows the areas where they need to refocus. Jesus, I just ask that you would just point out the areas that need to be set aside. The weight that needs to be put down, the temptations that need to be put aside, the areas where our focus is to be focused on you. Jesus, we thank you for your kindness and your grace in that. And that you are the one who gives us strength to continue on.