Sermons 2025

Text: Hebrews 11:12-12:4
Theme: Great Cloud of Witnesses

Outline
1.    Running the race of faith
2.    Cheered on by Patriarchs and Saints before us
3.    Focused on JC

Sermon

Grace, mercy, and peace, be to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

My dear beloved flock, the text for our meditation today is the book of Hebrews chapter eleven verse twelve through twelve verse four.

Boys and girls, I pray that you are doing well today. Have you ever run a race? I know that you love to run as fast as you can as much as you can. Whether it be on your scooters, bikes, cars, boats, or feet and legs, you enjoy going superfast. When we win the race, we feel awesome and special. When we lose the race, we feel sad. We are happy when we run, but sad that we did not win. When you run, you have your moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, friends and others cheering you along from the sidelines. They support you as you run the race to the very end. We see similar in our text for today. The race that we run is the race of life. The goal is what Jesus has won for us by His death and resurrection from the dead. We have a great cloud cheering us on, the saints of old. How do they cheer us one? How can we run all the way to the end steadfast in faith? Ponder those questions as you hear the rest of the sermon. You may go back to your seats and those who love you.

1.    Running the race of faith

Every single one of us is running a race. We are running a race called life, doing so while propelled by faith to the end. Many times, we are running a race with five thousand (5,000) pound weights upon us as we go throughout our earthly life. Would you be able to get very far with that kind of weight upon you?  I doubt that many of us would be even able to take a single step! We would be crushed under all that weight.
That is what our sin does as we run. It crushes us. It weighs us down. It makes so that we cannot run the race in faith well. We are crushed by the  Law of God as it reveals to us how deeply, in thought, word, and deed, we have failed to throw off the weight that clings to us so that we may run the race well, unencumbered and steadfast to the end. Rather than constantly looking forward to the goal, we return back to what we threw off at the beginning of the race. We put back on our weights. Sometimes they can be small. “No Hon, you are not getting a grey hair. That dress does not make you look fat, you are as skinny as you were back in high school. Hubby, you are just as strong and virile as the day I met you, your strengthen has not diminished with age.” If anyone ever finds someone that can honestly say that, let me know, I would love to meet them someday. Sometimes our weights are large. “You stole a million dollars from the bank. You killed a man. You betrayed our trust as friends, I am never trusting you again with anything!” Sometimes our weights are not put on verbally, but mentally. “I should have not said that. I should have said this instead, that would have been better for the spread of the Gospel.” “Am I doing the right thing? Does God really approve of this? Am I good enough for God to love me? Am I really His dear and beloved child?” 

2.    Cheered on by Patriarchs and Saints before us

As we run this race, we must remember that we are not alone. The same as we are not alone when we run earthly races, so too heavenly races. We are surrounded by other runners, by the crowds cheering us and encouraging us on. We can hear the crowd around us cheering and rejoicing as we run towards the goal. As we look out, we see familiar faces. Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, Abel, and many more. The saints of old who showed faith in their lives and who died clinging in faith to the promise of God, now cheer us on as we continue in the faith unto the end.  They cheer us on by their examples of faith as well as with their words of encouragement.   It is not easy to live in faith. “Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.  ”  Yet in spite, they looked forward to the goal. “Don’t give up!” those heroes would shout from the pages of Holy Scripture, “Keep on running! You’re on the right track!”  Amid our despair and worry, they say: “Yes, you are a child of God, you are good enough. Not because of yourself, but because of Christ in you! Focus on Christ! Throw off what hinders you as you focus on the goal!”

1.    Focused on JC

The Old Testament heroes point us to the goal. They, who ran faith’s course successfully, can encourage but not strengthen us. For ongoing strength and stamina we need to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” Again the author uses the present tense in the Greek to remind us to keep fixing our eyes on Jesus. Note also the use of the personal name “Jesus.” Jesus, the Second person of the Holy Trinity, became flesh to furnish our salvation. He’s the one who authors, continues, and brings our faith to perfection in heaven. From A to Z he is both the object and the cause of our faith. He creates faith in us and is the object that faith clings to.

What a powerful incentive Jesus’ example is for us as we run our race. He “endured the cross,” the author says, using the same root word as for our “perseverance” in verse 1. The cross with its torture and disgrace was no light load for our Lord, but He held up under it. The shame involved was far outweighed by the joy he found in completing the work of salvation and sitting down in triumph at God’s right hand.  He suffered, bled, died, and rose from the dead for you. He defeated Sin, death, and the power of the devil so that we can indeed throw off every weight that hinders us because Jesus has taken every weight off of us, placed them upon Himself, and given us His light and easy yoke. 

As we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, encouraging us as we run with them in Faith. Let us hold onto the faith that we have been given, focused on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. With the eye of faith, we join the hymnwriter in anticipating the scene when “Ten thousand times ten thousand in sparkling raiment bright, the armies of the ransomed saints throng up the steeps of light. ‘Tis finished, all is finished, their fight with death and sin; fling open wide the golden gates and let the victors in” (TLH 476:1).

Throw off your sins, throw off the worlds mockery, preserve, and endure focused on the goal. “God had planned something better for us.” Those Old Testament heroes of faith are no second-class citizens in heaven. Christ’s cross reaches with its redemption both backward to them and forward to us. But those heroes of faith operated on so much less than we do. They lived in the shadow and yet dared and died for Christ. They had so little and yet did so much.

Do we catch the challenge the author is placing before his New Testament readers? The full triumph of the cross is ours. The full truths of God’s promises are in our hands. Now what will we do and dare for him? Will our portraits, by the grace of God, be added on the walls of the hall of faith? Will a gracious God count us among those who have done the only great things this world has ever really known?  I pray that we would indeed be with them because of Christ’s death and resurrection from the dead as we follow where our Captain trods, looking forward in grace, to that day when we will see Him and all the Saints in glory forever.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard, and keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.