Running With Endurance, Part 4 (Hebrews 12:1-3) | Worship Service

Good morning. Good morning and welcome to Kootenai Church. We're glad that you're here today. Would you please stand as we sing, come Christians, join to sing.

Christians, join to sing. Love shall never die. Jesus, your mercy is all my. I have no defense. My guilt runs too deep. The best of my works pierce your hands and your feet. Jesus, your mercy is all my.

Please.

Jesus, your mercy is all my. The goodness I claim, the grounds of my hope. Whatever I lack, it still was. Jesus, your mercy is all I. Took my place when I stood condemned. Is all my voice. To sing of a treasure no power can destroy.

Jesus, your mercy is all. When I stood condemned, stood condemned. The story of Jesus right on my heart. Tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard. Tell how the angels in chorus sang as they welcomed his birth.

Glory to God and peace and good tidings to earth. The story of Jesus right on my heart everywhere. Tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever. Lasting alone in the desert. Tell of the days that are past.

Since he was tempted, yet was triumphant at last. Tell of the years of his labor. Tell of the sorrows he bore. He was despised and afflicted. Homeless, rejected, and poor. Tell me the story of Jesus right.

Tell me the story most sweetest that ever was heard. Tell of the cross where they nailed him. Writhing in anguish and pain. Tell of the grave where. Tell how he liveth again. Love in that story so tender.

Clearer than ever I see. Stainless spur, love paid the ransom for me. The story of Jesus right on my heart everywhere. Tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard.

You may be seated.

Well, good morning.

Yep, that was me.

Good morning.

This next weekend is our cessationist conference. I'd just like to remind you of that if you would like to attend that. That is a free conference. We take up an offering to cover the food costs for Friday and Saturday.

We have seven guest speakers who will be here. Well, I guess six guest speakers and myself. That would be seven of us. As well as the filmmakers for the cessationist film and a lot of other stuff going on that weekend.

So we're looking forward to that. As well as next Sunday, one of the speakers, Dan Phillips, who used to be with the Pyromaniacs blog with Phil Johnson online. He will be doing the Sunday school, adult Sunday school.

It'll be something tied in with the theme of our conference. And then John Sampson, who formerly was a host of a Trinity Broadcasting Network channel in Phoenix, Arizona. Before the Lord saved him out of that, he will be preaching next Sunday.

So I'm looking forward to the entire weekend. I just remind you of that. And then also today, after the service at 12 .15, the tenors and the basses will practice for the Christmas choir. Tenors and basses today at 12 .15.

I think it's in this room back here off the sanctuary. And then the other parts will practice in two weeks. And if you don't know what your part is, your practice starts the day after Christmas. Turn please to 2 Corinthians chapter four.

2 Corinthians chapter four. We're gonna begin reading at verse seven. We're gonna read through the end of the chapter. 2 Corinthians chapter four, verse seven. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.

We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death works in us but life in you. But having the same spirit of faith according to what is written, I believe therefore I spoke.

We also believe therefore we also speak knowing that he who raised Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you. For all things are for your sakes so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart but though our outer man is decaying yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal. Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads. Our Father, we are the children of dust. We are feeble, we are frail.

We have nothing in and of ourselves that might commend us to you, a holy and righteous God. All we have is sin and iniquity. We have fallen, we have sinned against you and we have incurred your wrath.

But we thank you that there is hope in a savior who died to pay the price for guilty sinners. And we thank you that you have caused all of our iniquity to fall upon him, that you have punished him in our stead and that he has borne the wrath that was due to us, your people.

We thank you for that grace and we thank you for the work that is being done by the afflictions and the sufferings of this present age. Since our hope is in Christ, we know that the glory that awaits us as your people is far beyond all comparison.

And so we pray that today as we look to you, as we sing about you, as we contemplate and meditate upon the glory that is to come, the great reward that belongs to those who bear the reproach of faith, we pray that you would strengthen and encourage our hearts, that you would strengthen our minds, our resolve, our love and affection for Christ and that your word would have its way in our hearts.

We pray that you would equip and edify and encourage us today as your people, as we gather together to worship you. We lift our voices and our minds and our hearts to you and we pray that you would sanctify us and that you would receive from us the glory that is due to your name.

We ask in Christ's name, amen.

Upon your Savior, behold your great high priest Drawn near in awe and wonder, his cross has spoken peace Come rest from sin and striving, find endless stores of grace The heart that turns to Jesus is cleansed from every stain Oh, how deep, how wide, how deep is Jesus's love for you So lift your eyes to Jesus, arise from doubt and shame His blood cries, it is finished, our life is in his name Oh, how is the love of Jesus, oh, how can death assure us his strength Thus far his love has led us, his love will lead us home Jesus of Jesus, how sweet is his love for you

Isaiah chapter 30, verse 18, it says, therefore Yahweh waits with longing to be gracious to you. And therefore he is on high to have compassion on you, for Yahweh is a God of justice. How blessed are all those who wait for him.

Upon Jesus, look full in his wonder And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of his glory raise to the earth justice and mercy There the son is life, and our measureless debt was erased. Jesus, our savior, oh, Jesus we turn our eyes to you We turn our, we turn our, we turn our

We could not have asked for a better psalm to focus our meditation and our thoughts before the passage which we're about to look at in Hebrews chapter 12. Will you find that in your Bibles, please? Hebrews chapter 12, and we're gonna read together verses one through three.

Hebrews chapter 12, verses one through three. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Let's pray together. Our Lord, we do turn our eyes, the eyes of our hearts and of our minds, our contemplation and our meditation now upon Christ and what he has done.

We turn it to your word. We pray that you would send your spirit to be our teacher and our guide. Speak to us through your word this morning. Give us understanding and help us to see the significance of this passage to our lives, so that we may live lives that are honoring to you, running the race that is set before us.

We pray that you would use your word by your spirit to strengthen us and encourage us, to reprove us and rebuke us. And to lift our hearts in praise and adoration to you. Take all of the worldly, selfish, and narcissistic passions of our heart and replace them with an affection for Christ and for what he has done, we ask in his name, amen.

One of the things that we noticed about all of the heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11, was the fact that they were all sinners. Though they were notable examples of faith, they were by no stretch of the imagination, perfect men in any way.

And we noticed as we went through and looked at each of the examples, how they failed at various times in their lives. Their lives were, broadly speaking, characterized by obedience and perseverance and patience and enduring through all of the affliction and the suffering that comes in this life to those who walk by faith.

And not even their faith itself was perfect. Each person, though they had faith in God, there were times at which their faith was weak, where they doubted, where they did not act in keeping with what we would consider to be a perfect faith.

It's not that their faith was perfect and it's not that their lives, morally speaking, were perfect, but what makes them exemplary for us, what makes them notable for us, is the fact that we see in their lives how faith carried them through, saved them and then carried them through and sanctified them and kept them and preserved them all the way through to the very end.

And it is that endurance and that perseverance that the author is hoping that we would work out in our lives, what makes them noteworthy is their perseverance in the faith. There are a multitude who have gone before us.

By faith, they ran their race, they finished their race. Their example cheers us on and it reminds us that though you and I are the fallen sons of Adam and though everything in this world militates against us and seeks our destruction, seeks to undo us, that the second Adam, in whom we are, carries us through by faith all the way to the very end.

That's the lesson of Hebrews chapter 11. And their example, that they endured those trials, that they endured afflictions, that they endured suffering and came all the way through to the end, that example cheers us on.

And if you and I are gonna run races with endurance, then we have to consider the others who have gone before us in this race and have finished the race before we even started our race. That was the first key to running with endurance.

We're in Hebrews chapter 12. This is just by way of review now. The second key was that we must consider, or cast off, I should say, the entanglements that threaten to hinder us. We are to cast off every sin and the encumbrances which slow us down in our race.

Everything in this life, whether it is sinful or not sinful, we are to identify it and then we are to mortify it if it is to keep us from finishing our race and from running well. We want to not just run a race, but we want to run in such a way that we may win, and we want to run in such a way that we may win the prize to cross the line, to be successful, and hopefully to enter into the kingdom and hear, well done, good and faithful servant.

And if we're going to do that, then we have to have an eye, as it were, glancing and considering the examples of those who have gone before, shedding and getting rid of the sin which so easily entangles us.

Because sin is for us, since we are sin magnets, sin is for us like burrs in a field as we are walking through it. It clings to us all the time. And so as we're walking through the field, you have to identify the burrs, you have to pull them off as difficult as it is and cast them aside.

That's what sin is. We have to identify the sin, mortify it, get it out of our lives, go to war against it, cast it off so that it not easily entangle us. And then the third thing is we have to continue in the course that is set before us.

God, by his good providence, has laid out the course, he has established the parameters of the race, he's put it out in front of us in full view, and he has called all of us to run the same race on the same track, by the same rules, and across the same finish line so that we may take our place among those who have gone before.

So we consider the others who have gone before, casting off the entanglements that hinder us, and then continuing the course set before us. And then there is a fourth thing, and this is where we begin to enter into verse two.

We are to concentrate on the one who will reward us. Look at verse two, fixing our eyes on Jesus. Now, all of the things we've talked about up to this point, considering the others, casting off the sin, continuing in the course, these are things are all to be done while we do this, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despised the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Now, you kind of get the feeling that the point of the analogy is not the race, and it's not the running, and it's not the runners, but it's what? Or I should say, it's whom?

It's Jesus.

You kind of get the feeling that all of the stuff that we've been talking about, considering others and casting off sin, has really been leading us up to this exemplar of faith, this exemplar of endurance and perseverance, who is Jesus himself.

He really is the point of the entire illustration. It is as if the author has been waiting to tell us this, that we are to do all of these things while we fix our eyes and our minds upon Jesus. Notice the description of Christ that is given to us in this verse, verse two.

He is the object of our faith, that's what it means, to fix our eyes on him. He is the object of our faith. He is the author and perfecter of our faith, that's the second description. He's the object of our faith, the author of our faith, and then third, he is the example of faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

He is the example of that endurance. The object of faith, the author of faith, and the example for our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those are the three descriptions that we have in verse two. So let's jump in at the beginning of verse two and look at this first one, that he is the object of our faith.

And that really, I will be honest with you at the outset, that is gonna occupy our time here this morning, just that phrase, fixing your eyes on Jesus. What does that mean? That is a significant phrase.

And the author really, this describes the entire race that we are to run from the first all the way until we cross the finish line, what does it mean to fix our eyes on Jesus, and why is that significant?

The word that is translated fixing there is a present active, that's the tense, present active. That means that it is describing something that is to be actively done by you and I, it is to be actively done, and it is to be always presently being done.

That is to say that we don't fix our eyes on Jesus for a moment in time, and then that carries us through the rest of our lives. But instead, we are to always be about the business of fixing our gaze upon him.

This is how we enter the race, this is how we run the race, this is how we finish the race. Fixing continually, perpetually, presently, actively, our spiritual eyes on the person of Christ. This is how we run our race, present active, fixing our eyes.

That word that is translated fixing our eyes means to fix your attention on something, to learn about it, to find out about it, or to observe it. In fact, in the only other place in the New Testament where this word is used, it has the idea of discovering or finding something out.

Philippians 2, 23, the Apostle Paul writes to the Philippian church and says, therefore, I hope to send him immediately as soon as I, here's the word, see how things turn out with me, or how things go with me.

The Apostle says, I'm going to observe in my own circumstances how things turn out. Having fixed my attention on that, I will make this determination of whether to send Timothy to you or not. As soon as I have observed and looked at and given attention to how things turn out with me, then I will make this decision.

That's the idea. So it's not just that you sort of fix your attention on something for a bit of time, but you do so for the purpose of observing it, considering it, looking upon it, learning something from it.

What is it that we are to learn from Jesus? Well, we are to learn what it means to endure hostility against ourselves by hostile sinners. We are to learn what it means to run with endurance, to be faithful in affliction, to be obedient in suffering, to disregard the shame and the reproach of the cross.

Those are the things that we are to consider and to learn. Can you do that with one glance? Or does that take a lifetime of intense observation? It takes a lifetime of intense observation. That's why we are to always be fixing our attention and our eyes upon the person of Christ.

Always active, continually. This is what it means to live the Christian life. Not to give him attention at the beginning, not to consider him occasionally. This is not a passive verb. It's not that we simply remind ourselves about him and reflect upon a Sunday school lesson or story about him from time to time.

It's not that we simply turn our attention to him on one day of the week for 40 minutes on a Lord's Day morning. That's not what it means to fix your attention on Jesus. We are to fix our focus and our gaze upon him because there is something there to see, a pattern that we are to emulate, an example that we are to follow.

And fixing our eyes on him means that we must, at the same time, look away from other things. We are to look away from the discouragements and the disappointments, the difficulties of life, the afflictions, the sufferings, the enticements of the world and the comforts that the world offers to us.

We are to look away from the promises of ease and comfort, to look away from the doubts that creep in. All of those things end up being entanglements and encumbrances and protuberances. Remember that great word from a few weeks ago?

The protuberances that so quickly slow us down and so easily bear us down. There can only be one consuming focus in the eyes of one who is going to run their race well and that one consuming focus is the person of Christ.

Everything else gets pushed out. Everything else gets set aside. Everything else gets turned away from so that we may focus upon Christ. Spurgeon said this, quote, "'The Greek word for looking is a much fuller word "'than we can find in the English language.

"'It has the preposition in it "'which turns the look away from something else.'". And there's a preposition in the word which means you look away from something else to this thing. You are to look from all besides to Jesus.

Fix not your gaze upon the cloud of witnesses. They will hinder you if they take your eyes off of Jesus. Look not on the weights and the besetting sin. These you have laid aside. Look away from them. Do not even look upon the race course or the competitors, but look to Jesus and so start in the race.

What have you to trust but his blood and righteousness? Beware that you set up nothing as a rival confidence. Look off from everything you have ever relied upon in the days gone by and say to your soul, none but Jesus.

You must have a single eye and a single hope. Christ is all and he must be all to you or you are out of the race altogether, close quote. That's the focus. Looking away from everything else. And Spurgeon notes that there is a salvific emphasis to this word and to this concept of looking to God or looking to Christ.

There is a salvific element to this. This is how we begin the race and we continue our race. How do you get into the race of the Christian life to begin with? You have to look to Jesus, right? I mean, that is what salvation is.

It is turning from idols to the living God and serving him. It is turning from sin to righteousness and to Christ. It is to take the gaze by the grace of God and look unto Christ for salvation. And this is the language that is used throughout the Old Testament for salvation and for redemption is looking unto God.

It is a saving look. It is also a sanctifying look. It is a securing look that we have to Christ. And it carries us all the way across the finish line. Listen to the language of the Old Testament. Psalm 34, verses four through six.

I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to him and were radiant and their faces will never be ashamed. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

The psalmist there is describing the look of salvation, the look of redemption, where he looks to God and he has delivered from his sin, delivered from his transgressions, delivered from his guilt. Zechariah 12, verse 10.

I will pour out on the house of David on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication so that they will look on me whom they have pierced. That is a saving look for national Israel when he returns and Israel recognizes the Messiah that they have crucified and they turn to him on mass for salvation and deliverance.

Isaiah 45, verse 22. Turn to me and be saved or look unto me all the ends of the earth and be saved for I am God and there is no other. Micah 7, 7. But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord.

I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me. Fixing our eyes in Jesus is the fixing of the eyes in faith upon him that begins the Christian life and then it is the continual gaze upon him and his glory and his beauty and his majesty as revealed to us in the pages of scripture and understood by us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit that we are continually transformed from one degree of glory to another as we walk with him and we run our race.

It is a looking in faith for salvation and it is a looking for faith in day-to-day walk. Paul says just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in him. How did you receive him? By faith. How do you walk in him?

By faith. How did you receive Christ Jesus? You turn from sin and idols and all of the things and turn to Christ for salvation. How do you walk in him? The same thing. You take your gaze off of other things and you fix it upon Christ, both savingly as well as for your endurance and your preservation in the Christian life.

See, this is a saving look, which is why the author does not tell us to fix our eyes on any of the other heroes that we've covered in Hebrews chapter 11. Have you noticed that? Do you notice the difference?

Consider Noah. Great man, had his flaws, he did this by faith. Consider Abraham. Great man, had his flaws, did this by faith. Consider Moses. Consider Joshua. Consider the great cloud of witnesses that surround us, but fix your eyes on Jesus.

See, there's a difference between looking to these men as examples and fixing your gaze upon him. The author doesn't say fix your eyes on Moses or fix your eyes on Abraham or fix your eyes on Joseph or fix your eyes on Noah.

None of that, because this is a saving fixing of our eyes. So he is the object of our faith. And while we may consider their examples, we don't focus on them. We learn things from these men and women in the Hebrews hall of fame and faith, that's true.

We learn things from them, but we don't fix our eyes on them. We don't gaze into the face of Moses and be transformed from one degree of glory to the next.

You don't do that.

You don't gaze into the example of Abraham and keep that always in front of you. But the person of Christ, you can do that. And listen, we will do that endlessly and never be bored with it. I think I will get bored with Moses.

I think I will get bored with Abraham. I think I will get bored with you. Listen, if I can get bored with Moses, I can get bored with you in eternity, but you and I will never bore of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Looking upon his face forever, being changed from one degree of glory to another. This is a positive command. It tells us to place our gaze upon someone. Notice that the author does not tell us what not to look at.

He could have filled the rest of this book with things not to look at, right? Don't look at the disappointments. Don't look at the discouragements. Don't consider the affliction. Don't worry about the difficulty, the imprisonments, the seizure of your property.

He mentions those things, but here he doesn't tell his readers not to focus on those things, not to fix their eyes on those things. Instead, he sets before them one infinitely glorious positive example and says, fix your gaze on that.

And in fixing our gaze on that, that thing, that example, the Lord Jesus Christ, will push out of our attention all of the other things that will try and creep in and occupy our attention. I am distracted by other things only when my gaze is taken off of Christ and he slips out of my mind.

This is what Thomas Chalmers referred to as the expulsive power of a new affection. He said that the battle of the Christian life is not that we simply find affections that are inferior and get rid of them and work to get rid of them and replace them with this, because every time we pull an affection out of the middle of my heart, some desire that I have that is not Christ and not his word or my God, whenever I take that affection out of my heart, something else immediately rushes in to fill it and it will always be some other idol.

But Chalmers says if you take Christ and a new affection and you put that into your heart, it will push out all of the other unholy desires. It will expel all of those things. So it is with the gaze that is fixed on Christ.

The author doesn't need to tell us not to focus on the disappointments and the discouragements and the afflictions and the suffering. If we fix our gaze on Jesus Christ, then in the words of the hymn, all of the things of this world will grow strangely dim, because that expulsive power of a gaze that is fixed on Christ and his majesty will push out of our lives all of the other things that threaten to distract our gaze from Christ.

It is the expulsive power of a new affection, or we may say the expulsive power of a right fixation upon Christ. All sin ultimately is a worship problem, because I've taken my gaze off of him and I put something that I desire more than that, more than him in that stead.

And then in the moment that I sin, I am offering a sacrifice of obedience to that thing, which now my gaze is fixed upon. And if I could fix my gaze always and only on Jesus Christ and never anything else for every moment of every day and live perfectly in obedience with that fixed gaze, then I would never sin.

I can't do that though, because the reality is that throughout all of the course of my life and your life day to day, we are constantly bombarded by other distractions. That's why positively, actively, continually, we have to be diligent to fix our gaze upon Christ.

For if he is the focus, then nothing else can be, because he expels everything else. It's the nature of his glory. It's the nature of his person. This instruction to fix our eyes on Christ is in keeping with the running analogy.

The runner of a race had to fix his eyes on the goal, had to fix his eyes on the goal. There was a finish line and there was a prize at the end of that finish line. The runner had to fix his attention and his focus upon that finish line and upon the prize that awaited him at the finish line.

That's the idea behind this analogy. There was a reward on the other side of that finish line and the runner in running toward the finish line had to fix his attention straightforward on that goal. And you cannot run a race if you are constantly looking behind you to see how close the competition is to you.

If you're looking around behind, wondering, kind of running backwards for a little bit, seeing where everybody's at, flipping back around again, you're gonna lose the race. So if you're gonna finish the race, you're gonna run the race, you have to be fixed upon something in front of you and never look back to compare yourself with somebody else.

This is typically what we do. We observe others and see how far along in their race they are and think, well, I'm outpacing him and he's catching up with me, I better hurry up and do this. And we're constantly observing other things rather than the person of Christ.

A runner cannot run if he has fixed his mind and heart and eyes backwards upon the others who are running the race. He can't run the race well if he's looking up in the stands, looking for a familiar face, waving, oh, there's mom, there's dad, there's the kids, waving and saying hi, looking for somebody cheering them on, somebody to impress.

The runner can't run that race, can't run the race looking down at your feet, looking at every single step that you take as you take it. If you're not looking where you're going, you will run crookedly, you will waste time, you'll waste effort.

If you're constantly looking at where it is that you are stepping in the race, you can't look up and notice the pattern of clouds and look for images in the clouds and look at the birds going by and observe the wildlife or the terrain.

A runner can't do any of that. He can't begin to inspect his own uniform and notice the dust and think, I'll get rid of that dust and I'll just brush that off a little bit and I need to clean this up and what will the other runners think of me with the uniform that I'm wearing?

None of those things occupy the mind of a runner who is running to win. The runner's focused straightforward on one thing and one thing only, and that is the finish line and the goal at the end and the prize that awaits him for running the race well.

This is the imagery that the author is employing. We are to fix our gaze upon Jesus Christ because in the race of faith, guess who is standing at the finish line? The Lord is, and guess what he is holding?

Your reward, and his eyes are fixed on you as he watches you run and he sees where you're at in the race and you are to look and lock your eyes upon him and recognize he is there seated at the Father's right hand.

The finish line that you are called to cross is right there in front of him and his eyes are fixed on you and he is holding in his hand the reward for faith and he bids you to come. Just focus on him and run and listen, I promise you, the finish line is closer than you can possibly imagine.

You think it's a long ways away, 20 year old in good health? That's what you think. It's closer than you imagine because there hangs over all of us the specter of death and it can be said of everyone in this room that there is a chance that you will see the face of Christ on the other side of that finish line before you see the end of this calendar year.

You know that that's always a possibility. Whether you are 20 or 80, the finish line is closer than you might imagine. It's closer than you realize. It's closer than you think it is. It's certainly closer than you feel it is.

Unless you're 80 something, then you know you're running and you see the shadow of the finish line crossing your feet there and you're thinking, this is getting really close. I'm looking forward to this.

Fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We have to see him with the mind's eye. This is what faith is. Remember the definition back at the beginning of chapter 11? Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen.

So we're obviously not talking about something that we see with our physical eyes, are we? We're talking about something that we see with our mind's eye, we say, or we should say with the eyes of faith.

We are seeing something in our hearts, in our souls, with our minds, with the eyes of faith. We are seeing something that cannot be seen with physical eyes. And our goal is to fix our minds and our eyes straight ahead on the prize who is a person standing on the other side of the finish line and with intensity to run our race because we see with spiritual eyes what cannot be apprehended with the physical eyes, namely the captain of our salvation, our soul's delight and reward, standing right on the other side of the finish line, holding out our reward, bidding us to come and to run well, and his gaze is locked on us, and he has promised to sustain us, but we have to fix our eyes upon him.

That is what we are called to do. Now, if you can get that in your mind's eye, by the eye of faith, you can behold what you cannot see with the physical eye, and that's what faith is, then do you think you can endure persecution?

Can you endure the hostility of sinners? Can you endure the reproach? Can you endure people calling you nasty names on Facebook, people not liking you because you share the gospel with them,.

Angry coworkers?

Can you endure those things? You can if you see clearly the Savior at the end, the line you're about to step across, the prize that he is holding. If you can see that with the eye of faith and you can trust him running towards that, then you can endure the, you can accept joyfully the seizure of your property.