The Amazing Race

Introduction

Hello everyone, my name is Matt Martinez. I am the location pastor at Renovation Church Shoreview. There is a group of you that I have been hearing from you and meeting with you about the new location. And we are excited to go for a few reasons: First- We as Christians have the opportunity to bring stability to this world, because we anchor ourselves in the Word of God- and we are bringing that Word to Shoreview. Next, we will provide community through relational and spiritual connection in our House Churches. And finally, every Sunday, we will introduce people to the God that can transform their lives, their relationships and friendships, who can heal and save. We are going to take what God is doing here in Blaine and go. And if this resonates with you, what are you waiting for? Sign ups to go to Shoreview start in January 2026.

Alright, let’s open up our Bibles to Hebrews 12:1-3. If you are using one of the Renovation Church Bibles at your chair, our passage is located on page 823.

The beginning of Hebrews 12 uses the metaphor of running a race to describe life.

How many of you like to run?
How many of you would call yourself “athletic allergic”?

There are plenty of verses in the Bible for our athletic allergic friends, they go like, “resting in God” and “Finding a peace that passes understanding”, but here in Hebrews, our passage says we are all running the race of life—and you don’t get a pass on running this race.

The book of Hebrews was written to a group of people who were in the middle of the race with God. The initial excitement of the start (salvation) had worn off. The ending (which was eternal life with God) was coming sometime in the future, but in between those two things, they were experiencing persecution, some challenge, some discomfort, and they began to wonder if following God was worth the price they were paying. Is doing all of this worth it?

We can read in God’s Word, and we hear on a Sunday that at the end of time we will have complete provision and peace and justice All will be put right, no more tears of sadness… and that is great.

But what about right now? How do we put one foot in front of the other when we lose a job and can’t find another? What do we do when our relationships are falling apart? What happens when our secret struggles with sin keep overwhelming us?

The writer of Hebrews provides some insight in the opening of our passage:

Let’s start reading on page 823, right at the bottom of the page. We will start reading where you see the big number 12. We will read just verse one to start.

Scripture Reading

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

I. Remember those who ran before us.

We can find a list of some of the people in the cloud of witnesses in the chapter right before ours (Hebrews 11). It talks about Abel who gave God his best because he trusted God over trusting himself. It talks about Noah, who obeyed God’s commands even when he was mocked for that obedience. It encourages us with the story of Enoch, who lived a life that was not filled with awesome feats, but a simple, faithful walk with God. Or David, who sinned and then repented, discovering that God, the Good Shepherd, had never left him. These “hall of faithers” we can read about throughout the Bible didn’t run a perfect race, but persevered and finished well, then passed the baton onto the next runners, who passed onto the next runners, all the way to us today.

I played a number of sports in high school. In every game, I could hear my mom’s voice above the rest from the stands. The shout of, “come on, Matt!” as I walked out onto the field. The encouragement when I faced an opponent, “Come on, Matt, I saw them warm up and they looked terrible.”. When it was at the end of a game, “Come on, Matt. I didn’t give up when you were little and you would wake up at 5am for weeks because you were excited for Christmas.” (mom, let’s talk about this later…). Someone from the message feedback team said they couldn’t tell if my mom was a fan, a coach or a player in that story. I was like, “I don’t think she knew either.”

My mom was the first person in our family to commit her life to following Jesus. She led my dad to the Lord next. Her obedience to God’s call (and her voice in my life), set me up 20 years later to obey the call of God to follow Jesus fully and become a pastor. To those of you who are like my mom, and are the first person to have faith in Jesus in their family: your decision to follow Jesus is a powerful testimony to those around you whether you feel it or not.

The witnesses we read about in Hebrews and those who have gone before us stand along the sides of the race track testifying that faith in God is worth it. Their stories say to us: “ Come on! We made it- despite hardship and mistakes- we broke the tape at the end of the race. You can too.”

When we anchor ourselves in God the same way the runners before us did, our question of “is this worth it?” begins to reframe into "How do we run the race in the same way they did?”

Hebrews has some insight for us in the second part of verse 1.

Hebrews 12:1b

Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us

II. Find your pace to run the race.

A while ago, I was at the gym working out when a guy walked in wearing black jeans, black t-shirt, high top black shoes, a gold chain, and a nice, big leather jacket. I thought, ‘alright, you want to look good in the gym, and gym clothes aren’t that flattering usually.’ If you look in the mirror at the gym and see yourself in gym clothes, it usually reminds you of the reasons why you are in the gym. So maybe this guy just wanted to look good and feel good while working out.

So, this guy walks past me and heads straight to the treadmills, doesn’t take off his jacket, gets on, and sets the treadmill to the highest elevation it can go as well as the highest speed. This guy sprints at a breakneck speed for no more than 60 seconds. Then, he stops the treadmill, gets off and leaves the gym… never to be seen again… I think about that guy all the time. Did he have a date during the time he usually worked out, but still wanted to fit in a quick work out? Was he a model that needed just a little sweat for the photo shoot? I wish I knew… because I keep making up stories.

While I think running at a dead sprint in a leather jacket should be considered a sin- it isn’t entirely wrong, but it does hinder your pace in the race.

When the author of Hebrews writes about ‘throwing off everything that hinders” it means excess weight- not necessarily sin. The wording can be compared to my man at the gym: wearing a big leather coat for fashion, but then keeping it on as you run.

Some of us are trying to run the race of the Christian life in “street clothes”. It’s not wrong to have a busy schedule, but sometimes there is no room in it for God- like Nick Hall preached last week. For others, we want nice things (not wrong), but we want them because we are never satisfied with what we have. For others, we never slow down to listen to God, we just speak our requests, ask God to bless our plans, instead of asking what plans God has for us. My friend had to lay aside sarcasm. She found it gave her a more cynical view instead of a hopeful, joyful peaceful view of what God had given to her. These are like a nice big leather jacket- take it off.

The second part “cast off the sin that so easily entangles…”, speaks to the sins in your life that are deeper than the clothes you wear. Let me give you a personal example:

A few years ago, God began dealing with me on what I could call a “leather jacket issue”. I was going through a stressful time, and in order to just have a moment’s peace, I would scroll through social media, read a bunch of news, just binged a bunch of shows and movies. And I felt like God was speaking to me to stop coping with these things and start spending more time in prayer and bible reading. So I did. And I discovered that God wanted to first get the outward stuff off of me, in order to get at the deeper stuff within me. I threw off the leather jacket of coping, and realized the deeper sin entangling me was my belief that I could do everything and carry everything on my own- relying only on myself instead of God. I wouldn’t go to God, I would go to distraction. I had to get free of the belief that I was the king of my life, and put God onto the throne in my heart. And the freedom I felt when I did… I didn’t need all that distraction anymore.

Ask yourself: What is slowing me down? What weight should I be laying aside in order to run with God well?

The final part of our phrase is “run the race with perseverance…”

Notice the wording in our passage, it is not to run the race only at the highest elevation and the fastest speed possible. It is not saying to run the race at only an easy comfortable speed. It is saying to run the race with perseverance.

The wording here implies a day to day, multiple times throughout that day consistently throwing off the sin and going after Jesus. Then, when suffering, trial, or tragedy comes, we have a well-worn running path that helps us to stay the course when we are running through the bad weather.

When people hurt or betray us, it becomes easier to forgive. When we lose something important to us, we already know Jesus is our greatest treasure. When sickness comes to us or someone we love, we understand and have full assurance that healing will come, maybe in this life, but certainly in the next, so we live with hope and joy.

When you’re weary, the solution isn’t to try harder—it’s to look higher.

Hebrews 12:2 (page 823-824)

“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 of God.”

III. Fix your eyes on the prize.

When I was in sixth grade, we would have these math tests that we needed to complete within a time frame. I was terrible at math, but I always looked forward to these tests because my friends and I would race to see who could finish first. The right answers were of no consequence; just a completed test, delivered by us by hand to the tray on the teachers desk which was at the front of the classroom… It's not a mystery anymore why I was bad at math.

On this particular test day, it was as if I was inspired as I gave arbitrary answers to math problems. I finished and I began speed walking to the front (because running was banned in the classroom). As I got up, my friend finished at about the same time and made a move to get ahead of me, so I switched to a move I had perfected (for such a time as this) where I would hold my hand up like this, and push the paper as I moved. The forward motion kept the paper against my hand, and would make it easy to slam down the paper into the tray quickly.

I got to the teacher’s desk, steps before my friend, I slammed down the paper into the tray and as my hand hit the bottom of the tray- my pants fell down to my ankles. To this day, I have no idea how that happened.

I finished first, but I was humiliated because I ran the wrong race for the wrong reason- with incredibly bad results- including my math grade. When you run, where you are going and what you are aiming for matters.

At the end of Jesus’ race in this life (the last leg), he was willing to run the race with nails in his hands and feet and a crown of thorns on his head. So the question is, “how did Jesus do that?”

Verse 2 tells us, “for the joy set before Him.”

What was that joy? You.

I heard Tim Keller in an interview say, “The joy set before Jesus was us—saving us, restoring us to the Father. Everything He suffered was to include you in His joy—the joy of freedom from sin, and life with God forever.”

Where do we look when the race gets hard, or discomforting, or boring? We fix our eyes on Jesus.

You don’t have to carry the full weight of your race, your calling, or your salvation—God will.

Because this race isn’t about being first—it’s about being faithful.

Hebrews 12:3 (page 824)

Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

IV. Run the race with faithfulness

This verse says we will not grow weary and lose heart, if we consider Jesus. I want that, so what does it mean to consider?

I have been listening and reading a lot about the state of Christians and Christianity these days, and as I have processed all of these things, I have had this sense that people constantly find themselves discouraged in this race of life. Some of it comes from the disappointment of failed expectations, some from the worries and cares of the future of this world, the constant fighting and bickering online, the guilt you experience in knowing what you should do as a Chrsitian but there is this gap between that and where you are now. Some are tired of doing the right thing when everyone around them is doing something else. There is a loneliness in the journey and it’s not just circumstantial and experiential, it is also spiritual. And in this space of discouragement, bitterness, indifference and betrayal our enemy (satan) senses blood in the water and relentlessly goes after it in your life.

But in these moments, I want you to consider the image of Jesus in the garden close to the end of his life as we read in the Gospels, carrying an unimaginable weight and burden that he is heading towards the cross and his death. And he asks God to

take this away. But no matter what, Jesus still says He will do His father’s will. Jesus is fully God and fully human, but Jesus has this moment in the garden that speaks to us because everything he felt, is what you perhaps are feeling.

And in all of those feelings and experiences you are having, Jesus wants to minister and be present to those places in your life right now.

To “consider” means to think deeply. When you meditate on Jesus’ endurance, your position may not change, but your perspective and posture can change.

Stay faithful. Stay in the race.