Run the Race

Online Service | Sermon Audio

Hey Chapel family. I hope you had a really good Christmas celebration, and I hope you’re finding some time to rest during this holiday season. As I look back on this past year, I’m overwhelmed with God’s goodness to The Chapel. And I hope you feel the same way about his goodness to you, personally. It’s good to look back and be thankful.

But today, I want to look ahead. Because there’s a new year right around the corner. And I want to look to God’s Word to give us perspective on the coming year.
Today’s Scripture is from Hebrews 12, beginning in verse 1. Hear God’s Word…

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, 2 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. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. And then go down to verse 7…

7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. This the Word of the Lord.

I want to invite you to view 2026 as a race that stretches out in front of you, and this Scripture is going to prepare you to run your race well. So here’s what we learn:

First: The Reality of the Race. Verse 1 says Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses… What’s he talking about? Well, in the previous chapter of Hebrews, you find example after example of these great Old Testament heroes—Abraham, Moses, David, etc…. So as this chapter opens, here’s the picture: you’re in a stadium. The seats of the stadium are filled with all these great heroes of the faith. You’re surrounded by them, and they’re watching and cheering you on. So it says therefore… let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…

In other words, life is like a race. But it’s even more specific. Because the Greek word that’s translated “race” is the word agon. Any guesses what English word we get from agon? Agony! If you have ever raced long distance, you get this. As a former runner I can tell you: one of the keys to success in distance running is your willingness to withstand pain. Every time I’ve ever raced, I came to a point where my lungs were burning and my heart was pounding and I was close to vomiting, and it would feel so good just to quit.  

When I was in college I ran for the cross country team one year. And at the cross country meets, the race officials would go out before the race, and they would mark out the course with different color flags. One color meant “turn left;” one color meant “turn right;” one meant “straight ahead.” So to compete in the race, you had to follow the course that was marked out. You couldn’t come to a big hill and say, “You know, I’m just going to go around this one.” You had to run the race that’s marked out for you!

So the writer is pointing out the simple fact that life is like a race, and very often, the course that’s marked out for us—the way that God leads us—the things that he puts in front of us—are hard. Agon. So I’m just getting you ready for what’s coming next year. It’s going to be hard.
Back in the 1970s, M. Scott Peck wrote a best-selling book called The Road Less Traveled. Listen to the very first words in the book: “Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy.” And that truth resonated with so many people, the book became a huge bestseller.

So the first thing the writer of Hebrews is doing is just adjusting our expectations: life is hard. It’s like a tough cross country race. Actually, maybe more like a “Tough Mudder.” Anyone here every done a Tough Mudder? It’s insane. Obstacles and mud and electric shocks. Why would you do that? I don’t know! But it’s a great analogy for life.

So here’s the first question for you to think about: is it possible that my expectations of life are just naive? See, if, when suffering comes, you freak out and melt down, it’s because you had really inaccurate expectations. If you feel like life is supposed to be generally easy, suffering will crush you. You’ll grow weary and lose heart. So you have to enlarge your theory of what life is like.

Now let’s talk about The Designer of the Race. If the course has been marked out for us, someone had to mark it out. And this passage makes it clear that the designer of the course is God. Look at the beginning of verse 7: Endure hardship as discipline. Here’s what this is saying: when hard things happen, the reason you can endure them is by knowing they aren’t random; they’re not purposeless; they’re discipline from God. And this is really important: when you hear the word “discipline,” don’t think primarily “punishment.” Sometimes you hear the word “discipline,” and you immediately think, “Oh, God is punishing me for something I did wrong.” No, no, no! This is talking about training. Through the hard things in life, God is training you and developing you into a certain kind of person.

The first day of cross country camp, my freshman year in college, we showed up to practice, and the coach made us run 16 miles through the woods. It was baptism by fire. At the end of that run, not one of us said, “Why is coach punishing us? What did we do wrong?” Because everybody knew we were being trained! We were not yet the runners we could be, so he disciplined us, and made life miserable for us, so we could become great. That’s the kind of discipline Hebrews is talking about.

So if 2026 turns out to be a hard course for you to run, remember: God is using all of it to train you.

And that brings us to point number 3: The Purpose of The Race. Look at verses 10 and 11: 10 They (speaking of earthly fathers) disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, (and here’s the purpose…) in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. So the purpose for God’s training is to for you to share in his holiness. To press his character deep into your soul. To make you a strong and godly person.

You know what I’ve noticed about training? If you’ve done any weight training, you know this. What happens as you start to do repetitions? You do 10 curls. Then you do a second set, and a third set. Now how do your muscles feel? Like spaghetti. Drained. Powerless. You feel like you’re getting weaker, but you’re getting stronger. That’s the paradox of training: when you’re doing it, you don’t feel like you’re getting stronger, but you are. And when we understand the fatherly training of God, when these unpleasant things are happening, and you’re suffering, you won’t feel like you’re getting stronger! But you are. God takes the hardships, and he turns them into growth.

So…let’s put this all together, and go to our last point: Running the Race. Let me give you four things to do when your race gets hard in 2026.

First, Expect. Would you just stop being surprised when life is hard? Just expect it! It’s the norm! So next year, when you get a flat tire, or somebody rear-ends you, or you twist your ankle, or your house catches on fire, don’t be shocked! Just say, “I knew this would happen. Pastor Dave said so!” See, so much of the pain of life is not the bad things that happen, it’s our sense of shock and anger and self-pity when those things happen. So expect life to be hard. And then, when God blesses you with a season of life that’s not that hard, you won’t feel like, “Yeah—finally!” You’ll be so grateful and appreciative of a little break in the training regime.

Second thing, Submit. Look at verse 9: Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! See, when something painful happens, our normal response is to resist it. To get mad at it. To get resentful and bitter toward God.

Some of you parents have tried to discipline your kids, and you’ve had a child who doesn’t easily submit to you training. They always resist it. So imagine you catch your son in a lie. And you say to your son, “You just lied to me. I don’t want you to grow up and be a liar; you’re going to grow to be miserable and no one will trust you. This is not good. So turn off the TV. Turn off the computer. I need you to sit in your room and think about it, and you can’t go to Bobby’s party.” Now most kids will cry and apologize: “I’ll never lie again; I’m sorry; I know it was wrong.” That’s a good response. Maybe a little tantrum; punching the pillow. That’s healthy. But some kids aren’t like that. Right? Some of you parents know. Some kids get mad at you—as if it’s your fault. And they make excuses for the lie, and when you say, “You can’t go to Bobby’s party,” they say, “I didn’t want to go to that party anyway.” Right? Anybody have a kid like that? They will not let you win; they will not submit to your training and discipline.
And here’s the point: we often do the same thing with God. Don’t we? God brings some kind of training into our life, and we say, “How could you? This is not fair.” Or we say, “You know, I never believed in you anyway. I had my doubts, and now I know you’re not real.”

And Hebrews says, “Don’t be like that. Submit. The good benefits will come when you submit.”
Third, Assess. Verse 1 says let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. See, when pain comes into our lives, it tends to expose our sin and our idols. So it’s an opportunity to do some self-assessment. What might God be up to here?

For example: maybe you will lose your job this year. I hope not, but you might. So if that happens, you will interpret that in a certain way. So you’re going to say, “Well, it’s a tough job market.” “The boss didn’t like me.” “It was a big layoff, so it’s not me.” And all of those things might have some truth to them, but here’s the wise question to ask: What is it in me that God is working on through this? Have I become a workaholic, and neglected my family? Is my marriage in trouble because I was married to my job? Was I becoming prideful and self-sufficient, and God needed to humble me, and teach me to depend on him?

Or maybe, as you run your race this year, you’re going to realize that there’s a pattern in your life that’s been dragging you down. Maybe it’s the way you drink, or the way you eat, or the way you’ve been secretly messing around with porn or sports gambling. And it’s just dragging you down. Kind of like trying to drive with your parking brake. You ever do that? You don’t realize you have the parking brake on, and it’s just slow and draggy and laborious. And then you release the brake and it frees you to move forward. It’s time to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Take off the parking brake so you can run freely this year. Don’t waste another year stuck in that destructive habit.

Okay—one more thing, and this is the most important thing on the list. In fact, I would say the first three things are like the directions on your GPS. Expecting, submitting, assessing. Those are the instructions we need to follow. But this final thing is like the gas in the car. This is the power that makes all the other things possible.

So here it is: Trust. And this is in verses 2 and 3: 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. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. This is the key to handling life when the race gets hard. And this is the uniquely powerful thing about the Christian faith. Because only Christianity can say, “Our God suffered.”

And I want to focus on one line. In verse 2 it says the way that Jesus endured the cross was that he focused on “the joy set before him.” What does that mean? What was the joy he was focused on? You know for us, all through this passage, it says the purpose for our suffering is to have God’s character pressed into our souls, right? Suffering makes us more like God—more patient and generous and humble, etc. So that’s the joy that’s set before us. But Jesus already had all that stuff, right? He already had the perfect character of God. So what was the joy that he focused on, which got him through the cross? Well, what was the only thing he didn’t have before he came to earth? Us. Us. And Jesus knew that through his sufferings—through the cross—he was making a way for us to be with him forever. Isn’t that incredible? It makes this whole thing so personal!

So listen, Chapel family: when your race gets hard this year, fix your eyes on Jesus. Consider him. Focus on him. He’s not only your example of how to go run a hard race—because he did it so well. He’s also your power. Because as you trust him and abide in him and allow his life to flow through you, he’ll give you supernatural ability to run your race well. And with that great cloud of witnesses cheering you on, you will prevail.