Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2037
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, August 5, 1888
“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1,2.
THE Apostle says, “Let us run.” He has in his mind’s eye the Olympic games, where all the different tribes of Greece were gathered together in general assembly to display the prowess of the race. Among the athletic exercises were footraces. The Apostle makes this footrace an illustration of the Christian life. We must run with patience along the appointed course if we would win the prize of our high calling.
He stands with us at the starting block and earnestly says to us, not “Run,” but, “Let us run.” The Apostle himself is at our side as a runner. The presence of such a comrade is most inspiriting. It is good doing good things in good company. “Let us run,” says he, “with patience the race that is set before us.” Who will back out of a race wherein so great a saint takes his place at our side? You who aspire to be associated with the excellent of the earth, press forward side by side with an Apostle! “Let us run,” from Paul’s lip, puts wings upon our heels.
Before we start, with a wave of the hand the Apostle directs us to the spectators who throng the sides of the course. There were always such at those races—each city and state yielded its contingent and the assembled throng watched with eager eye the efforts of those who strove for the mastery. Those who look down upon us from yonder heavens are described as “so great a cloud of witnesses.” These compass us about. Thousands upon thousands who have run this race before us and have attained their crowns, behold us from their heavenly seats and mark how we behave ourselves.
This race is worth running, for the eyes of “the nations of them which are saved” are fixed upon us. This is no hole-and-corner business, this running for the great prize. Angels and principalities and powers and hosts redeemed by blood have mustered to behold the glorious spectacle of men agonizing for holiness and putting forth their utmost strength to copy the Lord Jesus. You that are men, now run for it! If there is any spiritual life and gracious strength in you, put it forth today—for Patriarchs and Prophets, saints, martyrs and Apostles look down from Heaven upon you.
Our Apostle, anxious that we should so run that we may obtain, points to certain burdens and impediments which he foresees will hinder us and he says, “Let us lay aside every weight.” Note how he includes himself, so that his warning may not sound like upbraiding. We cannot win if we are weighted—the pace will have to be very swift and we cannot get to it, or keep it up, if we have weights to carry. Unloaded we shall find the race taxing all our powers. But weighted, we shall be doomed to failure. Oh, to lay aside all worrisome care, fretfulness, ambition, anger, greed and selfish desire! These were never worth the labor they have cost us.
Now that we have become running men, we must have done with them. Down they must go till the last ounce is on the ground. Like the Greek footman, we would strip. And instead of adding weight, we would diminish even our own bulk, that we may fly along the course. O you that would win, heed the caution and “lay aside every weight,” whether it be great or small. And press towards the mark! Run for it, Man! You had need do nothing else but run.
Still attentively considering us, the Apostle notes that even when the weights are laid aside there is a garment about us which will assuredly twist about our feet and throw us down. Sin, as well as care, must be laid aside. It does easily beset us and therefore we must be the more careful to be rid of it. Our original sin, our natural tendencies, our constitutional infirmities—these must be laid aside as garments unsuitable for men who are running the heavenly race. We cannot win Heaven and wear sin. Heaven is for the holy—“there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defiles.”
Darling sins must go first—these, as they are most loved, will have the most power to hinder. Every kind of sin must be watched against, struggled against and mastered. “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” We hope to see all our ten-
dencies to sin killed and buried—buried so deep that not even a bone of a sin shall be left above ground. This will be Heaven to us. Do I not hear you say, “May God help us”? This must be a tough race which requires such stripping as this. If every weight of care must be laid aside and every rag of sin, who is sufficient for these things? How can we, poor limping mortals, run in such a race as this?
Even the starting is beyond us—how much more must perseverance in it outreach our strength! See, my Brethren, how we are driven to Free Grace—how we are driven to the power of the Holy Spirit? The race which is set before us most clearly reveals our helplessness and our hopelessness apart from Divine Grace. The race of holiness and patience— while it demands our vigor—displays our weakness. We are compelled, even before we take a step in the running, to bow the knee and cry unto the strong for strength. We dare not retreat from the contest. But how can we begin a struggle for which we are so unfitted? Who will help us? To whom shall we look? Does not all this very admirably introduce the verse which is specially my text—“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”?