The Race of Faith
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2025 · 9 February 2025
Now, we are coming tonight to the twelfth chapter of Hebrews. We have seen this immense attempt to show that salvation comes by faith and faith alone, and that those who are God’s walk by faith as well. It is both the faith of the sinner that initiates salvation, and the faith of the saint that marks his ongoing sanctification. I want you to look at verses Hebrews 12:1-3.
Verse 1-2, “Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, 2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Verse 3, “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won’t grow weary and give up.” Jesus here is the ultimate model of faith. We’ve gone through Hebrews 11, and we have heard about the heroes of faith from the past, from the Old Testament era, both by name and by reference, at the end of the chapter, to what happened to them.
Based on the opening of Hebrews 12, “We are called to run this race that is set before us.” It is the “faith race.” They were blessed in the running; they endured to the end as we have seen. They suffered persecution even death with great courage. And we got to the greatest faith and talked about the courage of faith. Based on these testimonies, we are called to run the faith race.
That gives the impression that somehow the saints who are now in heaven are spectators who are watching us on Earth. That is not taught in Scripture. Nowhere in the Bible does it state that people in heaven are watching what is going on down here on Earth. That actually would defy the essence of heaven which is to be separated from all the sin and strife that goes on here.
Now, notice the word “race” in verse 1. This is a call to run a race. Many figures of speech are used, to describe aspects of the Christian life. We are to put on the armor of God, a metaphor, to fight against the wiles of the devil. The military metaphors are elsewhere in Scripture. Second Timothy 2:3, as good soldiers we go to battle and do what we do to please the Commander.
But then you have this metaphor of a race, and we are runners in that race. We are athletes competing. The picture there is of an athlete engaged in a race, doing all he can to win the race. We all understand the interest that the ancient world, particularly the Greek world, had in athletics and in games. In Galatians 5, Paul says to the Galatians, “You were running well. Who hindered you?”
Paul was highly motivated to run his spiritual race with a goal in mind. And there he tells us what the goal is. It is the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus. He says in 2 Timothy 4:7 again, “I have finished the course.” I don’t run aimlessly; I run to win; I run to finish; I run for the prize which is the upward call and Christlikeness. But here, the Holy Spirit encourages all His readers to run this race.
The Christian life is a race. That is to say it demands great effort. It is not a sprint; it is not a middle distance; it is a marathon. The entrance to the race is the new birth: salvation by faith in the perfect and complete work of Christ. The race starts for you when you become a believer. You must be continually urged to run with all your might, not to jog, not to sit down and rest, not to fall back.
Amos 6:1 said, “Woe to them that are at ease.” This is a race; there’s no place for standing still or walking slowly. And it is an agonizing, relentless event. It is lifelong, and it is to be run with endurance. There will be obstacles; there will be problems. We will be weary and tired, distracted, but we remain under this challenge. We take it as God gives it to us and stay in the place where He’s put us.
The key word is the word “endurance.” Paul says to the Ephesians, “Having done all to stand.” There are people who’ve done it all, but at the end of the race, they’re not standing. They’ve crashed and burned somewhere. They didn’t remain faithful to run the race. I want to end my life having endured the race faithfully, never have broken the rules, but running with endurance.
Secondly, the encouragement. Verse 1, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us...” This is the encouragement to run the race, because of this cloud of witnesses. We just met them in Hebrews 11. And to what do they give witness? To the value of faith. To the power of faith, to the wisdom of faith, to the righteousness of faith, and to the blessing of faith.
Whether it is Abel; or Enoch; or Noah; or Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses; or the rest that are referred to without giving their names, with the exception of some - Rahab and those listed in verse 32 – they are those who are this great cloud of witnesses who have given testimony to the great power and blessing of a life of faith. Since we have so great a cloud of witnesses, let’s run the race of faith.
And so, all of them experienced the blessing and the hope of promise in the life of faith. They didn’t receive the fulfillment of it, they gained approval through their faith but didn’t receive, verse 39 says, what was promised. But they showed the blessedness of living a life of faith. They are the witnesses to the greatness, the validity and the blessing of a life of faith.
Philippians 2:15 says, “Prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the Word of life.” You need to be that kind of person, so that his race was not in vain. Paul isn’t in Hebrews 11, but it’s a paralleled principle. He shows you how to run a faith race.
If the athlete endures what he endures to run to win a corruptible crown, how much more should we discipline ourselves to receive an incorruptible crown? Setting aside the indulgences of the flesh, maintaining the training rules that God has laid down for us, exercising temperance, we run the race and our examples, our models are all who have gone before us and run the race of faith.
We draw encouragement from them. And, even though they didn’t receive the promise in their day, the promise was fulfilled in Christ. In His death and resurrection, all that they had hoped for was to be realized, and they now have entered into the fullness of that realization. And so, the faith that they exercised, though not fulfilled in their life, has been fulfilled through the coming of Christ.
We, in ourselves, are frail. We are weak, and yet we belong to a mighty company of runners in the race of faith. And they all are winners, and so will we be. For the God of yesterday is the God of today. Hebrews 13:8 says, “He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever” In verse 1 again, “Let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us.”
Now, in order to run effectively, you’ve got to get rid of useless weight. Do some discarding. It reminds me of 1 Peter 2:1 where he says, “Strip off your soiled, polluted garments.” Get down to the bare basics to run the race. Number one, every encumbrance of every weight. It simply means bulk. It could be superfluous flesh. And that person trains to make sure he/she stays that way.
Now, what is He referring to with this weight, this encumbrance? Well, it’s not sin, because he refers to sin also. “Lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us.” What was it? It was the baggage of their former Judaistic legalism. They were running, like overweight people in bulky sweatshirts. You can’t run the race of life dragging along everything from the past.
The biggest weight encumbering these new believers was Jewish legalism, rabbinic tradition, and dead works. And it wasn’t easy to let it go; it was engrained in them - Sabbath observances. That’s why in Colossians 2, Paul says, “Don’t let anybody hold you to a Sabbath or a new moon or a feast day or a festival.” That’s shadow, and shadow goes away when substance arrives.
They were holding onto the temple. They were holding onto the priests. They were holding onto the rituals; they were holding onto the ceremonies. That’s why all through this letter, the writer says, “There is a better priesthood, a better sacrifice, a better temple and a better covenant.” You can never run by faith if you’re hanging onto works or any of the trappings of a works system.
The race is run by faith plus nothing, and anything you hang onto from past religion that is made up of pointless ceremonies, traditions, rituals, and rules will only slow you down. He’s saying, “Unload your Judaism; unload your legalism; drop all the old weights and the sin which so easily entangles us.” We all know that many people in our church came from Catholicism.
One of the things you had to face when you left Catholicism was the temptation to hang onto attitudes toward Mary, toward the mass, toward works, to hang onto fears that you had that if you violated Catholic law and the Catholic Church, you might commit a mortal sin and end up in hell. Some of you came out of Seventh Day Adventism, and it’s hard to let go of all of the dietary restrictions.
Some of you came out of Mormonism, and there are things that hold onto you and still have a grip on you. And in addition to that, sin, which so easily entangles us. Both of them entangle us. The reference is not to some specific sin, but to face the fact that sin itself surrounds us, closes in on us, and restricts us in our race. Sin is an ever-present threat to hinder our running.
We are still surrounded by the reality of our flesh and our sin nature. So, when we sin, we are saying, “I don’t believe you, God. This is what I want; this is what I will do. All sin then is an act of practical unbelief. Because we want the best for ourselves. It is part of our nature to want to indulge ourselves and want to have joy and peace. So, you believe the lie rather than the Word of God.
There’s another thing: the event, the encouragement, the encumbrances, and then the example. We’ve had a lot of witnesses to the validity of a faith life. But there’s one example that rises above all the rest, verse 2, “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 God.”
Remember Jesus Christ. Literally the Greek says get your eyes off the immediate surroundings and look to Jesus. And those of you who have run competitively know that you have to keep your eyes ahead of you. And that’s what our writer is telling us. Where do we put our eyes? We put our eyes on Christ. This is back to Philippians 3, “We set our eyes on the goal who is Christ.”
Why? Because He’s the perfect example. He’s the perfect model. You don’t look at the people around you. Because He is the author. He is the reason we have any faith, isn’t it true? He gave us that as a gift. He is the leader. He is the originator. He is the one who granted us faith out of His store. And He, too, has faith, as exhibited in His attitude toward His Father.
He took everything that God His Father ever said and put His complete trust in that. And His faith was so strong that He even sustained joy as He looked at the cross and its shame. He saw through that to the end. What was the end? Being seated at the right hand of the throne of God. He believed God would take Him through that cross, out the other side of the grave, and set Him at His right hand in heaven.
That’s how great His faith was. To become alienated from God, to bear all the sins of all the people throughout human history who would ever believe, and yet to emerge triumphant. But He’s also not only the prototype of faith. He carries faith to its completion. He raised faith to its perfection and established the highest example of faith. He is the source then of faith, and He models it.
Where did He find His joy in running such a difficult faith race? He believed God; He never wavered. He was faithful to God’s Word. He pleased God, and without faith it’s impossible to please Him. He was perfect in His faith. Why would He endure the shame, endure the cross, and have, at the same time, joy? Because He saw past that to the goal of being seated at the right-hand of God.
Do I need to remind you that there’s a seat there for us on His throne with Him as well? He is the model of faith because He sees past the horrendous persecution, the horrendous suffering. And verse 3, He says to them, “Consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” And He saw through to the very end.
In John 15:11 Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be made full.” We share in the same joy because one day we will also sit on the right-hand of the Father, enthroned with Jesus as joint heirs with Him. And even in the struggle there is joy because the victory is already guaranteed. Right? We win the race for God. Let us pray.