In all of the Word of God, one of the most profound displays of God's great compassion and mercy is found in the 21st chapter of John's Gospel. It is, to my way of thinking, an exceedingly touching scene. At that particular point in John's narrative, Jesus Christ had already endured the horror of crucifixion and been victoriously raised from the dead. He had already appeared before his disciples on several occasions, he had already promised to them that he would soon send to them the gift of the Holy Spirit through whose power they would successfully extend the gospel enterprise into the Roman world. Everything seemed to be poised to move ahead without any kind of impediment whatsoever, and yet beloved, we come to understand in the 21st chapter of that fourth gospel that there was an important piece of business still lingering among the apostolic ban. The events of the crucifixion of Jesus had left them with a very severe casualty. Their leader, Simon Peter, in contradiction to his own bold professions had publicly denied any relationship whatsoever to Jesus Christ on at least three separate occasions. And you know the story, these were not denials of a passive sword. They were explicit denials. They were emphatic and extreme. Peter actually called upon heaven itself to curse him if his denials of Jesus were anything less than true. Now to be sure, these denials and the passion in them were answered by an overwhelming sense of shame and brokenness on the part of Peter. But could such denials be forgiven, really? Wouldn't such utter renunciation of Jesus Christ be unpardonable? Now brothers and sisters, there is enough said in the gospel accounts to imply that Jesus had already forgiven Peter. I mean, from the very outset, the morning of his resurrection, the women come to the tomb of Jesus, and what is their testimony? Go tell the disciples he is risen, but they say go tell the disciples and Peter right there the process of restoration begins. Moreover, I think there was enough in the gospel accounts to indicate that his own friends had forgiven him. The other disciples had forgiven their leader. It seems, however, that Peter himself had yet to fully appreciate the meaning of this forgiveness. And so one very early morning after a frustrating night of unsuccessful fishing, the disciples are once again met by their resurrected Lord, and right there on the beach of the sea of Galilee. Jesus Christ singles out Peter, and he says to him, You love me, and Peter says, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And so Jesus responds, Feed my lambs, shepherd my flock, pastor my sheep. A second time Jesus asks him, Simon, son of John, do you truly love me? And Peter says again, Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Take care of my sheep, Jesus says. And then for the third time Jesus asks him, Simon, son of John, do you love me? And the text tells us, beloved, that Peter was grieved that Jesus had asked him this for the third time, and his response back to Jesus in turn is very telling. He says, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you. Now, dear friends, I think that Peter wants to say, Lord, I love you so much, I would lay down my life for you, but he had done that before, hadn't he? And it all blew up in his face. It breaks his heart that he can't appeal to his recent actions as a proof of his great love for Jesus, because the fact of the matter is his recent actions had spoken to the contrary. And so Peter does what all of us must do from time to time. He appeals to the omniscience of Jesus. I can't submit to you the impeccable faithfulness of my life as a manifestation of my love, but you know all things. You know my heart. You know that I love you. And so for the third time, Jesus says to his fallen disciple, feed my sheep. It is a beautiful thing. Three times Jesus asks, Peter, do you love me? Three times Peter has given the opportunity to say, yes, Lord. You know that I love you. Three times then Jesus can say in return, feed my sheep. These threes, beloved, are not coincidental. I submit to you, Jesus designed them to be a calculated response of restoration to Peter and view of his three scandalous denials. And then he said something very interesting to Peter. One day Peter, when you are old, you will stretch out your hands. And someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. And John interprets this for us. He tells us Jesus was speaking to Peter about the kind of death with which he would one day glorify God. In other words, Peter, one day you will be crucified for your allegiance to me. One day long in the future when you're an old man, someone will take you and stretch out your arms. Now friends, when Peter heard Jesus speak these words, I am convinced that they made his heart sore. He loved Jesus so much that to his way of thinking, this would be the greatest privilege that is to give up his life in devotion to Jesus Christ. And to be sure, this would be his destiny. But what about the time being? What about the in between time? The time between that particular moment and his prophesied martyrdom long in the future. Then Jesus said to him, follow me. In the future you will give up your life for me, Peter. But for the time being there must be one preoccupation that drives your life. Follow me. How Peter needed to hear these words, beloved. In fact, Jesus repeats them a second time, you must follow me and he underscores this with Peter because you see it hadn't been too long ago that Peter had been a little bit too quick on the draw. When the opportunity to profess his love for Jesus by way of his death presented itself, I mean, with just a little bit of imagination, he could envision himself leaving this world in a blaze of martyr glory for Jesus Christ. What a way to die he's thinking to himself. But beloved, those kinds of thoughts are not driven by devotion to Jesus Christ. That's why Peter failed the challenge when the challenge presented itself to him. Those kinds of thoughts are driven by self-serving ego-tism. Peter you see was still fighting the battle over who among the disciples would be the greatest. I will die for Jesus. And Jesus is saying to him here in John 21, Peter my dear friend, your own prideful ambition has twisted your thinking. The real issue is not whether or not you will die for me, but whether or not you will live for me.
It's Christians, this is a question we often ask ourselves, isn't it? Would I die for Jesus Christ if such an opportunity forced itself upon me? Does my devotion run that deep as my commitment, that strong that I would give up my life for Jesus Christ, if such a situation confronted me? Would I die for Jesus Christ? Well you know, beloved, the answer to that question is very simple. It's found in the asking of another. Do you live for Christ? You see despite all of our professions to the contrary, none of us will ever die for Christ if we don't live for Christ. Christianity you see is not a call to the momentary glory of a martyr's death. It is rather the daily moment by moment taking up of the cross. Follow me. It is a life to be lived, beloved. This is why we must never reduce Christianity to a mere profession of faith. I hope that once and for all the book of Hebrews has convinced you that authentic Christianity is a life of faith followed by a long obedience to Jesus Christ. This is what the book of Hebrews is all about. It is one term that ought to jump into your mind when someone mentions to you the book of Hebrews now, beloved. It ought to be the word persevere. That's what this book is about. That is its burden, persevere, to use imagery from the rest of the New Testament. The Christian life is a war to be waged. It is a fight to be fought. It is a cross to be born. Or as we have discovered here in chapter 12 in recent days it is a race to be run. With the victor's prize given not to all those who start but exclusively to those who finish the race, God has marked out for them. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith now. There is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have long for his appearing. Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. But how do we run this race we have been asking ourselves? How do we run it? Three simple words help us to capture the mind of the Hebrew writer at this point. You remember what they are? The first is listen, listen, listen to the testimony of those who have finished the race. Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of testifiers, not passive observers but those who speak. He is telling us that on the pages of the Word of God we are surrounded by a vast throng of people who have finished their respective races and now they steadily bear testimony to the faithfulness of God on behalf of those who place their trust in him. With one voice people like Abraham and Moses and David and Daniel and Ray Haven Ruth, with one voice they cry out to us telling us beloved that the life of faith is not an empty headed wish-stream for wild eyed religious fanatics. Rather they steadily seek to convince us that the God who has given us his promises will never disappoint those who stake their lives upon him. For all of the perils that accompany the race of faith, the disappointments, the discouragements, the pains, the hostilities, the gins and the snares and the pitfalls and the traps, we must not fear as though the outcome is uncertain. Whether we are talking about Abraham or Moses or Elijah or you, our God is so unchangeably good and faithful and will always prove himself to be so, to those who run the race he marks out for them. That's what the first two-thirds of our Bible is telling us. How do we run this race of faith? We must listen to the testimony of those who have already finished. There's a second summary word that we gave to you. It's the word divest. To run this race to its conclusion, you must divest yourself of everything that impedes your progress. Let us throw off everything that hinders, namely the sin that so easily entangles. Now beloved, as we said to you last Lord's day, this may be something explicitly sinful or it may be something that they're not sinful in and of itself can become sinful for the simple reason that it impedes your spiritual progress. And we talked about what some of these kinds of things can be last Lord's day. What they are in the life of one Christian may be different than what they are in the life of another Christian. So how do I begin to discover what these hindrances are unique to my own Christian pilgrimage? I begin to run the race. And in so doing those things that impede me become obvious, you see, only those who failed to run the race feel no resistance. If you sit here this morning and you say, you know, I feel no resistance. I'm not mindful of any hindrances that need to be pruned out of my life. And may I say to you as kindly but as forthrightly as I can, you are not running. I've reminded of a scene from C.S. Lewis's story, The Great Divorce, in which a ghost arrives at paradise wearing a lizard on his lapel. The gatekeeper informs him that lizards are not welcome in the new Eden, that he must strip that lizard from his clothing, throw that lizard to the ground and stomp it to death underfoot. Now the ghost he agonizes over this dilemma, you see, because on the one hand he seeks entrance into paradise, but that little lizard has been his lifelong companion. How can he give it up? Now interestingly enough, as you read the story, that lizard had provided no real benefit to the ghost. For all of his life he had made incessant demands of the ghost. He had soiled his clothing. He had burdened him with fatigue. He added nothing but ugliness to the ghost. Nevertheless, there he was with the ghost's full permission as a kind of companion of sorts, lending a strange kind of security to the ghost. But at last the ghost tears the lizard from his clothes. He throws it to the ground and despite its cries for mercy, he crushes it underfoot. And then an amazing thing happens. Before his very eyes, the corpse of that little creature is wondrously transformed into a great steed on which that ghost then rides through the gates of heaven in triumph. Divestment can be exceedingly painful, I understand this all too well. And yet it is the very thing that expedites advancement. The cutting away serves to catapult forward. It's the lighting of the afterburner, it is the second wind to the runner, to run the race of faith through its conclusion the test necessitates that we divest ourselves of everything that impedes our progress. Listen, divest, that leads us to our third summary word, focus, focus. If we are to run the course, God has marked out for us, we must focus our attention on the greatest of all runners. You want to be a successful tennis player? Then you spend hours after hour after hour after hour watching the serve of Rod labor, watching the volley of John McEnroe, watching the ground strokes of Jimmy Connors. You want to be a great trumpet player? Then you listen to great trumpet players over and over and over hour after hour, always putting before you what greatness looks like and why it is that someone is great. And here you see the writer is exhorting us to that very thing that if we are to run the race of faith, then we must fix our attention on the one who has run that race most perfectly the greatest of all runners. Let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us, let us then fix our eyes on Jesus. You have a lot of, let me help you a little bit with the grammar here. Literally this reads, fixing our eyes on Jesus. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, and this particular participle takes its timing from the main verb, let us run, present tense verb, let us run, fixing our eyes on Jesus, present tense verb, present tense participle, which means what? It means this, for every single moment that you are engaged in the race, your eyes are to be ridded upon Jesus Christ. It stresses contemporaneity, for all the moments I run, my eyes are preoccupied with him. All the while we run this race, our attention is to be focused steadily and ruthlessly on Jesus Christ. This word to fix our gaze, to fix our attention suggests a steadiness and intensity of preoccupation throughout the duration of the race of faith. You talk to somebody who is a successful runner. He doesn't allow his attention to be diverted to the crowd. He doesn't allow his attention to be diverted to the other runners. Moreover he doesn't even allow his attention to be diverted to himself. He knows beloved, he'll never run straight if it becomes preoccupied with his own feet. He keeps his eye on the end and he runs straight toward it. That end for the Christian is Jesus Christ. You see brothers and sisters, we are never, ever to become preoccupied with the race itself. Oh, what terrible circumstances fill my life, that's disastrous to running the race. Nor are we to become preoccupied with those who are running alongside of us. Why is she so far ahead of me? Nor are we to become preoccupied with ourselves as we run. I wonder how my stride looks to other people. Introspection can become disastrous to your spiritual experience, beloved. This is why we do not send you home every Sunday saying, look inside, look inside, look inside, look inside. This is devastating to the running of the race. You can only run straight when your eyes are riveted upon the one who stands at the end of the race, calling you to himself, the one who is always the same. But why should our eyes be riveted upon him? Why should our eyes be focused upon Jesus Christ while we run the race of faith? Well beloved, the writer gives us two reasons. First, because he ran his race in absolute perfection. Because he ran his race in absolute perfection. You know, beloved, in a very real sense, we're not even to become preoccupied with the great cloud of witnesses, which ought to tell you something about how we are to read and understand the Old Testament. Now to be sure we listen again and again and again to their testimony, we return to their testimony, and we fill our minds with it, and as a result, we find great encouragement in it. We derive great strength from it. But my dear friends, when the truth is known, all of those people have preached a better message than they have lived. Abraham didn't run his race without flaw. Moses didn't finish his course without any imperfections. David knew what it was to be impeded by easily surrounding sin, didn't he? Only one has run the race in absolute perfection, and what ought to be fascinating to you, and I pray exceedingly helpful, is the author refers to this one, not as he has referred to him in other places as the Christ or as the Son, but simply as Jesus, stressing the fact that this greatest of all runners ran his race as a man, and as a man, he is called the author and perfecter of our faith. It's a title that serves to set Jesus apart as a man from all of those others who have run the race of faith. It's a title that reveals him to be greater than every other man who has run the race of faith. He is, first of all, the author of our faith, not primarily to stress the idea that he is the originator of our faith, or that he is the cause of our faith. That may be true, but that's not what this is saying here. It stresses the idea that he is the chief leader in this race of faith. The word actually carries with it the idea of a pioneer, a leader who has blazed away for the others who will follow. To express this idea in its most practical and basic and simple sense, beloved, the author of Hebrews is telling us by referring to Jesus as the author of our faith that he is the ultimate model to follow where faith is concerned. You want to know what real faith is? Then you give yourself to a study of the humanity of Jesus Christ, his life and his ministry. Secondly, he refers to Jesus as the perfector of our faith, which is a way of defining his greatness even further. Jesus he wants us to know is not merely another one in the group of Hebrews chapter 11. There's a reason why the author didn't put the writer, put Jesus in the list of Hebrews chapter 11. He has kept him separate now to introduce him at this point. Jesus, he is telling us, is the man of faith par excellence. In other words, he is saying not only is Jesus the example of faith, but that is earthly life and ministry exhibited faith in its most perfect form. In Jesus Christ we see the ultimate consummation of everything it is to be. He is therefore the author and perfector of our faith in that he shows us what the life of faith is to look like. And you see these ideas are very much related to another title that is given to Jesus back in Hebrews chapter 6, where he is referred to as our orerunner. It used to speak of the swiftest runner who breaks away from the pact across the finish line first, and yet the very term forerunner implies a sequence of other runners who will follow this pace setter to the completion of the race. Jesus is the forerunner. He is the author, the pioneer who provides us with the example, he is the perfector, the one who displays it perfectly and thus shows us how we are to live the life of faith. All of us, all of this beloved then, is to say quite simply, if it is the race of faith we seek to run, then Jesus Christ is the one we must follow. This is why our attention must always be focused on Him. This is why our eyes must be riveted upon Him. He is the greatest of all runners. He has run his race in absolute perfection, the race that his father had ordained for him without the slightest imperfection whatsoever. In fact, the Hebrew writer, right here, summarizes the high point of his race. Notice what it says. It says that he endured the cross. He took upon himself the guilt of all God's people and bore their punishment. He says that he scorned its shame. He disregarded. He counted as nothing. All of the contempt he would receive is a consequence of dying across kind of death. And as a reward for his faithfulness, God raised him from the dead. He ascended into heaven where the text says now, he sits at the right hand of the throne of God. He has run the race marked out for him perfectly. As our forerunner, the first in a sequence of runners who will follow him to that place, he ran his race in absolute perfection and now beloved the point. The image that the author is trying to convey to us is there he is. Do you see it? Do you see it? There he is at the finish line positioned at that place looking back toward us who had begun to run the race and as it were, you see, he leans across the tape in our direction and he says, run art, run out, run Philip, run Bob, run to me. I have the crown, here it is, run straight ahead toward me. He pictures Jesus you see as the great magnet who draws to himself all those who fix their gaze on him. This is how we get there.
Do you understand what this means for us in terms of our life together practically as the people of God? Not as individual Christians apart from this place but in our life together as God's temple in this place. For those of you who are new to Christ community church, maybe it's important that you hear what I say in terms of getting a handle on why we are, who, what we are. This is the very reason you see we are so radically committed to Christosentricity, being Christ centered in everything that we do. This is why we labor so hard to set before you music that says something substantial about Jesus Christ and him crucified. This is an issue, beloved, of infinitely more importance than mere style. It's not an issue of music in the 20th century versus music in the 18th century, music with drums versus music without drums. Those kinds of questions are comparatively adolescent in nature. This is why we insist that preaching, you see, be nothing less than the preparation of the banqueting table that serves the delicacies of Jesus Christ every single week so that the hungry people of God might gather at this place and feast upon him. We don't need moral pep talks. Christ must always be our goal, our aim, our passion, to set Jesus Christ forth for who he is as infinitely more beautiful than any person or thing so that you and I will rivet our attention upon him and thus run the race of faith to its end. This is the thing that we have to put before our children. This is the thing that we have to put before our young people. We are calling them to rivet their attention on a person who was infinitely more glorious than any other thing that they could ever conceive of and we attempt to keep them here by giving them candy, relatively speaking, when we can give them glory. We seek to set before you Jesus Christ and beloved when our eyes look up and catch sight of his, our hearts are filled with fresh zeal, aren't they? In our ears hear his voice, we run with more impassioned effort and I might add, this is the thing that makes the divestment that we have talked about earlier infinitely more than share legalism. Listen, at the sea of Galilee, Christ called the disciples to follow him and so they did leaving behind their boats and businesses. They were so taken with Christ that they never felt the cost of their renunciation. They walked in the epicenter of a new adoration that had silently slain their old affections. I love that line. They walked in the epicenter of a new adoration that had silently slain their old affections, renunciation that is self-aware as mere setisism subtly boasting its own magnificent sacrifice. The apostles came to Christ having surrendered the possessions that stood between them and the will of God. Even so, we do not remember them because they chose poverty, but because they adored Christ. If we too are spellbound by his excellence, relinquishment will be more a byproduct of devotion than a prerequisite of it. True lovers of Christ can stand the pain of self-denial.
It's the very thing we sing, isn't it? Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. Have you not found this to be so? This has been my own experience, beloved, that the strength of my faith is directly tied to my preoccupation with Jesus Christ, so that when I read of him and sing of him and hear of him and speak to him, I find myself strangely but profoundly compelled to run toward him. To the contrary, when my preoccupations, for whatever reason, are diverted from him, I find it my intensity to run the race, lessons, zeal wings, passion fades, running gives way to walking, walking by and by gives way to crawling, and then regression sets in. How do we run the race of faith? Focus our attention on the greatest of all runners. Why? Reason one, because he ran his race in absolute perfection. He is the author and perfector of our faith. He is the pioneer who has set the example of faith in its most perfect form. Here is reason two, why focus our attention on the greatest of all runners? Because he ran his race against the greatest opposition. He ran his race against the greatest, the most violent of opposition. Verse three, consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Now, this last phrase so that you will not grow weary and lose heart is another athletic metaphor. In fact, Aristotle used both of these terms to grow weary and to lose heart to speak of the condition of runners who collapse from exhaustion once the goal line has been crossed. You've seen this on television, perhaps, a runner crosses the tape and immediately falls to the ground in absolute exhaustion. The concern of the writer of Hebrews that we collapse before the line has been crossed, before the race has been completed. His preventative focus here at Tuncheon on the greatest of all runners. Why? Because of what he encountered in the running of his race because he was met with the greatest of opposition. Notice, friends, verse three, that he exhorts us to consider him. It's a very strong word. It means to reflect upon and to compare with, to reflect upon and to compare with. We are to reflect upon him and we are to compare our circumstances to his, compare our hostilities to his. He is saying to us, you see, very simply, are you weary from the resistance that works against your progress? Is the violence of the fight of faith discouraging you, distressing you, wearing you down than reflect upon the magnitude of opposition endured by Jesus and then compare his opposition with yours. Implication? If Jesus endured all that God marked out for him to endure on your behalf, then certainly you can endure all that God has marked out for you to endure on behalf of Jesus. Consider him. Ponder him. Consider yourself to him. He is the eternal son of God. He is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his nature and running the race marked out for him by his father. He met with violent opposition. Should we, who are creatures and sinful creatures at that, murmur when asked to run the race? He has marked out for us. He has met opposition as the Lord. Should we not endure it as his servants? He has faced hostilities as the teacher. Should we not endure it as his disciples? Reflect upon this one who has endured such opposition from sinful men. You realize what he's saying, beloved? He is saying, always keep the condescension of the Son of God and his sacrifice on the cross before your eyes at all times. Always have the cross in front of you. The very thing we're doing here this morning is always reflect upon that condescension. Always reflect upon the magnitude of that sacrifice. He speaks to it in verse 2 in a phrase that I purposefully bypassed earlier. He tells us, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, who, for, the key word there, for the joy set before him endured the cross. Now, that little word for who for, the joy set before him, can mean because of, who because of the joy set before him endured the cross, meaning that the thought of his ultimate reward when he would return to heaven as a victorious savior motivated him to endure the cross. It can mean that. But this proposition for, on T in the original, can also mean instead of, and I think that gets at the idea much more effectively here, who instead of the joy set before him endured the cross. Instead of enjoying all of the eternal glories of heaven that were rightfully his as the very son of God, he endured the cross. Does that remind you of something that ought to be very familiar to you, Philippians chapter 2, who being in the very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing. Do you get it? This is what makes his sacrifice greater than any sacrifice you and I could ever think about making. The nature of the sacrifice beloved endured is measured by the extent to which his condescension expressed itself. He left heaven to come here. He left infinite glory for notorious poverty. He left kingship for bond slavery, bliss and peace and love for hatred and rejection and hostility, consider him who endured such opposition from sinful man and think about how numerous the oppositions were that came up against him. They began when he was just an infant and they never ended. Think about all the diverse forms that opposition took, verbal reproach, physical attack, threats on his life, assaults on his character, betrayals, denials, beatings, mockings, tongue things and finally the cross itself. It's amazing when you consider him how it was that he responded to all this opposition. Toward men he always responded in meekness toward God, he always responded in submission. He bore the greatest shame, the greatest reproach, the greatest indignity, the greatest injury, the greatest hostility and yet he stood firm. He endured all of it so he exhorts us consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men and he tells us why so that we will not grow weary and lose heart and all of that beloved begs the obvious question. Why will a contemplation of Jesus Christ and all he suffered at the cross keep me from dropping out of the race when the fight at times seems overwhelming? Just because contemplating what he endured at the cross will remind me of what it cost him to save me, to realize that he endured it all to give me eternal life. And now as our high priest he has seated at the right hand of the Father as a man knowing perfectly the very nature of opposition we face and the race marked out for us praying incessantly on our behalf to make sure that we have everything necessary to finish the race. Beloved, the Christian life is this very thing. It is a race, it is a marathon and how do we run it? Listen. Listen to the testimony of those who have finished the race. Invest, divest yourself of everything that impedes your progress, focus. Focus your attention on the greatest of all runners, Jesus Christ, why? Because he ran his race in absolute perfection and through all of it endured the greatest opposition. He is the only reason we can finish our race. He is there beloved, standing at the finish line, waiting to crown you with the victor's prize, and even now he calls out to you and says, come to me, run to me, come to me in April of 1841. Charles Simeon was 71 years old. He had been the pastor of Trinity Church in Cambridge for 49 years. He will without question be regarded as one of the most influential pastoral spokesman of the 19th century and he was asked by his friend Joseph Gurney how he had endured and surmounted the great opposition that had been his portion for so many years. His story is amazing, beloved, the incredible opposition he lived with for 49 years attempting to pastor a group of people. The opposition that he met up with was unheard of and this was his response. My dear brother, we must not mind a little suffering for Christ's sake. When I'm getting through a hedge, if my head and shoulders are safely through, I can bear the pricking of my legs. Let us rejoice in the remembrance that our holy head has surmounted all his sufferings and triumphed over death. Let us follow him patiently. We shall soon be partakers of his victory, fixing our eyes on him. Let's pray together shall we. Our Father, we are so thankful for Jesus Christ who has perfectly lived a life of faith and run the race you marked out for him. Enduring the cross, despising the shame, turning his back on all of the glories of heaven that were rightfully his, who even now is seated at your right hand. Calling us to himself, calling us to run the race, calling us to single-minded focus, O Lord and God, we thank you for our great Savior. Our confidence this morning lies not in our ability to run, but in his ability to call us to the finish line. We are thankful that he is our forerunner, the pioneer who has paid the way for us. May we steadily see him as the perfect example of what the life of faith is. Father, we pray, help us to run in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.