Avoiding Collapse Before The Finish Line
Hebrews 12:1-13
Are you ready for “the wall” and do you know how to get past it? This is a question a person had better be ready to answer if they wish to successfully finish a marathon. What is “the wall?” The wall is that point in the marathon race, usually somewhere around mile 20 (sometimes earlier and sometimes later), where the runner experiences the following symptoms: a dramatically slower pace, heavy legs, loss of feeling of one’s feet, muscle cramps, fuzzy thought processes, loss of muscle coordination, and intense feelings of doubt. Many marathon runners consider their race to be half over not at mile 13, but at mile 20 because of the difficulty of the final six or so miles. Consider the following quotes from runners who report their experience of this phenomena:
"It felt like an elephant had jumped out of a tree onto my shoulders and was making me carry it the rest of the way in.”
“I wasn’t wanting to talk much. And when I’m not talking, you know I’m hurting.”
“At around mile 23, I was beginning to feel like the anchor was out.”
Why do marathon runners hit this wall? The body, when it processes carbohydrates, produces a substance called glycogen which is stored in our muscles and liver. Glycogen burns quickly to provide quick energy. When the body’s supply of glycogen runs out, it converts over to burning fat as a fuel source, which does not burn as readily. When the body uses fat as fuel, it dramatically affects the runner’s performance, causing them to feel like they have suddenly hit a wall. If a runner wants to make it to the finish and avoid collapse, they need to be prepared for and know how to overcome “the wall.”
In many ways, the Christian life is like a marathon race. It is a long, agonizing race that requires patient endurance. The writer of Hebrews underscores this point in the exhortation of Hebrews 12:1.
Let’s run with patient endurance the agonizing race set before us (12:1)
Just as marathon runners have to face “the wall” in their 26 mile race, there is “the wall” we encounter in the Christian life. For the original audience of the book of Hebrews “the wall” was their encounter with severe persecution for their faith in Christ and desire to follow Him. The readers came to the realization that the process God was using to bring them to maturity was painful and difficult. They felt the temptation to throw in the towel, to collapse under the pressure, to go back to Judaism to escape it all.
While undergoing severe persecution is not our present experience, we can relate to what it is like to come to the sudden realization that pain is a part of God’s process in training us toward maturity. When we get serious about God’s training program, we discover that He employs suffering as a tool in His effort to make us all He wants us to be. He doesn’t mature us by giving us all the lemonade, ice cream, and easy chair living we want, but through hardship and adversity. When the suffering is intense and life is difficult, like the marathon runner, we are tempted to give up, to throw in the towel, to collapse under the pressure. Are you prepared for “the wall” in the marathon we call the Christian life? Do you know how to overcome it, so as to avoid collapse before the finish line?
An important step towards learning how to patiently endure and avoid collapse in the Christian life is to study the examples of those who have faithfully finished in the past. That is exactly what the writer of Hebrews leads us to do Hebrews 11. He shares examples from history of godly people who trusted God in the face of adversity and encourages us to follow in their footsteps. These people lived in times when faith in God was scarce. They battled overwhelming odds. They weren’t willing to sell themselves out to avoid affliction. They provide us with testimony of the value of trusting God in order to successfully endure all the way to the finish.
Consider the witnesses who testify to the value of faith for enabling us to patiently endure
Several of these men and women testify to God’s power to deliver those who trust God. God was glorified in their rescue. However, not all of those listed in Hebrews 11 were delivered. Some of them died for their faith. The faithful martyrs testify to God’s power to enable those who trust Him to endure to the point of death. God is glorified not only when we live for Him, but also when we die for Him. Whether we live or die, if our lives are used for God’s purposes, then He is glorified and we have thereby realized the greatest purpose for which a person lives or dies–for God’s glory. All of the examples in Hebrews 11 testify to the value and importance of trusting God when we feel like we are in the dark and can’t see or understand what God is doing. In adversity, we can trust God and He will be faithful to enable us to faithfully and patiently endure until the finish.
Another important step towards running our race with patient endurance and avoiding collapse is to cast aside those things that get in our way.
Cast off all that hinders our progress
Whatever is causing resistance to our progress and is bogging us down needs to be cast aside. Let’s get rid of anything that is getting in the way of our trusting God and patiently enduring till the end. What are some “weights” that we need to get rid of? We need to get rid of the attitudes of self-pity and depression.
We need to get our focus off of ourselves and the difficulty around us and onto the Lord and the sure rewards in store for those who faithfully follow Him. We need to get rid of the weight of clinging to our possessions. Owning possessions isn’t in itself a wrong or bad thing, but when we cling to what we own, it hinders our progress. It gets in our way of living a life of faith and patient endurance. We need to get rid of the weight of clinging to people. It is certainly appropriate and necessary for us to establish good relationships with others, but we can’t let those relationships keep us from running with patient endurance and faith the race God has set before us. The people around us might see the difficulty of the training process God is putting us through and want to pull us back to a life of ease and comfort. We can’t cling to people in a way that keeps us from moving forward in the race God has set before us.
Cast off “the” sin that so easily entangles us–UNBELIEF!
It is true of course that any sin can trip us up and keep us from running the race. It is necessary that we cast aside any sin that entangles us. However, it appears by the writer’s use of the definite article that he has a specific sin in mind. One sin we are particularly tempted to commit when faced with intense affliction and suffering is unbelief. We want to escape, to give up, to take the easy way out, to collapse and give into the pressure. We need to cast aside the sin of unbelief. Following the examples of the heroes of faith, we need to trust God and patiently endure.
The writer has one more example for us to consider and follow. He saves the best example for last.
Let’s run with our eyes fixed on the supreme example of faith who is Jesus (12:2)
The word translated “let us fix our eyes on” communicates the idea of looking away from all else so as to focus attention on one thing. Instead of focusing on what is going on around us in the midst of our affliction, our attention needs to be riveted on Jesus. Why on Him? There is no greater example of faith and patient endurance through suffering than Jesus.
He is the trailblazer (author) of our faith-He leads us in what a life of faith looks like
He is the perfecter of our faith-He brings faith to its fullest expression
He endured the cross
The cross was the most cruel and demeaning of deaths. Since Jesus patiently endured the worst possible kind of death for His people, one that involved embarrassment, pain, and mockery, certainly we ought to be able to trust God to help us patiently endure suffering for Him, even if it means death.
He despised the shame
He didn’t allow the shame of the cross cause Him to waver from His course. Nothing, not even the shame endured on the cruel cross, would dissuade Jesus from what He was about to do in keeping with the Father’s will and plan.
He focused on the joy ahead of Him
The writer of Hebrews has put much emphasis on the rewards ahead for those who faithfully endure.
Hebrews 11:6- “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”
Hebrews 11:10- “For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
Hebrews 11:16- “Instead, they were longing for a better country–a heavenly one...”
Hebrews 11:26- “He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as greater value than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward.”
The heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 were enabled to patiently endure as their focus was on the rewards God promised them and their trust was in Him to bring to pass what He had said.
Pamela Reeve writes about faith, “Faith is engaging in the deepest joy of heaven, knowing His unfathomable love for me as I walk through the thorny desolate now.”
We are enabled to walk through the thorny desolate landscape on this earth as we trust God for the rewards ahead. What did Jesus focus on as He contemplated the cross that helped Him to patiently endure?
He focused on the joy set before Him. What was that joy? I think the joy set before Jesus included a number of things. Jesus focused on the joy of living in complete obedience and submission to the Father’s will. Jesus focused on the joy of the exaltation that would await Him for His faithful accomplishment of the Father’s will. Jesus focused on the joy of providing salvation for lost, sinful people. He focused on the joy of being able to take us with Him as the result of His redemptive work on the cross. Jesus focused on the rewards ahead, trusting the Father to do all that He promised.
He triumphed and was exalted
The fact that Jesus was victorious and that His redemptive work has been faithfully and fully accomplished is demonstrated by His seated position at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider what Jesus endured compared to what we are going through (12:3-4)
Jesus’ demonstration of patient endurance required that He experience physical and spiritual death to provide salvation for sinners. It required that He endure opposition from sinful men. Literally, the word opposition means, “speech against,” emphasizing the insults that were hurled at Jesus on the cross.
The original audience of Hebrews was going through some strenuous suffering themselves, but they hadn’t yet suffered to the same extent Jesus suffered. They hadn’t yet resisted to the point of shedding their blood. There aren’t any bodies lying around. The writer doesn’t make this comparison to downplay what they were going through. Rather, he makes this comparison to help them to keep a good perspective. Jesus trusted the Father and patiently endured to the death. If He could trust the Father to the extent He did and was enabled to patiently endure all that He went through, certainly they could trust God to enable them to patiently endure what God required of them. The readers needed to give careful consideration to Jesus' example of faith and patient endurance and follow His example.
This consideration will keep us from growing weary & giving up
If we truly want to eliminate the feelings of weariness and the desire to give up under adverse trials, our thought processes cannot be focused on ourselves and our circumstances. Such a focus will lead to depression, self-pity, discouragement, weariness and the desire to throw in the towel. Only a focus and outlook centered on Christ will keep us from weariness and from entertaining thoughts of giving up.
Not only would the readers gain needed perspective from comparing their situation to what Christ went through, but also through an explanation of what God was doing through their suffering.
Endure adversity as God’s training program (12:5-11)
The NIV text says in Hebrews 12:7, “Endure hardship as discipline.” You are probably wondering why I have substituted in my outline the word “training” for the word “discipline.” The word translated “discipline” in Hebrews 12:7 is a word that simply means “child training.” This is how the word is translated in the NIV in Ephesians 6:4: “Bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” I also translate the Greek word with “training” instead of “discipline” because of the context. The readers are not a group of people characterized as erring Christians who need corrective discipline. Rather, they are a group of believers who are struggling to hang in there in the midst of suffering. They are a group in need of perspective that what they are going through is a part of God’s training program. They need the perspective that God’s efforts to make us all He wants us to be often involve suffering and difficulty.
Certainly this group is not perfect and corrective discipline was a part of God’s training process, but it was just that–a part of it. The emphasis of this word is training. We need to realize that the adversity we go through is a part of God’s training program to make us all He wants us to be.
Why is this distinction so important? When we hear the word discipline, our minds conjure up memories of spankings, groundings, and time outs. We think of the painful, corrective measures that parents bring to their kids when they are out of line with regards to parental standards and expectations. Our thoughts go right to the negative aspects of this word. Even when the Bible uses the word discipline to speak of correcting wrong behavior, the emphasis in these cases is the training and instruction that results from the process. However, when we hear the word, we tend to think only of the negative, not the positive. Because we are prone to think this way, when we hear the word discipline used in Hebrews 12:5-11, we tend to think, “Those verses are for all those disobedient Christians who are under God’s discipline. That passage is telling Christians who are in trouble how they need to respond to God’s corrective measures. Those verses don’t currently apply to me.”
The fact is, these verses are for all believers, not just erring ones. It is not only erring Christians who are put through a painful training process. Faithful Christians often go through pain and suffering too. God has a training regiment for all of us and it will often involve struggle and suffering. God knows that we won’t mature and grow eating ice cream and sitting in easy chairs. We grow through patiently enduring hard things. The coaches on athletic teams don’t let their players eat however they want. They don’t let them go to bed in the wee hours of the morning. They don’t let them loaf at practice. No, they put them through a disciplined training program to help them be the best athletes they can possibly be. This program often involves pain, sweat, and difficulty. God does the same kind of thing with us.
Before the writer’s exhortation in verse seven, he quotes a couple of verses from Proverbs 3:11-12.
Remember the Scripture (12:5-6)
What the writer is about to tell them in regards to God’s training program isn’t anything new. However, they failed to remember and reassure themselves with God’s Word. We can’t be encouraged by what we don’t know or remember. The comfort and strength of God’s Word will avail us nothing at all if we don’t know it. We need to remember God’s Word.Improper responses need to cease:
Stop making light of Lord’s training process
Stop treating lightly what God is doing. Stop blowing it off. Stop choosing to remain indifferent to the significance and benefit of what God is doing.
Stop losing heart when the Lord rebukes us
When the Lord rebukes us, when He delivers corrective training and instruction, stop losing heart, stop wanting to give up, stop becoming so discouraged, overwhelmed and disillusioned.
Proper perspective towards God’s training is needed:
God’s training demonstrates His love for us
God doesn’t put us through hard things because He is out to get us. God takes us through painful training processes because He loves us. He loves us enough to care about how we turn out. He loves us too much to let us remain as we are, so He puts us through training processes to help us grow more mature in Christ.
God’s training demonstrates we are accepted as His children
Rather than making light of God’s training or losing heart when sufferings come, we should welcome these as assurance that we are accepted as children of God.
Compare God’s training program with that of human fathers to appreciate the significance and benefits of what God is doing (7-11)
Human fathers treat their children as such by training them.
God treats us as His children by training us
The absence of training would indicate we aren’t really His children (We would therefore have none of the rights, privileges, and inheritance that belong to God’s children. Yes, being in a relationship with God through Christ means we have to go through training that is often painful, but what a grand reminder it is of the privileged position we enjoy as children of God).
The presence of training indicates we are indeed His children
Human fathers received our respect when they trained us
How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live
One of the greatest paradoxes of life, which is most difficult for us to grasp, is to realize that in losing our life, we find it. The readers are tempted to think that they will be better off if they shrink back from following Christ and go back under Judaism. If following Christ involves adversity and suffering persecution, isn’t this a better alternative. No! Absolutely not! The decision to go back under Judaism to avoid persecution would result in God’s judgment and the loss of life. However, the decision to submit to God’s training process, though it involved pain and difficulty, would bring maturity and an abundant life lived to its maximum potential. If we want to live a life that realizes all that God intends for us, we have to submit to His training process.
We respected and honored our fathers when they faithfully discharged their duties of disciplining and training us. How much more do we need to give a proper response to God’s training of us.
Human fathers’ training is temporary and inconsistent
Human fathers train their children until they become adults. Their training is temporary. They train their children according to what seems good to them. Sometimes efforts to discipline and train children were exercised wisely, sometimes not. Sometimes fathers are too severe, other times, they are too lax. Sometimes what fathers do profits their children, sometimes what they do in training doesn’t. Human fathers’ train in an inconsistent manner.
God’s training is always profitable and produces His holiness in us
All training is painful, but the product of the process makes it worthwhile
God’s training processes, though painful, aren’t designed to make us miserable, but they are intended to bring us profit. What benefits do we receive when we are exercised by God’s training program? We become partakers of God’s holiness. We enjoy the peaceable fruit of righteousness. When we share God’s holy character and manifest that character through righteous actions, we display the maturity that God wants to produce in us. We enjoy the abundant life God intends for us. Do we desire to be all that God wants you to be? Then we must accept that suffering is a part of His training process and respond appropriately! We must be willing to be exercised by the hard things God allows in our lives to transform us into the image of His Son.
Let’s pick up the weak and wounded and smooth the way for them so they don’t collapse short of the goal (12:12-13)
Verse 12 is taken from the cry of the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah 35:3-4 we read, “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, ‘Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.’”
Those of us who are being enabled by God to patiently endure under adversity have an obligation toward those who are being overwhelmed by their experiences. As we spot other runners who have weary hands hanging loosely at their side and who have feeble, paralyzed knees–as we observe those who are not moving at all and are scarcely able to keep standing, we need to come to their aid. We need to come alongside runners on the verge of collapse, who are paralyzed with fear and anxiety, and encourage them to straighten up out of their bent over position. We need to make straight paths for those who are struggling. We need to remove those obstacles that might cause them to dislocate a joint and thereby be unable to continue the race. Those of us who are successfully pursuing the goal of maturity need to assist those who are in danger of falling short of the finish.
Again, we see the importance of viewing this passage in the context of God’s training program for all of His children towards the goal of maturity as opposed to viewing it narrowly as only referring to God’s corrective discipline of erring brothers. When people are really going through the ringer, what is the frequent response they hear from other believers? I have heard people say things like, “I wonder what they did that caused God to respond by bringing such severe discipline.” Our tendency too often is to avoid these people, to criticize them. I remember when my wife Misty was in college and from trip to Romania contracted terrible parasites. Her health was compromised for months and she suffered a great deal. Some around her responded, “You must be out of the will of God. He must not be pleased with you to be disciplining you as He is.” She wasn’t out of God’s will. She was planning to marry me :) She was experiencing God’s training program to make her all that He wanted her to be and needed people to come alongside and encourage her. This tendency to criticize the weak and wounded is exactly opposite of how God would have us to respond. He commands us to come alongside to help these people, not to criticize them.
In all the struggle of God’s training program and the suffering that comes from His effort to make us into all that He wants us to be, we “hit the wall.” During this time, its easy for us to grow discouraged, to want to give up. How can we avoid collapse when we hit the wall spiritually?
On August 7, 1954, during the British Empire Games in Vancouver, Canada, one of the greatest mile-run match ups ever took place. It was touted as the “miracle mile” because Roger Bannister and John Landy were the only two sub-four-minute milers in the world. Both runners were in peak condition.
Banister strategized that he would relax during the third lap and save everything for his finishing drive. But as they began the third lap, Landy poured it on, stretching his already substantial lead. Immediately, Bannister adjusted his strategy, increasing his pace and gaining on Landy. The lead was cut in half, and at the bell for the final lap they were even.
Landy began running even faster and Bannister followed suit. He felt he was going to lose if Landy did not slow down. Then came the moment as at the last stride before the home stretch the crowds roared. Landy could not hear Bannister’s footfall and thus compulsively looked back–a fatal loss of concentration. Bannister launched his attack, and Landy didn’t see him until he lost the lead. Bannister won the miracle mile by five yards.
Like Landy, if we have a major lapse of concentration and look away from where our focus needs to be, we will not finish well. Those who look away from Christ–the supreme example of faith and patient endurance–will never finish well. We need to take our eyes off of all the hardships that challenge us and need to keep them fixed on our Savior.