A Corporate Call to Faithfulness
“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.”
Hebrews 12:2 (NIV)
On August 7, 1954 during the British Empire Games in Vancouver, Canada, one of the greatest mile-run matchups 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. By the last lap of the race, the two men were even.
Landy began running faster, and Bannister followed suit. He felt he was going to lose if Landy did not slow down. Then came the famous 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 lapse of concentration. Bannister launched his attack and Landy did not see him until he lost the lead. Roger Bannister won the “miracle mile” that day by five yards.
Hebrews 12 uses the metaphor of a race to describe the Christian life. The scene is a great coliseum and the event is a footrace. We the participants are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, not watchers (Hebrews 11). They are those who successfully completed their own life races faithfully and now encourage us to do the same. Throughout this chapter the Hebrews author comes alongside his discouraged readers with the words “let us…” These two little words bookend the entire chapter and are a corporate call for faithfulness. Hebrews 12’s four “let us…” exhortations include:
Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. 12:1
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Heb12:1
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith. Heb.12:2
Let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. Heb.12:28
No runner competes to win without casting aside everything that might slow his or her progress. We are challenged to get rid of anything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us. “A hindrance is something, otherwise good, that weighs you down spiritually. It could be a friendship, an association, an event, a place, a habit, a pleasure, an entertainment, an honor. But if this otherwise good thing drags you down, you must strip it away.” writes author Kent Hughes.
Likewise, we must divest ourselves of any sin that easily entangles us. Last week as I was setting up the audio-visual equipment to record our Hebrews 12 lesson, I had a real-life experience of being easily entangled. Two long power cords were hopelessly intertwined and knotted. Somehow in trying to untangle them, my feet were also trapped. It took two other women to unplug the cords and untangle me. What sin so easily entangles us? Is it pride? Anxiety? Worry? Fear? Control? Gossip? Being judgmental and critical? Whatever it is, we need to confess it and get rid of it so that we can run our race faithfully.
These four Hebrews “let us” exhortations encourage us not just to run, but to run together. Author John Ortberg writing about Christians in community says, “Grits don’t exist in isolation. No grit is an island, entire unto itself. Every grit is a part of the mainland, a piece of the whole. We are all part of the grits.” In order to finish faithfully, as Christians we run tough together in community. If the Covid pandemic taught us nothing else, surely it taught us the importance of being in community and not living in isolation. We need each other.
All successful runners maintain their focus and keep their eyes on the prize. As Christians our focus is to be on Jesus who endured the cross and finished, not just his race, but his atoning and redemptive work. “Those who look away from Christ will never finish well,” writes Kent Hughes.
The final “let us…” instruction of Hebrews 12 includes a corporate call for gratitude and worship. Our Christian lives should be marked with both.
Each week I ask the women in our Bible study to share “gold nuggets,” a bit of truth from the biblical text or lesson that encouraged, challenged, or somehow gave them hope. If a summary of Hebrews 11 is “by faith,” a good summary of Hebrews 12 is “let us,” a corporate call to faithfulness.
Let us run our race together with a fixed focus, a firm stand, and a faithful finish. Faith without faithfulness is flawed.