Hebrews 12:1-2
It took 70 years to break the four minute mile and in the years after over 1000 runners followed suit. Roger Banister changed everything. He was the pioneer. Something had changed.
The Hebrew writer says the same thing about Jesus. Something changed once he was here. As we run this race and follow Jesus, He is the focus. There are things that we can focus on to help us attain our goal, like thinking about heaven. But those thoughts don’t tell us how to get there. We need a way to follow.
Look to Jesus:
1. He is THE example of faith. In a running race, you tend to leave yourself, look at the person in the lead and develop a plan to catch them. You may be in the lead so what do you do then? There is no one to catch. The Hebrew writer wants us to know we are not truly alone. There is someone who has run before us that we can look to. Jesus is the pioneer and finisher of faith. He is now with God, He is where we want to be.
2. He endured the cross. He is an example of endurance. Two elements of endurance – pain and shame. He endured significant pain but actually the shame was worse. He doesn’t worry about His personal glory. It doesn’t seem sensible to follow a man who was publicly shamed. Jesus didn’t focus on what people thought but on accomplishing the will of God. Nor should we. We will face rejection as we profess our beliefs. But we haven’t persevered to the point He did. He went through more than we have. We can make it through persecution, through being ostracized because Jesus did. Faith isn’t doing it until it’s hard and then quit. Faith is continuing on even when it seems impossible.
3. He reigns with God. If we run as Jesus did, we will share in His glory. He has trained us for our good that we may share His holiness. We are to run the race as He did. His struggle was worth whatever He had to go through. Our struggle is our race though life. The idea is we haven’t struggled like Jesus did so we can do this, we can persevere knowing He faced far more than we ever will. Struggles give us opportunity to see where we are in the race. James 1 tells us not to be surprised when we face trials. Enduring through them will strengthen our faith. Esau is a counter example, trading his birthright for a single meal. He didn’t persevere. He sacrificed the blessing for something small and menial. He eventually realized how follows this decision was.
Jesus is the example. We can follow Him and endure. Roger Bannister had two men who paced him but in the end, he ran alone. He was the pioneer. We’re like the two men who paced him. We follow the pioneer, Jesus. He showed us it can be done so we can realize it can be done.
