The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: God wants you to run free as the wind. Take those weights off. You're too sluggish spiritually. You don't get on tiptoe and dance and get excited about spiritual things.

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Healing Word, a radio ministry of the Largo Community Church. Here’s Pastor Jack Morris with today’s message that will grow your faith in God and lead you to a closer walk with Jesus.

Pastor Jack Morris: Eyes fixed on Jesus. We're looking at a lot of things and eyeing a lot of things. We're always looking at television, and we're looking at people, and looking at the road, and looking at houses, and looking at things. Thank God that we have physical eyes to see and to look, but there's a spiritual eye inside that we want to look to the Lord Jesus and keep looking to him because we've got a life to live this new year.

I'm not sure how life was for you last year. But I want to tell you how life can be this year. Don't carry over a whole lot of junk from last year and make 2014 just a repeat of 2013. Don't do that. You don't have to do that, but a lot of people will do that. It'll happen. And God wants us to have a new experience, a new year, and be filled with joy and know his peace this new year. This word today, I believe in my heart, if we follow it, we will have what God has planned and ordained and set out for us.

If you have your Bibles open, I'd like you to look at Hebrews chapter 12, verse one. I'm going to read it. Notice that first word. Okay, there it is on the screen. Let's read it together. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

So the Scripture is comparing living or a life as a race. All of life, we're racing for the finish line. And friend, we're going to get to the finish line, but we can win all the way to the finish line. But I want to bring it down to the year 2014. We want to run this year. But in order to run the year and win, we've got to run each day and win, and each moment of every day God's going to be with us, and we're going to make it with him.

But that first word, remember the first word? What was the first word? Therefore. Let me deal with this just a little bit. Therefore. Whenever you see that word "therefore," it always refers you back to what came previously. So "therefore" refers us back to chapter 11. After we read chapter 11, therefore, now we're going into chapter 12.

Going back to chapter 11, therefore, it tells us about the saints of old. I'm going to go to verse 34. It says, "who quenched the fury of flames, they escaped the edge of the sword, whose weakness was turned to strength and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back from the dead raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned and they were sawed in two. They were put to death by the sword."

I'm reading about people of God and what they went through. Sometimes we go through some little thing and we'll whine about it. We've been hurt. But look at this. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins. That means they tore their clothes off of them and they had to go out and kill sheep and take the hide off of the sheep to cover their nakedness. These were God's people, but they made it.

Let me tell you how they made it. I'm going to go all the way back now to the beginning of chapter 11. "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for." Verse four: "by faith Abel offered to God." Verse five: "by faith Enoch." Verse seven: "by faith Noah." Verse eight: "by faith Abraham." Verse 20: "by faith Isaac." Verse 21: "by faith Jacob." Verse 22: "by faith Joseph." By faith Moses. And on and on it goes. By faith, these people who were so persecuted for their faith, they had faith. They trusted God. They kept their eyes on the Lord and they did not give up.

Anybody can give up. Anybody can be a quitter. Anybody can do that. But God has a way and a blessing and an empowerment provided we keep our eyes on God. People have looked and we are today tempted to look at many things. We look at our finances and we see how low they are. We look at our job and some of us don't have one. We look at other people who aren't nice to us. You're going to see what you look for. But if you look for Jesus, you see Jesus. And you'll overcome, and you'll be victorious in him, and you'll run this year regardless of what happens and whatever the difficulty is. You'll find joy in the Lord that will strengthen you and will sustain you.

So we are to look to these who had the faith and emulate them. They are an example for us. That's what the word therefore—it says go back and look. Look at the right thing. Not the people who have hurt you, but the people who have lived for God and done the will of God and overcame victorious for God. Meaning you can have the same victory and have the same abundant life that they had. They had faith in God and it was their faith in him that kept them going. Verse 34 of chapter 11 said their weakness was turned into strength.

We're all weak. We can all give in and express a carnalness that is un-Christlike. But God will help us. Let's emulate the men and women of chapter 11. Now notice it said, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses." A great cloud of witnesses has surrounded us. When we read chapter 11 and we read their testimonies, their testimonies is a witness to us that surrounds us. We have everything, all the equipment we need. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.

The writer of Hebrews, when this writer was writing, it was during those Roman-Greek days. Roman and Greek culture, back then they had the Olympics. They built these great theaters, amphitheaters, hippodromes, and it was just tier after tier after tier, much like in a baseball or football stadium today. And then down on the playing field, the people would watch the people on the playing field run a race. They would observe and look at them.

And this is what the writer of the Hebrews is writing about. We are now down on the playing field. But Abraham and Isaac and Noah and Rahab, all of these people in chapter 11, are giving us a testimony how that they won under such adverse, torturous circumstances and that we too can run. Some people believe, some theologians, that these people are looking down at us today and are watching us to see how well we're doing, and they're up there pulling for us, saying you can do it. I don't know whether that's true or not. This is the only place in the New Testament where this is written, but it may be true that those who have gone on before, particularly those in chapter 11, got their eyes on you and they're looking and saying, "Hey, weak Christian, trust the Lord. He will turn your weakness into strength." And they're rooting for us to overcome and to make it.

Napoleon Bonaparte was about to do a great campaign in Egypt. He was out to conquer the entire world, and his campaign was just about ready to begin. He called his troops together and he said, "Soldiers, 40 centuries are looking upon you today." These people in the Old Testament, even Jesus himself, is looking at you. Your thoughts, your attitude, your behavior, the words you speak. And he is saying, "I can help you in those weak areas of your life. Look to me." This is what he's calling out to us.

Years ago, the Madonna di San Sisto, the painting "Madonna," was discovered in Dresden. That painting had been there for years. Centuries of dust had covered over it. To look at that painting, all one could see would be the child in the arms of the mother. But somebody took it upon themselves to wipe away that dust and grime that had gathered in centuries. And when they wiped it away, in the painting around the side and the top, there were clouds with angel faces looking at the mother and the child.

Friend, I somehow believe that we are closer to that world than many of us believe. We are so caught up with living and working and making and buying and getting out of debt down here. But we are so close to that world, and that world just may be looking in on us. And whether they are or not, we know this: Jesus is looking in on us. And we are surrounded by a testimony of people who won, who won. Friend, you can be a winner. Turn to your neighbor today and say, "You can be a winner. Come on. You can win the race, and you can win all the way to the finish line."

Now notice it said, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders us." A great cloud of witnesses. There's a race that is marked out for us. When we go to the Psalms, Psalm 27, Psalm 71, and Psalm 139, those Psalms tell us that God saw you in your mother's womb when you were being knit together, and he designed a life for you even before you were fully knit together in your mother's womb and were born into this world.

But so many people aren't living that life. They don't know what that life is. They're missing that life. They're coming up so far short. Friend, let's get in touch with Jesus today. Let's fix our eyes on Jesus. He has something planned for us: a great life, a great year, and a great testimony he's going to give to us. Now notice what it says, that we are to run this race effectively. Now, how can we do that? How can we run the race to win? The Scripture says, "let us throw off everything that hinders."

If I were to come down and ask you today, ask any of us, what is it that's holding you back and holding you down and keeping you from running successfully? Success, victory, winning, champion. These are God's words for God's people. But there are things called weights that have gathered and entangled us or wrapped themselves around us. Even good things. Even being ambitious to be a winner at whatever our occupation or job is. God wants us to succeed.

But when that becomes more paramount in our lives, then we're going to be a loser. And that's going to be a weight that's going to hold us down and keep us from reaching our full potential in God. Friend, I'm so jealous for you this year that you be the person that God wants you to be and that you win the race that God has prepared for you. It says throw off, throw off. Only you can do it. God's not going to take it out of your life until you confess it, repent of it, tell him about it, and ask him to take it out. Then it goes.

Did you hear what I just said? You're waiting on God, God's waiting on you. And on me. Throw off, you do it. You throw it off. You throw off that weight. Thinking of those Olympians, those amphitheaters, the playing field down there, the writer is talking about a race, running a race. Those racers would train with weights on their ankles, on their feet, making their feet heavy. So they would run and they would put forth and they would strain and they would strain. But when the race day would come, they would take those weights off and they would run free as the wind.

Why is this here? God wants you to run free as the wind. Take those weights off. You're too sluggish spiritually. You don't get on tiptoe and dance and get excited about spiritual things. It's church, we're good people, but we're sluggish spiritually. And God is calling us to rise up and to run the race with freedom, to persevere, to press forward. A trapper was out in the wilderness, a hunter, and he looked up and he saw this eagle. And this eagle was flying low, too low to where eagles normally fly.

And the eagle would attempt to soar, and it would go up, but always come back down. And this trapper looked and he saw that that eagle had one leg or one foot caught in a trap. It was a heavy trap. And so it had to fly close to the ground. It couldn't soar. The Scripture says throw off those weights. You're not going to soar. You're going to drag close to the earth in 14 just like 13 unless we throw off every one of these weights.

We live near the seashore and near Chesapeake Bay, and there are a lot of boats. And on the hull of these boats, there are things called barnacles that will attach themselves. They're hard shell. They're in the family of crabs and lobsters. And these barnacles will attach themselves and keep attaching and keep attaching. And the boat that used to go so swiftly is now slowed down and it's a drag to go through the water because of all these barnacles. And every once in a while, the boat has to be brought into dry dock and hoisted and all these barnacles scraped off.

Now friend, how is it that everything in life has to be gone over, tuned up, made ready, but somehow we can keep coming to a communion table without repentance, without confession, and no tears, no brokenness? Friend, it's time to run for Jesus. To win for Jesus. To soar for Jesus. We can't do it with all of these weights that are hanging on us and that we're carrying over. I think of some of the weights that are there. Some of us have had an experience in 13 that we carried over from 12, that we carried over from 11: a grudge. We keep remembering that grudge.

And every time we think of that person or we see that person, it all comes back again. It all surfaces again. And we look at it and we throw off that weight. Throw off that weight. There's an attitude, a disposition, an unforgiving spirit. We're not looking at things external. It's things of the spirit. It's things of the heart. It's things of the mind. It's things of the memory. Jesus said, "This do in remembrance of me." Remember Jesus, remember love, remember sacrifice, and stop nursing whatever it is that we're nursing and throw it off and go forward with the Lord.

I want to stop right now and ask you, I want you to start standing up and tell me what are you going to throw off this year? What is it? Now, I'm not going to ask you to do that, though. I'd like to, to throw off some of that stuff and go forward. I just stood up here and told you what I did just a moment ago, or a day or two ago, and I repented of it. Friend, let's be honest with the Lord and throw this off. The Scripture says, "Let a person examine himself" before we come to this holy altar. We've got to get ready for the new year. And what a wonderful place to be getting ready right here in the house of the Lord.

Now notice what it said. "Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us." Those things that we don't think are great, we think, oh, a grudge isn't that big. But a drunkenness is, alcoholism is, adultery is, pornography is, but a grudge and unforgiving spirit... it says it will, listen to this, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. That thing that we have been carrying on starts wrapping itself around us, coiling around us, coiling around us. Friend, you're ending up an ugly person spiritually. Not the beauty of Jesus, but the ugliness of that that has entangled and coiled around you, destroying your peace, destroying your happiness.

Why am I preaching this? Because I want you to be happy and rejoicing in the Lord. This is God's goal and desire for you. You can win. You can win. And then it says, "let us run with perseverance," meaning determination. What have I heard just the other day? I read people make new resolutions 100%, and only about 8% keep them. Most people don't persevere. They don't hang in there. They don't keep going. They don't take advantage of all the spiritual things that God has prepared.

It has to be according to our schedule, our feelings, our tiredness or our freshness. We keep looking at ourselves and how we feel, and we move according to that. No. We live not by feeling, not by sight, but by faith. Look again at chapter 11 and know this: we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Those dear ones that have gone on would have given up a long time ago but for the grace of God. And they're telling us today the grace that they received, the grace that I received, the grace that you can receive and win also.

Now it says running that race to win. I've mentioned it already, but let me say it again. Verse two, read it, it's on the screen. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus. Nobody can look but you. Nobody can taste but you. Nobody can feel but you. Let us fix our eyes, not a casting glance on the first Sunday of the month or some other day, but a fixed relationship. Monday morning, my eyes are fixed on Jesus.

Guest (Male): Start your week with encouragement from God's Word. Sign up today for the Healing Word weekly devotional, delivered every Monday morning right to your inbox. It's a powerful way to begin your week with hope, scripture, and inspiration for your daily walk. Go to thehealingword.com. That's thehealingword.com and sign up today. Let God's truth speak to your heart every Monday morning. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.