Hope Church LV Sermons
Not by Sight :: Run the Race
I want to put a picture up on the screen. And I want to ask you, how many of you recognize this guy? You know this guy? Who is that? It's Jared, right? And Jared became famous because of what? He lost a lot of weight, right? Jared is famous for, back in about 1998, Jared, and most people don't even know his last name, right? We just know him as Jared the Subway guy. But it's Jared Fogle. In 1998, Jared Fogle weighed over 420 pounds. And he decided he was going to change the way that he ate and change the way that he exercised in order to become more healthy. And he came up with this crazy idea that he'd build his whole diet around eating Subway sandwiches from Subway. So Jared begins to do this. And over the course of a couple of years, Jared lost over 250 pounds. And Jared's story began to be known by the Subway Corporation. They found out about what he had done. And they found out from the local merchant there that ran that Subway store locally. And they decided to take Jared's story and turn it into a commercial to show the world what had happened through Jared eating Subway sandwiches. So January the 1st, 2000. Can you believe it's been 12 years ago that Jared's first commercial kind of makes you feel old? Then it feels like it was just yesterday that that commercial came out. 12 years ago the first commercial ran telling the story of Jared Fogle's weight loss. And it became an instant. He had over tens of thousands of people all over the world started following this diet. People have lost weight. And Subway inside of 24 months doubled their retail sales in their stores to over $8.5 billion just through the power of the story of Jared Fogle. Now his story demonstrates the power of a personal story. Nothing is more motivating and encouraging and inspiring than the successful example of somebody who has done it before for 15 weekends. As a church family we have been studying together the personal stories of ordinary men and women. For 15 weekends we have taken the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. And we've just walked verse by verse by verse right through the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. And we have looked at the stories of ordinary men and women. Now when I say they're ordinary it's hard for us to believe they're ordinary because we hear names like Abel and Abraham and Sarah and Moses and Joshua and Joseph and David and Gideon. And those names do not rank among the ordinary to us in Christian circles. We see those people as superheroes, as the super saints of God that have lived before. But in their day they were ordinary. They were just regular people. If Hebrews 11 was being written today it would include names like Bob and Michelle and Eric. They were just ordinary regular names. But through faith, through faith they experienced God in extraordinary ways in their lives. For 15 weekends we've asked the question, what does it mean to live by faith? We've given you a definition, a statement. We've made you say it every weekend so this being the last weekend of the series, guess what? We're doing it again. We're going to make you read it one last time off the screen because I want you to understand it. I want you to grab it. I want your heart to wrap around it. Here's what it means to live by faith. Let's read it together, one, two, three, to live life, not trusting in myself, but resting moment by moment in his very life in me. I love the way that statement starts, to live life. This idea of the Christian life, this idea of living by faith is not just something that is compartmentalized to Sunday morning or the night I go to small group or just when I'm having my quiet time. This idea of living in dependence on him, allowing him to live his very life in and through me is every single moment of every single day, of every single week, of every single month, of every single year of my life. To live by faith. Hebrews chapter 11 has been giving us these stories of men and women of God who live by faith. But you cannot. You cannot rightly examine Hebrews chapter 11 and not at least read the first two verses of Hebrews chapter 12. So we're going to close the series in Hebrews chapter 11 this morning with the first two verses of Hebrews chapter 12. So if you have your Bible, I want to invite you to turn there. Hebrews chapter 12 verses one and two. If you don't have a Bible with you this morning, we're going to put these words up on the screen. Verse one, therefore. Now, if you've been attending hope for any length of time at all, you know Pastor Vance loves the word, what? Therefore, because any time you see the word, therefore, you need to look and see what it's ha. I know it's cheesy, but you remember it that way. You need to look and see what it's there for, because the word therefore is a word of transition. Here's what the word therefore means. It means based on everything that I've just said. Now, here is a conclusion or an application that I want to draw. So with that little word, therefore, he's summarizing all of chapter 11. Everything that we've been looking at for 15 weekends is wrapped up in that one little word, therefore. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses. Who's he talking about? He's talking about all the people that we've read about in Hebrews 11. These men and women of God who've lived by faith. These men and women of God who've now gone on to be with the Lord in heaven. These men and women of God whose lives give us a testimony. They give us an example. They give us a story of what it is to live by faith. Then look what he says, therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance. And the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run. Let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus. The author and perfecter of our faith. Who for the joy set before him endured the cross despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God? All through chapter 11, the writer of the book of Hebrews has been giving us inspirational stories. But now he begins to shift gears by way of giving us a serious application. Since we have so many stories to draw from, here's what he says to you and me today. Run, run the race, run the race. You see, he's saying to us here that these are not just wonderful stories from history, but they are examples that have been given to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God to inspire us in our generation to live lives of faith. Listen to what John MacArthur said about it. I want you to look at this quote on the screen. He said, "Seeing how God was with them "encourages us to trust that he will also be with us." The same God who was their God is our God. The God of yesterday is the God of today and tomorrow. He has not weakened or lost interest in his people or lessened his love and care for them. We can run as well as they did. Now listen to this next sentence. It has nothing to do with how we compare with them, but in how our God compares with theirs. Because we have the same God, he can do the same things through us if we trust him. If you're facing an impossible situation, a situation in which it seems there is no human explanation. It's impossible. You can draw strength and inspiration from the story of Abraham and Sarah, who in their late 90s faced an impossible situation. God had promised them a child and yet God by faith in their lives did the impossible. If today you are facing an unexplainable circumstance, there's a situation and circumstance in your life that you just cannot explain. You can draw strength and encouragement from the life of Joseph who spent decades in prison even though he did nothing wrong. He was totally faithful, totally trusting God and yet spent decades in prison. Has God worked things out in his life through faith? If you're facing an overwhelming obstacle today, a wall that's in front of you that just seems like you cannot get over it, you can draw inspiration from the story of Joshua. The children of Israel as they marched around the walls of Jericho and saw their God tear those walls down. These stories that we've been studying for 15 weekends are stories that we can draw inspiration from, but now the right of Hebrews begins to change his tone. And I wanna give you three realities that he gives us in these verses this morning. And here's the first one. You are in the race. I want you to make it personal and say it out loud with me. I want you to say, I am in the race. Ready, one, two, three. I am in the race. You're in the race. Up until this point, the writer of Hebrews has been trying to encourage us. He's been trying to inspire us. He's been trying to motivate us. But now he's changing his tone. The construction in the Greek text here in chapter 12, these first two verses is a very strong Greek construction that communicates a powerful exhortation. It's like when I grew up, I grew up playing sports and I was never the superstar athlete, but I always loved playing a lot of different kinds of sports. I played basketball and baseball and football and golf, and I just loved sports. And I had different coaches like I'm sure you did if you played athletics. And there were some times that the coach would try to inspire us with stories. There were times that the football coach he'd gather the team together and he would tell us some motivational story that seemed overly embellished and parts of it grossly exaggerated, obviously. But he would tell you this story that would try to inspire you and motivate you and take you to a level of playing that you'd never been to before. And then there were other times when the coach would grab you by the face mask and pull you in close and spit in your face as he was shouting to you and challenging you with what he wanted you to execute. Hebrews chapter 11, the right of Hebrews has been telling us those stories. He's not been exaggerating. He's been under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God telling us powerful stories of how God worked in the lives of ordinary people through faith. But in chapter 12 verse one, he's grabbing our face mask. The Greek construction here is the picture of him challenging us to our core. Based on all of these stories, based on all of these examples, he is now in our face and he is saying it is time for us with faith to run the race. And the way that he says it here in chapter 12 verse one, it's in a continuous tense. It means that you could literally translate it, let us keep on continuously running the race. So here's what I want you to hear this morning. As we get to the end of this service, the question that I'm going to pose to you is not will you run. The moment you gave your life to Jesus Christ, the moment you put your faith and trust in Jesus and surrendered the control of your life to him, guess what, you entered the race, you are in the race. The question today is not will you run. Here's the question of the morning. How are you running? All of us who are followers of Christ are in the race. That definition, not trusting in myself, but resting moment by moment in his very life and me. If you've given your life to Jesus Christ, that's your life. The question is not will you. The question is how are you doing at that? How is that finding its practice in your life? Let me give you a second reality. You must daily prepare to run. You see, because the race is continuous, our preparation needs to be continuous. Because the race is ongoing. It's not just a sprint that you finish in a couple of days, it's a marathon, it's my whole life. From now to eternity, I'm in a race. It's a race of faith where I'm living in dependence on God for Christ to manifest his very life through me. And I'm to daily prepare myself to run. And the right of Hebrews says there are two things we need to do to prepare. Number one, there's some things we need to remove. From our lives, if we're gonna run the race effectively. He says, therefore, since we have so great a lot of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside. That phrase lay aside means to strip off. And it's the picture in the Greek games and the time that this was written. It's the picture of the athletes stripping away the excess robes and everything down to the bare necessities so that they could be ready to run. They would remove anything that would be an obstacle or a hindrance so that they could run the race. Effectively. And he adds a very important word in the text here. He says, let us lay aside every. The word every is a word that means all. And it applies to every single thing. Here the writer of Hebrews is telling us that if you and I are gonna live a life of dependence on God, if we're gonna, to see God and experience him in extraordinary ways in our lives, it is imperative that we lay aside any and everything that hinders our ability to live the life of faith. When you see athletes on television that are about to run a race, what do they do? They strip down to almost nothing, right? I mean, what I have on is underwear is bigger than what most of those people wear when they're running a race, right? I mean, they're shoes way less than my socks. Why do they do that? Why do those marathon runners strip down to almost nothing because they have one focus and that is to run the race? And so they're removing anything that could be a hindrance, any weight that could be an obstacle, anything that could be a distraction, they're getting it away so that they can run the race. Well, the writer tells us two things we need to lay aside. Number one, he says we're to lay aside every encumbrance. The word encumbrance is a word that in the Greek literally means just excess weight. And it's interesting because he's not just referring here in this particular part of the verse, he's not referring necessarily to sinful habits. He's about to deal with that later on in the verse. He says every encumbrance and the sin, so implying encumbrances may or may not be sinful. What he's saying is there are some things in our life that may not be sinful habits or disobedient behavior. They could be good, legitimate things, but they can become obstacles and hindrances and distractions to living the life of faith. Chuck Swindall said it this way. Lay aside anything and everything that might weigh us down and keep us from running well. Another way to say that word encumbrances may be in our context, the word distraction. Anything that might divert our attention from him, and there are so many things. I want to give you a few examples. I hesitate to do it because I'm going to miss yours, but I want to give you a few examples so you can kind of begin a process. These are not bad things, they're not wrong things, but they can become obstacles and hindrances, for example, technology. Technology is a good thing. Technology, the advancement in technology has led to many wonderful things in our society. We have all kinds of access to technology through television, the internet, social networks. These are not necessarily in and of themselves, bad things at all. They can be very good things, but they can also be a distraction. John Piper said this, one of the guys on our team gave me this quote this week. Listen what John Piper said. One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the last day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time. I don't know about you, but now in my own personal devotional time, I always try, I use my iPad a lot now when I'm spending time with the Lord because I have access to online devotional tools and different things, but you know the danger of that? When I turn that iPad on and I start going online to pull down those devotional tools, guess what else all clicks in? All the emails and all the Twitter messages and all that stuff and guess what it can become? I can wind up spending 20 or 30 minutes chasing all those rabbits and go, oh yeah, I sat down here to spend time with God. Technology is not a bad thing, but we have to be careful that it doesn't become a distraction. Isn't it interesting how something that we use to save time, we wind up wasting so much of it with it? Technology, another one, my serving. My serving, isn't serving others, serving inside the church, serving outside the, aren't those good things? Absolutely, it's a good thing. But if I'm serving others out of my own strength, instead of dependence on him and allowing him to serve through me, my service can be a distraction. Let me show it to you in the Bible. Turn over if you have your Bible there, it's Luke chapter 10. Luke chapter 10 is one of those really funny stories in the Bible, it's some great humor in the Bible if you can see it. Luke 10 verse 38, it's the story of Mary and Martha. You know that story? Here's what it says, "Now as they were traveling along, "he, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha "welcome them into her home." Come on in Jesus, we'd love to have you with us. Jesus, it says in verse 13, "She had a sister called Mary "who was seated at the Lord's feet listening to his word." But Martha was, what's the next word, said out loud? Distracted, Martha was distracted with all her preparations and she came up to him and said, "Lord, do you not care?" Now, if you begin your question to Jesus Christ with those words, you know your perspective is all. Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving all by myself? Tell her to help me, that's what the verse says. But the Lord answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, "you are worried and bothered by so many things, "but only one thing is necessary "for Mary has chosen the good part, "which shall not be taken away from her." Preaching the gospel for me can be a great distraction. It can be an encumbrance. If I become more consumed with the task that I'm to perform than the God that's called me and to intimate fellowship with himself, that he, see the reality is I don't have anything for you, but he does, and as he speaks through me, that's the life of faith. My opinions are no better than yours. My counsels no better than yours. Are you serving out of the overflow of intimacy with God? Our job, our career can be a hindrance, an encumbrance, a distraction. It's right for me to have a desire to provide for my family. It's right for me out of the provision that I earned to have a desire to live generously and to make an investment in the kingdom of God and be a blessing to others. That's not wrong, but I can let it become a distraction if that becomes the focus of my life, and I bring all of that weight onto myself and cease to live in dependence on God, understanding that my job is not the source. My job is just a resource. The source is God himself. My hobbies. Oh, pastor, why'd you have to go there, right? Again, hobbies are not a bad thing. They're good. God wants us to enjoy life, but hobbies can be a distraction. I love you and LV basketball. I do. I love watching the Rebels play. I'm a part of the rebellion. I love it. I love going to the game. I haven't been such a great week this week if you've been following, but I still love the Rebels. I love you and LV basketball, but listen to me. You and LV basketball, although it's not a bad thing, it's been bad execution this week, it's not a bad thing. (congregation laughing) Can become a distraction in my life if I let it? Can become a hindrance? Here's the first question I want you to wrestle with. Are there things in your life that although they may not be sinful, you would admit are hindering your life of faith? I'm gonna ask that again. What else do you think about it? Are there things in your life? You can justify them as good things. They're not sinful, but they're hindering your life of faith. He says, first of all, I gotta remove the encumbrances. Then he says, "And the sin," which so easily entangles us. I love the way Kenneth weast, the great Greek scholar translates it. He says, "The sin which so skillfully and cleverly places itself in an entangling way around us." And he says, "The sin," that definite article is very important. He did not say, "Let us remove every encumbrance and sin." He said, "Let us remove every encumbrance and," say it out loud, "The sin." What is "The sin?" I know what you're thinking, "Oh Lord, please don't let it be mine." Or let him name somebody else's. What is "The sin?" Well, the context here, the picture that we need to have in our minds is trying to run a race. He uses this phrase entangling. It's this picture of a long flowing robe that would have to be taken off first to be able to run. Imagine trying to run a race with a bathrobe on, you're tripping over it and it's catching your feet all the time. That's a "The sin" he's talking about. What is it? Well, in the context here of coming out of Hebrews 11, Hebrews 11 is all about what? Faith. What's the opposite of faith? Unbelief. Thus in is the sin of unbelief. And I want to give you a definition in this context that will help you see it. Here's what I mean when I say unbelief. Look at it on the screen. Unbelief is trusting in the lies of my flesh, the world and Satan rather than trusting in God. You see the life of faith, the race that you and I are called to run is moment by moment living independence on him, not only not trusting in myself, but resting moment by moment in him. He is the truth. But every moment of my life, I also face the lie. Lies come first of all from my own heart, from my flesh. Can I be honest with you this morning? Listen to me, don't you look at me. You are the greatest liar to yourself. I am the greatest liar to myself. I will tell myself that this is exactly what I need to be happy. I will tell myself this will bring me pleasure. I will, my heart will tell me this will bring me joy. My heart will tell me this will meet my deepest need. And it'll lie, lie, lie about what I need. Let me show it to you in the Bible. Jeremiah chapter 17 verse nine says the heart, and there it's talking about our desires, our wants, our flesh. The heart is more deceitful than all else. Here's what that says. There is nothing more deceitful than my own heart. And it is desperately sick, meaning it is incurable. Who can understand it? Let's see what Matthew Henry says, I love this quote. There is that wickedness in our hearts, which we ourselves are not aware of and do not suspect to be there. If you don't know that, you are a prime target for the enemy. Sometimes your heart will tell you what you need is the exact opposite of what God's word says. And as Christians, let me tell you what we can do. We can use Christian ease, they even make it sound spiritual. I've had people sit in my office, look me right in the eye and tell me it is God's will for them to do something that's black and white in the Bible. And then they'll say, I'll pray about it. If it's in the Bible, listen, listen, you don't have to pray about it. (congregation laughing) You don't have to pray about it. If it's in the book, stop asking. My heart will lie to me, but not only my flesh will lie to me, this world lies to me. When I use the word world, I'm talking about the values and desires and principles that dominate our society. Listen to what John said in first John chapter two. He said, do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him for all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but it's from the world. And the world is passing away and also it's lust, but the one who does the will of God lives forever. We live in a world system that is bent towards doing the opposite of what God would have us do. Through every influence in the media and social networks and movies and music, there's a constant bombardment to take sin and make it entertaining, to take the things that are opposite to the holiness and character of God and make them palatable to us because we laugh about them in a humorous way. The world is constantly deceiving and twisting and distorting the truth of God and showing you the sin, but removing the consequences. The world will lie to us. And ultimately we have an enemy, Satan himself, who will lie to us. The Bible says of him in John chapter eight, he's a father and he is a liar and the father of lies. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. The greatest lie that he's convinced us of is that he doesn't really exist. Churches don't even hardly talk about him. Satan, oh, we don't talk about that. That's not seeker sensitive. That doesn't make us feel good. What is that? He doesn't want you to know he's real. He didn't want you to know that he has a strategy designed to destroy your life. Let me give you a life application. Every sin in my life is choosing to believe a lie rather than the truth of God. Don't you hear that again? That is so important. Every sin in my life is choosing to believe a lie rather than the truth of God. Let me give you an illustration or an example of a sin that I think we all agree, hey, that's definitely a sin. The sin of adultery. What is the lie? The lie is what you really need to be happy is somebody else. What you really need to meet, you're not ever gonna have your deepest needs met with this person. You're emotional and spiritual and physical need. They're not gonna ever be satisfied in this relationship. You see this person, that's, they're what you really need. That'll, that'll bless you. That'll, that'll bring you, you see, this person's holding you back. See how happy you'd be with that person? Let me tell you what that is. It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie from the pit of hell. It's a lie that our society will tell you. It's our lie that we'll make movies about and celebrate. It's a lie that we'll write songs about and give awards about. It's a lie that we'll even believe in our own heart. It's a lie. Let me tell you the truth. Here's the truth of the Bible. God desires to meet every need you have through your spouse. That's the truth. God will. You say pastor, you don't know my spouse. Hey, it's not about trusting your spouse. Listen, listen, you're missing a point. It's not about trusting your spouse. It's about trusting God. It's not about is your spouse good enough? Is your spouse great enough? No, it's about is God good enough? Is God great enough? This is about living moment by moment, independence on God, trusting Christ Jesus Himself to manifest His very life through me. Now, let me give you the key. Here's the key. Expose the lies of the enemy to the truth of God and by faith walk in the truth. That's the key. You want victory in your life. You want to experience Hebrews chapter 11 moments in your life. You want the extraordinary power and demonstration of the life of God in your life. You expose the truth, the lies of the enemy to the truth of God and by faith, even when you don't feel it, you believe the truth. You, and listen, what I'm talking about is not a moment of decision that you're gonna make today and then you're gonna be good enough. I'm talking about every moment of the rest of your life choosing to believe the truth and depend on the power of God rather than embracing the lie. Laying aside the encumbrances and the sin. Here's the second question I want you to wrestle with. Are there sinful habits in your life? That are hindering your ability to run. And if so, what is the lie that you're believing? What's the lie? What is the truth? That's why in that definition we gave you. We said moment by moment. 'Cause here's what'll happen. In this moment you'll say, Lord, I know it's a lie, my heart's Lord, I know it's a lie. So God, I claim your truth, I believe your truth. God, I throw myself on your mercy and guess what, two minutes later, that lies back. It's coming in looking different, but it's the same old lie. It'll come at you from a different direction. And you gotta once again say, Lord, in this moment and you just begin to live, it becomes so natural to you that it's like breathing. You just begin to live moment by moment and dependence on the spirit of God in your life. There are things we gotta remove, but then he says, we gotta move on. Y'all aren't listening fast enough. There's some things, you better be glad right now, you're not the 11 o'clock service, right? They don't have a book in, they don't get out of jail free card at 11. Here's the second thing, he says, not only are there some things we gotta remove, he says there's some things we need to embrace if we're gonna prepare ourselves daily. He says, let us run with endurance. The word endurance here is a word that means steady determination. It refers to the quality of character, which does not allow one to surrender to circumstances. Here the writer of Hebrews describes the Christian life as a race. Listen to the Greek word that we translate race. Here's the Greek word, agon. You know what English word we get from it? Agony. It literally means struggle, conflict. If you came into this thing of Christianity believing that it was a race through a better roses, you've embraced part of the lie. One of the ways that the enemy tries to frustrate and discourage us is by saying, see here you've given your life to Jesus and it ain't all working out like you thought it was going to. No, the writer of Hebrews says they're gonna be some days of struggle. They're gonna be some days it feels more like agony than mercy. They're gonna be some days of conflict. They're gonna be some days when you're at the bottom emotionally. But here's what he's saying here. If we're gonna run the race faithfully, we must embrace it all with a steadfast endurance, understanding it is the race that God has set for me. And although it may be bigger than me, it is never bigger than him. And if I will live independence on him, he will see me through. I must embrace it. How do I do that? By faith, listen, I don't always understand that. But by faith, I have to lay hold of that. Why? Because it's what God said. It's what God said. Isn't it interesting that often our first reaction in difficult days is to give up on God? We drop out of church. We quit going to small group. We stop reading our Bible. He says if we're gonna run the race, we gotta embrace it all. The good and the bad, the highs and the lows, the mountain tops and the valleys. Because he's God of it all. The last reality I want you to see this morning, not only you are in the race and you must daily prepare to run, but here's the last thing, you must focus to run. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus. And running where you look is very important. If you don't believe me, when we finish, go outside in the courtyard, close your eyes and take off. It will not take you very long to figure out when you are running where you are looking is very important. Fixing our eyes on Jesus. Paul said it this way in Philippians 3, verse eight. More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For whom I have suffered the loss of all, and here's what he said, I've laid everything else aside. "And count them but rubbish that I may gain Christ." The writer of Hebrews says that we are to focus on Jesus and he gives us two reasons why, number one, he is the author of our faith. The word authors, a word in the Greek that literally simply means chief example. Here's what that means, when Jesus was on the earth in his humanity, let me tell you what he did. He lived for you and I a perfect example of complete dependence on the Father. He modeled the light, that's why in John 14, here's what he said, he said when you hear my words, he said it's not my words, it's the Father's words in me. He said when you see my works, he says not my works, it's the Father's works in me. He said I did not come to do, to accomplish my will. He said but the will of him who sent me in the garden where he prayed there in John 17, he said not my will, but your will, what did he do? He modeled for us exactly what he wants for us. Listen, Jesus didn't call us to live the Christian life, he called us that he may live his life through us and he modeled that as the chief example, but then he says also he is the perfecter of our faith. The word perfecter is a word that means the one who carries it through to completion. Jesus offers his, listen, Jesus didn't just die for us, he desires to live through us and that is the message of the gospel. Christ living his life, that's why in that definition we gave you, not trusting in myself, but resting moment by moment, what? In his very life in me. Let me encourage you by discouraging you, all right? You cannot live the Christian life. But you were never expected to. He desires to live his life through you as you live in dependence on him and that is radically different. Let me close with this quote by Major Ian Thomas, look what he said. The Christian life is the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, lived 2,000 years ago, lived now by him in you. Let us run the race. The race. [BLANK_AUDIO]