In his sermon 'Looking Unto Jesus,' Paul Carrington urges believers to fix their eyes on Jesus, especially as they navigate the challenges of the Christian life. He draws from Hebrews 12:1-2 to emphasize the importance of laying aside every weight and sin that hinders one's spiritual race. Carrington highlights various biblical figures, both good and bad examples, to illustrate the theme of keeping the heart. He underscores that the greatest difficulty in the Christian life is keeping the heart with God, and the greatest remedy is looking unto Jesus. The sermon also touches on the historical context of the Book of Hebrews, written to Jewish Christians facing persecution. Carrington uses vivid imagery, such as a race and a stadium filled with cheering witnesses, to convey the Christian journey. He concludes by extolling Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith, encouraging believers to draw strength from Him in every season of life.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus is really the theme of the afternoon here. I would ask you if you could please open up to Hebrews chapter 12. And we're going to be in the first two verses, Hebrews chapter 12. And I want to wrap up our series on keeping the heart. And you know, I was asking myself, what scripture would be more appropriate after examining the lives of so many saints.

We've looked at some bad examples of saints, people that were actually saved but clambered up, I would say, kind of the backside of the mountain, men like Lot and Solomon, even Eli. Then we had some good examples as well. We looked at different ones like Simeon and Joseph in the Old Testament, and Noah, Josiah, Hannah, Onesiphorus, different ones along these lines, all with the theme of keeping the heart. And I'm not sure if you remember, but we opened up with a quote from John Flavel when he was speaking about just what it is to keep your heart with all diligence, because out of it flow the issues of life. And one of the things he said is that the greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God.

And the greatest difficulty after conversion is to keep the heart with God. That's really the reality of those of us who are walking as Christians and seeking to honor the Lord. And you know just a couple of weeks ago, Melinda and I, we were hiking and we were kind of in the middle of nowhere in these hills and valleys, beautiful scene. And we came across a very small flock of sheep that were there. And as we got closer, you know, the sheep got a little bit nervous and stood up and kind of tried to trot off.

But I noticed some of these sheep are limping. That's kind of strange and as I got closer you saw that their foreleg and their hind leg they were bound together with a leather strap. I guess to keep them from jumping fences and to take off or whatever. And I looked at these sheep and I sympathized, said under my breath, prone to wonder, Lord I feel it. And you know that's really so, such a vivid picture of the Christian.

Not all the sheep were in that condition, but there were about maybe half of them that were like that. And you know, I want to just focus here today on looking to Jesus. If the greatest difficulty is to keep the heart with God. The greatest remedy is looking unto Jesus. And that's really the epitome of not just what I want to talk about today, but this is the epitome of the Christian life from beginning to the very last breath that you take, looking onto Jesus.

It's the greatest duty and privilege of any Christian. And I want to talk to us about really not just looking in the sense of gaze. And when I say look, right, children, I can say look back there and you'll look but what I'm talking about is an experimental looking and beholding of the Lord himself to know him by personal experiences so let's read these these few verses here before us Hebrews chapter 12 I'll read it and then we'll pray. Hear the word of the Lord. Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Let's pray. Oh father we thank you so much for the sending of your son. We thank you for his coming, his life, his dying, and then being raised again. And now there he is, Lord, as we read just a little bit further on seated at your right hand. Lord, we thank you so much for your goodness, Lord.

Thank you for a glimpse of your son. We pray today Lord that you would make us more conscious of this great privilege. Help us oh Lord to find ourselves just gazing and looking upon him and honoring you in the process, oh Lord. Thank you so much for your kindness. Move upon us now.

Help me, Lord, as we open up these few verses. And may you get all the glory and all the praise that is due to your great name. Amen. Amen. Well, the context of Hebrews is a really interesting one.

It's written obviously to Jewish Christians and they were living outside of Israel and already they'd faced a wave of intense persecution. They had suffered the plundering of their goods and all sorts of other things. And now another wave was rolling upon them. And a lot of these Jewish Christians were wondering, do we continue in the faith? This is just so hard.

What's going to happen next? They hadn't yet yielded to martyrdom, but things were getting harder and harder. And they found themselves, in a sense, you could say, as people without a place. They couldn't participate in the religion of their host, which was Rome. They lived in the Roman Empire.

But at the same time, they could no longer participate in the religion of their friends and their relatives. And what do we do? This is so, so difficult. And so all of Hebrews really is this whole thrust to look to Jesus. He's greater.

He's better. These are better promises. And the capstone of really the whole book of Hebrews finds us here in these two verses here. It's a letter of encouragement, but it's also, it's peppered with warnings all the way through to not draw back, to not turn back, but to continue in the faith and to walk even though it is intensely difficult. And one of the most beautiful chapters, one that we're all very familiar with, is Hebrews chapter 11.

It's so beautiful, right? We read of all these different heroes of the faith, one after the other, chronologically going down. And really, what's the fact of the matter? Well, all saints who have ever been saved, before Christ came or those who were saved after he came, they have this singular mark about them. And it could be summarized in that they looked upon Jesus.

They looked to him for everything. And before we get to really, I want to focus on verse 2, But before we do that, we have this wonderful metaphor laid before us in verse 1. I'm going to read that again. He says, the writer of Hebrews says, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." Well, all of a sudden, we've got this very vivid and clear picture before us. This picture of a race is really the first time it's introduced here in the book of Hebrews.

And not only are we just running a race, but there's this great crowd or throng of people that are already looking on, people that have already finished their race with commendation. And they're the ones looking at us. In Hebrews chapter 11, 18 different men and women are mentioned by name. But really, there's a cloud. He says there's a cloud, this massive throng of people.

The known as well as the unknown saints of bygone eras are laid before us. And so in chapter 12, it's this picture after running this long marathon, you're finally entering into the stadium for the final lap, this final stretch, and this great crowd is in a sense cheering us on. I don't know if some of you children, if you've ever been in a stadium, probably I don't think our children have ever been in an actual stadium, but you know you have events like the Olympics and other things like that and sometimes the shouting can be deafening. That's the effect of entering into a stadium at the peak. And some of us might have heard of a man by the name of Eric Little.

He was a man, he had the nickname the Flying Scott. He was a Christian man. He loved the Lord. This man ended up dying at 43 as a missionary somewhere over in China. But before he became a missionary, he was an Olympic runner.

He was literally at the peak, probably the fastest man on the planet, at least in the 400 meters. And one of the things he says, he says, God made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure. What a beautiful quote. And so he would run around that 400 meter.

If you don't know what 400 meters is it's it's once around a track you say that's not a big deal but when you're running at your absolute max speed it's quite quite a feat and they asked him they said how is it that A lot of runners kind of faint and get more tired as the race goes on, but you, when you run, you seem to get faster. He says this, he says, the secret of my success over the 400 meters is that I run the first 200 meters as fast as I can. And then for the second 200 meters, with God's help, I run faster. This is the man and and this is the picture though I want you to get. The strangest thing about this man, as fast as he was, he had the most ridiculous form of a runner.

As he was running, he would tilt his head as he got to the final stretch, straight up, and he would be looking at the sky. And that's how he would run. How did he keep straight? God only knows. But he was looking upward the whole time.

And that's the picture I want you to have today as we go through these verses. Think of Eric Little ending his race, but he's looking upward. And that's what we ought to do. And the beautiful thing here is that notice what's happening. He says this, that we're surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses.

That word witnesses actually is translated martyrs. These aren't just fans. These aren't just onlookers. These aren't just bystanders, but these are people that have actually participated and finished the race already. The idea is that these men and women, they bore faith, they bore witness already to the to the faith of God and the veracity that God is true, and that he is the one who will keep you to the end.

That's really the idea. You know the writer's objective, I kind of paraphrase it like this, all that I said in chapter 11 wasn't just information, biographical sketches, no, but encouragement to run the race just like others in times past. Others have gone through unspeakable difficulty and overcome. And so the question is, why not you? I know it's hard, but don't stop and don't veer off the course.

So the question we sometimes ask ourselves, I know, if we really examine each one of us or to ask each one of us, are you sometimes discouraged or perplexed, maybe even privately thinking of packing it in, or maybe you find yourself even drifting. You don't quite know where you went off course. It might have been a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, but you're not quite where you were, where you want it to be. Those are difficult things. Maybe you're growing faint-hearted or a little bit weary and maybe it's unknown to the rest of us.

But you wouldn't be too far away from the intention of the author. He's writing to people in this exact type of thing. And what I love about this, I never noticed this before until I started just studying it this past week. But notice what he says, let us. Let us.

And what's so amazing about that is he's a man writing to these people, these Jewish Christians that are facing difficulty, but he's putting himself in there. It's kind of like Peter, you know, at the end of the book of Peter he says, who also am a fellow elder, right? He's putting himself in with them and he's not in the crowd, He's not even a coach kind of egging them on from the sideline, but he's acknowledging the fact that he's also running to win the prize. I just got encouragement from that. And so to prosper in this Christian race, he gives us four things to do.

The first one, he says, is lay aside every weight. Then he says, lay aside the sin which clings so closely or so easily and snares us. And then he says, continue running with endurance. And then the capstone is looking unto Jesus or look unto Jesus. So the first one is lay aside every weight and again this whole idea of thinking of an athlete running in a race well anything that encumbers and and renders him less fitted for the race has to go.

That's really the idea. You try to lighten yourself as much as you can. You know, the interesting thing about this is sin is sin, right? We know sin is a transgression of God's law. But this idea of, he says lay aside weights in a separate category and sins which we'll get to in a second.

And what are weights? What are weights? Well what might be a weight to me might not be a weight to you, but it's an encumbrance or a hindrance to me. Because we're all different, what might be something that I get so carried away with, it could even be a good thing, but I get so heavily invested in it that it ends up becoming a bad thing, a weight. It could be something for men like for me in particular it could be something like the news.

It's good to know what's going on but it could also be something that's so just cloying, something that weighs you down because you got to know what's going on every second in every place in the world or Could be something else for a woman. It might be another thing altogether. It's not an evil That's what I want to emphasize, but it could become an evil and you have to be able to examine Yourself am I weighted down by something that is is hindering me from running this race more freely and with a focus that I should be looking ahead a Slave to your feelings perhaps Feelings are given by God, but you can become a slave to your feelings. It's something that damps the vigor of your souls. You love the Lord, but it's not the beating pulse, the heart isn't quite there that you would want it to be.

And so, again, I emphasize the fact that it's not the same in every single person. It's something for you to examine, to lay aside. What is it that's hindering me, hampering me from running the race? And then, of course, he says, lay aside the sin, which clings so closely. It's almost like clothing.

That's kind of the idea. It so easily ensnares us. And he's not talking about a specific sin, but he's speaking about sin in general. That the work of the Christian life is to lay aside. We see this all throughout the letters that Paul writes.

He says, put this off and put this on. Put this off and put this on. That's kind of the idea. It's the sin that swirls around us, that's within us, that's constantly laying snares for our feet. Imagine trying to run a race and you're carrying rope and you're running and you're constantly tripping.

Well, you would look at a person doing that and say, how foolish, why don't you put down the rope so you can run unencumbered? But how often I run, we run just like that? And so these things are hard to do when we live as mere travelers, right? Sometimes I think when I look at my life, do I really picture myself as running in a race? When Paul says, so fight I, not as one who beats the air, he's picturing himself in a hand-to-hand combat, boxing, or some sort of fight.

Do we see our lives like that when you're changing diapers, or driving to work, or paying the bill? Do you see your life as an actual battle, as a fight? You know that word race by the way, it doesn't mean just race, it does mean battle, it means contest. And that's what this writer really has in mind. And you notice that all of a sudden when you look through the scriptures how often is the Christian life a race, a fight, a contest, something that may seem foreign to modern ears when any sense of doing anything, hyper grace could take over and any sense of works or putting your hand to the plow, pressing on, right?

Paul says that, I press toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ. That seems sometimes foreign to modern ears that gets spoiled with some of the other things and unbalanced. But he's talking to us about these important things of laying aside the weights and the sins. And then he says the third point, continue running the race with endurance and perseverance. It's the idea of steady advance, of strenuous effort.

And I like how Matthew Henry puts it. He says, now look at this, he says, worldly men, worldly men, in their choice of object are foolish, but in their activity and perseverance, they are often wiser than believers. Wow when I read that isn't that so true? I'm reading a book right now on the advance of communism in the United States you know coming out of World War II 50s onward and you look at the dedication of these people who have they know they're not going to seek communist takeover in their lifetime they're thinking in a hundred years maybe we'll have made the advance and the turn will come But they have such dedication and then they have the dedication and the vision, but then the actual strategy to do it. Okay, what do we do?

We take over the media. How do we do it? This is how we do it. We take over the school system. How?

We start here, then we go there. And the strategy is so amazingly laid out for a destructive cause, an atheistic purpose. But the point is, is that as individuals who have a high calling and have an actual goal that is eternal, how we ought to run the race with great zeal. McLaren says this, he says, active perseverance which presses on unmoved, yea, unhindered to its goal in the teeth of all opposition is how the Christian ought to live. It's quite humbling.

He says notice the race that is set before us. Well the question is who sets the race before us? It's the Lord of the games. It's the Lord Himself who does this. And so just remember that the whole of the Christian life is a fight, and our task is to keep our hearts with all diligence as we go through season after season, wherever you find yourself.

And then we finally get to the capstone as I said earlier. Really the source of all the strength to run the race is looking unto Jesus. How much is bound up in those three little words, looking unto Jesus. Now What I said earlier, looking, it doesn't just, the word doesn't capture really the full expression. You know what this really means?

The idea of looking, at least as it was originally intended, is to avert your gaze from one thing and then to fix your gaze on another thing. It's the idea of forcing yourself to look off of, and fill in the blank, any number of different things, and then to fix your gaze on another thing. It's the idea of forcing yourself to look off of, and fill in the blank, any number of different things, and then to fix your gaze on the object, in this case, the Lord Jesus Christ himself. This is really the chief thought that the runner's steadfast gaze is fixed on the one, Jesus Christ, who has already traversed the course before us and is now the judge and the rewarder. And what I love about this is in chapter 11, you remember we saw patriarchs, we saw judges, we saw kings, we saw prophets, we saw righteous men, and each of them admirable.

But the idea here in Hebrews chapter 12 is all of them just fade from view. They're not, they're nothing right now. They're in one class, but the thing that should hold our focus is something altogether different. It's the idea of here's the runner running the final race. There's trumpets, there's cheering, but all that fades to silence as the runner locks his gaze on the Lord before him.

This is the picture he's trying to drive home in these two little verses here. So important that we we grasp this and so what is there to look at what is there to fix on well I want to talk about Jesus Christ there's only one he's the most excellent one to look at he's the most excellent one to think on He's the most excellent one to sing about. He's beautiful. He's the most amazing one to write about, to do, to speak about when you're talking in your home, when you're with your friends. He's the height of absolutely everything.

And you know the great deception of Islam for example Is that they laud him as one of the greatest the five greatest prophets while taking away who he really is You see the great sin and crime of Roman Catholicism is that they put other mediators and venerated saints in front of him like hurdles on the track that you've got to stop and calculate and get through before you get to Jesus Christ. Those are false religions. But the whole idea is that he is first of all savior. He's not just, it's not just that he purchased us, but think of how he purchased us. And just think of Christ for a moment.

He purchased us with the price of his own blood. He's the lamb slain, and yet he's standing. There he is in Revelation chapter five. He's the only one when they do the survey of heaven and earth and under the earth. The only one that can come up to the Father and take the scroll of the right hand of him who lives forever is Jesus Christ.

He takes his crowned rights over everything in heaven and in earth and no one says what are you doing instead they cry worthy worthy to the land That's what we ought to do and that's how we ought to spend ourselves Throughout the course of our life. How should we describe them when you look back in Isaiah chapter 6? What do you find you see these beings these seraph and they've got what six wings? But with two-thirds of those wings, four of those wings, they cover their feet and then they cover their eyes. Only two of them are used to fly and they're beholding Jesus Christ.

That's Jesus in Isaiah chapter 6 and how well the writer he puts it he says no angel in the sky can fully bear that sight but downward bends his burning eye at mysteries so bright. That's how they regard Jesus Christ. And all they can do is sing, Holy, Holy, Holy. That's the theme there in the presence of the Lord. And speaking of angels, having been witnesses of the awful state of man, think of it, from the fall of Adam, they've seen it all.

They've been onlookers to all that man has done, the grotesque evil that he's done all through history, things that we don't even know about. And then Peter says in his writing that these same angels, they desire to look into the salvation that Jesus Christ has wrought for us. It's almost like they desire to pry open. How can they grasp and understand the very things that you experience as a blood-bought son or daughter of the king? They're baffled at how he was able to accomplish the greatest reversal that could ever be imagined.

The salvation of sin-drenched evil, wicked men made sons and daughters. It's amazing. He's the pearl of great price, isn't he? Possess Him and you possess all. He's the way, the truth, and the life.

He's the ladder between heaven and earth. I don't know, our brother was preaching today and you notice what it says, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. This connection, Nazareth, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Can anything good come out of any one of us?

He takes the most vile things and he makes them good. That's amazing. He's the only mediator between God and man. And so I ask myself if all of this is true, And why aren't my thoughts more upon Him? That's what I find myself saying.

Oh Lord, why am I so attracted to trinkets, to baubles? Why does the praise of man hold anything at all with me? Why do I care about any of that when I can have Jesus Christ. Well, he's the Savior, but he's not only the Savior, he's the King. And he's not just a King, but the Bible describes him as the King before whom every other King will bow.

And as we heard this morning, not only every king, but every single tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And I ask you a question, If he is the king, what's the extent of his kingdom? You know there seems to be some sort of controversy today, but to say Christ is king, even among Christians they might, should you say that? Christ is king, and what are the bounds of his kingdom? Where does He draw the line and say, well, I go this far.

Here are the hinterlands, but I don't go that. No. All power has been given to me in heaven and in earth. He's taken his crown rights over absolutely everything, and by him everything is upheld. So we ought to live in the light of this beautiful thing.

You know, everything is wrapped up in looking unto Jesus, fixing our eyes upon him in every single season of life. I love how Ambrose, Isaac Ambrose, he wrote a book called Looking Unto Jesus. And you know what he says in the intro? He says, I beseech thee, come, warm your heart at this blessed fire of just looking unto him. And so whatever season you're in, this is the greatest nourishment for your soul.

High, low, doesn't matter, rich, poor, sick or in health, doesn't matter. But look unto Jesus. He's not only the Savior, he's not only the King, but he's God. It's, you know, it's something to think about that all of man's happiness is really wrapped up in fellowship with Him. All of our happiness is wrapped up in Him.

You know I was talking to a brother we all know on Thursday and we were talking about Christ and you know what what what can you have? What do you really have if you don't have Jesus? What's the purpose of life if you don't have Christ? It's nothing at all. You have nothing.

But when you have Christ, you have everything that pertains to happiness and true joy. And this is what we ought to look at more and more as Him. All things were created through Him and for Him. In Him all things, as I said, they hold together. He's a hiding place from the wind.

He's a covert from the tempest. His rivers of water in a dry place, that's who he is. He's the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Just think about how good he is. And then the author here, he says this, that Jesus is the author.

He's the author. It's the same word we saw today in Acts chapter 3. The same word for author is the same word for prince in Acts chapter 3. You killed the Prince of life. That's that same word.

And what it really means is he's the captain, he's the commander, he's the one, he's the standard bearer. You know, if you think of a battle of old, waving the flag and he's bidding everyone, follow me. I will not only show you the way but I am the way this is who he is and he's leading many sons to glory as the author the entire army of the redeemed they follow in his train that's who we really are he's the Lord of hosts the Lord of the armies of heaven. That's what it means to be the author. But I love the next phrase.

It says how he's also the finisher or he's the perfecter. Maybe that's a better way to say it. You look at yourself, you say, look at me right now, here it is April 2024, and I'm not running perhaps as I wish I was, or living, I've got this weight, I've got this sin. Guess what? He's the perfector of your faith.

Draw comfort from that. What comfort that is to the hobbled sheep that he's the one that's going to carry you through. You know what I love about this one thought is when you contrast Hebrews chapter 11 with chapter 12, Hebrews chapter 11, they were wonderful patterns. Isn't it amazing? You know, you look at people like Noah, you look at Moses, You look at all these different individuals.

But here we see Jesus, he's emphatically set apart altogether from the cloud of witnesses. It's not like he's just the end of the cloud of witnesses. He's in an altogether different category. He's the object and the giver of the faith that they sustained and endured by. That's who he really is.

And what we need more than models and examples, that's who they are for us. This great cloud of witnesses that as we're running we can draw a little bit of strength from, well, Abraham endured, Moses endured, and all these types of things. But that isn't the inner strength that we need to live the Christian life. You know, to run, Jesus isn't just an example, but he actually gives us power to run the Christian race. That's the entire difference between having Christ within you, the hope of glory, and just reading through the Bible and deriving comfort from different examples that we read about.

He's the one, not only does he give you strength, but he's gonna bring the work that he started to completion. So stay in the race, keep running the race. He's the one, as we read at the end of Jude, he's able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Look how we carried Noah in the ark or he carried Abraham through paths unknown, didn't he? He carried Moses away from Egypt and he sustained all of these men.

And what I want you to think of is this, even as you run the race, rest in him. That seems almost like a paradox. How can you be running and resting at the same time? But that's what we ought to do is we run the race in the strength that he provides. We rest in him and get all of our comfort and strength in him.

And so Jesus, I want to just say look to him in every season. He's the Savior. He's the King. He's God. He's the author.

He's the finisher of our faith. And there's no greater medicine for the soul. There's no greater remedy for keeping the heart than looking unto Jesus. There's nothing so heart-keeping as that glimpse, as that fixed gaze upon the one who's gone before us. And so I want to end here, but if nothing warms your heart toward him, let this do the work, this last thought.

I just want to, you know, you look at this and you consider how he ran, but the very fact that he actually ran, the fact that he humbled himself, God, The son humbled himself. And you see the different steps. He humbled himself and became a man. No, not just a man, but a servant. No, not just a servant.

But he humbled himself to die on a cross. The one who created all things. The Prince of Life, as we heard earlier, the creator of absolutely everything. Just the fact that he actually came to this earth and ran a race Should just warm your heart because he was doing it to save men and women like you and me. To humble himself to such a degree, to come here to dwell with us, to live among the filth, to suffer such abuses and unbelief.

You know, McLaren, he says it like this, he says, we lose so much by not making very real to our minds that Jesus lived his earthly life by faith. That for him, as for us, dependence on God and humble confidence in him were the secret of peace and the spring of his power." And so it talks about this idea that for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. Look to him. What does he want you to focus on? The Christ that did this.

He despised the shame and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God. And here we find two words that should never ever come together, let alone in the same sentence. Joy and shame. But they do. Jesus was able and he looked past all the suffering and the shame for the joy that was ahead.

He looked past the present distress of Gethsemane and the mocking and the pain of Golgotha. He looked past the loneliness, the forsaking, the accusing, the beating, the berating, the mocking. And perhaps the greatest thing was the fact that he was the sin bearer, the bearing of God's wrath against sin so that he cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That was the greatest load that he carried. And he endured it for the day when the great wedding supper of the Lamb would take place and it would be hosted with you in it, in attendance, adorned in your wedding garments.

Think about that day. Never to fear, never to faint, never to sin again, but to be with Him forever. And so there He is. I love how it ends here, at the right hand, at God's right hand. He's ready to come at a word.

He's ready to come. When He comes, is it tomorrow? Is it a thousand years from now? That's in God's mind. But we ought to live as we have this final lap, as we run this race, looking unto Jesus.

May God give us grace that as we do run, that we turn our eyes away from things that perhaps don't profit us and run more fixedly on the Lord Jesus Christ, a gaze on him, looking him, beholding him. There's nothing more important. So let's pray together. Oh, Lord, we thank you so much. We thank you for Jesus Christ Lord.

Father I pray that he would occupy more of our hearts. Lord I pray that you would keep our hearts that you would help us to do so by being more fixed in our gaze and and running Lord as those who will one day see you face to face. Help us to run by faith, oh Lord. Give us strength Lord. All of us are different seasons of our lives fighting different battles and struggles, Lord.

Having different weights that we need to cast off, fighting against different sins even. But Lord, we look to you, the author, the one who started it and the one who is the perfecter. Oh Lord, carry us forth, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Then.