"In The Arena Of Faith" | Dr. Joel Gregory

0:00 I want you to join me this morning, if you would, in the 12th chapter of the letter to Hebrews. I want to drop our anchor in the first three verses of that storied chapter. It follows that silver chapter in a golden book, Hebrews 11, the roll call of faith. I would remind you, if I might, that these chapter numbers were not there when the books were written. That was a thousand years later. One flowed right into the other. And here you have, if I were to label this message in the arena of faith. Therefore, we also, since we're 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.

1:30 Would you join me in earnest prayer that God might speak. Eternal God, our triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we praise you, we rejoice in your presence, we express thanksgiving and gratitude for the occasion of this day. but we believe your word is powerful, energetic, living. Please visit that word with your spirit now. Lord, I am undone unless the spirit shows up. And in anointing, these words take flight from these pages of paper and become the living word of God. In this hour, I pray in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. Please be seated. Well, we were reminded yesterday at the long-waited for many of us, the beginning of the college football season.

2:31 I expect some of you joined me, eyes glued to the screen, watching your favorite team. I have to confess, I mourned a little when the Baylor Bears went down in the last second to Auburn, but we'll rise again somehow. But I was also reminded of how electrifying it is to look at the crowds at enormous stadiums. Strange to say the largest stadium in the world today is in North Korea. It holds 150,000 people. Some of you may have looked in yesterday at what they call the big house, the University of Michigan, with 107,000 seated. Right next door to that, almost in Sirens, is Ohio State, and yes, Kyle Field up here, with 102,000.

3:31 there's something electrifying both about being there but even watching these great aggregations of people in a stadium. Well, I'd like to remind you that was not unknown to the very world that received this letter from the Hebrews. There in Rome was the Circus Maximus that held 150,000 screaming spectators spectators watching the chariot races round and round. Or in ancient Athens, when this letter was written, was the original Olympic Stadium holding 50,000 people on 46 marble turns. They knew the excitement of the stadium. And it was just in that scene that whoever apostolically penned this letter said we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses there in that Roman Colosseum that existed when this letter was written.

4:41 50,000 people could gather. They even had devised a canvas shade to cover over those. Perhaps the author had that in mind when he said we're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. That word nephos was often used even in that ancient world for a stadium filled with people. There were Romans in their togas and in their tunics, glistening white under the Italian sun. And if you were in the arena, when you looked up for all the world, it looked like a cloud looking down on you. And yet, in this beloved passage, All those of us who part of the church militant, the church still on earth, are put down in the dust and the dirt of that arena floor. If we make it three score and ten or four score, he pictures us down there.

5:43 But who's in the stands? Well, those in the stands are all of those that he named. In Hebrews chapter 11, beginning with Righteous Abel and Enoch, that whole roll call, are there calling out a witness to us.

6:07 And that's where we join this great passage. I simply want to hang it on two hooks today because there are two imperatives in these three verses, two mandates, two commands to you who are in the arena. Now we're honoring the minister in the ministry today, but we're also all in the arena. And these two mandates are run your race and fix your eyes. I want to rest those mandates and I'll take my seat because this is to every person here who claims to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Run your race.

6:53 Fix your eye. Casting a shadow over this are those opening words of Hebrews 11. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Casting its shadow is Hebrews 11.6. And that is if we have faith, we must believe that God is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Would you join me in putting yourself down in that arena floor? A cloud of witnesses. Now they are witnesses in two cents of that word. They witness to us, and they are spectators of us. First of all, they witness to us. That great North African church father, Tertullian, in his book on the martyrs, said in the second Christian century that in those Roman Colossea, Colisea, when Christians were being torn apart by the lions, from time to time a brave follower of Jesus at the risk of his own life up in the stadium would cry out, finish the race! That is, would bear witness to them. It hadn't been a little more than two weeks ago, I was in Izmir, ancient Smyrna, one of the seven churches addressed in the book of Revelation. And I stood there where their bishop Polycarp stood.

8:29 I couldn't help but stand there, Bishop Dixon, deeply moved. Polycarp, toward the end of his race, was told to burn a pinch of incense and simply say, Caesar is Lord. But those ancient Christians would only call one person Lord. Even the Roman soldiers say, honor your old age and just say it. And instead, Polycarp said, 80 and 6 years. I have served him. Only he deserves the name Lord. and I stood there on the same ground where they took that octogenarian and burned him alive finishing his race because he wouldn't call anyone Lord but the Lord Jesus Christ we're supposed to imagine not only then but now not only in wasness but in isness not only in thereness but in hereness right here in Houston, in the arena.

9:45 Those in the stands are witnessing to you. Would you wrap your mind about that? He's not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. Abraham and Sarah calling out to you we went without knowing where we waited on God with not knowing when we believed God without knowing how you should too Righteous Abel is calling out. He's right here in chapter 11. I gave a sacrifice that God accepted so much. You. But not everyone in this list is perfect. You look at Jacob. Jacob, a rascal.

10:39 Jacob, always one step ahead of the posse. He's calling out to you. God gave me a new name and he can give you a new name Here's Joseph. Up and down. And yet he said, God promoted me just in time and he can promote you.

11:02 You understand that list is not made up of perfect people. Look, here's Samson. He visited Delilah's barbershop and he's crying out to you, I wasn't perfect but I was faithful to the end. My goodness, in that same list is Rahab. I'm glad Rahab could get in the lids.

11:26 All of these he puts in those stands, not in imagination, not in fiction, really there right now. He's not the God of the dead, but of the living, and they're calling out to you. Can I put some other people in those stands in the storied history of this church? those people who in 1874 they're there in the stand all of those who've invested in you who've gone on to the other side they're in the stand and they're witnessing to you. They finish your race, their race, they can finish your listen to. Can I just be personal about that a minute? This means more to me than ever has in my life. As a sinner individual, older in the kingdom, I grew up in a little neighborhood church in West Fort Worth, Connell Baptist 4736 Bryce, more than 100 years old now.

12:28 But in these latter days of my life, I think about Mrs. Williams, a farm lady who came to town and taught 10-year-olds about Jesus. Ms. Williams made him so real, I thought he was going to come through the door any minute. I've had the privilege of studying with some of the greatest scholars in the world, but you know whose voice I hear now? Ms. Williams. I believed in you, Joy. finish the race. There's Hal Kuntz works six days a week in a concrete floor at Monty's Warehouse. On Sunday taught squirming ninth grade boys. If you missed Sunday school, he was on your steps before church. That's true. I remember him, Hal Kuntz is calling out, finish well. John, I want you to come close to me. I don't know where you are in your race, but the great Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said this, the only spiritual sickness unto death is despair.

13:34 Do not despair. You can get up from wherever you are and finish your race. Our enemy does not fight fair. He will trip you on the race course and tell you you can finish well. They're calling out. They're witnessing to you. You see, this book was written to some believers in the church who were pressured by their own culture, by their own surroundings, to leave the church and go back to where they came from. And this was written telling them, finish your course. It has in it one of my favorite words in all of the New Testament, and that is the word endurance.

14:32 Now the King James has an anemic translation of that. It translates it often patience, which is a passive virtue. No, the word hupomene, endurance, means triumphant fortitude, steadfast endurance. I like the word grit, as in true grit.

14:56 The great ancient preacher Chrysostom said it's the greatest of all Christian virtues because you have to continue praying if you pray. You have to continue witnessing if you witness. and it says run your race with steadfast endurance. Not one time in the New Testament does it say you're surrounded by a group of people and their lazy boys. You know, I'm in airports every week, and I've come to like, Bishop Dixon, those people movers. You know, you stand on them and you just don't like that. There's not a picture of that in the New Testament. In fact, the word race, meaning an athletic event, do you know what the word is in that in the Greek New Testament? It's the word agonah that gives us agony. Yes, triumphant fortitude.

15:53 Staying with steadfast endurance. Literally remaining under the load. You say, Joel, I don't know how I can do that. Do you know what the motto is of Spurgeon's College, the great preacher? There's a stained glass window in that college in London like this because the Latin motto is tenio et tenior. I hold because I am held. election los You know, one of my favorite presidents, top five in all polls of presidents, was that man affectionately called Teddy Theodore Roosevelt.

16:56 Teddy bears name for him. When he was 25 years old, he was the youngest representative in the State House in Albany. Married his Harvard sweetheart, she was expecting a baby. Word came by telegram, he passed out cigars leaving the floor. But then on the steps, those many steps up that state house in Albany, I can see them. A second telegram. Come quickly, Alice. His bride is not doing well. We can imagine. Five-hour train ride to Grand Central Station. A horse-drawn hack to East 20th Street. And his brother, Elliot, met him at the door. You can actually go stand on that step if you want. Theodore, a curse is on this. house. Alice is dying downstairs and our mother's dying upstairs. Oh goodness. This 25 year old ran upstairs and downstairs between the deathbeds of bride, wife and his mother. And on all days of Valentine's Day, 1884, both were taken. I've seen his library, I mean his diary in the Harvard Library and he drew a big X through that day and said, the light has gone out in my life forever.

18:18 In other words, I'm finished at 25. Sad, bright young man. I'm done for. When I think about perseverance, Bishop Dixon, I think about the fact when he thought he was done for, he hadn't even started. He went out to the Dakotas and made himself a real cowboy just to get over grief. Came back, police commissioner in New York, cleaned up the corrupt police corps. Social security commissioner cleaned up a corrupt social security system. Rode up San Juan Hill. Rode into history. Made him governor of New York. That made him vice president. When McKinley was shot, the youngest man ever to be president. And he said, I'm done at 25. He set aside the national parks more than anybody, dug the Panama Canal, got his face on a mountain, and he said, I'm done at 25.

19:14 I want you to come close to me. Somebody here, you put an X in your diary, and you said, I've done for. No, you are not. You can finish your race. God sent me by here to encourage somebody that you can finish your race. Well, I think about those people up in the stands and those in the stands who knew you right here. But not only do you race with endurance, Did you see this? You do it without impediment. I must point to this. You lay aside, strip off everything, anything that can hinder you in that race. Now famously, there's two kinds of things that he says here.

20:14 You know it as well as I do. It says lay aside every weight and the sin that entangles you. this author knew about the things that keep you from running your race. This weight means just that. I don't have to tell you. In that ancient world, they stripped down just to a loincloth to take away everything that might impede them or hinder them in the race. Please come close to me. In the Christian race, all of us are as individual as our thumbprint. Out here, you see this extended thumb? Now, I could do without it, wouldn't want to, could, but out here at this expendable part of my life, he's made you and me different, every one of us. And that means the things that can impede you, frustrate you, hold you back, retard you, are different for every one of us.

21:14 Every one of us has a different Achilles heel. Every one of us has a different crease in our armor. And he says, whatever that is, Finish your race by laying that aside. That can be some things that for another person are perfectly innocent. But for me, they could take over my life. The Holy Ghost, listen to me, the Holy Ghost will tell you what that is. You say, search me, O God, and know my heart, and he will show you what that is. And he says the sin that so easily tangles up. Now that word sin in the original language, you know what it means? Sin. words and deeds and acts and attitude that fall under that. He says, strip it off that you'll run the race and you'll run it without impediment.

22:17 I think about what athletes do. I was reading the other day, Bishop Dixon, about downhill skiers. You know, I wouldn't even think about doing it. Those people who tuck in like this, they go up to Buffalo, New York to Calspan where there is a huge engine that blows 100 mile-to-hour winds in their face. And they measure literally their crouch and their tucking in even to take 100th of one second off of their time in the Olympics. They go to a wind tunnel and they're measured. They go to digital laboratories that measures them to take a fraction of a second off their downhill time. Now let me ask you this, if on a lower, lesser, lighter level, mere human athletes would do that, to get a medal that will disappear someday on a higher, holier, heavier level.

23:16 Should not we be willing to say, Lord, take it away that I can run the race? Fix your eyes. And you say, oh, I just don't see it. Look, look, look. You see the paper in your Bibles of these things that were handed out? Do you know how long it takes to make that and when it looks like paper? It starts out as a tree. It's cut down. It's chopped up. It's chopped up into pulp wood. Doesn't look anything like paper. That goes through one water bath and chemical after another. It doesn't look anything like paper. It goes through one roller after another and still doesn't look anything like paper. It doesn't even look like a piece of paper until it comes off the last roller.

24:10 Now look, some of you don't look like it right now. You don't feel like it right now. Are you hearing me? But God hadn't pressed you through the last roller yet. Run your rails. I got to move on. Look at the second imperative, and I'll sit down. Fix your eyes. You see it right here in the text? There are two imperatives, two mandates, two commands. Run your way. Say what? Fix your eyes. Now, let me give you a little language lesson here. where the word literally says, look away from to.

25:04 As a double preface, look away from. Two. Isn't that a strange way of putting it? First of all, look away from the race course. It's a mercy of God when you start the Christian race that you don't know everything you'll see. I remember Bishop Dixon, I go back to the church where I surrendered to preach, Connell Baptist. I can go back where I was sitting as a 16-year-old by a metal pole in that 100-year-old building now that holds up, that pole is still there. Over and over across all of these years of preaching, decades, I've gone back and touched that pole where I was sitting when I was 16.

25:59 The pole, I was there the other day. I touched the pole. But also thank God that I didn't know everything that was going to happen. It's a mercy that he doesn't show you everything in your lane. Get your eyes. But not only that, get your eyes off of the other people running the race. Some of us never run it. Now any track coach is going to tell you that if what, you look in the other lane or turn around and look, you're going to fall behind. Some of us can't get our eyes off other people running the race. Beloved church, I love that John 21, the epilogue. You remember when Jesus joined them, they had fish together. He cooked for them, gave them fish.

26:51 And he told Pete, said, Pete, when you were young, you were willful. You went where you wanted to. When you get old, they're going to take you where you don't want to go. And what's Pete do? He gets interested in John's land. Read it. He said, well, what about this one? and Jesus said what's it to you if he lives till I come you stay in your land you're going to be happier in the Christian life if you will get your eyes off of people in other land but let me say this not only that you can't even keep your eyes fixed on those up in the stand every one of these people in Hebrews 11 had a chink in their armor they had to just look at Abraham He knew enough to leave her And go without knowing where But when he got to Egypt He lied about Sarah To keep her out of Pharaoh's harem But he got in the list You all with me?

27:54 You can't keep looking at the stands Somebody said no one is a hero To his butler Everyone in those stands You can glance at them But don't gaze at them because up above, everyone else in those stands is the one you look away from them and to him, the Lord Jesus Christ. But I want you to notice this. He calls him only by his human name. Now this is fascinating. Sometimes he's called the Lord Jesus. Sometimes he's called Christ. Sometimes he's called, look at this. This says looking unto Jesus. That's his human name. Yeshua. Joshua. Keep your eyes fixed on him because he's the author.

28:49 and the perfecter of faith. Look at him. You said, Joel, you don't know where I was born. Look where he was born. He was born in the equivalent of the garage behind the Motel 6. Nobody born lower. Fix your eye on him. He grew up in a carpenter's, a workshop, building tables and oxjobs, modest labor. Keep your eye fix on him. He grew up what most of the time, if tradition is right, in a single parent home. Joseph was older, died. That day he went in, I can imagine it. Bishop, when he went in and said, Mother Mary, maybe they had a warm cup of that strong coffee. And he said, it's time for me to go down to the Jordan where Cousin John is baptizing.

29:50 And he had to go down there and stand where you must stand if you're a believer and that is to be immersed and raised out of that water. You got it? Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Have you been mocked? He was mocked. Have you been beaten? He was beaten. Have you said, not as I will but as you will. Keep your eye fixed on him. You know how to do that? how to do what John said, abide in me, be at home in me. Just get some spiritual discipline in your life. I'm going to get right down in the weeds here. You want to keep your eyes on him? When you wake up in the morning, let the first thing you do be talk to him. I'm going to start meddling here. Put this thing down.

30:42 I'm very serious about this. Put this thing down. I will not let myself look at this in the morning till I talk to him. I'm Baptist born and Baptist bred and when I buy, I be Baptist dead. I'm gonna lose some of you here, but every morning before I get out of bed, Bishop, I cross myself. Now that doesn't belong to any tribe. I put myself under the cross before my feet. Get yourself some holy habits. I don't care. Can I give you all some hints? When I wait for my coffee to drip in the morning, I've lost my balance in recent days I'm supposed to stand on one leg And then the other But you know what I do When I'm doing that I say our father Which art in heaven Hallowed be You can keep your eye On him When I go to the gym I'm pathetic in the gym But I go When I'm lifting those barbells I say Lord Jesus Have mercy on me, the sinner.

31:56 You can keep your eyes on me. Put in your life some holy habits. Well, anyway, try that. Why is it that we get so easily distracted? Let me give you an example of distraction. Every year in this country, it's a huge number, unbelievable, 7,000 people are killed at level grade train crossings. Sometimes buses full of people. 7,000. Now this has puzzled lawmen and physicists because there are 225,000 level grade crossings and there are about 35,000 locomotives. It doesn't make sense. There shouldn't be that many people. But you know what happens?

32:51 It's an optical illusion. Locomotives are big. They're massive. And because of that, they look like they're going slower than they are. Bishop, I almost went to heaven at Hewitt, Texas when I was a boy because of that. I can get past that. It's going faster than you think. Now that's on a lower, lesser, lighter level But let me put it on a higher, holier, heavier level We need to live with an understanding That we've got an enemy And he's coming faster than you think Don't be deceived Look away from To Jesus Who's the author And the finish Of faith What does that mean? Author, it means first of all he's your model That's why you have his human name.

33:48 He lived and walked by faith. But he's also the source, the wellspring, the fountainhead of everything that has faith. What did he say under the shadow of the cross? You can have my joy. When he said things like that, it was an act of faith. Looking ahead at the cross, it says he despised the what? The shame. The mockery, the belittling, because he lived and died by faith. He's your model and your author. And that's why somebody today, on this special occasion, has your thumbprint on this message.

34:34 I don't know what one somebody you are, but in my heart, there's one somebody here that your thumbprint, your ID, your password is on this sermon. I heard the wonderful, elegant words of the bishop over this table emphasizing the substitutionary death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Could I just say this? I go to a lot of conferences. You ever get those crack and peel labels? You know, they write your name on it. Kind of funny, we all look at one another. Well, hi, Bob, how are you?

35:21 I've had a funny thought. I've had so many of those stuck on me. What if instead of our name, they put our sins on them? Well, hi there, greedy. well how are you lusty I don't know whether we'd want to go to the meeting or stay away.

35:52 In all seriousness, you know what happened on the cross that day. Whatever the label is on you, you tore it off and you put it on him. Not the world sins, your sin. and he took off him and gave you a new crack and peel. Righteous.

36:18 And that's why we have the promise when we see him, we'll be like him because we'll see him as he is. I want to plead with somebody here. One somebody, you in the front, the back, the side, listening beyond here. That for you. I don't want to plead with somebody else. You need a church home. A great city like this has a lot of, I call them cafeterias, smorgasbord. They're going around the sampling now. Everywhere. Listen, to be in this city and to have the opportunity to be covered by a ministry like that of Bishop James Dixon II, to be covered, You need to be. Come, it's time for somebody to get out of the cafeteria line this morning and say, I'm going to, let me tell you something about churches.

37:17 Everybody here volunteered. Nobody's drafted. They got up, they came forward, and they volunteered. But I want to say this before I take my seat, because we're celebrating 45 years of ministry. I dare to say, and this morning, oh tell, the spirit impressed me with this. There's somebody here wrestling with the call of God in your life. It's been secret, it's been private, maybe someone else has said it. But you're wrestling with it. What better day, whoever you are, sister, brother, to stand up and say, God is calling me. What a day to do that. But I want you this. Remember the imperatives.

38:11 Run your race with steadfast endurance and look away from only to Jesus. Let's bow in prayer. Every head bowed, every eye closed. In a moment, the ministry will come in its own way. Open the doors of this church with Lord, triune God. Lord Jesus, even though unseen, more real than any other.

38:45 Lord, we plead that your spirit might speak now. you've given us the promise that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, will come and will convict. Lord, might there be freedom here today. help us God to humble ourselves under your mighty hand that you might lift us up and Lord may that one somebody who knows who he or she is you know they know they know you know may they humble themselves under your hand and put one foot in front of the other to obey that which you told us all to follow you and may they begin that following right now, encouraged by the witnesses, looking away to you only.

39:42 In Jesus' name we pray, and God's people said.