1. Lay aside every weight — and run with endurance"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." — Hebrews 12:1 Weights are the things that slow you down, even when they aren't sins. The preacher pictured it two ways: helping someone move heavy furniture — and how light everything feels once you set the weight down — and a soldier carrying a hundred pounds of gear on a mission.Endurance is the point. A car with a quarter tank won't make 300 miles; with a full tank, it will. You need something sustaining you for the whole race, not just the start of it.2. Look unto Jesus — the Author and Finisher"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." — Hebrews 12:2 An author originates something. Jesus started your faith, and He will finish it — when you are walking with Him and focused on Him."Looking" means casting distractions aside. There are many things trying to steal your faith, knock you down, and get you off the right path."Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls" (Hebrews 12:3). That is why you focus on Him: so you don't get discouraged in your mind, your soul, your feelings, and your emotions.When a thought comes that isn't true, cast it down and get a different thought — one that agrees with what God has said.3. The empowering Holy Spirit lives in youThe sermon returns to this again and again: focus is not willpower alone. You have the power source of God living inside you. Genesis 1:2 — "The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters." Like a drone hovering over a scene, waiting for the shot — the Spirit was hovering, waiting for the Father to give the Word. "And God said, 'Let there be,' and there was." The Holy Spirit is the empowerment of God Himself.2 Corinthians 1:20–22 — "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen." Not maybe. Not "I don't think that's going to happen." He has also sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. The Spirit lives in your heart — in the core of who you are.Colossians 1:27 — "Christ in you, the hope of glory." He is in you by the Holy Spirit, and He brings the Word back to your remembrance and makes it applicable to the situation you are in. But if you put nothing in, there is nothing for Him to bring back.Romans 8:11 — "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you." He is not just upon you — He is in you.Ephesians 3:16–17 — Strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, rooted and grounded in love.Ephesians 6:10 — "Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." All the strength of the world's strongest men doesn't compare to the strength of the Spirit of God in you.John 16:13 — "When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth." Not some of it — all truth. He does not speak on His own authority; He glorifies Jesus, who is the Word of God. That is why focusing on the Spirit and focusing on the Word together propels you to victory: "If you continue in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."The Holy Spirit is not a blob or a mist. He is a person — the Comforter who walks alongside you to help you, not to hurt you, and to get you where the Father wants you to go. He lives in each believer at once: speaking to you, to someone in Puerto Rico, to someone in Guatemala, to someone in South Africa. That is why He is God and we are not.4. God works through people God could do whatever He wants, but He has chosen to work and operate through us. He wants you — not out of need, but out of love and fellowship. "Uncle Sam wants you" was the preacher's picture: God wants you, because He wants fellowship with you and wants to empower you.That is why weakness is not the end of the story: "I glory in my weakness, because that's where the empowerment comes in" — when you are looking to Him, not to yourself.People who have been delivered from something awful know this firsthand: they keep talking about God, because the empowerment is real.5. God cannot lie — and the blessing cannot be reversed"God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?" — Numbers 23:19 Balaam was hired to curse, but he could only speak blessing: "He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it." If you get it in your mind and heart that God has blessed and cannot reverse it, the enemy cannot reverse it either. The only way he gets in is if we give him the right and the authority with our mouths and our actions.6. He upholds all things by the word of His power"Who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high." — Hebrews 1:3 Down to electrons, protons, neutrons, quarks — what holds everything together is the spoken Word, the sound God released. If the truth of what holds the universe together were not true anymore, everything would fall apart. One day He will roll it all up and create a new heaven and a new earth.ClosingThe service closed in prayer: thanking the Father for His empowering Word and His empowering Spirit living in us, that we can be witnesses to others — and that our focus stays on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith — followed by the receiving of tithes and offerings.
