While my family and I are out of town for the next couple of Sundays two of our elders will be preaching. This coming Sunday Marcus Young will be preaching and the following Sunday James D’Souza will be preaching. Please pray for them as they prepare to deliver God’s Word to His people. You will find Marcus’ sermon preview and the songs for congregational singing below…
The epistle to the Hebrews was written to a church likely composed of Jewish Christians of the dispersion, probably in Italy. They had heard and received the gospel from the apostles and had witnessed the power of God which manifested itself in “signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” (Hebrews 2: 3b-4). This was a church that began well, even facing and enduring persecution for their faith, but they had begun to drift spiritually and were in danger of falling away.
Our sermon text for this Sunday is Hebrews 12:1-2. Here, and at other places in scripture, the Christian walk is described as a race. It is a race that we are commanded to run with endurance and to persevere to the end. Through out this epistle, the writer finds it necessary to admonish, exhort and even strongly warn against spiritual laziness, drifting, a lack of spiritual maturity, the deceitfulness and hardening power of sin and the grave danger of falling away into spiritual apostasy. But the letter to the Hebrews is also a letter of great encouragement and hope. In Hebrews 12:1 we are encouraged by “such a great cloud of witnesses” (detailed in chapter 11) who have gone before us and persevered in the faith, having lived lives marked by faith and hope in the promised redeemer, without having received the fulfillment of the promises. And we are reminded of the hope set before us, that we have as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as our great high priest, and has offered himself up as a sacrifice for sin, once for all, having paid our debt in full (Hebrews 6:19-20) and is even now seated at the right hand of the throne of God, making intercession for the saints. Like the Hebrew Christians, we “have need of endurance, so that when we have done the will of God we may receive what is promised, For yet a little while and the coming one will come and will not delay but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. (Hebrews 10:36-39) Come and see how we are to run this race so as to win the crown by looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2).
Sermon Title: “Running With Endurance, A Testimony Of Faith”
Sermon Text: Hebrews 12:1-2
Meditation Passage: Romans 5:1-5
Call To Worship: Psalm 95:1-3
Benediction: 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Songs For Sunday:
Praise To The Lord The Almighty