Today we will continue in a series of sermons from the Book of Hebrews that I am calling the Greatest of All Time. In this episode, we will see that Jesus is the Greatest Coach.
Every successful athlete owes a debt of gratitude to one or more coaches. A great example of that is the relationship between Tiger Woods and Hank Haney. During Haney’s six years as Tiger’s swing coach, he won 31 championships on the Professional Golf Association tour, including 6 major championships. That meant Tiger won 33.3% of the tournaments he played in during that time, and over 25% of the major tournaments he entered. This was the most productive period of Tiger Woods’ career as a professional golfer. Sadly, that relationship did not end well, but there is no denying that Haney was a great coach for Woods in those days.
Of course, Hank Haney is just one example of a famous and impactful coach. Basketball produced John Wooden, Red Auerbach, and Phil Jackson. In football, Nick Saban, Vince Lombardy, and John Madden are household names. Baseball has seen a long line of great managers, including Sparky Anderson, Tony LaRussa, Tommy Lasorda, and Billy Martin. All of these coaches knew how to help their players achieve the most and play to their highest level. They were all humans, of course, and so they were limited, frail, and imperfect.
As good as all these coaches were, there is someone much better than they. In Chapter 12, the writer of Hebrews points us to the Greatest Coach of All, Jesus Christ. Let’s begin by reading Hebrews 12: 1-2:
Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Our Race:
As we have seen from the beginning of the book, the writer of Hebrews used analogies and word pictures to teach the truths about Jesus that people need to know. Because he was writing to Jewish people, he mostly used illustrations that applied to Jewish culture. In this chapter, however, the writer of Hebrews shifted gears.
In Chapter 12, instead of using a Jewish-culture-based analogy, he shifted to a Greco-Roman one. He said that we are all running a spiritual race, and that we are all in a stadium surrounded by a huge crowd of spectators. The Greeks, of course, instituted the Olympic Games, and the Romans enjoyed watching chariot racing in the Hippodrome. The language of sports is found throughout this chapter, and it reveals some interesting things to us
First, the writer assumed that we are all in a race. None of us get to opt out; none of us get to say we are injured; none of us get to choose another pastime. He expected us all to line up at the starting line, ready to race. In particular, we were expected to put aside anything that will hinder us or trip us up, so that we could run our race with endurance. One might say, “I didn’t sign-up for this! I am not interested in being in a race.” This is perfectly understandable, but it is also perfectly beside the point: we are in this race, and we can’t opt-out.
- Remember, Jesus told us, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” We can’t opt-out of obedience to our Lord.
- Remember, Jesus told us to, “Go and make disciples of all peoples.” We can’t opt-out of the Great Commission.
- Remember, Jesus told us that we would be witnesses to Him in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. We can’t opt-out of bearing His likeness to the world.
No, we are in the race, and all that’s left for us to do is run it. The Good News for us is that we have a coach, the Greatest Coach of All Time. He has been seated in the heavenly press box, and if we keep our eyes on Him, He will help us to run our race with endurance.
As Ecclesiastes 9:11 tells us:
Again I saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, or the battle to the strong, or bread to the wise, or riches to the discerning, or favor to the skillful; rather, time and chance happen to all of them.
Isaiah 4:30-31 also tells us,
Youths may faint and grow weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in the LORD will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.
We are all in a race, but our Coach knows how to win it! Next let’s read Hebrews 12:3-13:
For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won't grow weary and give up. In struggling against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons: My son, do not take the Lord's discipline lightly or lose heart when you are reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son he receives. Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline-which all receive -then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them. Shouldn't we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead.
Our Discipline:
Not only does our Coach know how to win the race, He ran an earthly race Himself. He wasn’t like sportscaster Howard Cosell, someone who had great opinions on how to run the race, but who had never run the race himself. In fact. Cosell’s autobiography is entitled I Never Played the Game. This was a double entendre, for while Cosell admitted he was not an athlete, he also wanted to assert his independence from the sports establishment. Cosell once said, "I've been called arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. And, of course, I am." This is not what our Coach is like at all. In fact, our Coach is like a father who has walked the walk as well as talked the talk.
One thing that our Coach tells us is that we must run our race with discipline. We cannot expect to run a race without practice, and in fact, practice can often be more painful than the race itself. Practicing for a race involves running farther than the distance of the race itself. The idea is to push yourself in practice so that when the day of the race comes, the race is easier. It isn’t easy, but it is easier.
Another way we run our race with discipline is to use the proper technique. Runners who start too fast will fade at the end of the race. Runners who start too slow may never catch the leaders. Runners need to know when to go all out, and when to rest in the middle of the pack. They need to know how to avoid colliding with other runners, and when to stretch out to break the tape.
Runners also need to run with endurance so that they can finish the race. The one thing worse than losing a race is to fail to finish it. In football, one of the advantages of having a strong running game is the punishment it inflicts on your opponents. They may hold you to a few yards at the beginning of the game, but if you can sustain your running game, it will wear them down little-by-little until they are exhausted in the fourth quarter. Then you can dominate them and possibly score at will.
Of course, our race is not a physical one, but a spiritual one. Still, we must run our spiritual race with discipline, we must run it with the proper techniques, and we must run it with endurance. This is how Jesus ran His spiritual race, and this is how He will coach us to run our spiritual race as well.
Our coaching by Jesus may not always be comfortable for us to endure, but if we do, we will run our spiritual race successfully.
Let’s continue with Hebrews 12:14-24:
Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness-without it no one will see the Lord. Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and defiling many. And make sure that there isn't any immoral or irreverent person like Esau, who sold his birthright in exchange for a single meal. For you know that later, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, even though he sought it with tears, because he didn't find any opportunity for repentance. For you have not come to what could be touched, to a blazing fire, to darkness, gloom, and storm, to the blast of a trumpet, and the sound of words. Those who heard it begged that not another word be spoken to them, for they could not bear what was commanded: If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned. The appearance was so terrifying that Moses said, I am trembling with fear. Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God (the heavenly Jerusalem), to myriads of angels, a festive gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn whose names have been written in heaven, to a Judge, who is God of all, to the spirits of righteous people made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the blood of Abel.
Our Goal:
Many reasons exist for running a race. Some races are so-called “fun runs”, and these are as much social events as they are races. People engage in these to hang around with friends, or even just to get an event t-shirt. Some might run a race to simply test themselves, to see if they can go the distance. Others, of course, run to win, and that becomes their sole purpose. What then, are the goals of our spiritual race?
In this passage, the writer of Hebrews gave us the first example I know about of the “Compliment Sandwich” technique. He gives us a positive reason to run our spiritual race, then a negative reason to run, and then he ends with another positive reason. Let’s break it down that way as well.
First, we run our spiritual race to glorify Christ. As we journey through this world, we seek to grow in peace and holiness, not to bring glory to ourselves, but to reflect God’s grace and peace and mercy to the world. He deserves to receive this honor, and people need to see His work in our lives so that they will be drawn to Him and find His salvation and His sanctification.
Second, we don’t run our race to escape the fires of hell. Baseball great Satchel Paige said about aging, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” We don’t have to run scared. While time comes for us all, we don’t run to escape judgment. Jesus set us free from God’s judgment by His sacrifice on the Cross, so we don’t need to earn our salvation by running a good race. Our salvation comes to us by grace through faith, and not by where we place in our spiritual race.
Third, we run our spiritual race to enjoy the blessings we receive when we finish well. The modern Olympic Marathon ends in a large stadium, with the contestants entering and running a lap around the track, enjoying the applause and adulation of all those who have gathered to witness the end of their race. This is a great example of what the writer of Hebrews describes here. One day, all of us will enter the stadium of heaven, and all of those who have gone before us will gather to receive us unto them, and also for us to hear from our Lord, “Well done, my good and faithful servant!”
Now, let’s consider Hebrews 12:25-27:
See to it that you do not reject the one who speaks. For if they did not escape when they rejected him who warned them on earth, even less will we if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven. His voice shook the earth at that time, but now he has promised, Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens. This expression, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of what can be shaken-that is, created things-so that what is not shaken might remain.
Our Boundaries:
The writer of Hebrews did not focus on the negatives very often, but the fact is that our spiritual race has rules, just like physical races and games have rules. No one wants to be disqualified by violating a rule that they didn’t know exists. What’s worse, of course, is to violate a rule that you do know exists. Ignorance of a rule is understandable but willfully violating a rule is inexcusable.
Rosie Ruiz cheated during the 1979 New York City Marathon by leaving the course and taking the subway, rejoining the course near the finish line, and posting a very low time. That was bad enough, but she used that fraudulent time to enter the 1980 Boston Marathon, where she cut the course short a second time. Her cheating was discovered, and she was disqualified from both events. Hers is a sad legacy because of her cheating.
The biggest cheater of all, however, was Lance Armstrong, who used performance-enhancing drugs to win seven consecutive Tour de France titles. When his cheating was discovered, not only were those titles revoked, but Armstrong also received a lifetime ban from all cycling races. His name ranks with that of Benedict Arnold for infamy and betrayal of trust.
Just like how our human coaches teach us the mistakes to avoid, so does our Greatest Coach. We ignore His instruction to our own regret.
Finally, let’s read Hebrews 12:28-29:
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.
Our Thankfulness:
When I was a state missionary in Alabama, I worked with a ministry assistant whose son played for the University of Alabama when Gene Stallings was the head football coach. Actually, to be more precise, her son practiced for the Alabama team, because I don’t think he ever took the field in a real game. His contribution was to be the quarterback for the scout team that imitated the offense of the opposing schools. That doesn’t sound very fulfilling, but that experience had a huge impact on her son’s life.
You see, in the role that he fulfilled, he had to opportunity to observe his head coach in an intimate way. He discovered that Gene Stallings was a great coach, but also that he was an even better man. He learned many things about football but even more things about life from that experience. Later, when her son became a successful high football coach who won several state championships at the highest level in the Alabama high school sports league, he always gave respect and credit to his coach, who in many ways made him the coach and man that he was.
Gene Stallings was a great coach, but we have the Greatest Coach. We should recognize all that He has done, is doing, and will do in our lives. And then we should be grateful, and we should sing His praises in every part of our lives.
Conclusion:
As we think about running our spiritual race, Jesus is our Coach, but Paul is also a great role model. In fact, he told the church at Corinth to imitate him as he imitated Christ. This was what he told Timothy about his own spiritual race in 2 Timothy 4:6-8:
For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time for my departure is close. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. There is reserved for me in the future the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved His appearing.
I think’s Paul’s attitude is the right one for us, also!
Every blessing,
Dr. Otis Corbitt
