I was asked once to pray for a breakfast at Albion College featuring alumni sports figures from classes of years gone by. So I turned to the scriptures for a little help and found soccer themed passages, Philippians 3:14 "Press on towards the goal...", boxing passages, 1 Corinthians 9:26 “I do not fight like a man beating the air.” and even a baseball passage, Genesis 1:1 “In The Big Inning...” And you know what, I was actually surprised.  As a kid, growing up in church, singing in the choir, and answering correctly in Sunday School I didn't really think of Jesus stuff as compatible with sports. All I knew of sports was that dodgeball on elementary playgrounds could be lethal, running directly to third base after kicking the kickball won you no friends, and catching a softball with your face was a somewhat less than satisfying life experience. Throughout school, most of the guys I saw at football practice (I actually did start on the Oakwood Owls 8th grad team!) rarely showed up at the First UMC on a Sunday night for youth group.  But in the midst of praying with these Albion grads I realized that sports had given them a lens through which to see life and through which to understand our lives of faith in Jesus. I started to see the contest, the challenge, the rigor, the prize of running this race called Christian discipleship.

Now, a brief word for NASCAR fans. Unfortunately for you, there weren't a lot of 750 horsepower, 8 cylinder racing machines in 1st Century Palestine. So we don't get a lot of imagery from Paul about keeping your eye out for the yellow flag of temptation or injunctures to spend time with your spiritual pit crew. But for those of you who do enjoy somewhat faster versions of the loops our friend are making this weekend on Woodward Avenue lets add car races to the list of sports that might help us understand the messages of the book of Hebrews, and the truth of the Gospel.

You see, here in Hebrews we are presented with the Reasons for running the race that God has placed us in, the Role Model in Jesus Christ for us to know how to run this race, and a vision of the Result of running this race successfully – a prize so beautiful that even racing towards it brings us joy today.

Last summer, after performing a house concert at Dan and Kat McRitchie's place in Memphis, TN, my fiancé Anna and I were driving to another friends house in Atlanta, GA.

Along our way we were driving along the freeway when something started to loom up on the horizon. It looked like the side of a great hill or small mountain except for the fact that it was red and bright blue and had geometric lines running across it's face. Soon we realized that this was no natural formation but was in fact the grandstands of the Talladega Speedway, in Talladega, AL.

I couldn't believe the sheer size of these stands. It looked as if the population of a small country could fit in there comfortably. I started to imagine the roar of that crowd matching the roar of the cars in the races held there. I started to think about those victory laps, and climbing out of your car to the encouraging cheers of those 143,231 fans.

Maybe this is the image implied by the “great cloud of witnesses” Hebrews tells have gone before us in our faith. Imagine if we realized and remembered the many faithful followers of Jesus who have over the years accepted his great gift of forgiveness, laid down the weight of their sin, and started living lives of amazing discipleship.

To have this great cloud before us, a crowd like the hundred thousand screaming fans at Talladega, reminds us of two things. One, they give us a reason to abandon our own sin – like the highest holy peer pressure they show us that “everybody's doing it.” Why not join this amazing community of folks freed of the destroying power of sin?

Secondly, this great cloud inspires us to join them in running a race of perseverance for the Lord. I think of those “faith athletes” that are sitting in that crowd cheering us on, those both alive on earth and cheering from heaven – Millard Fuller, Congressman John Lewis, Rosa Parks, Dorothy Day. Men and women who loved God and loved their neighbors – who have pursued the new community of God with unending diligence.

Because of these great athletes of the faith, and because they are an active part of the whole community that cheers for each of us, we too are able to lay aside the weight our sins, claim our lane in the race God set before us and (clap) take off!

2. Jesus ran this race – shows us where to go and how to get there. (5:30)

The Saviour that we meet through the stories in the Gospels is a man who runs this very race before we do. On the cross he endured the sin of the world and, through a perseverance unmatched by created beings like us, was victorious over death on Easter morning. Hebrews tells us that as such he is pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

Pioneer because Jesus was the first and only living person to utterly reveal the very nature of God. In all that he was, and said, and did he was truly God among us showing what God's love looked like in the context of our human community. Perfecter because he revealed the utmost in dedication to the ways of God. As Philippians puts it,1 he endured death for us – but not only death, even death on a cross. It is our reality as followers of Jesus to be inspired by Jesus as our role model – wanting to be everything he was, wanting to be as good as he was. It is also our reality to remember our own brokenness – that even as we strive toward Christ, it is ultimately Christ reaching back toward us that brings us fully into God's love.

1 Philippians 2:8

There was a community during World War II that really took Jesus seriously as their role model and reached levels of radical Christian discipleship that truly inspire me. Along with the leadership of their pastor, Andre Trocme, the Protestant youth and residents of Vichy controlled Le Chambon France dedicated themselves to becoming a “Conspiracy of Goodness” in the midst of Nazi created evil. As orders came in from the government to turn over Jewish neighbors Trocme and his community created whole systems to hide Jewish refugees, adopt orphaned Jewish children, feed, clothe, and shelter Jewish families, and hide their Jewish friends from arrest and deportation.

The preface of Trocme's book, Jesus and the Non-Violent Revolution, describes one particular scene in this conspiracy like:

In the summer of 1942, Minister Georges Lamirand, head of the Vichy government's youth organization, showed up in Le Chambon and delivered a speech on the “New Social Order.” The speech over, he was immediately handed a letter by the local youth, protesting the recent roundup of nearly 13,000 Jews in Paris. They informed him in unequivocal terms that they intended to protect persecuted people whenever and however they could.

Trocme was clearly the source of this defiance, and soon after was warned of the dire consequence facing him if he did not turn in the names of all hidden Jews. Trocme refused, saying “We do not know what a Jew is; we only know people.” For three weeks the police scoured the village and its surrounding areas, but the rescue network was so tight that they came up with only two arrests.2 These Protestant citizens of Le Chambon, France had seen in scripture the way that Jesus ran the race and decided to run the race God had placed them in with similar perseverance.

Disregarding danger to themselves they loved their Jewish neighbors and made the love of God real during a time when such love and goodness was hard to see.  This year our youth program here at Birmingham First is claiming Andre Trocme and the residents of Le Chambon as a part of our great cloud of witnesses. Our year-long theme will be “A Conspiracy of Love” and we will be looking for ways to share the covert message that because God loved us so much we also ought to love on another.3 You can even join us as a “Conspiritor” in this mission even if you don't have youth in the program! If you stop by and leave a donation to the Youth Missions fund with us at the Youth Ministry office you will get a year-long subscription to our new underground youth newspaper “The Conspiritor” (written for youth by youth). This paper details all the ways in which our youth are trying follow closely the role model of Jesus in our persevering race for God.

I mentioned earlier a hypothetical situation in which some elementary boy may have run to the wrong base during his first ever at bat in a game of 1st grade kickball? Well you can imagine what it is like trying to run a race without a clear picture where the finish line is. Or imagine a lacrosse or hockey game in which players slap the ball or puck around aimlessly 2 From Jesus and the Non-Violent Revolution, by André Trocmé. 3 1 John 4:11 with no net in sight. Or what about a NASCAR race held out on the salt flats without the defined oval, steep embankments of the track, and a flag stopping them at the final lap.

Chaos!

Luckily our finish line has been defined, our goal is in place. Hebrews tells us that the thing that kept Jesus running, and the thing that can keep us running as well is a vision. It is the vision of the joy of God that encourages us to keep working ahead succeeding at following the model of Christ.

Another hypothetical kid used to play 4th grade basketball. And all during basketball practice in the gym at the YMCA the coaches kept telling me...I mean this kid...that in order to make baskets you have to envision the ball going through the hoop. So in the next game I got a pass from my teammate, and before shooting I pictured the ball going up and swishing right through the net. Apparently, according to the yells of said coaches, one must envision your shot going through YOUR TEAMS's basket rather than the opponents...but I think we get the point.

It is by envisioning the fullness of God's joy as we run the race of following Jesus that we will be sustained. Wewill endure because we know what awaits us, and we already experience the awaiting joy of God because we are enduring in this race. Charles Wesley wrote of this vision-keeping in this hymn:

Sure salvation, a faith that acts on that promise, and actions that make it so God's heavenly

city is already begun amongst us on this earth.

In 6th grade down at Anderson Middle School I was subjected to the cruelest, most diabolical piece of mandated school curricula ever imagined by the Department of Education. Known as the Presidential Physical Fitness “Awards” I assume that this series of excruciating physical challenges was some retributive move on the part of a disgruntled bureaucrat who was made to climb the rope one too many times in his childhood. One of the “challenges” was to run one mile. My side started hurting at about the first quarter turn out on the track that day. Needless to say I was not running that race with the joy of the Lord on my face.

And that is exactly not the way in which God calls us to run God's race. God doesn't want runners to run because it is required and because you will only receive a “Satisfactory” on your gym grade sheet and not an “Outstanding” like you did in Language Arts. Rather, we are to run in such a way that lives out the joy of God. Weare to be the people who stubbornly work for God's justice despite the world's coldness to such a plan. Weare to be the people who follow in the example of Jesus on this race and ask for his help when we trip and fall. Weare to be the people who join with the rest of the great cloud of witnesses to encourage those who come behind us.

As Paul writes, we are to:

So, if you are running the race of God following in the footsteps of Jesus, run with your eye fixed on God's joy. If you are drag racing your chopped and dropped roadster for Jesus, then do so with the endurance of one secure in the promises of God. If you are curling for God's justice, feather bowling for God's forgiveness, arena footballing for God's wisdom, or WNBA-ing for God's love then do so remembering that great “crowd of witnesses” cheering for you, cheering for God, and cheering for each other as we run after Jesus our Saviour and just maybe our team captain.