Enduring to the End

Well, thank you very much to the choir, and good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here with you all on this 54th annual Northwest Weekend. I don't know about you. It's incredible to me to consider that this weekend has been around for the past 54 years. That has been this annual constant in the Northwest region. Brought together brethren from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, California, and far-flung areas.

We've had people from all over the place that have come here over the years, really enabling them to be able to grow closer together. My own personal history with the Northwest Weekend began in 1996 while I was living in Spokane. Myself and a couple of buddies drove down here. We stayed in a small Motel 6, this old rundown Motel 6, over there in the shadow of what was then the Rose Garden. I'm pretty sure during the Moda Center remodel it was torn down, but I don't think it's there anymore.

But it was relatively cheap and mostly free of roaches. We had a great time. We really did. I met my wife at this weekend for the very first time. That's nice that I got an awe out of that. That's good. But it was through this weekend, too, that we got to know Oregon. We got to know its people. And it's an area that we're now blessed to serve 22 years later. I would venture a guess most of you have similar stories with regards to the Northwest Weekend. Honestly, your stories probably go back a greater number of years.

Many of you probably remember this weekend that you attended as teens and young adults. You may have met your own spouses at this weekend. You may have been a part of these storied basketball rivalries that I hear so much about when I go out and do visits.

People still talk about the Northwest Weekend basketball rivalries up and down the Willamette Valley. You know, Salem versus Albany and Albany versus Portland and Portland versus Tacoma and Seattle. And all these basketball rivalries that just go way back. Or you may have just enjoyed the opportunity to get together and to fellowship. This weekend has endured a half century of time. Put that into perspective for a minute.

This weekend has endured a half century of time. And in that time, there have been as many themes, thousands of attendees, and frankly, it stood witness to the occasional times of difficulty and stress among the body. Sadly, we can all look out around this room and see brethren that are no longer with us. But despite these times of difficulty and stress in the history of our fellowship, this weekend has continued. It has steadfastly remained. It has endured as you have to this point. That is the theme of this weekend. The theme of this weekend is steadfast until the end.

And with that theme, we consider what it takes to remain firm in our beliefs, strengthened in our resolve, and to remain steadfast to the point of our last breath. In that theme, we consider what it takes to endure. Let's go ahead and turn it over to Hebrews 12, verse 1. We'll go ahead and begin there today. Hebrews 12 and verse 1. We'll go ahead and pick up an idea here in the book of Hebrews that we're going to expound on today and we're going to establish the direction with which we go in this message. Hebrews 12, we'll pick it up in verse 1. I think it's important to recognize here that this passage immediately follows the faith chapter.

And it's a passage that when you look at the wording of Hebrews 12 and verse 1, they are clearly connected. In Hebrews 12 and verse 1, the author of Hebrews writes the following. It says, It says, I'd like to begin today by asking for a quick show of hands. How many of you have ever trained for and run an endurance race?

How many have ever trained for and run an endurance race? Go ahead and keep your hands up. Kind of take a look around. It's quite a few, actually. You know, it's quite a few in this crowd. Whether that was a 5K, whether it was a 10K, a half marathon, marathon, or even an ultra marathon, there are quite a few of you that have been down that road, so to speak, and have done the kind of training that it takes. In fact, I got a little bit nervous when Mr. Slocum got up here today and slapped that shoe up here.

I thought, uh-oh. Well, we'll see how that ends up. But it worked out perfectly. It dovetailed well. You know, it was a wonderful message that really sets the stage for where we're going to continue to go today. Over the past decade, popularity of endurance running has steadily increased. The traditional distances, the 5K, the 10K, the half, the marathon races, have kind of plateaued a little bit, though, in recent years.

There's not as many people doing those races. But what we've seen is a greater number of individuals that have jumped into obstacle races, trail races, ultra marathons. People said 26.2 miles isn't enough. I want to run 100 or 200 over a multi-day, you know, set up.

For going kind of, or as Mr. Slocum mentioned, kind of the triathlon or the sprint triathlons. Those have become more and more and more popular, while some of the more traditional road races have kind of leveled off over the past few years. But many people are beginning to kind of forego the traditional road race in favor for something that's a little more challenging and a little less routine.

But despite that, most runners still gauge their mettle, so to speak, by the half marathon and the marathon. That tends to be the race that still most people try to push themselves to complete.

And this past year, just to give you an idea of how many, a little over 443,000 people in 2018 completed one of 752 marathons scheduled around the United States. That is a lot of races and a whole lot of people out there running foot after foot after foot after foot to the end of that particular race. Statistically, almost 10% of those runners, DNF, they don't finish. So about 10%, roughly, don't finish. Some courses have much higher DNF rates than that. There are some that boast, some ultra marathons, in fact, that boast only 16 that have ever completed it in multiple years of having run it. But most of the time, about 90%, just a smidge over 90% of those who initially start the race ultimately finish it. Long distance endurance races take a significant amount of physical and mental training. So much so that for a good number of years, I used to look at individuals who enjoyed running and who did it for fun and considered the words of Proverbs 28 and verse 1. You can look it up if you'd like, but it basically states that only the wicked flee when no one is chasing them. And that was really, I gotta admit, when it came to road races, that was kind of my mentality. I don't know what they're doing out there running from nothing, but okay.

For me in school, if I'm being perfectly honest, for me in school, running never really was something that was enjoyable. It was always used as a form of punishment. When I acted up in PE class, my teacher had me take several laps around the track. When I was messing around at baseball practice, I was running backstops. And when I didn't catch what the coach told me at track practice, because I wasn't paying attention, I spent time running hills. And so there was kind of a common thread involved in all of this, and it wasn't necessarily running. I think my teachers and my coaches felt that I would either get the point or get into spectacular shape, neither of which were actually really realized. But, you know, I put a lot of miles on my feet on account of my behavior in those days. But a few years back, as I worked on improving my health, I took up running as a way of increasing caloric expenditure. And it was then and there that I began my love-hate relationship with running. More love than hate, but admittedly there were some 4 a.m. mornings where there was more than a little love lost. You know, running in Oregon is its own experience. It's raining, the wind is blowing the rain sideways, it's cold. There were some mornings that it was not at all enjoyable. I began walking, kind of starting with no running ability at all, slowly and surely increased my mileage to the point where I was able to complete a half marathon. I started walking after a time moved into these short 20 to 30 second bursts of running, followed by more minutes of huffing and puffing with my hands on my knees, to eventually running 5Ks, 10Ks, 3 times a week, morning 10Ks, and then eventually training for a half marathon. What I was surprised to find was that I loved it. Most of the time, I loved it. In fact, I was surprised to find that I craved it. I was surprised to find that I wanted, after a while, to start getting up and going running in the mornings. So it took the better part of a year to reach that point, but the morning of my half marathon there I was, with several thousand of my closest friends huddled together in the cool October air in the streets of downtown Portland. Gun cracked in the distance and the hordes started to surge forward, and it didn't take long until my zone was off and running. All the training, all the preparation, that whole year's worth of work prior to that, was put to the test as the race went on. I finished the Portland half marathon a couple hours later, and just like that, a year's worth of early morning runs and countless hours on the road was done. And so I started now to start thinking about, well, when am I going to run a marathon? That's what you start thinking as soon as you finish a half marathon. Well, not as soon, but soon after you finish a race, you start thinking about the next race.

But unfortunately, it wasn't to be. A couple months later, I was sidelined with an ankle injury after a race in Corvallis that we finally, just this past August, was able to diagnose and repair. I finished physical therapy next week. So I'm very excited to get back at things, recognizing that I have a very long road ahead of me to get back to where I was. Now, while 13.1 miles is certainly not the most strenuous endurance race that is out there, it taught me a series of very important lessons that directly relate to the theme of this weekend. I'd like to share those with you today in the hopes of encouraging you to endure to the end. That's the title of the message today, Endure to the End. Hebrews 12 is not the only place where this way of life, Christianity, our calling, is compared to a race. It's not the only location in Scripture. Another location is found in 1 Corinthians 9. Let's go ahead and turn over there. 1 Corinthians 9. In fact, this particular location is even a stronger description, as the Apostle Paul really explains his reasoning in this process. If you turn over there, please. It's in 1 Corinthians 9, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 24 and read through verse 27. 1 Corinthians 9, verse 24, and we'll pick it up and read through verse 27. 1 Corinthians 9 and verse 24 reads as follows. It says, 2 Corinthians 9 and verse 24, and we'll pick it up and read through verse 24. Everyone in the race is running, but only one receives the prize. Now, it's a little bit different today. It is a little bit different today. In today's races, most people don't enter the race, even considering the possibility of winning the race. Typically, because there is such an elite field of runners that is involved, that that's just not reality, unless you are also, comparatively, an elite runner as that. Now, we break it down into age classes. We might have a better opportunity winning our age class, our gender class, whatever it might be. But typically, against such an elite field of runners in today's races, it's just simply not realistic.

In today's races, people are pitted against themselves, they're pitted against their own PR. Everyone that finishes gets a medal, a t-shirt, and a free banana. Actually, it's about a $130 banana, but that's kind of besides the point. Everyone runs, but only one person is the winner. Only one person gets first place. Everyone else technically lost.

I don't know if you've ever thought about this before, but ironically, unless we're one of those elite runners, physically, we're actually training to lose a marathon. We're actually training to lose the marathon. We're actually training to go out and not win the race that we're running physically. Now, when we bring this into a spiritual aspect of things, Paul's point is that while everyone runs spiritually, we should run in such a way to obtain the prize.

We should ensure we're not out there just going through the motions. Not out there just running for the banana, so to speak. But instead, we're doing our level best that we're out there and we're running to win the imperishable crown, that eternal life in the kingdom of God. Verse 26, Paul states he runs not with uncertainty. Not with uncertainty. In fact, there's not a question in Paul's mind as to his level of training or his performance. You might say in today's vernacular, he's in it to win it.

And the point that he drives home in verse 27 is this level of certainty comes because of discipline. It comes because he's brought himself into subjection. He's brought himself into discipline spiritually. He's ensured that he's in line with God and with God's expectations. As he writes in another place, he's steadfast and immovable. I could not run the half marathon that I ran in 2014 today. I couldn't. My body's not physically disciplined to the place that it was then. In 2014, I had no question that I would finish. Absolutely no question in my mind. There were a couple moments on the road where I wasn't sure I wanted to, but I knew that I could.

And the reason that I knew that I could is because I was disciplined in such a way that I could finish. I had trained, I had tested myself, and I was prepared. Spiritually, Paul is admonishing those in the church in Corinth to be in the same place, to be disciplined, to be disciplined, to bring themselves into spiritual subjection in that regard so they can run this race, this spiritual life with the kind of endurance. Such not only that they can finish, but that they can win. You know, endurance is one of those funny words in English that can be expressed both passively and actively.

I'll try to see if I can make sense of what I'm trying to explain here. In both of its meanings, endurance means to essentially withstand hardship and adversity, without yielding, without swerving from deliberate purpose. So you have a goal in mind. Nothing is going to get in the way of that goal is essentially the definition. But we use it in very different ways. For example, I can endure a boring college lecture. I can sit there and passively endure a boring college lecture. I can endure a trip to the dentist. I can endure traffic.

And more or less, none of these things require anything from me except a passive acceptance of the hardship that I'm experiencing. Nothing more is asked of me but to put up with it. On the other hand, endurance athletes, endurance in quotes, routinely run 100 and 200 mile multi-day races in unbelievable conditions. They run in heat. They run in cold. I don't know if you knew this. There's a North Pole marathon, if you'd like to go run a marathon at the North Pole.

There's also a two or three day ultra-marathon that runs across the Sahara Desert, in case you were interested in punishing yourself in a very unique way. They run across deserts. They run across mountain ranges. They train and they push their bodies to the absolute limit to achieve something that we would almost say is almost inhuman. Yes, they withstand hardship.

They withstand adversity without yielding and swerving from their purpose. But would you compare sitting in traffic to slogging out a 200 mile Saharan ultra-marathon? Personally, I don't. They're two very different things. And it seems like maybe splitting hairs a little bit. But what kind of endurance is the author of Hebrews describing? Which of these two types is the Apostle Paul describing? Which one does God desire of us?

And I think it's important to differentiate, because when we look at a scripture like Matthew 24, 13—let's go ahead and turn there— Matthew 24 and verse 13. Depending on the kind of endurance that we're thinking about, the end result is very different. Matthew 24 and verse 13. In Matthew 24, Christ is describing the conditions of the end times after His disciples very specifically asked of the signs. He describes the wars, the rumors of wars, famines, pestilence, earthquakes, antichrists, and the tribulation that God's people will experience. And He kind of starts to conclude that description with what we read here in verse 13.

Matthew 24 and verse 13 reads as follows, He who endures to the end shall be saved. The word endure there is the same word that was used in Hebrews 12. It's hupamone is the word, and it means steadfastness, it means patience, it means endurance. But again, depending on the kind of endurance that we think about when we think about that word, we could read that passage in one of two ways. One, the person who puts up with adversity and tribulation will be saved, or two, the person who pushes through adversity and tribulation will be saved.

Once again, maybe it's splitting hairs to a degree, but one use of the term endure in that case is passive, while the other is more active. The importance of active endurance cannot be overstated. Ecclesiastes 9 verse 11, we'll just reference it, it records, Time and chance happen, and the fastest person in the field is not always the one that wins the race.

It's not always the one that wins the race. Frequently, the person who wins the race is the one who runs the better race. It's not always the fastest. It's the one who runs the smartest, the one that runs the best race. Basic race plan is pretty simple. You put one foot in front of the other until you cross the finish line. That's basic, basic running. But that's like telling somebody that sword fighting is use the pointy end.

You know, we recognize there's so much more to it than that. So much more to it than that. One foot after the other is too simple, but people can also take it and make it way too complicated as well. And we'll try to kind of find somewhere in the middle.

Today, with the time we have left, I'd like to explore a spiritual race strategy that will help us all endure to the end. A typical long-distance endurance race can be broken down into three basic parts. And there is a whole lot of foot in front of the other in between these three basic parts.

It's broken down into the start, the start of the race. It's broken down into finding your way past the wall. And it's broken down into the endgame. And so we break it down into the strategies that involve the first few miles of the race, the start itself. There's a whole lot going on between the start and the wall. Usually it's one foot in front of the other for about 20 miles. Then you get to the wall. You work through that part of the race.

You find your way through it. That's that part of the race that ruined most people's day. And then the endgame is the final few miles of race that stand between the wall and the finish line. And so I'd like to explore those three today as we go. We'll start with the very beginning of the race. You seem like it, but one of the most important aspects of your race strategy is the first few miles.

The first few miles of your race is some of the most important miles you will put on your feet that day, because it ultimately impacts all of the others. It ultimately impacts all of the others. When that gun cracked on that cool October morning and the crowd started to surge forward, my excitement levels peaked. I mean, here we are. We're actually doing this. Race was on, and I am a pretty competitive person.

I'll admit that. I am a pretty competitive person. And so as I saw people in front of me starting to move away, I said, uh-uh. No, no. No, I'm going to catch you. And so at the beginning of the race, it was me versus anybody that I could pick off. Anybody that I could pass. And so I took off. I knew I had no chance at first place, but I started looking for openings in the crowd, and darting through those openings around the people, walking around the people, talking, in hopes of getting out in the open so I could pick up some speed.

Once I got outside of the people that I started with, once I got out of my zone, I cranked the music up a little bit, the wind was in my face, I felt absolutely alive. I was passing people left and right. I was just blowing past people. The smart ones. I was blowing past all the smart ones. The ones who had a race strategy. The ones who had thought things through and didn't just decide to go run.

By the time I'd gone 3.1 miles, I had a massive PR on my 5K time. I had an even faster PR on my 10K. I actually sped up between the 5K and the 10K. I was absolutely flying. From my pace, I was a minute under all of my mile splits for the first 6 miles. Great 5K, great 10K, and then reality hit. What I didn't realize at the time was that I started out too hard.

I'd gotten swept up in the moment, I got swept up in the excitement, in the adrenaline of the race, and I had not maintained the pace that I should have maintained. Distance runners talk about your could pace and your should pace. There's a could pace and a should pace. I could go out there and run a minute mile faster splits like I did for the first 6 miles, but the question was, should I? The answer, in case you're wondering, is no. No, you should not. You shouldn't. When you start out too fast, you run into potential issues later in the race if you're not disciplined or you're not prepared.

The way of life, the way of this life, is a marathon, not a sprint. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Let's go over to the book of Acts, please. We're going to go specifically to Acts 2. Acts 2. You know, spiritual when we were first called, we are on fire. We are excited. We are zealous. We desire to tell anyone and everyone who would possibly listen about all these things that we now understand that we didn't understand before. And we have this idea that just because we see it, they're going to see it. And so we start to tell everybody, we're excited about it, we're zealous about it, we're just on fire.

And often, that's to mixed results, as many of you that have been down that road know. In fact, sometimes, perhaps this resulted in unspoken agreements among family members, not to talk about religion at this time of year, because you have family members that keep Christmas, and frankly, they don't want to hear it anymore. And you may be in a situation like that. You may be blessed to have all of your family in the church, which is a wonderful blessing. But it's one of those things.

Acts 2, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 42. In Acts 2, we see this powerful sermon that Peter preaches to the brethren gathered on that day of Pentecost. He delivers this call to action in verse 36, and typically, we stop at about verse 39. That kind of suits our purposes. It achieves our results more often than not. And we kind of cut it off at verse 39.

We don't often go too much further, because 38 and 39 make our point. But what is a state in verse 42? Acts 2 and verse 42. Keeping in mind that these individuals, many of them are brand-new converts. Many of these folks are brand-new converts that are just getting started in this way of life, that are now learning for the first time some of these things that they didn't fully understand before.

And so in Acts 2 and verse 42, it says, They continued steadfastly, different word than what we had in Hebrews 12, in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. And then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together and had all things in common. They sold their possessions, sold their goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.

So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. You know, when we look at the early church, we kind of examine the church that comes out of Acts 2, we see an incredible love that they had for one another. This was an exciting time in the church of God, a time when God was adding daily to the believers.

God was adding daily to these believers. And as you can see from this particular passage, more or less, they spent every waking moment together. They ate together. They worshiped together. They spent time together. They spent all these times together. It's very similar to a couple of honeymooners that are just married. They don't want to be apart. They don't want to be apart.

They can't bear it. Those of you who are married, you remember those days. Back when one another's idiosyncrasies maybe were overlooked. Everything was perfect. But we also know and we recognize that stage doesn't last. It matures. It matures into a different kind of love. It didn't last in the church of God either in those days, not long after this as we kind of continue in through the book of Acts, we begin to see personalities rise up.

We begin to see heresies come in. In the 60s AD, as we see recorded in Ephesians 19, there was an incredible commotion about the way. There was a riot in the city of Ephesus over this way of life and the concerns that those individuals had, because now their way of life and their financial income was threatened. That's not a small situation here. That is a huge thing that has blown up.

That is a result of a lot of people really zealous about this way of life and making it known that idols are not going to be around anymore, so much so that all the idol makers start to unionize and get all upset.

It was enough to drive the city of Ephesus to riot. That was in the 60s AD. People of Ephesus were zealous. They were on fire, but by the time we reached the 90s AD, the Apostle John records Ephesus had lost that love. In the letter to the Church of Ephesus, they had lost that love. They'd lost that zeal that they had at the beginning. Sometimes, if we start out too fast, we run the risk of running out of gas later. We run the risk of running out of gas later. By the time I finished that 10K at my significantly faster-than-normal pace, I had half of a half marathon left. I had gone full tilt for the first half of everything, and as I started the miles that would come afterwards, I realized how bad of an idea that really was. At that point, I had to slow my pace significantly and really truly focus on putting one foot in front of the other and kind of killing time, unfortunately. I wasn't gaining a lot of ground. In fact, I was losing ground at that point in time because I had come out too quickly. I focused on breathing. I focused on footfalls. But, frankly, everything else went out the window. Honestly, I don't remember much from miles 6 to 11. I know they happened, but I really don't remember much. I remember being tired and wanting to stop. That was essentially what I can remember from that 5-mile stretch. I remember having arguments with my brain. I don't know if you've ever had an argument with your own brain in your head. Your brain begins to tell you things like, why are you doing this? You realize you can just stop at any point in time, right?

You could literally just stop running right now, walk into the crowd, and disappear. No one would be the wiser. No one would be the wiser. And you have to tell your brain to zip it and just kind of keep going. But it would have been incredibly easy at that point to just give in and to quit. To just stop and again, fade into the bystanders on the side of the road and pretend the rest didn't happen. And I'd love to tell you that that thought didn't cross my mind, but it did.

When we're out of gas, we struggle to think. We struggle to think. We simply react when we're out of gas. And from a spiritual standpoint, maybe that looks like us responding curtly and causing offense to one of the brethren whom we love dearly.

But we didn't think. We just reacted because we're out of gas.

Maybe we haven't taken the time to prove the things that we've heard. And maybe we unknowingly, or maybe even sometimes knowingly, accept heresy and begin to believe that.

Maybe we struggle, really, to keep one foot and going in front of the other. Maybe we begin to struggle with sin. Maybe we stop attending services regularly because we're tired.

We all know individuals who, somewhere after the start of the race, quit.

We all know people who have been down that road.

Even if we don't quit outright, maybe we get so tired that we lessen up and our pace slows significantly.

Bible study becomes less and less regular. Our prayer becomes infrequent.

We're still putting one foot in front of the other, but barely. And our pace has slowed to a crawl.

It is times like these that refueling is necessary. It's times like these that refueling is needed.

In long-distance races, your carbohydrate use exceeds that which your body can store.

And so, the racing stores sell all kinds of really expensive ways to refuel.

Typically, they're gels or they're gummies or they're liquids or they're whatever they might be. But they're a quick carbohydrate shot just to kind of get your brain back into functioning mode so you can think and you can process what you need to do next.

They give you the carbohydrates needed to maintain your pace.

There's also refueling stations all along the road, all along the route.

They're placed about every mile or so. You can dip in real quick and grab a shot of Gatorade, get some sugar or something in you so that you can keep going.

Brother Nee's weekends, the Spokane weekend, the Tacoma weekend, Holy Days, SAVA services, those are our refueling stations.

Those are the chances for us to come in and to get the fuel that we need to go through yet another week, to go through yet another six months, to go from one holy day to the next.

Those refueling stations are absolutely essential. And when we start to tire, when we start to wear out, when we start to run out of gas, so to speak, those refueling stations feel farther and farther and farther apart.

They're there. Man, it feels like they're just so far away. You know? Just so far away. These are chances for us to get together with Brethren and get a shot in the arm to keep going until the next refuel.

These things are essential for us to have the energy to keep going. The race is not to the swift.

Keeping an appropriate pace is important, and regularly refueling is necessary if we're going to endure to the end.

The next thing that a good race strategy takes into account is working through what runners term the wall.

Runners burn carbohydrates like a furnace. And our bodies do, too. I mean, we always do, whether we're running or not.

But this is one of the many reasons that runners carbo-load the night before the race.

You may have known people who have run marathons, and they go sit down and have a huge plate of pasta or a bunch of bread or whatever it might be to try to carbo-load prior to the race itself. The hope in that is to increase level of free carbohydrates in the body in order to top off the gas tank, so to speak.

So that the next day, when they're going out and they're running, they can pull all those free carbohydrates out before they start tapping into what has been stored in muscle and liver glycogen.

Carbohydrates are the body's preferred fuel source because they're easy to obtain, they're really easy to convert into energy, and they burn well. They burn efficiently.

There are other things the body can utilize as fuel as well, but carbohydrates are kind of your primary pathway.

An average runner burns about 100 calories per mile, more if they're pushing themselves early, but they burn about 100 calories per mile.

Once those free carbohydrates are used up, the body starts tapping into reserves. It starts pulling it out of the muscle, starts pulling it out of the liver, and your body has the capability of storing as glycogen in your muscles and in your liver about 1,800 to 2,000 calories worth of carbohydrates.

You can do the math and find out which mile most people hit the wall, right around 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, in a marathon especially.

Because at that point in time, the majority of runners are going to run out of gas. There is nothing left in the tank. There's nothing there.

They've burned all the free carbohydrates, they've burned all the stored carbohydrates, and they hit what is known as the wall.

The wall occurs when your glycogen stores are depleted completely, and so in order to now power the heart and the muscles and the lungs and everything that is now being used so much, it reroutes energy from the brain to those essential parts.

Essentially, the brain goes on to just autonomic function. Keep breathing, keep moving, etc.

Executive function decisions will seem shut down.

People go to a very deep and a very dark place when they hit the wall sometimes.

I had a really good friend of mine, actually, who ran a marathon, and I asked her if she was going to do another one. She said, nope.

I said, why is that? She said, because when I hit the wall, I didn't like what I saw. I don't want to go there again.

I said, oh, okay. But in her mind, she went very negative very quickly.

And people do. Negative thoughts creep in. There's very little energy to shut them down.

And unfortunately, it's at this time when your mind is the weakest that you need it the most.

And it's not there because you're moving all that energy to the muscles.

It's at this point that most of your DNFs occur. People hit the wall, and they literally cannot even contemplate taking one more step.

Sometimes you can see it. You can actually see it if you watch marathons right around the 20-21 mile mark. You can see people almost literally hit an invisible wall, and they just kind of... their legs go to jelly, they stagger, they stumble, and they start to make really weird decisions. Things that you would think, why are they doing that?

Because they can't think. They can't think through the process.

I told you earlier in my half marathon, I didn't remember 6-11 very well, mile 6-11.

That is absolutely true. I remember mile 11 very well. It was mile 11 where I hit the wall.

I ran the Portland marathon, or half marathon, in 2014, which was the morning after the day of atonement.

Retrospect, that probably wasn't terribly intelligent.

I'd fasted the day before, I broke my fast with some pasta and bread, and then the next morning, bright and early, was running on very little to no breakfast.

I never was really able to run with food in my stomach, but I chanced a very small breakfast that morning in hopes of having enough energy.

So I started my race with very little in the tank to begin with, and there was a lot less available by mile 11.

When I hit the wall at mile 11, I remember literally faltering.

I remember thinking to myself, my legs were just jelly, I stumbled and had a momentary thought of what's wrong?

Something's wrong. Something doesn't feel right.

My brain was screaming at me, there's alarm bells going off, you know, Danger, Will Robinson, Danger, Will Robinson.

What was left of my race strategy went out the window, and it became a literal slog of one foot in front of the other for the better part of a mile to a mile and a half.

I didn't care what my pace was at that point in time. I didn't care about technique. If I'm honest, I almost didn't care if I finished at that point.

Everything was put into just staying on my feet at that point in time. I kept telling myself one more step, that's it. Just one more, and then another, and another, because I realized the only way out was through.

The only way out was through. Quitting simply wasn't an option. Have you ever hit a spiritual wall?

Have you ever hit a time in your life where you thought you simply couldn't go on? A trial that was so fierce, a struggle that was so long in fighting, that you kind of almost threw your hands up and said, what's the point?

What's the point? Let's go to 1 Peter 4. Let's go to 1 Peter 4. 1 Peter 4 and verse 12. You know, we can see a lot of character growth in Peter as we go through Scripture. We can see the man who denied Christ when Christ was arrested and who Christ told him, you know, you're going to deny me three times because Peter didn't want anything to do with the punishment that Christ was going to receive. Didn't want anything to do with what might occur with himself. But by 1 Peter 4, he kind of had it figured out. 1 Peter 4 and verse 12, he writes about suffering, Beloved, do not think it strange, concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you. But, verse 13, rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. Peter makes the point, don't think it strange. Don't look at this trial that's come up and go, well, why is this happening to me? Instead, he makes the point, if you haven't had this happen, you will.

It's going to happen. It's not if, it's when. It's not if, it's when. You will, at some point in time in your spiritual life, hit the wall, if you have not already done so.

It's going to happen. And when it happens, how will you get through it? How will you make it through? How will you find joy in that time in your life? How will you rejoice?

Let's go over to 2 Corinthians. Just a little bit backward from current location here. 2 Corinthians.

In this particular section of 2 Corinthians, we'll pick it up in the first chapter, 2 Corinthians 1, the Apostle Paul writes on the importance of encouragement and of comfort. And in particular, he gets into it at the end, talking about the importance of interceding on behalf of one another.

2 Corinthians, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 3 of 2 Corinthians 1, as he's writing here to the brethren in Corinth.

It says, So the comfort with which we receive, we can and should pass on to others. That word, comfort, can also very easily be translated encouragement.

Periclesis.

Verse 5, And we can read that and we can say, you know what? That's really easy for the Apostle Paul to say. You know, he was living in a different time. He had different experiences. You know, he went through all these different things. But look what he goes on to say in verse 8.

We don't know what it was that they experienced. We're not 100%. But it had them worried enough and despairing even of life. He goes on, Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead. In other words, the only way out was the resurrection.

We were in that bad of a place to where we trusted in the resurrection that was to come.

Because we didn't think we were going to make it.

Verse 10, who delivered us from so great a death and does deliver us, in whom we trust that he will still deliver us. You also, verse 11, talking to those in Corinth, you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many. Spoiler alert, he survived because he wrote the letter, right? We know he made it out of that particular straight that he was in, whatever it was.

But he told the brethren in Corinth, essentially, thank you for your prayers.

I don't know if you've ever had a situation where you've received cards of encouragement from people.

You know, it is an incredible blessing to know how many people are thinking of you and praying for you and encouraging and lifting you up in prayer before God.

Paul makes the point to the brethren in Corinth here of the importance of encouragement, of the importance of comfort. Again, that word is paraclesis, comfort, encouragement, either or.

But he made the point that those prayers helped them in a very difficult and a very dark time, a time when they despaired even of life.

Again, a time where they put their trust in God and in the resurrection because in their estimation, they weren't getting out alive.

I don't know who she was. Jumping back to my story, I have no idea. I never saw her again. Somewhere between mile 11 and mile 12, a woman in the crowd must have seen me struggling because she ran alongside me for about a block.

Shouting words of encouragement, telling me that I could keep going, that I could push through this, cheering me on and pushing me.

She'll never know how much it meant. She'll never know how much it meant.

I never saw her again.

I don't know that I would have finished without her pushing me on.

That encouragement, that little bit of fuel, that determination, not to let negativity win, help propel me through the worst of it.

How often do we need the same in this spiritual race as we endure to the end?

To finish this race.

There are times when it is so difficult to progress forward, when we feel like we're stuck, like we just cannot go on.

Brethren, your encouragement, your love to someone in that time in their life could be the difference between a finish and a DNF.

You have no idea what it means to people when they come alongside you in those times in your life.

Once you're through the wall, the race actually begins.

Once you're through the wall, the race begins. It's those final miles that make or break it.

It's actually been said that a marathon is 20 miles of hope and 6 miles of reality.

And for the final several miles of the race, mine wasn't a full marathon, it was a half.

But for the final several miles of the race, everything hurt.

My feet hurt, my legs hurt, my lungs hurt, I was roasting.

That morning, I'm roasting now, it's warm.

But it was 40 degrees when we started the race that morning, and by a couple hours later, it was almost 70.

It was a beautiful October day, just not a beautiful October day to be running a marathon.

I was incredibly uncomfortable at that point in time, and as I tried to finish this thing and tried to put the cap on it, I tried to ignore it. I tried to focus on chasing down the person in front of me.

Just one more person, just past that guy, and then after I passed that guy, past that person.

And then after I passed that person, just the next person.

I tried to focus on some sort of a goal that I could reach for.

It took my mind off my legs, my feet, and helped me kind of focus on this sort of attainable goal.

And what was amazing to me was that I found myself speeding up.

I found myself speeding up.

It wasn't long before I made the final turn to come into the finish line, and it zig-zagged in this big Z as it came to the finish line around a block or two of downtown real estate.

And the finish line is throng by people that are cheering everybody into the finish.

Most of them were people that were wearing bibs and had already finished.

Most people had turned around and gone back and were now cheering people in as they came in.

By now, I was almost sprinting. Everyone else was running faster, too, and I wanted to catch them.

So I tried to shave. I mean, my legs are jelly. I can't really feel them anymore, so whatever.

And I tried to shave a few more seconds off the time and tried to catch the next person, and like that, it was over.

I finished in two hours and 16 minutes in Portland Half Marathon.

That feeling of accomplishment, that feeling of a really hard-fought goal that's been met, is really hard to describe unless you've been there.

And I know many of you have. I saw the hands that went up and trained for and run.

I grabbed my really expensive banana, a couple other items of food, and some orange juice, and kind of went to walk off the tightening muscles in my calves and went over and started to cheer those that were coming in and finishing.

It was over. I could rest now. I had finished the race.

There are seasons in our life. There are seasons in our life.

The third chapter of Ecclesiastes talks about there being a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted.

You might say there's a time to run. There's a time to encourage.

Chapter 12 admonishes us to remember our Creator before the days of our old age when our physical body slows, begins to give out in various ways. Life becomes more difficult. Let's turn over there.

This is a bleary read, I apologize, but I'm going to read it in the New Living Translation, only because it provides a little more color in the description. Ecclesiastes 12, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1.

Ecclesiastes 12 and verse 1, in the New Living Translation, says, Don't let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator.

Honor Him in your youth before you grow old and say life is not pleasant anymore.

Remember Him before the light of the sun, the moon and stars is dim to your old eyes, and rain clouds continually darken your sky. Remember Him before your legs, the guards of your house start to tremble, and before your shoulders, strong men stoop. Remember Him before your teeth, your few remaining servants stop grinding, and before your eyes, the women looking through the windows, see dimly.

Remember Him before the door to life's opportunities is closed and the sound of work fades.

Now you rise at the first chirping of the birds, and then all their sounds will grow faint.

Remember Him before you become fearful of falling and worry about danger in the streets, before your hair turns white like an almond tree in bloom, and you drag along without energy like a dying grasshopper, and the caperberry no longer inspires sexual desire. Remember Him before you near the grave, your everlasting home, when the mourners will weep at your funeral.

Yes, remember your Creator now, while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken.

Don't wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well, for then the dust will return to the earth and the Spirit will return to God who gave it.

These words in Ecclesiastes 12 represent the endgame of our race.

Everything hurts. You're exhausted. It's difficult to get up in the morning. It's hard to get out and do anything.

Physically, it's incredibly tough as the parts of your body stop responding in the way that they used to or should respond.

Doing the things you used to be able to do simply isn't possible anymore. And it can be really easy to give up.

It can be really easy to get frustrated. It can be easy to stop.

But brethren, if you are still drawing breath, you haven't crossed the finish line yet.

Your race is not over. I know how bad you want to stop. I know how bad you want to be done.

You're not there yet. You're not there yet. In fact, spiritually, it's time to speed up. It's time to fire those legs a little harder.

It's time to increase that zeal, to push yourself through the aches and the pains, to continue to grow spiritually and to drive toward that finish line.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the brethren in Philippi as he talked of his own life and his race.

Let's go to Philippians 3 and verse 2, as we kind of start to bring things to a close here today.

Philippians 3 and verse 2.

Let's go to verse 12, actually. Sorry.

Philippians 3 and verse 12 says, Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected, but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do.

Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.

Verse 14, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul made the statement that he had not already attained.

He was not already perfected, and because of that, he pressed on.

He desired to lay hold of the prize. He didn't focus in the rear view. He didn't look at what had happened. He didn't look into the past.

Instead, he took all of that energy and kept his eyes forward. He pressed on to the goal.

Don't eat your banana yet.

The race isn't over. Finish strong.

Brethren, it's essential that whatever stage we find ourselves in in this race, that we take these strategies to heart. If we're just starting out, that we pace ourselves and we start well.

That we establish solid and steady Bible study.

We establish solid and steady prayer.

That we ensure that those regular habits are in place.

That we regularly refuel. We establish a refueling schedule to make sure that we don't run out of gas as we go forward.

That we don't burn out. It's also really important that we have a strategy to cope with the wall when it hits.

That we have a plan for when it comes so that we can push through the negativity.

We can push through the exhaustion and come out the other side stronger and ready for the endgame of our race.

It's essential, too, that we recognize and we look and we see when others are experiencing this.

So that we can provide the necessary encouragement and help them through. Keep in mind, the race itself begins after the wall.

Lastly, we need to finish strong. We need to push ourselves and pick up speed in our final miles.

Not focusing on what was, but focusing on what is and what is ahead.

And propelling ourselves to the Kingdom.

Let's close today with the Scripture we began with, Hebrews 12 and verse 1. Hebrews 12 and verse 1, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.

Those examples that we see in Hebrews 11, those ones that are ringing that finish line, cheering us on.

That cloud of witnesses.

Let us lay aside every weight in the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

Like Paul said, looking forward, looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith, 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.

You've got this. One foot in front of the other, endure to the end.

1. Hebrews 12 and verse 1, Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so many witnesses, will be able to