The author here is calling us to shift our life’s foundations off of those things that are shakable and onto the unshakable foundation of Jesus. What does he mean by shakable? The typical things we place the hopes of our lives upon are fragile and unable to support the weight of our lives. We run to money and sex and power and acceptance and validation and success. None of these things are bad. But none of them are sufficient to bear the weight of our souls. They can be lost. They can be withheld. They can be strained. And so they are unable to carry us through this life.

This week we will be looking at the end of Hebrews 12. And in many ways, this passage is the culmination of his main point throughout this book. Because he’s talking to people whose lives have been badly shaken by life’s circumstances. And he’s urging them toward a life whose foundations are firmly fixed on the unshakable rock of Jesus.

This week the writer of Hebrews (chapter 12) is showing us how to endure the marathon of life, by likening our struggles and hardships in life to running a race. And his point is that it’s grueling and wearisome. But the struggles are actually God’s intentional way of “exercising” and stretching our faith so that it can withstand the challenging things we constantly face.

This week we’re looking at what it means to run the race of life - of the Christian life - where we have a broader perspective on the struggles and hard times around us. There’s no escaping that life is hard - that unwelcome circumstances often linger. But if our life’s goal is the minimization of trouble and the maximization of pleasure, then hard times will undo us. They will throw us into a deep sadness. But if we can see that God is directing and using every ounce of struggle and pain to strip us of those delusions and push us to build the foundation of our lives on Jesus, then we can see these struggles as a welcome friend.

This week we are in Hebrews 12 where the author likens the Christian life to a race. And as much as our American perspective on life thinks this must be referring to winning that race - his primary point in this chapter is on training and preparation for that race. And as we’ve seen, the preparation is essential, because life is normally an agonizing struggle that can easily wear us out. And if we don’t understand the tools at our disposal and are not utilizing them to be adequately prepared for the race, we will be constantly wanting to “drop out” and take a “me” vacation along the way.

This week we turn to Hebrews 12 where the author likens the Christian life to running a race. And in the context of remembering the point of this letter was to encourage Christians not to give up in the face of suffering, the analogy of a race is an appropriate metaphor.

We’re looking this week at what biblical faith really is. And we’re turning to one of the best places to study that, Hebrews 11. Because here we have listed the greatest “heroes” of the faith, and what it is that turned them into p of greatness.

This week we are looking at the great chapter of the faithful in Hebrews 11. And what we’ve seen so far is that biblical faith is quite different from how the world often defines it. Even those in the church tend to have a far too narrow view of what genuine faith looks like.