Dumping Baggage

Have you noticed how stripped-down the NASCAR race cars are? They look like real cars, right? But that’s only an aluminum shell. Underneath the shell there is nothing that resembles an ordinary car. There’s nothing anywhere on the car that adds unnecessary weight. No seats except the driver’s seat. No CD player. No airconditioner. Not even a spare tire.

With the help of pastor Joseph Stowell, we'll be teaching through Hebrews 12 on these Sundays. The metaphor there is that those of us who belong to Christ are in a race. Anybody besides me do track and field or competitive swimming in High School or University? Remember the adrenaline rush at the crack of that gun, when you leapt out of those starting blocks? For us Christians, the starting line was at the Cross, when Jesus caught our attention, and we said, "I need You as Saviour." At that moment He cleansed us and made us His own people. There was a crack of the starter’s pistol, and we were all put into this thing called Christianity. True Christian faith is a race that we run for Him. The good thing about this race is that we're not running against other Christians. It’s not the tension of "Can I win this race?" It’s not "I don't want to be second." It’s not a competition like, "Can I do better than the other guy?" No, no. To be a Christian is not to be in a performance mode where we are trying to prove ourselves to God. We’re not trying to earn God’s love and acceptance. We run so that at the finish line, we hear Him tell us that we finished the race, and we did it well, and that He is pleased with us. So the writer to Hebrews talks to us about how we run this race hour by hour and day by day.
Is anybody mumbling under his breath, "It’s Sunday morning, and I haven’t had breakfast yet, - I don't want to be in any race!" Get a grip. You are in the race. If you belong to Jesus, you're running the race for Him.

The question is, How am I running it? And, I guess you've watched runners before, like I have. But have you ever seen racers line up and have some guy over here in this heavy fur coat with this big, heavy fur hat on, and his face just peaking out a little bit here? He’s got snowshoes on, and people are asking, "What's that?" You say, "Well, that's the team from Alaska. They just run like that." I've never seen that happen. Like the NASCAR racers who dump any unnecessary weight, runners shed every single piece of clothing that's going to weigh them down and get in the way, right? They've unloaded all the baggage so they can run the race. If you run the race, you dump the baggage.

So how do we run it? This text teaches us four things that equip us to run the race well. We're dealing with the first of those four things today.

Chapter 12 verse 1: "Since we have [this] great cloud of witnesses" up there cheering us on-"Do your part. Run your race. Don't let us down." Maybe your grandmother is in that crowd, or your grandfather. Maybe you had a godly mother and father who are now in heaven. They’re saying."Lay aside every weight." That's number one. In this race, as in any other race, you dump the baggage.

So I think it's important for us to stop and say, " What is the baggage? What is the stuff that weighs us down? What do we need to get rid of?"

Your baggage might be different than mine, but what might some of the baggage be? It could be your career. You say, "Wait a minute. You want me to quit my job?" A career by itself is not baggage. You and I've got to have a career. It's baggage when I live for my career. When my career becomes more important to me than running the race, than building the legacy in other’s lives for God, that's the big-time slow down. Have your heard the expression, "there are a lot of people who climb the career ladder only to find out at the end that it's leaning against the wrong wall"? If I live for my career, then I’m going to find big- time disappointment when I get to the end. Do you know of anybody on a deathbed who ever wished he had spent more time in the office? Who looks back on life like that? Nobody that I know ever said at the end, "Gee, I spent too much time with my kids when they were growing up!"

Is it possible to be more concerned with what it says on our resumes or business cards than what is falling off the lips of our kids about us? I’d call that baggage.

Maybe it's simple stuff, like my newspaper and my remote control. We walk in the door, and it's time to grab the newspaper and the remote control. We know somebody’s going to cook dinner and call us when it's ready. So we're watching TV and reading our newspaper. We take the newspaper to the supper table with us and read the newspaper. Did you ever think that that's not building a legacy? Is that a good way to run a race toward the prize of kids who love God?
If we teach our kids to pray the Lord’s Prayer, "Our Father," aren’t they going to figure that God is a father? But the only thing he knows about father is - me. I think about all those times when maybe he needed his bike fixed, or maybe she needed me in her life, and they came along, and I was reading the paper or hunched over a computer, or on out on the fourth tee with my buddies. Is that what Hebrews means by an weight, the uncecessary baggage that hinders our race?

Maybe it's the weight of friends. We've got a lot of high school kids, junior high school kids here. I have to tell you, just take it from this geezer, all right? I can still remember back in junior high and high school, I would have given away my life for my friends. Whatever my friends were doing, that was cool. That's what I gave myself to. Then I went away to university, and I've lived a lot of life since. I have to tell you, I have no idea where most of my junior high or high school friends are today. Few of them are my ongoing friends in my life. And how can it be that you would give away your purity, you would give away your integrity, you would give yourself to habits and to experiences that haunt you for the rest of your life just for friends? For friends you will never see again in your whole life? Would that be called that an weight, baggage in the race?

Or maybe the baggage is the attitude that lives just for now, just for the moment. You see, if you're running the race, you don't live for now. What do you live for? You may be focussed on every step at the moment. Maybe it’s overwhelming to think about the finish line when you’ve still got 5 k to go. But ultimately, you live for the finish line - that's what you live for. But our world tells us, "Live for now. It's all immediate gratification. Go for the thrill. Go for the adrenaline rush. Go for the hit. Whatever makes you happy, get it, and get it now." Does that message ever come to you?

The are other kinds of people in the stands, watching. The athlete runs the race. Every muscle is trained, and he's giving himself all the way to the finish line. Then there are all the couch potatoes sitting in the stands. "I'll take mustard, ketchup, and a lot of relish on that. Oh, I love this." Checking out some woman over there, like, "Whoa, look at that. How about that. Woo, that's nice. I'll take that Blue or that Coors!"

I want you to know God never said that life with Christ was sitting in the stands. This is not about immediate gratification. It's not about now. It’s about the finish line and getting all the way there. And if I’m living for all that is now, I’ve got to dump that baggage, because the now will betray me every time. Sure, it's a buzz now. Sure, it's a hit now. But the sorrow and the regret and the guilt are assured down the pike. You can take that to the bank. Get it?
Well, I hope by God's grace that we do get it. Running this race really is about dumping the baggage. I think it would be good for all of us just to stop for a minute and ask this question: What is that baggage in my life? We mentioned some. There are a lot of other things. It could be my dreams. Maybe I'm going for something that Jesus doesn't want me to go for. Maybe the baggage is somebody that I've not forgiven, against whom I still hold a deep sense of bitterness. It’s just dragging me down and down and down. Maybe the baggage is flat-out the busy-ness of life. If my life is a like a scrambled egg, if I've forgotten that I'm in a focussed race for Jesus Christ, then maybe I’d better figure out what the baggage is that hinders me from running well for Christ. What's the baggage? Start the race by turning away from sin to Jesus Christ. Trust him to save you for eternity. Then dump the baggage and run the race.