“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.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

So far this week we have talked about freedom, bees, and the good old days. This has given us the chance to reflect on honoring those who have sacrificed to give us what we enjoy, evidence for God’s existence, and gratitude. Today, let’s see if we can put all of those together into a single idea. This all comes compliments of a visit to what I think is the only World War I Memorial and Museum in the world. It’s at the very least the largest and the best. Let’s reflect for just a few minutes today on the gift of those who came before us.

Nothing exists entirely on its own. Well, nothing except God exists entirely on its own. He is uncreated by definition. Everything else comes from something. It all comes from somewhere. This includes you and me. And I don’t just mean that our parents conceived and gave birth to us. If you could trace it all out, there is a reason we are who we are. There is a reason we are the way we are. That reason is a grand combination of the things that came before us.

World War I was essentially an accident. It wasn’t like World War II in that sense. The Second World War happened because Hitler and his Nazis wanted to extend the reach of the Third Reich across the globe starting with the conquest of Europe. There wasn’t a single driving force behind the First World War. It is a war that should never have happened. The group of assassins that killed Archduke Ferdinand of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire weren’t supposed to take the shot. Their superiors had changed their minds on the killing. But they never got the message. The entire course of history changed because of a miscommunication.

From the hindsight of studying history, though, the Great War was bound to start even without the Archduke’s assassination. A number of different political, cultural, economic, and religious ideas were all baked together in such a way that Europe was a powder keg waiting to explode at the slightest hint of a spark. Once the first domino fell, the rest followed suit rather quickly, and soon the entire world was embroiled in a conflict the likes of which had never been seen.

The events leading to and during that war changed the world in ways that are hard to fully trace out and understand. In this country the war that was supposed to end all wars marks the turning point from our being a fairly insignificant nation on the world stage to our ascending to world superpower status. We discovered and the rest of the world with us just what we were capable of and nothing has been the same since. If we stand today—and we don’t always, but if and when we do—we stand on the shoulders of those giants; giants for good and for ill.

All of this got me thinking about the church and followers of Jesus today. It is easy for us to get caught up in pursuing the life of Christ in our moment and forget that there is a long history that came before us. Some of that history is good and noble. Some of it is a bit more checkered because of our willingness to tolerate sin within our ranks. All of it, though, combines to be the reason we are who and where we are.

This history, though, doesn’t just go back to the time of Jesus and the Apostles. God had been slowly turning the wheels of human history to bring things forward in this direction for centuries before that. He had worked in and through the lives of countless men and women before that to create a context in which any of it could make sense.

This was something the author of Hebrews wanted us to understand. After reflecting on the faithfulness of those who came before him and his contemporaries in what amounted to a review of most of the history of Israel, he lands here. If we stand today, we stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. They sacrificed themselves in ways we can hardly understand so that we can be who we are today; so that we can do and have what we do today.

All of this was at God’s direction and serves as a powerful testament to His existence. You can’t make sense of history apart from Him. There are just too many convenient accidents for it all to be considered nothing more than the accidental unfolding of history on its own. Now, this doesn’t mean all of it was according to His plan from the beginning. He lets us make choices that have real meaning and real consequences like sparking a World War. But He is bigger than our terrible and terribly consequential choices such that He can and does still direct things where He wants them to go in spite of the things we do. It is His faithfulness borne out through the faithfulness of His servants that keeps shaping things after the pattern of His kingdom.

We see this faithfulness and we see this kingdom shaping. It is not hidden. The question is what we should do about it. The author of Hebrews tells us. With this chorus of faithfulness behind us, cheering us forward, and with our eyes on Jesus, the one who does all the shaping, we press forward, running hard the race toward the kingdom that lies before us. We do this when things are easy. We keep doing it even when they are hard. We press forward with gratitude for what they have done and hope in what God has promised. And we don’t stop until we finally reach the kingdom’s beautiful shores. That’s our unfading goal, and with the power we have pushing us along from behind thanks to all those who have faithfully gone before us and the immortal, invincible God who goes ahead of us, we will make it indeed.