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Part 2 of 8
The Race of Faith Is a Relay, Not a Sprint or Marathon
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The book of Hebrews chapter 12 begins with the word "therefore." Whenever you see "therefore" in Scripture, you need to look backward to understand what it refers to. In this case, Hebrews 12 is preceded by Hebrews 11—historically called the "Hall of Faith" by Bible scholars. It's like the hall of fame of Scripture.
Hebrews 11 tells the stories of people who walked by faith, beginning with Abel in Genesis. Sixteen consecutive stories show how by faith they conquered kingdoms, cracked open seas, shut the mouths of lions, and overturned the world. But it also tells us that some were thrown to lions, some were sawn in two, and some went to the grave. Yet they all awaited by faith the day when we would rise together and see the Lord Jesus crack open the skies and receive the inheritance.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith. (Hebrews 12:1-2)
You are now caught up in the same race that those 16 people marked in Hebrews 11 were running.
The dominant analogy the New Testament uses for the Christian life is a race. But many people misunderstand what kind of race it is.
When you first become a Christian, it often feels like a sprint. You're energized and ready to dive into the Word, know God, be used on mission, and make your life count for eternity. You hurl yourself into the Christian life with burst after burst of energy. But here's the problem: energy evaporates. If you're over 40, you feel this reality deeply.
So a well-meaning disciple-oriented Christian comes along and says, "Hey, the Christian life is not a sprint. It's a marathon." And that's true in one sense. Where a sprint is about fast-twitch muscle response and burst, a marathon is about rhythms and habits. The question becomes: Can you be in the Word day after day, morning by morning? Can you gather with the people of God week after week, month after month, decade after decade?
But here's the one problem: We think of the Christian life as a sprint or a marathon because that's individualistic. We live in an extremely individualistic society. We don't think about families and generations. We think about me, me, I, I. We take selfies, not "you and me."
But Hebrews 11 and 12 come along and point out that the Christian life is actually like a relay race. It's about passing the baton from generation to generation.
In a relay race, if a sprint is about energy and a marathon is about rhythms, then a relay race is about the baton pass. Everything comes down to one tiny spot called the exchange zone. The runners are typically in the exchange zone for about 1.9 seconds, and everything depends on who can perform there.
Take the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. The American men's 4x100 team had three of the top 10 fastest runners in the world. Everyone thought it was "done"—we would definitely win. But we didn't win. We didn't even place. Why? Because it doesn't matter who has the fastest runners. The question is who can pass the baton the best?
In the exchange zone, a choke slam happened instead of a clean baton pass. The baton dropped, and because the baton dropped, we lost the race.
Now, here's what the book of Hebrews is saying to you: You have been plucked out of eternity. God has positioned you in time. He has proportioned your gifts, talents, and resources. He has planted you in this church, in this house for a span of 80 years—and it will be gone before you know it. That's if you're blessed.
And God is saying: "Tag, church. You're it."
The question is: How will we run our race in the exchange zone? Will we pass the gospel baton from our generation to the next generation?
Hear this: The gospel is always one generation away from extinction if one generation does not pass it to the next. This is not optional. This is survival.
To everyone under 35: You are our best chance. If you just raised your hand, here's what I'm going to beg you to do: Elevate your vision for your life.
About five months ago, a sermon clip went viral online. People said, "This guy's a prophet." Let me explain why.
When you read the Bible and church history—and church history is just family history—you notice that God works through two things: the ordinary operations of the Spirit and the extraordinary operations of the Spirit.
The ordinary operations happen when the church does what we ordinarily do: preaching the Word, discipling people, helping the poor, feeding the hungry. The gospel advances in its ordinary ways. The gates of hell do not prevail against it. That's awesome.
But then there are moments in church history where the Holy Spirit works through the extraordinary operations of the Spirit. Some call them revival. Some call them spiritual awakenings. Here's what I know: Sometimes God will do more in a year than man with all his organizing can do in 50 years. God just pours out. An outpouring of the Spirit catches people up.
Our nation has experienced four of these extraordinary operations of the Spirit.
The First Great Awakening (1730-1740): Two key figures were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield. George Whitfield was the most famous George W. in America—not George Washington. He was a weird-looking, overweight, cross-eyed preacher who wandered into fields preaching to sometimes 60,000 people. Jonathan Edwards walked into a tiny church in Connecticut and read his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" with his back to the congregation so his voice wouldn't manipulate people emotionally. The Spirit fell so powerfully that people gripped the backs of pews, fearing they would fall into hell under the conviction of sin, the reality of God's wrath, and the grace of God. This extraordinary operation metastasized across America. Interestingly, our nation could never have been born as it was without being born out of the First Great Awakening.
The Second Great Awakening (1790-1850): The primary voices were Charles Finney and Father Nash. Father Nash was the prayer warrior; he would be sent into cities a month before Finney arrived, praying for the worst lost people. There are stories of him praying so vigorously that he would get nosebleeds. Charles Finney walked out into rural Rochester, New York and preached for about a month. A hundred thousand people started streaming to this little church. A hundred thousand people were saved. Millions of people across the nation were caught up into the kingdom of God. This massive outpouring changed the trajectory of the nation for 60 years.
The Third Great Awakening (around 1900-1910): The primary voice was D.L. Moody, an uneducated shoe salesman. He got saved at 18 and started preaching in a little church. Two elderly women—senior saints, prayer warriors—grabbed him after he preached and said, "Hey, we're praying for you to have a radical encounter with the Spirit." Within a month, he had such a radical encounter walking by a church that later in life he said, "What happened to me was so powerful that I had to ask God to stay His hand because I thought I was going to die." Just a radical outpouring of the love of the Father. Both North America and Great Britain experienced massive outpourings of God's Spirit. Changes transformed the face of our nation.
The Fourth Great Awakening: Some of you were alive for the fourth one.
The Fourth Great Awakening occurred from 1960 to 1975, led by Billy Graham and Chuck Smith. In 1966, Time magazine's cover asked the provocative question: "Is God dead?" Yet within just five years, the narrative completely shifted.
Chuck Smith walked into California, opened his Bible, and began preaching verse-by-verse exegetical teaching. Hippies—unshowered, barefoot, smelling of drugs—began streaming into his church. God poured out His Spirit in such a radical measure that millions of college students across America were saved.
By 1971, Time magazine's cover had changed: "Jesus Revolution." The entire movement culminated right here in Dallas, Texas, at Expo 72, where 80,000 Christian college students and young adults gathered at the Cotton Bowl. To this day, that remains the largest gathering of Christian college students in the history of our nation. These young people held up one finger in the air, declaring: "Jesus is the one way. He's the way, the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through him."
Here's what I want you to notice: from the First Great Awakening to the Second—50 years. From the Second to the Third—50 years. From the Third to the Fourth—50 years. If you take 1975 plus 50 years, you get 2025.
Right now, we're seeing tremors of spiritual awakening across our nation:
At Lakepointe, we're seeing attendance swell to 27,000 people on weekends, with people sitting on stairs just to hear the Bible preached. We may baptize towards 3,000 people this year. Our digital reach is approaching 600 million person-touches by year's end.
Everybody screams at your generation. They say you're lazy, entitled, narcissistic, purposeless, video game addicted, porn-led, and a waste of time. That is not your destiny.
Look at the ages of the great revival leaders throughout history:
These are not the years to spend your life drinking, playing Xbox, watching porn, or scrolling TikTok three hours a day. These are the years to consecrate yourself for the purposes of God. You are our best chance.
Someone asked me this question when I was 16 years old, and I am doing right now what my answer to that question was:
What would you attempt with your life if you knew that God was with you and you could not fail?
You need a God-glorifying vision for how you can spend your life for something that actually matters. Then go out and attack it with a ferocity previously unknown to mankind, knowing that the wind of the Spirit is at your back.
Now, to those of us over 35: we have a job to do. Let me read you what might be the saddest verse in the Bible.
And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work the Lord had done for Israel... And all that generation were also gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. (Judges 2)
That generation saw everything. They watched their fathers slaughter spotless lambs and smear the blood on the doorpost. They watched the angel of death pass over. They saw Moses part the Red Sea with their own eyes and walked through on dry ground. They saw the manna, the Jordan River split open, the walls of Jericho fall. They went from slaves to possessing a promised land.
But they dropped the baton. They did not pass the knowledge of who God was or His works to the next generation. As a result, that generation spiraled into godlessness and opposition to God throughout the entire book of Judges.
We may see amazing things at Lakepointe—3,000 baptisms, 600 million digital reaches. But if we do not do our job and we drop the baton, the next generation will arise who knows nothing of the Lord.
In Hebrews 11, half the word count of the Hall of Faith is devoted to three men: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—a grandfather, a father, and a son. This is not accidental. The book of Genesis repeats a phrase as its spine: "These are the generations of." It appears 10 times, culminating with Jacob.
The point is this: When God wants to generate something, His plan is to do it through generations.
We're doing the opposite in our nation right now. We're breaking down men and then trying to get the government to do what fathers are supposed to do. The government says, "We'll provide for you. We'll protect you. We'll educate you. We'll decide right and wrong for you."
We don't need that. We need less government. We need more godly fathers.
Abel, Isaac, and Jacob demonstrate a beautiful principle:
Abraham was the first believer in his family. His father was a pagan who worshipped false gods. Abraham got handed a bad baton. He was a blessed mess—a chronic liar with multiple wives. But he was the first believer in his lineage.
If you're like Abraham—if your life's a mess, if you're the first believer in your family tree—know this: your entire lineage will be different because you chose to bend your knee to the lordship of Jesus. You will hand a different baton than you received.
Isaac took his father's ceiling and made it his floor. Instead of taking another wife and having an affair like Abraham, Isaac prayed for his wife. He was faithful to one woman his whole life. He was a believer and a man of prayer.
Jacob went even further. He walked with intimacy with God. He burst forth the 12 tribes of Israel. God gave him the name Israel itself.
Because the baton was passed faithfully—Abraham to Isaac, Isaac to Jacob—each generation's ceiling became the next generation's floor. That is the opportunity we have.
Every week, three men are preaching to you: Jerry Howerton, Rick Howerton, and Josh Howerton.
Jerry Howerton was born in abject poverty in the Ozark Mountains, the son of a farmer. He didn't always have a house and slept in someone else's garage for part of his childhood. But as a teenager, he bent his knee to the lordship of Jesus. He found a cute little girl who loved Jesus—Doris Howard—and married her.
Because Jerry bent his knee to Jesus, he was faithful to one woman his entire life. He was a truck driver, worked hard enough to suffer three heart attacks and spinal stenosis. His life goal was to be the first Howard to graduate college. When he was 50 years old, he achieved that goal—getting a Bible degree and becoming a country preacher in little churches in Missouri and Kentucky, never pastoring a church larger than 200 people.
But because he bent his knee to the lordship of Jesus, his ceiling became his son's floor. Jerry passed a different baton to his son Rick than the one he received.
Rick Howerton—my dad—is probably the best man I've ever met. He has the spirit of Barnabas in him. You can't be within 100 feet of my dad without being encouraged in the Lord and given strength and courage.
Because Jerry passed him a different baton, Rick grew up around the Word of God, the worship of God, and the things of God. He went to Bible college, found a cute girl who loved Jesus, and married my mom, Julie, one of the greatest women you'll ever meet.
What I want to show you is how one man's ceiling became the next generation's floor. In my family, we've seen this principle lived out across three generations.
This picture shows Jerry, my grandfather. This is my dad over here—people call him Rick, but his real name is Ricky. And here's Ricky as a young man. Then the next picture is Ricky as an adult, and that's me, Joshy.
My dad is probably the best man I've ever met. He has the spirit of Barnabas in him. You can't be within 100 feet of my dad without being encouraged in the Lord and given strength and courage.
Because Jerry passed him a different baton, my dad grew up around the Word of God, around the worship of God, hearing the things of God. He went to Bible college, found a cute girl who loved Jesus, and married my mom, Julie—one of the greatest women you're ever going to meet. She just loves people to death.
My dad became a pastor too. This picture is of me and my dad standing in front of the church sign of the church my dad started in Nashville. He literally handed me his ceiling; it literally became my floor. He passed that baton to me, and I pastored that church for 10 years.
This last picture shows me and the founding pastor of our church, the legend himself, Pastor Steve Stroop. This was in December of 2018, the week Pastor Steve announced that I was going to be the next pastor of Lakepointe Church.
When he announced that, there were people all over the country asking, "Josh who?" I was 34, 35 years old at the time, and they thought, "Usually a church this size finds somebody who's 50-ish. Why would you pick Josh? He's only got 10 years of experience pastoring a much smaller church."
Here's part of why: When I was 35 years old, I didn't have 10 years of experience pastoring a church—I had 80 years of experience pastoring a church loaded into me by Jerry Howerton, Rick Howerton, and Josh Howerton. In three generations in my family, one man's ceiling became the next generation's floor.
For every man and woman of God, for every father and mother, for every spiritual father and spiritual mother, we have a job to do. It's to pass a baton to the next generation so that they go farther and do better than we were able to do. They will swing axes for the kingdom of God long after all of us are hugging Jesus. That's our job.
At Lakepointe, we're all in on this—in families and spiritual families alike. You don't know it, but you're actually doing significant things to make that happen in the students at Lakepointe Church.
Let me share an example of one story where this has happened. This is Sammy's testimony.
Sammy was born and raised in Mesquite, Texas. Growing up, they didn't really know Jesus, and that made it a really difficult faith journey. Sammy didn't believe there was a way to be forgiven.
One of Sammy's friends, Maya, reached out when Sammy was having thoughts of self-harm and self-image struggles. Maya invited Sammy to church. When Sammy walked in and saw people their own age lifting their hands and worshiping God, Sammy thought, "I want to live like these people. I don't want to be stuck in my sin. I want to hear what God has to say to me."
That night, Sammy felt a calling: "I am broken and I am in need of a savior." Sammy raised their hand, made a commitment, and said, "I'm not going to go back." Sammy's whole life changed after that.
Sammy became aware about financial stuff at a young age and couldn't afford camp. But through a scholarship—funded by the generosity of people in the church—Sammy was able to attend. When people give so willingly, it teaches you so much about their heart and their willingness to serve God.
Jesus has transformed Sammy inside and out. As Sammy says, there's no amount of hurt that God doesn't already know and that His Son didn't suffer. God says to each of us: "You're my creation. I made you perfectly in my image, and you could just live for me."
That night at camp, 239 people responded to the gospel message. This is the power of one generation passing the baton to the next—of spiritual mothers and fathers believing in and discipling the next generation.
