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Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, and this evening we’re looking at Hebrews chapter
12, verses 1 through 3. Hebrews chapter 12. This is God’s word.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us 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 perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before
him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not
grow weary or faint-hearted. Amen. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, Lord Jesus, and Holy Spirit,
we ask that you would come near. You would make this your word, which has been breathed out and
preserved for us. You would make it fresh and alive to us this evening. You would open our hearts,
that we might receive it with faith and love. We might receive it as the word of God, which it is,
the power of God. So we ask that you would come by your spirit, that we might hear it rightly,
receive it rightly, and that it might be spoken and preached rightly. We pray this in Jesus’ name.
Amen. You may be seated. Imagine for a moment that you’re standing at the line of a marathon,
or an ultramarathon perhaps. The gun is about to go off. The course stretches out in front of you,
long, demanding, full of hills you can already see, and probably a few that you can’t. You’re
wearing the right shoes. You’ve trained, but you still feel that little knot in your stomach.
Can I actually finish this thing? Now look to the stands. They’re packed, not with strangers,
not with critics holding scorecards, but with people who have already run this same race,
all of them breathless, leaning over the railing, eyes fixed on you, shouting with everything they
have left. Keep going. Don’t stop. He is worth it. That’s the picture. The writer of Hebrews paints
for us in chapter 12. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us 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. This is not a casual jog. This is not a fun run
with snacks at mile 18. This is the race of faith, long obedience in the same direction,
trusting God when the road disappears, when your legs burn, when your heart wants to quit. And the
good news of this passage is that God never intended you to run it alone or to run it in
your own strength. And over the next few minutes, we’re going to see three truths that will help us
keep running when everything in us and around us screams stop. So number one will be single-minded,
but not alone. We strip off every hindrance and fix our eyes on the goal while being embraced by
a family of faith that’s cheering us home. Number two will be what did Jesus do? We look to the one
who’s already run this race perfectly, who endured the cross by locking his eyes on the joy that was
set before him. And that joy is you. And number three, meditate on Jesus. The only way to not
grow weary or faint-hearted is to keep coming back again and again to the one who loved us
and gave himself for us. He’s not just our example, he is our life. So church, if you’re tired today,
if you’re limping, if you’re wondering whether you have another mile in you, lean in. This text
was written for you. Number one, single-minded, but not alone. Let’s start with a look at this
first phrase in verse one. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
the author of Hebrews begins chapter 12 with a transitional therefore to tie what he’s saying
to what he has just recounted as we’ve been looking at in chapter 11. He’s basing what he’s
about to say in what we just read in chapter 11. And he describes the numerous individuals as this
cloud of witnesses. Now the word for witness here in Greek is the word martus, which is where we get
the English word martyr. Originally this word was used to merely describe someone who testified,
like in court. In the case of the early Christians though, their testimony often costs them their
very lives. And as a result, the term martyr began to be used exclusively of those who held firmly
to their allegiance to Christ at the cost of death. In current usage, the definition of martyr has
expanded even beyond the Christian faith to refer to anyone who is killed for their convictions.
So while in English death has become inseparably tied to the definition of a martyr,
originally this meaning in Greek centered on the word testimony or witness. And the ESV is
right to translate it as witness here, but it can be helpful to think in our minds of the other
connotations which that word martus would have had. The conclusion of the Hall of Faith includes
those who were by faith, as we saw at the end of chapter 11, willing to be killed and tortured
because they desired a better resurrection. This would fit our modern definition of martyr,
but the term witness is used to encompass all of the examples that we saw in chapter 11
from Abraham and all the rest. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance
the race that is set before us. The author says that our current position in the line of faith
with such a rich history as background ought to motivate us to press on in our own faith.
As we sit on the cusp of history with centuries of examples of witnesses testifying
to the power and value of faith it should empower our own life of faith.
Now if you’re anything like me, the idea of being surrounded by so many people watching me
as it were tends to make me feel a little nervous and it doesn’t help that many of them would put
me to shame by their faith. While some people are motivated by a fear of failure,
that kind of scrutiny usually makes things harder for me. I’m tempted to think that this crowd of
impressive witnesses might be looking at me critically, tallying up the ways that I’m not
measuring up in my own race of faith, but that would be precisely the opposite of what the author
of Hebrews wants you to feel about this passage. He means for this cloud of witnesses to be an
encouragement and we can see that in a few ways. First he says that the result of knowing we’re
surrounded ought to be that we run. He says since we are surrounded let us run. Secondly when we
look closer it’s clear that none of these individuals that we looked at were perfect
and so there’s no reason to think that they’re expecting perfection of us, of you. Third the end
of chapter 11 says apart from us they should not be made perfect which means this crowd is not
booing our failures but rooting and cheering for our success. Their perfection depends on our
perfection, our completion. God won’t make them complete without us. But fourthly we can also
gain encouragement from the word which we find translated as surrounded. While surrounded is a
perfectly fine translation of this word it doesn’t appear anywhere else in the New Testament
and the connotation in Greek when it’s used outside of the Bible is much more intimate than
what we might think of the English word as surrounded. This is a word that gets used to
describe something like a necklace or a chain that gets hung around the neck and in classical Greek
Greek it even described an embrace, a physical hug. So the writer of Hebrews doesn’t intend for
us just to think of distant spectators observing our progress from afar but to think of ourselves
as intimately embraced by this cloud of witnesses. The writer of Hebrews wants believers
to see these ancient examples of faith as family, a family enclosing us in one big group hug.
It is in light of this that the writer of Hebrews says let us run. This encouragement,
this encouraging embrace by our family of faith is meant to provide motivation for the race of faith.
Verse one, as verse one says, therefore since we are surrounded or embraced 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. As we saw in the lives of the witnesses in chapter
11 that we’ve been looking at faith requires endurance. The author of Hebrews says that
faith is like a race that’s laid out before us. In order to run well there’s some things that need
to come off. Have you ever tried to run in baggy jeans or a heavy winter coat? It makes everything
harder. He says let us lay aside every weight. The word here in Greek is used sometimes to even
refer to body weight so the imagery goes beyond merely shedding physical clothing
and includes even the idea of metaphorically slimming down, getting lean. It pictures a runner
who’s doing everything in his power to run his fastest. I know that there are many elite athletes
when biking or swimming will even shave the hair on their arms and legs to eliminate anything that
would create any drag that would possibly slow them down. But this doesn’t mean that the Christian
life should be seen as primarily a hurrying endeavor. We shouldn’t confuse the analogy of
faith as a race with becoming overly busy ourselves even necessarily in terms of ministry.
The race of faith is not a rush to stay busy loading up hectic schedules or making sure we’re
doing more than others around us. This race of faith is a race of endurance to keep a clear-eyed
view of God and confidence in his ability and willingness to fulfill his promises to us,
especially to save us. And notice the writer says every weight and sin.
He’s talking about a kind of single-mindedness towards holding on to this faith.
I think it might be helpful to think of possible examples. In Mark 4, Jesus tells a parable about
different soils in which the word of God either effectively germinates or it does not. And he
describes certain people for whom faith appears genuine but gets weighed down and choked out
and choked out in the end by the thorns. Mark chapter 4 verses 18 and 19, Jesus is explaining
this and he says, and others are those are the ones sown among thorns. These are those who hear
the word but the cares of the world and the desires of but the cares of the world and the
deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word.
And it proves unfruitful. The imagery in the parable is of plants struggling to compete with
weeds but I think it fits with Hebrews description of weights and sins in chapter 12. Now the cares
of the world, what might this be? It might be an obsession with the news. While it is good for
Christians to be informed citizens, aware of what’s happening around us,
worrying about politics or current events, foreign countries or environmental catastrophes
can derail faith. It can undermine a believer’s confidence in and dependence on God when it’s
not filtered through scripture and prayer. I’ve been guilty of that myself. The cares of the world
can become a weight that dangerously slows us down as we try to run the race of faith, can even take
us out. The deceitfulness of riches, as Jesus mentioned secondly, is something that the Bible
talks about in many places because it is a very sinister and subtle weight that can easily wiggle
its way in and derail faith. Riches are never described as inherently evil and wealth is a
blessing, not a curse from God, but we must be always on our guard that legitimate desires to
prosper and provide for ourselves and others do not weigh our faith down and cause us to
deprioritize eternity or start depending on our own resources rather than God’s provision ultimately.
And third, Jesus’ catch-all, the desires for other things.
God made humans with an infinite desire for more because he designed us to be satisfied in him,
but that limitless desire within us can easily be directed on a whole myriad of things,
other things in our lives doling our interest in God and making faith seem a bore. The life of
faith for a believer is supernatural. It goes against the grain of the world and our own remaining
sin nature. Our desire itself is not the problem, but it’s attempting to fill that desire, that
thirst in other ways that make God look small or worthless. And this is another weight we must be
aware of. Running the race of faith means throwing off these weights and sins, getting rid of anything
that undermines our faith, our trust in and dependence on God. Even those things that aren’t
directly sin, but they may hinder our running. The question we must ask ourselves is not merely
is it a sin to do such and such, but does it help me run? Does it help me see sin more clearly
and treasure and trust God truly? But running the race of faith doesn’t just mean getting rid of
weights and sins. That’s the negative side. It also means positively valuing the future reward.
And we see this at our next point. Number two, what did Jesus do? Verse two, looking to Jesus,
the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Faith is not looking
inside of ourselves for grit and determination to remain confident or positive. Faith for Abraham
was looking away from his own inability, which was clear, and instead to God and his ability.
But all of the previous examples that we’ve looked at in Hebrews 11 pale in comparison,
of course, to the preeminent example of Jesus Christ. There’s no greater example that we can
look to for faith. And the author describes Jesus as the founder and perfecter of our faith.
He is the beginner and ender, the starter and the finisher. He’s the one who completed the race
perfectly from beginning to end. And as such, he presents us with the preeminent example of faith,
most centrally, of course, in his death and resurrection, his humiliation and his exaltation,
who for the joy that we set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at
the right hand of the throne of God. So how did Jesus do it? How did Jesus keep on running and
complete the race of faith? Very simply, he loved the joy and despised the shame.
Crucifixion was a punishment specifically designed to maximize pain and shame of its victims.
Jesus was neither the first nor the last to fall victim to this hateful method of torture
the Roman soldiers had invented to dispirit their enemies. But in his case,
the suffering went way beyond what any Roman soldier could inflict on him,
since of course he was the least deserving individual ever to suffer such a fate.
And beyond that, he suffered the wrath of God itself on behalf of wicked, rebellious sinners.
Like you and I. And Jesus’s example of enduring suffering is very instructive for us.
Luke records Jesus’s agonized wrestling in prayer mere hours before submitting to his crucifixion
in Luke chapter 22. Luke chapter 22 verses 40 through 44 reads,
Thanks. And when he came to the place, Jesus said to them,
pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw,
and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.
Nevertheless, not my will, but your will, but yours be done. And there appeared to him an
angel from heaven strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly.
His sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.
Hebrews tells us Jesus found the strength to endure the cross by looking to the reward,
the joy that was on the other side of death. And you and I should not think that we can
run the race of faith any differently than Jesus. There have been philosophers who have
called themselves Christians, who have posited that the highest motivation someone can have
for doing the right thing is mere obligation, doing your duty. They claim that any other
motivation is self-serving and thus wrong. Sometimes this sort of thinking can creep
into the church, and Christians can begin thinking that the way to live the Christian
life is simply to do your duty and don’t ask questions. They frame the Christian life primarily
as a life of obligations. And this is what the Pharisees did. While it is our duty to obey God’s
law, duty is not meant to be our highest motivation for obedience. Jesus was not motivated to go to the
cross simply because it was his duty or it was the right thing to do. He did it because he believed
the reward would be worth the suffering. He believed that the joy that was coming
after the cross would completely eclipse the pain and shame that it cost him.
If the Christian life consisted merely of keeping rules out of obligation, obedience merely because
it is the right thing to do. It would put the spotlight of glory on us rather than on God.
Even if we acknowledged all the way that it was God who empowered our obedience by the Holy Spirit,
we would still be the target of admiration because when obedience is done for obligations sake,
it turns the focus inward towards the one who’s obeying. Look at how admirable that person is
for obediently suffering even when they get nothing out of it.
On the other hand, when the coming reward is the motivation for obedience, it places the spotlight
of glory on God where it should be. People look at us, look at someone obeying, and look at how
worthwhile God must be if people are willing to obediently suffer so much to get him.
Suffering out of obligation, a sense of duty might point to us
while suffering for the sake of reward and joy that is coming points to God.
This focus on reward, coming joy, enabled Jesus to despise the shame.
He put the temporary shame on the scales and weighed it against the coming glory.
And he said with Paul in Romans 8, 18,
that is to be revealed to us. But the only way for the shame to become light, inconsequential,
counted as nothing as Jesus did, is for it to be compared with the coming joy and glory.
This is the way that faith worked for Jesus on his way to and through the cross,
and is the way that it will work for you and I.
When we obey God through suffering, because we are longing for the coming joy,
it puts the spotlight of glory on God. He looks great, and that’s how we want it.
Jesus saw joy, and you’re not intended to get through life’s trials differently than Jesus.
For Jesus, the way he got through it was knowing what was on the other side.
On the other side of his crucifixion and death was not only his own resurrection
and exaltation though, but part of that joy was the salvation of his people.
And you’re not just meant to follow Jesus’s example,
but also be fueled by a vision of his love for you. Because the joy set before him,
it was not only his own exaltation, but it was the salvation of sinners like you and I.
And so our third consideration is, meditate on Jesus. We see verse three,
three. If you were reading these verses, verses one through three in Greek,
you would see that this word consider here is the first imperative. It is the first word in
the grammatical form of a command. The previous two exhortations to let us lay aside and let us run
can be viewed as commands, but they’re not grammatically in the same form as this word
consider. The Greek text includes a four at the beginning of this verse, which is omitted in the
ESV for some reason. But what this means is that as we approach verse three, we should understand
that it’s clearly connected to the previous two verses and it is the climax of the author’s thought
here. You could think of consider here as having a therefore in front of it and an exclamation point
behind it. Therefore consider. And the Greek word for consider means to think carefully,
to calculate, or to meditate. Remember that the biblical idea of meditation
is not mindless repetition or an emptying of the mind, but a focused consideration of
and contemplation of God. Verse two said that we should be looking to Jesus as an example,
but here in verse three, he’s more than our example. He is the object of our faith.
The race of faith finds its basis and sustenance in gazing upon Christ. As it said earlier, he is
the source, the founder, and the perfecter and finisher of our faith. It’s what our faith is
rooted and grounded in. We start and we end with Jesus and we need him every step of the way.
Meditation on Jesus is the antidote to growing weary or faint-hearted,
or more literally growing weary in your soul. Our souls are not designed to be self-sustaining.
Our faith must look outside of ourselves for sustenance.
Have you ever felt weary in your soul? I’ve experienced burnout multiple times in my life,
and there are always physical factors at play. But when my soul feels weary with the world,
when I feel as though I cannot go on, when I feel utterly insufficient, struggle to find joy,
my soul needs to remember I’m loved by Jesus.
I think this is one reason that Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
Baptism is a sacrament of initiation into the family of God, and it’s done once,
but the Lord’s Supper is again and again. Because even after we’re in, we need to remember daily,
even hourly, that deep down we are loved. Many communion tables have engraved on them the words
of Christ, this due in remembrance of me. Jesus’s person, who he is, and work, what he did,
is our food for the race of faith. Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to remember me because he was
lonely or insecure. It had nothing to do with his need and everything to do with theirs.
Because as soon as you lose sight of the grace and love of Christ that you have received and the
fact that you need it, you will be unable to show that any grace to others. The unconditional love
that Christ shows us when he endured from sinners such hostility against himself is our fuel for
showing grace and love to others. Your daily food as a Christian is Christ. You and I never grow up
from our dependence on Christ, and Christian maturity actually means becoming more and more
aware of our abject dependence upon Christ. I once heard someone say that God has no grandchildren
God has no grandchildren. Now what he meant by that was that each person must have his own
direct relationship with of faith with God. It’s not enough to merely be the child of someone who
believes or be friends with someone who believes. True saving faith is a personal individual
connection directly between the believer and Christ. And all of us human beings men and women
boys and girls are born of course with a sinful rebellious nature requiring the personal intervention
of God. We must each individually be connected to Christ by faith in order to be saved.
And when that happens God makes us his children directly. Christ alone is our mediator between
God and us and no other human mediates our relationship with God. He is the founder and
perfecter, the beginning and the end. You start a life of faith trusting Jesus and you end your life
of faith trusting him and you keep trusting him every day in between. We don’t start with Jesus
and move on to something else and this includes the fight our fight of sin our fight against sin
in our own lives. When you find yourself struggling with bitterness and anger when you’re battling
lust when a brother points out pride in your heart when you’re overcome with guilt and shame
when you face criticism from your friends and enemies alike when you face impossible decisions
when the future is unclear when you lose a parent or a child when you lose a job
when you simply can’t face the day’s responsibilities and the pressure of living feels impossible.
The one thing that you need first and foremost above all else is to remember Jesus.
Of course his love for you. When you start trying to fuel the Christian life by something other than
Christ you’ll find pretty quickly that it’s not the Christian life that you’re fueling.
You’re fueling a life of self-righteousness which produces pride on the one hand and shame and guilt
on the other. I find it’s very easy to get off track to begin trying to fuel my life that I think
is of faith instead by achievement by performance even by obedience but obedience is a fruit not
it is a result of the Christian life and not the fuel of it and as soon as you view your own
obedience as the basis of your identity as a Christian you’ll stop showing grace to yourself
and it will be harder to show others grace.
How long can you go without breathing? That’s how long you can go without remembering Jesus
without considering him. He’s not just our example or even someone who got us up on our feet
and sent us on our way. He’s the one we depend on daily hourly. He is our life
and there’s no spiritual life apart from him. Your obedience as a Christian is produced
by your Christian life which is fueled entirely by depending upon Christ
knowing you need him and absolutely falling on trusting in resting in his unrestrained love
without condition for you in spite of your own unworthiness.
The refrain of the Christian life is Jesus loves me this I know for his death and resurrection
tells me so and this is what we need to avoid becoming weary and faint-hearted throwing in
the towel giving up on the race of faith. So remember the cloud of witnesses who are embracing
you reminding you of how precious Jesus is so that you’ll keep on running. Remember Jesus
who was motivated to undergo his death on the cross by his joy at including you in the fellowship of
the triune God and then in this spirit in this mindset get rid of any weight any hindrance
especially any sin
that would make it harder to run that would make Jesus look less glorious
God’s reward less worthwhile. Consider Jesus. Amen. Let’s pray.
Lord Jesus we come. We come to consider you. We come to ask you to be our life.
We know that our life as Paul says in Colossians is hidden with Christ in God
and that when Christ who is our life appears we shall appear also with him in glory
that the joy that you looked forward to is the joy that we also look forward to
and that you are with us by your spirit as you said in the Great Commission even to the
even to the end of the age and every step of the way. So Lord Jesus we praise you and thank you
and ask you to keep us keeping on running the race of faith. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
One response let’s let’s stand and let’s sing number 290. Sing number 290.