The Example of the Son

INTRODUCTION

O soul, are you weary and troubled?

No light in the darkness you see?

There’s light for a look at the Savior.

a life more abundant and free.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

and when the things of earth grow strangely dim,

in the light of His glory and grace.

Those are the words of Helen Lemmel, the daughter of a Methodist minister, born in 1863.

She had a wonderful life. She was raised to love music and her parents got her the best vocal coaches available.

She moved to Germany to study vocal music and met a wealthy man there and married him.

So far you must be thinking this sounds like a fairy tale.

But suddenly, she lost her sight and became blind and when that happened, her husband left her.

At 55 years, thrown about by multiple heartaches, someone gave her a Gospel tract that said, “So then, turn your eyes upon Him, look full into His face, and you will find that the things of earth will acquire a strange new dimness.”

Lemmel said:

Suddenly, as if commanded to stop and listen, I stood still, and singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus of the hymn with not one conscious moment of putting word to word or make rhyme, or note to note to make melody. The verses were written the same week, after the usual manner of composition, but none the less dictated by the Holy Spirit.

It is the simplest of songs based on a simple admonition.

Lift your eyes up off of trouble that life has laid on you and place them on Christ.

Gaze upon Christ.

With eyes of faith in the heart, stare at Christ.

See Him—the radiance of the glory of God. The exact imprint of His nature. The One who upholds the universe by His power.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

That is what we want to do this morning. We want to look at the Second Person of the Trinity.

Jesus the Messiah.

The Anointed Son of God.

The Prophet, the Priest and the King.

And we turn to Hebrews 12 in order to find instruction on how to do that.

CONTEXT

A bit about Hebrews before we jump into it.

It seems to have been written before the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.

The way animal sacrifice is talked about in chapters 10 and 11 certainly hints at authorship coming before the temple’s destruction.

It is probably a sermon written for a Jewish Christian congregation.

It focuses on how Christ has fulfilled the promises of the OT

How He is the fulfillment of the types and shadows we see in the Old Testament

How He is the fulfillment of the Law and the prophecies

And it shows the continuity from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

If anyone ever says, “I feel like the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament,” you can tell them they need to read Hebrews.

The members of the Jewish congregation were under cultural pressure to abandon the supremacy of Christ and to trust in the keeping of the Law and sacrifices.

But the author of Hebrews (who we don’t know), is writing to say, “Do not go back. Christ is supreme. Endure to the end and serve the Lord.”

We are going to pick it up toward the end of the letter, after the author has explained that the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11 is filled with Old Testament saints who had faith in God, but had not seen the fullness of His promise in the coming of the Messiah.

But as New Covenant believers, we have now seen that promise in the coming of Christ. And we must keep our eyes on Him.

Let’s read the first two verses of Hebrews 12 and then we will look at three teaching points for today to see how we draw strength in hardship from the example Christ set for us.

Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV

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 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.

RUN YOUR RACE (v. 1)

I want us to start by looking at the command we see at the end of verse 2.

Run with endurance the race that is set before us.

This is the goal that we are trying to put the ball through, right?

We want to run the race that God has given us in such a way where we are faithful to Him all the way to the end

In order to use this metaphor, the author is referring to the Panhellenic games, which were a bit of a precursor to the Olympics as we know them.

There was chariot racing (we need to bring back chariot racing—why did we even stop?), wrestling, boxing, the javelin and discus throw, and of course, foot races of various lengths and conditions.

The games would take place in four year cycles and they were about more than just athletics. They were about maintaining Greek culture.

To honor the gods and solidify the Greek identity

But that being said, winning was still important.

They competed in hopes of winning the victor’s crown—the winner’s wreath that was placed on your head.

The ancient world was very familiar with the games and the festivals that came along with them.

It was a part of the average person’s lexicon the same way the Super Bowl is part of yours.

So when the author of Hebrews says that the church needs to “run with endurance the race that is set before us,” they would have understood what he was referring to.

They would have thought of all those runners getting ready to take off and chase the winner’s crown.

The author is drawing a connection to the life that we live as Christian people.

My race as a believer began the day I was born.

But not of a woman. Of the Spirit.

My life before Christ is crucified with Him, but the life I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

That race started for me on July 14th, 1999 in Boiling Spring, NC. That’s where I was when I was saved.

I have been back to the spot it happened at and I have stood and looked at the place in wonder and thought, “That is where I met Jesus.”

And so from that point of conversion to the time when I clock out and I die or the Lord Jesus returns, whichever comes first—I am running my race.

Conversion is a turning into the right road; the next thing is to walk in it. The daily going on in that road is as essential as the first starting if you would reach the desired end. To strike the first blow is not all the battle; to him that overcomes the crown is promised. To start in the race is nothing, many have done that who have failed; but to hold out till you reach the winning post is the great point of the matter. Perseverance is as necessary to a man’s salvation as conversion.

Life’s Need And Maintenance, Volume 22, Sermon #1300 - Psalm 22:29

Charles Spurgeon

And this is a race that we are to run with endurance. The Greek word that translates to our English word is hypomenos (hoop-uh-men-oh)

It carries with it this idea of patience and steadfastness.

It is a determination to press on and not give up.

Run the race of the redeemed life that God has given you, without giving up.

That is the command that we must heed and seek to obey as children of the Lord.

If you are not a Christian, you need to stop right now and pray to God and ask Him to forgive you.

You don’t have a race to run. You have a life to live, but you are not running the Lord’s race today.

You must repent and trust in Christ.

But for those who have repented and trust in Christ and are seeking to run with endurance? How do we do it?

This leads us to our first teaching point:

1. We run our race in light of God’s faithfulness in light of those who came before us (v. 1).

Now, look—here is the spoiler alert—we are going to finish with Jesus today. After all, the series is called Triune Strength and the sermon is called “The Example of the Son.”

The 2nd Person of the Trinity is going to be the star of the show.

But in terms of preaching, there are a couple ways to play this.

You can start with Jesus and then work your way down, or we can start with the witnesses and work our way up.

I think it make more sense to do the latter and to build up to Christ.

So let’s start by talking about the witnesses.

When the author says, “Therefore,” we need to know what the THEREFORE is THERE FOR.

Corny joke, but helpful rule.

And in this case the “therefore,” is referring to everyone in the Hebrews 11 “Hall of Faith.”

The author takes us on a trip through Israel’s history—especially the time from the Fall to the period of the Judges.

We don’t have time to read it, but I will summarize:

By faith, Abel offered an acceptable gift to God

By faith, Enoch was taken up to heaven

By faith, Noah trusted God and rescued his family from judgment

By faith, Abraham followed God to Canaan when He called

By faith, Sarah received power to conceive and bear Isaac with Abraham

By faith, Abraham offered Isaac up on Mt. Moriah

By faith, Isaac blessed his sons

By faith, Jacob blessed his sons

By faith, Joseph believed Israel would go back home

By faith, Moses suffered with Israel and then delivered Israel from Egpyt

By faith, Israel crossed over the Red Sea on dry ground

By faith, Israel saw the walls of Jericho come tumbling down

By faith, Rahab the Prostitute did not die in the siege

By faith, the judges led Israel and accomplished great things

By faith, God’s servants were persecuted and some have even been martyred because the world was not worthy of them.

And all of these are to be commended for their faith and the witness they provide, but ultimately, they still longed to see what we do see as NT believers:

Hebrews 11:39–40 ESV

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

Now, we go back to chapter 12 and how does verse 1 begin? Therefore...

In light of the fact that we have all of these witnesses who have gone before us and lived by faith, let us run.

We know running by faith can happen. We have seen it in the lives of Abel and Enoch and Isaac and Rahab and the judges.

We know that we can run after the Lord and not give up and be rewarded because that happened in the lives of Noah and Moses and the patriarchs.

We do not run our race in a vacuum. We run in context.

There are those who came before us.

But with that being said, I don’t believe this is referring to the Old Testament saints standing in heaven, looking down and watching the church as we perform our worshipful duties.

Instead, this is just referring to the fact that the lives of the OT saints show us that God can be trusted.

You don’t need to spend time sitting around wondering if God is trustworthy.

Moses proved it for you.

So did Noah.

So did the saints who quenched the power of fire, as well as those who were mocked and flogged and killed with the sword.

They lived by faith, believed Him, endured, and now their lives stand as testimonials to the trustworthiness of God to the church.

LAY ASIDE WEIGHTS

Let’s keep looking at verse 1 because we must do more than looking back if we are going to run our race.

The author goes on to say, “…let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely...”

To get to the bottom of this, we need to understand how runners ran races in the first century at the Panhellenic Games.

In the first century AD, runners ran in the stadium virtually naked. They would enter wearing long flowing, colorful robes. At the start of the race, these would be discarded. In like manner, the author is exhorting believers to discard anything that would encumber them and hinder them from running the race.

David L. Allen

Okay—so as a life-long pro wrestling fan, I have to say this:

The Panhellenic runners were basically just Ric Flair. Right?

They wore long, flowing, colorful robes to enter the stadium and then they took the off and ran in their underwear. THAT’S RIC FLAIR! Woo.

Sorry for that very brief and unnecessary detour, but it excited me. Now for the more important and necessary biblical application.

In the same way that the runners would discard their robes so that they were able to run faster and win the race, Christians are to lay aside every weight that could keep us from running with endurance.

And the weight being talked about is not a colorful robe, it’s sin. It is transgression against God that separates us from God.

In other words, the Christian race isn’t so concerned with hurdles on the track, but hurdles in the heart.

The Christian runner look at their life and says, “Anything that could get in the way or slow me down has to go.”

2. We run our race by laying aside anything that slows us down (v. 1).

Hebrews is especially concerned with warning its listeners to not take lightly the sin that threatens to end our race.

Hebrews 12:15–16 ESV

See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.

Don’t let the root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble. This is how people end up defiled.

They drop their guard and sexual immorality comes in their lives and they trade in their race for an instant of gratification.

The author of Hebrews is screaming—do not let this happen!

Hebrews 13:4–5 ESV

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

We have the same idea here.

The marriage bed is not to be defiled with sex outside of God’s commands. Keep it holy. Don’t let it become defiled because of a lust of the flesh.

Your life is the same way. Do not let it be defiled by a love of money. Be content with what you have and don’t let your contentment in the faithful God of the Universe be traded in for trust in material things.

Don’t let a lust of the eyes end your race.

This is how we lived before we started running our race. We just did what we wanted, when we wanted and we never stopped to consult God.

In fact, you might be living in some suffering today because God is disciplining you for trying to live this way after salvation. That’s real. Keep reading this chapter. God disciplines those whom He loves as a good Father.

But prior to salvation we didn’t even consider such things. Sin was our master, so when sin gave a command, we answered it.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 ESV

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

And such were some of you...

But now you have been justified, so it shouldn’t be you anymore.

You shouldn’t be answering the command of sin as your master.

You should be answering the command of Christ as your master.

If you have turned from your sin and trust in Christ for salvation, it should show in how you obey Jesus.

And Hebrews 12:1 is telling us that when things come into our lives that threaten the race, we must lay them aside like a runner’s robe.

It might hurt to lay these things aside because it is sin we have grown to love.

It doesn’t matter. If the Word of God or the Holy Spirit of God through our conscience has called something unclean, we must count it as unclean and a threat to our ability to run.

ILLUSTRATION: I wanted to marry Katie, but we had only been together 8 months. I go to my mentor and I say, “I think I want to marry Katie.”

Now I am ready for a 45 minute discussion and a session of prayer.

He looks at me and goes, “Marry her then.”

I was like, “That’s it??”

So he turns to Hebrews 12 and says, “If you marrying her is going to dishonor God, by marrying her, you are putting on weight that will threaten your race.”

“If you marrying her will honor God, then by marrying her, you are taking off weight and together, you will actually run better.”

He looks at me and says, “Which is it?”

I said, “I am absolutely sure we will run better together.”

He goes, “Then its taking off weight. Buy the ring.”

Do you see how that works?

Somtimes it is really clear. The Bible gives you a “Thou shalt not...” and you need to get that thing out of your life if you are going to run with endurance.

And sometimes it is less clear and you have to use some wisdom.

But either way, there should be this obsession in the Christian to add speed to their spiritual stride and to run with more and more God-honoring action each day of our lives.

EYES ON CHRIST (v. 2)

Now, let’s stop right here and see what we have determined so far:

The Christian life is a race that must be run without giving up.

As we run with endurance, we listen to the lives of the Old Testament faithful who remind us that God can be trusted.

And as we run with endurance, you must cast off sin.

This is where we have to be really careful.

If church ended today, and we went home, you would think, “I need to trust God and sin less and I just need to look within, muster up some willpower and self-control and live righteously!”

We might end up understanding what the goal is, but not understanding how to get the ball down the field.

Because the answer is not found in your own natural strength and abilities.

This is where we look at verse 2 and we see Christ.

The author says:

Hebrews 12:2 ESV

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.

This brings us to our third teaching point this morning:

3. We run our race with our eyes fixed on Jesus (v. 2)

This verse tells us four things about Jesus.

And with each aspect of His character and work that is explored, we understand that He is the True Example we are to follow as we run.

He is the true Trailblazer.

The first thing we see is that Jesus is the beginning and end of our faith.

He is the Founder and Perfecter.

Some translations say Author or Pioneer or Source.

The idea is that our salvation begins with Christ.

He is also the Perfecter.

Remember that one of the main themes of Hebrews is the end of the sacrificial system because of the death of Christ.

Hebrews 10:4 ESV

For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

The blood of the sacrifices could never make someone’s faith perfect. They only pointed to the One who could.

But now Christ has come and died for sin, therefore, He is able to fully forgive sin and make us right with God. And in the end, He will bring us home to glory where we will be without sin forever.

So He is truly the Perfecter of our faith in a way the sacrificial system never could be

He takes us all the way to glory

He is the Beginning of our Faith and because of His work for us, we will never know another day where we do not know Him.

And for the eternal age, we will know Him completely without sin’s poisoning.

He is the Perfecter.

So as I am renouncing sin and seeking to trust God like an Old Testament saint and I am tempted to falter.

I am tempted to think sin is better. I am tempted to think my own way is better. I am tempted to think Christ is inferior to anything my heart wants to trust in, I must remember this.

Without Christ, I would not have faith.

Without Christ, my faith would never reach full maturity.

And if this is true, then how could I look to anyone else?

No one else could give new life.

No one else could preserve my new life.

So where else would I look to as example, as I run in this new life?

The second thing we see is that Jesus is enduring for joy.

Jesus joyfully obeyed the will of the Father and died for His people.

His death and all that came with it, caused Him to sweat drops of blood in the Garden.

It caused Him to cry out, “Father, let this cup pass from me...”

But He endured it because it was His joy to rescue His bride.

The word for endure in verse 2 is the same from verse 1.

What that means is that when you try to run your race without giving up, understand that Jesus already did it before you.

He endured just like you.

And God is not calling you to a race harder than His.

No one faced a race with more suffering than Christ because no one else suffered for the sins of the nations.

So we might be facing some heinous and horrendous pain and hardship, but know that Christ faced it before you.

So when you pray, you pray to a King who has already endured.

When you cry, you cry to a King who has endured.

When you are silent, you are silent before a King who has endured.

His endurance is what reminds us that He doesn’t just get us, as the commercial say.

He became One of us and He entered into our world.

He knows what it is like to stand at a funeral and feel the air dry the tears on your face.

He knows what it is like to be betrayed by the closest of friends.

And He knows what it is like to suffer for the work of the Father.

But He joyfully endured, and now beckons you to walk after Him, keeping your eyes on Him and following His example.

Thirdly, we are told that He despised the shame.

I’ll turn to Al Mohler for help understanding what this means:

People were typically famous due to noble birth, inherited wealth, or military genius and prowess. Through athletics, people could become well-known, improve their standing, and enter a new realm of life as a champion. After those games, the winner was granted the honor of sitting with royalty. This is how the author describes Christ at the end of his race. Christ endured the cross for us, not because he was looking for monetary or societal gain or because he wanted to wear a laurel crown. Instead, he despised the shame, refusing to see it as shame, and wore the crown of thorns for our good and His Father’s glory.

He was willing to take the reproach of the world if it meant obeying His Father. He would just cast it off and count it as part of the work.

And that is crucial for us to consider.

See, If we are going to follow the example of the Son, we will be rejected like the Son.

John 15:18–19 ESV

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

For many, they do not follow the example of the Son and this rejection from the world is cause to walk away from believing. Jesus says that the rocky soil is represented by this person in Matthew 13.

Matthew 13:3–6 ESV

And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.

Then He interprets it by saying:

Matthew 13:20–21 ESV

As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away.

If this happens, we will not produce fruit.

If we do not produce fruit, we are proving that we are not actually people who have received the Gospel of the Kingdom and had it take root.

Therefore, we can say that a good sign someone knows the Lord, is if they are willing to suffer for Him.

Because that is truly in the pattern of Christ, who despised the shame, but took it on because it was necessary to glorify the Father.

And then fourthly, Jesus is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Meaning, He has ascended.

And the fact that He has ascended to the place of highest honor in heaven tells us that He completed His mission.

He came, He lived, He died and He rose again.

He endured for joy and despised the shame and finished the work of His first Advent.

That is why he is seated at the right hand of God. The first Advent work is complete.

The next time He gets up, it will be for His second Advent, and He will return on the clouds.

Christ’s seat at His Father’s right hand is a symbol of His winning glory.

He came and suffered and died and rose again and ascended. He has won the day against sin and Satan.

The olympic runners got a wreath on their head. Jesus got a throne as the Lord of all.

Through death into life everlasting

He passed, and we follow Him there,

O’er us sin no more hath dominion

For more than conquerors we are

Lemmel’s second verse captures the four statements about Christ in Hebrews 12:2...

Christ died and rose again and now sits at the right hand of the Father.

His endurance for joy and His despising the shame has broken the power of sin in our lives

And now we are more than conquerors in Christ

We are double victors in Him.

Winners over sin, death and Satan and it is not close.

So Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.

He has run His race and now He calls on You to run yours

Fix your eyes on Him as your example

He has started this work in us. He will perfect this work in us.

And along the way, He is the One who who has shown us how to walk. How to endure.

How to run the race and finish it.

Let us lay the weight aside, fix our gaze on Him, and starting picking up the pace.