Great & Precious Promises: Endurance

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A review of a precious promise found at the end of Hebrews 12:3

Notes
Transcript

Intro:

While we were out I was thinking on what I was going to speak on this summer and my plan had been to continue on in the Psalms as we have done for several summers now, however while we were at my parents church back home the man that was speaking the last week made mention of a text in the book of Hebrews that got me thinking on a series that I had started some time ago that I had called Great and Precious Promises.
That series was based in 2 Peter 1:3-4 which makes mention of the fact that in His Word God has provided us with all things that pertain to life an godliness and that He has granted to us His precious and very great promises so that we might become partakers of the divine nature as we have escaped from the corruption of life because of sinful desires.
The key premise of this series was that we find throughout the scriptures these very great and precious promises and that we had better do our upmost to be familiar with them and trust that by faith they will indeed be true of our lives.
These promises have been given to us that we might overcome the power of our sinful desires and live out lives of godliness and holiness that show our faith in Christ to be genuine and become the sign that we will lay hold of that wonderful inheritance that has been prepared by God for all of those who are His, those for whom Christ died and in whose lives the Holy Spirit works to apply all of the blessed effects that Christ purchased for us through His blood on the cross. These promises are a part of the means by which the Spirit effects this work in our lives and we can find great comfort and encouragement in them.
And so it was and still is my desire from time to time to take us through some of these promises so that we might understand what is held before us in them that we might press on into the fullness of what it is that God offers us in them.
We will see how many of these we do this summer and we might head back to the Psalms at some point but for now I would like us to at least pick up our text in the book of Hebrews this morning and consider the promise that we find there.
Before we do that though lets take a moment to pray and then read our text.

PRAY & Read

3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

Our text and promise this morning comes specifically here in verse 3 of chapter 12. This passage is one of my favorites because it is actually one of the very first passages of scripture that I can remember memorizing.
The promise that we see here in this text is there at the end. Now there are some promises in scripture that are explicit, think of the beatitudes, “blessed are the poor in spirit for they will inherit the Kingdom of God.” An explicit promise that states outright what the promise is delivering to the one whom it is given. Now if we just took a survey of all the explicit promises of scripture we would have plenty to work with but we need to understand that there are also implicit promises. Ones that aren't stated outright but are rather implied by the text. Now just because a promises is implicit rather than explicit doesn't make it any less meaningful or important for our lives and so it is important as people of this Book that we learn to see both of these types of promises.
The promise at the end of this verse is implicit. Can you see it?
“so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”
There is a danger in the Christian life that is of great emphasis in the book of Hebrews that we can grow weary of living out our faith in this world. As the world presses against us and persecution comes and life stretches on it is possible to grow weary in doing good as Galatians 6:9 warns us against.
Contrary to the lingo of the prosperity preachers the path that we are called to walk in faithfulness to God is often hard and fraught with great difficulty and struggle, both as we will see from outside influences and from the obstruction of our own indwelling sinfulness.
And yet this text promises that there is something that we can do that will cause us not to grow weary or faint hearted. Do you see that?

3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted

This text tells us that by considering Him, that is Christ who himself endured such hostility and opposition against Himself that we can be made to not grow weary and fainthearted. That the act of faithfully considering the life of our Savior has the capacity to spiritually energize us that we might not ourselves succumb to this state of spiritual weariness.
Now there are at least three questions we need to answer about this promise so that we can rightly understand it and apply it.
We need to first understand what this weariness and faintheartedness is that the author is promising that we can be delivered from.
We need to understand how it is that we are to be delivered from it.
And lastly we need to see what the results of this promise will look like if they take effect in our lives.

Question 1

Now the first question is important because we need to understand what kind of weariness is being described here. Primarily we need to make a distinction between physical weariness and spiritual weariness.
We can see that this is a spiritual weariness for several reasons. The first and easiest reason is that the word weariness is connected with faintheartedness. The author isn't saying that there are two distinct things that we will be delivered from if we consider our savior rather we could read this as “so that you may not grow weary in your soul, that is what fainthearted means, it most likely here references the soul of the individual and as such it speaks of experiencing a soul weariness or a weariness in the inner man pertaining to pressing on in spiritual matters.
We can also gather that this weariness is a weariness associated with living out the spiritual life from the wider context of this verse.
Note the first two verses. The race that is set before us in verse 1 is clearly a metaphor for the path of the Christian life that our Lord has set before us. We are called to endurance in running this race and called to lay aside the sin that clings to us and weighs us down as we seek to run this course well. That it is sin that causes the weariness for the runner clearly points to it not being literal physical exhaustion that is spoken of here but rather the condition of feeling spiritual exhausted from seeking to simultaneously walk the path that God has called us to walk while countenancing and indulging the sinful desires of the flesh. The two are incompatible and indulging the one will make the other a tiresome and wearying yes impossible task.
We also see the spiritual nature of this weariness in verse 2 where we are called to look unto Jesus who is called the founder and perfecter of the faith.
Similarly, we also see that we are reminded of the great cloud of witnesses that is a reference back to the previous chapter. Hebrews 11 is often called the hall of faith as it repeats the phrase “by faith” and then describes the many faithful acts of our forefathers and mothers in the faith.
Now when is says that these are witnesses it does not mean that these people are now sitting in heaven watching over us as we seek to live out our lives. That might come as a surprise to some of you and might even be a disappointment. Many people encourage and console themselves with the thought that friends and loved ones who precede them in death are watching over them from heaven. This text does not teach that and I can say with a great deal of certainty that as the Bible tells is that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord that those who are present with the Lord are not focused on anything on earth as they enjoy that glorious presence and fellowship of our Lord in Heaven.
No rather this witness is that these peoples lives bear witness to the power of faith in the life of men and women here on this earth. Their lives in other words stand as testaments to the power of faith to enable a life that is pleasing and glorifying to God.
And so again the weariness here is one associated with living out the life of faith a spiritual weariness that is a very great and present danger to all who would come to Christ and seek to walk the path that He has set before us!
We also see the spiritual nature of this weariness in the verses that follow verse 3.
Verse 4 tells us abut our struggle against sin.

In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5

In addition to this admonition about sin we see the topic of the discipline of the Lord and also a call to pursue the holiness without which we will not see the Lord.
And so clearly this is a promise related to spiritual weariness.
Now I labor to make that distinction clear because we need to realize that oftentimes pressing on in spiritual matters, pursuing holy living, seeking to lay aside sin and embrace a call to live in righteousness, sometimes this type of life will require us to experience a certain and often high level of physical weariness.
You even see this in our Lord who would grow tired and who needed rest and we ought to understand that this was likely because he made a habit out of rising early to pray and he spent long hours in the pursuit of the mission that His father had given Him in the world and then he experienced the upmost in physical exhaustion when He undertook the final act of obedience to the Father in taking the cup of God’s wrath in our stead as He hung there and died upon that cross.
No the promise here is that even in the midst of potential physical exhaustion in the pursuit of the path that God has laid before us there is yet available to us a sustaining spiritual energy that comes from doing the will of the Father that will cause us to not grow weary in these things.
Jesus talks about this spiritual sustenance in John 4 where we read in the story of the woman at the well first that:

So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

Jesus is weary! Physically weary! And yet after His interaction with the woman at the well we read:

31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.

Now please know that Jesus would have eaten food at some point, however, the point that Jesus is making is that there were people pouring out of the city to come to them and that Jesus was now going to put off His need to physically eat food and take the time to minister to these people and that in doing this He would find the spiritual strength necessary to carry on through.

Question 2

This provides a great segue into question 2. That question is how are we to find this spiritual energy that we might not grow weary or fainthearted?
Well we read here directly in verse 3 that we are to:

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself,

Consider Him SO THAT you might not grow weary!
Commentator David Allen notes that this is the only place in the NT where we find this imperative translated consider and that it:
Hebrews (1) Running with Endurance (12:1–3)

connotes a process of serious thinking where a matter is weighed with the utmost care through comparison, reflection, and conclusion

So we are to give careful thought and serious consideration to Christ, to think on, reflect on, and draw conclusions from His life and we see specifically here our thinking on Christ is said to be on Him who endured! Our thinking on Christ in this regard is to be a thinking specifically on His supernatural endurance in the face of unimaginable hostility!
Christ endured! How often do we take up in our minds the consideration of the endurance of Christ?
Verse 2 calls Christ the Founder and Perfecter of our faith. Meaning that it is to Christ that we are to look for how it is that we are to walk out this course that God has set before us. This sets Christ apart from all of those listed in the hall of faith in Hebrews Chapter 11. Note, we aren't to look to them, indeed while their lives bear witness to the power of faith to walk out some seriously difficult stuff, that is for sure but the one who is held before us as the one to whom we are now to look for our encouragement and to be strengthened in our own faith is not Abraham or Moses, Joseph or David but Christ. Christ is the founder and perfecter of our faith, as another commentator points out, Christ is both the source of the faith and the example of it that we are to follow. In other words we turn to Christ because it is from Him that we receive the faith, the faith that we have was purchased by Christ for us there at the cross and we also turn to Christ to see the only perfect example of faith in practice that we will ever find.
We see some specific things also about Christ here that we are, I believe to specifically consider.
We see that Christ looked to the JOY that was set before Him to find the spiritual strength necessary to endure the cross.
In those dark moments of agony there on the cross Christ knew full well the wonderful nature of what would follow when HE was raised from the dead, overcame the grave and would ascend to the right hand of the Father where HE would be crowned with glory and honor and given the name that is above every name that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue declare that His is Lord to the glory of God the father.
He also took great JOY in knowing that His death would bring about the redemption of His people.
We read in Isaiah 53:10-11
Isaiah 53:10–11 ESV
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
He shall see His offspring as He makes an offering for guilt, out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied, and we see that satisfaction defined as making many to be accounted righteous by bearing their iniquities. Christ saw with great joy the wonderful work that His death would accomplish for all of God’s elect.
And so it is that we are also, as Christ did, to consider the joy that is set before us. The wonder and glory of what is being prepared for us.
2 Corinthians 4:17 ESV
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
Psalm 16:11 ESV
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Romans 8:18 ESV
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Romans 8:22–23 ESV
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
John 14:2 ESV
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
We could go on and on and on about the wonder and joy of what is held out before us! And the greatest joy of all is listed just a few verses later in this chapter in Hebrews when we are admonished to:

14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15

Matthew 5:8 ESV
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
The ultimate promise for the child of God is that if we persist and persevere in this course to which God has called us, if we do not grow weary or fainthearted and cease to run our race, we will one day see God face to face! There is no joy in heaven that will even be able to hold a candle to that promise! We will see and live forever in the presence of our God!
1 Corinthians 13:12 ESV
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
We also see another aspect of what it means to consider Christ there in verse 2. We see that not only did Christ consider the JOY that was set before Him but that he also despised the shame.
Yes indeed there was a great shame in the cross. And more so than that we know that Christ exercised great humility in all of His life in the very act of taking on flesh and allowing His divine nature to be joined to a human nature in such a way that of the very Creator of the universe it could be said that:

he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,

and no beauty that we should desire him.

3  He was despised and rejected by men,

a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

and as one from whom men hide their faces

he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

As Paul reminded the church in Philippi:

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9

We can understand what despised means here when we consider another famous despising. In Genesis we read of Esau despising his birthright when he sold it to Jacob for a bowl of stew. It means he counted it as nothing, he willingly let it go because there was something in that moment that he wanted far more than that birthright. Now Esau was obviously sinning when he despised his birthright but it helps us to grasp what it means for Christ to despise the shame. It means he counts it as nothing, worthless and not even worth his time to worry or care about it.
Man, how hard is that for us! We think so often about shame. We worry about how we are going to come across to other people, what they will think of us, will they like us, what are they saying about us behind our backs. For many believers shame rules their lives, the fear of being shamed for following Christ and living as a bold example of our Lord.
However we read in the next chapter of Hebrews of our lot in this world. We read:

12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

We are to also despise the shame and reproach that comes along with following Christ. Will others think you are weird for seeking to live your life in accordance with the will of God, of course, and who cares! Will others scorn and reject your efforts to share the gospel and spiritual truth with them, of course and who cares! Will we be despised by the world and will the world seek to put us to shame? Of course, and who cares! We are to despise that shame as we esteem only the joy and pleasure that our Lord has in us!
We are to despise the shame! When we consider that Christ did this and we consider His example then we will find that as we fix our minds on Him and His example we will be prepared to not be made weary in bearing that same reproach that He bore!
There is more that we could say on this regard but we need to quickly ask the final question.

Question 3

What will the results of this spiritual endurance look like. How can we know that this promise is effective in our lives?
There are of course a plethora of results that we could look to but I want to share one from the next verse as a way of closing:

4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

One of the things that has the greatest capacity in this world to weary the believer is the temptation to sin. We have to learn to resit sin as this text says even to the shedding of our blood.
Once John Piper was asked how Jesus can ever sympathize with our weakness if he never sinned, in response he quotes CS Lewis:
“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. . . . A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people in one sense know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. . . . Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means. (Mere Christianity, 142)”
I believe it was Piper that also talked about, I think it may have even been this text, and illustrated it with a picture of having your leg caught in a trap: TELL ILLUSTRATION.
A great litmus test for the Christian life is are you able to resist sin, are you quick to give in or do you have the endurance to fight. Even more so do you have the spiritual endurance to do as Jake mentioned in one of His recent messages and not even allow yourself to be put in places where you know you will be tempted to sin.
Do you press on and fight well or do you grow weary in your battle against sin?
If so it is a sure sign that you have not fixed your eyes on christ as you ought to.
And so as we close the simple admonition is to do this, fix your eyes on Christ! As you run your course in this world think often on His example, spend time in the gospels learning from the life of our Savior, and pray often that you would be granted this spiritual endurance that was purchased for you there on the cross that He endured for us.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

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