Hebrews 12: Jesus is the perfector of our faith

We Get weary

When was the last time you were tired. Not just a tired at the end of the day, but an exhaustion, where every resource you thought you had was gone. And even your backups were missing. Everything you thought you had to keep going was gone.

Maybe it was just a long uphill climb, or maybe it was something that happened that was catastrophic that sucked the energy out of you.

I had a friend tell me recently that she had run a marathon and that it was a helpful life lesson. Not because she had run and completed it (she had) but because of what she learned around mile 10. A marathon is a 26 mile race and she said that about halfway through she felt like she was going to die. That she couldn’t move another muscle, take another step. But she kept going until the finish line.

The real work is done at mile 10. It is done in the middle. The real work happens when you cannot see the finish line and you are too far from the start to remember what that was like.

But sometimes all of life feels like mile 10. Feels like there is no finish line and we are too far from the start. The reality is that is most of the human experience. And we get tired because we are mostly at mile 10, and it is easy at that point to forget why we are running in the first place

Sometimes we are tired because we have forgotten why we run. Sometimes we are tired because we have ended up carrying things that we didn’t start out with.

Look at how this chapter begins

our weariness is heavy

Hebrews 12:1 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,

Why did the original audience need to be reminded to run with endurance? What was happening that they could lose sight or hope? They were experiencing persecution for their faith. Their faith was not welcome in the ANE, likely Rome, where they were. And not only was it not welcome, it was repellent. Their faith flew in the face of the emperor, calling someone else, Jesus, Lord. And so they became the target of the eire of the empire and while Nero was Caesar, he was unbelievable cruel to these early Christians.

They were being told they were wrong, their faith was wrong, and it was painful for them to believe, in some cases, literally.

Has it ever been painful for you to trust God in the middle of difficult circumstances? Have you ever felt like the outcast or the one that didn’t fit? Has trusting God in our culture made you feel displaced?

Does it feel a bit like mile 10 in a marathon? Where you have forgotten what it was like to start and you couldn’t see the finish line?

How did you handle it? What did you do to look for a little hope or a little rest from our weariness? It is usually in these moments where we begin to get a little creative.

We are far from the start and far from the finish line. So we think we need something else to help us to finish. We turn to anything that promises to do so. But sometimes those promises get us into trouble. We are weary and look to anything that will help us, anything that will grant us a little reprieve.

How do you cope at mile 10? When faith can hurt or where you feel displaced? Maybe you’ve been tempted to throw in the towel, give up. To let go of your faith. What has it done for you anyhow? Maybe you feel a little disillusioned in your faith. Things haven’t gone well and you see God as the culprit.

About 10 years ago, before we were here, I was looking for a role and had interviewed a few different times at a church. The position was promising, the church looked good, and we were excited at the possibility. I had three interviews and had even interviewed with the entire board. I “knew” God had been calling me to this.

And then I got cut from the position. I told God that I felt like He had played a practical joke on me. But, it turns out I hadn’t been trusting in Him, I had been trusting in my experience to earn my way there. I was looking at the wrong thing.

But we don’t just run aimlesslely. We run with purpose.

Maybe you’ve been in a season where faith is hard. and it feels easier to look to other things, to take on different weights. But taking anything on other than Christ Himself will ultimately wear you out. I think we are exhausted as a culture because we keep trying to run with weights on and that never works to get us to the finish line.

Christ is the perfector of our faith, not necessarily the protector

Hebrews 12:2–3 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. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

The Scriptures do not mince words here. Throw away whatever is weighing you down and look to Jesus. And we have been told all throughout the book of Hebrews that Jesus does particular work in our lives. He restores our relationship to God which means all of our relationships are different. He mediates between us and God, holding us up before Him, doing what every human desires but only Christ has been able to do on behalf of humanity.

We are called upon not just to look at Jesus but to look to Jesus. To keep our eyes fixed on HIm. Like holding onto the finish line, we are to focus on Christ because it keeps us moving in the right direction.

And notice what it says about Christ. That He is the author and perfector of our faith. He is the one who inagurates it and the One who perfects it.

But notice what it does not say. It does not call Christ the author and protector of your faith. He is called the perfector.

That means whatever situation you find yourself in is a place where Christ will work to perfect your faith. He will not protect it by keeping you from difficulty or harm. He will not hold back from discipline or from development in your life. Because He isn’t protecting our faith, He is perfecting it.

Much of chapter 12 deals with that reality. That God is working in and through the difficult things in our lives. That what may feel like discipline, difficult and unwelcomed becomes the

Hebrews 12:11–12 ESV

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees,

Do you know that whatever it is you are facing, whatever difficulties you are having to walk through are not intended to make your faith smaller but instead meant to grow it?

faith is perfected through enduring through difficult things by beholding Christ in that same difficulty.

Christ has made Himself the responsible One for your faith. But the faith is still ours. He is the author of it, the perfector of it. We are the carriers of it. If we look to Jesus we will not be failed, we will not be led astray, we will not grow weary.

But how do we behold Christ when we are weary and exhausted?

We Behold Christ because Christ Beholds us

We are challenged to endure. To keep going, to behold Jesus. But when we are weary we often can’t even pick up our neck to turn our head. Or sometimes we are fearful to do so. We don’t want to look around because we don’t know what we will find.

How can we behold Jesus who is always there if we can’t even look around?

We have to realize that we are called to behold Christ because He first beheld us.

Let’s go back and look at Hebrews 12:2

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.

We get a great description of Christ here. He is the One who endured the cross with joy. He despised the shame of the cross. The sin and brokenness of the world while still embracing the joy of the work because of what it will ultimately do.

Jesus is the One who endures for our sake, beholding us. We have a God who has endured on our behalf. He lifted His drooping hands and strengthened His weak knees for our sake, to behold us.  

Christ beholds us so we can endure and do the same, we behold Him.

And that is what that word, “looking” does in this passage. It is not a passive staring at or looking out to. It is not like looking at a painting or watching a fireworks show,. It is the idea of “looking until,” meaning that you are committed to it until “it” is completed and done. It is more like hanging onto something for dear life. It is more like clinging to the side of a mountain with nothing holding you up. And when you behold like this, you do not let go until something changes. You hang on until something is different.

Christ beholds us like this. He will not let go of you, He, for the joy before Him endured the cross. He is the greater beholder and because of that we can behold Him.

Hold onto Him, behold Him no matter what you are facing. He is greater than whatever you are weary from. He has endured so that you ultimately don’t have to. Behold Him and He will strengthen us.

The Gospel does not move and cannot be shaken.

Christ beholds us and we behold Him. And we do that until something changes. Our faith is locked in to Christ as He walks us into His kingdom, One where, in Christ God dwells with His people. One where we can enter into, to come into a celebration through Christ.

Hebrews 12:22–24 ESV

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

We come to Jesus whose Kingdom does not shake, who is always where HE says He will be. And He is perfectly doing what He promised to do, mediating the new promise between God and His people.

Hebrews 12:28–29 ESV

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

This reality is what the naturalist John Muir had in mind when he said

“we look at life from the backside of the tapestry. What we normally see is loose ends, tangled threads, frayed cords. But occasionally light shines through the tapestry and we get a glimpse of the larger design.” .

Witherington, Ben, III. 2009. “The Conquest of Faith and the Climax of History (Hebrews 12:1–4, 18–29).” In The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, edited by Richard Bauckham, Daniel R. Driver, Trevor A. Hart, and Nathan MacDonald, 433. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

This passage reminds us that we are not looking at the whole picture. Mile 10 is not the whole picture. We endure when we see what the entire picture of life in Christ is like. Faith swallows all of life, no matter how weary and allows us to strengthen weak knees

To behold Christ is to look at the joy of the Gospel, and to see that no matter where we are, not matter what we are carrying and holding onto, it can all be dropped in the presence of Christ