Present Trials for Future Glory

What would you do for the Lord?

Last sermon on the “Evidence of your Faith”, “can you prove your faith?”. A faith that is genuine must produce works, and that a faith unable to produce works is dead.

I’m gonna go through verses, help us u

passage reading

What would you do for the Lord?

Before we get into the roots of things, we need context. We start with:

v1

Just as pastor had mentioned before, the word “therefore” is used to indicate a sequence of proceeding statements; one after the other. For example, you didn’t brush your teeth, therefore your breathe is going to stink. In this verse we read:

v1

You’ll often hear people when talking about this verse, say that the cloud of witnesses is referencing those around you; the people who are watching and witnessing all the trials that you will endure as a Christian, but when reading the start of chapter 12, the author assumes that you’ve probably read every chapter leading up to there, especially the chapter just before it.

Context

The book of Hebrews, as a whole, is a guideline of how we as new covenant believers are to interpret the old testament. How the law of Moses, the tabernacle, the passover, the judges, the prophets, the prophecies themselves - all point to Jesus as being the fulfilment of all these things. Jesus as the culmination of the different parts of the old testament, better version at that.

Hebrews 1:1–2 “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.”

In Chapter 10, it talks about the law and the prophets being a shadow of the thing, the substance being Jesus.

Cloud Of Witnesses

If we move to our passage in Chapter 11, we are given numerous examples of people who have faith in God, and by that faith endured hardship while looking to the treasures of God. Abraham when he offered his son as a sacrifice, Moses willing to incur the wrath of Pharaoh to free his people, Rahab risking treason for hiding the Israelite spies.

v1

When it mentions the “cloud of witnesses”, it’s talking about those in the old testament being witnesses for us, examples of faithful endurance for us to follow.

v1

The Founder And Perfecter Of Our Faith

v2

We discussed those in the old testament who persevered in faith, looking to the promises of God, that treasure/reward. Here, we are told “run the race set before us, looking to Jesus”. There is an amazing duality to that phrase where Christ is not only an example of faithful endurance that we are to follow “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”, but he is also the reward, the treasure of God, the very thing that we are looking towards. We not only follow by example the ways of Christ, but Christ himself is the goal that we are striving for.

And here, we come across one of my favourite descriptions of Christ, “the founder and perfecter of our faith”. The word “founder” comes from the greek word “arche”, meaning the beginning or origin, and the word “perfecter” is derived from “telos”, meaning the end or completion. Jesus is the founder of our faith, having lived a life of faithfulness, willing to suffer for it and doing so to the point of crucifixion, looking forward, to his glorification being seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus also the perfecter, the completion of the law, the full picture of what the old testament told in parts, the one that gives ground to our faith.

Climax

v3

What would you do for the Lord? We went through examples of people in the Old Testament who persevered and endured through trials by faith, the ultimate example, Christ himself, who endured the cross while despising the shame, all by faith. Now we’re left with the question, how much are you willing to endure for God?

Verse 3 says that we are to consider Christ who endured sin and hostility against himself; SO THAT YOU, when confronted with sin, may not grow weary or fainthearted. If this was the last verse that I was covering, I feel as though the answer to the question of “what would you do for the Lord?” would be simple. “I would give my life for Christ, as he did for me”, right? “I would do anything for Christ”. We read about the cloud of witnesses, the patrons of the faith in the Old Testament, the story of Christ suffering on the cross and we are inspired.

v3,4

This verse was the inspiration for this sermon. We have just read on all these great acts of faith, willing to suffer at the present time, in hope for the things to come. When I say suffer, I mean a great deal. Abraham with his own son, Moses with not only his own life, but the lives of all his people, Rahab with her own life in order to help the enemy, Jesus Christ with his life and the sin and shame of humanity itself.

We struggle with sin, yes. We have trials, yes but in comparison, it doesn’t come close and still, we give up. As my mum said last week, we stop fighting against sin, we stop praying. In our struggle against sin, we stop yet we haven’t even resisted to the point of shedding our blood. That is the heart of the passage. We have the entirety of the OT witnessing to us, Jesus as an example so that we can run with endurance the race set before us, but at the smallest inconvenience against sin, we crumble.

I’m not suggesting that if our struggle against sin doesn’t involve us risking our lives literally, that your faith is weak, but if we have all these examples of people who endured through trials by their faith in God, do we TODAY not serve the same God?

Final Words

Obviously, times were different. We live in a different time, a different country, things aren’t the same. I think the question is too easily dismissed. It’s always the extremes where we would die for Christ, give everything. Would you give up a bad habit for God? Would you live as Christ would DAILY for God? Would you serve your parents, your siblings, wife, husband, friends without recognition for God? I think we really thought about “what we would do for the Lord”, the bar is a lot lower them we would like to admit.

If you’re like me struggling with sin, I ask that you consider Christ who endured from sinners such hostility against himeself, so that you may not grow weary or fainhearted.