Keep Your Eyes On Jesus

Hebrews 12:1–4 CSB

Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won’t grow weary and give up. In struggling against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

This is the Word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Introduction

There are some who believe that this book of Hebrews was a sermon that was transcribed since there is no introduction attesting to who wrote it. There is a joke that the reason good sermons are about 45 minutes long is because that is about how long it takes to read through the entire book of Hebrews.

But a good sermon is not just an information dump. If all I do on a Sunday is tell you what Scripture says, and that is it, I have given you a theology lesson or a Biblical History lecture. I have not preached a sermon. The great Welsh preacher of the 20th century, Martyn Lloyd-Jones called preaching “logic on fire.”

If I do not tell you what to do with the information that the Bible gives, the information is probably not going to help you much.

Our passage today moves from the list of faithful saints that the author gave his readers in Hebrews 11 to giving specific instructions to his readers. He is no longer describing the different ways that people have endured through trials but is now telling his readers how they should respond. He is giving them the application of the lessons from the Hall of Faith.

Our passage today answers the question, “What do we do with Hebrews 11?”

The author now tells his readers about how Jesus is the One we should ultimately be looking to, and why.

Big Idea: Because Jesus has already run — and finished — the race of faith before us, we endure our own race by fixing our eyes on Him.

I. Run with Endurance (v. 1a)

Key verse: Hebrews 12:1a — "Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us."

As I stated in my introduction, the author shifts from the examples of faith to the application of faith. He starts off with this word “therefore” which points back to everything he was just talking about in Hebrews 11. And now, because of all of these examples of faith, he shifts to saying “This is what you must do.”

The witnesses are not spectators — they are evidence:

The great cloud of witnesses in chapter 11 are not just watching from the stands. They are proof that the race is finishable by faith. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses — they all ran, they all endured, and they all finished by faith. None of them had it easy. Every one of them faced hindrances, struggles, and the temptation to quit. But they finished.

So when the author is using the word “Therefore,” he is saying that because they finished, his readers can too. But how do we run with endurance?

Lay aside every hindrance and sin:

A hindrance is anything that slows us down, even if not sinful in itself. The author is telling his readers that anything that is slowing down their progress in serving the Lord and following Him faithfully, needs to be set aside.

What hinders you from running the race of life in faith? What keeps you from serving the Lord whole-heartedly? Do you spend excessive time on your phone? Do you spend a lot of time watching movies or TV shows instead of studying God’s Word? Is your schedule so busy that you don’t take time to rest and thank the Lord for all he has provided for you?

Even if that busyness is taking care of others for the name of Jesus, if you are constantly doing that and not taking the time to rest, refresh yourself in the Word of God, and seek the Lord in prayer, those good things are actually a hinderance to your following the Lord in faith.

Discernment is not telling the difference between right and wrong. It is telling the difference between what is right and almost right.

Attributed to Charles Spurgeon

I think we could also see that discernment helps us see the difference between good and better, better and best.

I think of the story of Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, where Jesus and his disciples are visiting. Mary is sitting and listening to Jesus teach. Martha is mad at her sister for not helping with all of the food prep and serving everyone. She finally tells Jesus to order her sister to help. We see what she says to Jesus and how he responds in Luke 10:40-42

Luke 10:40–42 CSB

But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.” The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Was it wrong for Martha to want to serve Jesus and the others who were in her house? Absolutely not! Her wanting to serve was not the problem. It was that she was so focused on serving that she was not taking in the more important things of listening to Jesus’s teaching.

So I ask again, what is hindering your faith in the Lord?

The other thing that the author tells his readers to lay aside is the sin that so easily ensnares us. Sin is deceptive; it trips us up when we least expect it. The enemy makes sin look very pleasing and enticing to us. Remember, he told Eve that if she ate of the fruit she would be like God.

This is why the author says that sin ensnares us. Some translations say that sin “entangles” us. Either way you look at it, we must see this about sin: Its a trap!

But our sins are not anyone’s fault but our own. Eve still could have said no, but she didn’t.

James 1:14–15 CSB

But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.

This is why we see some people trip up in ways that others do not. I have seen pastors who have disqualified themselves from ministry because of their lust for women. Others have fallen because of their lust for power. And still others have fallen because of their lust for money.

You may say, “I don’t deal with any of those kids of sins.” If that is the case, great! What sins do you struggle with then? Do you let your pride take control so that you think everyone else is causing the problems in your life?

I have seen gossip spread through churches with the excuses of, “We weren’t saying anything untrue,” and “We want to let people know to pray for them.” Someone does not need every detail of the situation along with all of your speculation of what is going on behind the scenes in order to pray for the situation. Its still gossip, and gossip is still a sin.

Just because your sins aren’t big and bold in front of everyone does not mean they are any less destructive to your life.

When Jesus is teaching about murder and adultery in the Sermon on the Mount, he does not say going through the action is what makes you sinful.

Matthew 5:21–22 CSB

“You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment.”

Matthew 5:27–28 CSB

“You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Its not just the big sins that destroy us. The attitudes and longings of our hearts that lead to those sins destroy us as well.

So what sins are causing you to stumble and fall? Get specific. Don’t just say, “I am lazy and need God’s help to stop being lazy.” How are you lazy? What things do you need the Lord to give you strength to fix or overcome? Do you need to get up earlier in the day? Do you need to stop hitting the snooze button on the alarm? Do you need to go to bed earlier the night before to make it easier to get up earlier in the morning?

Run with endurance:

The Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint. Just because you tripped near the starting line does not mean that the race is over. There will be moments of pain, struggle, and temptation to quit. If you have done any running at all, you know that feeling of reaching the point where you want to give up.

Endurance means pushing through, not giving up when it gets hard. Often, endurance is in the mind. When your brain tells your body it can keep going even when your legs feel like jelly and your lungs are burning, you find yourself continuing on farther than you thought you could.

And while there is some truth to our minds being involved in Spiritual endurance, how does the author of Hebrews tell us to run with endurance? What is the method he tells us to employ so that we will keep moving forward in faith?

II. Fix Your Eyes on Jesus (v. 1b–2)

Key verse: Hebrews 12:2 — "keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

If you want to endure in this life, you need to keep your eyes on Jesus. How often have we seen in various texts from Scripture over the last couple of years where it tells us to keep our eyes on Jesus?

Again, all of Scripture points to Jesus, the Old Testament and the New. He is the cornerstone, the fulfillment of every prophesy, and the creator of the world.

Hebrews: Crossway Classic Commentaries Verses 1–11

“Looking,” in Scripture, when it refers to God or Christ, denotes an act of faith or trust, with hope and expectation. It is not just an act of understanding or considering what we are looking at; it is an act of the whole soul in faith and trust…So the Lord Jesus is not set before us here merely as an example for us but as him in whom we place our faith, trust, and confidence, with all our expectation of success in our Christian course. Without this faith and trust in him, we will derive no benefit from his example.

Jesus is not just an example to follow.

The author then gets even more specific as to why his readers should keep their eyes on Jesus as they endure through this life.

Jesus as Pioneer:

Some translations use "author" or "source" — the meaning is the same.

Jesus is where our faith begins. He goes before us. He blazes the trail.

Colossians 1:15–18 CSB

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and by him all things hold together. He is also the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

Scripture is clear that Christ is before all creation.

Jesus as Perfecter:

Some translations use "finisher." The word “perfect” comes from the Greek word that means “mature,” “grown up,” “completed,” etc. Jesus is where our faith finds its completion. He doesn't just start the work — He finishes it.

Colossians 2:13–15 CSB

And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him.

This pioneer and perfecter language is a showing us the same thing that we see at the end of the book of Revelation. This is where Jesus is making his final declaration about John’s visions in the book, saying that he is coming soon. In this passage, Jesus says:

Revelation 22:13 CSB

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

Jesus is the beginning, the author, the source of our faith, and is also the end, the perfecter, the finisher of our faith.

Now, if the author tells us his readers to look to Christ for endurance, how did Christ endure before us?

How Jesus endured — "for the joy that lay before him":

This is the key phrase. Jesus did not endure the cross by gritting His teeth and powering through. He did not pull himself up by his bootstraps. He endured by looking ahead — past the suffering — to the joy that was coming.

This verse is like a mirror of what we saw in Philippians 2, where Paul shares what many believe to be an early church hymn. He tells his readers that they should be humble like Jesus. Or, we could say he is telling his readers to look to Jesus.

Philippians 2:5–8 CSB

Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.

Jesus stepped away from the perfect presence of God in the heavens and came down into humanity. When it says “he emptied himself,” that is an idiom for being humble. Jesus not only humbled himself by adding humanity to his nature, but by becoming obedient to death, and not only to death, but death on a cross.

The cross was the most humiliating way to die in the ancient world. Though the Romans did not invent it, they perfected it. Jesus endured severe scourging (whipped with cat o’ nine tails to tear flesh from body), nail wounds (wrists and likely feet), suspension (being nailed to the cross beam he carried and then hoisted onto the main post that was likely already in the ground), dehydration (in Luke he was so stressed that he sweat blood as he prayed), blood loss from the amount of injuries, respiratory distress (the cross put pressure on your diaphragm, making it harder to breathe), and the progressive collapse of bodily strength. Crucifixion was deliberately designed as an agonizing, public, shameful death—and Christ willingly endured it.

However, it was not just the public humiliation and physical agony that he endured. The weight of bearing the curse of sin. Paul states in Galatians 3:

Galatians 3:13 CSB

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

Jesus also took on the curse of sin. Paul says that God presented Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Jesus was the Passover lamb, whose blood marks the doorposts of our hearts, so that the judgment of God passes over us, giving us life.

But our passage in Hebrews said that Jesus endured the cross because of the joy set before him. What was that joy? Jesus was looking ahead to the redemption of His people. The glory of the Father. The seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

Philippians 2:9–11 CSB

For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

He could endure the worst suffering imaginable because His eyes were fixed on the best outcome imaginable.

The mechanism of endurance:

Notice the structure of the passage:

"Let us run with endurance" (v. 1) — how? — "keeping our eyes on Jesus" (v. 2).

Fixing our eyes on Jesus is not a separate spiritual discipline added to endurance. It is how endurance happens. You don't endure first and then look to Jesus. You look to Jesus, and that is how you endure. Looking to Jesus is how you throw off those hinderances and sins!

It is ever the Holy Spirit’s work to turn our eyes away from self to Jesus; but Satan’s work is just the opposite of this, for he is constantly trying to make us regard ourselves instead of Christ.

Charles Spurgeon

Application — Redirect your focus: What are you staring at this week? Not metaphorically — what is consuming your mental and emotional energy? The struggle? The uncertainty? The pain? Or the One who already finished the race? Here's the practical shift: when you catch yourself fixating on the problem, name it before the Lord and deliberately turn your attention to Christ — what He endured, what He secured, where He is now. This is not positive thinking. It is faith — choosing to believe that the One who sat down at the right hand of the throne of God is more real and more powerful than whatever is in front of you right now.

III. Consider Christ's Suffering (vv. 3–4)

Key verse: Hebrews 12:3-4 — "For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won't grow weary and give up. In struggling against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood."

When the text tells his readers to “Consider Him,” it means to think deeply about what Christ endured. Remember, these Christians the author is writing to are considering abandoning Christ and going back to Judaism because of the persecution they are facing. The hostility Jesus faced from sinners was unlike anything we will ever experience.

When we look back to the gospels and what Jesus experienced, he faced betrayal, mockery, false accusations, abandonment by His closest friends, and ultimately a brutal death.

I know there are many of us who have endured similar hardships in our lives. Some have faced betrayal and false accusations by others, possibly by close friends or family members. Some have been mocked

Why consider Him?

So that you won't grow weary and give up. When we fix our eyes on what Christ endured, it gives us perspective and strength for our own struggles. This is like how we saw in Philippians that Paul being in prison gave other Christians the confidence to preach the word of God even more boldly than they had before!

Look to Jesus as your example AND as your strength to endure!

"You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood" - This is meant to be a comfort, not a rebuke. The author is not saying, "Your suffering doesn't count,” or, “you haven’t suffered enough yet.” This is the author saying, "If He endured worse and won, you can endure this through the strength Christ gives you."

It's perspective, not guilt. It's meant to encourage, not shame. Christ has endured more than we ever will. If He can endure — and He did — then we can endure by His strength.

Many have heard the heretical proverb:

Jesus will never give you more than you can handle.

If that is true, we don’t need Jesus. We don’t need to look at him. We don’t need to depend on his strength to endure.

I will admit that there are days where getting out of bed feels like more than I can handle. How many of you have had those days where you know something is coming, some project, some problem or conflict, a major meeting or sales-pitch for work and you feel completely unprepared to face the day or the situation?

That is when Christ strengthens us through the power of the Holy Spirit, walking with us and guiding us through the storm, through the valley, over the mountain and into his arms of peace.

You can endure more than you think you can, but not because of anything special in you.

You can endure because of the One who endured before you.

The world tries to tell us that we can do it on our own. We are not in the animated Disney film, Hercules, where we can go the distance if we just stay strong. A hero’s strength is not measured by his heart. All of Hebrews 11 told us that “heroes” are measured by their faith in the God who keeps His promises will carry them through. Its not our strength. It HIS!

Application — Gain perspective through comparison: Some of you may be in situations where you feel like these Jewish Christians that the author is writing to. You are ready to give up. You have reached your limit. But, before you throw in your towel, consider Christ. This is not about minimizing your pain — your pain is real. But perspective changes everything.

When you feel like you can't go on, ask yourself: "Have I resisted to the point of shedding my blood? Have I faced the hostility Christ faced?" The answer is no. And that's not meant to shame you — it's meant to free you. Because the One who did endure all of that is the same One who is sustaining you right now. You are not at your limit. You are not enduring alone. He ran this race first, He finished it, and He is running it with you. Let that truth settle into the places where you are most weary.

Conclusion / Call to Response

The race of faith is long, and it is hard. But if we have called upon the Lord, repenting of our sins, submitting our lives to Him, we are not running alone.

We are surrounded by the examples of those who have gone before us — not as spectators, but as proof that the race can be finished by faith. Not in our own strength, but by faith.

Not only that, we are to run toward — keeping our eyes fixed on — the One who has already finished: Jesus Christ.

He is the pioneer — He started your faith. He is the perfecter — He will complete it.

How do we endure? Not by trying harder. Again, Christianity is not a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” religion. We endure by fixing our eyes on the One who endured the cross for the joy set before Him — and who now sits at the right hand of the throne of God.

If you want true endurance in this life, it starts with letting go of the hindrances, fixing your eyes on Jesus, and trusting that the One who already finished the race will carry you to the finish line.

If you are here today and you want to know that strength to endure, you want to know the One who already ran the race, enduring the cross for you, then repent of your sins (repent means to change your mind or direction) asking Jesus to forgive you, declare him the Lord of your life, and seek to follow him the rest of your days.

Romans 10:9 CSB

If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Today is the day to confess and believe.

Next Step: I will repent and submit my life to Jesus.