58 Hebrews 12: Preaching/Teaching
Notes
Transcript
Gazing on Jesus for a lifetime!
Gazing on Jesus for a lifetime!
What do you fix your eyes on?
What does it mean to fix your eye on something. What I have found that is that where our eyes are focused reveal where our heart is.
There have been different things that I have fixed my eyes on throughout my life:
Basketball
Music
Karate
But then I heard about the good news of Jesus. It changed my gaze. Not that I never looked at those other things. Now my eyes were on him. Where my eyes were changed everything about my life.
As an early Christ follower I thought it was going to be easy to follow Jesus and keep my eyes on him. But what I have learned about our eyes is that they are prone to wander.
Whatever our eye are gazed on literally determines our path. And keeping our eyes on jesus does not happen accidentally.
What our eyes are fixed on reveal our heart.
Martin Luther said, “When I look at myself I don’t see how I can be saved but when i look at Christ I don’t see how I can be lost.”
What are your eyes fixed on right now?
For many of us it is the American dream. More money, more success and more comfort.
For some of us it is the immediate, right there are things that have to get done right now.
The reality is that many times good things keep us from the best things.
We are getting close to finishing up Hebrews and we have seen this group of believers who came from a Jewish background. Their previous religion included seeing sacrifices at the temple and having an earthly priest, but these believers came to see that Jesus was the ultimate fulfillment of their religion. Now they were being persecuted, some disowned, potentially even having their property destroyed, and they had to decide do we want to fix our eyes on Jesus for a lifetime or do we want to take the easy way.
The author wants to set the stage for fixing their eyes on Jesus.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
We just saw from the last chapter that the author used men and women as examples whose lives bore witness to God.
Would it not be great to have a life that bore witness to God.
He tells us what can keep us from running the race God has for us.
He tells us what can keep us from running the race God has for us.
Lay aside every encumbrance and sin that so easily entangles us.
Encumbrance
Aren’t there so many good things that can keep us from the best.
Our technology is not a bad thing until it becomes the very thing that keeps us from God.
We can list a lot of good things that keep us from the best thing. These are encumbrances.
When we get too many encumbrances it is like a really talented football player who is playing football with a 45 pound weight on. How many Christians who are well meaning have a 45 pound plate on their back.
Sin
The reality is that an encumbrance can become a sin. We get focused in on something and before we know it instead of God being the center of our life something else is.
I can list 100 different sins and I truly believe all of us are prone to struggle with different sins, but is there a sin in your life that is keeping you from running the race marked out for you.
Jim Elliott the great missionary said,
“Sin will keep you from this book or this book will keep you from sin.
These believers had to think through the same question we have to wrestle with today. Am I going to follow Jesus for a season or for a lifetime.
God has a specific race for each of us to run and we can run it like a 100 m dash and burn out we can run it for 10 years but God’s design is that we run it for a lifetime with endurance.
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Now he tells us how to run the race:
Now he tells us how to run the race:
FIXING OUR EYES ON JESUS!
FIXING OUR EYES ON JESUS!
In these first three verses this is the climax as how to live the Christian life.
Jesus is the climax of the Bible
He is the center
He is the author
He will finish what he started in our lives
WHY WOULD WE LOOK TO ANYTHING ELSE?
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible 1. The example of Jesus 12:1–3
“He alone is the source of hope and help in their time of need. Looking to Him in faith and devotion is the central theological and practical message of Hebrews.”
He reminds us who Jesus is. The examples we looked at last week are some good examples. But these are not the center of our faith the climax of this book is Jesus himself and if we want to walk with God for a lifetime we have to fix our eyes on him FOR A LIFETIME.
Look at what he did:
Endured the Cross (Joy). How in the world do you have enjoy when you endure the cross. There is a big difference between Joy and happiness. Jesus had joy dying because he ran his race perfectly.
Despised the shame. He died as a criminal. People were not looking at Jesus like man that is really cool that you died on the cross they looked at Jesus as the worst of the worst.
He was raised to his rightful place.
Today I want us to see that there are two hard truths we must embrace if we want to fix our eyes on Jesus for a lifetime.
I remember playing college basketball where their were times that the coach had to tell me hard things.
Sheehy telling me he could send me out of there if I did not play defense. Left his office crying all the way to my dorm room.
The first hard truth about fixing our eyes on Jesus is it:
The first hard truth about fixing our eyes on Jesus is it:
1. Requires a disciplined life (4-12).
1. Requires a disciplined life (4-12).
Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Suffering and discipline and pain are not things that we naturally want to sign up for.
Jesus was sinless and innocent and he suffered more than any other person to live.
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible 2. The proper view of trials 12:4–11
Suffering is evidence, not that God does not love us, but that he does.”
The author tells us to Consider:
Life is tuff. When things are not going right for you and life seems like too much: look to Jesus. These believers were going through hell and losing property and being disowned and the author is telling us to do the very thing he was telling these believers to do because as bad as it is for you it was worse for Jesus. He endured the worst opposition you could endure at the hands of sinful men.
As hard as we may try to follow God and do the will of God it does not even compare to what jesus did.
Jesus was sinless.
GOSPEL
If you want to embrace a disciplined life you first have to realize that you can’t do what JESUS did.
He ran the race that you could not run and died on your behalf.
I have to ask you today have your recieved God’s gift of salvation?
That is why we must remember we are living a disciplined life not to earn the favor of God but rather if you have recieved Jesus you have the favor of God. And if you have the favor of God you are called to live like a child of God.
You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
As hard as it is to follow God we can never measure up to what God has done on our behalf.
I want you to think about a time when you struggled to really walk with God and it was hard. That does not even compare to what Jesus did and that is why the author is telling us not to focus on that situation, but to fix our eyes on Jesus and to consider Jesus.
Don’t focus on the situation but on the savior.
and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
Isn’t it beautiful that once we believe Jesus we are children of God, we are his adopted children.
And the author tells us the reality about God as a father. God’s love is so great he disciplines.
For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines,
And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
If we want to gaze on Jesus for a lifetime we have to embrace discipline.
We all know that if we want to be good at a craft it takes discipline. I think of Michael studying for the CPA test, it took discipline.
But looking back at my childhood why was my dad hard on me and challenge me to be disciplined. It was not because he did not love me it because he loved me more than any other human.
If you are a basketball player the problem is not when the coach is on you the problem is when the coach stops calling your name.
My boys are playing for a coach who is tough right now. He is an incredible guy, but rough around the edges, but has as big of a heart as it gets.I remember one of the games one of my boys was getting a little intimidated, he was playing bigger and stronger players and Herb calls a timeout and calls him out hard in the middle of this intense game. Why because he wants Nathaniel and Aiden to play up to their greatest possible potential. He does not call them out because he hates them but rather because he loves them.
Here is what Herb posted on his twitter after last game:
But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
We want glory without the cross. We want heaven without the path. We have been accustomed to the easy road.
Notice it says we have become partakers. Satan knows he cannot take our salvation so I wonder if he is up there saying if I can’t take their salvation I will give them a testimony that speaks against the name of God.
What is our biggest problem: As DC talk once said:
Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips but deny him by their lives. This is simply what an unbelieving world finds unbelieving.
Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.
All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
One of the reasons I had an easy time believing in God is because even though my dad was an intense father. I never doubted his love for me.
Now as a father as I discipline my kids I am tough on them in the same way because I want to see them live for God.
When we go through this disciplined lifestyle we begin to see our life change slowly but surely.
If we do it for a lifetime we can’t help but be people where the fruits of the spirit become more and more real: We become more:
Loving
Joyful
Peaceful
Patient
Kind
Good
Faithful
Gentleness
Self Control
In short we become more like Jesus.
God I want to follow you even when thing are not easy.
Application:
You can willingly embrace a lifestyle of discipline or God will discipline you as a believer.
Are you living a disciplined life for God right now?
How can you embrace a disciplined lifestyle right now?
The second hard truth about fixing our eyes on Jesus is it:
The second hard truth about fixing our eyes on Jesus is it:
2. Holiness is not optional (12-17).
2. Holiness is not optional (12-17).
We try to make clear regularly that we are saved because of what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf. We are saved by grace [explain Grace] when we put our faith in the finished work of Jesus.
But this grace is so good that we think that living a holy life is optional.
But the author wants his audience to know that he cares for them and he wants them to gaze on Jesus for a lifetime.
Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,
and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
You can feel the author saying I care for you and you can finish what you started. God is going to do his part whether you want him to or not, so be faithful with your part.
It is hard but don’t let this struggle keep you from finishing.
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible 3. The need for greater strength 12:12–13
“A depth of pastoral concern is evident throughout this section. The writer understood that faith can be eroded by constant exposure to harsh circumstances.”
But once we start following God there should be some practical realities in our life.
Once we become followers of Jesus God desire that our lives begin to look more and more like Jesus.
But this doesn’t happen accidentally but rather intentionally.
As one author put it we don’t drift into holiness.
Now the author gives us some outward ways our lives should look.
Now here are some practical steps to holiness:
Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.
Pursue Peace. If you are angry and causing trouble or not willing to reconcile you will miss God. There is this word sanctification here. This is the process where God is making you like his son.
See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;
Be serious about wanting others to grow. We should want to see everyone growing in God’s Grace.
Bitterness. Would it not be one of the worst case scenarios if God is using RCC in a major way and we push God out because people are bitter against each other.
that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.
For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.
We can’t sell out. Tell the story.
We don’t drift into holiness
This passage has to be centered on Jesus:
Everything else flows out of this reality:
Hebrews & James 1. Jesus as Our Pioneer and Perfecter (vv. 1–3)
Three features about Jesus demand attention. First, Jesus endured the cross to seize the blessed joy set before him. The path to victorious joy led through the cross. Second, Jesus scorned the shame of the cross. Jesus recognized the humiliation and ignominy of the cross, but these threats were of no consequence to him as he considered the coming glory. Third, Jesus sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. From the pain and agony of the cross God exalted Jesus to the position of a throne.
12:3. As we reflect on our own hardships, we need to assess carefully the endurance of Jesus. Jesus endured hostility from sinners that reached its climax at the cross. When you tend to let go, you can avoid faintheartedness and weariness by keeping your attention riveted upon Jesus. Jesus endured hostility from stubborn sinners. You have never faced such intense evil as did Jesus. His sterling example can stabilize us in our fear and concern.
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible 2. The proper view of trials 12:4–11
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible 3. The need for greater strength 12:12–13
“A depth of pastoral concern is evident throughout this section. The writer understood that faith can be eroded by constant exposure to harsh circumstances.”
Hebrews & James 1. Jesus as Our Pioneer and Perfecter (vv. 1–3)
As the author of our faith (see the same word in 2:10), Jesus inspires action in believers of all ages. As the perfecter of our faith, Jesus takes harassed believers, develops our faith, and brings us to heaven’s Promised Land (Phil. 1:6).