Keep Your Eyes Fixed on Jesus

Hebrews 12:1–2 NLT

1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. 2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.

SUBJECT: Keep Your Eyes Fixed on Jesus

When we endure hardships in this life—they can become all-consuming. Hardships can sap all your strength and keep you in a prison of pain. I know about you, but I’m going to press through my hardships. I am confident that what lies ahead is so much better than anything I’ve ever known. My eyes are fixed on one thing. My Savior waits for me to finish my race.

Hebrews 12 follows the chapter that has been called the Hall of Faith. The writer calls the roll of saints who have gone before us and who now make up the grand audience who cheer us on. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground”. Their triumph over the pain of this life says to us, “Go on! Keep running! You can make it! You can make it!”

Let’s look at their hardships this morning...

Hebrews 11:35–38 NLT

35 Women received their loved ones back again from death. But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. 36 Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. 37 Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half, and others were killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated. 38 They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.

This is the powerful picture of what enduring faith is. This passage glances back over the history of the Old Testament and highlights the enduring faith of God’s people.

1. There was the enduring faith of believers (v. 35–38).

2. There was the reward of enduring faith (v. 39–40).

The enduring faith of believers.

No names are mentioned in these verses.

As verse 35 indicates, they were the women and men of every day life who were not necessarily leaders, but who had one distinctive trait: they believed God and their faith in God was strong.

They endured in faith no matter what attacked them.

They never accepted defeat; therefore, they were never defeated.

They never denied God; therefore, they were never denied by God. They never lost hope; therefore, they were never left hopeless. They endured in faith. No matter the circumstance, difficulty, threat, injury, pain, torture, or form of execution and death, they endured and held fast to their faith and profession in God.

Some believers—women—received their dead raised to life again. This is an astounding fact, that some believers could have faith strong enough to have their children raised from the dead. Yet it is true. The Old Testament gives two examples; perhaps there were others, but they are not recorded in the Scripture.

1 Kings 17:17–24 NLT

17 Some time later the woman’s son became sick. He grew worse and worse, and finally he died. 18 Then she said to Elijah, “O man of God, what have you done to me? Have you come here to point out my sins and kill my son?” 19 But Elijah replied, “Give me your son.” And he took the child’s body from her arms, carried him up the stairs to the room where he was staying, and laid the body on his bed. 20 Then Elijah cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, why have you brought tragedy to this widow who has opened her home to me, causing her son to die?” 21 And he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, please let this child’s life return to him.” 22 The Lord heard Elijah’s prayer, and the life of the child returned, and he revived! 23 Then Elijah brought him down from the upper room and gave him to his mother. “Look!” he said. “Your son is alive!” 24 Then the woman told Elijah, “Now I know for sure that you are a man of God, and that the Lord truly speaks through you.”

The point is this: enduring faith—faith that will not let God go—will conquer anything including death.

Some believers were tortured, refusing to deny God.

The word “tortured” means to beat or club to death or else to be put on the rack in order to make a person deny Christ.

These dear believers suffered martyrdom for the name of Christ. They refused to accept deliverance.

All they had to do was renounce Christ, but they refused. And note why: “that they might obtain a better resurrection.” They had their eyes on the promised land of heaven and glory, of living forever and ever with God and Christ.

Some believers endured trials of mockings, scourgings, and being chained and imprisoned.

⇒ They were mocked: ridiculed, insulted, treated with contempt, and cursed.

⇒ They were scourged: beaten with rods, whips, and cords of leather straps with bone and metal chips tied to the end—beaten until they died or were near death.

⇒ They were chained hand and foot like dogs, sometimes for years (even Paul the apostle suffered this as well as so many of the other trials mentioned throughout this section).

⇒ They were imprisoned in the most horrendous dungeons or prisons in the history of men.

They suffered for their faith, refusing to deny God and Christ and the glorious hope of the promised land—of living forever and ever with God.

Some believers were martyred for their faith.

⇒ Some were stoned to death. They were cast to the ground and surrounded by a mob of executioners. The executioners took hand size stones and hurled them at the victim causing whatever excruciating pain they could to the vital parts of the person’s body and then eventually crushing the head. (See Zechariah, 2 Chr. 24:20f.)

⇒ Some were sawn in half. The method used was to put a person in a hollow log and then to saw through the log and the person.

Some believers were treated in the most inhuman ways imaginable.

They were stripped of all clothing and forced to wander about in sheepskins and goatskins.

They were stripped of all possessions—had everything taken away and confiscated—their homes, property, money, everything. They were left utterly destitute and they were afflicted and tormented as much as possible as object lessons in order to stop anyone else from believing in God and Christ.

They were forced to wander about and find shelter wherever they could: in deserts, in mountains, and in the dens and caves of the earth.

The Lesson: Keep your head on straight.

Matthew 5:11 NLT

11 “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers.

Matthew 19:29 NLT

29 And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life.

Their faith was the light of the world; their lives pointed men to God, and their testimonies still do.

Their faith touched God so much that He has recorded it forever in this chapter of Hebrews. And although their names are not mentioned for the world to honor, what is important is stressed, that is, their faith. It is not their names that would stir people; it is their faith.

CONCLUSION

Romans 1:8 NLT

8 Let me say first that I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith in him is being talked about all over the world.

They had the glorious hope of the promised land and the promised seed. They died without receiving the promised seed. They never saw Christ born, crucified, resurrected, and exalted to the right hand of God the Father. They never saw their salvation secured by Christ, who was the very Son of God. They never saw the promise of the Messiah fulfilled. They died believing the promise, but they never knew exactly how their salvation was to be arranged.

But this is not true with us: we know.

Romans 5:1 NLT

1 Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.