Untitled Sermon (2)

Text: Hebrews 12:1-17 Title: Run with endurance

Prayer

For it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God

But not for those who have laid hold of the promise! Who have the confidence to approach the throne of grace, the mercy seat, to receive forgiveness, salvation, new life, and the hope and confidence of eternal rest.

Introduction

(Making good on my promise) In my first newsletter article I offered the goal of my ministry at West Broadway was to point people to our savior Jesus Christ that regardless of how well they got to know me, they would know Christ even more! When I was asked to preach this Sunday I started filing through passages from scripture that had the most profound impact on how I understand Christ and the work of the cross that was accomplished on behalf of my sins. It wasn’t long before one passage rose to the top of that list, and because of some unique life experiences Hebrews 12:1-3 provides an ongoing wellspring of encouragement and discipleship in my soul.

The problem addressed in our text today is that some of the new Jewish converts to Christianity were being tempted to return to their old ways of relying on religious rituals. Rather than trusting in the person and work of Christ they were facing pressure, ridicule and persecution to leave behind their new faith Christ and rejoin the protected and established religion of Judaism.

Hook: Race Rabbit (Pace setter) as compared to what Christ did for believers who are running the race.

Read Hebrews 11:39-12:3

1. We Receive Encouragement from Witnesses

2. We Run with endurance, through faith in Jesus

3. Finish strong through training in righteousness

First in our passage this morning, we drop in at the conclusion of a long journey through the various institutions of the OT and finally, the great cloud of witnesses who finished the race with faith.

There are some who might be tempted to say “well did they have saving faith if they didn’t know Jesus?” to this question we look to scripture which clearly states that “All of these were approved through their faith, but did not receive what was promised”. This phrase simply means they had faith in God and were obedient to his commands but were not able to see the fulfillment of the promised messiah.

Hebrews 11, also known as the hall of faith is the final example of things from the past that have been recorded for us, not to cling to and worship, but to help point us to something better.

Their faith, while ultimately was in God needed to be supplemented by obedience to the various institutions in the old testament. And yet, they persevered because of a promise. A promise of one, a savior, who would fulfill the requirements of the law and prophets and usher in a return to the presence of God.

The text in Hebrews 11 says of these faithful saints by fixing their hope on God’s promises were tortured, mocked, beaten, imprisoned, sawn in two, were destitute, afflicted and mistreated and yet “the world was not worthy of them”.

These men and women endured great suffering and didn’t have what we have today! The hope and joy of the fulfilled promise that these saints longed to see.

The author of Hebrews wanted his audience to see that Jesus, who fulfilled these promises has provided something better than what the new Jewish converts were being tempted to return to. How can it be that they persevered without Christ and you are being tempted to return to your former ways of worship

The point that is building throughout the book of Hebrews is revealed here in Chapter 12,

You don’t look to the work of Angels because we can behold the glory of God’s very own son! Fix your confidence on Christ who inherited a more excellent name than they did! “to which of the angels did he ever say “You are my son” (1:4-5). Jesus is superior to the Angels.

You don’t look to the old Law anymore but fix your eyes on Jesus who fulfilled the old law and under the new covenant we have the law written on our hearts. Jesus is superior to the Old covenant.

We don’t look to the old promise of rest through Joshua, instead our hope is fixed on Jesus who is our eternal rest with God in heaven (4:11). Jesus’s rest is superior to Joshua’s rest.

You don’t need to see an earthly heigh priest, look to Jesus who was a perfect heigh priest making one final and perfect offering for our sin. Jesus is superior to the earthly high priesthood

You don’t need another animal sacrifice for your sin, Jesus’ offered payment for all your sin which was accepted by the father. Jesus’ blood is superior to that of animals.

Hebrews 11 should be a sobering read knowing what those men and women endured to remain faithful to God.

Noah, by faith, built an Ark that took over a hundred years to construct in the middle of dry land preaching of a coming judgment without even a hint of a flood.

Abraham, by faith, left everything to inherit a place he had never been or had any family in a foreign land.

Moses, by faith, rejected the riches of Egypt to remain faithful to the promised reward of a savior.

And the list goes on. These are the cloud of witnesses. Their choice to press forward and trust God is why their faith serves as a witness to living with endurance.

You and I are encouraged by the testimony of their faith as they themselves point us to the savior they never met!

Transition to Point 2: Run with Endurance

1. We Receive Encouragement from Witnesses

2. We Run with endurance, through faith in Jesus

3. Finish strong through training in righteousness

Now that we have been encouraged, we are ready to be exhorted. Look with me at the second half of verse 1 and verse 2.

READ

In this passage I see one main exhortation for us to run with endurance. We run by faith in Christ.

I realize the passage gave us some very practical things we need to consider such as removing hinderances or battling against sin, but first look with me again at the main thrust of the passage, verse 2 begins with the solution to our problem of being a distracted and weak runner “fixing our eyes on Christ, the author/pioneer and perfecter of our faith”.

Notice the main solution to the problem is not a list of commands but the manner in which we are choosing to run. By faith. This brings us back to the more than 20 times the word faith is used in Hebrews 11. By faith, the chapter 11 saints were able to obey God, turn away from sin, and choose obedience to God which was foolishness to unbelievers.

Don’t miss this, we also need a faith firmly fixed on Christ if we expect to deal with sin, hinderances and endure suffering because of our Christian faith.

Our greatest weapon against sin is given to us as a result of faith! John

The Holy Spirit who dwells in us, God’s presence always with us, convicts us of sin and righteousness.

Just to be clear,

An endurance runner is not the prayer warrior of the congregation

An endurance runner is not the most disciplined devotional reader

An endurance runner is not being on the membership role the longest

An endurance runner is not the decorated theologian or beloved Sunday school teacher

An endurance runner is not the most generous giver, or the most dedicated volunteer or the most competent leader.

They may be all of those things, but none of which are required for a life of Godliness.

An endurance runner IS the one who through faith in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit says “NO” to the things of the world, accolades, treasure, fame, says “NO” to the sinful desires of the flesh and so that we would rather

The endurance runner is the one who believes Christ is who he says he is and lives their life accordingly.

I was recently on a run with my two older sons Micah and Miles doing some conditioning for their upcoming basketball season. After the half-mile turned around I saw Miles showing the signs of giving up. The first sign, putting his head down. In an attempt to encourage him to finish, I told him to look up and keep his eyes on his brother Micah who was getting close to the finish line. Sure enough, this provided Miles a significant boost of energy to keep running.

Transition to Point 3:

The way we finish says a lot about the way we have been equipped or trained for the race. But not finishing at all is far more devastating and outcome than growing weary.

1. We receive Encouragement from OT witnesses (1)

2. We run with endurance through faith in Jesus (1-2)

3. We finish strong being equipped in righteousness (3)

a. Allow for God’s discipline to mature your faith. (4-11)

b. Care for one another in the church. (12-13)

c. Pursue peace and purity among the body of believers. (14-17)

Lets look at our final main point and fill in a few application points to help us run in such a way that we finish strong and not weary and lose heart.

READ v3

What the author is doing here in verse three is building on the picture of a well trained or equipped runner. In our second point we looked at the power of faith in Christ to “put off” or lay aside hinderances and sin that prevent us from running with endurance.

Here we transition to observing the how faith in Christ has “put on” or equipped us for running this spiritual race with faithful endurance.

The author of Hebrews wants the church in this Italian city, presumably Rome, to not just complete the race, but finish without hobbling across the finish line. Unbelief will cause a runner to quite, or in our case a Christian to leave the faith. and we will see that later in our passage. But first we need to look at a few things God has provided through our faith in Christ to help us persevere through trials instead of losing heart.

Now, I’m not planning a deep dive into these three application points but hope you will carefully consider their presence in your current walk with the Lord.

Also note that we have slightly transitioned here to equipping in righteousness that involves others to take part in the process. These three points are best or even only accomplished in the context of the local church.

First, You and I must allow for God’s discipline to mature our faith. (4-11)

This is the privilege of becoming a child of God to a good father. Let's read our text to help us understand how and why this is a good thing for us.

READ 4-11

The first thing we need to note here is that he the author uses another Old Testament reference. This passage comes from the book of job and tells us a very important truth about our heavenly fathers discipline. Sometimes we may not know why we are going through a trial but need to recognize it is helping us become more disciplined runners. A more faithful child. This was the premise of the book of job that God would allow difficult things in our lives and we may not understand why and yet they are for our good and Gods glory.

Second he compares our discipline from the heavenly father who is perfect and knows exactly what we need to our earthly father who disciplined us for what he thought was best at the time and in that moment. The idea here is that we can trust the discipline of God to an even greater degree then we were able to later see what our fathers were doing when they disciplined us as children.

Third, discipline hurts. the author recognizes what all of us have probably been thinking, most notably my own children, that is, no one likes to be disciplined in the moment. No one likes going through suffering and pain that comes with the consequences of sin and living in a fallen world. But this is part of God's plan to train us and equip us as runners who do not give up and will finish the race with stronger faith than when we began.

Finally, we see the result of keeping our eyes fixed on Christ through the trials of life. The author says that the fathers discipline while never enjoyable in the moment, “yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness”. This isn’t the first time we heard about “fruit” in relation to living a Spirit filled life. Spiritual fruit in this case endurance, is the result of growing in spiritual maturity.

Remember not to reject the care of the local church to see you through trials brought on by living in a fallen world. Sometimes we need help to recovery from the mess of our own sin. Sometimes we need help to recovery from the evil actions of another persons sin that has affected us. Regardless, God’s grace is extended to us through brothers and sisters in the church.

Next, we are called to care for one-another in the church. (12-13)

Look with me now at verses 12-13

Now, I do believe this verse presents a few options of interpretation, both of which will be helpful for us this morning.

One option is we view this passage as being connected with verses 4-11 as a final note of encouragement to remain in God’s discipline so that it will provide stronger faith. We draw that conclusion from the “therefore” which begins verse 12 and also the use of the OT passage in Isaiah 35:3 to “strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble.” This would be the command to the individual runner to recall their faith in Christ and the promise of eternal life to sustain them through whatever trial they are going through.

Or, we can view the passage as connected with verses 14-17 in which the focus of the exhortation begins to shift away from the individual and more to the corporate body of believers.

We get this sense when the author uses the language of the strengthening of the body evoking the readers to think not so much of themselves, but in the context of the church which represents the body of Christ. This would fit nicely into the next section as we consider the purity of church in responding to members who are struggling with sinful desires and unbelief.

These same idea is used in James 5:16 and Galatians 6:1 in which we are called to intervene with accountability and prayer to restore those who are weak.

While I admit the nature of the authors writing throughout the book of Hebrews and the background of the Jewish audience heavily supports the former option, I propose we consider a middle ground.

The bible calls everyone to make personal decision for which each will give an account.

You have been placed on a race towards Heaven through faith in Christ and are responsible to choose the wisely the path that is free of hinderance and sin, or as we read “make straight path for your feet.”

And finally, we must pursue peace and purity among the body of believers. (14-17)

And we know this isn’t a new concept. Jesus warns us about this tragedy in Matthew 12 when he explains the parable of the soils.