Hebrews 12:1-2

Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

We've made it to chapter 12.

There are only 13 chapters in Hebrews, so we're almost done with this book.

After we're done with Hebrews, we're gonna go into Matthew.

So just another about a month, month and a half.

And uh have you got it?

Have you got what this pastor is trying to teach you through this book?

What we talked about last week was we were going through Hebrews 11, but really what I tried to surface out of those stories is that these different characters that the uh pastor points out Moses, um, Joshua, Rahab, some of these different characters that come to the surface are responding to God's revelation.

There's responding to who God is.

And we talked about a little bit about just how to align your life, how we align our lives with God's revelation and how God speaks to us and how we also live by faith.

This morning we're gonna just look at the first two verses of Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

This is where the pastor has been going, and the reason why he has been recounting all these stories from the Old Testament of lives of faith.

These different characters trusted in God, and they acted on that trust.

And they're going to be called here in the text the cloud of witnesses.

Let's look at verses one and two together, and then we will pray.

It says this 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 the 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.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you for this text, and that you give us your spirit to understand what's going on here.

Lord, for those of us that have already given our life to you and we have that relationship with your spirit where you're in us, we pray that you would give us just open hearts and an insight, a revelation into the knowledge of God, that you would speak to us through this text.

Lord, for any that are here that don't yet know you, we pray for the active work of your spirit to convict and to enlighten and to just turn the lights on, spiritual lights on, in each person's heart, that they would know that you love them, and you have a plan for their life, and you want to rescue them from the brokenness that's in their life.

Lord, we give you the next few minutes as we look at this text.

I pray that you'd work, and we ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So, Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

We're gonna just walk through this in a very simple way.

Let's start in um verse one, and we start off with this word, therefore, which means that it is a causation.

A causation is a way of formatting or framing up a logical argument.

In a causation, you have the cause, and what follows is the effect.

The cause in our case is all of these stories of Old Testament characters that have lived by faith.

Enoch and Abraham and Moses and Joshua and Rahab and Sarah.

All of these characters are the cause and it is to bring about an effect.

And I wanted to be a little bit obnoxious this morning and just spend a minute on this one word in this verse.

It's the word since.

He says, therefore, since we have such a large cloud of witnesses.

Since.

The idea here is that there is logic involved, that it is an argument that is built one idea on top of another.

And what is being said here is that we have such a large cloud of witnesses.

In other words, you, when you go and you read the Old Testament, there is a connection that the Bible expects for you to make that your personal life, that your personal life can be built as a logical progression on what you find in the text.

And I just want you to think about that for a second in terms of your own spirituality.

How do you treat the Bible?

Do you follow this logic?

Are you able to say, since the Bible says this, therefore there is an effect in my life?

That my life looks like this, that I'm actually able to logically layer on, to map these Old Testament stories onto my life and say it has an implication, it has an impact.

What kind of relationship do you and I have with Scripture?

It may seem minor, but this pastor, as he's coaching their spirituality, he's trying to draw them back to the Messiah Jesus and to say, keep going in your race.

He's making a logical argument that says, these are these Old Testament characters 4,000 years removed from you.

4,000 years removed from you.

They followed God, therefore, you need to keep running the race.

And so I just want to encourage you, as you pick up your Bible in the morning and you're reading your Bible tomorrow morning or at lunch break or in the evening, as you are reading your Bible, you can take that Bible, and you can do exactly what the pastor is doing here and say, this comes alive.

This comes alive for me.

It has logical implications for me.

It assumes, he assumes that you will read the Bible, understand what it says, and use it in your life.

I've only, I've been in, I was ordained in 2007, I've been in ministry for about 23 years, and only recently do I feel like I'm understanding this idea of one thing mapping on to another.

That the Bible is as comprehensive as it is.

There's not just in Scripture, I think that the thing that has come to me over the last five to ten years is that the Bible just doesn't teach principles and wisdom.

It doesn't just teach the gospel, but it actually frames up ways to think about life.

And it literally says, here's the way God works in the world.

You're allowed to map that onto your life.

You're allowed to have an anticipation and an expectation about your story based upon what you read in Scripture.

And the way in which the Bible really comes home is just, it's it's mind-blowing to me.

In other words, you will not find the Bible as distant and impractical.

The more you use the Bible, as more as you're allowing it to infect you, you're able to read it and say, we have this story, we have this story about other followers of Jesus, and it is useful for me.

These stories about other people's faith can map onto my life.

You may feel, I don't know where you're at in terms of the Bible, but it may feel like a distant book.

And I would encourage you, the reason why we read the text and then we pray is because we feel, as a church, like there's an intersection that happens between Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and my granular life.

The relationships that I have, the uh health or the illness that I have, the lack or supply that I have, that God speaks to me through his word.

And so this pastor, who we've likened to a spiritual coach, he lays out his logic using a causation, saying, therefore, therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and sin that so easily ensnares us, and let us run the race that lies before us.

Run with endurance the race that lies before us.

So let's just take this one step at a time.

Step one here is to take into consideration the cloud of witnesses from Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

And we've covered this idea of since it's a logical relationship between my life and the hall of faith.

To consider it.

Do you read through the Old Testament and find yourself distant, or is are you allowing, or do you have a heart that is soft, that is being impacted by these stories?

The second step that he says is lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us.

So he's obviously using this picture of a race to run a race.

And he says that we're not just going to lay aside sin, but we're also gonna lay off the things that encumber the race.

The first thing is what's obvious, that we have to follow the rules.

So in laying off sin, it's some stuff is obviously wrong and needs to be put off.

And maybe you're just a new follower to Jesus, and you're like, yeah, man, I want to go for it with Jesus, but there's some things in your life that are just a clear violation of what the Bible teaches.

And you're in this state where you just need, there's just some basic steps that need to be taken where it's just like, yep, that's not for a Christian.

That doesn't belong in my life anymore.

Yeah, maybe my friends do this or that, but these are the things that need to get put off.

Just like when a marathon runner is, you know, putting on their outfit, they kind of, you know, they wear.

I saw when we were getting ready for church this morning, this guy ran by and his shorts were way too short.

But he was a running.

He is a runner.

And I know him.

Like I follow him on Instagram for some reason, and it's just like, okay, you're allowed to wear that short of shorts, running as much as he runs.

The rest of us, we're gonna keep them a little bit, a little bit longer.

So there's this putting off of the things that are obvious.

Now, in Galatians, Paul writes a letter to the Galatian church and he talks about the works of the flesh.

Some of these things that are just the obvious stuff that we put off.

And he says, the works of the flesh, um, for the the flesh desires, it's what it's it's against the spirit.

So you've got God's spirit in you, and you've got the flesh.

This is what we inherit.

These are these desires that are contrary to God.

Um, the spirit desires what is against the flesh.

So there's this war that goes on in us.

These are opposed to each other so that you don't do what you want.

But if you are led by the spirit, you're not under the law.

Let's look at some of these things.

Now, the works of the flesh, here's what they are: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, anything similar.

I'm warning you about these things as I warned you before, that those who practice these things, they're not gonna inherit the kingdom of God.

Now, as we go through this list, our culture it kind of weaves in and out of this list.

Like some of these things, culturally, they're like, oh, those are taboo.

Yeah, you don't do that.

And then other ones, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, that's more, a little bit more acceptable.

You know, that's that one.

We're gonna, we're gonna be okay with, you know, strife, jealousy.

Of course, that's not the same thing as like witchcraft and like trying to do voodoo on people, you know.

It's not on the same level.

But here he just clumps it all together.

These are the works of the flesh, these are the things that we put off as followers of Jesus.

Factions.

Do you see that?

Factions.

Are you practicing factions?

He says, these are the people, the ones that practice these things, they're not inheriting the kingdom of God.

It's evidence that, hey, these people, they're just not tracking with Jesus.

They may say that they're a Christian, but this is just not what a Christian does.

You don't practice factions, you don't practice drunkenness or carousing, none of this stuff.

Envy.

It's just not, it's these are the sins that you lay off as you follow Jesus.

They just don't go together in your life.

But he doesn't just say that we throw off sin.

He says that we throw off hindrances.

Hindrances is the next thing.

And this is other stuff that's allowed.

You're allowed to do it, but it doesn't benefit the runner.

So if you want to go run a marathon with a weighted backpack, you're totally free to do that.

Like there's no rule that says you can't do that.

Is it a good idea?

No, it's not really a good idea, right?

It doesn't work.

And that's the that's the case with most.

So there's this the early stuff, right?

I mean, hopefully, as a follower of Jesus, you're already looking at that list and you're like, yeah, you know what, I'm putting away this dumb stuff.

It just obviously it's not what a follower of Jesus does.

But then there's other stuff you've got to make a decision on based on who you are.

And there are things that you're allowed to do that that God doesn't say you can't do, but they get in the way of you being the best human that you are, right?

So for me historically, this has been like binge watching TV.

I got an interesting relationship with TV where I didn't have a TV growing up, so like when I get around one, I'm like, oh yeah, this would be great.

And and it just it's not wrong.

I'm not watching something bad on the TV, but it feeds a part of me that makes me want to be more lazy, which is not a characteristic.

That's not what a follower of Jesus ought to be, is lazy, right?

So it's one thing of like, and the same thing is the case with like eating junk food, which you know I need to stop doing.

But eating junk food is like feeding the flesh for me, and it leads to just kind of this lethargy, and it doesn't make me this good human that I want to be.

Now, am I allowed to eat a lot of junk food?

Totally.

Yeah, you know, there's all that freedom.

You're not condemned.

But does it make you the best runner possible, right?

And so this pastor is saying is like spiritually, you need to look at the race that God's called you to as an individual and acknowledge that you're different from the next guy, and you just need to make decisions on your own about the limits that you're gonna impose on yourself so you can run really well, so that you can win.

It's not, and the the problem that we have as Christians is sometimes this wonderful experience of the Holy Spirit saying to us, like, yeah, that's not best for you, Josh.

You know, like you really are not the guy that should be binge watching like a bunch of TV.

Like when the Holy Spirit shows me that and and and helps me understand that, I gotta be careful not to take that and put that on all you.

Because that's something God's showing me and giving me a conviction around.

And you may have some of those as well.

You may have some particular habits and disciplines and routines in your life that are from God, that are make you a good human, but they're for you.

And the moment you step in over and you make that everybody else's thing, then you become a legalist.

Then you're condemning everybody else.

And and we're growing in that.

Hopefully, you're growing in understanding that.

So I'd encourage you, I'd encourage you with this pastor to look at your own race and to acknowledge, hey, these are the things that make me a good human, and these are the things that kind of lead me away from being a good follower of Jesus.

I've got things like that in my life from this last week, and you can probably think of things like that for yourself as well.

For Paul, he said this although I'm free from all and not anyone's slave, I've made myself a slave to everyone in order to win more people.

So Paul really understood that his race was this being a missionary to the Gentiles.

Like that was his calling.

And so Paul took on himself different limitations.

At some times he said, I was like a slave, I made myself a slave in order to win more people.

So it's like I've got this goal of seeing more people hear about Jesus, and I'm willing to like impose some painful things on my own life to accomplish the mission.

And that is really how Paul writes through all of his letters.

He's all about mission.

He's all about like, hey, I'm kind of secondary, and the way I do life is trist strategically aligned, not about, oh, I what I can get away with and what God lets me do.

It's no, I am all about doing the race.

And that's what this pastor wants for you and I is to not just go, yeah, I'm saved so I can be totally free.

Yes, you're free.

Now walk with the Holy Spirit and let him guide you into how to be an awesome runner.

How to be an awesome runner.

The step three is this let us run the race.

Let us run the race.

There in this, in when we went through Hebrews 11, there was this element.

Remember, there were four elements in most of the stories, but the last one in the story of Enoch or Abraham or Jacob is that they took action.

Faith was not this ethereal, like I just believe and then I sit on my couch.

But it was an action-evidenced faith.

For Abraham, it meant when God said, leave your home country and go to the land I'll show you.

He went.

He did it.

He moved.

That was Abraham living by faith.

And here the pastor says, run the race.

Run the race.

Some spoke up when God said you need to speak others.

Others moved their bodies geographically.

Others took a stand when it was unpopular.

It was all, all of these actions were actions that demonstrated faith.

And you and I are called to run the race.

When I was um a kid, I went to um my uncle participated in a demolition derby.

Do you know what a demolition derby is?

It's where you everybody kind of parks their car in the middle of the racetrack, and you just run into each other until all the cars are broken down, and whoever's the last functioning car is the winner.

And so the day before the demolition derby, we went to a parking lot and he had a whole team of people.

We stripped the car of all the glass and all of the like um the what's the like the little silver lining on the side and anything that would fall off or could possibly like puncture, and the goal, and then you relocate the radiator to be in the center console so that because that's a strategy, is like you back into everybody's radiators until uh you know every other car overheats and yours is the last one standing.

And it's a lot of fun, it's a mess, and it's kind of like a joke in between all the other races.

And man, my fear is I bring that up because my fear is that our temptation is to not run the race but to do the demolition derby.

You know, it's like we're all kind of just running into each other, but like, are you actually running the race?

Are you running the race that God has called you to?

It does mean at some point that you pull the trigger.

And there's some of you, there are some of you where you have a sense of God's guidance in your life.

You feel like God is leading you, and the place in this where you're at is you're not you're not lacking direction, you're lacking execution where you need to pull the trigger.

Maybe you're running, but you're running away from God.

It's not just good enough to go, look, I'm running, but in the wrong direction.

Maybe you're running, but it's a race that God hasn't called you to, and you feel exhausted, and you're just like, God, but I'm running.

And he's like, Yeah, but that's not what I've called you to.

Just make sure that you're running in the right direction, the race that Jesus has for you.

He goes on to step four, which begins in verse two here.

He says, keeping our eyes on Jesus.

This is the focus.

This is the focus of the runner.

For us, keeping our eyes on Jesus.

Jesus himself talked about this in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6, 22 and 23.

He talks about our focus.

Here our translation says the eye is the lamp of the body.

The Greek idea here is I sight, what you're focused on.

He says the eye, your focus, is the lamp of the body.

In other words, what you're focused on lights up your life.

Now listen to this.

Jesus is dropping some bombs here in terms of wisdom.

I mean, this is really interesting, just comment sociological commentary.

Maybe it's psychological commentary, right?

Jesus is saying what you focus on is the light of your life.

The focus is the lamp of the body.

The eye is the lamp of the body.

If your eye is healthy, or if your focus is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.

But if your eye is bad, your focus is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness?

He goes on in the context to talk about this duplicitous eye, where you have kind of an eye on money and worldly possessions, and then you have a part of you as focused on the Lord.

And Jesus is saying, listen, you need to have this healthy focus where you're able to look and see Jesus.

You need to set your eyes on Jesus and recognize that that is what it means to have a healthy focus.

The interesting thing about this Matthew passage, Matthew 6, is the fact that here he says, if your eye is bad, meaning you're focused on a bunch of different things, your whole body will be full of darkness.

This is cloudiness.

There's two different words in Greek for darkness in this Matthew passage.

This is like at dusk when you can kind of see lines, but you can't see colors.

He says, if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

So if the light within you is darkness, and see how he's playing with words here, how deep is that darkness?

This second darkness is this oppressive darkness that you feel in like a cave when the light goes out.

And it's almost like you can, it's so dark, you can have your hand in front of your eyes, and you just can't.

It's just complete and utter darkness.

The pastor here he says, listen, you're called to run this race.

And the race that you are called to run, you need to have this focus, this healthy focus, keeping your eyes on Jesus.

Keeping your eyes on Jesus.

And here's what he says about Jesus: Jesus is the pioneer, and he is the perfecter of our faith.

We've been talking about a lot of other people's faith, and now he says Jesus is the one who pioneered and is perfecting your faith.

And here's what Jesus did: He endured the cross, he despised the shame, and he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

That was Jesus' running of the race.

That he was willing, he was willing to endure the cross, despise the shame, and he ultimately sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

We've talked about the throne of God before.

There is this ongoing call and invitation throughout Hebrews to remember that there is a throne, that Jesus is our high priest, that he is there before that throne on our behalf, perfecting our faith, praying and interceding on our behalf.

And this pastor is saying, Listen, you need to keep going.

You need to keep going in this race.

These Christians who are receiving this letter from Paul, or from the writer, probably not Paul, but maybe Apollos or Barnabas, they are far away, they're probably Jewish, and they heard about Jesus as the Messiah, and so they're following him.

And you can imagine being a Jew who's read like Isaiah 40 through 66, and where it prophesies about John the Baptist that he's gonna pave the way and the Messiah is gonna come, and there's this royal reign of the Messiah, where all of a sudden the lamb and the lion lay down together, and there's this peaceful uh millennium that occurs.

And so here's these Jews who are following Jesus as the Messiah, and there's this there's this kind of truncating the spiritual vision where it's like, okay, I found the Messiah, and it's like all gonna work out now.

And this pastor is bringing in a really important part for their spirituality and for ours, and it is that God takes us as followers of Jesus through a process of growth where you're running a race, and there are some things that happen early on in that race that shape you and prepare you for the rest of the race.

And he's gonna talk about that through the rest of Hebrews chapter 12, but but there's some things that shocked these disciples.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

There are things that were uncomfortable and unfortunate in their suffering where they're like backing away from Jesus because of the pain that was going on.

And this pastor here, who's writing Hebrews, is he's saying, listen, you need to keep going.

And it's not about knocking your head against the wall, it's about understanding.

You have to understand how God works with his people.

You need to understand that you can map your life, or the lives of these Old Testament saints can map onto yours.

You are on a journey.

And the way that God has worked with saints in the past maps onto yours, and nothing should be unexpected.

You've got to keep that tender heart.

You need to know that Jesus is your high priest, he's interceding on your behalf, and he's shaping you for this race.

And you need to keep going.

You need to keep looking at Jesus, who made it to that place by the throne.

He ascended.

He is the one who is worth pursuing and keeping our eyes on.

So, the pastor, if he was here this morning and he was elaborating on this text, I think he would say that your story is important.

Where you're at in this place, the experiences that you've had that have shaped you to this day are vitally important.

And Jesus is in the process of restoring you back to God's original design, but it doesn't happen overnight.

And the decisions that you're making are in cooperation with this idea of both mission, the Spirit of God at work in your life, and the example that Jesus gives us.

That Jesus is the Messiah that deserves our allegiance, who inspires us and leads us onward.

He both pioneers and he perfects our faith.

I just actually want to throw in here verse 3.

This will overlap.

This will overlap a bit with what we look at next week, but this is what he says in closing.

He says, For consider him, consider Jesus, who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won't grow weary and give up.

Consider him.

As you look at Jesus, take this into account.

Again, do you remember in verse 1, I camped out on that word since?

Since we have these Old Testament stuff, here's another word that involves your logical calculation about your life.

It's the word consider.

This pastor wants you to consider Jesus in light of your own personal life.

Consider him who endured such hostility from sinners.

It's on you.

It's on you and I how much we want to engage the truth of God's word, the example of Jesus' life.

But the pastor here is not just like, hey, I'm gonna write you a nice, happy, sappy holiday, you know, Hallmark greeting card.

He's not like, here's a mug, keep going.

No.

He's like, look at Jesus.

Look at Jesus, consider him, map your life on to him, keep going in your race because of what you see in the person of Jesus.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for running the race for our salvation, that you are willing to go to the cross on our behalf, that you are willing to die for our sins, to suffer on our behalf, and you are the map, that there is a resurrection.

There is no longer the reign of death, there is the other side of death where you bring back to life what was broken and dead.

Lord, I pray for my friends here this morning.

I pray that if anyone here has not yet surrendered and thrown up the white flag in their life and said, I'm ready to follow Jesus, I pray that this would be their day where they make that decision and they make you the Lord of their life.

And Lord, I pray and ask for those of us that are following you, that you would encourage us in our race to do things well.

Lord, what is hindering us?

What are the sins that are besetting us in the race that you've called us to?

We want to run the race well, and we ask that you would author that, continue to author that in our life.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.