The Helper (1)

So the theology in that wonderful hymn, trust and obey,

there is no other way to be happy in Jesus.

Growing up I always thought that was a weird lyric.

To be happy in Jesus.

I don't know why.

I'm not sure why that came off as weird to me.

Now as an adult it still hasn't gotten a whole lot better.

But there's an understanding of two, really two things.

And it's what we talked about last week, Lord's Day 7.

What is true faith?

Right?

It is not only a knowledge but a conviction.

Really boiled down to trusting in Jesus and obeying his word.

That if we're equating that with quote unquote happiness,

and maybe that's why I don't like it as much,

is because happy is very temperamental.

Right?

We can be happy one minute and we can be sad the next.

How do I know?

Have you guys ever watched those surprise return videos

from veterans?

Those in the services when they surprise,

like you're shaking your head.

You know what I'm talking about.

Like within seconds I am a mess.

I am weeping.

Right?

And more of joy.

I don't know these people.

I'll never meet them.

But the joy they see in their kids

thinking they're going to gym class,

and then like one of the greatest ones

was I think he was eight or nine years old.

He was going up to bat.

And dad who had come home from being on tour for years

was the umpire.

And he takes the mask off and the boy

doesn't really understand what's going on.

Then finally he does and he just kind of melts.

I'm bawling the entire time.

I'm not 100% sure why I brought that up.

Well happiness.

Got it.

Being temperamental.

Again, our happiness is fleeting.

This morning even, some of you might have woken up happy.

Some of you didn't.

And then it's, I don't know why.

I won't take that personally.

Like oh church again.

But happiness, to be happy in Jesus is to trust and obey.

And I guess happiness in Jesus really is one of the goals.

Right Morgan?

You are way happy in Jesus.

She leans on the former more than the latter.

But there's an understanding that when our kids always

desire to be happy as parents, it's exhausting.

That at times your kid's just not going to be happy.

Because happiness is temporary.

It is fleeting.

This idea of this too shall end.

Both sides of the coin.

Good things and bad.

And so what the first 11 chapters of the book of Hebrews

have done is really given us a foundation

of why Jesus is the best.

Why Jesus is greater than Moses.

Jesus is greater than angels.

Jesus is greater than the prophets.

Jesus is the greatest covenant.

That he has done, the writer of Hebrews for us

and for the readers in this time, or more so listeners,

is that Jesus is the best.

Why would we go anywhere else?

Why would we subscribe to any other belief system?

It's Jesus period.

End of discussion.

Yet even some of us in here struggle with that.

Some of you online struggle with that today.

Is Jesus the best?

Because what I'm dealing with right now is not the best.

So if Jesus is the best but I'm dealing with junk right now

and I'm a follower of Jesus, then maybe Jesus is junk.

That some of us have that weird algorithm

that what I'm feeling in the moment really

tells me about who God is.

Friend, that's not how it goes.

It's never been about you.

It's never been about me.

It's been about trusting and obeying.

I'm going to ask a question.

What if it was obey and trust?

Now obviously it wouldn't work for the songwriter

because you're working on the rhyming and the flow

and the melodies of the hymnist and that's great.

But what if it was, it's trust and what if it was obey

and then trust?

Does that change it for you?

Anybody?

What?

It's authoritarian.

Mel Brooks, one block.

I will give you to the end of Mel Brooks

and then you will continue on and I will be proud of myself

that I ran a block.

But there's endurance.

She's doing this to build up.

And what the writer of Hebrews and what in the first century,

this would have made a lot more sense

because running was it.

Right, they had the Olympics and different things

and all these different events and wrestling, javelin,

all of those things.

But running was like the creme de la creme.

It was the greatest athlete that you could have was a runner.

Another reason why I would not have made it

in the first century.

We'll just add that to the list of the reasons why.

But running was such a big deal.

The writer of Hebrews is saying something very specifically

here because you just don't decide one day you're a runner

and then not do anything.

No couch potato ever said my greatest hobby is running.

No, that runners, you have to build up to it.

That running, and especially running a race,

is you have to do your due diligence in your training.

Right?

I look over at the Wearing a Girls and they're in softball.

Do you guys like to run?

Yes?

One saying no.

I love them.

They're great.

But for softball and baseball, you only have to sprint.

And we have Abacus, right?

She hits bombs.

And Homer, so she just gets to trot.

But for me, I just had to sprint 90 feet.

That's it.

And then I was good.

Most of the times because I got thrown out.

And so I didn't have to run.

I was in the dugout.

But understanding that running, you are enduring it.

This is something that you have to endure.

I've known people that have run marathons.

That's 26.2 miles.

That's insanity.

You have a bike.

You have a car.

You have a scooter.

You have roller blades if it's 1993.

Do that.

Right?

It makes so much more sense.

But they want to run.

And I've heard wonderful stories of people that have finished.

I've also heard horrible stories about people that didn't.

But understand that to run something like that

takes endurance.

It takes encouragement.

It takes an example.

It takes a lot to run a race encapsulated in these verses.

And here's the thing.

First century arenas, they would have the track.

Right?

It's very similar if you go to the local high school now.

You have the track around the football field.

And you have these grandstands on either side.

It was very different in the first century.

Yes, they had some grandstands on the side.

But the biggest one was in the front of the stadium.

That the stadiums had these elevated seats.

It's where the royalty was.

Because when you ran, you weren't running

for the people around you.

You were running for the person in front of you.

You were running for the royalty.

Because for whatever reason, they

were the ones that are giving the money, giving the freedom.

Sometimes people ran to set themselves free,

much like gladiators did back in the day.

And understanding that you weren't

running for the people around you.

You were running for the people in front of you.

The royalty, the kings and the queens,

it makes this verse really pop out.

We are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.

We had just come off the chapter about faith.

And if we go to chapter 11, right?

By faith, Abraham.

By faith, Moses.

By faith, the people across the Red Sea, the Israelites.

By faith, Gideon and David and Samuel.

By faith.

By faith.

By faith.

Now what the writer is saying is you have all of these people

that have run their race, yet there

is one for which you run.

That's Jesus.

Thank you, Siri.

That's Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith.

Friends, that means something.

That means your faith does not have to be defined by you.

Because then we're going to get into the obey and trust.

I've also heard horrible stories about people that didn't.

But understand that to run something like that

takes endurance.

It takes encouragement.

It takes an example.

It takes a lot to run a race encapsulated in these verses.

And here's the thing.

First century arenas, they would have the track.

It's very similar if you go to the local high school now.

You have the track around the football field,

and you have these grandstands on either side.

It was very different in the first century.

Yes, they had some grandstands on the sides,

but the biggest one was in the front of the stadium.

That the stadiums had these elevated seats.

It's where the royalty was.

Because when you ran, you weren't running for the people

around you.

You were running for the person in front of you.

You were running for the royalty.

Because for whatever reason, they

were the ones that are giving the money, giving the freedom.

Sometimes people ran to set themselves free,

much like gladiators did back in the day.

And understanding that you weren't running

for the people around you.

You were running for the people in front of you.

The royalty, the kings and the queens,

it makes this verse really pop out.

We are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.

We had just come off the chapter about faith.

And if you go to chapter 11, by faith Abraham,

by faith Moses, by faith the people across the Red Sea,

the Israelites, by faith Gideon and David and Samuel,

by faith, by faith, by faith.

Now what the writer is saying is you have all of these people

that have run their race, yet there

is one for which you run.

That's Jesus.

Thank you, Siri.

That's Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith.

Friends, that means something.

That means your faith does not have to be defined by you.

Because then we're going to get into the obey and trust.

If your faith is defined by what you want to define it about,

it's going to be faith in self.

It's not going to be faith in anybody else.

Even if you're a real believer, you

have that flesh side in you that loves to be worshiped.

That flesh side inside of you that loves to sin.

And if we're going to be the ones that author and perfect

our faith, how can we perfect something as imperfect beings?

It doesn't work.

And so understanding that Jesus, the author and perfecter

of the faith, for the joy set before him,

we're looking to him because he ran his race.

And it's such a beautiful set of verses.

For the joy set before him endured the cross,

despising the shame, and is seated

at the right hand of God.

That that is the definition of your faith.

Your faith is defined by Christ, your relationship with Christ,

and his covenants with you, with us, with the church.

And so what we have to understand

is our duty is to trust the faith that God

has set in our hearts.

The spirit is put in your hearts.

We use the term regenerated in the Reformed faith.

That faith has been made known to you.

You don't come up with it.

It's the joke that I think I tried a couple of weeks ago.

It's like watching a URC church sing,

I've decided to follow Jesus.

Wow.

OK, that we don't actually believe that.

I have Dan.

Well, he laughed, so that's good.

But understand that we're taking the us out of it.

I'm taking the you out of it.

I'm taking the us out of it.

Jesus had to set it first.

We would not have known how to do this if it wasn't for Jesus.

We couldn't say, well, I follow the faith of Moses.

Nope.

Why?

Because he was fallible.

He sinned.

He disobeyed.

Why?

I follow the faith of Noah.

Well, that's a good one.

That's a good example.

But he didn't go all the way.

Jesus is the one that went all the way to the point of death.

That he followed the Father's call for his life.

For the joy set before him endured the cross,

despising its shame, and is seated

at the right hand of God.

James, next verses.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility

against him so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

In your struggle against sin, you

have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.

That's huge that Christ did it.

Now, some of us, we still may.

We think about the martyrs that have gone before us.

You think about Jim Elliot.

You think about those in the first and second century

that were put to death for their faith.

The Roman Empire did a great job of killing most

of the disciples in very ugly ways.

You could go back and read about 10 of the 12

that were executed, martyred in really disgusting ways

by the Romans.

But they followed the example of Christ.

And that's really easy to say in 2023 at 214 Ridge Road.

Because I look out and I go, hmm, Northwest Indiana,

Chicagoland area, Midwest, we're all somewhat similar.

There's not a lot of quote unquote,

there is persecution going on.

I don't want to say that.

But we don't really have a group like the Roman Empire

seeking us out in our homes to kill us.

There are freedoms of religion in our country.

There are freedoms of belief.

Though we need to be on guard and though we need to keep

an eye, because yeah, there are some areas it's like,

oh, it's coming.

It wasn't like this.

Yet that is the example that our faith has been given

and that we need to trust and obey.

Because I don't know, I don't know if I'm going to be

able to do that, because I don't know.

I don't know the future.

I don't have a crystal ball, nor do we believe in that.

In the name of asking our kids to clean their room,

I may or may not say I bet Jesus' room was always clean.

You don't want to do that because biblically I don't know

if it's accurate, but also understand that you don't want

to use Jesus as kind of a slam that way.

And you don't want to use that as a guilt.

But it's hey, we are your parents, we're asking you

to clean your room, and part of what it means to be a believer

is to honor your parents.

So it would honor me greatly if you would clean your room.

That's more the way I feel like it should be done,

because the Jesus guilt doesn't always work, right?

And it may mess some kids up far along the way later in life.

But understand that active discipline, just because you're

saved doesn't mean you get away with it.

Just because you're saved doesn't mean there aren't

consequences for bad choices.

Some people have that weird understanding of Christianity

that I can do whatever I want.

I'm a believer, I'm saved, I'm good, we're reformed.

We can't lose our salvation, so I'm going to do whatever I can.

Go back two weeks, where we started talking about false

conversions and what that looks like.

Do you not think God knows what you're doing?

God is the ultimate parent.

God understands what you're going to do before you do it.

Though we try, we're getting kind of good at it.

Sometimes we're way off.

God's not.

God sees it.

God knows.

God understands.

And then we could turn, well, if God doesn't, why does He let

me do it?

How would that always work in your household?

Your kids would never do anything.

Your kids would probably be in their room by themselves

forever.

And some of you are like, good, I'll sign on to that.

No, that's not how it's supposed to go.

Because we're supposed to walk things out.

We trust and obey.

Hopefully my boys trust that we have their best, their

livelihood, for the best.