Why We Keep Running
Sermon Notes
Good morning everyone. It’s great to worship with you as we start the month of December. We are in the final stretch of our Year through the Bible with our series called The Whole Story. Next week, we’ll start in the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible. It always feels like December leads us to think about finishing the year well. Maybe the year has been rough and you want a good ending or its been going great and you want to make sure you finish that way. So, a lot of times we’re looking for that edge that helps us get over the line well. We don’t want to be like this comedy sketch I saw online about a dad’s DIY construction company called “A Couple More Days Construction” where he walks around his house showing the projects that are mostly done but just not quite. He only needs a couple more days. The tagline for him is “We’re Always Almost Done.”
In the Christian world, one of the things that we talk about as a driving force for our lives is our faith. It’s what we lean on when life starts to feel like it’s dragging us down. But people in and out of the church rely on some form of faith. What is it that you hope for or that you rely on to keep going. It’s a question that everyone has to ask themselves and today we will be looking at Hebrews chapter 12 for Christianity’s answer to that question.
Context:
The book of Hebrews is really interesting when it comes to thinking about context. It’s the only New Testament book whose author we don’t know. The early church had some theories but even by the 2nd-3rd century noted church fathers readily admitted that only God knew who actually wrote it. Despite this, the early church never questioned its place in the canon of Scripture, so there was clearly confidence in it from the beginning of the church.
Topically, it’s the perfect book for us to look into in the context of our year through the Bible. The main theme of the book of Hebrews is that Jesus is the better or completed version of the images and stories that we see in the Old Testament. I mentioned this all the way back when I preached out of Leviticus that Hebrews is the hindsight is 20/20 commentary of the Old Testament in light of what Jesus had done in acting out the Gospel and starting the church. You can boil down the message of Hebrews to “That was good, Jesus is better.”
We’re gonna be in chapter 12 this morning which obviously immediately proceeds chapter 11. Ch. 11 is a great example of what the entire book of Hebrews does. Scholars refer to chapter 11 as the Hall of Faith or the Heroes of the Faith. We’ll go into more details as we look at chapter 12, but chapter 11 gives a who’s-who list of the people we read about in the Old Testament living lives of faith. It gives us a fantastic definition of faith that speaks against what many skeptics think that faith is. We can find this in Hebrews 11:1.
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (ESV)
If you have a CSB Bible or other translations you might see the words reality or proof in those underlined spots. This shows us that faith is not what many people think it is. A lot of times
faith is described as this kind of amorphous, blind hope in something. That we don’t want to face the facts, so we just try to patch over the cracks in life with this hope that there’s a God that will make things better. But that’s not how the Bible describes faith at all. The Bible is full of evidence for our faith, enough evidence that we can live with assurance and conviction in what it says. It’s honest about what is going on in the world and tells about what God is doing about it. You don’t have to turn your brain off to live the Christian life. You can look into what the Bible says, trust it, and obey it with true faith. Let’s dive into chapter 12 now and we’ll see 3 Keys for Enduring in our Faith.
Sermon Body
How Can We Have Enduring Faith
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us
Here we see the first key that we can use to Endure and be sure in our Faith. We Have a Multitude of Examples to follow. You can see the “therefore” at the beginning of the verse connecting us back to the Hall of Faith in chapter 11 where we just barely scratch the surface on Old Testament examples people living out their faith in situations that required more than a blind hope. We see Noah building an ark in the wilderness on the faith that God was really going to bring the flood, we have Abraham leaving his family home as a childless husband with the faith that God would show him a land and multiply his offspring into a great nation, and we see Moses leaving a life of luxury then safety to confront the most powerful nation in the world at the time and free God’s people. These people along with many others didn’t do what they did out of a blind hope, they had seen and heard enough about God that they had faith that God would prove himself true, and He did time and time again. That’s not saying that what they did was easy or didn’t come with risks and disappointments at times, but they saw God come through for them. This is why it is so important for us to study all of Scripture, so that we can see the massive amount of truth and data leading us to that place of assurance instead of longing hope.
I love that they are called witnesses here. A witness gives testimony based upon their experience or expertise. When we study the Bible, we can be like a lawyer that is prepared for every circumstance in a trial. You struggle to endure through disappointment? I call Abraham to the stand. He can tell us about how God came through to make him the father of a great nation even though he didn’t have a kid until he was 100. You struggling to endure because of the shame of past or current sin? I call King David to the stand. Please tell us about the time that you as “a man after God’s own heart” stole a man’s wife and then murdered him when she got pregnant. Could you tell me what God did as a result of that? Oh he confronted you with the sin then led you through repentance and restored you to a right standing before him. So, you’re saying his grace and forgiveness was greater than that sin? No further questions
your honor. We can do this all day and that’s the point. We can Endure because we have evidence of people throughout history enduring in their faith.
Look back at verse one to see the metaphor being used here.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us
We get this image of the Christian life as an endurance race. So often we want to be able to sprint through life. We think that God should make us superhuman and enable us to just power through anything that gets in our way. (turning off stamina in a video game) But we are called to look to the example of those before us to help us get through the marathon of things that life throws at us. They help us set the pace and keep up with our stride. I hear so many people, especially me, when we’re dealing with difficulty, say something along the lines of “I just wish I could get through this phase or trial faster” enough of this ten minute mile pace, let’s kick into that 5 minute pace. But we know that’s not how this works most of the time. Faith is what keeps our feet moving even when we feel like we’ve hit the wall. It’s what we need to fuel our live for the Lord. The common structure of the people mentioned in Ch. 11 is that they did everything “by Faith.” By faith Abraham did what he did, by Faith Joseph endured in Egypt, and so on. Faith isn’t a shield that keeps difficulty away from us, it’s fuel that powers us to and through what God has set before us. This also shows us that faith is supposed to lead us to action as a response. We don’t have to view faith and works like they are in conflict but instead in concert with each other. Faith empowers how we work out our lives and works go a long way to prove and deepen that faith.
Now that we’ve taken a look at all of these witnesses and examples for us to follow in our faith, the author of Hebrews moves on to show us something that all of these Old Testament witnesses didn’t have that we now do.
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
The second reason that we can have enduring faith is that We have Jesus as the Founder and Perfecter of our Faith.
Not only can we look back to the example of numerous human witnesses to their faith being answered by God, we can look to God himself as a human living out and establishing our
faith for us. Notice how Jesus is described in these verses. He is the founder, or some of your translations say author, of our faith. I love that image of the author of our faith. I like hearing authors talk about the works that they have written. I like to read fantasy novels, and it’s incredible to think about someone coming up with all of those ideas. JRR Tolkein apparently created around 10 separate languages for the Lord of the Ring books. If you want to know something about a written work, the best place to look is the author. That’s who Jesus is for us. We can live in faith because we have seen Jesus crafting it just like an author does. Jesus taught us how to live out our faith throughout his ministry. Look through the Gospels to hear Jesus say “the kingdom of God is like” or when He compares how the world acts versus how the Spirit acts.
This is why it is so important for us to live our lives according to God’s Word and not our own. All too often we encounter difficulty and fall back to what “feels” right to us or what society says is right for us to feel. This leads us into a self-centered life or a life of despair when we continue to fail on our own strength. If something appears to be too hard for us then it must be because something must be wrong with our faith. But that’s us believing in something that Jesus as the founder of our faith didn’t promise us. It’s like asking an author who writes mysteries set in the 20’s or 30’s why he doesn’t just let his detective look up information on the internet. (because I, the author, chose to set him in a different time). The more that you and I submit ourselves to the authority of the one that demonstrated what our faith should look like, the less we’ll find ourselves frustrated when our own stories don’t go exactly how we’d plan them.
Jesus is also described here as the Perfecter or Finisher of our faith. This is a benefit for us that the cloud of witnesses that came before Jesus didn’t have. The author of Hebrews says so himself to close out the Hall of Faith in chapter 11.
39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
All of the members of the hall of faith trusted the Lord and ran their race of life by faith. But they were still waiting for God to complete or perfect their faith in the Gospel through the work of Jesus. What they looked forward to with expectant faith, we look back at with an assured faith. They had to rely on a future that they believed would come to pass, we can live in the light of the past and present where it already has come to pass. As we walk through times that require faith, changing cultural narratives, uncertainty of the future, personal problems because of our own sin or the sin of others against us, we have to be diligent to keep our eyes fixed on the one who has already taken care of our biggest problem. While our problems in life can be huge (and I know many of us are walking through incredible challenges) those issues pale in comparison to us as sinful people needing to be made right with a perfect God. Our founder and perfecter of our faith is before us and we can continue to run the race toward him.
You could do a whole sermon on just verses 2-4, but I’ll just note a couple other things before moving to our the third point. To piggyback on what Emmanuel preached about joy last week from Philippians, look at the joy of Jesus in these verses. He was so focused and satisfied by the joy of living out and accomplishing the Gospel that He was able to endure the immense shame and pain of the cross. It’s another reminder that faith and joy get us through difficulty not necessarily around it. We also see the two directives in these verses are to look to Jesus (fix our eyes) and to consider (remember) him. You may remember many commands in the Old Testament telling Israel to look to and remember the work of Lord. For us it is a matter of focus, God doesn’t go anywhere when we are feeling low in our faith, it’s that we start to look and listen elsewhere. It’s a reminder that we need often and that’s why we join together as the church.
We’ve got one more way that we can endure in faith and not grow weary. It’s something that we often don’t like, but it is vital for our growth in Christ. Take a look at verse 5.
5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
The third key for enduring faith is the Loving Discipline of our Father. I told you it was something that we didn’t like most of the time. We tend to balk at discipline. Whether that’s self-imposed discipline, I’m gonna start waking up earlier, I want to read more and spend less time on my phone, I want to eat better or learn to spend less money. We find the idea of discipline to be confining and difficult. And what we really don’t like is face discipline for something we did wrong. That’s why it’s so hard sometimes to be a disciple of Christ. We all too often will hide our sin and prolong it even when we feel convicted, because we fear that consequences that we’ll experience through discipline. It makes it so much worse, then, when our sin does come into the light. But we can avoid those kind of blowups and tap into a huge resource for growing and sustaining our faith by recognizing this one thing. That we’re being disciplined as God’s children, as part of the family.
Having faith in God doesn’t just make you some nameless faithful follower, but a son or daughter of God the Father. God doesn’t discipline us with employee discipline, sorry you violated the policy so we have to let you go. Or IRS discipline, oh you filed something wrong 5 years ago we’ll settle for 3 times the amount to make up for it. No, he disciplines us like a parent does a child. Now obviously human parental discipline is not always perfect, but the
main idea behind it is for your child to learn how to not do that wrong thing again. The goal is to grow them from impulsive, petulant children into respectful, well-adjusted adults. Parents discipline well when it is coming from love, and God disciplines those that he loves. The writer of Hebrews goes says later that if your faith doesn’t lead you toward God’s discipline, then you should really question if you are actually following God. It’s a worthwhile check-in to do sometimes. You can ask your self, “Does my faith in God challenge and grow me, or does it mostly seem to agree with or side with me?” We often find that we are faithfully living for ourselves far more than for God.
He closes out this point in vs. 11.
11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
When we struggle with faith, it is so often the case that we would rather have ease in the moment instead of a discipline that leads to fruitful results. We know that growing up requires us to practice delayed satisfaction, but we really struggle to carry that lesson into our spiritual lives.
I love how well this point circles back to verse 1 where we saw a picture of what discipline does for us. It’s the process that helps us lay aside the weights and sin that cling closely to us. It removes the things that make running our race with endurance more difficult. In the moment it feels invasive or destructive to us, that’s why the Bible uses examples like pruning a tree or crafting something from clay or marble to display this process. It looks destructive and painful, but it leads to a better outcome. You and I can move from painful discipline and lacking faith to peaceful fruit and lavish faith. We simply need to trust that God is a good father who disciplines for the right reason. He’s like a good coach that makes you do a drill over and over at practice only for you to see it work out great when the game comes around.
Remember when I told you that Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians that were experiencing persecution. The author of Hebrews intended these verses to encourage them to not grow worry but to learn to endure in their faith. The Big Idea today is that We have what is necessary to endure in our faith. We have the example of many witnesses, We have Jesus as the Founder and Perfecter of our Faith, and We have the discipline of our loving Father to strengthen us and keep us on track. I want to read the final prayer of the author for the people as a closing word.
12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
That feeling of weakness is very relatable to us, I’m sure. One of the keys to overcoming it that we saw today is to remember what God has done. Whether that’s in other people’s lives or in the life of God himself as Jesus. To help us do that today we are going to be taking the Lord’s
Supper, those that are serving can please come forward. God specifically ordained the Lord’s Supper as a powerful reminder for his church of His Perfecting of our faith. That’s why we repeat the phrase “Do this in remembrance of me.” If you’re here today and you are not a believer in Jesus yet. Please let the elements pass you and not partake in them. That’s not to single you out or be exclusionary, I promise. It’s because you don’t need a reminder of what Christ has done, you need to accept it for the first-time. If your considering doing that today, take this time to pray to the Lord about that. You can tell him that you want to stop running this race on your own. For the believers that are here, let’s not allow familiarity with communion to make it stale, but truly fix our eyes and thoughts on what Christ has done for us. Think of this as a hydration station during a marathon. It’s that bit of relief that reminds you that you can keep running toward the finish line.
(Allow elders to finish passing out elements)
On the night Jesus was betrayed he took some bread, gave thanks for it, broke it saying “This is my body which is to be broken for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. As often as you eat it, do so in remembrance of me, in remembrance of who I am and what I’ve done for you.” When supper ended he took the cup, blessed it, gave thanks for it, and said “This is a symbol of my blood which is to be shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. As often as you drink it, do so in remembrance of me, in remembrance of who I am and what I’ve done.” Let’s eat, drink, and worship Jesus as the author and perfecter of our faith.