Hebrews 12:1-13 - Running The Gospel Race

Well, welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. Today, we are finishing out our week with Hebrews chapter 12 and verses one through 13 or 14.

Let me make sure I know where I'm headed. Yeah, one through 13. And I love this portion of scripture.

I'll mention one kind of humorous aside in relation to this portion. When we get to it, I'm going to read verses one through 13.

As we've walked through the Book of Hebrews, we've seen some people that have questioned, like, should we be following Jesus into all of this persecution and rejection by our family members, by our fellow Jewish countrymen in experiencing

difficulties from our government, the Roman, if you will, overseers throughout the world at that time, the known world? And should we just go back to when it was easier? Do we have to go through all of this Jesus stuff?

And the writer, the author of Hebrews has given an emphatic absolutely. We have no reason to turn our back on Jesus because he is the point of everything that we had in Judaism. He is so much better.

And even when we look at our Jewish heritage, here are all of the heroes that we look up to, all of our ancestors and how they went through hard times and difficulties and persecutions from nations and from other individuals.

And so we shouldn't turn our back on Jesus. He is the point of all of it. And that's where we find ourselves now in chapter 12 and verse number 1.

Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, if you will, that heavenly audience to our lives here on earth, since they see us, since their lives were given in obedience and faith and following God, and since they're

now watching our lives, he says, 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 source and 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. For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won't weary and give up.

In struggling against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood, and you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons. And here he quotes from Proverbs 3.

My son, do not take the Lord's discipline lightly, or lose heart when you are reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and punishes every son that he receives. Endure suffering as discipline.

God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, which we all receive, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Furthermore, when we had human fathers discipline us, we respected them. Shouldn't we submit even more to the Father of Spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them.

But he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but healed instead. Okay, what do we make of some of this? What's going on in this passage?

Well, first, the author calls us to focus, to turn our attention to Jesus, realizing that we've got a heavenly audience for our lives here on earth that should motivate us to follow God, knowing that people before us have run the race, they've run it

well, they've been approved by God, and now those people are looking at our lives. Sometimes we think, okay, well, you know, no one really sees me, or you know, sometimes maybe people go, well, God might see me, but you know, that's not really going

to motivate me to change my course of action. Realize that the saints are watching your life, and while certainly that's a truth, that some people have made more odd at different points and have turned to, you know, even praying to those saints in

their lives. We ought to realize that if you will, the dead are watching. When we think about those that have been martyred for the faith, they are watching your walk with the Lord right now. They're seeing how you are running your race.

And for me, that motivates me to, you know, on the one hand with a holy fear to be like, well, I don't want to then spend my life wasting, wasting my time, wasting my energy, wasting my words on things that have nothing to do with Jesus.

Because when I think back, and I remember my grandma on my dad's side, she wasn't a perfect lady by any means. But she was one that loved the Lord and loved her grandkids. And realizing, okay, she's watching me in my life.

I want to spend my life on what actually matters. There was a conversation that I was having with someone the other day, and it had to do with some of the martyrs of the third and fourth centuries and some of the commemorations of that.

When I think back to those individuals, man, that makes me want to say, if they gave their life for Jesus, well, then I shouldn't waste my time trying to argue with other Christians about things that aren't Jesus, about things that ultimately do not

matter. Because I've got a heavenly audience that's cheering me on, and that's saying, hey, finish the race! Like, you can do it!

You can think back to during this time period, you know, the Greek and Roman games, some of the things that even now we have, the Olympic games. And you know, there's cameras and videos that are being sent all around the world from the Olympic games.

And how we would deride someone who was spending their time, you know, during a race, you know, during a marathon, that they were just arguing with another one of the runners, or they were getting bogged down, you know, they saw a donut shop and they

just figured they'd chow down on that. They're not focusing on the race. We would say, what are you doing? And I don't want my heavenly audience to view my race with the Lord in that way.

Certainly, I want to run it for Jesus, as we're going to see in one second. But that first line in Hebrews chapter 12 is because we've got such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us as we run our race.

It says, let us lay aside every hindrance, everything that keeps us from walking with the Lord, from pursuing him in faith. These could be good things.

There's a difference here made between, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. So on the one hand, there are hindrances to our walk with the Lord, to us doing everything that God wants us to do in our Christian life.

Are there things that, maybe they're good things, but they're not gospel things. They're things that rather hinder us from our walk with the Lord. And it might not be immorality.

It might not be covetousness. It might not be, you know, I'm trying to think of maybe some other sins directly, but it might be something that, you know, we're in Maryland. A lot of people enjoy youth sports and different things like that.

And their love for youth sports causes them to abandon the assembling with the local church. And that would be a hindrance.

It would be these people, as we think back in even just Christian history, to those that gave their lives, that died because they met with the local church.

And as they look at our lives and they see us and we're just like abandoning gathering with the believers for frivolous things. To my heart, that like is a motivation for me.

Hey, I know, you know, my brothers and sisters in Syria and in Iran and Iraq, that they've been killed by groups like ISIS and things like that for being a Christian, for gathering with a local church.

I think about, man, who are some of the others looking back at like Nazi Germany and seeing people that were persecuted for not participating in kind of that state church that they had had for a little bit of time.

And as we look at China and those that even I know that have been arrested and imprisoned or fined for meeting with the local church, I want to be faithful to lay aside the hindrances to say, okay, this might not be a bad thing, but if this is

something that keeps me from following God in a faithful, consistent manner, then I'm going to put that aside because I've got a race to run to know Jesus and to make him known to others, to love the word of God and to embody it in my life. And so

there may be things that are not sin that I would lay aside so that I can run the race. He says, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us.

Some people have taken this statement to mean like, oh, there's one sin in your life that easily ensnares you. I don't think that's the point of this particular passage. It's saying sin in general so easily ensnares us.

It makes us bitter against others. It makes us say unkind or false things against other people. It makes us assume motives of others that they haven't vocalized.

Sin is so sneaky. As Paul would tell us in, I think it's 2 Corinthians, Satan has come as an angel of light. He does not come with the stereotypical like goat man, all dressed in red with a cape and horns and a pitchfork.

That's not what Satan looks like. He looks like any other angel. And he comes to us inviting us to say, well, you don't have to be kind to that person and here's why.

Or you don't have to speak nicely about this person. You don't have to refrain from gossip because, man, it's true. And so you just need to like send it and all of that.

Sin very, very easily tricks us because we whitewash sin. And we say, no, no, no, here's all of the reasons why this really is good.

We are Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden again saying, okay, I know God says this brings death, but it looks good and it will make us wise. And I believe that it's going to be for my best benefit.

And we redefine good and bad based on not what God's word says, but based on what we think. If you can't go to God's word and say, hey, like here is what God says, that ought to influence us to say, okay, well, maybe I'm just redefining good and bad.

And how do we know if we're doing that? It's only by consistently running to God, running to the word that tells us what all sin is. Okay, so we lay aside the hindrance and the sin and we run with endurance, the race that lies before us.

Endurance has been a big theme all the way through, that we don't give up in our Christian walk, we don't give up meeting with the other Christians. We continue in that race.

Verse number two, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith, that is the author and the finisher. Your faith did not come from you. It came from Jesus.

Jesus was the one that gave us our faith, and he is the one that will perfect our faith.

Or as Philippians chapter one of verse six puts it, I'm confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you, will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. You want to know like how you got into God's family?

It's because God loved you, he adopted you, he saved you, he redeemed you, he purchased you with his blood. He is the source, the author of your faith. And you want to know how you will finish?

How in the world can you beat sin and temptation and hindrances and all the worries of this world? How can you possibly hope to make it to the end? It's because Jesus is the one that brings it to completion.

Jesus is the perfector, the completer, the finisher of your faith. And so we keep our eyes on him. It's kind of the old sports adage.

Keep your eye on the ball, because if you're watching the ball when you go to swing your bat, you're going to make contact with it, but only as you keep your eye on the ball. And certainly that is true.

If you want to run well in your Christian life, it doesn't come through keeping your eyes on other people. It doesn't come through keeping your eyes on man.

It comes through keeping your eyes on Jesus, on His character, on His words, on His actions, on His attitudes. And as we see who Jesus is, that's what gets us to the end.

Continuing in verse 2, For the joy that lay before Him, because Jesus knew, I'm going to gain like God's family. I'm going to redeem mankind. I'm going to be enthroned again.

I am going to be honored and glorified. My Father is going to be honored and glorified. People are going to be reconciled to one another.

There's going to be one family of God all together. He says, For that joy that was in front of Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

You might have some difficulties ahead of you, some health struggles, some relational struggles.

You might go through some financial difficulties, but realize that there is a joy set before you of eternity with Christ, of knowing God, of being reunited with all of your loved ones who have passed in Christ.

And so, just as our Savior did, for that joy that is set in front of you, endure, despising the shame and sin and wickedness of this world, press on because where we're headed is the same place that Jesus was.

We are headed straight to the throne of God. To worship and to love and to be with Him and to experience His presence and His goodness forever. Verse number three, for consider Him.

Think about Jesus who endured such hostility from sinners against himself so that you won't grow weary and give up.

When you remember that Jesus was beaten and his beard was ripped and he was slapped and spat on and he was whipped and bloodied and bruised and hit with rods and had a crown of thorns placed on his head.

And as he was forced up the hill of Galgotha and he collapsed under the stress of it and he was publicly taunted. And when he was thirsty, they gave him bitter vinegar or gall to drink.

As you think about how he went through all of those things, it will help you. Oh, well, if Jesus went through all of that for me, like right now, just people are saying like, oh, man, you're so weird.

You're so stupid for being a Christian or for following the Bible. Like you won't grow weary and give up when you remember what Jesus went through for you.

Verse number four, in struggling against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. He's saying here, Jesus went through it so much worse than you did. Verse number five.

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? And so here he goes through, for the rest of our time today, looking at this basic truth that I think I mentioned a week or two or a couple episodes ago or something.

He says this, God's struggles and persecutions and difficulties that that he allows in your life. It is so that you can be made more like Jesus. It's here.

The word is discipline. It's it's discipling you. It is training you to be and think and look and act and pray and speak like Jesus.

It's pressing you into a mold so that at the end of it, you look more like Jesus than you did before. And he and he phrases it with this illustration. He says all good parents discipline their kids.

And in a day and age today where parents very rarely tell their kids, no, where there's no consequences for any actions, we would be wise as Christians to come back to this truth, that if a person does not discipline their children, if they don't

train them to do what's right and wrong, if there's not consequences for what is wrong, then scripture says this, if we are not disciplined, we are illegitimate children. I grew up on the King James Version.

It had the old word for this, which I don't know if I'll get marked as explicit if I say that word on the podcast, but illegitimate children are not disciplined by their parents because they are not in the home with them, especially during this time.

You would have the illegitimate children would be hidden away or they would be with their mother or something like that. And so he says, illegitimate children don't receive discipline. Real kids do get discipline.

And so we should know, OK, when it feels like I'm kind of going through the crucible right now, God, like I'm I'm going through a season of like really difficult health needs or God, I don't have two nickels to rub together or God, I just can't seem

to get along with this person. It is God molding us into his image that we know, OK, if I'm going through difficulty right now, well, I'm a child of God.

And when God puts me through something, he's not putting me through it to punish me, he's putting me through it so that I look more like Jesus. So God, how can I look more like Jesus through what's going on right now?

It says the Lord disciplines the one he loves and punishes every son that he receives.

That just like in, you know, working out, you have to go through the pain of breaking down that muscle in order to build up the stronger, more durable muscle that can make even more.

And so in our lives, we go through difficulties, but it makes us spiritually and emotionally and mentally stronger that we are more like Jesus. We think about things in a godlier way, or at least that's the Lord's intention for us in our struggles.

I like, I'll kind of hurry on here for the end. Verse number nine, Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them.

That when we said things that we shouldn't, or we did things that we shouldn't, our human parents disciplined us, that we were punished for the wrong things that we did, and looking back on it, we go, Wow, I'm really grateful that I was told no.

I'm grateful that I got a little bit of a paddling for the wrong things that I did, because it made it so that I changed my trajectory. I didn't do the things I used to do.

I didn't say the things that I used to say, and it changed me for the better because of my human parents.

And he says, if we respected our human parents for disciplining us, certainly we should welcome the discipline, the changing, the crucible of what we're going through that our heavenly father has allowed, because it's not just making us better

people, it's making us Jesus people. And I love verse number 10, 10 and 11. They disciplined us. Human parents disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but God does it for our benefit so that we can share his holiness.

Human parents do it because they don't want to be embarrassed by their children. But he says, God does it so that we can be holy. And if we know, like, that's the reason for anything that I'm going through in my life.

God wants to make me holy. God wants to make me look like Jesus. That's then the question that we can ask the Lord again and again.

God, how can this help me look like Jesus? God, help me to look more like Christ as a result of this. He says, no discipline seems enjoyable at the time.

No one likes getting a paddle in. No one likes being, you know, grounded from stuff. He says, no one enjoys that.

It's painful. He says, later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Those that are disciplined, those that go through the crucible with God, we get righteousness.

We do and think and say what's right as a result of going through the hard times. So he says, therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weaken knees and make straight paths for your feet.

He says, get up, dust yourselves off because there is a path that we need to go on. You've tripped and you've fallen in your race, but you can get back up and keep on going because God loves you. You are his child.

And he says, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but healed instead. He says, there is healing that is coming in the future for you. This trial that you're going through, it's not all that there ever is.

And there are bumps in this race that we run, but we can get back up knowing that God is shaping and molding us into the image of Christ. What a wonderful comfort that is, that none of our suffering is meaningless.

None of our things that we go through don't have a point. The point is always, no matter what other things might also be true of it, the point is always that we would look more like Jesus on the other end of it.

So let's pray that today, God, how can I be more like Jesus today in my difficulties and struggles? We'll close out chapter 12 on Monday, and looking forward to joining you then. Thanks for tuning in.

Have a wonderful rest of your day.