Heb 12:1-3 Let Us Run
Notes
Transcript
1 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, 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.
Verse 1 says “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” The author of Hebrews is making this amazing picture with spiritual spectators as an encouragement and motivator to the first-century church as they were going to face great persecution in the years ahead so he encourages them in order for them to persevere in their faith.
The scene the author of Hebrews is painting us is of a great stadium or coliseum. The occasion is a footrace, a distance event. The contestants include the author of Hebrews and the first readers of this letter and, by mutual faith, us. The cloud of witnesses that fills the stadium is the great spiritual athletes of the past, the Faithful Hall of Fame members—each one of them a Gold Medal winner. They are not live witnesses of the event, but “witnesses” by the fact that their past lives bear witness to monumental, persevering faith that, like Abel’s faith, “still speaks, even though he is dead”.
Everywhere you look in the stadium, there is a kind face nodding encouragement, saying, “I did it, and so can you. You can do it. You have my life for it!” In this great cloud of witness, you look and you see all the people we have been studying for the last 5 months:
Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Joshua, Rahab, Naomi, Daniel, Ruth, Hannah, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, and all the saints of the New Testament, then you see Jesus looking at you and smiling and telling you I love you, you can do this through the strength I’ll give you.
Your heart is pumping so hard you feel it in your mouth. You are encouraged beyond imagination. And with all your being you want to do well. But what do you need to do? What is this race that God is commanding us to run?
Our text tells us plainly by giving us three commandments.
powerfully answers with a challenge that can be summarized in four commandments; we will study the first three today from v1-2.
1. We must lay aside every sin
The first commandment here is to lay aside or to get rid. This is very clear in the first few lines of v1 where it says: “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”
The laying aside, or getting rid, or throwing off, has a reference to the Greek Olympic games, as it was the custom of that day for the racer to strip off one’s clothing before a race. That was one of the reasons why women were not allowed to enter the coliseum to watch the races.
You might be shocked by this or not, but we might ask why they did so. If you have ever done any kind of running, you know that whatever weight you are carrying seems to be multiplied when you are running. (Step aside and give an example story when I used to run) Our verse here describes this lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely.
Sin is described as “which clings so closely”, or we could say “sin that so easily entangles”, which is a description of what sin does. Like a fly getting stuck in one of those “sticky bug traps” or “sticky paper”. The fly might be flying happily around the paper when suddenly it makes a stop on the paper. The fly will fight with all its might to get free, but the more it struggles, the more hopelessly it is glued to the paper. After all its energy is spent the fly is without any hope and chance to get away from the glue that clings so closely.
That is the fate of every human being trying to fight sin on their own strength. We need a perfect savior who can enter into our messy ans sticky world without being entangled by sin and release us from the tangles of death.
There are many Christians who think incorrectly that this is a one-time transaction at the time of conversion. At conversion, we do see our hopelessness and cry for help from Jesus, and Christ comes and rescues us and gives us life. However, while in this life we are not completely separated from sin, we still need to daily cry out for help and we still need Jesus' strength and ability to get untangled from the glue of sin.
Therefore, we must constantly and continually “lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely.” We each have specific sins that more easily entangle us than others. Once you conquered one besetting sin, you will find that there is another area that you are more susceptible that you were not aware of before. The more you grow in your walk with Jesus it seems that you have new sins to fight, but in reality, we are growing in our holiness, and God is making us aware of what was already in our hearts before. God is patient with us as we grow in our walk with Him, but the key is that we can never think that we arrived so we can just lay back and rest, if we do we will be just laying back on the sticky paper thinking that we are ok, while we are covered in a sticky mess.
What should we do besides lay aside every sin? V1 says “and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”
2. We must Run
We must run the unique race God has planned specifically for each of us. For some the race is relatively straight, some are all turns, some seem all uphill, and some are a flat race. All the races are long, but some are longer, and some seem very short. But the glory is we can finish the race that God has appointed for us. I will not be able to run your race, and you are not going to be able to run my race, but we can all finish well each of our races if we run the race that God has set before us relying on His strength and wisdom.
If we rely on Jesus, when we reach the end we can confidently say what Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7-8
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
That is encouraging and comforting. If we rely on Jesus, there is no doubt that we can finish the race that is set before us. However, we must run with perseverance.
The secret is to “run with perseverance.” Here the example of Bill Broadhurst is helpful to us. In 1981 Bill entered the Pepsi Challenge 10,000-meter race in Omaha, Nebraska. Surgery ten years earlier for an aneurysm in the brain had left him paralyzed on his left side. Now, on that misty July morning, he stands with 1,200 able men and women at the starting line.
The gun sounds! The crowd runs forward. Bill throws his stiff left leg forward, and pivots on it as his foot hits the ground. His slow plop—plop—plop rhythm seems to mock him as the pack races into the distance. Sweat rolls down his face, pain pierces his ankle, but he keeps going. Some of the runners complete the race in about thirty minutes, but two hours and twenty-nine minutes later Bill reaches the finish line.
A man approaches from a small group of remaining bystanders. Though exhausted, Bill recognizes him from pictures in the newspaper. He is Bill Rodgers, the famous marathon runner, who then hangs his newly won medal around Bill’s neck. Bill Broadhurst’s finish was as glorious as that of the world’s greatest—though he finished last. Why? Because he ran with perseverance.
That determination, without haste and without wavering, painful but steadily on the pace. Obstacles will not stop it, delays will not distract it, and discouragement will not take its hope away. This determination to run the race will not stop from discouragement or from opposition from the world.
The race set before us is not for sprinters who will be out of breath and energy after 100 or 200 meters.
This life is a marathon where you need patience and endurance to put your foot in front of the other until you reach the end. There will be moments when you will throw your arms up and ask your Heavenly Father to carry you, after He comforts you and strengthens you; He will put you down and tell you to walk just a little longer.
3. We Must Look to Jesus
Now, after we lay aside every weight of sin and we are running with perseverance. We are given the focus that will ensure we will finish well, that is Jesus v2 “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith”
The author here could have said, looking to Christ, but he chooses instead the name Jesus, which points to the fact that the author is calling us to focus on Jesus’ humanity. Jonathan Edwards remarked beautifully concerning this that we are to “take notice of Christ’s excellence which is a… feast.”
And so it is! We are to focus on Him first as the founder, the author, the pioneer of our faith. Jesus is the founder and author of all faith in both the Old and New Testaments. He initiates all faith, and He gives it as a gift, it is not our own doing, it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
But, still more, Jesus is the “perfecter of our faith.” His entire earthly life was the very embodiment of trust in God. He perfected living by faith. He lived in total dependence upon the Father. It was his absolute faith in God that enabled him to go through the mocking, crucifixion, rejection and desertion—and left him perfect in faith.
F. F. Bruce says
“Had he come down by some gesture of supernatural power, He would never have been hailed as the ‘perfecter of faith’ nor would He have left any practical example for others to follow. But the sublime fact is, he endured everything by faith, and thus he is uniquely qualified to be the “author and perfecter” of the faith of his followers.” F. F. Bruce
Do you want to run the race of faith? Then we must fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. We must not be distracted from all the distracting things in this life, and lift our eyes and focus our attention on Jesus and continue doing so. That is the only way to finish the race.
We might ask how we can fix our eyes on Jesus if we don’t see Him. The author of Hebrews answers that in the rest of v2 “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”
It is by thinking, meditating on Jesus, on what Scripture tells us about Him, more specifically here the author points to Jesus’ suffering. Some incorrectly think that Jesus when He faced the physical and spiritual sufferings of the cross, think that His suffering was somehow “less” for him because Jesus is fully God and fully man.
We must let the full force of the words here in Hebrews sink into our souls: “he endured the cross”. The physical pain he endured was absolute. But the spiritual pain was even greater because his pure soul, which knew no sin, became sin for us, inducing Him a pain unknown to us. And we must also get hold of the fact that he “endured the cross, despising the shame.” That is, Jesus thought nothing of the shame of the cross—he dismissed it as nothing.
How and why could Jesus do this? Because of “the joy set before him”—which was rooted in his coming exaltation when he “sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (v. 2c). His exaltation, with all that it means for his people’s peace, shalom and for the triumph of God’s purpose in the universe, was “the joy set before him”.
We can list some specific aspects of his joy. There was the joy of Jesus union with the Father. When the disciples were sad because Jesus was telling them plainly that He was leaving them, Jesus said to them in
John 14:28 “If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father”
Jesus had great joy in being with the Father. In the same way, when we enter eternity there will be unimaginable joy, it will be like what David says in Psalm 16:11 “You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand” ((step aside and tell story of joy))
But for Jesus, it is an even greater joy because He was crowned with honor and glory and had all things put under his feet. Furthermore, Jesus also had the joy of bringing many sons to glory and making us part of His joy.
Lastly, we will consider v3 where the author concludes this challenge to finish well, he says “v3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”
The phrase “grow weary and fainthearted” was a sports lingo in the ancient world for a runner’s exhausted collapse. Thus, the way for the Christian runner to avoid such a spiritual collapse was to “consider him”—that is, to carefully calculate Jesus and his endurance of opposition from people like Caiaphas, Herod, and Pilate. We are to remember Jesus' confidence, His humbleness, and His steel-like strength in meeting his enemies.
No one should miss the wisdom of this verse where it is telling us that we should be completely absorbed with Jesus. If you want to finish and not collapse in the way we must be Jesus’ freaks.
We must put away things that distract us and then put on looking, thinking, meditating, and considering Jesus. This is why we must read again and again the Gospels. This is why our worship must be focused on Jesus. This is why Jesus must be the measure of all things.
If we are believers, we are in the race, and we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses whose examples call for our best—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, Samuel, Daniel, Jeremiah, Peter, John, Paul, Stephen, Polycarp, Elliott, Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Spurgeon, Carey, Taylor, Judson, and our departed family members, and on and on. Their faces invite us to finish well. Above all it is Jesus inviting us to finish well.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witness, let us lay aside every sin, let us run the race, and let us look to Jesus the author and perfector of our faith, considering Jesus and following His example.