The Book of Hebrews 12:1-3 Looking unto Jesus

Good morning. Before we step into the passage, I just want to bring your attention we have on the first slide and also on your handout. We're going to be looking at Hebrews 12, 1 through 3 today, and then in Hebrews 12, 4 through 11 next Sunday. And we're going to take the topic that comes up in next week's passage as kind of a point of departure for a time, taking the month of June for five Sundays, to address parenting, biblical parenting. We'll have titles such as, Parenting starts with an F. We will have titles such as, Imitations, No, Examples, Yes.

So at any rate, we'll be addressing that. We'll also be addressing, what if you're not a parent? What if it's apparent that you're not a parent? And so we'll talk about that as well. So at any rate, that's what we'll be doing through the month of June.

One of the things we've been pointing out is that the book of Hebrews has a pattern of five cycles of explanation and then exhortation. And so now with today's passage, we're going to be starting a portion of Hebrews that is exhortation all the rest of the way. That's the pattern from Hebrews 12, 1 all the way to the end of chapter 13. It's exhortation. Now, one of the key things here, keeping your eyes on the goal, and I have it particularly because it's ancient Greek pottery.

I mean, these people ran naked, so I make sure the words go over the front of it. At any rate, so Hebrews 12, 1 and 2 is written against a background of athletic competition. And by the way, it was against the law for married women to come to the Olympics. Okay? Isn't that interesting? Because they ran naked.

Anyway, athletic competitions, specifically running, and there were actually less than a dozen events in the first Olympics. It was almost entirely running and a few other sports. The Olympics began in 776 BC, which is basically around the beginning of the time of Isaiah, and later on even involved a number of Jews in varying degrees. The Jews were kind of a little uncomfortable with all that nakedness, but the rest of it seemed pretty interesting to have all this athletic competition.

Now, when Alexander the Great came to power, he exposed the Jews to a lot more Greek culture, including the athletics. And so it was far more common for the Jews to have some kind of contact or even involvement in athletics after that point. In 12 BC, so this is just several years before the birth of Christ, Herod the Not-So-Great, ruler of Israel, provided substantial support. He said, of course the Jews will pay for that, in support for the Olympics. And then Hebrews was written to Jews living in Gentile lands where athletics was a priority. And we've seen athletics a number of times as we've gone through the book of Hebrews here. Now, what we see in Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, It goes like this.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus. Now in this passage, Jesus is kind of the pivot point. Everything up to that is directed on us, right? And then, once you get to that word Jesus, all of a sudden it's about Him.

And so that's kind of the key structure here. Also, as we point out, this set of verses 1 and 2 is in the form of a chiasm. A chiasm is kind of a mirror image in written form. The first part here is what we're called to be doing. Let us run with endurance the race set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus. And then the next part of the chiasm is what He did and is doing. So what we're doing is the first part. What He did is the second part. This first part is our race. It's pictured as our race. The last part is His race. His race.

So now we see this word Jesus here. So what we see and have seen all the way in the prior chapter was by faith. By faith. These words point back to the prior chapter, chapter 11, the Great Hall of Faith, as we called it, where the author of Hebrews had given some characteristics of faith and listed a series of Old Testament saints telling what they did and what they endured by faith.

Great numbers of saints were often pictured in scripture as clouds, And in their mass appearance, we saw that in Daniel 7.13, where Christ is called the Son of Man.

In Matthew 24.30, similar picture, great number of people as clouds.

And in Revelation 1.7, so it's a pattern from the Old Testament into the New. And here we have a great cloud of witnesses, a great number of witnesses.

And so great the number of Old Testament witnesses are pictured in Hebrews 12.1 as a great cloud of witnesses. There are a great many of them. One of the things we saw going through Hebrews chapter 11 is he went through different examples of here's Abraham and here's by faith Moses and went through a number of Old Testament saints. But the reality is he only picked out certain examples. He could have given many, many more because there were a great number of Old Testament saints.

Some of whom even go unnamed. Even unnamed. Here was Elijah thinking that he was alone the faithful one in all of Israel. And the Lord says, no, there are 7,000 that I've got and you just don't know them. So when He says many, He says even a great many who are unnamed but still faithful.

Now, witnesses most often means when we give testimony, raise our right hand, whether five fingers or six or whatever, raise the right hand and then, sorry, I'm a lefty. Okay. All right. It often has a legal sense when we testify about something important. But the Greek word for witnesses can also mean martyrs. testifying by dying for the truth. Isn't that interesting? In this context, they are spectators. They're spectators, a great cloud of witnesses.

Let us and lay aside. Now, one of the things we pointed out here is this let us, I'm not talking about that green leafy stuff, right? This let us is actually an imperative. It's a must. Let us lay aside is translated from a Greek word that's cast as an invitation or exhortation, calling the believers to lay aside anything that would hinder their athletic pursuit of the spiritual goal. Now, athletics in biblical times and in the Greek culture particularly, where this is the backdrop, athletics is taken very, very seriously.

In the Olympics and generally speaking in other competitions, you know how our modern Olympics we've got gold and silver and bronze, they didn't have that. One. You either won or you lost. That's it. And only one person gets to win. They take it very seriously. Frequently the losers were beaten when they got home. They took it very seriously. I suppose that's supposed to motivate you to run fast and win, right? So one person got the prize, and everybody else got mistreated.

Except for Acts 7.58, all use of this word is for setting aside sin. Consistently.

Here's Acts 7.58, which is the place where The witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul, otherwise known as the Apostle Paul later, right? And so that's the one instance of actually physically laying aside. All the other instances from Romans 13 on to 1 Peter 2, all those instances are about laying aside sin, okay? Laying it aside.

Lay aside what every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us. Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. These words call to mind the things that can limit our spiritual progress. Physically, that meant extra body weight and extra clothing, especially loose and lengthy garments, anything that might get you tangled up or hold you back. In spiritual terms, this means sins that hinder our fellowship with the Lord and anything in the way.

Now some people get the impression that God's just obsessed about sins. He just can't get them off his mind. That's actually not the case. Why would God put a focus on sins and dealing with sin? For us as believers especially, God's Talking about sin is just to get it out of the way. Because what is he really aiming for is he wants fellowship. He wants us to fellowship with him. That's what he's aiming for. God is not actually obsessed with sin. He wants it out of the way.

Because fellowship is what's important to him. So these words picture the daily life of we who believe as a long race. You've got a really long marathon. For the believer, it's running a race all the way till you see the Lord face to face. Running a race until you see the Lord face to face. A really long race.

That's the picture here. The author of Hebrews used the Greek word set before three times. He's used it back in 6.18, now here in verse 1 and verse 2, set before. Each time it refers to a necessary goal. Now, fixing our eyes. In the athletic tradition and training, the serious competitor would fix his eyes upon the goal, not only physically but also mentally. Focusing upon the goal and also setting aside any mental distraction or competing focus. You're focused entirely on the race, right?

Paul likewise presented that same picture in Philippians 3, 12 through 14. Let's go there. not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, just one, and that's the key thing in this athletic perspective, just one, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on towards the goal of the prize for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

When I was in high school, one of the things I did in track was I ran hurdles. And that's where you're running, and then you jump over this thing, and then you're running, you jump over this thing. And let me tell you, when you're running hurdles, looking back is not a good idea. Really, really bad idea. So that just kind of comes to my mind.

You keep looking forward, and you keep your eyes on the goal. That's it. The goal was the athlete's visual fixed focus and singular mental focus. It wasn't just, I just look at that, but I also just think about that. That's all I'm doing. So this is what they would do. Here's an example of a relief from the day, and those posts that you see, that's the finish line. So here is a charioteer who's right at the finish line, and those posts are the finish line. And that's what the mental focus is. That's all I'm looking at. That's the perspective that he's getting across here.

Now, in my own case, we're here in Colorado. But Nancy and I came from farther west. And one of the places we were at is in northern California and also northern Nevada. Well, we lived in Carson City, Nevada, actually a total of about 15 years. And so one time we had the idea of, let's start from Truckee and head towards Boonville, which is the place I went to high school, right? Towards this little building here that up until the end of last year, my folks used to own. And so we were going to go from Truckee to Boonville.

That's a distance of over 300 miles on bicycle. And so we went over 300 miles, and it was What's that? Hey, I'm not done. Okay. And so a friend of mine, Larry Clow, and I started from Truckee, but actually Nancy did in a suburban. She got us to Truckee, and then she drove over there, which was a good thing.

So Larry and I were on bicycles and even though it was three days long and we really didn't see the goal at the end, we were mentally fixed on that goal in order to keep traveling for over 100 miles a day. And we really actually pressed pretty hard to cover the ground there. So we had a mental focus that was fixed on Boonville. And in that mental focus, we just, okay, that's where we're going, that's where we're going, that's where we're going. And so we kept pressing on and pressing on and pressing on for three days straight, going across the state of California.

And we did it, because of the mental focus. Now, fixing our eyes on Jesus, There's another biblical principle behind these words, and it's not the principle like at the school office, not that one. In the same way that human beings have senses for perceiving the physical world, we human beings are also equipped with senses for perceiving the spiritual world, but their ability to sense varies, and it's believers particularly that have these senses turned on. So we have here, you know, fixing our eyes on Jesus in Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, and here is what you have on your handout. We see that actually the book of Hebrews takes more advantage of this perspective of each of the five senses corresponds to something in the spiritual realm. In Hebrews from chapter 2 all the way into chapter 11, And then here in chapter 12 has a number of places where it uses spiritual sight and describes that. There's also hearing, tasting in the book of Hebrews in several different places.

Hebrews 5.14 refers to all the senses being trained. So there is this analogy given in scripture for all five of our senses. that are operating and operable in the spiritual realm. We as believers have those senses turned on because we believe. The unbeliever has limited to no operation of these spiritual senses.

We also have this. This is at the beginning of page three of your handout. In the physical realm we have the body, a portion of which is the brain. And a body ordinarily has five senses. In the spiritual realm, there are those same five senses described in scripture. And we have a spirit, a portion of which is the soul. So we have mind, emotions, and will from that.

So the author of Hebrews takes advantage of those spiritual truths, those spiritual realities, fixing the eyes, not these physical eyes, right? but spiritual eyes on Jesus, spiritually keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus. Jesus is not only the one on whom we fix our spiritual focus with the eyes of our heart, spiritual eyes, but the center point and turn of this passage. Though a great many things are going to happen to us in this life, and a great many things will clamor for our attention, Our call is clear, Jesus. Our call is clear, Jesus.

It's very important that we get this, that this is personal. We're not here gathered at Holly Hills to just learn a lot of Bible stuff. Knowing things about the Bible won't really do anything if that's all we're doing. We're not here to just pack our heads.

The focal point of everything we're doing The focal point of everything is Him. Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. His race here is described. From here, the author of Hebrews turns the key aspects of our running our spiritual race, ending with fixing our eyes on Jesus, to Jesus himself. He's the focal point. He's the one to whom we look. Who he is, and what he has done, and what he is doing, as he does so he pictures Christ having run a spiritual race as well. Our race is focused on his race.

Now, for these Jews, why is he making this focus here? Everything in Judaism was tempting to pull these Jews to slide back into its grasp. Oh, you've got this sacrifice, and you've got the priest, and he's authorized to represent you, and you've got the high priest, and he goes in and does this sacrifice, and boy, all this important stuff, and it's got their attention. But the author of Hebrews is pointing these people, fixing your eyes on Jesus.

It's Him. Even everything in the temple is still all about Him, so why not just fix your eyes on Him? Fix your eyes on Him. To everything in our own past that tempts us to slide back into its grasp, We'll find the author of Hebrews has a clear, singular answer. Jesus.

You're wrestling with something? Struggling with something? Feel distracted? Is it something at work? Something at home? Is it both? There's a clear, singular answer. Fixing our eyes on Jesus. We've got one race One race and it's all the way the finish line. The finish line is when we're done here. That's the finish line One focus Jesus. That's it That's the race And the only reason we can have that one focus and one race for a whole life is because He finished his race He finished his.

Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith. To author something is to be its source and to begin it. To be the source and to begin it, to perfect it is to bring it to completion as defined by supreme quality. One is to start, the other is to finish. Jesus does it all. He's the one to start it, He's the one to finish it. The author and perfecter of faith. Christ is both the start and the finish.

He defines how and why we are Christians today, and He will define what it will mean for us to be in Him when this world's days are not even a memory. Do you realize how silly it would be if we said, hey, let's go ahead and have church. But just leave Christ out of everything. That would be silly, wouldn't it? That would be really silly. But guess what? Everything else in life is the same way. If you leave Christ out of it, it's worse than silly. Everything in life is that way.

Now about this thing called faith, of course we spent a whole chapter 11 talking about it. By nature, human beings are creatures of faith. Even the very outspoken atheist or agnostic has great faith. We've been talking about that previously here. The world is going to offer a great many options for things to put your faith in. Matter of fact, that's what commercials are, right? Commercials are things to put your faith in. There is only one object of our ultimate faith who is worthy from start to finish, Jesus Christ. The one author and the perfecter of faith who has finished his race. Simply asking that we keep looking at him. We keep looking at him. That's it.

What motivated Jesus to die on the cross for us? Was He just a glutton for punishment? Was He just pressured into it by God the Father and the Holy Spirit? Can you imagine God the Father and the Holy Spirit ganging up on Jesus and saying, You've got to do this!

Oh, okay. I guess so. If you guys really think so. Right? Is that what happened? No, He was brought to the point of the cross by love, and looking beyond the cross by joy. He was motivated by love and joy. Galatians 2.20, He loved and He gave, and twice in Ephesians 5, He loved and He gave. Brought to the cross by love. Motivated beyond the cross by joy. So two motivations to come to the cross. Love and joy. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross. Can you imagine? Oh boy, I'm going to die today! Is that the way it was? No, I wasn't all that excited about getting nailed and all that. But He said, Let's do this.

Why? Motivated to the cross by love. Motivated beyond the cross by joy. Joy of fellowship with you and with me. He despised the shame. The Greek word here translated despised means in this context to so discount the shame of the cross as it's not even worthy of consideration. Was the cross supremely shameful? Oh, yes. A lot of times we'll have in the pictures, you know, Jesus will be covered over with a loincloth. There was no requirement in Roman law that they wore a loincloth. Very shameful.

And everybody was free to ridicule you. Do you realize that between the Roman soldiers and the public there was no limits to the abuse you could hurl on someone who was on a cross? There was no legal limitations. You could hurl all kinds of abuse and it didn't matter. People could spit on you, throw things at you, say things to you, of course. There was no limit.

Lots of shame. But the love motivation and the joy motivation were so strong for Christ that the shame wasn't even on the radar. Supremely shameful, but he wasn't even thinking about that. Wasn't even thinking about it. There were two beatings that Christ went through. One was the light beating, and then the next one was the heavy beating. Some people didn't even live through the heavy beating. He carried his cross piece until he couldn't take any more, quite possibly because of the beating.

They put the nails in him, and by the way, there were no rules about how you put the nails in, just get them in. And they could do it various ways, all of them painful. So he despised the shame. He didn't care about it because the love and the joy that motivated him to the cross and beyond the cross were so intense. The shame? Yeah, it was a shameful thing. But that wasn't anything he even considered.

And it says he has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. He crossed the finish line. He crossed the finish line for you and for me. It's in the perfect tense. I sat down. It's in the perfect tense. I completed past action with ongoing results on into the future.

Jesus Christ has taken the seat of authority at the right hand, the hand of power and the hand of salvation of God. This message is given in a prophetic and messianic psalm, Psalm 110. It's the most quoted New Testament passage out of the Old Testament. It's also the very place where each believer is both blessed and seated with Christ right now.

He finished His race, and guess what? Spiritually, you're already there. Spiritually, you're already there at His finish line. Isn't that amazing? Because he ran that race and sat down at the right hand of God, and you were identified with him, then spiritually you're already at his finish line. We're just spending the rest of our lives catching up to it. Okay?

Ephesians 1.3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, Where? Where he's seated. So here's Ephesians 2, 4 through 7.

But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, there where he finished his race. Spiritually speaking, we've already Come to His finish line. That's where we're at. Hebrews 12 says that Christ is already now seated there in the heavenlies, where we're blessed, where we're seated with Him, which is why we who believe can be seated there with Him.

Why would He do that? Verse 7, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. You know, a lot of people ask the question, well, I wonder what we'll be doing in heaven? It isn't about what we'll be doing in heaven, it's about what God will be doing in the ages to come. He's going to show, that means to physically demonstrate, to show in visible and demonstrable ways, the surpassing, the overthrown riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. We won't be going to heaven thinking, boy, I wonder what I'm going to do. We just drink a lot of coffee? We'll be looking for the next coffee break? Looking on our Rolex watches for the next coffee? No, I don't think so.

What we'll be doing is what God shows us. His grace on into rolling ages of eternity. And we're going to go, Wow, we will be amazed forever, gasping, amazed and astounded at His grace. What we've studied here about grace just is barely scratching the surface. There's a whole lot more because remember His riches, His overthrown riches, multiple pluralities, multiple huge magnitudes of grace. And we're just beginning to see what that is. For all the time on this planet, if we were to just look at grace, that would just scratch the surface.

It's about what God is doing, not what we will be doing. Back to Hebrews 12, and this is verse 3. For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Fixing the eyes of our hearts on Jesus, laying aside every hindrance, knowing that he's already seated and that we're seated with him in the heavenlies. That's what we're called to. We're called to behold the living Word of God through the written Word of God until the day that we behold Him face to face. It's simple, folks. Fixing our eyes on Jesus. Just Him. Fixing our eyes on Him.

Verse 3 says, Consider Him. When we begin to feel like we can't take it anymore, right? when we feel like throwing in the towel, when we feel like our cork is just about to pop, those times consider Him who endured hostility from sinners, motivated by love to come to the cross for you and for me, motivated by joy beyond the cross of fellowship with you and with me. Consider him. And consider him some more. Consider him who has love and joy as motivations and also knew that the pain he was enduring had a momentous purpose that changed the eternities of all who believe.

Here's a principle for our own lives. Greater pains and greater pressures, either in magnitude or duration, also have a greater purpose. Greater pains and greater pressures, either in duration or magnitude, also have a greater purpose in our lives. Conversely, no trial or discipline is ever meaningless.

As we mentioned in the elective here before, people will be heard to say, oh, I don't need this. Guess what? If it's happening, you need it. If it's happening, you need it. But no trial or discipline is ever meaningless. God isn't just playing games with us. Now, I've been holding out on you. I haven't told you about this until now.

But I'm going to confess that this word endured or endure has been showing up since chapter 10 and continues on beyond this passage into verse 7 of Hebrews 12. But this word endured shows up in verse 2 and in verse 3, and both of them are about Christ's enduring. There's something about this word endured that we need to take a look at. This word endured from 1032 to 127 means to abide under.

It's actually in the reverse order in the Greek, but to abide under. The human inclination whenever there's pressure, or pain, is to get out from under it. You know? Get it away. Oh no, this is painful. Put it on the prayer chain. Right? Ask God to take it away. Right? Because I don't want it. I want to get out from under this as fast as I can. That's the human inclination.

God has purposes for the trials, which are intended to grow us and conform us to the image of Christ, and the discipline in our lives, as we'll see in next week's passage, intended to put us back on the path of fellowship with Him and with others. God has purposes for both the trials and the discipline. There isn't any senseless trial or discipline.

But we're called to be fixing our eyes on Jesus, whether we're having good times that we like to remember and the times that we enjoy, whether things are really good or things are really bad. Fixing our eyes on Jesus when things are looking up, when things are looking down. Fixing our eyes on Jesus at the end of the day and when the day is done. Fixing our eyes on Jesus who for the joy set before him endured the cross and has sat down. We're called to behold the living word of God through the written word of God until the day that we behold him face to face.

I hope he comes today. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for just the singular focus. Certainly, we've looked at three verses with lots of words. But it boils down to real simple. Fixing our eyes on you. You who have completed the race. And as a matter of fact, it's kind of amazing that spiritually speaking, we're already at his finish line. That's rather astounding. All we did was believe. Thank you for what you have done, are doing, and will do until that day that we see you face-to-face. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.