Look To Jesus - Hebrews 12

Jesus, of course, is the ultimate example of faithfulness and endurance. He endured humiliation. The scribes and elders spat in his face, struck him and slapped him. They mocked him. (Matthew 26:67) Peter denied knowing him. (Matthew 26:70) He was bound like a criminal. (Matthew 27:2) He was rejected for release in favor of Barabbas, a robber. (Matthew 27:15-23; John 18:40) He was tortured by the Romans, being stripped, mocked, spit upon, beaten. (Matthew 27:27-31) He was crucified. (Matthew 27:36) The wrath of God was laid upon him for our sin. (Isaiah 53:6)He endured it all. Verse 2 of Hebrews 12 says he endured the cross “for the joy that was set before him”. What was the joy set before him? The joy was his exaltation to the Father’s right hand. In John 17:5, Jesus prayed “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that had with you before the world existed.” Jesus had glory in heaven. But he gave that up, clothing himself in human form, and was obedient to death on the cross, according to Philippians 2:8. But, then, God highly exalted him, or restored his glory by resurrecting him to his right hand. (Philippians 2:9-10) In a sense, Jesus endured by faith. He believed the Father would raise him from the dead and exalt him to his right hand. He endured horrible suffering because he kept his eye on the prize, salvation for those who believe and exaltation to the right hand of the Father. His suffering was greater than any other, for he not only bore the terrific physical abuse, he suffered the wrath of God for the sin of the world. He did not even care about the shame of it because he was focused on the joy to be accomplished. Crucifixion was not only painful, but shameful. Jesus was stripped. Now Jew would allow himself to be seen without his robe. He suffered in front of a jeering crowd, not exerting his power and glory, but suffering and dying in front of his fellow Jews, seemingly helpless and alone. He endured the hostility of sinners. They jeered at him and spat upon him. Imagine, being the son of God and being mocked by unbelieving Jews and Romans. Yet, he willingly did this. If he suffered so much for us, surely we can endure some suffering or opposition without giving up. (5) Endure Discipline 12:4-12 The writer takes a turn here with regard to suffering. He casts it in regard to God’s discipline. Discipline is to rid us of sin. Verse 4 points out that they had not resisted sin to the point of shedding blood. So, the writer says, unlike Jesus, you have not resisted sin to the point of shedding your blood. Remember the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26. He clearly understood how bad his suffering would be. He was sorrowful and troubled. (26:37) He said “my soul is very sorrowful, even to death.” (26:38) He asked the disciples to watch with him, to be with him and support him. He prayed that the Father would give him another way to do the task, yet surrendered to the Father’s will. Luke records that Jesus was in such great agony and he prayed so earnestly that his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:44) An angel even came to strengthen him because he was in so much agony. I have never prayed so hard I broke out in a sweat, much less sweat like great drops of blood. And neither had the Hebrews that read this letter. I have never struggled to resist sin to the point of shedding blood, and neither had the Hebrews. This is a tie in to his earlier admonition to throw off every weight, including sin that clings to us, so that we can run the race set before us. (12:1) Sin detracts us from our race. It also diverts our focus away from Jesus. We see here that the writer equates at least some of our suffering with discipline. God sometimes sends suffering to discipline us. In verses 5 and 6, he quotes a proverb, specifically Proverbs 3:11-12. This proverb teaches us that the Lord disciplines his children. Every one of the ones he receives, he disciplines. And we are not to regard it lightly nor be weary. You’ll never build a TV ministry selling this truth, but it is truth. Why does God do it? Because his goal is to make you like Christ. James 1:2-4 tells us that trials produce steadfastness, which will make us perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Have you suffered disappointment in not getting something you really wanted? God disciplined you to see that Christ, and not earthly things, should fulfill you. Has someone hurt your feelings? God disciplined you to show that Christlikeness includes suffering the disdain or mistreatment from others and still glorifying God. These are just two examples. Of course, sometimes God really brings tough discipline to us to strengthen our faith or to make us give up a sin that is hurting our spiritual life. Sometimes God takes things away from us so that we will take our focus away from those things and focus on Him. We should never take his discipline lightly, but should always try to grow in our sanctification through our suffering. The writer makes the point in verses 7 and 8 that discipline means God is treating us as his children. He compares this to earthly fathers who discipline their children for their benefit. My father did not think his parents loved him because they never disciplined him. He ran wild and they did not care. The fruit of discipline, set out in verse 11, is the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hopefully, by the time we are old, we are at peace with God’s will and we exhibit righteousness in our behavior and thinking. If not, God has more work to do. Verse 12 tells us that, having considered that suffering is often enduring discipline, we should strengthen ourselves and keep walking with the Lord. Here in Texas we might say “Cowboy up and get back to it”.

UNION WITH CHRIST

Union With Christ: The Simile Yes, Jesus used a simile to explain his union with believers. (Don't you love having a grammar lover for a teacher?) In John 15, he told his disciples he is the vine and we are the branches. His reference was to grape vines. The vine is the strong trunk of the plant. Branches grow out of it and produce grapes. Jesus said to abide in him and produce fruit. Only when we are attached to the true vine do we have life. In other words, when we are in union with Christ. That is because he is the source of life. Attached to him, we can produce the fruit of a Godly life. Separated from him, a person produces nothing but death. You can see this with any plant. I trimmed my rose bush. The main plant looked great. The branches I cut off turned brown and died. All blessings and benefits flow from our union with Christ.

Union with Christ (In His Own Words)

Jesus taught about his union with the church, his people. He told his disciples, “in that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20) The word “you” is plural in the original language. Ephesians 5:30 expresses it by saying we are members of his body. And it is this union with Christ that is the reason God blesses us. Ephesians 1:3 says that God the Father blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Unions in the Bible

There are 3 main "unions" in the Bible: First, the union of the three divine persons (Father, Son, Spirit) in the Godhead; Second, the union of divine and human nature in the person of Jesus; and Third, the union of the church to Christ.

RUN WITH ENDURANCE - HEBREWS 12

After describing many men and women who were heroes in the faith in the Old Testament, the writer of Hebrews admonishes his readers to endure in the faith. Run The Race 1:1-3 After describing many heroes of the faith, the writer transitions into admonishment with the word “therefore”. (1) He is saying, since the heroes of the Old Testament endured by faith, you do the same. So, the great cloud of witnesses was the collection of Old Testament saints who believed in God’s redemption and endured hardship in faith. It is if you were running a marathon and every person who ever finished it was standing at the starting line. They would be witnesses that it could be done and had been done. It is not that they are watching us, but that we look to them as an example of enduring faith. They witness to the life of faith. Next, he continues the running metaphor and tells us to focus in order to finish well. First, we lay aside every weight and sin that clings to us. What weights did these Jewish believers carry? Some carried doubt. They doubted that Christ rather than the law was the way to God. Some cared more about their tradition than the gospel. Some cared more about what people thought of them. Sin were no doubt crippled by sin, weighted down by greed, lust, envy or other sins. If you have ever seen a Strong Man competition, there is always an event where the men have to carry some large, heavy object and run with it. They are amazing in their ability to do it. But they do not run like runners who are unencumbered and sprint to the finish. They struggle and run slowly because of the weight they carry. Once we drop the sin which could encumber us, we run the race with endurance. The race is a metaphor for the Christian life. More specifically, it is the life of sanctification. We pursue holiness, becoming more like Christ every day. That process is slowed when we give in to sin. When we cast sin aside and pursue Christ, we speed ahead. To do this, we focus on Jesus. He is the author of our faith and the perfecter of it. He started our faith and he completes it. You can focus on sin or on Christ. When you focus on Christ, you seek to live like he did and in a way that pleases him. You pursue holiness. You humbly serve. You worship. You pray. You grow. You look forward to finishing well. Here is an example from a real race. In 1986, Ricky Cox was a local hero as a runner. He entered the Cowtown Marathon and the locals wanted him to win. His strongest opponent was Max Cordero, who won the race several times. I went down to the North side of town, a few miles from the finish, to watch the runners go by. To my dismay, Cordero came around the corner first. I kept waiting for Cox, but he didn’t come. Finally, a few minutes behind the leader, he came around the corner. But an amazing thing happened. He started shedding weight. I took off his gloves. He removed his hat. He took off his shirt. He looked ahead and started running to catch Cordero. It was exciting and it made me think of this verse. He caught Cordero close to the finish and won the race. But, to do so, he shed every encumbrance he could and focused on the end. It is a good example for us.

Formatting

I apologize for the new format, where all of the text is printed with no paragraph. I cannot figure out why Blogger is doing this to the post. In draft, it has the paragraphs inserted, but when published it is all one block. I hope you'll bear with me until I figure it out. Thanks for reading.

HEROES OF THE FAITH 5

Faith At Jericho Hebrews 11:30 Joshua was the successor of Moses. (Deuteronomy 31:1-3; Joshua 1:1-2) Under the leadership of Joshua, the Israelites carried out an unusual attack on the walled city of Jericho right after they entered Canaan. (Joshua 6) They marched around it for 6 days. (This may have been the first “prayer walk”.) They carried the ark with them. Seven priests carried seven trumpets, but did not blow them. On the seventh day, they went around seven times, but on the seventh time the priests blew the trumpets and the people shouted. When they shouted and blew horns on the 7th day, the walls came tumbling down. They marched and shouted because they believed God and trusted him to conquer the city. The Faith of Rahab Hebrews 11:31 Joshua 2 records the story of Rahab, who hid the 2 Israelites spies from the king of Jericho and professed her faith in God. She said “I know that the LORD has given you the land”. (Joshua 2:8) Because she did this, God spared her and her family. Everyone else in Jericho was killed. Rahab risked death by hiding the spies because she looked forward in faith to a future preservation. After Rahab joined the nation of Israel, she married a man named Salmon, whose father was Nahshon, the leader of Judah in the Exodus. (Matthew 1:5) They had a son named Boaz. They had a great grandson named David the king of Israel. (Matthew 1:6) The Faith of Many Others Hebrews 11:32-39 Verse 32 lists Old Testament judges, King David, and prophets. All of the people listed went through difficult times. They worked, they suffered and some were killed. The writer listed a number of those difficult events. It is likely his Jewish audience could remember all the stories and knew who did what. I’m not going to try to list them all for you. But there is an important point for the original audience and for us. The original audience was experiencing difficulties. Evidently, they had experienced some persecution. Chapter 10 reveals that they experienced hard struggle with sufferings, public reproach and affliction, imprisonment, and loss of property. (Hebrews 10:32-34) In the face of these troubles, some left the faith and others were tempted to. So, the writer of Hebrews says look at all of these Old Testament believers who suffered greatly. They did so because they believed God for an eternal reward. And so should you. This applies to us as well. We have not experienced much persecution in America. But there has been some and more will come. People have been given tickets for having Bible studies in their home. Churches have been denied permits to build. Certainly, we are ridiculed in movies, television shows and books. The Army recently briefed soldiers on hate groups and included the American Family Association with the KKK and other violent groups. These things are more opposition than persecution, but more will likely follow. If you live in a country with active persecution, you may think it is silly even to mention these things. But what do you do in the face of opposition or persecution? Do you shut up? Do you abandon your faith? Or do you endure. Or what if your struggle is personal, not related to persecution. What if you are ill, or poor or unhappy? Do you abandon God or cling to him. Hebrews says we endure and cling to faith in God in all circumstances. This brings us to an interesting statement in verses 39 and 40 of Hebrews 11. All of the people listed in chapter 11 had faith in God. They all suffered for their faith and endured. Verse 39 says they were commended for their faith. “Commend” means to praise or approve. Yet, none of them received the fulfillment of God’s word. They did not see the promise come to completion. (39) Why was that? Why did God do it that way? Verse 40 says it is because God had something better for us. That something better is Christ. And, with Christ, it is the new covenant, the better priesthood and eternal life. This book has told us repeatedly that Christ is better than Moses. He is the better mediator, he is the better sacrifice and he is the better high priest. It has told us that the New Covenant is better than the Old Covenant. The old covenant saints looked forward to Christ in faith and were saved. We look to Christ and are saved. We are saved together by faith and will be made perfect at his coming. Only when Christ came did God’s promise begin to be completely fulfilled. Yet they all died in faith, believing God would do it. The “something better” was and is Christ. Only by faith in Christ does a person receive the fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham. In Christ, a great nation called the church is built. In Christ, people of all nations are blessed. In Christ eternal life is given, a land in which to live forever in the presence of God. But all believers of all time share this: we will eventually be made perfect. In this life we continue to grow spiritually, to experience greater sanctification, but still struggle. In the end, though, we will not struggle, we will rejoice. The perfect work of the perfect Son of God will make us perfect.