WWUTT 1881 Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12-1-3)

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Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles, and run with endurance the race set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast. That we may be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the

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Lord. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We are in the home stretch of our study of the book of Hebrews.

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Two chapters left to go, chapters 12 and 13. We made it through the long chapter.

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I said at the beginning of the study we would spend the most time in chapter 11. We finished going through the

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Hall of Faith, so now we come to chapter 12 as we continue this argument that the preacher is presenting.

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That Christ is our salvation, by faith. And there is no other way of salvation, but through faith in Christ alone.

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So let me begin by reading verses 1 -17 of chapter 12 out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary, fainting in heart.

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You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons.

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My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him.

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For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He flogs every son whom

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He receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

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But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

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Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the

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Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time, as seemed best to them.

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But He disciplines us for our benefit, so that we may share

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His holiness. And all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, but to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

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Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the

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Lord. Seeing to it that no one falls short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many are defiled.

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That also there be no sexually immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

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For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears."

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So you hear the preacher shifting back to this rebuke, this warning that he is giving to his hearers that they not fall away.

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Some of them are starting to fall into things that are compromising their faith.

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And do not think of yourself as being so strong that you won't turn away from your faith to the thing your flesh wants, to the thing the world is offering.

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Consider again verses 14 -15, Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the

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Lord, seeing to it that no one falls short of the grace of God.

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Don't fall short of the goal. And what is this wonderful picture we have that starts the chapter, this metaphor that the preacher presents, running the race, fixing our eyes on Jesus?

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These are the verses that we'll consider today, verses 1, 2, and 3. So let's start back at the beginning of chapter 12.

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Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, what are we talking about there?

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That's in reference to the Old Testament faithful that we just read about in Hebrews 11.

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They are a great cloud of witnesses. Now, this passage tends to get kind of twisted.

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And you know what I'm referring to, right? How is this often talked about? Like this great cloud of witnesses is usually what?

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Our dead relatives or somebody. When somebody has died, a fellow Christian has died and gone to be with the

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Lord in glory, we think they've joined that cloud of witnesses and they're watching us from heaven.

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There are also certain traditions, thinking of like the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox, they will say that you can pray to this cloud of witnesses.

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Those faithful saints that have gone before us, they will take our prayers before Christ, which is silly.

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There isn't a mediator between us and God. There is one mediator between God and man, and that is

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Jesus Christ. As it says in 1 Timothy 2, 5, there is not another mediator. So you don't need to pray to anyone else,

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Mary or anyone. You can go straight to God through Jesus Christ.

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There's not a reason to have to say or to pray to somebody that is going to therefore take your requests before God.

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To do so, by the way, if you're praying to a person who has died, or I know sometimes those traditions will say they haven't died, they're still alive, they've just fallen asleep.

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Okay, granted. But if you're praying to somebody who is a person, who is a human being that is not the incarnate son of God, who is

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Jesus Christ, you're just praying to a normal human who has died and gone to be with the

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Lord in glory. You are ascribing to that person godlike qualities that no one possesses even after they die.

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We are not omnipresent when we die. And if you think that you can pray to a dead saint after they've died, you're ascribing to them omnipresence, that they are always everywhere, all the time, and no matter where you are, they will hear your prayers, which, by the way,

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Scripture does not say anywhere that this happens. There is not one place in the

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Bible where it says that somebody who has died and gone to be with the Lord in glory can hear what anybody's doing or hear anyone's prayers and therefore take those prayers before the

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Father. It's not said in Scripture anywhere. But this is one of those verses that gets ripped out of context and twisted to be applied that way.

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We're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and we're talking about the faithful who have gone before us.

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So they're watching us, they see us, they hear us, and can even take our requests before God.

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Absolutely not. We are not to pray to anyone but God. And Scripture is plainly clear about that.

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Jesus saying in John 14 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

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No one comes to the Father but by me. And I'd already referenced to you 1

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Timothy 2 5 about Christ being our mediator between God and man. And we also read in 1

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John 2 1, my little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the

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Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is our only access to God.

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So what are we to understand then by this great cloud of witnesses? Well, it doesn't mean that we witness to them.

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It means they witness to us. Like we're not down here running a race and the witnesses are like a big audience around an auditorium or a big stadium cheering us on as we go.

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That's another way this verse tends to get twisted and applied. They're a great cloud of witnesses. We have the reference to the running the race with endurance that comes in the rest of the verse.

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So therefore, there they are all around the stadium cheering us on just like they're up in heaven right now cheering us on.

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That's not what that means, because that's not the context at all. They witness to us in the sense that we have just read their testimonies and how they, by faith, endured to receive the promise.

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And so as we have so great a cloud of witnesses. So many of these, not just the names that were mentioned, but even more names that went on to be talked about, right?

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Verse 32. And what more shall I say for time will fail me if I recount Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, as well as David and Samuel and the prophets, many, many more that could be talked about names beyond what was listed in just these 40 verses of Hebrews 11.

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And so as we consider them a great cloud of witnesses, they are testifying to us by their stories that are recalled in scripture of they who believed

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God and were approved because of their faith. It was credited to them as righteousness.

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So following their example, that's another way of saying the beginning of Hebrews 12 one.

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Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, it is another way of saying, so following their example, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

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Now that's the metaphor. We shouldn't be thinking of the great cloud of witnesses as the audience that's up there cheering us on because you're bringing that into the metaphor.

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The first statement there in chapter 12 is a summation of what was said in Hebrews 11.

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Now we're giving application to the cloud of witnesses in light of all of these saints that have been talked about in the hall of faith in Hebrews 11.

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How do we apply that now? So the summary is there are a great cloud of witnesses. Now here's the metaphor.

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The cloud of witnesses is not in the stadium cheering us on as we run a race. Now we get to the metaphor of let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

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Now we have that statement at the start of chapter 12 and then there is the statement which

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I mentioned to you a little bit later on warning that we would not fall short of the goal.

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Verse 15, see to it that no one falls short of the grace of God that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble and by it many would be defiled.

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If we fall short of the grace of God then we don't reach the goal.

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We don't finish the race. We don't enter into glory to be with God and we're not following the examples that were given to us previously in Hebrews 11.

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If we don't finish the race, if we're not running the race with endurance and finishing the race then we're not following those examples.

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But it's not the examples that we fix our eyes upon because you're not running toward Abel or Moses or Abraham or any of the other people that were mentioned in Hebrews 11.

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You're not running toward those examples. They are real -life examples that we should follow and recognize we're not going through anything new or anything extraordinary.

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They went through these things as we will go through difficulties in life but continue to look to Christ.

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We are to fix our eyes there on Jesus. And that's something that is regularly said throughout the scriptures whether you're talking about in Matthew chapter 6 where Jesus says, seek first, set your eyes upon first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the things you need in this life will be added to you as well.

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Colossians 3, 1 through 4 where it says, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

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Set your minds on things that are above not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

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When Christ who is your life appears then you also will appear with him in glory.

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So we fix our eyes on Christ, the author and the perfecter of faith.

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So we're fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.

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And I love those two words describing Christ there as the author and perfecter of our faith because in other words, he gave it to you.

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The author of your faith is not you. It is God. God gave you your faith and he grows you in your faith.

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The author of your faith, God. The perfecter of your faith, still God, Jesus.

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Jesus gave you your faith and he perfects you in your faith. As we read in Philippians 1 .6,

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I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you, in Christ Jesus, will be faithful to complete it in the day of Christ.

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So he is the author of our faith, he perfects us in this faith. And then

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Christ is our ultimate example. So we've had all these examples given in Hebrews 11, where do we fix our eyes?

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We fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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So ultimately our example is Christ. Now Jesus is not merely an example.

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He is God. He is the son of God who was sent to be a propitiatory, atoning sacrifice for our sins.

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He gave his life in submission to the Father. He died on a cross to pay the penalty for man's sin.

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And whoever believes in him will be forgiven their sin and will have everlasting life with him.

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We will not perish under the judgment of God, which we all deserve. But we will be raised to new life and given an eternal inheritance with the

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Son. He who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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So he's our ultimate example. But he's also ultimately God, whom we are to fix ourselves upon.

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Verse 3, continuing that thought, For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary, fainting in heart.

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Very fascinating to consider that Jesus Christ subjected himself to the very people who had rebelled against him.

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We had rebelled against God. We disobeyed God. We went our own way and rejected

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God. God put on flesh and dwelt among us, Jesus Christ, and subjected himself to those who were made in his image and desecrated that image with their sin.

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Jesus did that so that they who hate God would be saved from the judgment that is coming against them because of their sin.

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What an incredible act of love and mercy that God himself has provided for us a way to be saved from the judgment that we deserve because of our sin.

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And it's only in Jesus Christ. Consider him who endured such hostility by sinners against himself.

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And we are to consider this so that you will not grow weary, fainting in heart.

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Again, these warnings that we've been given throughout Hebrews, that we would not become weak and fall away, that we would not lose sight of the message of this gospel, the one the gospel points us to, and that's

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Jesus Christ, that we would not lose our gaze or look at the world.

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We take our eyes off Jesus and look at everything else that's going on in the world. But fix your eyes on him.

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When a runner runs the race, where are his eyes focused? He's not looking down at his feet.

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He's not looking off into the crowd. If a runner looks anywhere else, it could throw him off balance.

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He could fall out of his lane. He could become disqualified as a result of that. The best athletes have their eyes focused on the prize.

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They have their eyes focused on the goal when they're training. Even if they're not out there on the track, even if it's not race day, they're still thinking in their minds of the goal.

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They have it focused. It's right before them, because that's their aim. That's what they want.

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And the best athletes with the best focus in the most training are going to be the ones that come out winning. And so we need to, in a spiritual sense, do the same, fixing our eyes on Christ and not letting ourselves be distracted to anything else or anywhere else, looking at our feet, looking out at the sky, watching the birds, looking out at the crowd or, you know, the cute little cheerleaders over there.

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Why don't I just go be with them instead of having my mind in this race here? And all of a sudden, your eyes have gone somewhere else.

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You're out of your lane and suddenly you're disqualified. And just like that, it's all over.

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We fix our eyes on Christ. Fix your eyes on the prize is how that colloquialism goes.

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But it is it's good to apply here, because that is exactly what the preacher is saying.

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Fix your eyes on Jesus. Do not grow weary and faint in heart.

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Fix your eyes on Christ, and by his strength, you will endure to the end.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we've read here today in Hebrews chapter 12. And I pray that we understand how to apply that to our lives.

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The warnings that we've been given here in Hebrews about not falling away, recognizing that Christ is the only savior.

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There is no other savior. There is only Christ so that we would fix our eyes on him.

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We have examples to follow. But Christ is ultimately our example, for he himself suffered in obedience to the father.

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So we must be willing to suffer ourselves in obedience to God. For great is the reward in the end for those who trust in Jesus.

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Thank you for your love and your grace, your mercy to us. And may we live according to your will today.

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It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers, and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

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You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word when we understand the text.