Dealing with that Troubling, Besetting Sin 08/29/2021

First Baptist Church Leominster

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In his absence today, Dave Ferrer will come and read for us 1 Thessalonians chapter 1.

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This was a troubled church, it had been in error regarding the second coming of Christ and one of the motivations of Paul writing to them was straighten them out on this and to comfort their souls.

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First Thessalonians chapter 1. 1

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Thessalonians chapter 1. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the church of the

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Thessalonians, in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, grace to you and peace.

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We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our

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God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our

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Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you, not only in word but also in power, in the

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Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of man we prove to be among you for your sake.

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And you became imitators of us and of the Lord for you received the word in much affliction with the joy of the

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Holy Spirit so that you became an example to all of the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.

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For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere so that we need not say anything for they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception to God from idols to serve the living and true

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God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead,

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Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. And let's pray.

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This morning, Lord, we are glad to come into your house to worship you.

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We're thankful, Father, for your comfort and your kindness to us, even in these troubled times.

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So, Father, we commit our lives to you today. Pray that you'd use us mightily in your church and your community.

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So we ask, Father, now you bless our pastor as he brings the word to us.

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May you fill him with your Holy Spirit. And may he fill us,

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Lord, each one of us, with the Holy Spirit, as we may learn some new things today and be helpful to us.

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For Christ's sake, amen. Well, let's turn, please, this morning to Hebrews chapter 12.

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Last Lord's Day, we completed our series on the unconverted believer.

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And so we're going to start a new series two weeks from today. Pastor Jason should be okay to preach next

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Sunday. I haven't really determined, you know, exactly the content of the next series.

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I was thinking about, you know, addressing a biblical worldview and trying to hit a lot of the isms that we have to deal with in today's culture and world.

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That would probably be appropriate. Or I thought about just preaching the subjects following our confession.

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I did that years and years ago, but it needs to be done again. And so I'm working on that.

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Appreciate your prayers for us. So I thought today that I would address this matter of dealing with that troubling, besetting sin.

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So this is something that I'm sure all of us can relate to and find pertinent for every one of us, of course.

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As a Christian, I suspect struggles with perhaps a specific sin in our lives that persists regardless of the concern that we have felt, the efforts that we have exerted, and perhaps even the prayers that we have offered to our

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Lord to deliver us, that sin nevertheless is there and troubles us and plagues us.

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It is the common experience of most Christians to struggle with a troubling, besetting sin of which they seem to be unable to subdue and defeat.

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If that happens to be your situation, well, don't think that you are abnormal or unusual.

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This is the nature of the Christian life. And so we'll give our attention to this matter this morning by considering the context and message of Hebrews 12, verses 1 through 3.

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Let's read these verses. This is from the New King James Version. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto

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Jesus, the author and finisher 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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Now the great theme of the epistle to the Hebrews is that of the importance of Christians persevering in their faith in the

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Lord Jesus unto their full and final salvation. The Jewish Christians to whom this epistle was written were tempted to abandon their faith in Jesus due to the threat of both political as well as spiritual forces that could bring them great difficulty because they were

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Christian, because they professed faith in Christ. And so the writer of this epistle, after a number of strong exhortations up to this point in his letter, strong exhortations to persevere in faith, he set forth here these few verses,

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Hebrews 12, 1 through 3, the need for his readers to focus upon and to depend upon the

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Lord Jesus in order to be strengthened with needful grace to preserve them in faith through difficulties.

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The writer built upon what he had laid forth in chapter 11, I trust that we are all familiar with Hebrews 11, which is a rehearsal of a number of Old Testament people who through all their trials and troubles persevered in faith through life and thereby they pleased

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God. The writer at the opening of chapter 12 becomes direct in his exhortation and encourages readers to persevere following the lead and the example of the people of God who persevered in their faith before them, those recounted in Hebrews chapter 11, follow their example.

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But although the writer sets forth the Old Testament saves to be premier examples of faith, only the Lord Jesus can be the believer's object of faith and that's extremely important.

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It is faith in Jesus alone that enables a Christian to persevere unto salvation.

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The Jewish believers should persevere their faith as did many who had lived and gone on before them but further, they should persevere in their faith because Jesus had done so.

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And that's the emphasis that the writer gives, the Lord Jesus had persevered and gone ahead and therefore they in following him should do likewise.

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And so we exhorted them to make Jesus Christ the object of their reflection and their concentration and if they would do so then they would discover and they would receive strength and encouragement to persevere their faith in Jesus Christ.

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And so essentially if we can boil it down we would say the way you deal with that besetting sin is you have to look unto

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Jesus. It sounds very simple but for some reason we tend not to do so regularly and faithfully.

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We want to consider the message of the passage generally and then we'll examine a few details more directly and thoroughly as we work through these three verses.

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So let's consider first the message of our passage. Jesus is set forth as a pioneer and perfecter of faith in Hebrews 12, 1 through 3.

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Verse 1 reads, therefore we also, let me just underscore here it's talking about Christians, it's not everybody in the world, there's no answer for you if you're outside of Christ to deal with some single besetting sin.

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The problem is you're under sin, you need to come to Christ initially in salvation.

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This message has to do with Christians dealing with sin in their lives, not the non -Christian.

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Therefore we also, professing Christians, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance or perseverance the race that is set before us.

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So the writer first makes reference to all of the witnesses to faith he had set before them in chapter 11.

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He described them as so great a cloud of witnesses. Now they are not witnesses of us, that is the writer is not saying that they are watching us and scrutinizing us, although this verse is commonly interpreted this way we think wrongly.

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No they are not spectators of us but they are witnesses to what endurance and faith looks like.

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In other words, they serve as examples to us. They testify for us the nature of true faith that pleases

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God, as one wrote. But in what sense are they witnesses? Not probably in the sense of spectators watching their successors as they in turn run the race for which they have entered, but rather the sense that by their loyalty and endurance they have borne witness to the possibilities of the life of faith.

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It's not so much they who look at us as we who look to them for encouragement.

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And so they're not witnesses of what we are doing but we are witnesses of what they had done.

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They bear witness of what they had done. They have borne witness to a life of faith which we should emulate.

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And so we're to look at them as ones who finished ahead of us. They witness to us what a life of faith entails and contains and obtains.

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The writer is basically saying because we have so many examples of persons who persevered in faith throughout their lives unto death, should not we therefore receive encouragement from their witness and do likewise?

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Again the saints of chapter 11 are described as so great a cloud of witnesses. Now here it would seem that the writer is referring to more

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Old Testament saints than just the ones he identified specifically in chapter 11. There's a whole cloud of the people of God who have gone on before us who have demonstrated and exhibited what faith is.

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The image of a cloud in scripture is commonly used to describe a group comprised of many in number.

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It's a cloud of witnesses. And so in this sense it would be like the expression a great host of witnesses, a great cloud of witnesses.

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Some have suggested that this is an analogy of Israel traveling through the wilderness following the cloud, the shekinah glory of God as the

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Israelites followed that cloud so New Testament Christians are to follow this cloud of witnesses that has gone on before them and leading to our heavenly rest, our promised

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Canaan, eternal life, heaven itself. The writer then exhorts his readers, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us.

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Now the weight and or the sin, they may be two separate things or maybe the weight

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I think is maybe the metaphor and then the sin is the definition of the metaphor to what the metaphor points.

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The weight and the sin which so easily besets us are those things that would prevent us from running and finishing a race.

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The Christian life of faith is likened to one who is in a race who may be assured of receiving the prize of eternal life upon finishing the race.

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The one who runs should not therefore drop out of the race, that is for sake Christ, commit apostasy.

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Sin which so easily ensnares us will lead to that fate if it's not dealt with rightly.

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It is sin in general that's being referenced perhaps rather than one specific sin but certainly it makes application to any individual sin with which we struggle.

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Any kind of sin might become something that will trip you while attempting to run and therefore you to cast it aside.

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And so the great need of professing Christians is to complete the race. Therefore they had the great need to jettison anything that may hinder them from advancing in faith onto their final destination which is to be brought into the presence of Jesus Christ with all his brethren.

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Some have referred this to the spiritual work of the mortification of the believer, putting to death sin.

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And then they would speak about the therefore run, the running as a vivification, putting on, mortification as putting off.

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And so the great need of course is to deal with sin in our lives. There are those that have sought to distinguish between laying aside every weight and laying aside every sin.

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They argue that the weight represents those things that may not be wrong in themselves but they are to be cast aside by the

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Christian because they will hinder his running his race before the Lord. If I can just diverge a little bit,

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I like cars. And I have to keep that down. I don't imagine it would go well if I drove up in a

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Porsche these days, all right. But I had three of them when I was a young man before going into the ministry.

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Yesterday coming home with Mary, there's a Lamborghini Countach on the road followed up by a

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V12 Mercedes. You know, these things are attractive and, you know,

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I like the performance not to be seen in one. I don't care about that. But I can't go there.

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I'm not saying it's wrong in and of themselves but it wouldn't be good for me. It would be a weight, a sin that I've got to cast off.

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I'm not going there. And so the weight represents those things that may not be wrong in and of themselves but it could be wrong to you.

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It would be wrong, it would have a wrong influence and impact upon you and your

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Christian walk if you went there. Don't go there. We are to cast aside as Christians because they will hinder us, hinder our running, our race of faith before the

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Lord. Thomas Manton wrote, by weight is meant those things that burden the soul and make our heavy progress more tedious and cumbersome.

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By weight, I think, the delights and cares of the world, the multitude of secular business, all our earthly contentments and affairs, as far as they are a burden to us, hinder us in our way to heaven, these must be put off, the business and cares of this world for these are moderately followed and not in obedience to God are a sore burden and makes the soul heavy and allows no time and strength for God and his service and those happy opportunities of private communion with him.

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We are busy people living in a busy world and there's some things you have to put aside. Our Lord's words are commonly quoted in this regard,

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Jesus told his disciples, take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing drunkenness, cares of this life and all of us have cares of this life, that that day, the second coming, come on you unexpectedly.

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Well, in contrast to the weight or in addition to the weight, the sin on the other hand, some argue, distinguished from every weight, they may encumber us as a reference to specific transgressions of God's laws from which we are to repent before the

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Lord. As one wrote, the next thing to be laid off is sin, which doth so easily beset us as we must guard against things without, in other words, outside of us, the weight hanging off our bodies, so we must mortify our corrupt inclinations within or else it will soon make us weary of our heavenly race or faint in it.

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In every man there is some predominant sin and in every regenerate person, born again person, some relics of that sin from whence or from where comes is the greatest danger to his soul.

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Well then, this is that sin that easily beset us, original sin improved into some tyranny or evil custom which doth increase and prevail upon us more and more.

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Now this is said easily to beset us for three reasons, partly because it hath a great power and restraint over us, so great an interest hath it acquired in our affections, it doth easily beset us, it hath great power and command over us, secondly, partly because it sticks so close that we cannot by our own strength lay it aside, and third, partly because it mingles itself with all our motions and actions, it becomes a habit.

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You know, the world calls it addiction, the Bible calls it slavery. It easily besets us, it is present with us, it impels us, solicits us, and draws us to sin further and further and doth make us negligent in what is

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God's, got to deal with these. And so deliberate and specific steps of action must be taken by us or we will not stand.

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Again, we're not talking about losing your salvation, but this is what Christians do, they follow the word of God and they do what they command, and these are the steps, these are the means by which

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God directs his people to their promised end. And so we're told to lay aside every weight, the sin which so easily it stares us.

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The metaphor may be of one who's about to begin a race, I don't think so, but some argue this.

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The ancient athlete would arrive to the arena clothed with outer garments, covering himself, underneath he had the barest of covering, and so that he could run the race unencumbered, he would remove the outer garments.

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He'd lay aside the loose -fitting toga, for he could not seriously run wearing such a thing and then he would get set to begin his race.

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So we're to lay aside any aspect of our lives that would hinder us from our life of faith in the Lord Jesus.

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There's a need for initial repentance when we enter the life of faith. But to me, the metaphor seems to go beyond this initial setting out upon a race.

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The weight spoken of may speak of an encumbrance that's picked up along the way. As you're running, something gets caught in your feet, you become entangled, you begin to look downward rather than forward, your forward progress is impeded.

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Well, these things must be removed and cast away from you as we take our eyes off of Jesus, and that's what's most important.

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Now, let's recall once again the message, main message of the book of Hebrews, is that salvation is presented or finally acquired after this life has been lived out in faith.

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It's like Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan, leaving the city of destruction, arriving at the celestial city, but there's a long, difficult, arduous path getting there, and that is the life of faith.

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And here, the metaphor is that of a race, a race that is run. There's no hope for the one who went along with Christ for a while and then turned back.

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Consider pliable and timorous, for example, in Pilgrim's Progress, who said that's enough for us, we've got to turn back.

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God promises no salvation to the temporary believer. He's not a true believer. The writer never says that these apostates lost their salvation, rather, he viewed them as unbelievers, for they had forsaken

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Christ, who is the only hope of salvation. They did not have true faith. John Brown wrote, verses 1 and 2, the words which follow in chapter 12, 1 and 2, contain the practical improvement of the apostles' long and eloquent historical proof and illustration of the power of persevering faith to enable men to do whatever

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God commands, however difficult, to endure whatever God appoints, however severe, and to obtain whatever

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God promises, however great and glorious, strange and apparently unattainable. They are substantially an exhortation to the

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Hebrew Christians to a steady, active, persevering discharge of Christian duty, notwithstanding all the privations and sufferings, dangers and difficulties to which this might expose them.

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So we are to discard that which may hinder us, for we must complete successfully that to which our

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Lord has directed us. Here are some more words of Thomas Manton, who expressed it, a series of questions and answers.

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Question, now what is it to lay aside, or how can we lay aside, since sin sticks so close to us and is engraven in our natures?

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Answer, certainly something may be done by us, for this is everywhere pressed as our duty,

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Ephesians 4, 22, put off the old man, as well as 1 Peter 2, 11. We may put it off more and more, though we cannot lay it aside.

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We're always putting it off, but it's always coming back. All right, we can't completely lay it aside, maybe, but we're to put it off.

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And then we are said to lay aside the sin that so easily besets us, when we prevent and break the dominion of it, that it shall not reign over us.

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It still troubles us, but it's not going to control us. Let not sin reign, that's a command, the first command in the book of Romans.

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Though it dwells in us, lives in us, works in us, yet it should not overcome us and bring us into bondage, and so it will not be imputed to our condemnation.

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In other words, on the Day of Judgment, we're blessed because the Lord will not impute sin to those

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Christians who live and die in faith. And at length, when the soul shall be separated from the body, we shall be wholly free from it.

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That day is coming. We're all troubled and plagued with sin. We all, as Christians, fight with it, deal with it.

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We all, nevertheless, have it persist, but we will be delivered from it one day.

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We then read the instruction of verse 1b, let us run with endurance, perseverance, the race that is set before us.

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This race, again, is the entire Christian life, from our conversion unto the end of this life of faith, when we depart from this world to be with Christ.

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You and I are in a race. It's to be a race run and completely completed successfully.

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And it's depicted as a prolonged race. It's not a sprint. Professing Christians can out sprint us in the short term, but true faith born of God's grace will continue, plug along, and we'll reach the end one day.

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The foot race was one of the five contests of the Pentathlon in the great Panhellenic, in other words,

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Greek games, and always came first. At the Olympic Games, the foot race was the only athletic contest for an extended period.

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The exhortation to run, then it has a Greek word, dehupomonis, with endurance, identifies the race not as a contest of speed, but of stamina.

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The allusion is to a distance race requiring discipline, commitment, and endurance. Not the sprinter, but the marathon runner.

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The race is but one of, of course, many metaphors the scriptures employ as portraying the

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Christian in pursuit of his salvation, his full and final salvation. We're not talking about being justified, which happened when we first believed, but we're talking about the full salvation that the scriptures speak about, deliverance from the penalty, the power, and ultimately from the presence of sin.

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The race is but one of many metaphors. Elsewhere, Christians are described as branches who must remain attached to the vine,

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Jesus Christ. If you become unattached, you're cast off to the side and burned as worthless branches.

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And then, of course, we read the Christian is also depicted as a spiritual soldier, waging lifelong warfare from which he must come forth the victor.

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The Christian is a traveler or pilgrim, which must complete his journey. The Christian is a fighter who must train and discipline himself to be able to defeat his opponent and win his match.

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Paul told Timothy, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life.

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This was Timothy, the way he was to live, to which you were also called, have confessed with the good confession of the presence of many witnesses.

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And then here in Hebrews 12, one, the metaphor of a race is employed to show the great need for effort and perseverance.

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Arthur Pink wrote a wonderful commentary on Hebrews. The principal thoughts suggested by the figure of the race are rigorous self -denial and discipline, vigorous exertion, persevering endurance.

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The Christian life is not a thing of passive luxuration, in other words, luxury, but of active fighting the good fight of faith.

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The Christian is not called to lie down on flowery beds of ease, but to run a race. And athletics is strenuous, demanding self -sacrifice, hard training, the putting forth of every ounce of energy possessed.

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I'm afraid that in this work -hating and pleasure -loving age, he wrote in the first half of the 20th century, we do not keep this aspect of the truth sufficiently before us.

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We take things too placidly and lazily. The charge which God brought against Israel of old applies very largely to Christendom today.

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Woe to them that are at ease in Zion. To be at ease is the very opposite of running the race.

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And Matthew Henry gave some detail and background to this metaphor of a race.

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He wrote, the apostle speaks in the gymnastic style taken from the Olympic and other exercises.

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First, Christians have a race to run, a race of service, a race of sufferings, a course of active and passive obedience, just like Jesus.

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Second, this race is set before them, it's marked out onto them both by the word of God and the examples of faithful servants of God, that cloud of witnesses with which they are encompassed about.

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It's set out by proper limits and directions, the mark they run to, the prize they run for are set before them.

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Third, this race must be run with patience and perseverance. There will be need of patience to encounter the difficulties that lie in our way, a perseverance to resist all temptations, to assist or turn aside.

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Faith and patience are the conquering graces and therefore must be always cultivated and kept in lively exercise.

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And four, Christians have a greater example to animate and encourage them in their Christian course than any or all who have been mentioned before.

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In other words, chapter 11, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ looking on to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

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And we consider verse 2, the instruction, looking on to Jesus, the author and finisher 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, he's enthroned.

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The position of authority and honor, ruling on behalf of his father. There's only one sure way to deal with sin, we're to look on to Jesus.

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If you have a besetting sin, your greatest need is not human pity, understanding or a support group, it's to get rid of that thing in order that you may look upon Jesus clearly and directly.

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Jesus is both the object as well as the source of faith. He is so because he too persevered through suffering and was adulted to God's throne because of having done so.

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And Jesus is set forth as standing at the finish line, looking on to Jesus. As we're running this marathon race of a lifetime, we're to see

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Jesus at the end. We're running not just to the finish line, but we're running to him who's standing there to greet us and congratulate us on our successful completion of our life of faith.

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Sin will cause one to stumble regarding his faith in Jesus. Do not look down at that which is the cause of stumbling, in other words, do not fixate on your sin, rather fixate your eyes on the one who can keep you from stumbling,

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Jesus Christ. And that is the major spiritual lesson, if I can underscore, that we need to take to heart.

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In my opinion, this is the basic problem of humanistic psychology, whether it's outside or inside the church.

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It can accurately describe the problem which causes the stumbling, they're very good at descriptive matters, but it fails to provide a cure.

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It can do a good job of describing a problem, it does a very poor job of prescribing a cure.

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These worldly would -be physicians of souls would have you look inward at yourself. Scripture would have you look upward to Jesus Christ, they would have you look backward at your past life,

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Scripture would have you look forward to your meeting with Christ, they would have you look closely at what you are suffering, the

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Word of God would have you look closely at what Christ suffered. It's a whole different perspective, worldview, and approach to dealing with matters.

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Jesus Christ is described as both the author and finisher of our faith, these terms are sometimes set forth as Jesus being the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith.

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Christ is the pioneer of our faith in that he blazed the trail first, opening the way before his people that they might follow him and his path to glory.

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Christ is the finisher and perfecter of our faith in two ways, first, he has finished or perfected our faith in that he first finished or completed the race of faith through his own life of faith and obedience, and then second, he's the finisher and protector of our faith in that he is strengthening us and he is leading us to arrive at the same destination.

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And so Christ also is the finisher of our faith in that he has not only gone in advance of us, showing us the way of faith, but he strengthens us in order to help us complete our own race.

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Jesus said, without me you can do nothing. As one wrote, this was

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F .F. Bruce who wrote a wonderful commentary on the English text of Hebrews, not only is

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Jesus the pioneer of faith, in him faith has reached its perfection. He trusts in God, they said as he stood by his cross, the implication was, much good his trust in God is doing him now.

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The words, though not their implication, were truer than they knew. The whole life of Jesus was characterized by unbroken and unquestioning faith in his heavenly father, and never more so when in Gethsemane he committed himself to his father's hands for the ordeal of the cross with the words, not what

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I will, but what thou wilt. It was sheer faith in God, unsupported by any visible or tangible evidence that carried him through the taunting, the scourging, the crucifying, and the more bitter agony of rejection, desertion, and dereliction.

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Come down from the cross and we will believe, they said, had he come down by some gesture of supernatural power, he would never have been hailed as a perfecter of faith, nor would he have left any practical example for others to follow.

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The fact that the writer just referred to the Savior simply by the name Jesus, not

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Jesus Christ, not Jesus Christ the Lord, not the Lord, but Jesus, without any other title or description shows that the emphasis, the focus, is on the person of Jesus with particular attention to his human nature and the struggle that he endured and overcame.

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Look unto Jesus, his human nature. Contemplation of Jesus offers paramount encouragement to Christians in their struggle, wrote one.

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The appeal in verse two is for a concentrated attention that turns away from all distractions with eyes only for the person of Jesus.

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The use of the simple personal name Jesus shows that the accent is upon his humanity and especially his endurance of pain, humiliation, and the disgrace of the cross.

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Concentrated attention upon the person of Jesus and his redemptive accomplishment on behalf of the new people of God typifies the fundamental challenge of Hebrews.

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In other words, this commentator was saying that this is an emphasis throughout the epistle of Hebrews that's being pronounced.

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You got to look unto Jesus, particularly his sufferings and how he overcame. And so in these few verses,

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God is pressing upon us the same thing that has continued throughout this epistle. The greatest need we have is for faith that will persevere.

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The way to obtain that needed faith is to make a study of Jesus. We are to be looking unto

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Jesus. He not only fully exhibits the nature, form, and path of faith, but he has perfected faith in his own sufferings.

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He, Jesus, exemplified perfect faith in his obedience unto death. On the matter of Jesus having endured the cross again,

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F .F. Bruce wrote, he endured the cross despising the shame. To die by crucifixion was to plumb the lowest depths of disgrace.

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It was a punishment reserved for those who were deemed of all men most unfit to live, a punishment for sub -men.

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From so degrading a death, Roman citizens were exempt from ancient statute. The dignity of the

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Roman name would be besmirched by being brought into association with anything so vile as the cross.

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For slaves and criminals of low degree, it was regarded as a suitable means of execution and a grim deterrent to others.

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But this disgrace Jesus disregarded as something not worthy to be taken into account when it was a question of his obedience to the will of God.

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So he brought faith to perfection in his endurance of the cross, and now the place of highest exaltation is his.

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The pioneer of salvation has been made perfect through sufferings and has therefore taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

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His exaltation there, with all that it means for his people's well -being and for the triumph of God's purpose in the universe, is the joy that was set before him, for the sake of which he submitted to shame and death.

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And so the joy set before him was not the sufferings he endured, he was despising the shame of the cross that he endured.

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The joy was the triumphant vindication of his obedient life upon his exaltation, but further is joy at the prospect of bringing many sons to glory through his sufferings.

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The right hand of the throne of God is a place of honor and co -regent rule with the Father. Jesus is now ruling with the

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Father over heaven and earth. King Jesus is ruling over history right now.

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We next read in verse 3, for consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

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If you're weary and discouraged in your souls as a Christian, it's probably because you're not considering him in his sufferings.

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If you fail or refuse to consider Jesus in his sufferings, you will become weary in your

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Christian walk and you may indeed become discouraged. Now by way of reminder, the readers of this epistle were probably

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Jewish Christians who were under threat of persecution, were being tempted to forsake Christ, revert to Judaism which was a sanctioned religion by Rome at the time.

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They would grow weary and lose heart, that is they would become discouraged and lose resolve to persevere in faith if they failed to continually consider

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Jesus. And so here's a biblical prescription to deal with discouragement and depression in a

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Christian. Be thinking about, that is meditating upon, Jesus and his sufferings.

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Furthermore, this is the biblical description of the cause of discouragement and depression in a

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Christian, having failed to have been thinking about Jesus and his sufferings. And thus we see that the preaching of the cross, the gospel, is not simply something that should be used to win the lost, to get them converted, but it also serves to preserve the faithful through life.

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And we might say that as one contemplates the life of Jesus that was poured out on Calvary, life is poured into the contemplator, the one who thinks upon Jesus.

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Ignore the instruction of Hebrews 12, 3 and you will be drained of life. You will become discouraged and depressed.

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Now let's draw a few words of exhortation. Let's take the message to heart, consider some of its implications.

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God tells us, lay aside every weight, the sin which so easily ensnares us, let us run with endurance the race set before us.

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The writer presents three emphases in these verses. First, we are to finish the race, second, he identifies the means by which the race may be finished, putting away sin, and third, he tells the manner by which you put away besetting sin, looking on to Jesus.

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First, let us finish the race of faith. We started out well, let us finish well, it's all important.

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These Christians to whom this epistle was written had issues and situations that threatened their continuing in faith, and we too have obstacles and deterrents that we must resist and overcome.

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If you do not have them immediately before you, you may be assured that they are in your path before you, there's that hill of difficulty before you, there's that valley of humiliation, there's that valley of the shadow of death, there's danger ahead, we'll encounter it.

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Granted, we do not yet struggle with physical threat of persecution under which they labored, but there are

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Christians all over the world doing so right now. There's Christians, Christian missionaries in Afghanistan, Christian Afghans right now, of course, who are in great danger because of their faith.

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We don't live in a society that oppresses faith as in many other places, but we do live in a world that largely disregards faith.

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You're viewed as really an ignoramus if you're a Christian these days. You're non -scientific, they would accuse you, uneducated, ignorant, and so there's a danger.

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We live and move about daily in our world, we can lose our focus on Christ, we can be sapped of our resolve to live for Christ.

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Most of us live lives in which we think that we can get by really without a great deal of dependence upon him.

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Consequently, we're weakened and our faith is diluted. To run a race involves a committed resolve, training, deliberate effort, and so let us resolve to live and walk in faith, purposing, as God enables us, not to be deterred or distracted by anything the world may set before us or any sin that may be slowing us down or weighing us down.

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Secondly, let us be putting away that sin that hinders us presently, that besetting sin.

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Every one of us struggles with sin, no one's exempt. If you say you're not, the

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Bible says you're either deceiving yourself or you're lying because it's true of every Christian. Most of us do not just struggle with sin generally, but we may struggle with a singular particular recurring sin.

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There's always that sin that must be cast away. Arthur Pink wrote, it is true that each of us has some special form of sin to which we are most prone and that he is more sorely tempted from one direction than another.

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And this is very grievous to the tenderhearted Christian. It's very debilitating to the growth and holiness in our

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Christian experience. That one thing just tears me down, pulls me down.

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And so when we read in our passage of the sin that so easily besets you, when we read that initially, did one particular sin of yours come to your mind?

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Wouldn't be surprised if it did. Well let's consider just a few matters with regard to sin generally and maybe identify some sins specifically.

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First of all, of course, the Bible contains vice lists and there are numbers of them.

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There are many different kinds of sins from which we are to turn away. The sins we strive to eradicate from our lives comes in many forms.

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And so you can go to the New Testament and you can find lists of sins. For example, Jesus mentioned in Mark 7, 21 and following, for it's from within, from the human heart that evil intentions come and here's the list, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, and folly.

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That's within your heart and it'll come out. You have to deal with it. Some of these lists, they may come out, you know, more quickly, fully.

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One may be a besetting sin. Paul gave a vice list in Romans 1. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness.

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What is covetousness? I got to have this or that in order to be happy. I'm not perfectly content with what

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God has given me. I'm not content with what God has not given me. I must have. That's terrible sin, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossips, slanderers,

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God haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

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Then Paul in 1 Corinthians, do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived about this.

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He's writing to professing Christians, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites.

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That's not very popular in today's world. Thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers, none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

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Paul gave a rather extensive list in Ephesians. Lying, scaling, anger, corrupt words proceeding out of your mouth, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, put away from you all malice.

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You to be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God and Christ forgave you.

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Hard heartedness, a refusal to forgive. Colossians 3 contains a list.

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Put therefore to death your members, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry.

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And then another list, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.

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Do not lie to one another. Well so there are many sins, but generally there are three major categories of sin the scripture set forth.

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If one were to take all the sins and identify and list them, you could classify them into one of these three categories.

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First there are sins that may be classified under the heading of moral impurity, that would be sexual immorality, or sins of the flesh, sins against one's own body, that's what sexual immorality is, is generally committed with somebody else, but it's really a sin against your own body according to the scriptures.

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Selfishness lies at the heart of this sin. Flee sexual immorality. A second category of sins in the realm of corrupt temporal values, or more simply, greediness.

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Greed is a sin with respect to our relationship to physical things, we've got to have something.

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Greediness is a root sin, Paul wrote, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, it's a category as well.

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Greed doesn't matter, it's not dependent on how much is in your bank account, you can be broke and be the most greedy person in this room, if that's what consumes you, you could be the wealthiest person in this room and not greedy at all, greed has nothing to do with how much you have, or how much you don't have, it has to do with what you want, and you're angry.

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I remember talking to a man who got so angry with God, he was attending this church, this was 15 years ago, and he decided to leave, abandon the faith,

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I understand he came back, but his great point of anger, the reason that he was angry with God, God blessed

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Bill Gates and he didn't bless me, those were his very words, I thought, how in the world, you know, can you have that kind of thinking, you know, that somehow he thought

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God owed him a life of luxury and wealth, incredible, the

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Lord, he came back, by the way, a couple years later and personally apologized to him and acknowledged his great, great sin,

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God was very merciful to him, thank the Lord, but greediness.

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And then the third category is out of bitterness, and of the three I think this is the most difficult one to deal with, frankly, bitterness, you can point out a sexually immoral person, they're pretty quick to acknowledge it, it doesn't coincide with scripture righteousness, and a greedy person, you can pretty much show that or reveal that, but this last one is a tough one, bitterness, bitterness is a sin that surfaces in our relationships with other people or God himself, this sin is described in the scriptures as the pride of life, you know, the earlier ones, the lust of the flesh, that's the sexual immorality, or the lust of the eyes, that would be the greed matter, but the bitterness is the pride of life, and basically bitterness or anger is a refusal to forgive, principally, and other things, it's also described as a root of bitterness, it results in a worldly profane person like Esau, as Hebrews speaks about, but I think one of the reasons that bitterness is so hard to deal with is a bitter person always feels justified in that, yeah,

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I might be bitter, but look what he did to me, and so a bitter person feels justified in their hard feelings and their refusal to forgive another, and it takes great grace to deal with a bitter person, consider

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Esau toward his brother Jacob and his mother who betrayed him, so these three categories of sins may be seen as root sins, they branch off into all kinds of sin and life, virtually any sin we commit can probably be classified under one or more of these three headings, and we're to have these three areas in submission to the

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Lord Jesus, and so if you have sexual lust under control, if you're content with what things you have and with what things you do not have, and further, if you have a clear conscience in the arena of your interpersonal relationships, you're a long way advanced in the grace of sanctification in your life, but usually it takes quite a while before the

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Lord brings us to that place, and I've been working at it for, it'll be 50 years in January, and I hope to arrive there one day, but we're moving in that direction, aren't we all?

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That's what it is for the grace of sanctification. Top of page nine of your notes, as we try and wrap things up here, there are four ways in which sin may be committed by us.

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We certainly may sin against God through our thoughts or through our attitudes, our emotions, our affections, or thirdly our actions or fourthly our words, our speech regarding sinful thoughts, for out of the heart proceed, and the heart isn't just a place of affections, we commonly think of heart, how you feel, but in Scripture's heart is often the mind, what you're thinking, out of the heart come forth, proceed evil thoughts, see there's the thoughts, the part of the mind, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

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Attitudes will be assessed on the day of judgment, the secrets of men's hearts will be exposed, certainly our actions, every deed in which you'll convict, all ungodly deeds which they've committed in an ungodly way, and then our words,

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Jesus said on the day of judgment, your words are either going to be evidence that you're a true

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Christian or they're going to reveal that you're a hypocrite, your speech matters, what you say, as well as how you say it, matters, true people of Christian faith work on these things, it may be the sin that so easily besets you, where you lash out in anger with vile, vitriol words, harsh words, damnable words, foul language that shouldn't character,

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I shouldn't come forth, I'm a Christian, we ought to be on guard on these things. I might just interject this, there's some concern, and I understand this,

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I'm not condemning this in any way, there's some concern about our security cameras, and apparently they're recording sound and that, it's actually illegal, we're trying to deal with that, but I think to myself, well so what if they record my words, the

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Lord's recording every word, you know, and that's what really matters, why should I be concerned if that thing picks up the things

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I say, you know, but what we say is all important.

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And then thirdly we're to be looking on to Jesus, what do we mean by looking on to Jesus? By looking on to we mean an inward experience, a mental knowing, desiring, hoping, believing, loving, calling on Jesus, and conforming to Jesus, wrote

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Isaac Ambrose, I referred to him some years ago, three, four, four maybe years ago, who wrote a classic book based on Hebrews 12, one through three, 694 pages on Hebrews 12, one through three, entitled

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Looking on to Jesus, and he emphasized rightly that the exhortation is not only to be looking on to Jesus, but it implies looking away from other things, you cannot be looking on to both at the same time, look on to Jesus, as he wrote, first we must look off all other things, the note is this, we must take off our mind from everything that might divert us in our

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Christian race from looking on to Jesus, effrontes, that's the English transliteration of the

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Greek word, look on to, the first word or first piece of a word in my text speaks to us, thus hands off or eyes off from anything that stands in the way of Jesus Christ, I remember it was written over Plato's door, there's none may come hither that is not a geometer, in other words somebody who's really into math, but on the door of my text is written clean contrary, no earthly minded man must enter here, not anything in the world be it ever so excellent if it stand in the way of Jesus Christ is to be named the same day, we must not give a look or squint at anything that may hinder us, hinder this fair and lovely sight of Jesus, now we're exposed to all kinds of things, you cannot isolate yourself and somehow only see that which is pure and good and holy but you can think on those things and you can be exposed and be involved in seeing things going bad and wrong and evil about you and still your mind can be centered on Jesus and you're filtering everything through him and your understanding of the scripture, assessing, condemning things that you see and witness and behold, we read in Isaiah prophecy in that day a man will look to his maker,

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I see that as a prophecy, that's what we do today, we look upon Jesus Christ, looking on to Jesus, really this is the principle of Isaiah 17, we're to take our eyes off worthless things and have our respect for the holy one of Israel, looking at Jesus, did not our

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Lord himself say he who loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me, he who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, now we're to love our father and mother and our sons and daughters but we're to love our

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Lord, our God, Jesus Christ supremely and we're to fix our eyes first and foremost on Jesus Christ and then

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Ambrose set forth reasons why we should look off the things of this world and fix our eyes upon Jesus, consider that all other evil things are in God's account as very nothing, how does he regard those things to which we look and fascinate ourselves upon, second consider that all such things are trifles, deceits, thorns, miseries, uncertain things, in other words see them for as they truly are in the light of eternity, that gives you a proper perspective of things, third consider the difference of these objects,

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Christ and all other things, compare them, consider that Christ looked off heaven and heavenly things for you, how much more should you look off earth and earthly things and the world and worldly things for him, consider fifth that the rational soul of man is too high a birth to spend its strength on other things, you know you're created in the image of God, God has a noble glorious future for you, don't grovel in the dirt when you know you're destined for a throne and then consider how short is the time that you have here in this world, seven consider the great account that you're to give of all earthly things and then

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Ambrose next gave practical advice on how to look off of other things and look upon Jesus, first study every day more and more the vanity of the creature, read over the book of Ecclesiastes well, second converse but a little with any evil thing on this side of Christ, have a little to do with the world, the sinful pleasures, profits, riches, manners of it as possibly you can, the less the better, third be more and more acquainted with Jesus Christ, get nearer to him, be more in communion with him, get more taste of Christ in heaven and earth will relish the worst for them and four set before us the example of such saints,

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Hebrews 11 who accounted themselves pilgrims and strangers on the earth, five go into your meditations to heaven, keep there a while, the mind is in heaven, cannot attend these earthly things, if you're looking on to Jesus as we've described, you're not going to be looking at your sin, it will immediately, it will deliver you from your sin, you focus on your sin and look to that, there's no deliverance there, look on to Jesus, cried mightily unto

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God that he would take off your hearts and eyes, praise David, turn away my eyes from beholding vanity and so may the

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Lord enable us to live as our text instructs us, may we look upon Jesus and see all that truly satisfies in life, all that beautifies life is in him alone, may he enable us to see him who is invisible with the eyes of clear unobstructed faith, amen.

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May the Lord help us as we endure this fight and as we run this race,

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Lord willing, in an unencumbered way, let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your wonderful words of exhortation we find in Holy Scripture, help us our

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God to take these matters to heart, help us to see, Lord, the great privilege we have as your people, that we can even call upon you as our

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God through Jesus Christ, our Savior, and we pray that you would help us,

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Holy Spirit, give us grace that we might continually look upon Jesus Christ and particularly

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Jesus, Lord, in the way that he manifested faith in you, our

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Father, and how we endure all difficulty, hostility, and suffering in order to be true to you, believing on you, and help us, our

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God, to continue to believe unto the saving of the soul, for we pray these things, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.