Hebrews - Look by Faith

You and I as Christian believers are in God's gymnasium. We are being trained for Christian maturity. Now, this training is not easy, and sometimes the race that we are running is very difficult, and we feel like giving up. In fact, the book of Hebrews was written to a group of believers who wanted to quit. They wanted to give up and go back to the old life.

Hebrews 12:3 says, "lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." The weariness of the body and the fainting of the mind, this is what leads to defeat. You can just see that runner on the racetrack and his body is getting so tired, and his mind is getting so weary and he just wants to fall down someplace and go to sleep.

Well, God has a word of encouragement for us to help us keep going. This is why Hebrews was written. Let us go on to perfection. Let us go on to spiritual maturity.

Hebrews 12:1-4: "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience, with endurance, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin."

What he's saying here is simply keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't watch the other runners. You know the lane God has put you in, now you stay in that lane. Don't worry about the other runners. Don't spend a lot of time examining yourself, except to get rid of the excess weight and the unbelief and the other things that will tangle up your feet.

What does it mean to look to the Lord? He says in Hebrews 12:2, "looking unto Jesus." Well, when you look to someone, you are trusting that person. To look to someone also means to admire that person as an example. We look to those people who have achieved.

The writer has told us that we are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses. He's talking about the people in Hebrews 11, those who achieved by faith. He's not saying they are watching us; he's saying they are witnessing to us. They're cheering us on, they're saying it can be done. You can live by faith, God keeps his word.

Now, the greatest example of all is our Lord Jesus Christ, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. Now, these people were just enduring the persecution, the malicious talk, the other things that happened to them, but they had never been crucified. In Hebrews 12:4 it says, "ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin."

To look to Jesus means to depend on him. It means to admire him and follow him as our example, and also to see him as our goal. Our goal is to become like the Lord Jesus Christ. You are not trying to become like some great spiritual leader, you're trying to become like the Lord Jesus Christ. You are running to please him, and you are running to become like him.

You see, Hebrews 12:4 tells us the battle we're fighting: we are striving against sin. As we run this race, sin wants to hold us back, trip us up, and drag us down. We are striving against sin that we might become more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why then should we look by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ? Why depend on him? Why admire him as our example? Why see him as our model and our goal? Well, for three reasons. Number one, because of who he is. Notice what Hebrews 12:2 tells us: "looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith."

Now, he uses the name Jesus, that is the human name of the Savior. He's talking here about the Lord Jesus Christ who came to earth and lived a life of faith. Did you know that when Jesus was here on earth, he lived by faith? You say, well, he had a perfect body. I know he did, but he had to live by faith. For example, he prayed. When you live by faith, you pray.

The Lord Jesus Christ was a man of prayer and he taught his disciples to pray. Now, if Jesus with all of his power and perfection needed to live by faith in prayer, where does that leave us today? He said in Matthew 4:4, "man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." The Lord Jesus lived by the word of God. He lived by faith.

Hebrews 10 tells us that. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking in Hebrews 10:7: "Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God." Isn't that interesting? To do thy will. How do you do God's will? By faith.

In Hebrews 2 we are told very definitely that the Lord Jesus Christ lived by faith. Hebrews 2:13: "And again, I will put my trust in him." It's a quotation from Isaiah 8. The Lord Jesus is saying to the Father, "I will put my trust in him." He lived by faith.

In Matthew 27:43, those who were ridiculing Jesus on the cross said, "He trusted in God; let God come and save him." Now, this is a reference to Psalm 22:8. Psalm 22 is the crucifixion psalm. He trusted in God. The Lord Jesus, when he was here on earth, lived a life of faith. He lived the same way you and I have to live: by hearing the word of God, believing it, and obeying it. He is the author and the finisher of our faith, according to Hebrews 12:2. That's why we want to look to him.

The word author means the pioneer. He's the pioneer of our faith. We have the same word in Hebrews 2:10; it's translated captain, the captain of our salvation, the pioneer of our salvation. He blazes the trail for a life of faith. And as the pioneer of our faith, he wants to move us into new territory.

You see, our problem is we want to stay comfortable. We don't want to be conformable, we want to be comfortable. And we say, Lord, no more changes, Lord, no more decisions, please, Lord, let me stay here just a little longer. And he said, no, you've got to get on the racetrack, you've got to run, it'll develop your spiritual muscles. I'm building character. You are resisting sin, and you don't want to get sluggish and faint in your mind.

Now, he's the author of our faith and he's the finisher of our faith. The word finisher means the perfecter. The word perfect is a key word in the book of Hebrews; it's used about 14 times. God is perfecting our faith. Now, the Lord Jesus was perfected when he was here on earth. Of course, he is the perfect Son of God, but his character, his balance, all of his life of faith came from his suffering.

We read in Hebrews 2:10: "For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain, the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering."

Now, how did the Lord Jesus achieve this completion, this perfection? Through suffering. He learned things he had never learned in personal experience before. Now, if you are a Christian, God did that. Salvation is of the Lord, it's not something you did yourself or did for yourself. And what he starts, he finishes. We trust him because of who he is.

Secondly, we trust him because of what he did. Now what did he do? He endured affliction. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that he "endured the cross, despising the shame."

Now, the Lord Jesus went through a great deal when he was here on earth. We think that we suffer a lot, but think of the way he suffered. And keep in mind that he had a perfect nature. He was more sensitive to sin than we are. Our nature has been so jaded by sin that we don't have the sensitivity he had.

In resisting sin, the Lord Jesus Christ went even unto the death of the cross. When he was but a child, Jesus was chased by Herod. Herod tried to kill him. When our Lord was ministering here on earth, people laughed about him, they called him a glutton, a winebibber, the friend of publicans and sinners. His reputation was dragged down into the muck and the mire. He was called a liar. They said he performed miracles by the power of the devil, that he was demon possessed. And then they arrested him, and bound him, and whipped him, and nailed him to a cross.

Consider him that endured such opposition, hostility of sinners against himself. Now someone says a mean thing about us and we're ready to quit. Think of what our Lord went through. No, we look to him because of what he did. He endured. He endured even the cross. He despised the shame of the cross. Why? Well, because he knew that on the other side of the cross lay the crown.

Now we have not yet resisted unto blood. Oh, there may be some listeners who have been physically abused because of their faith, and you've entered into the fellowship of his sufferings. We have not yet been crucified. We've not yet come to the place where we've shed our blood because of the sin that is in this world.

Now some of the people who had belonged to this assembly to which this letter was written had given their lives. There were some martyrs who had died. But our Lord is saying to us, look, you've got it easy compared to what Jesus went through. Now, he endured, and he is the author and the finisher of your faith. Therefore, you can look to him and trust him.

There's a third reason why we look to the Lord Jesus. It's not only because of who he is—he's the author and the finisher of our faith—and because of what he did—he endured the cross—but why he did it.

Notice what Hebrews 12:2 says: "looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross." Now, what is he talking about here, the joy that was set before him? By the way, when you look by faith to the future, it helps you to keep going in the present. This was true of Abraham.

In Hebrews 11:10, here's what kept Abraham going: "for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Hebrews 11:13: "These all, the patriarchs, died in faith, not having received the promises, that is the things that were promised, but having seen them afar off." How? By faith. Hebrews 11:14: "For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." And truly if they had been mindful of that country from which they came out, they might have had opportunity to return.

The people to whom this letter was written wanted to go back—back to the old life. Now he's saying the patriarchs kept their eyes on that future city. That's what kept Moses going. In Hebrews 11:25, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Why? For he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. He endured, says Hebrews 11:27, "he endured as seeing him who is invisible."

Now what kept Moses going? What kept Abraham going? They looked by faith to the future. Now the Lord Jesus Christ was encouraged in his suffering because of the joy that was set before him. What is this joy? Well, I think it's the joy of sharing in the glory of God with his church.

I like that little verse at the end of Jude. The epistle of Jude deals with all of the problems of the apostates. But when you get to the end of Jude, you read this, Jude 1:24: "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy."

Now what was the joy that was set before him? The joy of knowing that one day he would meet his bride, the church, and he would present that bride in glory to his Father. Now that's what kept him going.

It's rather interesting, in Genesis 22 we have Abraham taking Isaac up on the mountain and offering him as a sacrifice. Isaac did not die literally, but he died figuratively. And the next time you find Isaac in Genesis, he's claiming his bride. He's claiming his bride.

Now that's what he's talking about in Hebrews 12:2. The Lord Jesus Christ was able to go through all of that suffering, he endured the contradiction and opposition of godless people, what they did to him and what they said about him, because he looked out by faith and in the future he saw this glory.

Now, God had promised this to him in Psalm 16, which is a messianic psalm, the same psalm that Peter quotes in Acts 2 at the day of Pentecost. Here's what the Lord says: "I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." That's Psalm 16:8.

"Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope," talking here about his death. "For thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades," the realm of the dead; "neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption," his body did not decay. "Thou wilt show me the path of life," that's resurrection. "In thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." Psalm 16:11.

Now, where is he? He is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. And so when you and I face problems and the opposition of sinners, when life is difficult, when you and I are running the race and we're fainting in our minds and we're weary in our bodies, let's look ahead to the joy that is set before us. What is that joy? The joy of joining the Lord Jesus at the throne of God and sharing in his glory.

We must give ourselves totally to the Lord. Hebrews 12:5-6 describe this to us: "And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto sons, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chateneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Hebrews 12:5-6.

Now, you and I must permit God's discipline to touch every area of our lives. Certainly he's talking here as though we are athletes. If we would put as much into our spiritual walk, our spiritual race, as we do other athletic enterprises in life, we would all be better Christians.

I know Christians who put much more time into their golf, their tennis, their handball, their swimming, than they do their Bible study, their praying. If we would be as diligent in the disciplines of the Christian life as we are in other disciplines, we would be better Christians. We'd be farther along on that racetrack and much closer to the goal. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, exercise thyself rather unto godliness. We need the disciplines of the Christian life.

And God wants to be in control of every area of our lives. If a coach is going to build a winning team, he must have, first of all, their minds. They must pay attention, they must listen to what he has to say. But these people to whom Hebrews was written were having problems with their memory. Notice verse five: and ye have forgotten the exhortation. They had forgotten the word of God. The Greek word here doesn't mean they just had a little lapse of memory. They had forgotten the word of God.

Now, this doesn't surprise us because these people had been very sluggish in their attitude toward the word of God. Hebrews 5:11 says this: "Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time," that is the time you've been saved, "ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food." These people were in their second childhood spiritually. They had forgotten even the ABCs of the Christian life.

These people were unskillful in using the word, they were forgetful toward the word because they had not been using the word and exercising themselves in their spiritual life. You do not stand still on this racetrack; you either go backward or forward. If you go backward, you're in trouble. If you run the race looking to the Lord Jesus, then you win the crown for his glory.

Now, he has to have our mind. We must learn from him. They had forgotten the word of God. Now what word had they forgotten? Well, a very familiar word from Proverbs 3:11-12. Proverbs is the book of practical wisdom for everyday life. Proverbs 3:11-12: "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary of his correction; for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth."

Now he's talking here about chastening. Chastening means child training. It doesn't just mean punishment. He's talking here about chastening, which means the development and the discipline and the building of character. Sometimes it's negative—spanking. Sometimes it is negative—rebuking. Sometimes it is positive—instruction. Sometimes it is just exercise.

God calls us to use our spiritual muscles because he wants to build Christian character. May I remind you that God is more concerned about the worker than he is the work? If my character is what it ought to be, then my conduct and my service will be all that they ought to be.