Tonight we want to read two portions in the book of Hebrews to gain even more context, since the whole book of Hebrews really has to do with this victorious kingdom faith. So we want to read two passages to highlight this matter of faith once again.
In Hebrews 2, we will read a few verses beginning in verse 6:
What is man, that Thou rememberest him?
Or the son of man, that Thou art concerned about him?
Thou hast made him for a little while lower than the angels;
Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor,
And hast appointed him over the works of Thy hands;
Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.
For in subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him.
But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.
For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.
Then we want to go to Hebrews 10, but let us read a little more of the passage. Let us start in verse 19:
Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh,
and since we have a great Priest over the house of God,
let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds,
not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.
Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.”
And again, “The Lord will judge His people.”
It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.
For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.
For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay.
But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.
But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
For by it men of old gained testimony.
Let us pray.
Our Father, we thank You tonight that we do stand indeed in the presence of Jesus, the conquering King. We realize that we have been translated out of the kingdom of darkness and have been delivered into the kingdom of Your beloved Son. Here we are as children of the kingdom.
And we pray, by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, that You will impress upon us that spiritual increase which will guarantee for us an abundant entrance into the glory of the kingdom and our inheritance. Lord, we want no one left behind.
We pray today, as we hear Your voice, that we would not harden our hearts, but rather, by faith, press in and do the will of God and receive the reward that will come very soon.
We are so thankful that we could be gathered together with saints on the upward way, daring not to be defeated, claiming the victory according to Your Word. And this we do together, and ask that Your Spirit would quicken our bodies, even tonight, and focus our minds from distractions, to bring us into a greater fullness of faith.
For these things we pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Those who read the book of Hebrews realize that its exhortations are strong encouragements. We just read here in Hebrews 10 some very strong words. But the kingdom is very great, its reward is very precious, and the Spirit of God is trying to press us in on this one simple fact: there is no neutral gear.
We are either living by faith or we are shrinking back. I have not heard David’s explanation of that Greek word, “shrinking back,” but that sounds very good. Either we are pressing forward by faith, or we have furled our sails and are drifting backward. There is no neutral gear.
“Well, I am in the kingdom. I am just not progressing.” No, no. As Peter says, if we will increase in these things pertaining to God’s nature, then we will gain a full and blessed entry into the kingdom of God.
Here we have this letter that stands before us. As you read the letter, there are all kinds of little descriptions of this great kingdom that we have gained through Christ Jesus. It says that we have so great a salvation. In another place, we are saved to the uttermost.
In Hebrews 2, we read that He is bringing many sons to glory. That is the destiny of the kingdom. In Hebrews 4, it talks about being led by faith into His rest. In Hebrews 6, it talks about us pressing on to maturity.
We also see that we have a kingdom reward. We also see that we have an inheritance. We also see that we have even now come to Mount Zion. And we see that our inheritance is an unshakable kingdom.
These are all little descriptions of a kingdom that is more than you and I can possibly imagine. But now we have been saved by grace. The Spirit of God has quickened us, and now we are in the process of fulfilling our heavenly calling.
“Dear beloved brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.” So we are looking at these things together—how we could be kept in living faith.
We see here in Hebrews 10 two environments that enable our faith to grow, which we spoke about last night. First, there is the environment of us being in the holiest place.
Now, there in the holy place with our precious Lord, we receive mercy and grace immediately: communion with Him, cleansing when we sin and ask forgiveness by His precious blood. We also experience intercession in the holiest place, and inspection.
The priest, as we see in Revelation 1, is the best inspector there is. The Old Testament priest could spot leprosy a long way off. They could see a blemish if there was a blemish in an offering.
And Jesus, depicted in Hebrews 4:12 as the Word living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword—if we abide long in the holiest place, we will experience the sanctifying process of the Word of God going into us and separating soul and spirit, bones and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart.
This is the work that takes place in the holiest place. Now, brothers and sisters, I simply make this statement to you: if we want to live with an abundant faith, we must live in the holiest place.
If we try to live in this world and serve in this kingdom while our hearts condemn us, it is hard for faith to activate. But if we know we are cleansed by the precious blood of the Lamb, and if we know we are in Christ and He is in us, and if we know we are keeping His commands and doing those things that are pleasing to Him, then we can ask anything we desire, and He hears us.
Because we know His heart, and He knows ours. So if we abide in Him, and His Word abides in us, this is a powerful increment of faith in our lives. The substance of our faith comes out of that communion with the Lord. So we need to abide there.
But also, as we spoke last night, we see that in this passage in Hebrews 10, we assemble together. We mentioned last night that we go out to meet Him outside the camp. But here, in verses 24 and 25, we have a simple depiction of what assembling together is like.
The writer mentions three things. You know how you can provoke somebody to anger? Well, here the writer uses the same Greek word, like provoking somebody to anger, but he says, “Why do you not, as we are gathered together, provoke somebody to love?”
Why do you not stir up somebody to good deeds? And while we are assembled together, ordered by the Lord and in His presence, let us encourage one another, especially as we see the day approaching.
But let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Some people believe, “It is just me and Jesus living in the holiest place, but I do not meet with anybody because everywhere else is the camp. It is just me and Jesus.”
But no. If you live out of the kingdom of life, our King in you wants to fellowship with others of His children. Except for extended circumstances, like that dear Pastor Saeed in the Iranian jail right now, the desire for us to have fellowship and assemble together is part of our life in the kingdom.
We spoke last night about the camp. I have a feeling a lot of questions will come up about camping. This is always how it is: I say something tricky, and then on Monday morning I get ten questions on camping out.
We do not have time to go back over that ground, but let me make a few simple statements. First, because we are sojourners in this world, we are all camping. But that does not mean we have to be part of a camp.
Do you understand the difference? When the fire and cloud move, are you willing to follow Him wherever the Lamb goes? We are camping in this land. We have to settle somewhere. We have to pitch our tent. But we like permanence, even if it means dwelling in Egypt. At least I know I have a mud hut.
But the Lord says, “No, no, no. This is not your home,” and He will test us all on this matter. You may be camping now, but if you are in a camp, then you are in trouble.
Today in the church, there are too many camps. There are camps of doctrine that divide one another. I have Christians sometimes say to me, “I cannot fellowship with you.” And I say, “Why?” They say, “Well, you are not in my camp.”
I will not tell you what camp it is, but it is a very powerful camp today, and it is very divisive. No, no, no.
It is interesting, is it not, that the writer of Hebrews does not spend a lot of time being negative about the camp? As a matter of fact, all he says in reference to the camp is, “Well, it was a shadow. It was a type of that which was to come. But now the reality has come, and these types and shadows are obsolete.” Then he passes on.
We can spend a lot of time being negative about the camp. We can have a good negative session and talk about how bad the camp is. “What camp do you know, and how bad is it?” Then we can all say, “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.” No, no, no.
It only takes us about two weeks to form a camp. There are people who say, “I belong to NoCamp.” Now that is a camp. You see what I am saying?
No, we have to follow the Lord, ordered by the Lord. The Lord is our Head. Whithersoever He goes, we go. We are going as sojourners through this world, and we say, “Well, I do not really have a home.”
Whether we have a building that we have bought, whether we are renting a place, or whether we are meeting in a tent makes no difference. We start taking those things way too seriously. The Lord just wants us to be faithful.
The picture of the Lord as our Apostle is that He is moving forward all the time. Just as an apostle—Paul, and so on—was moving from place to place and doing things, so in the kingdom of God the Lord is working and moving. In one sense, we need to be moving as well. It does not mean geographically, but let us leave the camp alone.
Having heard these things—that our life should be in the holiest place, under the blood of Jesus and with our precious High Priest, and that our life should be spent assembling together with those who want to follow the Apostle—why would everybody not want to stay there all the time? Why would we not want to live there?
It sounds unreasonable, but it seems that those written about in the book of Hebrews were finding themselves outside the holiest place and inside the camp—completely switched around. Something had happened. They were in the wrong spot.
When we read this letter, we find that the writer is saying and warning, “When you know this is your inheritance, why would you let so great a salvation slip away?”
Or, in Hebrews 3:12, why would you allow an evil, unbelieving heart to enable you to fall away from the living God? Or in Hebrews 4, why will you not enter into His rest by faith?
Or in Hebrews 5, when I tell you things about the great High Priest, you cannot take it anymore because you have become dull of hearing. Or in Hebrews 6, once you have tasted the Word of God and the powers of the age to come, why would you then fall away?
What a terrible thing to say. And here in our passage in Hebrews 10: shrinking back. Do not throw away your inheritance, which has great reward. Or, as in the case of Esau, do not come short of the grace of God and, for a moment of temptation, lose your inheritance.
There are many very strong things that the writer is speaking. And it is not merely the writer; it is the Holy Spirit who is warning us, warning us, warning us. There is no neutral ground. We are either moving forward by faith, or we have furled the sails and are shrinking back. The Lord has no delight in that.
He wants us all to increase in possessing all of our possessions in Christ.
Before we write these Christians off and say, “Well, these people probably deserved it. They were probably very unfaithful, terrible, carnal, worldly Christians, unlike us,” why do we not read two passages that speak about them for a second?
In Hebrews 6:9–12, it says:
But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.
For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.
Now, these Christians do not sound so bad, do they? They are serving one another. They are showing hospitality and continuing in their work and love.
Then in Hebrews 10:32–34, we read:
But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings.
They have been through quite a bit. These are not baby Christians.
Partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.
You showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property.
How would you feel about that?
Knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one.
When you read those verses, it does not seem like they are bad Christians. No, but there is a problem here.
In the earlier days, in the first flush, in the first love, in the first salvation, it seems like we are so covered with grace that our faith can take us a certain distance. These saints had obviously had faith for the short haul.
But now the question has come, and the writer is asking these Christians: Do you have faith for the long haul? An enduring faith? A persevering faith? A patient faith that can continue on until you receive the promised inheritance?
This is a mature faith.
We understand that faith begins very simply, as we mentioned last night and as the other speakers have mentioned. We hear a promise, we believe it, and God rewards us. We hear a word, we believe the Word, and we receive the promise.
“If you will confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” You hear the gospel message, you believe it, you confess it, and you are saved.
What simple faith this is. But how precious is this faith that begins. So, there you are: it is just as simple as this—live by faith.
I wish it were that simple. “Just go ahead. It is just like the Nike ad: just do it. Go on, live by faith.”
You remember Peter. One time he saw Jesus walking on the water and finally said, “Lord, if that is You, ask me to come to You on the water.” Jesus said, “Come.” Based on His Word—the Word of Jesus, “Come”—Peter stepped right out of the boat. Now, that is faith.
Of course, there were other voices that he started listening to: the wind, the wave, his doubts. He looked down at the water and saw that it was ten fathoms deep. Ah, but when he listened only to Jesus, he came right out on the water, did he not? Simple faith.
But then faith has to be able to stay afloat, as it were. We walk by faith. We receive His Word. We believe it.
I think in the holiest place, when we come and have our devotion with the Lord, when you are reading passages of Scripture, there should be at least one verse that you can say, “Yes, Lord, that is me. Forgive me, Lord.” Or, “Yes, Lord, I receive that promise. Yes, Lord, I stand under this that You have promised me.”
There should be one way in which you say, “Yes, Lord,” in simple faith when you are reading the Word—not merely read it, close it, and go on. We are such processed people. There should be some response in the holiest place, in that simple kind of faith.
But then faith needs to grow. Faith grows not by faith merely growing, but by the substantiating of it growing. That is, we get to know the Lord more.
When we hear His Word and obey in the obedience of faith, the Lord rewards us. We learn something every time we do that. What is it? The Lord is faithful.
Every time we hear His Word, believe it, and see it come to pass, we realize the Lord is faithful. The more we see the Lord is faithful, the more the substance of faith grows. Now, when we hear His Word, we are more likely to believe it and act on it. So our faith grows.
David was not simply playing his flute one day, living a life of ease as a university student at NYU, and then suddenly went to visit his brothers, saw Goliath, and said, “You know what? I am going to bean that guy.” He did not just run up there, sling the stone, and kill the giant.
David had faith to do that, but he had faith that had substance to it. Why? Because before that time, he had killed a lion. Before that time, God was faithful, and he had killed a bear to spare the flock. He was learning that God is faithful.
We must learn that God is faithful. Then our faith grows in such a way that when we come to a crisis, there will be the substance of this mature faith—this overcoming faith that can endure and stand for the Lord in the midst of the crisis.
We know from the context and from this book that the Hebrew Christians had come to a crisis. There was a problem. What was that problem?
It appears that the substance of their faith was not adequate to stand during the crisis. Unbelief was at work during the shaking.
During tribulation, temptation, and testing, our lack of faith is sometimes exposed. You remember how Peter, James, John, and the other disciples said to Jesus after He had cast a demon out of that poor boy, “How come we could not do it?”
They did not have that substantial faith that could handle that situation. They were not prepared. They were simply unprepared. They had not been in the holy place—whatever it was, they just were not ready.
When the Hebrew Christians were coming to this time of shaking, as they were being warned, they were coming up short in their faith. It was exposed that they did not have this mature faith.
The writer is not merely trying to expose their lack of faith. He is trying to give them the substance of their faith. The underlying cause of their lack of faith is basically this: their Christ was too small.
In the crisis, as they folded their sails, they began to think to themselves—and this is how insidious unbelief is—“I wonder if Christ is the only way. What about Moses and the law? What about those sacrifices?”
“When we say Jesus died and His precious blood was shed for me, and it is all I need, is it really all I need? Or is there something—a pen, an offering, something—that I need to do? Surely it cannot be that He has done it all.”
“Has He really placed me in this land, or am I really in the wrong place? Here I am, kind of outside the camp. I do not even have a home. We are not even meeting in a synagogue. Is this right?”
“Can this be right, that Jesus has led us together in this crummy little tent? There is that synagogue over there. My parents are telling me I am wrong, and my neighbors are telling me I am wrong.”
Do not forget, these Jews all lived in the Jewish quarter of their city. They were getting it daily because of their faith in Christ. As the sails began to furl and luff, they began to be shaken and started to ask these kinds of questions.
Obviously, the problem was that Christ was too small. Their substantiating was insufficient.
When I say that, I do not mean theologically. There are some people who say that these Hebrew Christians had too low a Christology. That is a fancy term for saying that they did not understand Christ was divine; they thought He was merely a human Messiah, and so they were coming up short.
But I think when you read the book of Hebrews as it stands, you see that these people understood the gospel fact that Christ was man and Christ was God, Christ was the Son of Man and Christ was the Son of God, Christ was the glorious Son of God and Christ was the glorious Son of Man.
They had a Christology. It was not the theology that was inadequate. It was the measure of Christ that they had that was inadequate. There is a difference there.
Let me put it this way. If we are too busy to abide in the holiest place with our Lord, or if we are fearful of moving outside the camp because we so want to belong, we may find ourselves one day in crisis wholly unprepared to deal with the situation, persecution, and trouble that come to us.
When there is a need for enduring faith, but we have not been saying yes to the Lord in the holiest place, nor have we been following Him wherever He goes, we are not ready at all for these things that come upon us. We do not have the measure of Christ that we need to go on at this moment of crisis.
It is just like the children of Israel when they came to Kadesh-barnea. They were wholly unprepared to believe that God had given them the land. God said He had given them the land, but they could not believe it. They murmured, they would not go in, and God said, “Then you are not going in.”
These Christians were coming up on something similar. It was not that they were bad, but they were coming short—coming short.
We always have to say this when we are talking about these warnings: this is a matter of kingdom inheritance and possessing your possessions in Christ. This does not have to do with salvation. This is not saying these people will lose their salvation.
No, no, no. They belong to God. But their place in the kingdom, their possession of their inheritance, their fulfilling of their purpose and their heavenly calling—these are at stake.
Has their faith increased by the increase of Christ in their lives, so that when they come to such situations, they are ready?
The question is not, “Do you have a faith that endures?” The question is really, “Do you know the Lord? Do you know the Christ who is all-sufficient?”
If we are lazy about this now, there will come a day when this will be brought out: How well do we really know the Lord?
There is a principle that we find in Hebrews 11 as it talks about these different ones of faith. Here we see the basic principle of enduring faith in Hebrews 11:27. This is the key to the substantiating of our faith, to prepare us for a time of trial.
Regarding Moses, Hebrews 11:27 says:
By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.
How does faith endure? By seeing Him who is unseen.
We also look at Hebrews 11:11, the story of Sarah’s faith:
By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.
She knew the Lord well enough to believe that He would be faithful to what He promised. She knew the Lord that much.
When you go down through this list of different ones, in every case, in one way or another, the key to their faith was not that they had great faith or that they were courageous. It was that they saw Him who is unseen.
Faith has a conviction of things that cannot be seen. When we were born again, we were given eyes to see the unseen and ears to hear the unheard.
But if we are not exercised in these things, we may come up short in this measure of enduring, mature, overcoming faith—not only hearing a promise, but seeing Him who is promising.
Do you see Him?
Everybody up here this weekend, I think, has said there is a favorite hymn. Well, I have a favorite hymn—at least a favorite line—that says:
Have you heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
Is not yours a captured heart?
That is what it takes. If you have seen Him, if you have heard Him, if you come to know Him, there is something in you that rises up in a time of doubt. You know that you know because you know Him. You are seeing Him who is unseen.
Occasionally He shows up, and then an angel shows up that you actually might see. I do not know—I have never seen an angel, except my wife, of course.
I know what is good for me.
But here is the issue. Now listen. I believe these Hebrew Christians could have joined right in with us, worshiping about how Christ is everything, Christ is all, Christ is Lord, and Christ is King of His kingdom. They could believe it. They could worship. They could adore.
But when it came to the test, how do you get a greater measure of Christ? Is it by continuing in theology? Is it by reading more books?
It is interesting what the writer of Hebrews knew. The only way to the increase of the measure of Christ in our lives is by way of the cross.
How do we come to see a greater measure of Christ? We must see Christ crucified.
Right at the start of this wonderful letter, he says, “Here it is. Can I tell you what it is? Man has been given a great destiny, but I do not see it yet. What man do you see that rules over the animals? What man do you see who has accomplished all these things?”
“We do not yet see this, but we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels, suffering for us—the suffering of death—now crowned with glory and honor.”
This passage means more than just looking at Jesus. It also means that when you see Jesus as the only One who made it through in victorious faith, you realize that all of your human potential is not going to make it.
No matter how much those Jews believed in their Messiah, they did not understand that they had a crucified Messiah. They must meet at Calvary and be reduced in order that Christ may be formed in them in greater measure.
We have had so many examples this weekend from our brother David and our brother Steve. Our brother mentioned even this morning that as a young man he was serving God according to his own will and way. But how did he come to a greater measure of Christ? He laid it all down.
“I give it. Okay, Lord, if they kick me out of school, they kick me out of school. If they kick me out of my family, they kick me out of my family. Lord, I cannot do this, but I look to You, the Author and Finisher of my faith.”
He did not tell this, but he did not get kicked out of the school or his family. But he was facing this cost. As he counted the cost and came to the end of himself, he found a Keeper who, he testified, has kept him. Is that not marvelous?
But it is not by our increase, exertion, and trying. “Okay, I have got to have more faith. I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe.” That does not do it.
When we come to a Christ crucified, and when we see what He went through on our behalf, we lay it all down and find Him as our substance. Christ crucified.
Here we are in Hebrews 12. As the writer begins to sum things up at the beginning of the chapter, we all know this portion. Let us look at these three verses.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also 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,
fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of 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.
Those witnesses are the saints who have seen the unseen, including Paul, who says that he looks at unseen things which are eternal.
“Let us lay aside every weight”—encumbrance. I do not know what that means. It sounds like an article of clothing somehow. And let us lay aside the sin which so easily entangles us, and run with endurance the race set before us.
“Looking away” is what it says literally in the Greek. I have here, “fixing our eyes on Jesus,” the Author and Perfecter of 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.
Here we are. The Lord is saying to each of us as an individual, “All right, here is the race now set before you.” Here is our situation: there is a great cloud of witnesses, thank God. These are faithful people.
Singing those songs made me think about people such as Margaret Barber, who had such victorious faith. They believed and saw great things and were protected from the enemy. There are all these stories, not only in ancient times but in modern times. Faith is the victory—wonderful victory.
Think about all these people. They are all a cloud of witnesses now. They are watching us. Here we are, and it says, “Let us lay aside every weight.”
This does not necessarily mean these are sins. These are things that hinder us from running—whether they are things we have accumulated, attitudes we have about ourselves, or whatever these weights are.
They cannot be used in the race. They act against His interests, and they must be laid aside. What weights do you have? Can you think of the weights in your own life?
Some people have fear: “I could never succeed. I could never do it. There is no sense running this race. If I try, I know I will fail, so I am not going to try. I am not even putting on my sneakers.”
What weights do you have? “My circumstances. Oh, it is because I am running alone. If I were married, it would be different.” Other people say, “If I were not married, I could run.”
The grass is always greener somewhere else. “Oh, the weight I carry. If you only knew! The Lord understands why I cannot run the race.” What is that weight?
Or how about this sin that so easily entangles us? Many people have different interpretations, but I am persuaded that he is actually talking about unbelief.
On the whole, unbelief causes more problems in our running the Christian race with Jesus than anything else. Insidious unbelief. He speaks a word, and I say, “Nah, I do not think that is from the Lord.”
Is it not interesting how, when you have a little gathering around the Lord’s table, sometimes afterward you are talking to somebody and they say, “Ah, brother, I was going to ask for that song, but I just never did. Then she did.”
I always think to myself, “Then why did you not?” Obviously, it was circulating around in the Lord’s mind. “Well, well, well, I never do. I do not do that kind of thing.” That is a weight, if it is not a sin.
Sin—unbelief—holds us back. “Well, I do not really think the kingdom is—I will never make the kingdom. Just give me a little outhouse in heaven. Forget the mansions.”
Many people say, “Oh, I am satisfied with just some little cottage.” As if the Lord likes that. Do you think the Lord likes a child who says, “No, Lord, I do not want to run after You. Let me just lag behind”?
Actually, this is a very severe word in Hebrews 10:26, where he says that if we go on willfully sinning, there is not only no cleansing for sin, but there is an expectation of judgment and a fire to come out from heaven.
This is an Old Testament allusion to Numbers 11:1. When the trumpet sounded, the cloud and fire lifted, and the camp began to move, there were people on the outskirts of the camp who complained and did not want to go. They liked where they were pitched.
The Lord came down with fire and consumed them. If you are not traveling with the camp, you are in danger of uncovering. The writer says it is real danger.
The people said, “No, no, no. Let me just stay behind. I think I found a little oasis here. It is just nice. I know the fellowship is lousy, but the water is nice.”
Unbelief.
Others say, “Well, it does not mention a particular sin.” It is true, is it not? Every person has something that keeps tripping them up—your besetting sin. In running a race with the Lord, we have to untangle ourselves from this besetting sin.
All right, so you hear them warming up, and there is the Lord Jesus, the Apostle and Perfecter of our faith. This is a race, and He is there to show us that He has come to us very humanly, saying, “Okay, now I am going to run with you. Now come on.”
You are trying to put on your sneakers, but you have these weights on you. You have this besetting sin tripping you up like some kind of cord. What are you going to do?
Have you ever tried to unbeset yourself? When you try to unbeset your sins, you say like Paul, when I heard the law say, “Do not covet,” I said, “Okay, I am not going to covet. I am not going to covet. I am not going to covet.” As soon as he said that, he started to covet.
And the weights—why are you wearing weights? I will tell you why: because you love those weights. That is why. How are you going to abandon those weights that you love? They are even brand-name weights.
It is impossible, really. But here is where the whole thing hinges on our understanding that enduring is seeing Him who is unseen.
The writer says that we are surrounded by a cloud of faithful witnesses bearing a testimony. As we have these weights and besetting sins, you can repent, but what you need to do is look away unto Jesus.
That word is important: look off, or look away, unto Jesus. It means quit worrying about yourself, quit trying to undo your weights, and look away unto Jesus. Look away from yourself.
It is like our brother shared this morning. The more he thought about the cost, the higher the cost got. That was not the thing to do. The thing was to look away from the cost unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.
As you do that, these things begin to collapse. In that song, “Have You heard Him, seen Him, known Him?” it has to do basically with this: “I used to hold on to idols, but they melted away when I saw the Lord’s face.”
How are we going to be delivered of idols? These are the weights in our lives. By trying to purge ourselves? If I purge myself of some idol, I will only go to the store and purchase another one of a different kind.
But by looking away to Jesus, something happens in our life. The Crucified One enables us to lay down these things. As we take up the cross, we begin to follow Him who endured the cross, despising the shame, and has now sat down at the right hand.
Enduring the cross—there is a cross in this race. But as we run this race, our measure of Him and our knowing Him increase. The ear of our heart begins to hear His heartbeat, and the eye of our heart begins to see Him in His glory, His power, and His enabling as we run with Him.
Paul says in Philippians 3:10:
That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.
Here is a man who not only would be resurrected one day, but was living on resurrection ground even during this lifetime, because he was being made conformable to the death of the One who was his Lord, the One who had captured him.
So we take up this cross. As we do this, we begin to increase in our measure of the Lord.
The writer spends a long time revealing the Messiah—especially the Messiah made a little lower than the angels, especially the Messiah who was willing to become a man for our sake, willing to suffer for our sake, and willing to learn obedience through the things that He suffered.
He talks about a man who suffered temptations in every way like we do, but He did not sin.
When we understand how human Jesus really was—that He was tempted to be discouraged, weary, or impatient; that He was vexed by the evils around Him in this world and society; that He sometimes wanted to quit; that He was distracted by busy voices saying, “Go here, go here, do this, do that”—then we understand something of Him.
He was tempted by the devil, who said, “Stand up for yourself, and I will give You anything. You want followers? I will give You followers.” Tempted in every way like we are. So human.
Do you realize what He has gone through for you? There are even two places in this revelation of Jesus made lower than the angels and going to Calvary where it talks about the fear of death.
Hebrews 2 says that we are all held hostage to the fear of death. The devil can always say, “Ah, if you do that, you will die”—not only physically, but in other ways as well.
But Jesus came to break this blackmail and the fear of death.
In Hebrews 5, it talks about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. He is crying and praying, and He is asking God, “Please, spare My life.”
He was at the point of death. Do you know how human He was? He did not want to die any more than you or I do. “Lord, can this cup pass from Me?” He cried.
But He also had communion with His Father, and He said, “Nevertheless, Your will be done.” He went to Calvary, hating to die but willing to die for that which lay ahead.
Whenever we need help, this is the point: if we want to increase in the measure of Christ, we need to come to Him, this faithful High Priest and Apostle, and say, “Lord, I cannot do it.” The Lord says, “But I have done it.”
How do we overcome? How do we have overcoming faith? Revelation 3 tells us that we can overcome because He has first overcome. In every way, we can lay hold of Him.
Do you understand that He is a human being? Jesus, made a little lower than the angels, suffered the agony of death. That means you and I can lay hold of Him, and He understands us.
We can come boldly to the throne of grace. But it is humbling, is it not? It is humbling to say, “I cannot, but He can.”
As we say, “I cannot, but He can,” we begin to see His faithfulness, His faithfulness, His faithfulness, until whatever trial may come along, we find, for some reason, “I have no doubt. The Lord will be with me.”
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil.
Why? I see Him who is unseen, for the Lord is with me.
When we come to such a place, and as our faith is substantiated, we know the Lord. As Paul says, “That I may know Him.” As we come to know the Lord through experience—our Lord who is walking with us—those things that the enemy used to shoot at us as darts will fall off as foolishness.
All those things we question: “Is Jesus enough for my life? How about my situation right now? Boy, my situation is really terrible right now. Is Jesus really here, handling my situation?”
You realize our Lord is making no mistake. He is right here. You trust Him, endure, and gain the reward.
“Is this assembly enough? Is my life with the Lord enough? Is His covenant true enough?” These things which the devil shoots at us all the time—these doubts and fears—will no longer take you to unbelief, because in everything you look to Him who is unseen and you trust.
What we are saying is this: if our faith is to be a mature faith, it needs to have the measure of Christ behind it in our lives.
There is a measure of Christ, and that measure will enable you to stand by faith, believing His promises; to stand patiently; and to endure the trials that we might go through.
Meanwhile, hear the writer on the positive side. Here are these Hebrew Christians, and he is saying, “Everything that can be shaken is going to be shaken.” What should you do?
“Let brotherly love continue.” Who can do that? When everything is shaking, who can say, “Let us love one another”?
While everything is shaking, and your kitchen has been shaken down and it is being remodeled, he says, “Show hospitality to one another,” even in the time of shaking.
Those who are having trouble—show charity to them. Do not forget the prisoners. Encourage one another while it is today.
This walk of faith, as revealed in Hebrews 11, is not so much a matter of doing great feats for God. It is enduring and walking during difficult times with absolute faith in the Lord God.
John Piper is a famous Baptist preacher who has recently retired. One time he was asked about our witness in the world, and he said that the Christian witness in the world is not a witness like this: “You see me? I am a Christian. I am happy, I am happy. I have no problems now because I belong to Jesus. Everything is a clown.”
But our testimony is this: we go through the same things that our neighbors, friends, and work associates are going through, but we do it with faith, endurance, and an attitude that is not understood by this world.
“Why are you not bitter when they passed over you for a promotion? Why are you continuing on in this thing? It does not seem to be working out.” Everyone else is bitter and complaining, but there you are, patiently enduring because you say, “The Lord put me here, and I will stay right here until He tells me to go somewhere else.”
The secret of a Christian’s testimony is that we suffer differently than the world. It is because we know Him who is unseen.
Yet in a very little while,
He who is coming will come, and will not tarry.
The pressure is on. The Parousia is near. The Spirit of God is trying to bring us into a substantial faith.
We look away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, and we run like Him with the cross. We discover the Father’s discipline—Hebrews 12. We were always afraid of the Father. No, this is the Father’s discipline. Good.
The Lord brings us to the place where we come into holiness and are able to see God—that is, Him who is unseen.
May the Lord help us. He wants us to grow in our faith—not merely that immediate faith which is the beginning of our life, where we hear a word, stand on it, and the Lord does it. Now, that never stops.
May you stand on the Word and say, “Yes, Lord,” every day as you read His precious Word. There is a substantiating faith that comes because faith is the substantiating of things hoped for.
Now faith and hope have been connected by this unseen One. You believe, when He speaks, that He will keep His promise. So you endure until you have that which is promised. This is the kind of faith in the kingdom that we need in the last days.
Lord, we thank You that You are so faithful. You were made lower than the angels, died on our behalf, and now You are crowned with glory and honor. You have made it through to glory as a man.
Now You are bidding many sons to come to glory, through this same way—through the cross—perfecting faith, creating that endurance that believes in the promise of Your coming and Your kingdom.
We thank You for the victory in Christ, but we do not want to see it afar off. We want to enter through the veil and make it ours, and walk with the Apostle of our faith, unencumbered and unhindered by sin and by weights given us by the world.
Lord, we want to look at You. We pray that all of us might see You with the eye of faith, and as we see You, run the race.
Oh, help us, Lord. Have mercy upon us. In these last days, we know it is a difficult time. Increase the substance of our faith as we lay hold of the promises of God.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.