PERSEVERING…WITH JOY?!
Hebrews 12:1-3

Sermon by Judy Turner

“Faint in your minds”

Several weeks ago John and I were at our neighbor’s house. They invited Christians they know to just come together for a time of sharing our lives in the Lord and encouraging each other. That was when I met Carrie for the first time. He is a soft-spoken man with a fiery passion for the mission of Jesus. He is from Oklahoma, but travels continually, to churches all over the U.S. and several times a year to India. He works with Christian leaders in India who take the good news of Jesus to villages. They not only preach the Gospel, but work to make life better for people in the villages. One of the first things they do is find the widows in the village and give the widows 2 goats. The milk from the goats and the kids they produce provide food and income for women who otherwise are destitute. When there is a community of Christ-followers in the village, Carrie and his volunteers build a church building for them. And did I mention- Carrie has muscular dystrophy? I saw his hands, watched him struggle to walk across the room, and wondered to myself, “How does he do it? How does he travel to India?
Carrie shared the scripture passage that was on his heart with us that night, Hebrews 12:1-3, and he read from the King James Version:

“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 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.”

I looked at this gentle, genuine Christ-follower, as he read these words. This man who every day endures difficulty and suffering I cannot imagine, and who embodies the message of this passage: Do what Jesus did as you follow Jesus and fulfill the mission He has for your life. Keep focused on Him( and not on the difficulty or opposition you face) and you will not only endure and persevere as you receive His strength, but you will also receive His joy. Even with his crippled hands and stumbling walk, Carrie radiates the joy of the Lord.

And there was a phrase in this passage that caught my attention, perhaps because I was used to hearing it in other translations, the phrase “lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds”. “That’s what I do!” I realized. I take my eyes off Christ, I get disconnected from the source of my strength and joy, and so I get overwhelmed with the stuff that comes against me, and I “faint in my mind.” I later talked with some other people who were there that night and they said that phrase stood out for them as well. The battle is more in our minds than in our circumstances. The mind is where we respond to what happens in our lives, and often what we choose to think about determines whether we have the strength to keep on going or just plop down on the ground in a faint, whether we grow in the joy of the Lord, or whether we lose our joy.

6 Important Truths to Think About

Our text gives us 6 vitally important spiritual truths to think about. I am grateful to Steve Brown, whose sermon, “How to Keep It Going” helped me identify some of these truths. I also thank Steve for the concluding illustration. Through these truths from God’s Word, we’ll find help when the fire burns low and we’re losing our joy and in danger of fainting.

1. We can be encouraged by faithful people who have gone before us.
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses..

The imagery is we Christ-followers are on the field of a stadium, in a tough athletic contest. Jesus is standing there at the goal line. He is the goal! All God’s people who have gone before us and have died and are with God in glory are surrounding us, like fans in the stands. All the heroes of faith listed in Chapter 11 are there- Noah is in the stands. He says, “I know what how hard it is to act on faith of what God says, when you just can’t see it. Like I couldn’t see a rain cloud when I built the boat. I know what it is to be misunderstood, made fun of , for your faith. But you keep on believing God. I’m cheering for you!” Sara is there. She says, “I know what it’s like to have to wait a very long time for the fulfillment of God’s promise. But keep on with the Lord. Your faith and closeness with the Lord can grow as you wait. Don’t give up on him. We’re not giving up on you!” Moses is there in the stands. Moses is saying, “I know what it feels like when you want to give up. I know you think you’re inadequate for the task. You don’t have the words or the courage. But you keep on serving the Lord and doing what He asks you to do. He’ll be there for you!” And I can also see my personal heroes of faith, faithful people I’ve known and loved who have gone to be with the Lord. There’s my grandmother through whom I first experienced the grace of God. She says, “Honey, when you have Jesus, you have everything. You lack nothing. You just keep on with Him. You’ll see how faithful He is.” I see my father, a man whose top priority in life was serving the Lord. An imperfect man, but a man of faith and integrity who committed himself to study God’s Word and generously supported God’s work. He is there in the cloud of witnesses saying, “Invest your time, your energy, your resources in God. It’s the investment that will ultimately pay rewards beyond measure. I’m going to be cheering you on to the finish line.”
You have your personal heroes of faith. Do you see their faces in that cloud of witnesses? Do you hear their witness to God’s faithfulness and their encouragement?

2. Lay aside what tangles you up, so you can run like the wind
"let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us."

Sin is whatever separates us from God and the life God has for us. Sin is attitudes, behaviors, pursuits that look attractive to us. We hold onto sin because it seems to ensure that we’ll get what we need, what we want in life. If you’re wondering if something is sin in your life, just ask yourself, “ Has hanging on to this drawn me closer to God or driven me further away?” Sin is a distraction, a hindrance. Holding onto sin in our lives is like trying to run, dragging along a ball and chain, or running with a long garment that keeps getting tangled up around our legs. The good news here is the assurance from God’s Word that we can be free of it, if we are willing to let that sin go. God will help us and give us the power to let go of it. It may be a struggle, where we have to just keep letting go of it, over and over, asking for God’s strength moment by moment. But we are assured that if we persevere, we will have the victory and keep making progress toward our goal, which is Christ.

3. God is aggressively working out our perfection
“Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith”

Jesus not only stands there as the model, so we can see where we’re headed, but He also runs by our side, giving us through His Spirit whatever we need to get to the goal of being more and more like Him. He is not only the one who brought us to faith in the first place, the initiator, but he is the perfecter. He brings faith to its intended goal.
Maybe you identify with this prayer:
Dear God, so far today, I've done all right. I have not gossiped, and I have not lost my temper. I haven't been grumpy, nasty or selfish, and I'm really glad of that! But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on, I'm probably going to need a lot of help. Thank you! Amen.

The good news is that a lot of help is always available to us from Jesus, the perfecter of our faith! Isn’t it good to know ultimately we aren’t the perfecters of ourselves? We certainly have our part to play, priorities to set, choices to make, but God is the perfecter of our faith. And He is continually, aggressively working for us to get us to the goal of being complete, mature in Him. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion”.

4. We can draw encouragement from a God who has suffered through what we suffer

Listen to Hebrews 4:15-16, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Jesus knows what it is to be lonely, afraid, to have everything you’ve worked for crumble in pieces around you, to have people hurt you. Quite literally he knows what it’s like to have people hurt you. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.”

The Greek verb for consider him is often used in a mathematical sense of “reckon up”. When you as a Christ-follower are contemplating your hardship, carefully consider each aspect of the hostility Christ endured against him: humiliated, beaten, tortured, scorned. Consider your own suffering in comparison with His.

"who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame"
Then consider what Jesus did in the midst of his great suffering. He scorned the scorn. He turned it on its head. He held all that shame and suffering to be of no consequence in view of the joy he knew was ahead of Him. Compared with the joy of faithfully finishing His mission and celebrating with the Father that their plan of redemption was complete, he could go through the great suffering of the crucifixion and say, in comparison with the joy, this is of no consequence.

5. We Can Have His Joy
On the last night of His earthly life, as recorded in John’s Gospel, Jesus talked with His followers about His joy in them. He prayed that they would share His joy. So enduring through whatever comes our way and counting it as nothing compared to the joy that is ahead of us, and the joy we are experiencing as we run with Jesus toward the goal of becoming complete in Him and accomplishing the mission He has for us is not only possible… that’s the way life is supposed to be for a follower of Jesus.

6. We have the added power of a Son interceding for us to the Father
“and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Notice 2 facts: (1) The right hand of God is a metaphor for all of the authority in the universe. (2) The reason he’s sitting there is to talk to the Father about you. Jesus has an extensive prayer list that would absolutely blow you away, and you’re name is on it. Hebrews 7:25 “Therefore, he is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him (here it comes) since he always lives to make intercession for them.” You’re in his heart and in His prayers.

I don’t know if it’s factually true, but the story is true in principle. It seems that a Union soldier in the Civil War lost two brothers. At harvest time, his mother was the only one left at home. The soldier wanted to be discharged so he could go home to help. He talked with the captain of his unit, who gave him a furlough to go to Washington to ask the President of the U.S. for the discharge. The soldier couldn’t even get near the President. There were guards everywhere turning him away, saying, “The President is too busy to talk to you. Everyone has to make sacrifices. Go back and fight this war.” The soldier walked away, dejected. He saw a little boy, and they struck up a conversation. The soldier explained his problem. The little boy said, “Mister, I think I can help.” And he took the soldier’s hand and led him through the streets of Washington, up the steps of the White House, past the guard, and into the Oval Office, where President Abraham Lincoln said, “Yes, Todd, what is it you want?” Todd told his father about the soldier and his need to get home. “Request for discharge granted,” said the President.

Because Jesus endured to the end, He is seated in the throne room of the universe. He has the right and the joy of speaking to the Father on your behalf and on mine. Next to the Father, He can say, “Mary needs healing of her body and spirit. Would you help? Sam isn’t going to make it if you don’t intervene with your grace. Would you intervene? Judy needs an overflow of joy in her life. Would you give her my joy? And the Father says, “Of course. For your sake I will.”

You think about that and keep on running the race with joy! Amen.