All righty, let's turn to chapter
12, if you would, of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 12. And while
you're turning there, just a quick reminder, we've gone through
a lengthy chapter, chapter 11, listing all these different ones
for whom the writer was inspired to give us as examples of faith. And we looked at most of that.
I know we read the last, well, verse 23 through 40 all the way
through last week, and then we concentrated on where we read
there in verse 1 of chapter 12. Read along with me if you would.
Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great
a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the
sin which does so easily beset us and let us run with patience
the race that is set before us. But then it tells us this. After
he expresses to us this cloud of witnesses and how we need
to stand up for ourselves and put our hands to the work, put
our feet to the race with patience, against sin, against the thoughts,
against the things that are contrary to the gospel. It says looking
unto Jesus. Now, we took a moment to consider
that just a moment last week. It's looking. It's not look.
That symbol that God used, the brazen serpent out in the wilderness.
That symbol, and all that was, was a symbol of our Lord and
Savior, who is raised up. And everybody who looked to him
lived that was bitten by the serpents, by the serpents that
were crawling around and came into the camp. So we see here,
it's looking unto Jesus, not just once, but over and over
and over again, the author and the finisher of faith. Now that word hour, and I'll
bring that out in just a moment, but that word hour is in italics.
And if we read it the way without the italics there, without the
help of the interpreters, we read it this way. Looking unto
Jesus, the author and the finisher of 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. Now, we're
going to look at the last half of that a little bit more next
week, but right now I want to consider again, once again, looking unto
Jesus. And again, I am not ashamed of
this. I lean heavily upon our dear
brother, Don Fortner, who has studied these words over and
over and over and many, many days, many, many hours he's put
into what he wrote about this. And I quote from Don, the Holy
Spirit is urging us to go on in faith, to persevere to the
end. That's what that whole statement
about, let us run with patience. That means a continual run. That
means running the race that is set before us. To persevere to
the end, he says, running with patience the race that is set
before us, enduring the hardships, overcoming difficulties. Well,
what kind of hardships does a Christian have? How about our sin? Do you
have hardships with your sin that's within you? Do you have
moments where your flesh wells up like Paul's did and you cry
out, oh, wretched man that I am? How about those hardships? Overcoming
difficulties, resisting temptations. This is a tough world to resist.
But the more we look to Christ on his cross and how he died
for us, the more the world turns dim. The less we see of the world,
even though we walk around in this world more often during
the day than we spend our time looking to Christ. laying aside
every weight of care that would hinder us in the sin that so
easily besets us, writes Don. In a word, he says, the Lord
God here calls for every believing sinner to make whatever sacrifice
is necessary and do whatever it takes, no matter what the
cost may be, and follow Christ. Upon what grounds can such sacrifice,
such commitment, such consecration and devotion be expected? How
can reasonable, responsible men and women be expected to live
such a life? What will inspire such devotion? What will effectually motivate
a person to such wholehearted consecration? The answer is in
Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2, looking unto Jesus, the author
and the 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. The only way,
folks, we can run the race that's set before us, the only way that
we can live in this world by faith, the only way that we can
enter into glory and bliss of eternal life with Christ is by
looking unto Jesus. There's nothing we can do to
add to what he has done. There's nothing we can do to
take away from what he has done. That's our assurance. When we
examine ourselves, whether we be in the faith, it's not, am
I faithful? It's, am I looking to the one
that is faithful? How did we read that? We said,
the author and the finisher of faith. Christ is the author. He's the author of true faith.
He's the finisher of true faith. What an example we have. And
we'll look a little bit more at that in just a moment. So
I want to consider now the object of our faith. Our Savior is the
solitary object of our faith. These three words, looking unto
Jesus, they mean much more. They're greater than what you
could just look at. If you just looked over, you
might just bypass it a little bit. But the English transaction
suggests this. The words would actually be more
accurately translated, looking away unto and into Jesus the
Lord. Looking away from the things
of this world, the things that are turning strangely dim. Salvation
is looking under Christ, folks. It begins in the experience of
it, When we first look to Christ, what do we see? I don't know
about you, but the first thing I saw was that man up there preaching
about Christ Jesus was making more sense to me than I've ever
heard of anything else in this world. For the first time in
my life, I heard about a God who deserved to be called God,
not a God who laid everything out there and just hung it out
in the air that maybe this will happen or that will happen, but
a God that rules. He who is truly God, that's what
I remember, do you? Do you remember when the Lord
opened your ears for the first time? We have the experience
of looking to Christ. He says in Isaiah 45, 22, look
unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I
am God and there is none else. There's no other place. Remember
what he said to his disciples after he spoke to many people
and said, you got to eat my flesh and drink my blood? And many
left because that was hard sayings. He turned to his disciples and
he said, will you leave also? And what did they say? They said,
where are we going to go? No one else has the words of
life but you. Aren't you thankful, he says,
my sheep hear my voice? Salvation is described. in its
continuance as looking unto Jesus. And it ends in exactly the same
way, looking unto Jesus. 1 John 3, verse 2, it is written,
and they shall see his face. The Holy Spirit calls for us
to turn our eyes away from everything else. and to fix them upon the
Lord Jesus Christ alone. Listen to John chapter 3 verses
14 through 15. And as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life. If we would be saved, we
must look to Christ alone. If we would continue in the grace
of God, we must look to Christ alone. Looking away from that
great cloud of witnesses to Christ, there'll be a hindrance to faith
if they keep you in any way from looking to Christ. Look away
from yourself to Christ. Looking to yourself will keep
you from looking to Christ. Look away to Christ for eternal
life. Look away to Christ for redemption.
Look away to Christ for our justification, our faith, our repentance, our
mortification, our sanctification, and our preservation. Look away
from the course that you must run and look to Christ. If you spend your soul's energy
looking at the course, you'll soon be overwhelmed. Look away
from other runners in the race to Christ as well. Anything and
anyone to whom you look to in any degree that takes your eyes
off of Christ, folks, look to Him, and look to Him alone, and
look to Him always. These words, looking unto Christ,
looking unto Jesus, suggest that we, as we run our race, looking
to Christ alone, we must ever be looking to Him. We must look
away to Christ with the eye of faith, ever gazing into His infinitely
glorious person. Faith begins with but a glimmering
revelation of the light of the glory of God in the face of His
Son, the Lord Jesus. The more we look unto Christ,
the more fully we see Him. And the more fully we see Him,
the more we see into Him and perceive who He is and what He
has done. He is the author of our faith.
Let us always be found looking unto Jesus, the author of our
faith. The word translated author is
another one of those words that has a fuller meaning that we
can't grasp quite with the English language. It's one of those Greek
words that has no exact equivalent in English and this word is used
in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 10 where it says when Paul calls
the Lord Jesus the captain of our salvation. He's the author.
He's the captain. He's the one who's in charge.
That's what the word captain is. The word captain tells us
it's someone who directs people and where to go and has a an
authority over the scene, over the battlefield. It comes from
a root word that means commence. Paul holds the Lord Jesus before
us as the one who is the author of faith. He is the one who commences
faith. We would have no faith if it
had not been given to us. and the work in it by his omnipotent
grace. Look with me, let's look at four
verses if you would. Turn over to Ephesians chapter
1. Go to the left if you would, Ephesians chapter 1. Let's look
at one verse there if you would. Verse 19. We're talking about
the author and the finisher. The author of our faith the very
one who gives us faith in verse 19 and what is exceeding greatness
of his power? To us word who believe that there
we go. We're talking about the power
to us word who believe according to the working of of His mighty
power. Now you put that in line with
what we read over there in verse 8 of chapter 2. For by grace
are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It
is the gift of God. Turn again to the right, if you
would, or yeah, back to the right to Philippians. Philippians chapter
1. Just a couple of pages to the
right. And look at verse 29 over there. For unto you It is given
in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also
to suffer for his sake. So we see there, our faith portrays
the Lord as the author, the captain, the very one The very one where
our faith originates from. Let's look at one more if you
would. Go to Colossians, continue to the right, one more, couple
more pages there. Go to Colossians chapter two.
Verse 12, buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are
risen with him through, and here we go, there's that word, faith. through the faith of the operation
of God. So we see the author of our faith
who had raised him from the dead. Now, back in our text in Hebrews
chapter 9, there is more here than that notice. There is more
here than that. Notice the word our. Looking
under Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. Now remember,
I brought that out a moment ago. It's in italics. It's indicating
that it was added later on by the translators into English
language. Without question, scriptures universally teach that Christ
is the only one by whom we have that faith that looks to him
alone as its object. But the intent of the Holy Spirit
here is to teach us that Christ is the one who is the great pioneer
and example of faith, writes Don Fortner. This is to say that
if we would know what it is to live and walk in this world by
faith, we must look to Christ as the pioneer who struck out
the path and blazed the trail before us. Multitudes lived by
faith in the Old Testament. Multitudes have lived by faith
since. Multitudes live by faith today. But if we would find a
man who truly and perfectly lived by faith, if we would find an
example to follow, we must look away from all others, looking
unto Jesus, the pioneer of our faith. Yes, our blessed Savior
lived in this world as a man by faith, ever trusting his Father. He always was in prayer to the
Lord, to God the Father. He trusted the Father when he
took the cup of wrath. He trusted his Father not to
leave him in that grave when he died in the flesh. Folks, Christ died. Can you wrap
our minds? I can't wrap my minds around
that. God died. He died our death. He died the
very death that we would have received if it had not been for
his grace and his love for people. God died. Christ was faithful. He promised God the Father that
he would pay the ransom price. And guess what he did? He did
exactly that. He paid our price. He lived by faith, ever trusting
God the Father, so let us follow his example. He said concerning
the Lord our God and his God he says I will put my trust in
him. That's over in Hebrews 2 verse
13. God the father put his trust in his son as our surety in the
covenant of grace. That's what we read over in Ephesians
chapter 1 verse 13. Let me read that for you real
quick here back to Ephesians. In Ephesians 1 verse 13, In whom
ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the
gospel of our salvation, in whom also, after that ye believed,
ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And God the
Son put his trust in his Father as a man while he lived in this
world. What an example he is. What a
trailblazer he is for us to follow. He walked with God, he always
looked unto the Father, speaking and acting in a childlike dependence
upon the Father, and by faith he looked away from all of the
discouragements, all of the difficulties, all of the oppositions, all of
the temptations. By faith he resisted and overcame
all of Satan's temptations. By faith, he endured all the
trials brought upon him by his father's wise and good providence. By faith, he performed all those
signs and wonders in which the power and the love of salvation
of God were symbolized. Before he raised Lazarus from
the grave, remember what he said? I thank thee, O Father. And the
father heard his prayer. By our Savior's example, we are
taught what it is to believe God, what it is to live by faith. Let us ever be looking unto Jesus,
the pioneer, the author, and the finisher of our faith. He
trusted in God. He gave us the command to have
faith in God and out of the fullness of his own experience. Look over
at Proverbs chapter 3, and I'll bring this to a close. Turn over
to Proverbs chapter 3. Look with me at just a couple
of verses over there, beginning at verse 5. Proverbs chapter
3, verse 5. Trust in the Lord with all thine
heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy
ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes,
for fear the Lord, and depart from evil. Amen.