You take your Bibles and turn
with me to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12, looking again
at verses 1 through 4. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1 through
4. The title of the message is the
example of Christ. The example of Christ. The Scripture says, 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 sat
down on the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him
that endures such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest
you be wearied and faint in your minds." The example of Christ. Chapter 11 of Hebrews, we know,
is the hall of faith. We see that in these examples
of men who were faithful, who believed God, trusted God, even
to the sacrificing of their own lives, giving of their own lives. They believed God, even though
they had not yet received the promise of Christ. They were
all examples to us. is the greatest example for the
believer to follow? Because all of these men listed
here in chapter 11, we also read of their sin. We read that they
are men of like passion, even as we are. But what an example
is the Lord Jesus Christ to us? He is the greatest example of
faith in all of Scripture. He is the example. But first
of all, before I get into the example, I want to see the believer's
experience of faith is Jesus Christ. Most people look at Him
as an example only. He's not an example only. But
our experience of faith is of Jesus Christ. We know that our
faith is not ours by nature, but it is ours by gift and by
the obtaining of faith by Jesus Christ. As we run the race that
God has set before us, we run how? By faith. We run by faith. Faith in Jesus
Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. And we who are
quickened by the power of the Spirit are here encouraged to
fix our eyes on the prize of the race. At every race, there
is a finish. And the runner is to keep his
eyes focused on the finish. His mind is to be set on the
finish of the race, the goal, the prize, the end. And so every
believer, as we run the race, Our mind is to be fixed. It is
to be set. It is to be exercised for this
one point. And that is the finishing of
the race that's set before us. Looking unto Jesus. There is the finish line. The
finish line is not an amount of knowledge that we need to
have. Thank God. The finish line is not an amount
of good works that we need to perform. The finish line is a
person. And I love it, when Stephen was
being stoned, the Lord Jesus Christ, it says that He stood
there welcoming him. Isn't that amazing
that the Lord who is seated on the throne of God, when God's
saints come, He stands up to welcome. He stands up to welcome
them into His arms. An amazing thing this is. Looking
unto Jesus, not only for righteousness and atonement, but also for our
faith. I'm looking unto Jesus for my
faith. Because Jesus is the author of
my faith. He is the author of our faith. This is how every elect sinner
is called of the Spirit of God to begin his spiritual race. To begin the Christian life is
by the grace of faith. No one is saved apart from faith. The Scripture says that, Beloved,
we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren,
beloved of the Lord, for God hath from the beginning chosen
you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit, by the belief
of the truth. Not without that. You have to
believe the truth. You have to have faith. Where
does this faith come from? Is it natural? No. Faith is supernatural. It's simplistic to the living. But to the dead, it's impossible.
Like breathing. Breathing to the living is simplistic. To the dead, it's impossible.
And faith is our breath. And Christ gives us the breath
of faith, the breath of life. Which comes first, life or faith?
Both. You can't have one without the
other. They must come at the same time.
Life and faith. And so Jesus Christ is the author,
the creator, the maker of our faith. He authored our faith
by his obedience and faithfulness toward God. We are saved, and
Paul mentions this several times on purpose, that he was saved
by the faith of Jesus Christ. The faith of Jesus Christ. One of the well-known ones is
Romans chapter 3. And verse 21, it says, But now
the righteousness of God without the law is made plain. Clear. If you want to know how
the righteousness of God is obtained by a man, it's not by the works
of the law. Without the law is made plain,
being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus. Christ, faith of Jesus
Christ unto and upon all them that believe. You see, now there's
ours. There's there's the faith that
we're given. You that believe that was given to you, but that
faith that was given to you was of the faithfulness of Jesus
Christ, of his faith in God. He was the only man that fully
trusted God all of his life. In every thought, in word, in
deed, he is the originator of our faith. The faith of anyone
who has faith, he is the originator. His faith. His faith brought in the righteousness
of God, and his righteousness is imputed to us who have faith,
who are given faith. And it's also imparted to us. Important. Imputed means it's
charged to our account and it has been. It has been charged
to our account. But there's a time where this
righteousness is imputed to our bodies in that new nature. The new creation that God makes
within us, that new man, that is after holiness, after God,
it's after the image of God. That new man is full of righteousness. I'll tell you what, don't look
to experience to try to see that. How do we see that? How do we
know that? By faith. Faith. Because I've not experienced
full righteousness in my life. The only thing I've experienced
is sin. But I know this by faith that the righteousness of God
is imputed and imparted unto me by the Holy Spirit who lives
inside of me, who dwells in me." Have I seen Him dwell in me?
No. I see Him by faith. I see Him
by exercises of the grace of God. Love, joy, peace, meekness,
temperance, all these are graces that are given. And faith is
a grace. It's given, I believe, because
of the grace of God. It's evidence. It's not the cause. See, men have it backwards. Men
say that faith is the cause of our salvation. No, faith is the
result of our salvation. Faith is a gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. And see, you can tell that men
boast when men boast of their faith. When they talk of decisions
and they talk of will, they're boasting of their faith. God says it's not of works. Faith is not of works. Why? Because you'll boast about it.
You'll boast about it, and so would I. This is why it's by
grace. And this starts by Jesus Christ,
by giving the Holy Spirit. Well, how? Then do we continue
in this race? Well, we continue looking unto
Jesus. The same way we started this
race is the same way we're running it right now. We're looking unto
the finish line. Horses, when they're running,
they have these blinders on. Why is that? I'm not a horse person, but I
know this, that they would probably be looking somewhere else other
than where they're going. We should have blinders on. Paul
says, I'm dead to the world and the world's dead to me. Can we
say that? Would to God we could say that
with truth and honesty. That we would have blinders,
not looking to family or friends or anything else, but looking
wholly to Christ. Looking toward the end of our
conversation, the end of our life. We run this race right now the
same way we started by faith in Jesus Christ. We run with
patience. We run with endurance. We run
with confidence looking to Jesus right now. There's no greater
confidence than faith now. We must believe and continue
to believe. Always anxious about the next
minute. Always anxious about the next minute. Not concerned
about where we are or what we're doing. Faith looks to where it's going.
You know, if a runner is running, Andrew did some cross-country
running this year, this last year. Well, that's not necessarily
an even, steady track, is it? I mean, it's off-road. It's in
the fields. And if he's not careful and watching
where he's going, where he is, and where he's going, he's going
to have problems. He could twist an ankle or fall
into a hole or something. If you're not watching where
he's going, not paying attention. Well, that's the same with us.
A lot of times we're turned out of the way because of things
like that. We falter in this race because
we take our eyes off of the path which is the same as the finish,
Jesus Christ. He's not only the finish line
that we look to from the beginning, He's also the path that we're
taking, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. In Galatians, These Galatians,
Paul said, why are you so foolish to think you've begun in the
spirit and are now made perfect by the flesh? Is that where that
goes? You begin this race by faith and then, you know, get
on this way on your way and Jesus gives you a little help and then
you finish it on your own? No. Are you so foolish to think
you can finish this on your own? Many times we do. Many times we think we're all
by ourselves doing this all by ourselves. I know that's when the Lord lets
us fall down to know that we are not doing this by ourselves,
that we are doing none of this by ourselves, that all of this
is of his grace, that he is sustaining us in every way. No man can be justified by the
law in the sight of God. That's clear, Paul says. That's
evident. The just shall live by faith. How do you live? How do you live? How should we be running right
now? By faith. Remember, faith is a grace of
God. It's not necessarily a feeling,
although it affects the emotion. Faith is not only a determination,
though it affects the mind and the will. But faith is all of these affected. Faith affects the whole man. The whole man. The mind, the
heart, and the will. And we desire to believe. I want
to believe more than I do now. I know my faith is weak. I know that I need to be given
more of this grace, and I long for more. But I know
this, that I'm running this race by faith, began it by faith,
I'm running it right now by faith, and I know this, I'm going to
end this race by faith. I'm going to finish this race
by faith. The Scripture says, And ye shall
be hated of all men for my name's sake. But he that endureth to
the end, the same shall be saved." Faith that is of God endures. Because it is of God, it can
do nothing but endure. God is eternal, isn't he? And
therefore, all his works and decrees are eternal decrees. And when God decreed that we
have faith, it was going to be for the duration. It was going
to be for the duration. He is Jesus, the one we look
to by faith. He is the finisher of our faith.
I'm so thankful that I don't have to finish my faith. That
I don't have to sum it up. That I don't have to connect
it together. I don't have to fix anything
with it. The fact is that He is going
to finish. He that hath begun a good work
in you shall perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ. Now,
He'll do it. It may be painful for you. Or
it may not be as painful. But he's going to do it. You
think of Abraham. Abraham and his faith. I know
it was painful for him to take his son and take him up the mountain
and offer him to God. But he had already determined
to do it. And then you look at poor Lot. Now, both of these
men were saved by faith. Both of these men believed in
Christ. And I'll tell you what, they
had two different lives, didn't they? They ended up at the same
place. The finish line. The faith. And
I'll tell you what, nobody wants the path that Lot took. If you
don't want that path, then stay close at his feet by faith. If
we wander, that's how he'll bring us back. He'll bring us back
through much pain and difficulty, because the Lord chastens us.
Chastens us only. And now, then, that's our experience
of faith, but what is to be our example? While we're walking
in faith now, while we're believing in the present, what is to be
our example of faith? Well, Jesus Christ is the greatest
example of faith that we have. He's the author of faith and
the finisher of faith, so then he would be the greatest example
of faith. Is the object, the author, the
finisher, and the example of faith? Who better for us to emulate
than the meek and lowly Jesus? Is there anyone better for us
to mimic, for us to follow, for us to go after in our conversation
and lifestyle as we walk by faith in Christ? Is there any better
model than the perfect Son of the living God? What better example of how we
are to trust God than Jesus Christ? I have never been without food
more than a couple of days. Have you? It's not by choice
either. Military supply trucks got behind
and we went without some food for a while. And I tell you the
truth, I was hungry. I was hungry. I've never been
40 days and 40 nights without food. We can't begin to imagine the
hunger. That our Lord and Savior failed.
Now, he felt it all, friends, he didn't he didn't have some
magical gift that he put on himself that he would not feel hunger.
No, he felt every eight of his stomach. He felt every ache of
the flesh and need of food. And yet when he was tempted,
make these stones bread, if you're the son of God, could he have
made those bread? You bet he could. Could have
made bread out of thin air. Didn't need the stones. But he must be the creator of
our faith, and in doing so, he relied upon God to give him his
bread. When God's the one that drove
him out there, and it's God's the one that's going to have
to give him bread. What an example of faith that
is. How much should we trust God and not look to the flesh? How much should we trust God
and not lean on the arm of our own understanding? As much as the Lord Jesus Christ
believed God, so should we. Jesus believed God in all things. Look at our text. It says, Looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy
that was set before Him. This is the race that was set
before Him. It was a race of joy. Now then,
I'll tell you this. Running His race was not joy.
You'll see that in the next part of that verse. He says, "...endured
the cross, despising the shame." So His cross, His race was set
with a cross. His race was set with discouragement,
Not discouragement, but despising, despising. Men despised and hated
him all of his life, all of his days. He was a man of sorrow
and acquainted with grief. He was rejected of his own creatures
when he came to them in their very image, in their very nature. But he had a joy. That was said
before him and that joy, that joy was us. Is that not the most impossible
thing to believe? But by the grace of God, I wouldn't
believe it. That I was the joy that was set before him. He tells us that in Proverbs
chapter eight, he said that My delight was with the sons of
men." He tells us that. That we were His delight. For
the joy of saving His people, He came to this world and suffered
as a man beyond measure, beyond what we could even possibly understand. He suffered to the fullest extent
a man could suffer, all the while believing God.
trusting God. Well, this don't seem like it's
of God. Yes, it is. Jesus Christ knew everything
was of God. He knew when men believed it was of God, and when
men didn't believe. It's because God turned them
out, let them go to themselves, let them alone. Consider him believers. Consider
His joy that was set before Him that He seated at the right hand
of God. His race has been accomplished. His race has been finished. He
finished that race, and the joy of the crown of glory awaited
Him. And He finished it with great
faith. So great a faith that he took
the book of God's providences, of God's grace, right out of
the hand of God, because it was his right to take it. It was
his right to take it. He was a man of great faith.
Full of faith. Consider him, believer. Consider him that endures his
contradiction of sinners against himself. Lest you be weary and faint in
your minds." I don't think that he really
knew my name, but he was talking about me. I've been weary and faint in
my mind. Have you been wearied in your
faith? Have you been faint in your mind? Well, if we are, why are we not
considering Him? Why are we not considering our
Lord and Savior? Are we weary of worship? Because
we can be. Our hearts can grow cold. Our
hearts can become indifferent. Is your heart become cold and
your love for Christ small? Are you fainting in your minds
with unbelief and fear? Then stop and look at the example
of faith in Jesus Christ. Look at the faith of Christ,
how He endured things that we would never be able to endure. He, being righteous, endured
cruel hatred and mocking of His own creatures. I'll tell you
what, I won't tolerate my dog snapping back at me. I don't
tolerate it. I reach my hand down to pet my
dog. If my dog snaps at me, he's going to get a wallop on the
face. But yet God's creatures, His
created beings that He created for His own self, when He came
into this world, they received Him not. They didn't want anything
to do with Him. And today, men still, by nature,
do not want to have anything to do with Christ. And how did He treat men even
though they rejected Him? Was He not compassionate? Was He not kind? You remember the 5,000 that he
fed. They wanted to make him king
and he ran away. Ran to the other side. Get away
from him. And they came to him and said,
Master, where did you go? We want some more bread. And
he said, No, you don't want life. You want that physical bread
that you ate over there. He knew what they wanted when
he gave it to them. Yet he still gave it to them. You and I wouldn't
have done that. He had great compassion on man. How do we walk by faith? With
great compassion toward each other. That's how. Great love and compassion. He endured such things. He healed the blind and lame
and sick. You would figure that somebody
that's a ruler, if somebody came through your town and you were
a ruler, You figure somebody healing the people, that'd be
a good thing, wouldn't it? Don't you think that'd be a good
thing for our nation if all of a sudden the Lord healed all
the sick people? We wouldn't really worry about health care,
would we? Have any concern for it? But yet, He healed these
people and they still despised Him. They still mocked Him and
hated Him. Jesus came to give light, but
men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are
evil. When the gospel is preached, men are exposed. Sin will be
exposed and they will hate the gospel we espouse by faith. And they will hate you. I do not believe that people oppose me many times
on purpose. I don't think they know what
they're doing. Isn't that what the Lord said?
Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. I think a lot
of people don't know what they're doing. That doesn't make them
innocent, but it sure is that they don't know that they're
trying to oppose me. How are we to endure through
these that oppose us with love? You cannot find anything but
great love in the Lord Jesus Christ when he walked on this
earth. He said, you hate me, one that's
told you the truth, why would you hate a man that tells you
the truth? They did. But he continued telling
them the truth, continued The Scripture says to us who
believe we are to walk this way. He says to the elect of God,
holy and beloved, put on vows of mercy, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, long suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving
one another. If any man have a quarrel against
any, even as Christ forgave you, so also should you forgive him.
Is that not great faith? Because I'll tell you what, that's
not that's not something natural. for us to forgive somebody by
absolute free grace, is it? It's not easy. It's impossible
for us. But yet to walk by faith, that's
what we do. That's the example Christ left
for us. As we walk by faith in Christ, we walk by the example
of Christ that loved one another, even as He loved us. He said, above all things, put
on love, which is the bond of perfectness. That word bond means
ligament. What do your ligaments do? They
hold everything together. Now, I've popped one of my ligaments
in the back of my leg, and every time I would walk, if I put a
lot of weight on that or moved in a certain direction, I would
just fall down without that one ligament. Friends, the thing
that bonds the church together is love. That's the ligament
that holds us together to the head. Jesus Christ, it is His
love that holds the body to the head. And it is the love that
He gives us that holds the body together. That's how we're to
walk. May God be gracious to me in
saying this, because I believe it to be so with all my heart,
That I love you more than my earthly family. I love you more than all men. Because you are part of the body
of Christ. You are part of my body. You
are part of his body. And that glue that holds us together
is love. The moment we stop loving is
the moment the church begins to fall apart. You can have all the right doctrine,
but it loves missing. And now with the Lord Jesus Christ
told the Ephesians that you got all the right doctrine, you got
everything I love, but there's one thing I'm against you. You've
left your first love. And I'll tell you what, I can't
love you without loving him first. And so we must love him. He is
the one that attaches us together. In Ephesians, chapter four and
verse one, it says there, I, therefore, the prisoner of the
Lord Jesus Christ, beseech you to walk worthy of your vocation.
What's your vocation? By trade, Zach, you are an engineer,
but that's not your vocation. What is your vocation? Prisoner. That's your vocation. Paul said,
I therefore am a prisoner. Now you walk worthy of your vocation.
Prisoner. And that's great because I'm
a prisoner of Christ. I want to be. I don't want to
be free from Him. He is my Master. With all lowliness
and meekness and with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.
You must forbear with me." How? Gritting your teeth? Is that
it? I just can't wait. I'm out of His presence. No! That's not love. To walk by faith is to walk by
love. Forbearing one another, endeavoring. driving, always taking the short
end of the stick for the other person. That's what it is. It's
enduring injustice with a smile. Well, that man beat me out of
a thousand dollars. Isn't that great? Well, that's how it should be.
You want to know how to walk and run in this race? By faith.
That's how we do it. Endeavoring, striving to keep
the bond of unity. Bond of peace. Why? Because we ourselves are in bondage
to Christ. We are under the law of faith.
The law of love. And if we don't do this, we will
become wearied and faint in our minds. If we do not keep our eyes fixed
on Christ by faith, if we do not keep our love focused on
him and on each other, it won't be long and we'll be weary. May God give us grace to look
by faith to Christ and to be, to see Him as our example. Our example of how we're to love
one another. May God bless this to your hearts.