You want to turn your Bibles
to Hebrews chapter 12. When we sing those songs, I hope
that we don't get carried up in just the music, the tune,
but we actually express from our heart the great appreciation
and adoration of the Lord Jesus Christ because we are the sinners
who are singing His praises because He saved us from our sins. It's
not about us. It's about Him. It's not because
we did something to acquire this great enthusiasm or joy or peace
ourselves. He did it. And our entire confidence
and assurance is in what God thinks of Him, not in us at all,
but what He thinks of us because of Him. That's our confidence. And so we should sing with confidence.
We should sing with joy and peace. And it's God's gift of faith
that enables us to look away from all that we are and see
in Christ all that God delights in and delights in for us and
therefore has given us all things in Him. Let's pray. Our gracious
Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, and thank you for
the Lord Jesus. We pray that you would so enable
us to look away from ourselves today, that we would see him
truly as he is in all of his glory from your word, and we
would find everything we need in him. In his name we pray,
amen. In Hebrews chapter 12, if you wanna look there, The writer to the Hebrews has
concluded with a long historical list of those who lived by faith. Remember the end of chapter 10,
it says the just shall live by faith. He said he was closing
in chapter 10 with a warning, a very scary warning, when he
said that if we, he says in chapter 10, In verse 26, if we sin willfully
after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there
remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. To sin willfully means
to turn away from God's salvation in His Son and to consider His
blood an unholy thing. and to trample it underfoot in
unbelief and to turn away from it as if it means nothing and
we don't need it and it is not all of God's glory seen in what
Christ did. And that's a fearful thing. So
he goes on and he says in verse 35 of chapter 10, cast not away
therefore your confidence which hath great recompense of reward. The confidence is what? It's
not our faith. Is our faith our confidence?
Our confidence is Christ and faith is just that, it's confidence
in Christ. Not in ourselves, not in our
own personal faith, but in the Lord Jesus Christ and what he
did by his faith. But he goes on, he says, for
you have need of patience. that after you have done the
will of God, you might receive the promise. Doing the will of
God in this case is what Jesus said the will of God was. This
is the will of Him that sent me, that of everyone that seeth
the Son and believeth on Him, should have everlasting life,
and I will raise him up at the last day. That's the Father's
will. So he's referring to our initial embrace of Christ in
this faith that God has given to us. After you have first believed,
you need to go on in patience, enduring by faith also. He goes
on. For yet a little while, and he
that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just
shall live by faith. But if any man draw back, My
soul shall have no pleasure in him, but we are not of them who
draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving
of the soul. God has given this grace to us.
And so chapter 11 is substantiating the fact that all of God's people
throughout history, from the beginning of the world until
the present time, have always lived by faith. This is the way
God held up Abraham to all of us as the father of those who
believe Christ. Spiritually, he's the father
of all those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And David
also is held up to us as the man who said, blessed is he whose
transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered. Blessed
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. That we're justified
not by our doing, but by Christ's doing, entirely out of God's
grace. And this is what these two patriarchs
were held up to us in Romans chapter four and throughout scripture
in the New Testament. And so the whole catalog of those
in Hebrews 11 brings forth a whole cloud of witnesses, a great cloud
of witnesses. And we've gone through that in
some detail. But now in chapter 12, he puts
the capstone on all of that. He says in verse one, chapter
12, verse one, wherefore seeing you also See, we also are compassed
about with so great a cloud of witnesses. Not only did they
have everything that God said to them, but we have that and
this great cloud of witnesses and everything that had come
before in the book of Hebrews about Christ fulfilling the entire
Old Testament in himself. He says, 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. So here we
are in our life. We've come into time. God has
birthed us through our physical parents. And now we've come under
the hearing of the gospel. And by God's grace, he has sent
from his throne, the Lord Jesus Christ has sent from his throne
his own spirit to take the testimony of what He did and who He is
and declare it to us. And by His grace, give us life
in the declaration of His word, commanding us to look to Him
and believe on Him. And we've experienced that. God
has put it in our heart to be in this dire strait, this dire
condition and the recognition of our guilt before God in all
of our shame and our helplessness and has directed us to look at
the Lord Jesus Christ. God has done that. In the time
experience of our life, he has directed us to the historical
accomplishment of our salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
he says, he goes here, he says, now we, seeing we are encompassed
about with this great cloud of witnesses who also live by the
same faith in the same Lord and the same salvation, looking for
the same promises that we do, he said, let us lay aside every
weight like a runner. Take it off and run. And the
sin which does so easily beset us, which is what? It's the sin
he described in the book of Hebrews, how in chapter three, those who
heard the word of God in the wilderness saw God's miracles,
yet they did not enter into that promised land, which is our salvation,
because they did not believe God. So he says, let us lay aside
every weight, anything that distracts us, and the sin which doth so
easily beset us, that sin of unbelief, and do what? He says,
and let us run with patience the race set before us. Like
a marathon runner, it's long. We're gonna try to win. That's
our goal, is to obtain the prize. But the prize has already been
obtained for us because he says in verse two, notice, looking
unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, and he sets
him up as the pioneer, really, 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 here the Lord
lays out in a simple sentence the entire ministry and the victory
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has spoken of all those men
in history and those women in history, and now he comes to
the one they trusted, the one who went before them and in time
came after and yet fulfilled, perfectly fulfilled what they
did only in part, which was he truly believed God perfectly.
He trusted in his Father. What did the Lord Jesus Christ
believe? He believed that there was a joy set before him. The
joy of bringing his people to God, to himself, pure and holy,
by he himself coming in our nature and taking our sins and burying
them too before God and laying his life down in sacrifice, in
offering to God for us, for our sins. He believed that God would
give to him those people and would, and by his cleansing blood,
having made atonement for their sins before God, he would bring
them to glory with himself, his brethren. He was not ashamed
to call them his brethren. And so he did that. And he trusted
God, even under the judgment of God against himself for our
sins. He trusted his father. He trusted
His will, He trusted His work, He trusted the work He gave Him
to do, and He did it in faith and in love for His Father and
for His people. That love that caused Him to
lay His life down, an immeasurable offering, the offering of the
Son of God in our nature with our sins, offered to God alone
in order to obtain our eternal redemption. Christ did that. He perfectly fulfilled it. And
so he says here in verse 2, looking unto Jesus, the author, the one
who was the source, the one from whom our faith comes. He's the
one. By him we believe in God. By
Him. It says this throughout Scripture. In Acts 3.16, for example, it's
by Him we believe in God. In 1 Peter 1, it's by Him we
believe in God. In Acts 20.21, he says, faith,
repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Throughout
Scripture, we're to trust in who? The Lord Jesus Christ, which
tells us immediately He has to be God. We are not to trust a
man. But he's not only God, he is
God and man. The one who sits on the throne,
as we were seeing earlier. Look, ye saints, the sight is
glorious. See the man of sorrows now. He has overcome. He sits on heaven's
throne. When John the Baptist came into
the world, he pointed to him. This is he of whom all of the
law and the prophets spoke. And John was the last prophet,
the greatest, because he came to announce the very fulfillment
of all of the Old Testament in the one who came. The king has
come, and his kingdom is now being proclaimed. His law, the
gospel, is being declared to sinners. And they're told to
look to him, to believe him. That's the most momentous event
in all of history. The king has come in our nature,
but he didn't come in all of his royalty. He came in shame. He laid aside his reputation
because for him to be king over his people, he first had to offer
himself as the high priest, offering himself as the Lamb of God for
their sins to God. He had to please God. He had
to do his will. And what was that? To give himself
for sinners. who deserved His wrath. He undertook
to fulfill His own justice and glorify, magnify His own law
for them in laying His life down for them, exceeding all measure
of sacrifice and obedience and love. We could never comprehend
this. It passes knowledge, it says
in Ephesians 3. The love of Christ, it passes
knowledge. The breadth and length and depth and height of the love
of God, which is in Christ. These things should stagger the
mind, stagger us in faith. And he says, looking unto Jesus. He's the one who ran. He finished. Look, he's in glory. Look, ye
saints. The sight is glorious. Our captain
has run first. He's obtained the prize. Now
we, in our life, in the experience of our life, looking to him,
we also have a race to run. It's the race of faith, just
like it was for him. For the joy set before him, he
trusted his father. It would bring him the greatest
joy for his people to come to him and take from him the salvation
he obtained for them. And that's why he said to the
woman at the well, give me to drink. And yet she didn't have
anything to drink, to give him to drink. The well was too deep
and she had nothing to draw with. And yet he spoke to her and made
himself known. And in her looking and seeing
him, he drank deeply because he was fulfilling the love of
his heart. He was realizing the joy set before him in doing his
father's will and finishing it, too, in his own sacrifice for
her. We experience this when God gives
us a sight of Christ. We experience it in faith, looking
away from ourselves, looking to him. Now, this is the exhortation
the Lord has given us. This is God's own spirit giving
us who are sinful, want to look and see in Christ all of our
salvation. It's outside of ourselves. It's
in spite of ourselves. He's obtained it. And we're to
ask him and come to him and call on him and look to him for it,
trusting him. And so there's many scriptures,
we could look at this, and we're going to take some time to look
at them. Look at Psalm chapter 123. What does it mean to look? And there was someone, I was
in a church in Missouri a few years back, and someone asked
me, what does it mean looking to Jesus? A good question. He
says in Psalm 123, he says in verse one, unto thee, Lift up mine eyes. I'm sorry. Unto thee I lift up mine eyes.
That's looking, isn't it? Unto thee. He's talking to the
Lord. I lift up mine eyes. O thou that
dwellest in the heavens. Notice verse two. Behold. That's
another way of saying look. As the eyes of servants look
unto the hand of their masters, And as the eyes of a maiden unto
the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the Lord our
God until that he have mercy upon us. That's looking. We look
for mercy from God and we wait for it. We trust him for it. We wait in patience for it. We're
expecting it. We anticipate this. By God's
grace, seeing that we have access into the holiest of all by the
blood of Jesus, By God's grace, we have full assurance. And so
we expect, because God provided, and Christ offered himself, and
God accepted his sacrifice for his people, and that's the entire
matter settled between me and God, when we see that from the
gospel, it gives us an assurance and confidence to come to God
boldly. And if we come another way, then
we're coming with some part of ourselves, not boldly, because
we are timidly coming because we think it depends on us. But
here he says, no, I look to the Lord, behold, as a servant or
a mistress looks to her maid. I mean, however it is, I'm not
familiar with these terms of female servants and masters,
but As a servant looks to the hand of the master, and as the
eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait
upon the Lord our God until he have mercy upon us. Have mercy
upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we are exceedingly filled
with contempt. And he's describing how the people
of God are despised because they're weak and sinful and have nothing
on earth to contribute, you would think, to accomplish anything,
and yet they look to the eyes of their Master. And this is
what looking is, it's looking to Him, looking to Christ for
mercy, waiting on Him for it, expecting it from Him. And there's
many scriptures like this, There's another scripture that you should
consider too, but I want you to look at Hebrews chapter 12
before we go too far into those. Notice what he says here in verse
two. 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. What is looking? What does it
mean to look unto Jesus? Well, consider the verse right
here. Notice he says in this verse, the author and finisher
of our faith. What's the first thing we look
to him for? to give us faith, to sustain our faith, and to
perfect our faith, the author and finisher of our faith. Not
only that, we know that he is the first one who believed on
God. He's the one who trusted, and
he did it perfectly. And we also know that God set
him up so that what he did as the second and last Adam would
be attributed to us. God counts his obedience, his
faith as ours. His prayers were answered for
us. This is incredible. This is unbelievable
unless God himself had said it. We're to look to him for the
very faith we need to look and to uphold that faith. When Peter
denied the Lord Jesus, Jesus said, I have prayed for your
faith. That's the reason he continued believing. And when he looked
at the Lord, and he saw Jesus looking at him, and he went out
and wept bitterly, if it was me, it would be over, unless
the Lord had prayed for your faith. And that's what he is,
the author, the finisher. Many people believe that they
contribute at the beginning of their salvation. Others that
they contribute during their salvation. And others, finally,
that they will be saved if they themselves do something. But
here, the Lord lays it all on Jesus, doesn't he? The author
and finisher of our faith. He's the first and the last,
the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. In all
things, he must have the preeminence. We're not going to get into glory.
Imagine what the scene is there in heaven. What do we see? We see a throne. And who's on
the throne? God. God the Father in all of
His glory. In the presence of God the Father,
who is there? The Lamb of God. And who is receiving all praise
and honor and blessing and glory and worship? God and the Lamb. Who else is piping up about what
they did? No one. Everyone has cast their
crowns at his feet, at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not
a peep will be heard about what I did or you did. In fact, we
would be ashamed to even consider it. The thought entering our
mind would exclude us. Christ receives all the glory.
Why? Because he's the only one worthy. He's the only one who
did it. He's the author and the finisher
of our faith. And so we're told here, that's
right, look to him. Remember, John the Baptist, the
greatest prophet, the end of all, the Old Testament law, what
did he do? Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin
of the world. The sin atoning, the sin atoning
sacrifice, the surety who offered himself to answer every charge
against his people. That's the one we look to, look
to him. And so he himself says in Isaiah
45 and verse 22, the Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament as
God gives us this word in Isaiah 45, 22, look unto me and be ye
saved. All the ends of the earth. There
it is. God has commanded all men everywhere
to repent, turn away from looking to yourself, to look to one only,
the Lord. And who is the Lord? It's Jesus,
looking unto Jesus. They're the same. The one who
in the Old Testament is Jehovah, the Son of God, one with the
Father and the Spirit, is the one who came in our nature as
Son of Man, and he himself fulfilled the salvation. He said, you look
to me for that. You look to me. I am God. There's none else. God alone
can save, but he who is God had to save us by taking our nature
and bearing our sins to answer his own justice, to magnify himself
in his glorious character as God over all. And so he says,
look unto me and be ye saved. What is looking? It's beholding.
It's considering. It's trusting. It's waiting for
everything, for everything. It says in the Old Testament,
even the lions wait on God to give them their meat. And we
think ourselves strong. We go on independently, not thinking
about God. But the lions know better. and
they wait for their meat from God. And he opens his hand and
he satisfies the desire of every living thing. Now, if God does
that in the physical, how much more in the spiritual? We have
to look to him for everything. In Isaiah 65, he says, I am sought
of them that ask not for me. I am found of them that sought
me not. We think, well, I finally had this event in my life that
set me into some kind of a, crisis, and I finally called unto the
Lord. So I was looking for the Lord, and then I found him. You've
misunderstood the way God works. I am sought of them that ask
not for me. You were looking in all the wrong
directions. There is none that seeketh after
God, none that understandeth. Here he says, I am sought of
them that ask me not. Why did they seek him? I am found of
them that sought me not. How could they find him? I said,
behold me. Behold me to a nation that was
not called by my name. That's the way God saves. He
saves the dead in sins. He saves those who have no strength,
no understanding. They're blind, spiritually blind. And he makes himself known in
his saving work. In John chapter 3, Jesus told
Nicodemus, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Remember the serpent
in the wilderness lifted up on the pole? Those bitten by the
serpents because of their sin, because they were speaking against
God and Moses, they were dying. Many of them died. And God said
to Moses, hammer out a serpent of brass and put it on a pole. And everyone who looks shall
live. And Jesus explains, whosoever
believeth, looking is believing. Believing is seeing God's declaration,
hearing God's declaration of what Christ has done with persuasion
that comes from God and embracing it gladly in trust. is being
persuaded by God, is being left with nothing and finding everything
in the Lord Jesus Christ and laying hold on Him by God-given
faith. venturing your eternal soul,
venturing all power over your own sin, that vile, filthy thing
that you are and cannot overcome, laying it all on Christ and seeing
Him alone as able to deliver you, not only from the guilt
of your sin and the shame of it and the punishment of it,
but the power of it and the presence of it. We look to Him for everything. And so looking to Him, we're
looking at God in Him. The fullness of the Godhead dwells
in Him bodily. Jesus said, He that seeth Me,
seeth Him that sent Me. That's looking. He says in 2
Corinthians 3 verse 18, we all with open face beholding as in
a glass the glory of the Lord, which is Jesus Christ, and Him
crucified, are changed into the same image from glory to glory,
even as by the Spirit of the Lord. We look at Christ and Him
crucified. Crucified, buried, risen, ascended,
reigning, giving us salvation, telling us from heaven, with
all the authority of God and man, look unto me and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth. And we don't deviate from that. We don't go on, now we've received
it. No, he's the finisher also of our faith. And so we continue
looking. Life, the life of faith is looking
to Jesus. There is no other way for the
believer to walk and live. We live by faith. We live by
the faith of the Son of God. We trust him, we look to him,
and we believe God will accept us for his sake. And so we come,
we come to God by the blood of Jesus. And that means it's all
sufficient. There's nothing else needed but
his blood for us. And so we trust God. And not
only do we look now, but when we see him, as he is, then we'll
be like him. That's how much power there is
in seeing Christ. When we see him, we will be suddenly
in a moment transformed and we will be fully like him, conformed
to the image of God's dear son. in seeing Christ, looking to
me. In Revelation 22 verse four it
says, and they shall see his face. That's the reward. That's the reward of God's grace
to us. He has made us holy in his blood
and justified and redeemed us and remitted our sins and reconciled
us to himself because of the blood of Jesus. And then he's
going to give us the reward of Christ to us. The Lord is going to continually
give in reward to Christ for all eternity. He cannot give
enough because Christ gave his all. And that's the only thing
God can receive for sinners. The Lord Jesus Christ who gave
himself for our sins. So we shall see his face. Scripture
says that we turn to him the back and not the face. And when
he was on earth, they hit him in the face. and they spit in
his face. And then they took a reed and
they hit him on the head with it. But when he came, he said,
I hid not my face from shame and spitting, and I gave my back
to the smiters in order that we might see his face in righteousness. That was the obedience of Christ,
laying down his life for his enemies, that we might see his
face in righteousness. We who were haters of God, despisers
of Christ, persecuted him, spoke all manner of evil against him
falsely. He took our sins, he bore them
all, and he didn't hide his face from shame and spitting. but
he did it for the joy set before him. He despised the shame, it
says here in Hebrews chapter 12, it says, who for the joy
that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame
and is set down at the right hand of God. The shame of our
sins and the cruel mocking and the unjust murder of men of the
Son of God, even though it was God's justice, For them, they
had an evil intent and did it unjustly. That was shameful. That was reproach. And he despised
that. But he was willing to undertake
in the thing he despised to have what he loved, the joy of having
his people and saving them too. What a savior. Look, he says,
the sight is glorious. See the man of sorrows now crowned
with all of the glory of God. And so faith looking to Jesus
is considering him and it is and it's seen that he's the author
and finisher of our faith. And it's considering what he
did and why he did it. Notice for the joy. That's why
that was set before him. What did he do? He endured the
cross. And what was that like? It was
shameful. And he despised the shame. And
yet he did it in obedience of submission out of love, in fulfillment
of God's own righteousness in this earth as man and also the
law itself. Everything was done in what he
did for his people. There's no greater humility than
to take on the case of those who hate you in order to reconcile
them to yourself at the highest cost. God reconciled us to himself
by the death of his son. Consider that, consider him.
So looking to Jesus as considering him, consider him who for the
joy that was set before him and considering him seeing what he
did. Why he did it. How he did it.
He emptied himself. He gave himself. He suffered. He suffered shame. He did that
in obedience. And over and over in scripture
it says we're called to suffering. Our life in this world is short.
Very short. When you're looking at it from
the end of it and looking back, it seems very short. It's when
we look forward and we think, wow, we've got a long time. We
don't have a long time. He said, as I was just reading
a minute ago in Hebrews chapter 10, he says, for yet a little
while. And he that shall come will come.
He's saying here that a very, very little while. It was a very,
very short time. He that shall come will come.
So the Lord himself considers 1,000 years to be a day and a
day to be 1,000 years. And our life is insignificant. It's like a wave of the sea.
Look, oh look, it's gone. It's gone. Where was it? I don't
care. There's another wave over there. It rises up, it falls. There's
some grass growing over there. And before fall, it's dried up. And before spring, it's blown
away. Our life is so short. We're like
the grass of the field, the flower of the field. It comes up. You
know how tulips are. You plant a tulip, gorgeous.
Oh man, three or four days, it's gone. What happened? His beauty
just lasted a short time. Jesus said, that's the way our
life is. Because Christ alone endures. And we alone, we can only live
in him. So consider him, consider how
he came. He came in humility and in humiliation. and we have to consider him and
consider what he did, consider his faith, consider his obedience,
and consider his victory, consider all of Christ, consider his sufferings,
consider his death, consider his resurrection and his ascension
and his enthronement, consider his glory, consider his authority
and power, consider his justice and righteousness, consider his
grace and his mercy, consider him, looking to him, wait on
him, Call upon Him. Ask Him. Ask Him. Worship Him. All these things are what we
do because we consider and look to Him. Wait on Him. We only receive grace from God
looking to Jesus. Do you know that? We can't have
grace from God in any other way. There's only salvation in His
name. There's no other name under heaven
given among men whereby we must be saved. We sometimes wonder,
why do we suffer? We consider other people, perhaps,
because we see their sufferings more than our own. Why does that
person suffer so much? Why does it seem that God has
allowed so much affliction and weakness in their life? And here
I am, strong and happy and healthy, and I don't have a care in the
world. Why? Whether you're afflicted
or not, remember this, the Lord Jesus Christ suffered. He walked
this earth as a man of sorrows. So when we see others afflicted,
consider the sorrows of Christ. Consider that his footsteps were
footsteps of going to the cross, footsteps that led to his own,
giving his own life in blood. And so consider him, consider
that suffering and consider what he did by that. He saved his
people from their sins, brought them not just out of the wrath
of God, but made them sons and heirs of God, joint heirs with
himself. Everything given to him, he gives
to his people. That was the joy set before him.
Consider that suffering and know this, that it was God's will
that his son should suffer. Therefore, we trust him that
in all of our sufferings, we're only We're only experiencing
just an infinitesimal amount of what he suffered. So we know
that suffering in this life is part of this life according to
the will of God. We trust him. He trusted God
in suffering, so we can trust him. And so in trusting God in
suffering, we see that we're following in the steps of our
Master, whether it be the fear of the loss of our life or health
or whatever it is. We can trust Him. We can look
to Jesus, can't we? He's the captain. He went before
us looking unto Jesus. What about our prayers? In all
of his prayers, he called upon his father. He trusted his father. He rolled himself upon Jehovah. And that was the accusation they
gave him on the cross. He trusted in the Lord. And so
he did. He trusted in the Lord in all
of his prayers. He called. Though he were a son, Yet learned
he obedience by the things which he suffered. He cried and he
was heard because he believed God. He feared, says in Hebrews
5, 7 through 9. So all these things teach us
what? To look to Jesus. How do we understand this race
we're running? Look to Jesus. Well, what about
the details of it? I don't know whether I'm going
to go left or right here. Whether this is coming or that.
Looking to Jesus. What about my past? I'm afraid
my past is going to rise up and accuse me. Look to Jesus. What about life itself? I'm worried
that life is going to consume me. My own lust and pride and
ignorance. that my faith isn't real. What
are you supposed to do? Look to Jesus, you see. God directs
us away from ourselves. This is the whole point of the
gospel, is to cause us to see absolute helplessness, guilt
and shame and filth in all that we are, in order to get our minds
directed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it's true that the fear of
God's wrath will not save a person. Look at Noah and the flood and
Sodom and Gomorrah. Look at Judas. Look at all these
people, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar. They all had the threat that
didn't turn them. But it is also true that in God's
providence, He has to take away our self-confidence. And so we
hear the threatenings of God's wrath against us, and then we're
prepared to hear that Christ has done it all. And then the
love of God draws us, constrains us, and compels us to look to
Jesus only, and find in Jesus only everything God requires
of us, which we would never have given. could not give and didn't
want to give. To God, all we said, like it
says in Psalm 14, the fool has said in his heart, no. No, God. No to your word, no to your truth,
no to your person, no to your work, no to your glory. It's
about me. That's what the fool says. That's
what Psalm 14 says. We all are by nature. And then
God unsettles us. He puts us on the ocean in a
boat, and we're about to die, and we cry to the Lord. Then
he delivers us. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for his goodness. It's the goodness of God that
leads you to repentance. But in all these workings of
God, in our lives, in the circumstances of our lives, it's to get us
to look to the Lord Jesus Christ because we're so hard-headed
and so arrogant in our pride. I'm fine. I'm strong. Oh, I'm
righteous enough. I've done enough. Oh, I can do
that someday. I'll be good enough if I keep trying. Here's the
standard. I can make some progress toward
that. Baloney! The whole point, read the Sermon
on the Mount. Read it. What does Jesus say?
You've heard that it was said of old time, but I say unto you,
if you're not convicted by that, if you're not proven there to
be an absolute wretch in God's eyes and have no hope, then I
don't know what can. But that's not enough to save.
He has to then lift up the Lord Jesus Christ. See, here's the
man who loved his enemies. Here's the man who laid his life
down and prayed for his enemies. He gave all that he had. And
he didn't look for anything in return but to glorify his father
and save his people and give them what was his. That's love. And that's what God counts to
us for our righteousness, for absolutely no contribution on
our part, looking unto Jesus. Look to Him, see Him, and trust
Him, and ask God, oh God, give me this faith to see Christ.
I need to see my Savior and wait for Him. It's God's will. Jesus said this in John chapter
six, He said, this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone
who seeth the sun and believeth on him should have everlasting
life, and I should raise him up at the last day. That's amazing. That was God's will for me, a
complete rebel. That's what we've seen. Look,
he says, the sight is glorious. This is explicit warrant to the
worst of sinners. Look to Christ, the only one
who's good. Looking is believing, it's trusting,
it's relying. Looking is the obedience to this
command. Looking unto Jesus. This is how
all of God's saints live from the beginning. What about the
good report? How will we have a good report
before God? It's going to have to be found
in his son. So we look to him. What about our salvation? Look
unto me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth. What
about strength and temptation? Looking to Jesus. You see, what
happened when he was tempted? He trusted. Did he overcome? Yes, he did. So what are you
going to do? You're going to look to the Lord
Jesus Christ. It's not in you, believe me. It's not in you.
You won't find any strength. In fact, what you'll find in
your life is a failure, failure, failure, failure. That's why
you're told, looking to Jesus. Enduring the race of faith, look
to Jesus Christ. What about I don't even think
I've ever actually believed God or prayed. Well then, what are
you supposed to do? Looking to Jesus. You see, looking
to Christ is the answer to every fear, every temptation, every
need for grace, every prayer. You come to God looking to Jesus. We come by his blood, don't we?
We behold the Lamb of God. Look, Abel came that way. Looking
to Jesus. Noah hid in the ark, looking
to Jesus. In the Passover, in the home
of the Passover, where the Passover blood was sprinkled, it was,
God's gonna have to look at the blood and pass over me. It was
looking to Jesus. All these things. When the blind
man said, Lord, I might see. And when he saw, he said, do
you believe on the Son of God? Who is he? That I might believe
him. It's you've seen him and he it
is that speaks to you. Oh, I believe. You see, everything
has to come and my sins prevail and and in my sins not only prevail
against me, but they overcome me. What am I going to do? Look
into Jesus. If you wallow in the in the excuse
of your of your of your sins, what are you doing? Well, I have
to somehow get myself out of this problem. No, you need to
look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. What's wrong with
me? That's what we often think. What's wrong with me? Oh, there's
a lot wrong with you. What am I supposed to do? Looking
unto Jesus. What about my conscience? I can't
get rid of the sense of my own guilt before God. Look to Jesus. The sprinkling of the blood upon
our conscience delivers us from these dead works, causes us to
see that everything God required, He obligated His Son to do for
me. Unto death, looking unto Jesus. Looking unto Him is looking away
from myself. It means I find all of my acceptance,
all confidence in my salvation, in what God thinks of His Son,
it's looking to Jesus. He's the only one to whom we
are to look and therefore he must be God overall. And yet
he's the man who in his own life lived in faith and obedience
out of that faith and love to his father for his people to
the extent that he gave himself. He was spent, he spent and he
was spent in total for us. We don't have any righteousness.
We look to Him for all. In fact, we look to Him for everything.
There's nothing that we need that's not in Him. Therefore,
we look to Him. When we are mocked, when we are
falsely accused, or when we are really accused for things we've
done wrong, looking to Jesus. When we're despised because we
say, because God said I believe it, looking to Jesus. We point
others to the one we look to. Look, sinner, look to Jesus. He saved me. Believe me, he can
save you. If he saved me, he can save you. When we're reproached, why should
I defend myself? Why should I threaten back? Why
should I revile those who revile me? He didn't. And he was right. He was the Holy One of God and
he did it bearing our sins. So if we suffer, what big deal
is that? It's actually the present sufferings
of this life are not even worthy to be compared with the glory
that shall be revealed in us. So we look to Jesus. If any man
sin, we have an advocate. Look to our advocate. If we sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus, the righteous. Look to him for righteousness.
He is the propitiation for our sins. Look to him for satisfaction
for your sins and to take away the wrath of God. God appointed
him to that. He provided him, he accepted
him for that purpose for his people. Look to him. If in fear or danger or persecution,
any obstacle between you and God, all of your weakness, any
undertaking to do anything to the glory of God, look to the
Lord Jesus Christ. Come to Him for all, everything. Don't presume to have anything
of value, but find it in Christ. All strength, all goodness and
holiness and righteousness, it's in the Lord Jesus Christ. When
you hear his command, what you ought to be, what you should
do and should not do, and you find you've already broken it,
even when he gave the command, Look to Jesus. Lord, you command
it. This is what you require. Lord,
provide for me what I cannot do, what I have already failed
to do. Looking to Jesus. Sometimes we
fear, but what if I don't continue? You never started on your own?
How about if I don't finish? Huh, didn't you just read he's
the author and finisher of our faith? What if I deny him? Peter
did. What was he to do? He had to
look to Jesus, the one who prayed for his faith and the upholder
of his faith. Everything in our life as a believer,
walking by faith is simply looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. What
about judgment? I won't be able to answer. I
haven't done what was right. What are you going to do? What
answer will you give? You're going to ask the Lord
Jesus to answer, right? Aren't you looking to him to
be your answer? in your conscience, at the cross,
at judgment, against every enemy, to overcome every sin is looking
to Jesus. There's no time and nothing. We should spend our days, our
nights, all of our hours looking unto Jesus. That's the way we
run. That's the running. Thank God
that the Lord has provided for us such a savior, a captain. He alone went against our enemies.
He actually overcame and he sat down. Notice he says, 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 on
the right hand of the throne of God. That's it, right? Our salvation is done. When did it happen? When he rose
from the dead and sat down. It was done. It was done. How
do you know? Because he's seated in glory.
But what if there's one for whom Christ died that doesn't make
it all the way or maybe doesn't receive what he should receive
because he failed? That cannot happen. You know
why? Not because that person has to
come up with something, but because Christ gave himself, he gave
all that he was. And God is going to spend eternity
rewarding him for what he did. There's no measure of his value,
no measure of his holiness and his love and his grace for sinners. And that is the heart of God
realized in his life. And God is going to reward him
everlastingly if one for whom he died does not receive the
full promise of the everlasting covenant. then the Lord Jesus
Christ will be disappointed because he gave himself and didn't get
what he laid his life down to achieve. He will not have the
joy that was set before him. That cannot happen. That cannot
happen. You see, that's looking to Christ.
It's taking his word and his worth and coming to God by him
alone. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you
for the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is our Savior. He is
our Lord. We pray, Lord, that we would
be given this grace to look to Him and see Him as such, so that
we would willingly and gladly not only embrace Him, but we
would embrace any difficulty in this life, trusting His power,
trusting His purpose to bring us to Himself, all by Himself,
and that we would, in faith, we would struggle, we would fight,
we would wrestle, and we would know all the time the strength
must come from Him, and the victory too, and the glory and honor
for that victory must be His. Help us to look to Jesus. In
His name we pray, amen.