Turn back with me in your Bibles
to Hebrews. The book of Hebrews. But turn this time to chapter
12. We've read a good part of that eleventh chapter, but we want to continue with
the apostles' words in the first two verses of chapter 12. There's no real division here. But he writes, "...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. 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." The race that the apostle speaks
of here is really a course. And it is the course of life
that God has laid out for each and every one of His children. But we do not run this race to
be saved. We run it as those who have been
saved, because Christ finished that work on the cross. I pray that He will always keep
in our minds those three words, which are really one word. It is finished. And we do not run it for reward,
because if we have Christ, we have it all. We have everything. And when God brings us to Christ
in faith, that's when we begin this course in our experience. But we begin this race at the
finished line. It's the only race there is that
we run, but we begin at the finished line. That's what I call this
morning, starting or running from the finished line. And we have already won because
Christ has already gotten the victory for us. He's already
won it all. And this principle of grace,
this very notion that we actually begin at the finish line is so
opposite to natural thinking. Natural thinking always wants
to do something to get something. And not only that, it's so contrary
to all the principles and ideals of this world. You work, you get it. You don't
work, you don't get it. But most of all, it is so contrary
to all the teachings of false religion. If you will, God will. Make it so many and how different
you might make it, it will always be the same. In other words,
what God does for you depends on what you do. You do for Him
or some act. So the whole notion of grace,
the whole thought of starting at the finish line is so contrary. But not only do we start this
course from the finish line, this course is one of conflict,
contention, fight, warfare, You might say it is somewhat of an
obstacle course. And one way we know that is by
what we read about these in the 11th chapter, all these Old Testament
saints who likewise had a course to run. And just by what we read,
we know they had hardship and trial enemies and conflicts and
all these various things. And that's why in one part he
tells us that we are to run this course or run this race with
patience. It's easy to get frustrated.
It's easy to get ahead. of what God has laid out for
us. It's easy to become impatient. And it is one that requires endurance. As a matter of fact, he tells
us that God's elect will all endure to the end. He that endureth to the end shall
be saved." It's not his enduring that will save him, but his enduring
will show that God saved him. He will endure to the end. And they will all be finally
and fully and eternally saved. Every one. And yet, as we run
this course, as we run this race He speaks of, there is still
a sin that does so easily beset us. Did you notice that? He speaks of a sin that does
so easily beset us, stall us, if you will, stop us momentarily. And it is, without a doubt, especially
in light of the context of these words, it is that root sin. And that is the sin of unbelief. And though God gives faith, we
are still plagued in this race, stalled, maybe temporarily diverted,
by our unbelief. And all these verses that precede
these two verses, if you go back and read them all fully, you
remember that the subject of all these preceding verses is
faith. They were all believers. They were all true believers. And in their course, every one
of them had a unique set of difficulties and trials and troubles and oppositions
and personal failures. They are just an encyclopedia,
a catalog of men and women who all had very similar faults and
failures and oppositions at various times in their life. But they all made it. They all,
every one of them, it says, obtained a good report, not by those around
them, But they everyone obtained a good report from the only one
that really matters, and that is God Himself. And the race that is being run
is run believing the promises of God. How can we really believe? that God will fulfill all He
has promised, because He's already made them yes and amen in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the faith that He speaks
of throughout all of these verses, this faith is not natural to
men and women. We're not born with this faith. As a matter of fact, God tells
us in the face of all those who would say, you've got faith,
all you've got to do is exercise it. But God says in the face
of all of that, all men have not faith. All men and women do not have
faith. And rather, faith is the evidence
and the activity of spiritual life is the result of being born
again. The reason why all men and women
don't have faith is they're not all born of God. John 1, he says,
"...but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become
the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name." Why
did they believe on His name? And so many others didn't. Why
do the few believe on His name, and a multitude of people, they
do not?" He said, "...these believe on His name, which were born,
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God." They have faith because they are born of
God. And this faith is the gift of
God. It's not something I muster up
or can get for myself. It's the gift of God. Paul writing
to the Ephesians says, "...for by grace are ye saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves." It is the gift of God. And God the Spirit, who gives
us spiritual life and this gift of faith, He does so in conjunction
with the Word of Faith. That's what the Gospels call
the Word of Faith. He says in Romans 10, So then
faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. God gives His people faith. He
gives it to them as a gift. And when He gives it to them
as this gift, He gives it to them through the gospel that
reveals the only object of true faith, the Lord Jesus Christ. And what we find in this book
is that in describing faith, there are very many illustrations
of faith using our bodies. He pictures faith as having legs. You know, life has movement. And he pictures faith as having
legs. He says, we walk by faith. And not only that, he pictures
faith as having hands. He says, lay hold of eternal
life. That life that is in Christ. And he pictures faith also as
having eyes. Having eyes. And in his verses
that we read, he speaks of our looking unto Jesus. Looking unto Jesus. As a matter of fact, in this
book, God is continually commanding and calling upon us, saying,
look unto Me. Look unto Me. And when I think
about that, I am reminded about how easy it is for us, unbelief
still being natural to us, how easy it is for us to look everywhere
else. But he says, look unto me. He
says we're to run this course looking unto Jesus. And the only
way that a sinner can do this is through this looking of faith
to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, we behold the glory. We behold the saving, redeeming
glory of God in His grace in the face or in the person of
Jesus Christ. Do you ever see mercy? If I ever
see mercy? If we ever see grace? If we ever
see any hope? If we ever see any salvation?
If we ever see any eternal prospect? It will be by looking unto Jesus,
not with the natural eye. Men and women have for many,
many generations looked to things, material things that the natural
eye can behold. They have looked and looked hard
and looked often only to be disappointed. You see, it says that Moses endured
as seeing Him who is invisible. He did not endure on the basis
of seeing what he beheld outwardly. He saw things in the light of
what he saw by faith in the promises of God, which were much more
than what the highest position of Egypt had to offer. And all throughout that 11th
chapter, we're given many individuals as examples of faith, But the
apostle does not tell us to look to them or to any other, but
calls upon us to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. And men and
women are very often, I'm afraid, by subtle deception, and even
sometimes by good intention directed to look at someone or something
other than the Lord Jesus Christ. There are some who would have
us to look within ourselves. There are some who would call
upon us to look at our lives. There are some who would say
we have need to look at our experience. And the list goes on and on and
on. But I'm going to tell you this
this morning. If we ever find any hope or any encouragement
or any satisfaction looking at any of these things, we're in
trouble. We're blinded by ourselves, and
we're blinded by Satan, and we have a false hope or either a
miserable weight if we are looking anywhere else except to the One
that God tells us to look to. We run this course. Those who
begin at this finish line, those who are the true people of faith,
they live it, they run it, looking unto Jesus. And actually, the
looking that is described here, the words have with them notions
that this looking of faith here is a looking from afar. We look as Moses did. If you look back in verse 26,
it says, "...he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches
than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense
of the reward. And by faith he forsook Egypt."
not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing
Him who is invisible, because he saw Him by faith. He looked to Him by faith. He turned his eyes away from
every other consideration and fixed them on the eternal recompense. What is that? Eternal life that
is in Christ Jesus. Eternal glory that is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so, he endured all these
things by faith, looking unto Christ, and even in the midst
of them, he stumbled and he fell. And he momentarily, temporarily
at times, I'm sure, took his eyes off the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn over to Matthew chapter
14. Matthew chapter 14, listen to
this account in Matthew chapter 14 in the experience of Simon
Peter. Matthew 14, when the ship was
tossed in the midst of the seas and the winds were contrary,
verse 25 it says, And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus
went unto them walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw
Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is
a Spirit. And they cried out for fear.
Straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer,
it is I. Be not afraid. And Peter answered
Him and said, Lord, if it be Thou, bid me come unto Thee on
the water. And he said, come. And when Peter
was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go
to Jesus. What a marvelous, wonderful thing. He's looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's been bidden to come to Christ. And he's walking on the water. Everything is good. But look at the next verse. But
when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried,
saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched
forth His hand and caught him and said unto him, O thou of
little faith, Wherefore didst thou doubt?" You see, when he began to look at anything else other than
the Lord Jesus Christ, he began to sink. When he saw the winds,
when he observed the tempest, He was afraid. And that's exactly
the way we are. That passage in the New Testament
came to my mind a lot in recent days wherein we are told that
whatsoever things that are good, and whatsoever things that are
pure, and whatsoever things that are right, and the Apostle goes
on and names a rather long list, and then he says, Think on these
things. Where can you find such things?
You don't find them by reading the news. You don't find them
by thinking about current events or recent problems. That description will only fit
one, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only thing
that is pure and good and truth and all these things, and he
says, think on these things. And so here was Simon Peter and
he was walking, but when he got on to looking to all these other
things, that's when he became fearful. And you can apply that
in so many aspects of our life, in our experience, in our failures,
in what's going on around us, all these things. Everything
looks bad except when we look to Christ. And the Apostle says that we
are to look to Christ who is the author and finisher of faith. Look at that second verse in
Hebrews 12. He says, "...looking unto Jesus,
the author and finisher of faith." That word, our, there, if you
notice, is in italics. And that means it was added by
the translator supposedly for clarity, but what it says is
that he is the author and finisher of faith. And elsewhere that word author
is given to us as captain. He's the captain of faith. He's the prince leader. He's the alpha and omega. He is the finisher or the perfecter
of faith. Now let me tell you one thing
I know that means. It means that the Lord Jesus
Christ Himself, He is the greatest example of faith. In other words,
when He yielded Himself into the hands of the Father, when
He yielded Himself to be taken and hung on that cross and put
to death, that's the greatest act of faith that has ever been. That's the greatest demonstration
of trust in the Godhead that any man has ever done in all
this creation. He is the perfecter of faith. But you see, you and I, are not
only called upon to look to Him, not only as the example, the
greatest example of faith, but we are called upon to look to
Christ as He is. True faith does not look to Christ
as some mystical being, or as some fantasy formed in our mind,
or some untrue individual presented by false religion. Christ is
a glorious person who is known by His work. Now, there are lots of people
who say they see Jesus and who say they have seen Jesus. I'll never forget many, many
years ago, a man told me that he had a vision. He went out
in the woods and stayed in this cabin and he was there, you know,
praying and fasting and doing everything. And finally, after
a while, he had a vision. Jesus came to him. I said, he did? He said, yeah,
he was wearing a black robe, and I couldn't see his face,
but I knew it was Jesus. No, no. No, no. When we behold the Lord Jesus
Christ, it is by faith, and he says, we behold the glory of
God. What is the glory of God? Well,
three times in Ephesians 1, Whenever the apostle is giving thanks
and blessing and praising the Godhead in all three persons,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he says, it is to the praise
of the glory of His grace. The grace of God is the glory
of God, and it is in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this person, this glorious
person that we are to look to, is the one who is known by this
particular work. We look to Him as Christ and
Him crucified. You ever stop and think of how
many people in this world, you might say they look to Jesus
as a great example, as a great ideal and standard. Or they look
to Jesus as the best teacher that has ever been. Or they look
to Jesus as the most faithful martyr who died for what he believed. But they don't look to the Lord
Jesus Christ as He is truly revealed in the Scriptures. You see, that's
all in this life that we will ever see of the Godhead, and
it is in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we only know
who He is by what the Scripture says He's done. And when we finally
behold Him as it says we will face to face, we're going to
find out. Just how He is. And you know
how it's going to be? It's going to be just how
He was. Because He's the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Without a doubt, we'll behold
Him more glorious. We'll behold Him and look upon
Him with more understanding, and with more capacity to understand. But I promise you, He'll be exactly
the same as He is in this book. He never changes. He cannot change
for the better. He will not change for the worse. He'll be exactly the same. And
we behold Him in this hour only to the degree that we behold
His glory in His person and His work. Now, I think about it sometimes. I've been trying to preach the
gospel for 35 plus years. And I have over that time sought
to tell men and women about these two aspects of the Savior. Who He is and what He's done. I have stood and I have preached
sermon after sermon, and I've written article after article,
but I've never exhausted it. I've never been able to tell
out the glory of who He is as God manifests in the flesh. I've never been able to tell
out all the glories that are involved in that work that He
came into this world to accomplish. But if there is no hour before
faith here in verse 2, and it reads, looking unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of faith, there are some who say that the
word faith here refers to the gospel which is called the faith. The gospel is all summed up in
Christ crucified. Jude says, Beloved, when I gave
all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was
needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should
earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto
the saints. And then there are some who say
it refers to faith in Christ. Paul writing to Timothy, he says,
"...and that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures,
which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith
which is in Christ Jesus." Which is it? It's both. I get really amused
at times when theologians Take the gospel of Christ. They're like somebody eating
a fish, except they pick out the bones and eat the bones and
they leave the meat. And they set as enemies and opposites
things that are clearly united and inseparable in the Bible. That's right. Is it faith or
is it the faith? Well, they are inseparable, and
there is no faith apart from the faith, and all who truly
believe the faith believe on the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. You can't separate them. You
can't say, well, we're running our course looking unto Jesus,
we see Him, we imagine Him, all these things. No. If you haven't
seen Him in the truth, you've not seen Him who is the truth.
Or they may say, well, We know, we have some understanding, we
have some knowledge of the Scriptures and all that. Yes, but it's like
stair steps. If they don't take you up that
step to the door Himself, you haven't seen Him. I think about it like this sometimes. It's really relative these days
since Billy and I celebrated the 50th on Friday. I have a
certificate somewhere. A legal certificate that says
that she and I were married and she is my wife. But you know, it's hard to embrace
a certificate. Though that is a fact. I still
like to wrap my arms around her and embrace her and know her. We wouldn't be married if it
wasn't for that act. But being married, it gives that
privilege of enjoyment of each other personally. You see, the
faith which is the gospel is distinguished from what Paul
called another gospel in that it sets forth Christ as the author
and finisher of salvation. He's the whole of it. He's all
of it. He's the A to Z of it and everything
in between. And we're not told To examine
ourselves. You ever hear people who like
to quote those part verses? Well, the Bible says we're to
examine ourselves. No, it does not. No, it does
not. It says examine yourselves whether
you be in the faith. And you can examine yourselves
And there's two ways that you'll go if you're just examining yourself. One way to go, as so many do,
that's the way of self-righteousness, the way of the Pharisees. They
examine themselves and they pat themselves on the back and say,
oh, what a good boy am I. And then there's the other way.
when they examine themselves and all they see is nothing but
sin and vile corruption and imperfection, and it leads to total despair. He says, examine yourselves whether
you be in the faith. Is this the faith? Is my faith
in the faith? If it is not in thee faith, it's
like me jumping out of an airplane as a parachutist and having on
my back a pack, and I pull on that ripcord with such sincerity
and hope and all, but there's no parachute in it. Was my feeling
real? Yes. Was my confidence real? Yes. It was not justified though. You see, only Christ, the Christ
that is revealed in the faith, the One who is the author and
the finisher, the One who is the example, the great example
of faith itself, and yet the One who in that example of faith
establishes the faith. And He does it by what He did. He says, examine yourselves whether
you be in the faith. And if our gospel, our doctrine,
if what we've heard or believe or believed to be true, if it
does not exalt Christ as the initiator and the successful
finisher of God's purpose of salvation, then it's not really
faith. We're not really looking. to
Jesus. Sometimes people are looking
at their looking. I hear that a lot. Oh, they say,
well, I don't doubt God, but I doubt me. Whoever told you
to doubt you? Whoever told you to look to you?
You see, the glad tidings are that everything from A to Z in
God's salvation Everything in justification, everything in
righteousness, everything in peace, everything in hope, everything
in the satisfaction of God is in the Lord Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. You see, all righteousness which
God requires, He gives as a gift in Christ. That's why we call
Him the Lord our righteousness. And the righteousness of Christ
is the cause of faith. Now, I want you to think about
this. The righteousness of Christ, rather than being caused by our
faith, is caused by Christ. Let me read you a verse. When Simon Peter writes in the
second epistle, in the salutary words that he first speaks, he
says, Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ,
to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through
the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Why
does anybody have faith? Why do these have this gift of
faith? Why are they born of God, and
as a consequence of that, believe on Christ? It's because of the
righteousness of Christ. God gives every grace. And it
is through this God-given faith that we receive or are brought
to appreciate and rest in and enjoy righteousness. Philippians
3, Paul says, "...that I might be found in Him, not having mine
own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through
the faith of Christ." The righteousness which is of God by faith. But faith is not the cause of
it. His righteousness is the cause of it. Salvation is not
conditioned on faith. But faith is the gift of God
to all He saves. And they, as a consequence of
that, they are ever looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. And when
they look to Christ, their looking neither causes nor continues
their salvation. And you have to ask yourself
this question. When did my salvation begin? When did it begin? The Apostle
Paul says, before the foundation of the world. Before the foundation
of the world. And that is God first loving
me in Christ, choosing me in Christ, purposing to save me
by His grace and not according to my works in Christ, not imputing
my sins to me, writing my name in the Lamb's Book of Life before
the world begins, predestinating all things necessary to conform
me to Christ, redeeming me from sin through the blood of Christ,
justifying me by imputing to me the righteousness of Christ,
begetting the life of Christ in me by His Spirit, sanctifying
me altogether in Christ, keeping me in Christ. And all that happened before
I was born. So, when we are called upon to run
our course, and that's the whole of our course, spiritual things,
family things, all these things. Brother Tim James said one time,
what are these things? He says, all things. All things
are of God. But as we're called upon to run
this race, looking unto Jesus, where is He at in our birth? Where is He already
at? Now, we know that we were chosen
in Him. We know that He came and became
flesh and dwelt among us. We know that He went to that
cross. We know that He rose from the
dead. We know all these things. And
we know that God accepted His work on our behalf because of where we see Him. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and 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." That's where we see
Him. We see Him already seated. Successful. Already accepted
in His person and work on behalf of His people. Already seated. We're not headed for a tomb somewhere. We're not, in this course, going
to find that it leads to a dead end somewhere. It's going to wind up with Him.
And He's already seated on the throne. As a matter of fact,
it says that we are already seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Already victorious. And we're
simply running not even for Him. We're on this course to Him. And we're to run it with patience.
We're to run it looking to Him. We're to run it trusting Him.
We're to run it believing His truth. Paul says, when he writes to
Timothy, he says, I fought a good fight. Oh, you mean to tell me
it's a fight all the way? Absolutely. I fought a good fight. I finished my course. He's saying
all this by God's grace. I've kept the faith. God, by
His grace, has kept me believing on Christ and trusting in that
gospel, that work He accomplished. Now, I'm not one who gives many
illustrations. Because all the illustrations
I'm afraid I've heard from men, they fall so far short. Natural
things illustrating spiritual things always fall short. Not only that, really the illustrations
have already been given to us. He gave us the illustrations
first in the Old Testament. But if I were going to take some
earthly, natural thing to illustrate it, It would be like a baseball player.
It's the last inning of the game. This team is the last up at bat. And this baseball player, he
steps up to the plate, ties zero to zero, and he hits one out
of the park. Now, in every sense, He's already
won the game. Has he not? He's already won
it. He's the last man. It's the last
inning. The other team has no score. So that home run he hits wins
the game. But he has to run the bases,
doesn't he? He still has to go and touch first base, and he
still has to go and touch second base, and he still has to go
and touch third base, and he still has to come home, doesn't
he? Why? That's the rules. These are God's
rules. And our Lord is the one who stands
at that plate, and by Himself, He hits the home run. But all
His people are in Him. They've already won because He
wins. But He makes them the designated
runners. And so they've got to go this
course. They get right at first base,
and the first baseman, he may turn and knock them right on
their backsides. Doesn't matter though, because
they've already won. He may run in the shortstop, he may run
out and trip them. Or the second baseman, he may
grab a handful of sand and throw in their eyes. Doesn't matter.
They've already won. They may get to the third baseman
like a lot of us are at this point, I'm thinking. They may
get tired. They may get tired of this running.
But it doesn't matter because they've already won. He's going
to bring every one of them to just touch that plate to show
without any doubt without any infraction against His rule,
His judgment, His law, whatever, that the one who hit the home
run, He won. He won. That's how we see Christ
here, as the one who has already won it all for His people, and
no matter what happens to them in the course. They started at
the finish line. That's where they're going to
wind up. Looking unto Jesus, the author, the finisher of faith. Our Father, this day we give
honor and glory and praise to Your name. And we would pray
at the very first, that we would in nothing we say, been irreverent
to your holy name, to the glorious person and work of Christ. We
pray that we might have this faith. We pray as your people,
Lord, increase our faith. And our faith will have been
increased more by you. The more we are able to look
to and to see of The Lord Jesus is all our righteousness, all
our life, all our salvation. We thank you for it. We pray
that you'd help us in this course, in this race. Grant us this patience. Cause us to know that we've already
been given the victory. and cause us to run in faithfulness
the course that you've set before us. Help us, give us faith that
we not be so beset by that sin of unbelief. Help your people,
wherever they are, in affliction or trial or trouble or persecution,
whatever the case is, to run this course Steadfastly looking
to Christ. Believing your gospel. Earnestly contending for the
faith. Help us neither to look to the
right nor the left, nor to the ground. Help us to look to the
Lord Jesus. To see Him already seated. at the right hand of the Majesty
on High, having by Himself purged our sins. We thank you and we
pray in Him. Amen.