Well, it's good to be back with
you this evening. The Lord gave us very good meetings down at
Spring Lake with the Bethel Church, and many of them asked that I
send their regards to you, including Brother Rupert and his wife Betty,
so you have their regards. I believe the Lord's given me
a message for you. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews 12. Throughout the New Testament,
whenever the Spirit of God, by inspiration, would teach us how
to do a thing, whenever He would inspire us in anything, He directs
our attention and the focus of our hearts constantly to the
Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. If you want to know what it is
to believe God, look at that man. who live perfectly by faith,
Jesus Christ, our Redeemer. If you want to know what it is
to be devoted to the cause of God's glory, He's the example. If you want
to be inspired for it, He's the inspiration. If you want to know
what it is to live in any relationship in life, the apostles constantly
hold before us the Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to be a good
husband, He tells you how. because of the way he is as a
husband to your soul. You want to be a good parent,
he tells you how, as he cares for, disciplines, and nurtures
his own children. You want to be a faithful child,
he shows you how as an obedient son. Our Lord Jesus is the example
in all things. Our Lord shows us by example
how to give, give yourself. The man gives him his own self,
everything else taken care of. Paul said concerning the Macedonians,
they first gave their own selves, and then they gave. As a man
gives himself, as Christ gave himself, he gives all, and nothing
is withheld. You want to know what it is to
do the will of God? Not my will, your will be done. Father, glorify your name. And if you want to know what
it is to live in faithful, steadfast, unrelenting, persevering faith
in the midst of heavy trial, with a heavy heart, with adversity,
conflict, and opposition, look to Christ. Look with me now at
Hebrews chapter 12, and we'll see just this. 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. Here the Holy Spirit tells us
that we must lay aside every weight of carnal care. and the
terrible sin, unbelief, which would so easily beset us. We
must lay aside both that sin of earthly care choking us continually
and the sin of unbelief that overwhelms us and would turn
us out of the way. And then in verse 2, he tells
us how to run the race. Run with patience and run to
the end, looking unto Jesus. looking away to Him. This is
not an occasional glance in His direction. This is not a little
spasm of religion. This is not a little fit of religion,
but it is rather looking away to and looking constantly to,
ever looking to the Lord Jesus Christ, looking to him who is
the author and finisher of our faith. He's the author and finisher
of that faith which we possess, and he is the author and finisher
of that faith which we believe. He has both worked out that which
is the gospel, and He has given us faith in Himself. Who? For the joy, or because of the
joy that was set before Him. The joy set before Him, the joy
of His soul, is the salvation of your soul. That which gives the Son of God
delight is the salvation of His people. That which sustained
Him in the midst of all things is the saving of our souls. The
joy that was set before Him, because of that, He endured the
cross. He endured the cross. I don't
know how on earth it has come to pass that we are so hardened
and so blinded that we somehow get the idea I know we've got
it out of our heads. I know doctrinally we don't have
this idea, but somehow when we look at the sufferings of our
Redeemer, we almost read those things as if they didn't really
happen, as if really it was no difficulty for Him. He endured
the cross, despising the shame, and now He's finished His work. He sat down on the right hand
of the throne of God. Now, the apostle here tells us,
as we run this race, to look away to Christ alone. And that
really isn't too great a difficulty when we first begin the race.
Man who first comes to Christ is overwhelmed with a sense of
his goodness, grace, and glory, and looks away from himself,
and looks away from the world, and looks away from the cares
of the world, and looks away from the race itself, looking
to Christ alone. But after a while, we tend to
get distracted. One of the most horrible aspects
of human depravity is that we take for granted. and presume
upon the dearest of relationships. We take for granted and presume
upon the most tender love. We take for granted and presume
upon the most blessed company. And we tend to get distracted
from Christ. Obstacles arise. This cross-country
race we're in gets a little difficulty. We get weary, tired, weary of
conflict, weary of opposition, weary of the trial, weary of
all the things that oppose us. You see, the race we're running
is considerably more than a sporting event. This is not a race running
around a track with no obstacles, just running from one place to
another. but rather it is a warfare. It's not a race for a crown,
but a race for life. The race set before us carries
us through hostile enemy territory all the time, and it's a difficult
race. In addition to all the other
things that we have to face, all the other opposition that
might hinder us, we meet with opposition from within. The lust
of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. Opposition
from our flesh. Opposition from our nature. Opposition
all around us in the world. Opposition around us in family
and in friend. Opposition around us with the
care of just living here. Opposition from hell itself.
So Paul is inspired here by the Holy Spirit to use another incentive,
to give us another motive, to inspire our steadfastness in
the faith. He's told us all these things. Now in verse three, he
calls for us to consider him. And that's my subject this evening.
May God give us grace to consider him. Hold your Bibles open on
your laps. And let me talk aloud to myself
for a minute how many mistakes I have made because I didn't consider him. How often I behaved recklessly. because I just didn't stop and
consider. I didn't consider him. How often
I have needlessly injured folks I've intended to help because
I didn't consider him. How often I've been hesitant
when I should have run quickly because I didn't consider him.
And how often I have run when I should have waited because
I didn't consider him. Wise are those men. Wise are those women. Wise are
those young people and children who learn before saying or doing
anything to consider. Consider the end of the matter.
Consider the consequences. Consider the motive. And wisest
of all are they who consider Him. Look at verse 3 of Hebrews
12. I want us to look at it line
by line. There's the connection. This
little word connects these two verses that we're going to look
at tonight with those preceding verses. It connects these two
verses with the race. These almost seem either redundant
or out of place, but the Holy Spirit uses this word deliberately
to show us he's still talking about the same conflict, the
same race. The word connects the matter
of considering Christ with this business of running the race.
Consider Him. Now, Paul has called for us to
consider Him previously in this book. Turn back to Hebrews chapter
3. Throughout this chapter, he's been pointing us to Christ, pointing
us to Him, to look to Him, to consider Him, to follow Him.
But he uses a different word on all three occasions. The words
translated consider in our English translation, but it's really
a different word on all three occasions. In Hebrews 3.1, He
says, wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling,
consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Jesus
Christ. That word means stop, behold,
gaze upon, look at him, observe him, observe him. Look to Him
who is our great apostle, God's messenger. Look to Him who is
our great high priest. Ever observe Him. Now look at
chapter 7, verse 4. And I realize that the Holy Spirit
is here talking about Melchizedek, but He's not really talking about
Melchizedek. He's talking about Christ who Melchizedek represented,
or perhaps who Melchizedek was. He says in Hebrews 7 verse 4,
now consider how great this man was. Consider how great the Lord
Jesus Christ was to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a
tenth of the spoils. And he goes on to describe for
us the great priestly work of our Lord Jesus Christ as a priest
of God made after the order of Melchizedek. Without father,
without mother, without beginning of days, without end of life,
this great man is a great man indeed, for this man is the only
man who is himself the infinite God wrapped up in human flesh. This great man is the redeemer
of our souls. And the word that's translated,
consider here, means to look closely. Look closely like you
would look if you were a spectator at a boxing match, sitting at
ringside, and the fellow you're rooting for is in the thick of
the fight, and it's just every blow will be the determining
factor. You just look closely. And yet
there's more. It's even more intense than that.
Look at him like you were a defendant sitting in court. on trial for
your life, and you're observing what's going
on between your lawyer and the prosecutor and the judge and
the jury, watch. Watch intensely as one with a
personal interest in what's going on. That's the word. Look with
a personal interest. Consider with a personal interest
what's going on. Weigh these things carefully,
but weigh them with a personal interest. You see, the fact is,
in the affair of redemption, we are only spectators. We're
only spectators, but the spectators with a real interest. That which
the Son of God accomplished for us as our great high priest,
as our Melchizedek, He accomplished for us, and we were involved
in it. But the word back here in Hebrews
12.3 is a different word altogether. This word is really a mathematical
term. It is the word from which we
would get our word analyzed. It means to weigh proportionately,
to compare, to consider again and again intensely. So when
you begin to think about faith in Christ, and you begin to think
that faith in Him costs a good bit, when you begin to think
that the trials are just too hard, When you begin to think
that the way is just too rough, when you begin to think that
it just interferes too much with life, the Holy Spirit says, think
again. Think again. When the cares of
the world come in, and when the allurements of the world draw
away your heart, and when the attentions of things around you
draw away your mind, consider again Him. Look again to Him. Consider Him proportionally. Look at everything around you.
Look at everything around you. Look at everything you experience.
Look at everything that you constantly weigh when you make decisions
in life. Look at everything that affects
you. Go ahead, let's put them in the
balances. Let's put them in the balances.
Here's all of it. The heartache and the happiness.
the blessedness, and the cursedness, the riches, and the health, and
the prosperity, and the joy, and the pleasure, and the pain,
and the trouble, and the trial. Oh, what weights there are. Wait a minute, wait a minute.
You forgot something. Christ. These things are nothing. Consider
him proportionately. Count the cost. And look at the
text. Consider him that endured such
contradiction of sinners against himself. The language of Scripture, particularly
in the original languages, is such a rich, rich language. This word of, it might be translated
contradiction of sinners, a contradiction from sinners, a contradiction
because of sinners, a contradiction out of sinners. And this is what
he's telling us. First, let us consider the Lord
Jesus Christ himself. Him. This one whose name we seek
to honor, this one we seek to follow, this one we trust, this
one we hang the hope of our immortal souls upon, this one we look
to for salvation. Consider His great glorious person. This man sitting yonder in glory
is God Almighty. Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, is
God. He is God. He is the eternal
God, the self-existent God, the omnipotent God. He is God everywhere
present, God all-knowing, God all-wise. He is God in human
flesh. The mystery of the incarnation,
is at one time both the most profound mystery and the most
blessed consolation revealed in Holy Scripture. God took on
himself human flesh. Hope my soul, but he took on
himself human flesh. This God who sits in glory, this
God who died in our room instead, this God who lived for us while
He walked on this earth as a real man, is indeed a real man. And while He sits yonder in glory
without any of the consequences of sin upon Him, without any
of the pain that He endured upon Him, while He sits yonder in
glory, in the glory of His exalted state, He's still a man. A man,
Larry Criss, just like you, who remembers well what it was to
live here just like you. That means he's God able to save. God willing to save. And the
God-man, our Savior, sympathetic with the people he saves. Touched. touched with the feeling of our
infirmities. Nothing touches him that doesn't
touch us. Nothing touches us that doesn't
touch him. Nothing moves us that doesn't move him. We know no
experience that he hasn't known. We endure no trial he hasn't
endured. We feel no pain he hasn't felt. He is in all things a sympathizing
high priest, our Lord Jesus Christ. us and so loved us that he assumed
our nature to redeem and save us. The Holy Spirit would have
us to constantly consider him as he is in his glorious person
in all his mediatorial offices. Before the world was, he assumed
responsibility for us as our surety. And he has never relinquished
the trust. As our great surety, Jesus Christ
is our mediator, our only mediator with God Almighty. As our great
surety, he is our high priest, our only sacrificing high priest
acceptable to God by whom we have access unto God. As our
mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ is our unceasing advocate with
the Father in heaven. As our mediator, He has assumed
our calls and He holds and maintains in faithfulness the trust given
to Him, the saving of our souls, both now and forever. And consider
as well the mission upon which He came into this world. He came
here, the Son of God came here, with these two things in mind,
and really they're just one. He came here to save us from
our sins for the glory of God. He had no other aim, no other
intention, no other motive, no other purpose. Never was there
any like the Son of God, single-minded, single-hearted, devoted to a
single cause. He came into the world to seek
and to save that which was lost, to glorify His Father. He said,
Father, for this cause came I unto this hour, glorify Thy name. He came to save His people from
their sins. They were His people, trusted
to Him, given to Him in the covenant of grace. And He came here to
save them, that God might be glorified in the saving of our
souls. Now then, look at this. We should
especially remember and consider the patience with which He endured
the contradiction of sinners against Himself. The word contradiction
means opposition. Everywhere I've ever been in
my life, I've met with opposition. I'm talking about now in the
kingdom of God. Wherever I've gone preaching the gospel, I've
met with opposition. I've never been anywhere yet
preaching. Somebody didn't either personally express opposition
or they related to me opposition. Somebody else had given. I've
never been in any circumstance where that didn't happen. Sometimes
opposition gets a little heavy. But our Lord, when He walked
on this earth, was opposed by everything. Everything. Ed, when I get in a place where The congregation I'm preaching
to shows more than a little rage because of what I preach. I've
still got you to come back to. I'll go somewhere and somebody
else is talking bad about me. I can go back to Reuben. She'll
talk good to me. I've got some comfort, some consolation
on many sides. But our Lord, His own brethren
didn't believe Him. Read John chapter 7 verse 5.
Our Lord, when the chips were down, His kinsmen, He's out in
the streets and everybody turned thumbs down on Him, His kinsmen
said, well, we've been telling Him He's gone mad. He's lost
His mind. He came unto His own and His
own received Him not. Not only was He opposed by His
own people, but the opposition of our Lord, that contradiction
that He faced because of sin and faced because of sinners
and faced from sinners, There's an opposition that came from
the very centers for whom he suffered the opposition. The
scribes and Pharisees despised him, yes. The religious world
despised him, yes. The priest and the Levites despised
him, yes. But Isaiah says we despised him. We hid our faces from him. We
esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. We looked
upon him with just the same contempt. Our hearts were and are by nature
enmity against him. The Lord Jesus came down here
to save the very people who wished that he should be made to die,
and he died for us that we might live by him. The opposition was
relentless. When he came, there was no room
for him in the inn. Yeah, I know what the historians
say, but I don't pay too much attention to them when they contradict
what this book says. There was no room for him in
the end. No room for him because they didn't want him. No room
for him because he was despised, a poor man. If he'd have come
riding into town as a mighty conqueror, if he'd have come
into town and his mother and his adopted father had been wealthy,
mighty men of power, I'll guarantee you they'd have found room for
him. But he came here as a poor, humble servant of God, without
any place to call his own, with not so much as a pillow upon
which to rest his head. And because he was poor and despised,
he was laid in an inn. Pilate despised him. Or Herod,
rather. Herod, as soon as he found out
he was born, he said, let's figure out what put him to death. Tried
to kill him. And for that reason, he was driven
with his parents into Egypt for two years. We don't know much
about his childhood from his infancy until he was 12 years
old. Turn back to Psalm 88, though, I'll show you something. I'll
show you what kind of childhood it was. Ben, how old are you, buddy?
Ben? How old are you, buddy? Ten. See the smile on that boy's face
when he turned around and looked at him? I sometimes wonder if there was
ever a smile on our Savior's face. I look in the faces of children
sometimes and I think, what a sad looking child. I look back on
my life sometimes and I think, let me tell you about his life. Let
me tell you about his childhood. Psalm 88 verse 15. Read the whole
psalm, you'll see this is a messianic prophecy. It's describing our
Savior's life in this world. I was afflicted and ready to
die from my youth. While I suffer thy terrors, I
am distracted. Our Lord Jesus suffered everything
a man can suffer in this world. Throughout the days of his life,
he came here and lived all together as our substitute. So that from
the commencement of his life to the end, it was a life describing
one who is the man of sorrows. From the beginning of his ministry
to its end, he endured the unbroken, relentless contradiction of sinners
against himself. No sooner was he baptized by
John the Baptist in the River Jordan, alleging himself and
professing himself as that one who is the Messiah, who has come
to fulfill all righteousness by the sacrifice of himself,
that he was driven by the Spirit of God into the wilderness. Isn't
it amazing the language of Scripture? It doesn't say he went into the
wilderness. It doesn't say he was led into the wilderness,
but he was driven into the wilderness by God the Holy Spirit. And there
he fasted for 40 days, being tempted of the devil in all points
like as we are, yet without sin. When he was in Gethsemane, oh my soul, what he suffered. When I was young and thought
I had to explain everything and thought I could, I tried to enter into what our
Lord endured in Gethsemane. And I have just about learned. I've just about learned that
some things are better meditated on than preached on. The Son
of God endured trial. and opposition and heartache
and pain and contradiction like we cannot begin to imagine as
he anticipated being made sin for us. Our Lord Jesus was betrayed
by a friend. One of the most painful things you
experience in life The betrayal of a friend causes
me to pace the floor more than most anything I've experienced.
Betrayal of friends, betrayed trust, causes me more heartache,
anxiety. But I deserve it. It was denied. by one who was
the object of His everlasting love, and by one who truly loved
Him, abandoned by all His disciples, forsaken by all of them, and
at last forsaken at Calvary by His Father. When He was made to be sin for
us, there is no horror No agony, no pain, no heartache,
no anguish of mind, no bitterness of soul, known to humanity in
earth or in hell that he didn't experience fully. Now, consider this. He felt it all keenly. Come back
to the Psalms again. Psalm 69. Oh, but brother God, he was God.
He didn't really feel things like we do. Lindsay Campbell, he was a perfect
man. And he felt them far more than
we ever can. Psalm 69, verse 20. He says, reproach. hath broken
mine heart. I'm full of heaviness, and I look for some to take pity,
but there was none for comforters, but I found none. And in the
midst of all this, Suffering like no man ever suffered. When
we might expect him to collapse, the God-man resolutely set his
face like a flinch and said, I'm going yonder. to Jerusalem,
to the appointed place of my execution, to suffer the greatest
contradiction of all, where there I shall be made sin and the curse
to bear the full wrath of my God, which my people deserve. And I'll never turn back. Now, next time you begin to think
things are a little too costly, consider Him. Next time you think
the race demands too much, consider Him. Next time you think the
price is too high, consider Him. Next time you think you've got
too much to bear, consider Him. How are we to consider it? Oh, search the scriptures, he
says. God, forgive me. for that neglect of him which
causes me to neglect this book, and for that abuse of him which
causes me to fail to consider him when I'm reading this book. Consider him with prayerful,
humble meditation. Bow before him and consider him. But above all else, as you consider
him in the book, and consider him before his throne in prayer
and meditation. Ask God to give you grace to
consider him as one intensely interested in him, experimentally. And that's the essence of this
word. Consider him as one who has a
vital interest and who He is, and all that He's done, and all
that He shall do, consider Him. That's how Paul considered Him.
Come back to Philippians 3. Let me show you. Philippians 3. He says, I count everything but
dung that I might win Christ. God teach me to do that. Go out there and lift the cap
on that cistern and dip out a bucket of the muck
and carry it around with you. Paul says, why do I count everything
except Him? Everything. Everything. How come? Because I've got to
have Him. Look at verse 10. Oh, that I may know Him. But wait a minute, Paul's been
a Christian for a long time. When you've been walking with
him for a long time, you're going to be craving to know him. Oh,
that I may know him. Not like a Stoic, not like a philosopher,
not like a theologian. not like a cold, calculating
scientist, but that I may know him and the power of his resurrection,
him living in me, and me living in him, and the fellowship of
his sufferings, all to know that I have an interest in what he
suffered. being made conformable to his
death, submissive to the will and glory of God, just like he
was. Clearly, it is the intention
of the Holy Spirit that we consider him. Constantly bear in mind
the infinite contrast between what he suffered and what we
suffer. He says, consider him lest ye
be wearied and faint in your minds. You see, sadly, we are so soon weary, aren't
we? And so easily faint. Some little difficulty comes
up, You've got to make a choice between
dung and Christ. Faith in your mind weary. You've
got to make a choice between enduring hardship or not enduring
hardship. I'll tell you what to do. Don't ever consider me. Don't
ever consider the most faithful example of faithfulness you know.
Don't ever consider a man. Don't ever consider what somebody
else does, somebody else sacrifices, where somebody else... Don't
ever consider those things! Oh, consider Him. Consider Him. Because the battle's not over
yet. And the race is not won yet. But you have not yet resisted
unto blood. Striving against sin. And Bob,
that's not talking about shutting down abortion clinics. That's
talking about what's going on in your heart. That's not talking about going
out here and shutting down the honky tonks. That's talking about
shutting down what's in you. You haven't yet resisted unto
blood, striving against sin. Our trials and troubles, temptations,
conflicts, and sorrows The enemies of grace and the trials of life
cost us very, very little. We haven't resisted much, not
yet. We haven't endured much opposition,
not yet. We haven't endured much heartache,
not yet. We haven't endured much sorrow,
not yet. Our Lord did. And he did it for
us. The Apostle Paul did. He said,
none of these things move me, neither can I my life dear unto
myself, that I might finish my course with joy. The ministry
which I've received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of
the grace of God. He said, I'm ready not only to
be bound, but to die for Him. Oh, God, give me that kind of
grace. Consider Him. Before you ever say anything,
go anywhere, do anything, consider Him. Next time you decide, well, it's
too much, consider Him. Consider Him. And in due season,
we shall reap if we think not. Amen.