Kootenai Church Morning Worship

Hebrews 12:1–3:
1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (NASB)
One of the things that we noticed about all of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11 was the fact that they were all sinners. Though they were notable examples of faith, they were by no stretch of the imagination perfect men in any way. And we noticed as we went through and looked at each of the examples how they failed at various times in their lives. Their lives were, broadly speaking, characterized by obedience and perseverance and patience and enduring through all of the affliction and the suffering that comes in this life to those who walk by faith. And not even their faith itself was perfect. Each person—though they had faith in God, there were times at which their faith was weak, where they doubted, where they did not act in keeping with what we would consider to be a perfect faith. It's not that their faith was perfect and it's not that their lives, morally speaking, were perfect, but what makes them exemplary for us, what makes them notable for us, is the fact that we see in their lives how faith carried them through, saved them and then carried them through and sanctified them and kept them and preserved them all the way through to the very end. And it is that endurance and that perseverance that the author is hoping that we would work out in our lives. What makes them noteworthy is their perseverance in the faith.
There are a multitude who have gone before us. By faith they ran their race. They finished their race. Their example cheers us on, and it reminds us that though you and I are the fallen sons of Adam, and though everything in this world militates against us and seeks our destruction, seeks to undo us, that the second Adam, in whom we are, carries us through by faith all the way to the very end. That's the lesson of Hebrews 11. And their example, that they endured those trials, that they endured afflictions, that they endured suffering, and came all the way through to the end—that example cheers us on. And if you and I are going to run races with endurance, then we have to consider the others who have gone before us in this race and have finished the race before we even started our race. That was the first key to running with endurance. We're in Hebrews 12. This is just by way of review now.
The second key was that we must cast off the entanglements that threaten to hinder us. We are to cast off every sin and the encumbrances which slow us down in our race. Everything in this life, whether it is sinful or not sinful, we are to identify it and then we are to mortify it if it is to keep us from finishing our race and from running well. We want to not just run a race, but we want to run in such a way that we may win, and we want to run in such a way that we may win the prize, to cross the line, to be successful, and hopefully to enter into the kingdom and hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And if we're going to do that, then we have to have an eye, as it were, glancing and considering the examples of those who have gone before, shedding and getting rid of the sin which so easily entangles us. Because sin is for us—since we are sin magnets—sin is for us like burrs in a field. As we are walking through it, it clings to us all the time. And so as we're walking through the field, you have to identify the burrs, you have to pull them off, as difficult as it is, and cast them aside. That's what sin is. We have to identify the sin, mortify it, get it out of our lives, go to war against it, cast it off so that it does not easily entangle us.
And then the third thing is we have to continue in the course that is set before us. God, by His good providence, has laid out the course. He has established the parameters of the race, He's put it out in front of us in full view, and He has called all of us to run the same race, on the same track, by the same rules, and across the same finish line, so that we may take our place among those who have gone before. So we consider the others who have gone before, casting off the entanglements that hinder us and then continuing the course set before us.
And then there is a fourth thing, and this is where we begin to enter into verse 2. We are to concentrate on the One who will reward us. Look at verse 2: “Fixing our eyes on Jesus.” Now, all of the things we've talked about up to this point—considering the others, casting off the sin, continuing in the course—these are things that are all to be done while we do this: “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Now you kind of get the feeling that the point of the analogy is not the race and it's not the running and it's not the runners, but it's what? Or I should say, it's whom? It's Jesus. You kind of get the feeling that all of the stuff that we've been talking about, considering others and casting off sin, has really been leading us up to this exemplar of faith, this exemplar of endurance and perseverance who is Jesus Himself. He really is the point of the entire illustration. It is as if the author has been waiting to tell us this, that we are to do all of these things while we fix our eyes and our minds upon Jesus.
Notice the description of Christ that is given to us in this verse, verse 2. He is the object of our faith. That's what it means to fix our eyes on Him. He is the object of our faith. He is the author and perfecter of our faith. That's the second description. He's the object of our faith, the author of our faith, and then third, He is the example of faith “who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” He is the example of that endurance. The object of faith, the author of faith, and the example for our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Those are the three descriptions that we have in verse 2.
So let's jump in at the beginning of verse 2 and look at this first one, that He is the object of our faith. And that really—I will be honest with you at the outset—that is going to occupy our time here this morning, just that phrase, fixing your eyes on Jesus. What does that mean? That is a significant phrase. And the author—really this describes the entire race that we are to run from the first all the way until we cross the finish line. What does it mean to fix our eyes on Jesus and why is that significant?
The word that is translated “fixing” there is a present active. That's the tense, present active. That means that it is describing something that is to be actively done by you and I. It is to be actively done, and it is to be always presently being done. That is to say that we don’t fix our eyes on Jesus for a moment in time and then that carries us through the rest of our lives. But instead, we are to always be about the business of fixing our gaze upon Him. This is how we enter the race. This is how we run the race. This is how we finish the race. Fixing continually, perpetually, presently, actively our spiritual eyes on the Person of Christ. This is how we run our race. Present, active, fixing our eyes. That word that is translated “fixing our eyes” means to fix your attention on something, to learn about it, to find out about it, or to observe it. In fact, in the only other place in the New Testament where this word is used, it has the idea of discovering or finding something out. Philippians 2:23—the apostle Paul writes to the Philippian church and says, “Therefore, I hope to send him immediately, as soon as I [here's the word] see how things go with me.” The apostle says, “I'm going to observe in my own circumstances how things turn out. Having fixed my attention on that, I will make this determination of whether to send Timothy to you or not. As soon as I have observed and looked at and given attention to how things turn out with me, then I will make this decision.” That's the idea. So it's not just that you sort of fix your attention on something for a bit of time, but you do so for the purpose of observing it, considering it, looking upon it, learning something from it.
What is it that we are to learn from Jesus? Well, we are to learn what it means to endure hostility against ourselves by hostile sinners. We are to learn what it means to run with endurance, to be faithful in affliction, to be obedient in suffering, to disregard the shame and the reproach of the cross. Those are the things that we are to consider and to learn. Can you do that with one glance, or does that take a lifetime of intense observation? It takes a lifetime of intense observation. That's why we are to always be fixing our attention and our eyes upon the Person of Christ, always active continually. This is what it means to live the Christian life. Not to give Him attention at the beginning, not to consider Him occasionally. This is not a passive verb. It's not that we simply remind ourselves about Him and reflect upon a Sunday school lesson or story about Him from time to time. It's not that we simply turn our attention to Him on one day of the week for forty minutes on a Lord's Day morning. That's not what it means to fix your attention on Jesus. We are to fix our focus and our gaze upon Him because there is something there to see, a pattern that we are to emulate, an example that we are to follow.
And fixing our eyes on Him means that we must at the same time look away from other things. We are to look away from the discouragements and the disappointments, the difficulties of life, the afflictions, the sufferings, the enticements of the world, and the comforts that the world offers to us. We are to look away from the promises of ease and comfort, to look away from the doubts that creep in. All of those things end up being entanglements and encumbrances and protuberances. Remember that great word from a few weeks ago? The protuberances that so quickly slow us down and so easily bear us down. There can only be one consuming focus in the eyes of one who is going to run their race well, and that one consuming focus is the Person of Christ. Everything else gets pushed out. Everything else gets set aside. Everything else gets turned away from so that we may focus upon Christ.
Spurgeon said this:
The Greek word for “looking” is a much fuller word than we can find in the English language. It has a preposition in it which turns the look away from everything else. [There's a preposition in the word which means you look away from something else to this thing.] You are to look from all beside to Jesus. Fix not [your] gaze upon the cloud of witnesses; they will hinder [you] if they take away [your] eye from Jesus. Look not on the weights and the besetting sin—these [you have] laid aside; look away from them. Do not even look upon the race-course, or the competitors, but look to Jesus and so start in the race. What [have you] to trust to but his blood and righteousness? Beware that [you] set up nothing as a rival confidence. Look off from everything [you have] ever relied upon in days gone by, and say to [your] soul, “None but Jesus.” [You] must have a single eye and a single hope. “Christ is all,” and he must be all to [you], or [you are] out of the race altogether.
That's the focus. Looking away from everything else.
And Spurgeon notes that there is a salvific emphasis to this word and to this concept of looking to God or looking to Christ. There is a salvific element to this. This is how we begin the race and we continue our race. How do you get into the race of the Christian life to begin with? You have to look to Jesus, right? I mean, that is what salvation is. It is turning from idols to the living God and serving Him. It is turning from sin to righteousness and to Christ. It is to take the gaze, by the grace of God, and look unto Christ for salvation. And this is the language that is used throughout the Old Testament for salvation and for redemption—is looking unto God. It is a saving look. It is also a sanctifying look. It is a securing look that we have to Christ, and it carries us all the way across the finish line.
Listen to the language of the Old Testament, Psalm 34:4–6: “I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.” The psalmist there is describing the look of salvation, the look of redemption, where he looks to God and he is delivered, delivered from his transgressions, delivered from his guilt.
Zechariah 12:10: “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced.” That is a saving look for national Israel when He returns and Israel recognizes the Messiah that they have crucified and they turn to Him en masse for salvation and deliverance.
Isaiah 45:22: “Turn to Me and be saved [or look unto Me], all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.”
Micah 7:7: “But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.”
Fixing our eyes on Jesus is the fixing of the eyes in faith upon Him that begins the Christian life, and then it is the continual gaze upon Him and His glory and His beauty and His majesty as revealed to us in the pages of Scripture and understood by us through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in which we are continually transformed from one degree of glory to another as we walk with Him and we run our race. It is a looking in faith for salvation, and it is a looking for faith in day-to-day walk. Paul says, “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Col. 2:6). How did you receive Him? By faith. How do you walk in Him? By faith. How did you receive Christ Jesus? You turn from sin and idols and all other things and turn to Christ for salvation. How do you walk in Him? The same thing. You take your gaze off other things and you fix it upon Christ, both savingly as well as for your endurance and your preservation in the Christian life.
You see, this is a saving look, which is why the author does not tell us to fix our eyes on any of the other heroes that we've covered in Hebrews chapter 11. Have you noticed that? Do you notice the difference? Consider Noah. Great man, had his flaws, he did this by faith. Consider Abraham. Great man, had his flaws, did this by faith. Consider Moses. Consider Joshua. Consider the great cloud of witnesses that surround us. But fix your eyes on Jesus. See, there's a difference between looking to these men as examples and fixing your gaze upon Him. The author doesn't say fix your eyes on Moses or fix your eyes on Abraham or fix your eyes on Joseph or fix your eyes on Noah. None of that, because this is a saving fixing of our eyes. So He is the object of our faith. And while we may consider their examples, we don't focus on them. We learn things from these men and women in the Hebrews Hall of Fame in faith. That's true. We learn things from them, but we don't fix our eyes on them. We don't gaze into the face of Moses and be transformed from one degree of glory to the next. You don't do that. You don't gaze into the example of Abraham and keep that always in front of you. But the Person of Christ, you can do that.
And listen, we will do that endlessly and never be bored with it. I think I will get bored with Moses. I think I will get bored with Abraham. I think I will get bored with you. Listen, if I can get bored with Moses, I can get bored with you in eternity. But you and I will never bore of the Lord Jesus Christ, looking upon His face forever, being changed from one degree of glory to another.
This is a positive command. It tells us to place our gaze upon someone. Notice that the author does not tell us what not to look at. He could have filled the rest of this book with things not to look at, right? Don't look at the disappointments. Don't look at the discouragements. Don't consider the affliction. Don't worry about the difficulty, the imprisonments, the seizure of your property. He mentions those things, but here he doesn't tell his readers not to focus on those things, not to fix their eyes on those things. Instead, he sets before them one infinitely glorious positive example and says, “Fix your gaze on that.” And in fixing our gaze on that, that thing, that example, the Lord Jesus Christ, will push out of our attention all of the other things that will try and creep in and occupy our attention. I am distracted by other things only when my gaze is taken off Christ and He slips out of my mind.
This is what Thomas Chalmers referred to as the expulsive power of a new affection. He said that the battle of the Christian life is not that we simply find affections that are inferior and get rid of them and work to get rid of them and replace them with this. Because every time I pull an affection out of the middle of my heart, some desire that I have that is not Christ and not His Word or my God, whenever I take that affection out of my heart, something else immediately rushes in to fill it. And it will always be some other idol. But Chalmers says if you take Christ and a new affection and you put that into your heart, it will push out all of the other unholy desires. It will expel all of those things. So it is with the gaze that is fixed on Christ. The author doesn't need to tell us not to focus on the disappointments and the discouragements and the afflictions and the suffering. If we fix our gaze on Jesus Christ, then, in the words of the hymn, all of the things of this world will grow strangely dim because that expulsive power of a gaze that is fixed on Christ and His majesty will push out of our lives all of the other things that threaten to distract our gaze from Christ. It is the expulsive power of a new affection, or we may say, the expulsive power of a right fixation upon Christ.
All sin, ultimately, is a worship problem because I've taken my gaze off Him and I have put something that I desire more than that, more than Him, in that stead. And then in the moment that I sin, I am offering a sacrifice of obedience to that thing which now my gaze is fixed upon. And if I could fix my gaze always and only on Jesus Christ and never anything else for every moment of every day and live perfectly in obedience with that fixed gaze, then I would never sin. I can't do that, though, because the reality is that throughout all of the course of my life and your life, day to day, we are constantly bombarded by other distractions. That's why positively, actively, continually, we have to be diligent to fix our gaze upon Christ. For if He is the focus, then nothing else can be because He expels everything else. It's the nature of His glory. It's the nature of His Person.
This instruction to fix our eyes on Christ is in keeping with the running analogy. The runner of a race had to fix his eyes on the goal. Had to fix his eyes on the goal. There was a finish line and there was a prize at the end of that finish line. The runner had to fix his attention and his focus upon that finish line and upon the prize that awaited him at the finish line. That's the idea behind this analogy. There was a reward on the other side of that finish line, and the runner, in running toward the finish line, had to fix his attention straight forward on that goal. And you cannot run a race if you are constantly looking behind you to see how close the competition is to you. If you're looking around behind, wondering, kind of running backwards for a little bit, seeing where everybody's at, flipping back around again, you're going to lose the race. So if you're going to finish the race, you're going to run the race, you have to be fixed upon something in front of you and never look back to compare yourself with somebody else.
This is typically what we do. We observe others and see how far along in their race they are and think, well, I'm outpacing him, and he's catching up with me. I better hurry up and do this. And we're constantly observing other things rather than the Person of Christ. A runner cannot run if he has fixed his mind and heart and eyes backwards upon the others who are running the race. He can't run the race well if he's looking up in the stands, looking for a familiar face, waving. “Oh, there’s Mom. There's Dad. There's the kids.” Waving and saying hi, looking for somebody, cheering them on, somebody to impress. The runner can't run that race. You can't run the race looking down at your feet, looking at every single step that you take as you take it. If you're not looking where you're going, you will run crookedly. You will waste time, you'll waste effort if you're constantly looking at where it is that you are stepping in the race. You can't look up and notice the pattern of clouds and look for images in the clouds and look at the birds going by and observe the wildlife or the terrain. A runner can't do any of that. He can't begin to inspect his own uniform and notice the dust and think, “I'll get rid of that dust, and I'll just brush that off a little bit, and I need to clean this up. And what will the other runners think of me with the uniform that I'm wearing?” None of those things occupy the mind of a runner who is running to win. The runners focus straight forward on one thing and one thing only, and that is the finish line and the goal at the end and the prize that awaits him for running the race well. This is the imagery that the author is employing.
We are to fix our gaze upon Jesus Christ because in the race of faith, guess who is standing at the finish line. The Lord is. And guess what He is holding. Your reward. And His eyes are fixed on you as He watches you run. And He sees where you're at in the race, and you are to look and lock your eyes upon Him and recognize He is there, seated at the Father's right hand. The finish line that you are called to cross is right there in front of Him, and His eyes are fixed on you, and He is holding in His hand the reward for faith, and He bids you to come. Just focus on Him and run.
And listen, I promise you, the finish line is closer than you can possibly imagine. You think it's a long way away, twenty-year-old in good health. That's what you think. It's closer than you imagine because there hangs over all of us the specter of death. And it can be said of everyone in this room that there is a chance that you will see the face of Christ on the other side of that finish line before you see the end of this calendar year. You know that that's always a possibility whether you are twenty or eighty. The finish line is closer than you might imagine. It's closer than you realize. It's closer than you think it is. It's certainly closer than you feel it is. It. Unless you're eighty-something. Then you know you're running and you see the shadow of the finish line crossing your feet there and you're thinking, “This is getting really close. I'm looking forward to this.”
Fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. We have to see Him with the mind's eye. This is what faith is. Remember the definition back at the beginning of chapter 11. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. So we're obviously not talking about something that we see with our physical eyes, are we? We're talking about something that we see with our mind's eye, we say. Or we should say with the eyes of faith. We are seeing something in our hearts, in our souls, with our minds, with the eyes of faith. We are seeing something that cannot be seen with physical eyes. And our goal is to fix our minds and our eyes straight ahead on the prize, who is a Person standing on the other side of the finish line, and with intensity to run our race because we see with spiritual eyes what cannot be apprehended with the physical eyes—namely, the captain of our salvation, our soul's delight and reward, standing right on the other side of the finish line, holding out our reward, bidding us to come and to run well. And His gaze is locked on us, and He has promised to sustain us, but we have to fix our eyes upon Him. That is what we are called to do.
Now, if you can get that in your mind's eye, if by the eye of faith you can behold what you cannot see with the physical eye, and that's what faith is, then do you think you can endure persecution? Can you endure the hostility of sinners? Can you endure the reproach? Can you endure people calling you nasty names on Facebook, people not liking you because you shared the gospel with them, angry coworkers? Can you endure those things? You can if you see clearly the Savior at the end, the line you're about to step across, the prize that He is holding. If you can see that with the eye of faith, and you can trust Him, running toward that, then you can accept joyfully the seizure of your property. You can endure imprisonment and a great conflict of sufferings, as the Hebrew Christians did. You can endure that if you can see the captain of your salvation.
Listen, this is what strengthens you for the race, this very activity. You say how is it that we are strengthened to run the Christian life? Right? I'm commanded to run. I'm told to shed all of the weights that encumber me and entangle me and trip me up and weigh me down. I'm to realize others have run the race, but where is the strength for me to run? This is where you draw your strength. It is the gazing upon Christ, looking upon His example, considering Him who endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, that you will not lose heart and grow weary. This is the means by which we are strengthened, when we gaze upon His example, when we see Him as precious in the pages of Scripture. It is in this that we are motivated to remove the encumbrances, to cast off the sin, to run our race. It is by this that we are motivated to endure persecution, to endure affliction and suffering, and to finish well. It's the motivation for all that we do. From this comes the strength to do what we do. Spurgeon says that a look at the crown removes the weight of the cross. That's true. To glance and to see the crown that we are waiting for removes the weight of the cross.
This is what Paul was talking about in those two familiar passages that we've mentioned recently. Second Corinthians 4:17 “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory.” Affliction is not light, but it is when it is compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us. See, affliction is heavy. Affliction is affliction. It's a horrible word. We don't even like to say it or think about it, certainly not to suffer it. It's not light, but it is light when we compare it with the glory that is to be revealed in us.
Romans 8: Paul says, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” So they have to be compared. Sufferings and afflictions are heavy. They are burdens, they are taxing, and they will destroy the race of most, just those things alone. But they're light and not worthy to be compared with the glory that's to be revealed in us. But you have to compare them with something else. You can never evaluate sufferings of the present time in a vacuum. They always have to be evaluated and compared with stepping across the finish line. You never ask a runner while he's running, “Hey, what do you think of the race? Is it tough? Was the discipline worth it? Were you trained well enough?” You never ask a runner that while he's running. You never ask a runner while he's running if the prize at the end is worth it yet. You know when the runner realizes that the prize for his running is worth it? When he steps across the finish line and they hand him the victor's wreath and he gets the reward. Then he can look back on the race and on the starting of the race and all of the discipline and all of the training and all of the work that went into it and say, “Yes, it was worth it.” It's only when you have the reward that you look back on what you have endured and say, “Yeah, the affliction, it was momentary and light.”
The apostle Paul, because he gazed upon the face of the Savior, understood that the afflictions of this world are momentary and that they are light because they're not worthy to be compared with the glory that's to be revealed in us. But see, the apostle Paul saw by faith the glory that is to be revealed in us. You and I do the same thing when we gaze upon the Person of Christ and see Him with our mind's eye, the Savior in all of His humility, in all of His suffering. That is the means by which we are strengthened for the race. It's not by looking at other things. The degree to which Christ and His example occupies the affections of our hearts and fills our spiritual sight and our understanding, that is the degree to which we are strengthened. Take your eyes off Him and see how quickly you are weakened. Take your eyes off Him and see, watch, just how quickly you are overcome by the sin which so easily entangles us. It happens in an instant. It's quick. We are strengthened for the race by looking to Him.
There's that quote that I gave you last week—I closed with it—from Spurgeon. I'm not going to read the whole thing but a couple of parts of it where he talked about the strength that we need and how we receive this strength. Spurgeon said,
How can we poor limping mortals run in such a race as this? Even the starting is beyond us: how much more must perseverance in it outreach our strength! . . . The race which is set before us most clearly reveals our helplessness, and our hopelessness, apart from divine grace. The race of holiness and patience, while it demands our vigour, displays our weakness. We are compelled, even before we take a step in the running, to bow the knee, and cry unto the strong for strength. We dare not retreat from the contest; but how can we begin a struggle for which we are so unfitted? Who will help us? To whom shall we look?
Spurgeon was setting up this passage. He was setting up this very thing, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. That's where our gaze is to look. That's where the strength comes from. So you say, “I'm overwhelmed with the idea of running and running well and going through and persevering and enduring through all of the afflictions of this life. And I'm worried about crossing the line at the end and receiving the reward.” Then you gaze upon Jesus. You fix your eyes on Him. That's where the strength comes from. That's where the motivation comes from. And this is why Scripture always draws our attention to Him, Heavenward, telling us not to look to others, not to look to those who have failed or to look to others who are running the race but to look to Christ, to gaze upon Him.
“Consider Him [look at verse 3] who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Heb. 12:3). It is by looking at His example, His life, His miracles, His works, His teachings, His death, His soon and coming return, the promise of His kingdom, the promise of His righteous reign, the judgment that is to come, and the reward that He holds in His hand for His own. When you with the eye of faith set your mind and heart on things above, not on the things of this earth, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, when you look upon those things which are not seen with a naked eye but seen with the eye of faith, those things which are eternal and not temporal, and when you consider the fact that your citizenship is in Heaven and from there you are eagerly waiting for the Savior who is to come, that's how you fix your gaze upon Him.
This is what you and I do just as a matter of being runners. This is the discipline that we signed up for to run the race. To run in a physical race, you must train, you must take the time, expend the effort. You have to learn how to run. You have to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. You have to take the time to learn about your Savior, to dive into the Word of God, to let your heart and your mind and your soul be filled with Scripture, to discipline yourself like a runner. This is what runners do. Runners put forth the work and the effort in the race to finish well. And so it is in the Christian life. If your idea is to approach Christianity with an apathy and an indolence, and I'll check the box here and check the box there, and I'll show up once in a while for church, I'll take in a little preaching now and again, you're being spiritually malnourished and you are not fit to run the race. You have to discipline yourself. You have to work hard at working out your own salvation with fear and trembling while you rest upon the One who is at work in you both to do and to will for His good pleasure. So you have to put forward the effort and discipline yourself like a runner or you're not going to finish your race. You're not going to run well. And take your eyes off Jesus and you'll find that pretty soon you're running turns to jogging, your jogging turns to walking, your walking turns to standing, your standing turns to sitting, your sitting turns to lying down. Pretty soon you just turn to watch whatever else is going on, and before long you forget you were even running a race to begin with it.
I can't tell you how many people I have gone to school with at Bible college who started out well. It seemed like they were running the race well, and then they just got sidetracked. Went and did their own thing. Today I'm not even sure they're on the course. They're certainly not running, not running well.
Notice that we are to fix our eyes on Jesus. This is the name of His humanity. This is my last observation from the passage—from the phrase actually—fixing your eyes on Jesus. This is the name of His humanity and His suffering. It is His suffering, His enduring of the affliction and the suffering, which is held out to us as the example. The name Jesus—he doesn't say, “Fix your eyes on Christ.” I've used that term. But he says, “Fix your eyes on Jesus.” Because what he is about to say to us in verse 2 and in verse 3 has to do with His suffering. He endured the cross, He despised the shame, He endured such hostility by sinners against Himself. It is the man Christ Jesus who suffered that affliction, and it is the man Christ Jesus who endured the hostility from sinners. That is not to negate that He is the God-man, that there is also in Him the fullness of divinity that dwells in Him in bodily form, but it is to say that when we read of Jesus in the Scriptures, it is the name Jesus which speaks of His saving work, His sacrificial work, the fact that He died and suffered in our stead. The angel said to Joseph, “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21). Because it is that act of salvation that is in view in the name Jesus. In the title Christ, which means Messiah, the emphasis there is on His divinity, on Him being the Son of Man, the reigning and coming King of Israel, the one who will take David's throne, but in the name of Jesus, it describes His suffering, His affliction. So the author tells us not that we are to consider necessarily the rule and the reign of Christ and what is to come as our example, for we're not going to share in that in the same way that we share in His sufferings and afflictions. But the author focuses our attention on the Person of Jesus, He who is Jesus of Nazareth, the God-man, God in human flesh, full humanity, clothed in flesh, the Godhead we see in Christ, but in Him, in Jesus, in that suffering, that is our example. We are to endure the affliction, the suffering.
And listen, it is upon gazing upon that reality that our souls are fed. Gazing upon the reality of His suffering, our souls are fed. You contemplate what He did for you, suffering in our place, particularly when we realize—we personalize it, and we say not just that He died for sinners. That's true as far as it goes. But that He died for me. That He took my place. That He bore my wrath. That He stood in my stead. That He was my substitute. And this is what each and every one of us needs is a substitute, someone to bear the wrath that you deserve, that I deserve. We needed somebody who is infinite in His Person who could suffer in our stead because our sin necessitated this suffering. Our sin demanded a sacrifice, a payment for that iniquity. Your lying, your stealing, your blasphemy, your idolatry, your pride, your gossip, your slander, our violence, my hatred, all of those things, your participation in those unrighteous deeds, my actions in those unrighteous deeds, all of that necessitated the justice and the judgment of God because the justice of God demands my blood for my sin. The justice of God demands your blood for your sin. But the love of God demands your forgiveness. It demands your redemption. How is that accomplished? Only by one stepping in who bears the penalty for our sin, who bears up under that wrath and endures that hostility, upon whom all of the wrath of God for all of the sins of all who will believe are poured out on Him. He then is our substitute. And when you and I gaze upon that suffering, that shame, that cross, and what He endured in our stead, our souls are fed.
It is in communion that we are gazing and fixing our attention on the Lord Jesus Christ in the proper way. Now, we're going to partake of communion, and I just want to offer you a couple of words of warning before we do. The Lord's Table is for believers. If you are here and you have never trusted Christ for salvation, you have never repented of your sin because this is the first you're ever hearing about Jesus and His sacrifice in the place of sinners and you don't know what to do with this, Scripture commands you to repent, that is, to turn from your sin—described that earlier—and to believe, that is, to trust that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was sufficient to pay the price for your sin. Because your lying, your stealing, your blasphemy, your lust, your gossip, your hatred, your pride, your rebellion, all of those violations of God's law, they have heaped up for you nothing but the infinite and eternal wrath of a holy and righteous God, and no unclean thing can come into His presence. You need a sacrifice for your sin. You need an atonement. This is why God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this world to take upon Himself a human body, to live the perfect life. He did no sin. He knew no sin. He committed no sin in thought, word, or deed. He lived perfectly in obedience to the law of God. That was the life that you were required to live but did not and could not. And He died the death that you were required to die for your sin. And if you will look upon Him savingly, turning your eyes to Him, turning from your sin, and trusting in that sacrifice, Scripture promises that all your sins will be forgiven and you'll be born again.
But if you are here today and you have never done that, you have never trusted Christ for salvation, Scripture commands you to repent and to believe, or you will perish everlastingly. That is what the Bible promises you. Do not partake of communion because you're just eating and drinking another act of judgment upon yourself, further increasing your sin because you are blaspheming the symbol of this sacrifice, which represents the death and the suffering and the blood of Christ and what He has done for those who have repented and believed.
If you are a Christian—this is the second warning—if you are a Christian and you are living in unrepentant sin, do not partake of communion if you are not going to repent. I would invite all of us here to gaze upon the Person of Christ, to confess our sin, to acknowledge it before Him, and then to partake of communion together.