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Smedly’s Introduction of Rick Holland All right, you may be seated. Well, this has already been a little foretaste of heaven. That little two-minute meeting and greeting needed to go for another eternity, I suppose. It’s good to see so many friends from Gilbert Bible here this morning, too. We love you guys. Thankful for you. We miss you. I had the distinct privilege this morning of introducing Rick Holland. He’s a longtime friend to this ministry, no stranger to many of us, but perhaps a new face to some of you. He is the senior pastor at Immanuel Bible Church in Shawnee, Kansas. He is a pastor, a double doctor, a professor, a friend, a mentor. And Rick Holland is a Christian. He’s a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s a sinner saved by grace. And he’s been faithful over decades to lead other sinners to the cross of Christ. The only place where grace is found. And if you’re a part of Grace Bible Church, whether you realize it or not, you have been impacted by Rick’s ministry. Many in this church have sat under his preaching, have been discipled and counseled under his pastoral oversight, have served with him in various ministries, or have been taught by him in a seminary classroom. And if you spend any time with Rick, sooner rather than later, you will be compelled to think more about Christ. You’ll be compelled to think better about Christ. It’s what we’ve already heard this morning in equipping hour. It’s what you’re going to hear again in the next few moments. And it is what we all need this morning to think more about Jesus. So thankful to have you here, Rick, this morning. I’m also thankful that you get to hear the Rick Hollandisms from the horse’s mouth. I didn’t mean to call him a horse. There are Rick Hollandisms all over the warp and woof of this church. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve probably been quoting Rick. We just haven’t been giving him any credit this morning. We get to know where they come from. So Rick, this is now the third time you’ve preached for an anniversary service at this church. We’re so glad that you’re here. Please welcome Rick Holland. Christ Builds His Church Such gracious words. Thank you, Jacob. The best introduction I think I’ve ever had was when you said Rick is a sinner saved by grace. And if we could just close in prayer, we’ll get to that barbecue really fast. So thankful to you, so thankful to this church. I was able to preach in this church the first year of its existence and several times since then. I am so encouraged to see you still walking with the Lord Jesus Christ. A few months before his execution, Jesus took his disciples away for a retreat about 30 miles north of the Sea of Galilee to the base of Mount Hermon. There was a city called Caesarea Philippi. And that was where Peter made his famous assertion of Christ, Jesus as the Christ, the son of the living God. When Jesus asked him, “Who do you think I am?” In response to Peter’s confession, the Lord Jesus made the timeless ultimatum of the centuries that would bring his church into existence and promised that the gates of hell itself could not stop or hinder his church. Every faithful church since that day is the fulfillment of Jesus promise. And today we celebrate Christ’s continued spiritual construction of his church here at Grace Bible Church in Tempe, Arizona. In April of 2001, Christ began a work of construction here in this local body. 25 years later, the construction continues. Not on buildings, but on you. You are his workmanship. You are his signature. You are what Paul says, you’re his poem that he’s writing in the cosmos. I’m honored to be a part of this celebration. Humbled. My wife Kim is here with me and we have been so encouraged. We just feel like this is home in some senses just because of so many friends that we have here in this local body and even in the churches associated with this local body. I was starting to do some math, and I stopped when I was over there thinking of faces that I’ve interacted with this weekend and even today. And if you start to add up not the years, the decades of impact that you’ve had on my life, you’re into the centuries, and those years added up are being accumulated with you as well. What a stewardship. What a gift of grace. So from my wife Kim and me, please accept our congratulations and thankfulness on this 25th anniversary of Grace Bible Church as you enter into the next season of life as well. Today is not so much a celebration of leaders or leadership or even servants and service. It’s a celebration of what Christ has done for a quarter century in this local body. I was speaking with some of your elders yesterday and we had a great meeting and just were reflecting on that interesting passage in 1 Samuel 7:12 where an ebenezer is raised. You’ve probably sung here I raise mine Ebenezer. You know what that means? It’s called a stone. It’s a rock of remembrance. In other words, God pointed to that moment and he did it in a rainbow and piles of stones and other monuments over history and said, “I want you to do something that reminds you of what I’ve done.” That’s what today is. Today is an Ebenezer that we’re raising to say, “God, look at what you’ve done.” And we are so grateful to be a part of it. Today is truly historic and I trust that you understand you are not participating in this history. You are this history. You are what God is doing here in the life of this local body. With that, may I ask you to meet me in second Corinthians chapter 11? 2 Corinthians chapter 11. The Most Important Thing What’s the most important thing when it comes to ministry? What’s the most important thing when it comes to life? What’s the most important thing when it comes to living? And what’s the most important thing when it comes to dying? This passage is going to answer that for us. It is a watershed passage in the history of the church that Paul was a part of. It’s an angle-setting moment for ministry. Paul says this 2 Corinthians 11:3. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. John Knox is one of my heroes. About a year ago, my wife and I were able to spend a few days in Scotland and did a tour of John Knox’s surroundings and where he ministered. 400 years ago, he rocked Scotland and Great Britain with the power of the gospel by preaching the exclusivity of Christ under a Roman Catholic crown. One of the things for which he’s best remembered is his bravery. It was said of John Knox, “Nox fears no one. Absolutely no one.” End quote. When he was debating Mary, Queen of Scots about the impotency of the Catholic way of salvation, he was told that his language was discourteous to the Queen and disrespectful. And to this he responded, quote, “It is no more privilege of the rich and the powerful than of common people to offend God’s majesty.” She burst into tears, by the way. She ran out of the room and her corders came and charged Knox to stop upsetting the queen with the Protestant gospel. Knox answered, “I cannot let the tears of the honorable lady suppress the voice of my conscience or silence me to the hurt of my nation.” End quote. He could have had his head chopped off for such language. Mary was keenly aware of Knox, especially of his imprecatory prayers against her. And she said, “I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all the assembled armies of Europe.” At his funeral, Earl Morton pointed to John Knox’s grave and said, “There lies a man who never feared the face of any man.” Kim and I went to John Knox’s grave less than a year ago, and we stood there and thank the Lord for his legacy. It’s in parking space 21. It’s been paved over and it’s only marked by a yellow dot. as brave as Knox was just a slim distant echo of the Apostle Paul. Have you considered his audacious bravery? He proclaimed the gospel in hostile synagogues. In fact, God said, “Paul, I want to charge you and bring you to be a messenger to the Gentiles of the gospel.” Okay, God. And every single city he goes in the book of Acts, where does he go first? The synagogue. And it never goes well. And he does the same thing in the next city. And in the next city, he preached the gospel in open gentile markets. He debated on the Areopagus of Athens. He evangelized before the intimidating council of Jerusalem who had murdered Jesus. He had been beaten so badly at Lystra that they dragged him out and left him for dead in a ditch. He stood before Agrippa and Felix. Even to the Roman guards who were holding him at sword point, he proclaimed the gospel. In Acts 20, the Holy Spirit told Paul—we find this from his interaction with the Ephesian elders at Miletus. The Holy Spirit had promised Paul, “Everywhere you go, Paul, you’re going to have chains and imprisonment and eventually you’re going to be killed for what you’re saying.” How’s that for God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life? I love how Acts 17 describes Paul. They’re looking for him. They knock on Jason’s door and they said, “Where is he? Where are these men who have upset the world?” His fearlessness cost him. It cost him dearly. You can read, beginning in verse 23 and following of 2 Corinthians 11, all that he went through. When Paul began his ministry, the Roman Empire was fully entrenched in heathenism. And by the time his head was severed, the world had been shaken by the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ through this man. Paul was indescribably brave. What Made Paul Afraid? More than John Knox. He feared the face of no man. So when you open up 2 Corinthians 11 and you read this—”But I am afraid”—that has my attention. What made Paul afraid? What made him shudder? What shook him? This audacious, brave man—what made him fearful? The answer to that sets the course for what I would like us to consider today. What was this fearless apostle, this audacious missionary, bold pastor, ferocious theologian, fearless evangelist? What was he afraid of? He was afraid that the Corinthians would defect in their love for Jesus. Paul was no hypercalvinist. He wept over the fragile nature of every soul’s faith. Some background that we have to have before we drop into this passage: false teachers had infiltrated the Corinthian church and were preaching a false gospel. Further, they were doing it in a way by attacking Paul’s character, his ministry, saying that he was discredited because he was a bad speaker and he was ugly. I’ve had those same accusations. And the reason that they were trying to get the attention off Paul was so they could get the attention on themselves. So in chapter 11, it’s the climax of Paul giving a defense of his heart about pastoral aspirations to the Corinthians. I know that Jacob is teaching through 1 Corinthians here. 2 Corinthians is at least fourth Corinthians. It may be even more. We don’t know. There was a letter that Paul wrote, and then the response to that letter is what we call 1 Corinthians. Paul references that letter in chapter 7. Then there was another letter in between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians. That was called the severe letter that he references in this letter that’s not first Corinthians. So this is really at least the fourth letter and there could have been more but it’s the second inspired letter. Paul had to defend himself, and he hated it. He didn’t do this in Phil when he was in jail in Philippi. He says in Philippians 1, I’m in jail. People are outside. They’re preaching against me, but they’re preaching the gospel. Let him preach the gospel. I don’t care what they say about me. But what was going on at Corinthians was actually affecting the gospel because of their attacks on his character and his ministry. And he said, “Enough. I have to tell you what this is about. And in the middle of that defense is this heart where he says, Forget me. I’m afraid for you. A survey of the scriptures shows an obvious accent on protecting believers from spiritual dangers. There are false Christs in Matthew 24 and 1 John. There are false apostles, false prophets, false evangelists, false teachers, false pastors, false shepherds, false elders, false brethren. And at the point that we’re coming to in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, false teachers had gained a foothold on this little church at the isthmus of two seas and two land masses, the Peloponnesian isthmus. And interestingly to me in this passage, Paul’s concern is for the disloyalty of his readers’ minds, not the compromise of their morals. Because he understood as the mind goes, so does the morals, so does life. Paul’s converts here in Corinth were being led astray by those who denied the truth of his gospel and substituted it for what he calls in the next verse a different gospel. It’s likely that this gospel that they were preaching had none of the power of the glory of Christ in it was probably about social implications, self-help, betterment, and not about the Lord himself. And we know that because of what Paul’s fear is expressed ultimately in this verse. Here are three theological evidences of a healthy church. When Paul expresses his fear, he actually inadvertently unloads what a healthy church should look like: three theological evidences of a healthy church. A Fearful Ecclesiology The first is a fearful ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church. Now, you might be tempted to say, “Oh, this is about apostles and the first century church.” No, this is about pastors and elders and the church. And you would be right, just incomplete. These principles are for all of us. They work for us as parents. They work for us as influential friends. They work for us as disciplers. A fearful ecclesiology. This comes from the little phrase, “But I am afraid.” Now, to understand the force of this fear, you have to go back to verse two for a moment. Look at the imagery of a father with a betrothed daughter. His priority was to keep her pure for the wedding. Look at verse two: I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy, for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin. Paul understood himself to be the spiritual father of the Corinthians, and Christ is the bridegroom. During the betrothal period in this time, a father took the public responsibility for the virginal fidelity of his engaged daughter until the marriage day. And if you go back to chapter 1, verse 14, Paul spoke of the day of the Lord Jesus Christ when he wanted to be the proud presenter of these Corinthians to Christ in holiness. I think it’s interesting he doesn’t say a husband but one husband exclusively to Christ. Not the concept of possibility, but exclusivity. He says I’m jealous in verse two. This is not regular jealousy, human jealousy. It’s not motivated by envy or self-interest. Paul was not jealous like a fiance or a husband but like someone protecting a treasure for someone else. It was deep, emotional, vigorous, a response to seeing a blood-bought son or daughter in Corinth flirting with a worldview that would diminish unilateral exclusive devotion to the Lord Jesus. This jealous fatherly protection made Paul afraid for the flock. It’s impressive to me that Paul’s ecclesiology, his understanding of the body of Christ, the church itself had such a working application in his shepherding. The word fear here is a word. You know the Greek word isphobia. It meant originally to put a horse to flight by smacking it, to startle. It was a protective reflex, a strong alarm. Paul was that kind of fearful for the Corinthians. But he was fearful because he was jealous that their hearts would drift away, which is what we’re going to see in a moment, from Christ himself. Do you have a developed and healthy and prioritized ecclesiology? You are all ecclesiologists, theologians about the church. based on 1 Timothy 3 that says the church is the pillar and support of truth that your understanding of the church might be the first and most important theological doctrine you understand because it’s the first domino that holds all of the rest in check. All of the rest in definition, all the rest in application, all the rest in accountability. I’ve seen that over the 25 years of this church that you love the church and you love what it means and you understand what it means. Does your affection for the health of this body make you fearful? Sends you to the prayer closet. Well, this sets up the second theological evidence for a healthy church. And this one is a little bit of an ambush. A Functional Bibliology A functional bibliology. Here’s what he’s afraid of. Illustration aside, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, Paul now points to the epic illustration that functions in two dimensions. It illustrates the point he’s making, but it also shows us how he uses the Bible. How he illustrates the truth with another biblical truth. Paul goes back to Adam and Eve. Folks, don’t miss the fact that Paul believed in a literal Adam and a literal Eve. He believed Genesis 1 and 2 and 3, as we’ll see in a moment. Paul believed in a talking snake. Not mythology. Not little stories that we told to scare our kids so they’d be good. Paul believed the Genesis narrative at face value and that Eve was deceived by a talking serpent. People say, “Ah, Genesis 1 and 2, the creation, that’s not really days; it’s years, and it’s not really this, it’s that. The Bible says that, but that’s not what it means.” And I said, “Okay, so Genesis 1 and 2 you have trouble with. So you start Genesis 3 with a talking snake. Is that where we’re going to start believing the Bible?” He points to Eve was deceived by the serpent’s craftiness. If you don’t believe that, there’s really nothing else in this passage for you. Paul believed it. Even the abnormality of a talking serpent was not too fantastical to Paul. If it was in the scripture, he believed it. Don Carson says, “When Eve fell, it was not because she was battered into submission by a wicked overlord, but because she was taken by cunning. She was deceived. She was snookered. 1 Timothy 2:13 says, “Eve was deceived.” Same thing, questioning God and offering a lie in its place. Satan is always, Satan is today, Satan is right now sitting in this church with us trying to trick believers into following a self-centered Christ-distancing faith. And here’s the problem: Satan uses our words and his dictionary. He redefines everything, especially Christ. He uses the phraseology of the faith but denies it by self-interest, self-affirmation, and flattery. He makes error seem reasonable, and the best way to do that is by making people feel good about themselves so they don’t need a saving Savior here. This is the age-old protocol of liberalism. It’s the same method as the old emerging church. Liberalism just changes clothes. Satan wraps his successive coils around us and tries to get us to look away from Christ. Can you hold your finger there for a moment and go back to Genesis 3? Let’s make sure that is fresh in our minds. “Has God Really Said?” Genesis 3. Now the serpent, verse one, was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Moses writing this down doesn’t have a footnote where he says, “Yeah, snakes talked then.” He just says the snake talked and took it at face value. He said to the woman, “Indeed, has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die. For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. Where was Adam when Eve fell? Standing beside her. My mentor John MacArthur used to say, “I believe that the first sin of humanity was Adam refusing to protect his wife Eve.” I think there’s something to that. So when you go to Romans 5 and it says all the sin came in humanity by Adam. It doesn’t say Eve. So Adam had to have sinned before this. And what’s the first sin? Probably that he didn’t protect Eve from the craftiness of the devil. It’s a great marriage lesson in that for all of us men. But that’s another sermon, right? But here’s what I want you to see. Back up in verse one. Indeed, has God said? There is the ultimate expression of Satan’s lies. I know the Bible says this, but is that what God means? I know the Bible says this, but that’s not really what it means. My wife always gets nervous when I’m off my notes. I watched a video a few months ago of a guy who basically was trying to express a theological novelty and he spent an hour and 15 minutes basically saying over and over and over, passage after passage says this, but that’s not what it means. I know the Bible says that, but that’s not what it means. Do you think God has a speech impediment? Does God speak with a lisp? He is what theologians callperspicuous, which is a big word for clarity. Why do we have an unclear word for clarity? He is clear. He said what he meant and meant what he said. So the ultimate attack of Satan here to which Paul is alluding to back to 2 Corinthians 11 is has God really said? Do you believe what God has said? He deceived Eve by asking her and tempting her to question God’s Word. And friends, he still does the same thing. That’s his attack. Now, he disguises himself. He never comes looking like Satan. I think he must laugh and the demons must laugh at Hollywood. These ugly, pitchforked, red-faced things, and they must say, ‘They think that’s what we look like. No, we go to church with them and they don’t even recognize us.’ He comes later in the chapter as an angel of light. Verses 13 to 15 tell us that counterfeits try to make their money look as much like the real as possible. He doesn’t care about scaring you in a horror film. He wants to deceive you into thinking that Christianity is something that the Bible doesn’t affirm. He deceives. He’s the father of lies. John 8:44. He distracts, putting attention on anything and everything other than Christ. He distorts. He’s a master of eisegesis. Putting into God’s Word distorted, out of context, incomplete, augmented, and diminished ways to think about it. He would much rather us think of Christianity as behavior modification and self-improvement than the worship of the living, resurrected Lord Jesus. Galatians 3:1: Who’s bewitched you? Galatians, before whose eyes Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified? Who’s bewitched you? Who’s snookered and tricked you into thinking something different than the truth? Romans 16. Why are you turning away from truth and believing lies? Satan’s supreme ambition is to prevent Jesus from having supremacy in your heart. Can I say that again? Satan’s supreme ambition is to keep Jesus from being supreme in your heart. I think one of the ways he does that is by bifurcating or even trifurcating the gospel and the Bible, making the Old Testament God the mean one and the New Testament God the nice one, rather than seeing Jesus Christ as the God of the Old Testament in flesh. Do you have a functional bibliology? And do you believe what Paul is saying here that Satan deceived Eve by saying, “Has God really said what you think he said?” Hermeneutics are the key that opens everything, how you interpret the Bible. Now, all of that is basically introduction to point three. A Jealous Christology The third theological evidence for a healthy church is a jealous Christology—how we deal with Christ. After the parenthetical illustration of Eve being snookered by the devil, Paul now finishes the thought: he is afraid that your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. That last phrase, Paul explains the target and ramifications of his godly jealousy that he mentioned in verse two. His point is simple. Jesus is the integrating centrality of the Christian faith. Jesus himself is the integrating centrality of the Christian faith—of your faith, of my faith. Christianity is fundamentally a rational religion. It is for thinking men, not merely for feeling. Feelings are great, but they come after the thinking. It is rational. It makes sense. And Paul understands that if you trick the mind into thinking wrong theological moorings and anchors, then you will get wrong application, wrong living, and wrong worship. It’s all about our mind. Christianity is rational. That’s why we teach on Sundays instead of holding pep rallies. Our minds as Christians are the primary target for the assault of the devil. I’m afraid your mind is going to go. Your thinking is going to be tripped up. What would that look like? Look at verse four. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully. Another gospel, a different Jesus. This is where Satan uses our words in his dictionary. Oh, he’s happy for us to talk about Jesus, just not the Jesus of the Gospels or the Jesus of the New Testament or the Jesus predicted by Isaiah 53. He is so crafty and there’s not one angle of attack. He attacks our thinking and our minds from every possible angle to get us to think about Christian realities in wrong ways. That’s one reason I praise God. Think about this: for 25 years, this church has not taken one step away from believing the inerrancy, the inspiration, and the infallibility of God’s Word. There’s a reason the word Bible is in your name. And I thank God for your testimony of taking God’s Word at face value and believing it, living it, and applying it and understanding it and cherishing it and loving it. Now, the fact that Paul made such a big deal out of the preaching of the cross gives us an idea of what this false message might have been. The great assessment of our faith from the world is that we’re crazy, foolish for believing that God would save sinners by the execution of his son alongside criminals on a Roman cross in absolute shame. So much so that Paul uses this wonderful sarcasm again. He says, “Oh, it’s wonderful to see God’s foolishness. We believe such foolishness. Have you really pushed back and thought about what we teach and believe? We believe that if you believe, and only believe, you don’t have to do anything. Just believe that God sent his son, his only begotten son. If you believe that he said all of your sin that deserves fiery judgment and eternal hell, he will pay that penalty instead of you and for you by dying for you on a Roman crucifix. And in exchange, he will give you in your spiritual bank account the perfect righteousness of Christ so that when God looks at your account, he sees perfection. Do you hear how crazy that sounds? It’s so striking that after five chapters of teaching that exact gospel, by chapter 6 of Romans, Paul says, “What shall we say then? Should we sin that grace would increase? I mean, if it’s just as easy as believing, why not have your sin and your salvation at the same time?” And he says, “May it never be? How can we who died to sin still live in it? There are consequences of belief. Satan wants us to think about the gospel differently than that, wrongly. “I pray that your mind is not led astray.” And then he uses two words, simplicity and purity. And the New American Standard, I think most translations say, of purity and devotion to Christ. Those are helpful additions. But the original text says that your mind will be led astray from simplicity and purity to Christ. Translators add devotion; the point is basically simplicity and purity of everything you are. Your whole life and being simplicity is single-mindedness. He was saying, Don’t have your mind be led astray from being single-minded about Christ. It’s used in Ephesians 6:5 and Colossians 2 of the same devotion and purity. I looked up purity in four Greek dictionaries. You know what it means? Pure, unstained, unfiltered, uncontaminated. Paul told the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 16:21, “How clear is this? If anyone does not love the Lord, he’s to be accursed. I think this is fascinating. J.C. Ryle, one of my favorite people who’s in heaven right now, he said, “Who would have thought that under the very eyes of Christ’s own disciples, while the blood of Calvary was hardly yet dry, when the age of miracles had not yet passed away, who would have thought that during that day there would be any danger from Christians departing from the faith.” End quote. Look, if they were in danger in the first generation, where do you think we are 2,000 years later? Simplicity and purity here to Christ. In the first hour, we looked at Colossians 1:28 and 29. And we proclaim him. Jesus is our message. Christ in Everything Now, don’t try to turn. Just listen. Paul says to the Corinthians, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:1. In 2 Corinthians 4:5: For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Christ’s sake. For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. Second Corinthians 13:5, test yourself to see if you’re in the faith. Examine yourselves 2 Corinthians 13:5: test yourselves to see if you’re in the faith. Examine yourselves or do you not recognize this about yourself that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you fail the test. Galatians 2:20, I’ve been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live but Christ. Christ lives in me. Galatians 4:19, “My children with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.” I was talking to your elders yesterday, morning and night actually and I walked away thinking about this passage that your leaders have a burden that Christ is formed in you that you become like Christ which means they have the responsibility to show you Christ to preach to you Christ to live Christ in their own lives. For to me to live as Christ and to die is gain. I want the surpassing value of knowing Christ. Philippians 3. And then Colossians 1:18, one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible because of a preposition. Paul says Jesus is the head of the body of the church and he’s the beginning the firstborn from the dead so that he himself will come to have first place preeminence in everything. Paul did not believe— Paul did not believe that Jesus should be first place over everything in your life. It’s not what he taught. It’s not what he said. It’s not like you have this priority list—Jesus, then family, then work, then job. That’s not what he said. Listen again that Jesus Christ would come to have first place not above everything in everything. He saturates it. Meaning that Jesus is first place in our family in our marriage in our parenting in our jobs in our recreation in everything. He’s not over everything. He’s in everything. He’s always our focus and our present. First hour we proclaim him. A few minutes ago, we celebrated the Lord’s table. Can I add a devotional thought to what Jacob led us to understand in that moment? the night he was betrayed. It’s interesting that he doesn’t say at the last supper. He says the night he was betrayed. He says it twice in 1 Corinthians 11 to focus our attention on the fact of the betrayal of Christ. But then he quotes Christ and he says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Have you ever thought about why would he say that? Because he knew we would forget. And instead of hammering us because of that, he reminds us of himself. He says, “As often as you do this, remember me because I know that you need the reminder because you forget me.” What a precious Savior we have who woos us back in fresh memory. He doesn’t condemn us in judgment. You don’t tell people to remember things that they remember. You tell people to remember things that they have a tendency to forget and that’s every one of us with the person and the work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This chief pastoral concern that Paul had was to rivet the hearts and affections of the sheep to the person of Christ to keep them from thinking that Christianity is behavior modification, social constructs, or merely generating awareness. Do you believe in the omnipresence of God? I hope you do. Do you believe, according to John 16, that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit forever will reside with us? The permanent abiding presence of the trinity. I hope you do. Which means the spirit of Jesus is always with us. Two other times in the New Testament, we’re told, do you believe that Jesus is always present? Then why do we sin? A.W. Tozer answers it. He says in the moment of sin every Christian momentarily becomes a practical atheist. He may say he believes in God but by his actions he denies him. We understand that. God understands that. That’s why he says do this to remember me because we drift away from that. Our minds will be led astray from simplicity and purity of devotion to our Lord. John Owen said, “Christ is the way. Men without him are Cains, wanderers, vagabonds. He is the truth. Men without him are liars and in the devil’s hold. He is the life. Men without him are dead in their trespasses and sins. He is the light. Men without him are in darkness and know not where they go. He is the vine. Men that are not in him are withered branches prepared for the fire. He is the rock. Men built on him are not carried away with a flood. He is the alpha and omega, the first and the last, the author and ender, the founder and finisher of salvation. He that has not him neither has beginning of good, nor shall he have anything but an end of misery. Oh blessed Jesus how much better were it not to be than to be without thee. A thousand hells come short of this: eternally to want Christ. Grace Bible Church and the Next 25 Years Why talk about this passage at a 25th anniversary? Because I want to look back and look forward. Your minds can only be led astray if you had them anchored in the first place. You have anchored your life and ministry to the right things in 25 years. Praise God for that. But I think if Paul were here, he would probably say, “Don’t drift. Stay strong. Don’t dislocate your spiritual shoulder patting yourself on the back. Stay at the plow. Can I give you an exhortation based on your name? I want to do it in reverse order. Grace Bible Church. Let’s talk about the church. New Testament identifies Christ’s gathering of believers, their commitment to one another as a church.ekklesia. Jesus founded his church. Jesus promised to build it. He promised to make it healthy. You are a church, which means you are the bride of Christ. You just finished the book of Revelation. It goes further in John. He says, “The wife of the lamb.” Not just the bride, but the wife. Incredible. That’s how intimate we are with Christ as a church. Second, you’re a Bible church. This is an intentional, unabashed, unashamed declaration that God’s Word that you hold—your Bible—is your authority, the only life-giving source of truth from God. Grace Bible Church. I love that unmerited, unearned, undeserved favor of God that finds its ultimate expression in the good news that God gave his son for the salvation of those who would believe. So, by being a part of Grace Bible Church, you’re making quite a declaration. And I think if you would stay true to that declaration that’s in your name, the next 25 years, you’ll stay attached. You won’t be led astray because grace is your application of truth, Bible is your authority, and church is your assembly. You are committed to each other and the one anothers of the New Testament that makes you related to each other by spiritual eternal relationships. I feel so inadequate to stand before you, so humbled and honored that you would even ask me to be here. I just don’t have anything to say except thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your love for each other, for your love for our Savior, for your testimony in this community, for your testimony to the truth of God’s Word. Thank you for being friends to other Christians, other ministries, and myself who are trying to do the same. Thank you for raising this Ebenezer to look at what God has done. Just look around at the people. Just look around. Just look. You’re going to see smiles. You’ll catch eyes. Just look around at each other. Friends, this is God through his son building a redeemed humanity to bring into his kingdom citizenship. You are Ephesians 2 trophies of grace which is your name. I pray that you will excel still more, that 25 years from now, I wonder who’s going to be here. Your job is to make sure that the ones who sit in this building understand what grace Bible church means. Closing Prayer Let me pray. Father, I am struck with fear again reading this passage that the possibility of being led astray is so real. As we sing, prone to wonder. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave you, the one we love. Forgive us where we have erred and gone astray. Thank you for the reminders, communion, fellowship, attendance, assembling where we can be reminded of you. Keep us tethered to the reminders that you’ve put that we might not be led astray from you. Simple and pure adoration, love, affection, responsive obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for these men and women, these young people. Thank you for the testimony of this church. Cause them to be light in the darkness, food for the hungry, water for the thirsty, and answers for the questions that this community desperately needs. We pray this so that you, our Lord and Savior, the one who would die for us and ever lives for us, the Lord Jesus, and it is said that if we talk to you, our Father, in your Son’s name, you will respond with such wonderful grace that’s beyond all we ask or think. We pray in his name. Amen. The post 2 Corinthians 11:3 The Most Important Thing appeared first on Grace Bible Church.

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Opening Prayer God, as many days as you give us in this life here on this earth, there will be challenges. There will be trials. There will be occasions for fear, occasions for worry and anxiety. And frankly, we are frail. We are weak. And if we were alone in them, or if it were up to us to work them out for good, we would be hopeless. But we’re not alone. We have you, the God who is near to his people in trials, a God who cares for his people, who dispenses grace and mercy and help. And so we ask, Lord, as we come to your Word, to Psalm 56 this evening, teach us to trust you. Teach us to trust you even when fear abounds and there are question marks, because you’re worthy of our trust. You are reliable. So help us. We praise you, and we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. The Setting: David in Fear and Flight Well, it’s good to be with you guys this evening. Go ahead and open your Bibles. We’re going to take a quick trip to 1 Samuel 21 before we get into our psalm. We’re dropping in at a difficult point in David’s life. This is a time when fears and enemies abound, a time when he’s being hunted by the king that he serves and loves. King Saul was a jealous man. Saul didn’t appreciate the attention that David was getting after killing Goliath and having many successful military operations on King Saul’s behalf. He couldn’t stand someone else getting the recognition, and so he orders the death of one of his most faithful servants, one who has been most beneficial for the nation. Jonathan, King Saul’s son, who loved David, went and told David immediately after King Saul gives this order to his top officials, and then went to bat for David. Jonathan reminded Saul that David had been a faithful servant to him, and Saul relented. He swore, “As Yahweh lives, David will not be put to death.” That was in chapter 19, and that commitment didn’t last long. He began trying to kill David again. First he tried to shish kabob him with a spear, and then he sent men to spy out David’s house in order to arrest him when he came out, and ultimately to kill him. David managed to escape through a window. Then we come through chapter 20, and David and Jonathan set up a ruse to try and determine if Saul is truly intent on killing David. After finding out that he is, David flees. He makes a run for it. This is heartbreaking for David. This is a man who loves his people because he loves their God. This is a man who loves his king, delights to serve him, and now he finds himself on the run because that king wants him dead without cause. Saul, whose responsibility should have been to lead David and to utilize his giftings for the greater advantage and good of the nation, was jealous of those giftings and trying to kill him. And it is certainly possible, maybe probable, at this point that Saul knew David had been anointed to become the next king. So he was merely protecting his monarchy in his own mind. But either way, David finds himself alone, on the outs, on the run. So he goes to Nob. It’s where the tabernacle was at this time, and he seeks bread and a sword. And then where does he go? Where could he go? Any help he seeks from an Israelite would immediately make that person an enemy of Saul. His heart is filled with trepidation. There are question marks everywhere, enemies looming large. Then he flees somewhere unexpected. Look down at verse 10 of 1 Samuel 21. We’re going to read the occasion about which Psalm 34 and Psalm 56, our passage tonight, were written. “Then David arose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said to him, ‘Is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing of this one as they danced, saying, “Saul has struck his thousands, and David his ten thousands”?’ David took these words to heart and greatly feared Achish king of Gath. So he disguised his sanity in their sight and acted insanely in their hands and scribbled on the doors of the gate and let his saliva run down into his beard. Then Achish said to his servants, ‘Behold, you see the man behaving as a madman. Why do you bring him to me? Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this one to act the madman before me? Shall this one come into my house?’” “And then in verse 1 of 22, ‘So David departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam.’” So David goes to Gath. Now why would he think it’s a good idea to go into enemy territory? Well, he must have hoped that if he went to Gath, Saul wouldn’t come to get him there. Saul doesn’t have free reign there. Maybe he thought that the Philistines wouldn’t recognize him. He could just blend in. Or maybe he hoped that the Philistines would be happy to receive Saul’s prize lieutenant who had defected from Saul. Enemy of my enemy is my friend, kind of thing. But they did recognize him. In verse 11, they say, “Is this not David, the king of the land?” And David isn’t the king of any land yet. I think the Philistines are emphasizing David’s authority and greatness rather than referring to an actual title. But then they knew the song: “Saul has struck his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” It’s a big problem for David. David is the great soldier of Israel who slayed their hero, and Gath is the hometown of Goliath. Those tens of thousands that he killed would have been mostly Philistines. How many widows were there in Gath because of David’s efforts? No, they know exactly who he is. That’s bad news. Verse 12: David took these words to heart, and he greatly feared. They seized David. They took him in hand. And David, in a moment of weakness and fear, pretends to be insane, scribbles on the gate, lets the spittle run down into his beard, and he’s released because Achish seems to already have enough madmen. It’s definitely not David’s finest moment. He’s got enemies on all sides, enemies at home and abroad. He’s desperate. He’s confused. And he appears to be controlled by his fears, without any of the convictional faith we might expect from him. And this is what the Psalms are made of. These are the kinds of times they are for—real people with real problems, the kinds of problems that don’t go away easily, that aren’t quickly resolved, and they’re terrifying. The Psalms have comforted God’s people through their greatest suffering and despair because in them we find great big comforts from a great big God for all your problems, even the big ones, the real ones. This is where David finds hope in his problem, finds hope from his big God and the promises that his God has made. So let’s flip over to Psalm 56. Psalm 56 Read Aloud “For the choir director. According to Jonath Elem Rehokim. A miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath. Be gracious to me, O God, for man has trampled upon me; all day long an attacker oppresses me. My foes have trampled upon me all day long, for many attack me proudly. When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me? All day long they distort my words; all their thoughts are against me for evil. They attack, they lurk, they watch my heels, as they have hoped to take my life. On account of their wickedness, will they have an escape? In anger bring down the peoples, O God. You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in Yahweh, whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? Your vows are binding upon me, O God; I will fulfill thank offerings to you. For you have delivered my soul from death, indeed my feet from stumbling, so that I may walk before God in the light of the living.” Introduction to the Psalm First, looking at the title, you’ll notice that this song is for the choir director. I love that David memorialized this song about one of his more embarrassing moments. And it’s according to “Jonath Elem Rehokim,” which means “the silent dove in distant places.” This could be a title referring to David as a helpless dove who’s driven into another land, or it could be the name of a tune. Then we have “a miktam of David.” We don’t know for certain what miktam means. It’s probably something like an inscription or a memorial of a particular event, and then the occasion, which we read about: when the Philistines seized him in Gath. Now we’re going to turn to the body of the psalm, and what we’ll find here are three responses of trust in fearful trials. Three responses of trust in fearful trials. And the first response of trust in fearful trials is to plead for grace. 1. Plead for Grace Plead for grace. That’s right where verse 1 starts off. Let me read verses 1 and 2. “Be gracious to me, O God, for man has trampled upon me all day long. An attacker oppresses me. My foes have trampled upon me all day long, for many attack me proudly.” So David is being pursued by enemies, and he starts his prayer song off with grace. He needs grace. He needs help from God. And so he cries out to God. He certainly isn’t looking to man for grace, as man is the source of his problems. And we immediately see a contrast between these enemies and the one to whom David is crying out: “Be gracious to me, O God, for man has trampled upon me.” Throughout the psalm, David will use multiple words to describe man, and here he uses a general word that describes humankind as a class. Man is after him, but God is his help. David’s enemies are mortal and transient. The one to whom David is looking is eternal, almighty, and very gracious. It would be no benefit to ask for grace from a God who wouldn’t give it. But David knows that God is gracious, and so he can call out to him. Next the text says, “Man has trampled upon me.” Probably a better rendering of this verb is to pant after, like you’re chasing, you’re pursuing, you’re pestering, you’re longing after something. Man is always pursuing David. They don’t seem to tire. They don’t give up. They don’t lose interest. It’s as though David’s enemies are around every corner, and they keep at it all day long. All day long attackers are oppressing him. All day long David is pushed around. All day long they press the attack. It’s not a moment’s respite. Then in verse 2 he clarifies the men that have been after him. These are his foes, men opposed to him, and he reiterates that they are panting after him, longing to see his downfall and destruction. And they’re able to keep up this unrelenting pressure because it’s not just one man. It’s many. “For many attack me proudly.” David says it’s not just Saul, but it’s all of Saul’s officials, his whole cabinet except for Jonathan. But then it’s the army and the subordinates that that cabinet directs. It’s the slime balls who waited outside his house to trap him. It’s everyone in Israel who would report to Saul where David is so that Saul could come and get him. Then it’s the Philistines, enemies of God’s people, who can’t even let him just come and blend in for a little bit of peace. It says his enemies fight proudly. They fight from on high. This could describe their attitude, their authority—Saul and Achish—or simply their position of advantage. They have the high ground, so to speak. I’m inclined by the context to think that’s David’s meaning, though all three are true. But think: while David’s foes pursue him, they get to make it back to their own towns, their own beds. He can’t. He’s on the run. They’re divided up in units and armies, and he has no army—not yet. He is all alone. He’s being hunted in his own land, and he’s in danger when he’s away. There are no armories for David. There are no Navy SEALs or mighty men. He is in a bad spot strategically. This is again why David seeks grace from God. David’s enemies might be higher than he is, but no matter how high his enemies are, God is higher. God is always at the advantage. He’s able to save by many or by few. That’s why David can say in verse 3, “When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” And I love that statement. It is so real. Fear will come. It can’t be avoided. There will be a time when the occasion for fear strikes, and that’s not abnormal. That’s not sin. For David, trusting in God is in no way a brash, cavalier indifference. It’s not an unrealistic absence of fear. But neither does he feed his fear. Neither does he let it grow by staring at his problems. No, when David fears, he bounces his gaze right over to the only one who can help him. So we learn from David what to do when you fear, how you should respond when you fear: “When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” It’s exactly what fear is for. There’s a grace that moves us to trust in God. And when my fear becomes sin, it’s because I don’t follow that progression there, the progression that David follows here. Faith and fear are opposites in some ways, and yet sometimes faith cannot most beautifully bloom unless fear is strong and close by. If fear moves David to hope, to faith, and to trust, then it’s a victory for David, and to God be the glory. Look at verse 4: “In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me?” Now David shows why his confidence is in God. Where does his boast, his praise, lie? It’s in God’s Word. This verse is so interesting. You notice those first two lines start the same way: “In God.” And it seems as though David is beginning to say, “In God I trust.” But at the mention of God he erupts with this interjection: “I praise his word.” He can’t spit the whole line out because when he thinks to trust God, his heart is vaulted up into his praise for God’s Word. This makes good sense. To trust God is to trust God’s Word. You can’t have one and not the other. If God is trustworthy, then so is his Word. David is reflecting on the trustworthy nature of God and the faithfulness of all his promises. Even when there are no outward solutions for David’s trial, David is content with God’s promises. It’s all he needs. Now surely David has in mind all that God has said, but I think he acutely has in mind the prophecy and promise of his coming kingship. The reality that God anointed David to be king means that Saul cannot get him. David will not die—not until God’s promise has come to pass. This is unchangeable. And therefore he will not be afraid—not anymore. See, he knows God’s promise. He knows his God, and his safety is assured. He needs nothing else. And we ought not need anything else either. God has made many great and precious promises to us, hasn’t he? He’s promised to work every trial for our good, to give comfort and peace, to give us the wisdom we need, and to supply our needs as we seek him and his kingdom first. All of these promises should bring us comfort and revive our faith, just as David found comfort in a promise made uniquely to him. However, William Plumer, commenting on this passage, reminds us, “There is no comfort without trust. A staff not used gives no support.” His promises don’t bring me any comfort if I’m not trusting in them, if I’m not relying upon them, if I’m not continually, consistently coming back to them with faith’s eye, confident in them because we are confident in God. David was confident in God. So look at what he says next: “What can mere man do to me?” The word for man here is a new one in the psalm. It means flesh. What can flesh do to me when I’ve got Creator behind me? What a perspective change. First he was recounting his many enemies, panting all day long, and now they’re just meat bags, decomposing, dying as we speak. David’s whole assessment of his situation shifted once he got his focus off his enemies and onto God and his Word. When we set our minds on our problems, they just seem to grow. They multiply. They get bigger and bigger. But when you set your mind to consider who God is, the ways that he has said he would care for you, then God starts to seem pretty big and your problems less so. So for David in this first section, he emphasizes the many enemies and their constant pursuit. But God is the one to whom he is pleading for grace. And if God will be gracious to help, what can mere man do? Your trials may not be many enemies. It may be something else. But if you are turning to God and his Word, setting your mind there, pleading for grace, I would ask you: what can mere trials do to you? 2. Remember God’s Attentive Care So David first pleads for grace, and next he remembers God’s attentive care. Look down at verse 5. “All day long they distort my words; all their thoughts are against me for evil. They attack, they lurk, they watch my heels, as they have hoped to take my life. On account of their wickedness, will they have an escape? In anger, bring down the peoples, O God. You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in Yahweh, whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?” So looking back at verses 5 and 6, David takes up his complaint again with a slightly different emphasis. Even after expressing his faith, David is not out of the woods yet. So moving on from the number of enemies and their constant attack, he begins to describe how they are pursuing him. All day long they distort his words. They misrepresent. They twist. Their attack included not only attempts on his life, but his reputation as well. All their thoughts are evil toward David, so they’re happy to destroy him in any way they can. So they take his words and make him say things that he never said. Some people are so skilled at this. We see similar things across our mainstream media today, don’t we? It’s not purely a modern problem. This is a sin problem, where you can be convincingly made to think that someone said something, and said it in a certain way, using clips of that person speaking, until you watch the original statement in context and it wasn’t at all the same thing it was presented to be. This is an intentional, destructive, deceitful practice. If you take something out of context, you shift an emphasis. Spurgeon said, “A wolf can always find in a lamb’s discourse a reason for eating him.” Verse 6: they attack. They lurk. They’re concealing themselves, watching, waiting, and tracking him down, always trying to attack him from the direction he’s not looking, just a step behind. These men are sneaky and malicious. They intend to take his life. But David knows that God sees. God sees right through their plans. In verse 7 he asks if they will really escape in light of wickedness. Now, some of your translations, depending on what you have in your lap, will say, “Because of their wickedness, cast them forth.” But the LSB, I think, does a good job here when it says, “On account of their wickedness, will they have an escape?” Or we might say, “God, in spite of their wickedness, will they really get away with it? Are they going to go uncaught and unpunished for all their wickedness?” David knows the answer. He says, “In anger, bring down the peoples, O God.” Here is help that David needs. He needs bad guys brought down. And as long as God is on the throne, they will be ultimately. As long as God has not changed, the wicked will have no escape. They will not get away with it. This is part of who God is. He sees everything. He knows everyone, even the thoughts of the heart that we never let out with our mouths. And he hates sin. He’s just too good to take any pleasure in it. He’s too holy to let these men escape on account of their wickedness. And all of us find ourselves in the same position as these violent perpetrators when it comes to our sin and a holy God. God is watching us. That’s bad news—unless we can find a way for God to see us in a different light than he sees these men here. And the answer that we need is the cross of Christ. On the cross, Jesus bore the sins of his people. He took their violent crimes, their wicked thoughts, their schemes, their selfish ambitions, their lies, deceptions, cruelties, and he bore them in his own body, so that God the Father could pour out the just penalty of wrath on him instead of on his people. Christ gets punished on their behalf, and they are declared righteous, innocent, because their price has been paid. “Oh, in spite of my wickedness, Lord, let me have an escape. And in anger, bring down Jesus, O God. Punish him instead of me.” That is essentially the request every time we seek God’s forgiveness through repentance and faith. And stunningly, that is a prayer that Christ loves to hear, that the Father loves to grant, and that the Holy Spirit loves to apply to guilty sinners. Shocking. If you stand in your own sins, there is a way of escape. There is one who was brought down. He bore the wrath. And if you turn from sin to believe in his name, in the name of Jesus, you will be forgiven. You will be welcomed into God’s family to dwell with him forever in resurrection life. So David, he knows God’s eyes are on the wicked to count up their sins as a measure to store up their wrath. But look at verse 8 and on. See how God pays attention to and cares for his own in their trials. “You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me.” “You have taken account of my wanderings.” This isn’t talking about some kind of wanderlust, getting outdoors and going backpacking. No, this is a word that includes misery, homelessness, restlessness. You’re wandering because you’re not where you should be. David’s on the run. He has nowhere to go. He’s being hunted down. And just as his enemies are watching his heels, so God has seen every step. And not only has God seen them, but he has taken account like an auditor. He knows every hardship David has experienced. He knows why. David requests for God to store up his tears as though they were some precious commodity like an expensive wine or oil or perfume. Precious in the Lord’s sight are the tears of his saints. Each one he bottles before it hits the floor. And if tears in a bottle were not enough, David says, “Are they not in your book?” with the answer being, “Yes, of course they are,” as though God has written down the story of each one—its cause, the suffering associated with it, every sigh, the heaviness of heart. All of these things God sees. He takes notice, and he writes them down. They will never be forgotten. They will never go unnoticed. They will never go alone. To cry out for God to notice is a cry for God to come. Come and comfort. Draw near. And God will certainly do that. So David is remembering the kind of God he serves. This God is not one to linger far away at life’s toughest moments. He’s always present with his people, seeing, caring, loving, and providing. David needs to know this, and so do we. This is why we can pray. This is why we can ask for grace, because God cares for his people this way. Aren’t you so thankful that God doesn’t say, “Okay, I did the hard part. I sent my Son to suffer on a cross. Now you handle the rest of this. Come on. Do I got to do everything?” No. If he did not spare his own Son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things that we might need, including the help that we need in our trials? And then look at verse 9. It starts with the word “then.” Once there have been enough tears, once there have been enough wanderings, once the bottle is full, and just at the right time, then my enemies will turn back. Then there will be relief. It won’t be too soon. It also won’t be too late, because God is moved by the suffering of his people. The cries leave their mouths and land immediately in the throne room. Prayers uttered silently in their hearts, God hears in his. So he will intervene when the timing is right, when the timing is best for the sufferer. And this kind of compassionate care proves something for David experientially. He says this: “I know God is for me.” He is certain of the side God is on. God is always on the side of his people. He’s always working for their good. And if God is for David, then he is against David’s wicked enemies. How hopeful. Then we come back to that blessed refrain that ties together in unbreakable union faith in God with trust in his Word. Look at verse 10 and 11: “In God, whose word I praise; in Yahweh, whose word I praise; in God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?” Again, as David goes to profess his trust in God, in Yahweh, he can’t help himself except to simultaneously profess his praise in God’s Word. Now we have a couple differences in this instance of the refrain from the last time when we read it in verse 4. The first line of the refrain is repeated, which is new. But in the repeat, David gives God’s name. It says “Yahweh.” If you’re not using the LSB translation, you’ll read LORD in all caps, which is the English translator’s way of letting you know that in the Hebrew this word is referencing God’s name. And the LSB brings that out for us. It says “Yahweh.” It’s God’s name. And it’s as though David says, “In God I trust, but let me tell you who he is. Let me tell you his name. He is Yahweh, the God who keeps covenant with his people, the God who is full of steadfast love. He is faithful and true to his Word. He doesn’t back out.” So if that God has made promises, if that God has given covenants, you can bank on them. So David, even against all apparent proofs and evidences of his own defeat—one versus many, they’re hunting him deceitfully—and yet still he will trust in God, and he will not be afraid. After all, what can man do to him? If God is for him, who can be against him? This is yet another instance of a different word for man, and here it’s Adam, which is closely connected with the word for dirt. Adam was made from dirt. So before man was a meat bag, and now he’s a dirt bag. The emphasis here is on man’s limited nature as creature. He is weak and incapable, especially when set in contrast to God Almighty, God eternal, God Most High, who fashions man out of dirt. If God is for me, what can dirt do against me? So David takes heart when he remembers that God is always watching. He sees. He knows David’s suffering and will help him according to his Word. 3. Express Gratitude The third response of trust in fearful trials is to express gratitude. Look at our last two verses. “Your vows are binding upon me, O God; I will fulfill thank offerings to you, for you have delivered my soul from death, indeed my feet from stumbling, so that I may walk before God in the light of the living.” It says, “Your vows are binding upon me, O God.” These are vows that David has made to God, vows to perform after God has rescued him from his predicament. Now what’s David doing here when he’s making a vow? Well, he isn’t bartering. He’s not saying, “God, if you rescue me, I’ll dedicate my life to you and I’ll donate to the Goodwill.” It’s not as though David is trying to add value to the proposition of keeping him alive so that God just might be convinced. No, David already has God’s promise. He already knows God’s will to bring him to Israel’s throne. So in light of his confidence in God’s help and the ultimate victory that he will receive, David makes promises to God to render thank offerings. He says, “God, I will give you thank offerings after you rescue me. I’m going to praise you. I’m going to worship you because you deserve it for your goodness to me.” David made a vow to worship, to express gratitude. So in verse 12 he writes from the vantage point of having been rescued: “God, your vows are binding upon me. You rescued me. You are keeping your Word to me. You are helping me.” David displays the more common practice of making a vow to God, but then he follows it up with the less common practice of keeping one’s vow to God. A thank offering was a kind of sacrifice that one could make as a token of gratitude to God for some specific act. You can read about them in Leviticus 7. This was not a required sacrifice. It was completely voluntary to initiate. David promises out of his own desire that once God rescues him and he is able to return to the tabernacle, he will go and worship God through sacrifice. He didn’t make a rash vow. Neither should we. We shouldn’t make vows to God that we don’t intend to keep. We also shouldn’t try to add weight to our vows by saying, “I swear on my grandmother’s last brown hair,” or, “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” It’s probably just wiser not to make vows. But if you do make a vow to the Lord, honor it, as David does here. How many of God’s kindnesses to us, even just on a day-to-day basis—how many do we let go unthanked, unpraised, God unworshiped for? David will offer thanks. One commentator said he won’t let a kindness from God go to collections. Then in verse 13 David tells us the cause for his gratitude. God rescued him, delivered his soul from death. Think about David’s robust view of God’s sovereignty here. He escaped Achish by pretending to be a madman in a moment of intense fear. And then when he looks back on that, his commentary is, “God rescued me. God, you delivered me from death.” I love that. God used David’s weakness and everything else going on to rescue him. God is always working. He has his plan for you in every trial. And he takes into account your weaknesses. He takes into account every single complicating factor. And indeed, God used all of these factors to keep David’s feet from stumbling. While he was being hunted, his enemies were watching his heels, but God was keeping him from being tripped up. In fact, God brought him to this Philistine town where he would at least be insulated from Saul, and then God would rescue him away from these enemies as well. And then those last two lines in verse 13: David recognizes God’s purpose in rescuing him, so that he might walk before God in the light of the living. As long as David lives, that he would walk before God. The word for walk here has the idea of walking about in daily life—going here, going there, doing this, that, or the other—so that whatever David is doing, wherever he is, whatever his situation, he would walk before God, living in God’s presence through worship and in obedience to his Word. This is God’s purpose in our trials, too. He is making us to walk before him blameless, making us to trust him and his Word more. God is shaping us to reflect Christ’s character better and to be obedient for his glory and our good. That ought to be our desire. That ought to be our prayer. As long as God gives breath on this earth, as long as we are in the light of the living, “God, let me walk before you.” Conclusion and Closing Prayer So when you are in your trial, think of God’s promises. Think of his Word that reveals who he is. And in light of the truth that he’s given, plead for grace from the gracious God. Remember the attentive care of your heavenly Father, and express gratitude to the one who rescues you and is at work in you. Let’s pray. God, we thank you so much for this psalm. God, we thank you for the work that you want to use it to do in our hearts. And if our time tonight brings us to trust you more, to rely on you more in our trials, to respond in faith when fearful trials come, then you will have achieved your purpose. So please work that in us. Grow us, that we may walk before you all the days of our life. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. The post Psalm 56 appeared first on Grace Bible Church.

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Running the Race: The Need for Endurance In a long race, like a marathon, it’s easy to grow weary or distracted, right? It’s easy to start, but it takes discipline and endurance to finish. The first mile of a race is exciting. You’re focused. There’s cheering crowds. It’s new. But by mile 8 or mile 17—with cramps, blisters, pain—the excitement’s faded, and the finish line sometimes feels impossibly far away. The Christian life can sometimes feel like this. The Bible regularly uses imagery of a race to describe our life as Christians. The consistent message of the Bible to Christians in this race is: endure. Endure. Finish the race. Run it well all the way to the end. It’s not the ones who start the race only, but the ones who finish the race who are saved. Finishing doesn’t earn salvation, but like we read from First John, it evidences God’s preserving work. Think of James 1:12: “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial. For once he has stood the test, he’ll receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.” It’s the one who perseveres who receives the crown. Or Colossians 1:22—we know that God has saved us, that he’s reconciled us to him, if we continue in the faith, steadfast, unmoved. And then Jesus, describing the tribulation saints who will face the most challenging struggles imaginable, encourages them with the words, “The one who endures to the end will be saved.” So if you’re a Christian here, this message is for you. And if you’re a Christian, you have to know that you are in a race and you must finish it. God Sets the Race Before Us Christian, when God saved you, when God saved me, he set a race before us. It’s a race path that goes through the narrow gate. It’s not an easy path. But for those who want to see God, finishing is assured, but it’s not optional. All that God has promised, especially eternal life with him, is at the finish line, and it’s there for those who finish. If we don’t endure, destruction awaits us. But when we endure, Jesus awaits us. To be clear, it’s not our faith or our endurance that saves us. You have to remember that as we read the passage and as we consider the command that we’re going to think about as we study Hebrews 12 this morning. It’s not our endurance that saves us. It’s not even our faith that saves us. Rather, we have put our faith in the good news of a trustworthy savior. And the only ones who are saved by that trustworthy savior are those who trust in him by faith and endure, run every step, and finish the race that’s set before us. Faith isn’t merely a belief. It’s not a set of facts mentally assented to. It’s not a theology that you know, but it’s a belief—it’s trust, it’s faith in God and his promises and all that he has disclosed to us, all that he has said is true, that’s shown in action. So think of your life. Every thought, word, action, the way you respond to temptation, each good work that you do or don’t do—that’s added up. It’s like the 50,000 or 60,000 steps of a marathon. Each step is the action done, word said, thought thought, and it defines the way that you run and whether you finish. Each one of those 50,000 steps a marathon runner makes might not seem to matter, but they do. And the culmination of them determines whether or not he finishes. If the runner stumbles, does he get up? If she doesn’t, she doesn’t finish. If the runner starts running the wrong direction or veers off course, he won’t finish. So, in this race of our lives, the race towards eternal life—this race of faith—how can we not grow weary? How can we not lose heart? That question and its answer is what Hebrews 12:1–4 seeks to answer. Open your Bibles, turn there. Hebrews 12:1–4. Context: The Audience of Hebrews You have to know that this book was written to a group of Christians that generally started their race well. But the trials of life, persecutions for their faith, and temptations to sin threatened to make them want to stop running, to turn back or meander. The author opened the book recognizing that many were now drifting, meandering in the race of faith. It says in Hebrews 2:1, and by 12:12, he describes the situation. He says it’s like they’re on the race, their hands are drooping, their knees are weak, and their race path began to go wobbly. The end was so close. The end where they get to see the Lord, it says in 12:14. And they needed help. We need help. Some here are in desperate need of help. And everyone here will need help at one point in our race of faith. So, let’s read Hebrews 12:1–4 together: Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and sin which so easily entangles us, let us run with endurance the race that’s set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector 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. For consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary, fainting in heart. You have not yet resisted the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. Let’s pray. God, thank you for your word. God, thank you that you are a God who loves sinners, who’s made a way through Christ that we could come to you. God, thank you for many of us, so many of us, for granting us this gift of faith, for lovingly putting every circumstance in our life—the blessing and the trials—in front of us and persevering us along the way. Thank you for Jesus, who ran his race, endured to the end faithfully, who’s now waiting for us, sat down at your right hand, and has secured all of the promises, especially eternal life with him that await us at the end of our race. God, I pray for the next half hour or so, 40 minutes, God, I pray that you would keep our minds engaged, that we would listen well, that I would teach accurately, guard me from error. Pray that my words would conform with your words. But God, I pray it wouldn’t merely be information received. God, I pray that we would believe it. God, I pray that we would as a result of hearing this run better, trust you more fully. May you be glorified through the preaching and receiving of your word this morning in Jesus name. Amen. Looking Back: The Flow of Hebrews Leading Up to Chapter 12 So, we need a running start at Hebrews 12:1. We’re dropping into almost the end of the book and I’m going to do my best to help you understand the flow of thought that’s helped us get to where this precious passage lies. So turn with me and underline—we’re going to have to go back to chapter 10 verse 12. Underline or take note of the key words you’re going to constantly see. We’re not going to be able to hit all of them, but you’re going to see things like a promise from God. So the word “promise”—for those who endure in faith. So we’re going to see a promise that we trust in, that we have faith in, and the need to endure. So in the face of suffering and temptation, the Hebrew believers like us need to endure. In chapter 10, verse 23, we see the command, “let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.” Not because our strength or endurance is what gets us through to the end, but because he who promised is faithful. Hold fast to the faithful one. Put your faith in the faithful one. The tired runners here are reminded to remember the beginning of the race. Look at 10:32. It’s like a runner on the 20th mile of a marathon looking back at all that he’s gone through. 10:32, “remember the former days when after being enlightened,” after they were saved, their minds changed, they put their faith in Christ, “you endured a great conflict of suffering.” These Hebrew believers, they started well and they had evidence of their faith. God had already demonstrated his faithfulness through their demonstrated faith in the face of trials. There were sufferings like being publicly mocked and afflicted, standing with those who were being mocked, showing love to others while they suffered. They were even willing to lose their stuff for the sake of the gospel because they knew that they had been promised so much more. You started the race. The author says you have endured. You can see that in 10:35. So don’t throw away your confidence, which has great reward. That confidence is a confident faith in the sufficiency and faithfulness of Jesus to bring those who trust him to God. Don’t throw that away. He says, don’t fall away. Don’t turn to sin. Fight it. The reward that’s at the end that God has promised, that Jesus secured, it’s worth it. And then 10:36, “you have need of endurance, so that when you’ve done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” So, so this is where he has the thought: you have need of endurance. And so he effectively closes that chapter saying, we Christians aren’t people who shrink back, right? We Christians are the ones that endure. We’re the ones who don’t shrink back. We’re not the ones who are destroyed, but we have faith. We persevere. And then he gives us some examples of those who’ve put their faith in God. These are the kinds of people who persevere, like those who’ve gone before. And then we have the hall of fame of faith—Hebrews 11—that so many of us know so well, right? Hebrews was written to weary, pressured believers tempted to fall back. And the writer consistently says there’s one better. Jesus is better: he’s a better revelation, better priest, better sacrifice, better covenant, a better runner. But before he shows us Jesus and the race that he ran and why we look to him, he says, “Let’s look at those who’ve run before in faith.” And they didn’t even receive the promise in their lifetime. Yet they endured by faith, awaiting the perfection that we now taste in Christ. These Old Testament saints, they endured. They gave witness. They gave testimony to the faithfulness of God as they endured. So the author of Hebrews parades these examples and says now in chapter 12:1, “Look how they endured. They looked forward to a better country. They didn’t count the pleasures, the riches of this world, worth living for.” And so many of them went all the way to dying for their faith. And we’re surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses. The “therefore” at the beginning of chapter 12 ties us to what went before. Look back. We have need of endurance. Look at those who endured. Therefore, we’re surrounded by this cloud. I used to think of this, or maybe you do, right? We’re runners. You think of who surrounds runners—it’s like runners in a stadium. There’s a crowd cheering them on. You might think, “Look, we’re surrounded by all the saints that have gone before us, and they’re saying, ‘Ay, boy, keep going.'” And we’re running as if to entertain them, please them, like a crowd surrounding runners in a race. That’s not exactly what’s going on here. The runners—the cloud of witnesses—they’re not spectators cheering from the stands. They’re not people who are looking to us, but they’re people to whom we can look as we run. The witnesses are the faithful who’ve gone before us, who’ve completed their race. And it’s not a testament to their faith, “look how strong they are.” What are they witnesses to? That’s the word that’s elsewhere translated “martyrs.” It’s literally “martyrs,” the ones who—they’re witnesses not of themselves and their own faith and their own endurance, but of a faithful God who ensures our endurance. We’re surrounded by witnesses whose lives testify to us that persevering faith is possible and worth it. So look to them, but look to an even better witness: Jesus. But I’m getting ahead of myself there. Run with Endurance: The Command of Hebrews 12 So, on the strength of their testimony, the author issues two clear commands. But he starts with the first command: Run with endurance. There’s lots of words in verses 1 and 2, but there’s one command. Let us run. This isn’t a burst. It’s not a sprint, but it’s an endurance race that lasts from new birth to final breath. No Christians get to coast. We don’t get to stop. We don’t get to sit down, bow out, and we better not turn around. What does it mean to run? We are commanded to run. And the author of Hebrews doesn’t merely say, “You guys run.” He says, “Let us run.” And it’s a command that includes the first person. Every Christian, no leader, nobody’s arrived at a point where they say, “Hey, I don’t need to run anymore. I’ve arrived.” No, we run—every single one of us—until we die. And let us run with endurance, he says. So what does it mean to run? Well, running well is simply living a life of holiness—a life lived by faith, bearing the fruits of righteousness. Like I said, it’s every step of this race. Every step of running is what you think, what you do, what you say. It’s the sum total of your life aiming at the goal towards which you’re running. It means to trust and obey God. To seek to please God rather than pursuing the passing pleasures of sin. Working hard for Christ in this life, looking forward to the rest with Christ in the next. It means living life in the way that God saved you to live it—as salt and light, bringing glory to our Father. And there is a very real risk of growing weary, of not enduring. Like I said earlier, not all who start out on this race—not all who say, “I have faith in Christ”—finish. Everybody here needs to finish. And all who have been saved will finish. But what threatens your finishing? Weariness. The Race Set Before Us: Sovereignty and Trials And if we are commanded to run the race that’s set before us and to complete it, we have to ask who set the race in front of us. Some people’s races are really, really hard. Is that just bad luck, happenstance, dumb chance, just the capriciousness of the universe? No. By asking the question—”the race set before us”—who set the race? All Christians get so much comfort. They say, “This isn’t random. It’s not, you know, it is what it is.” No, it is exactly as my loving and wise heavenly Father determined it to be. Every blessing, but more importantly, every trial was put in front of the race runners of faith by their heavenly Father who loved them, who sent his own Son so that all who believe in him could have eternal life, so that we could be his children. We know this course isn’t random and you need to declare that to yourself when you face unexpected trials. We will and we must trust: This trial is from my Father. If we read through the end of the rest of the chapter—we’re not going to get there today—you can see the connection between the trials that come on this racecourse and the discipline, the training (not punishment for sins), but the discipline, the training of us for righteousness that we have to endure. And it comes from our heavenly Father. He’s treating us like sons. The race set before us was set by our Father. He knows exactly what we need, what is best. It was this passage that sustained me multiple times in personal trials—when my son got cancer for the fourth time and I’m like, “God, I can’t go on. I feel like this is too much.” Or sometimes in the less critical things, like my car won’t start or this week at work isn’t going how I want it to go or I wish this relationship would just be easier, would go right. The things that threaten to make us weary, to weary us, to make us want to stop running. Say like I try to say: “Jacob, this was placed in front of you for your good by your loving Father who knows what you need better than you do. Therefore, this is good. It’s best. Keep running.” And yet knowing that, it’s still so easy to grow weary. You can get a moment’s burst of energy and then get weary on the next step. You can be faithful for a mile and the next mile seems even harder. So what are we commanded to do? Run with endurance the race that is set before you, laying aside every weight and sin which so easily entangles. Do you see that in front? The command is: let us run with endurance. How? Laying aside every weight and sin that entangles. Lay aside impediments. Laying Aside Weights and Sin What are the weights that hinder—the things that you need to set aside? He doesn’t merely say “set sin aside,” although he does, but “weights”—things that hinder. These weights are maybe morally neutral things, or at least not overtly sinful things, but things that slow you down, that distract you. Time sinks, overcommitments, entertainment, maybe even good things that are out of place or out of balance or pursued for the wrong reasons. When you are trying to decide what to do, what the next step of your race is, don’t merely ask, “Is it sin?” or “Am I allowed to do that?” That’s like asking, “Am I allowed to wear this weighted vest on this marathon?” Well, yeah, it’s not against the rules. You’re allowed to do it, but it’s a really dumb idea. It’s going to slow you down. You’re going to get more tired. Or “Am I allowed to run this race in a suit and high—or a dress and high heels?” That’s what we ask when we set the standard: not “Am I allowed to do this? Is it sin?” but rather, “Ought I to do this? Will this please the Lord? Will this help me run better?” Students, I get questions from you so often—and I’m not admonishing you here, but I’m encouraging you, I’m saying what I need to hear. So many of you come and say, “Am I allowed to do this thing? I want to date this boy. I want to go to this movie. Can I play these video games? Is it okay if I do one more sport?” Do you hear what’s behind that question? What might be behind that question is: “Is this going to hinder me in my race of faith?” If that’s what you mean, praise God. But I fear that what most of you mean is what I mean sometimes when I try to ask that question: “Is there a verse in the Bible that very specifically says I can’t do this thing because I’m going to do it unless I’m really, really not allowed to?” Don’t put the bar at “is this sin?” You should ask that. That is the first and most important grid that you need to pass your decisions through. But ask, does it help me run? Does it help me run or does it hinder me? And this takes prayerful wisdom. It takes understanding what would please the Lord. As we run faithfully, we begin to learn more and more what’s beneficial. Right? Athletes who’ve been running for a long time—beginners, they get all this gear, all this stuff that the magazines say to get, so much of it doesn’t help. It’s just a waste of money and drags them down. And you see the really experienced runners—they know what to throw away and they know what to keep. Praise God, we don’t run this race alone. There’s one guy in this room, I don’t know who it is, who’s run longer than all of us. But for the rest of us, there’s somebody else to look to who’s already run probably the kind of path that’s in front of you. You can say, “Help me know what to lay aside. Help me know what to throw off.” Go to small group with that kind of thought in mind. And you wiser people who’ve run, lovingly, patiently help and encourage those who need it. Surround yourself with the fellow race runners, especially the more mature ones. This is the admonishment. Just remember, we started this is a crescendo from chapter 10. In the context of that is the verse that we all think of—don’t neglect gathering together. Not because you need a box to check because Jesus said or because God said, “Hey, go to church.” It’s because we need each other at church. You might need a race runner to help you know what to lay aside. And you might need to be there to help ones who are being wearied by entanglements or impediments that they don’t even know are there. And you don’t only lay aside weights, but lay aside sins. Those are guaranteed to entangle. They will weary you. You have to lay it aside. That’s the very context in James 5. James 5:16—you don’t have to turn there. But the very context of the command, “confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed,” is in the context of wearied saints in the face of persecution and trials of various kinds. Confess your sins to one another. Pray for one another. Help each other turn from sins. Christian, the Bible is clear. When you sin, you are not living like who you were saved to be. You are living like who you were saved from. Sin is the way in which you formerly walked. It was the race course on which you formerly ran. So Ephesians 2 says, when you run like that, when you’re dead in your sins, that’s the course of this world. You’re on a different race course, Christian. When you walked on that course that the world walks on, you did whatever the desires of your flesh and mind wanted to do because we were children of wrath, destined for wrath like the rest of mankind. The race course that’s marked by sin runs to wrath. The race course that you’re on, Christian, that’s marked by repentance from sin and pursuit of righteousness, culminates in eternal life with Christ. In Ephesians 2 that talks about those two racecourses, it says, “But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, while we were dead in sins, while we were on that race course heading towards death, he made us alive together with Christ. We’re chasing him. By grace, you’ve been saved.” And he did that so that at the end of that race, we can receive the just—the overabundance of riches that we’re going to receive forever in the age to come—the innumerable riches. So if you see sin in your life, think of this race course. You are turning—you’re running the wrong way. You’re doing worse than getting tangled up by the weights. You’ve actually turned around and run backwards. Stop. Repent. Turn around. That’s what repentance means. It doesn’t merely mean confess—acknowledge, “Yep, that’s sin, I guess I should do that less.” You’re running the wrong way. Throw that aside. Say, “Whatever this is that I’m chasing, it won’t help me run. At least not the way I’ve been saved to run. Throw it off.” Application: What Do You Need to Throw Off? Oh Christian, lay aside sin and not sin only, but anything and everything that entangles—that is an impediment that would trip you up. If anything will get in the way of pleasing God, in the way of purity, of love for God and your neighbor, if anything will make it harder for you to endure, get rid of it. It’s not worth it. Paul says in 1 Timothy 6, we brought nothing to this world. We can’t take anything out of this world. So run naked if you have to—get rid of everything if it keeps you from running well. Think of an application here. I don’t want you to think of this concept generally, but think about your life specifically. What’s one weight or one sin that you need to throw off? There’s probably more, but think specifically, especially the one that you don’t want to acknowledge, the one that’s really hard to give up. Write that down and share it with somebody before you leave here today—or at least before you go to bed. Remember, faith isn’t merely knowing the right thing, but it’s doing it. We must run with endurance, laying aside all that would threaten our endurance with our eyes fixed on Jesus. Run, Eyes Fixed on Jesus Run, eyes fixed on Jesus. Do you see that’s the other modifier of the first command? Let us run—fixing our eyes on Jesus. The idea is looking away from everything else to Jesus—a sustained, exclusive gaze. It’s the posture of the runner who refuses side glances at the race course, at pain, at competitors or crowds. Charles Simeon helpfully comments here: “We are not merely to look unto Jesus, but in so doing to look off from everything else. We are apt to look at our own weaknesses, difficulties in our way, at the strength of number of those who are endeavoring to cast us down or at anything that tends to discourage us. But we should look off from all those things and keep our eyes steadily fixed on Jesus.” No distraction. You cannot have your eyes simultaneously fixed on Jesus and also distracted. So if you see things that distract you from Jesus, those are the kinds of things you throw away. You lay off—or even better, that you relate to rightly. You relate to them as gifts from Jesus or as things to honor Jesus with. The race of faith towards holiness—it’s not a scenic walk where you’re looking at the nice surroundings, but it’s a race of endurance. And your eyes must be fixed on only one object, and your feet run in only one direction—towards Jesus. In the trials of life and in the blessings too, where pleasures and money threaten to pull you off course, where is your gaze directed? Thankfully, God knew that we lose sight of what’s important so easily. As an aside, that is why we take the Lord’s supper every week—why we do communion at least weekly—but it should remind you, not merely weekly, but always, every day in all that you do: eyes fixed on Jesus. In a trial, where are your eyes? When you face sufferings, when something tempts you to anxiety, where are your eyes? Are they on the difficulty? Are you considering—if you have disease, are you spending all your time on the internet, Dr. Google or ChatGPT, looking up the symptoms and how to get it fixed? As you face financial trouble, you do have to be faithful and make a living, be faithful and work hard. But is your thought constantly on the struggle, the difficulty in front of you? Or is it on Jesus and our Father who put that race course in front of you? When we have our eyes on Jesus, it’s an expression of trust in and a magnification in our own hearts of the one in whom our strength lies. Robert Murray McCheyne wisely counseled, “Learn much of Jesus. For every look at yourself, take 10 looks at Christ. Live near to Jesus and all things will appear little to you in comparison with eternal realities.” We sang it: Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Get your eyes off yourself. Get your eyes off the race course, the circumstance of life, and onto Jesus. We fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. The idea here is that he is the one who worked to begin your faith and to complete it. Just like the race course isn’t chosen by you, but by your Father, your race didn’t begin with you, and it won’t be brought to completion by your power. The word translated “author” here literally means “originator” or “instigator.” Who originated and instigated your faith? God, Jesus. Similarly, the Greek for “finisher” has a meaning beyond what our English word “perfector” might seem to mean, but it means “finisher.” From my favorite lexicon—that’s a Greek dictionary—it says that this word refers to one who brings something to a successful conclusion. That’s Jesus. He was the originator, instigator of our faith and he will bring it to a successful conclusion. The saving faith that our Father purposed in predestining us before the foundation of the world, the Son authors and then completes through the working of the Holy Spirit in us as he runs. Our enduring isn’t about us. We must endure. So don’t quit. But it’s about God who started it and will finish it. So trust in him and faith. He initiates and completes our saving faith. Our beginning and enduring in faith is necessary but it’s derivative. Do you get that? Our beginning and enduring in faith is necessary. You have to believe in Christ. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” “Endure to the end and you will be saved.” And when you do it, that necessary faith doesn’t glorify you but the Lord. It’s a derivative enduring. We fix our eyes on Jesus. Do you see what it says? “Who endured the cross.” The Father’s wisdom and love that sets the course in front of us also put the cross in front of Jesus. Right? We have a race course set in front of us. Jesus had a course set in front of him that he had to endure. Think of Gethsemane. It wasn’t easy. If there was any other way, Jesus asked for that. The Father put this in front of him and Jesus endured to the end for the joy that was set before him. The joy that was on the other side of the cross for Jesus enduring the agony was to do the Father’s will—Psalm 40:8, to bring many sons to glory—Hebrews 2:10, to justify the many by bearing their iniquities—Isaiah 53:11, to be exalted to the Father’s right hand—Acts 2:33, as the resurrected king, conquering Satan, sin and death—Hebrews 10:13, to purify a people for his own possession—Titus 2:14. There was a joy set before Jesus. And it says he despised the shame. The word “despised” means to consider something not important enough to be an object of concern, especially when evaluated against something else. It’s a caring, a disregard, or being unafraid of—the cross wasn’t easy for Jesus. We see that as he sweats blood and pleads in prayer at Gethsemane. Yet the pain and shame of the cross—he despised that. He didn’t consider it of concern when evaluated against the joy set before him. So look to Jesus and think of the joy set before us in comparison to the trials, the difficulties in front of you. In Paul’s last letter when he was about to die—2 Timothy 4:6–8—he says, the time of his departure had come. He says, “I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. There is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not to me only, but to all who have loved his appearing.” That crown of righteousness and the Father’s words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s worth it, Christian. The sufferings of our present time are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. We can run through difficulties in joyful anticipation of the award that awaits at the finish line when the author and perfector of our faith says, “Well done, good and faithful slave. Enter into the joy of your master.” And we fix our eyes on Jesus who sat down. When Jesus’s work on the cross was done, he cried out, “It is finished.” The race was over. And what did he do? He rested. On mile 24, 25 of a marathon, the rest that’s on the other side is so sweet—it can help you endure. We don’t know how many miles are in our race, but we know that on the other side is rest because Jesus, when he finished his race, rested. This echoes back again to Hebrews 10 where this all started: “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sin, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” When we think of Jesus, that he sat down, we remember that sacrifice is finished. The king reigns. That means our race is not to earn anything. It’s to persevere in what was already purchased. We run under a sovereign, interceding savior who will keep his people to the end. Listen to the command of Hebrews 4:11—similarly to the command here—it’s: “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by disobedience.” We can’t look to Jesus with our physical eyes. That’s why we have to read our Bibles. You have to believe your Bibles. You don’t just read your Bible in the morning and go about your day, “Good, I checked the box, I got that done.” You read your Bible because you need to see Jesus and you say, “How will this affect my day?” And you keep Jesus in front of you, not to keep you from going about your life, but as you go about your life—eyes not on this world and the things of this world, but eyes on Jesus. 1 Peter 1:8, “Though you have not seen him, you love him. And though you do not see him now, you believe in him and you rejoice with joy inexpressible, full of glory, receiving as the outcome of your faith at the end of the race—the salvation of your souls.” Fix your eyes on Jesus. The Second Command: Consider Jesus And the second command of the passage is very similar. Verse three—there’s only two commands here. The first was “run.” The second is “consider.” Consider him. “Consider him who has endured such hostility by sinners against himself so that you do not grow weary and lose heart.” Jesus endured persecution from the sinners of this world. And he said, “If the world hates you, know that it hated me before you. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” So as you go through suffering, consider him. And we’ve already considered the pinnacle of Jesus’s endurance of hostility from sinners. When in Jerusalem there were gathered together against Jesus—Herod, Pontius Pilate, all the Gentiles and the people of Israel—to do exactly as God had predestined to take place. In the face of the worst of humanity’s sins, God still reigned and Jesus endured. Consider Jesus’s sufferings and the purposes for them. Isaiah 53 says, “He was despised, forsaken of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” Why? So that as he was pierced for our transgressions, being crushed for our iniquities, by his wounds we would be healed. Consider him in his suffering by sinners so that you won’t grow weary. We consider him so that we don’t grow weary. The command is consider—think on deeply. Back to Bible study. There’s a kind of thinking that I’m tempted to do, maybe you are, that’s disconnected from reality. The kind of thinking where you can recite, rehearse big theological truths, even explain them to somebody and go out and live like they’re not true. Oh, Grace Bible Church, don’t study Jesus. Don’t know Jesus that way. Don’t ever separate your Bible reading or your theological contemplation from your life. The purpose of considering Jesus—at least one purpose among many—is so that you would not grow weary and would not lose heart. Consider Jesus and his endurance and endure. Don’t grow weary. It’ll say later in verse five, because it’s for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. What did God do to Jesus, his son? For great purpose, he put a path that had endurance and suffering. He’ll do the same for you. Different purposes, but really wise, good ones. So when weariness and faint-heartedness threaten you, threaten weariness, look to Jesus who endured so that you don’t grow weary. Encourage One Another as Fellow Runners As we run, that weariness is very real. It can be there. You may be weary right now. There may be some in the church around us who are weary. God put us together in a church. Consider a passage that’s so helpful for us. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 is helpful here. We need to keep an eye out for our fellow runners. Admonish the idle. Think of your fellow runners. Admonish the idle—those who’ve stopped, those who’ve turned back into sin. Encourage the faint-hearted and help the weak. This isn’t a race to see who wins. It’s a race that we all help each other finish. So at small group, in church throughout the day, when you see a fellow runner, say, “Stop sinning, throw that aside.” You see somebody weak, you’re like, “It’s okay. Let’s look to Jesus together. Here, I’ll help you.” You’re faint-hearted. Let’s consider Jesus together. And if you’re weary, call for help. Say, “I need help.” We must not neglect meeting together. We must not run this race alone. Keep Striving: Our Struggle Against Sin And finally, know that you haven’t yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. This tells us that the race that we run against sin, or that we run at least, includes a striving against sin. That word is one that calls to mind hand-to-hand combat, like to the death. Think of those who’ve gone before—the saints of old who were stoned, sawn in two, tempted, were put to death with a sword. They went about in sheepskin, goatskins, destitute, afflicted, mistreated. They fought against sin, fought to please God all the way to death. If you’re here and you’re hearing my words or you can read this, you haven’t yet died, which means you still run. We can look back to those who did run all the way to the point of death and shedding blood—and more importantly, to Jesus who ran and shed his blood. His perfect, sinless blood endured to the very end to win our battle against sin. You haven’t fought. Your race isn’t so hard that you’ve died yet. Jesus did, and God raised him from the dead, and he’s now resting, waiting, helping us finish. So, let’s finish. Faith—faith is looking to the unseen, right? That’s the definition of faith: looking to unseen with a heart of faith, a trusting in things not yet seen. It’s faith in the unseen promises of God that sustains the cloud of witnesses that surround us, testifying to God’s faithfulness. Faith in our beloved author and perfector of faith who bore our sins, endured the cross, and finished the race—that’ll help us endure to the end of ours. Closing Exhortation Chris and the band, can you guys come up? We’re going to proclaim together as a church our faith in God and his promises. What a privilege and joy it is to be a church, to run together, to encourage one another with these words. We’re going to fix our eyes on Jesus, our soul’s reward, until the race is finished and the work is done. We walk by faith and not by sight. In doing so, the point is not our endurance. It’s not our sins, not our trials or our suffering. It’s not even our faith. The post Hebrews 12:1-4 Run with Endurance! appeared first on Grace Bible Church.

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