We're going to take our Bibles today and head to Hebrews chapter 12. The actual scripture reading isn't very long, but what amount of scripture we're looking at is big. Big to our hearts. You know, I try to warn you sometimes, especially if you're not used to me, that I will really fill a page with notes. And I don't intend to try to preach and teach every verse that's on here. I hope it's something that will inspire you to move on into further study. And I'm pretty convinced that today's message is so important I have to take two sessions to go through it. So try not to be terrorized by the density of these notes, you know. There's something fluffy like a croissant, and then there's that kind of bread that they have that's all full of seeds and all kinds of dense stuff. I tend to not be too fluffy with the notes, but God guide me today. We're going to get our eyes on Jesus and keep them there. I'm starting with Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1, and we're just going to read to verse 3. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about, surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." Now, our overall theme for quite a while now has been warnings from the book of Hebrews. This isn't verse by verse commentary on Hebrews, We're taking large portions of it and we're culling out from it warnings. Warnings that instruct us about our weaknesses and temptations, tendencies that we may fall into or others around us may fall into. And so the warnings are good for us and they're also good for us to warn others and help them. And so we have looked, for example, in chapter 2, verses 1 and 3, that people let things slip or drift away. It's not hurling it away, it's just kind of letting go and letting it drift. It's like the boat that's not been tied up to the dock. It just pulled up, you got out, you forgot to tie it up, and in time it just starts drifting off. Just goes out with a little bit of a flow of the water, perhaps. Then in Hebrews 3, we looked at verses 6 and verses 14. People do not hold fast firmly to our confidence in Christ. We are given a gospel that has a know-so quality about it. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, the children of God. And some people don't have that faith that you can really know for sure. And we would love to share that with people so that they can have this confidence But even when we have that confidence, sometimes we let it go. We don't hold fast onto it. We're not firm. And we get our minds on other things. In Christianity, and the world has a lot to do with this, but issues, issues, issues. Topics for debate. and gut-wrenching issues and divisions, heresies, all this, and pretty soon we're off on tangents. And some of them may be very important issues. But when it talks about Christ being preeminent, means first place, that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, not what we believe about prophecy or church doctrine, or I could go into other issues, but I might get you thinking about them. And I don't want you to think about them at this moment. but holding firmly to our confidence in Christ. Some people don't do it, so we got to be warned about that. Also, in the same chapter, chapter 3, verses 8 through 13, people harden their hearts. More than once in that chapter, it says, harden not your hearts. The example of Israel of old, unless we get real high and haughty criticizing them, they're only example for what we'd be without the grace of God. And as they harden their hearts, their necks got stiff, all kinds of expressions like that, we can do that too. And it has terrible consequences because now you can't be receptive and tender and alert to things because your heart has become a hard thing And then chapter four, verses one and two, people gain unprofitable knowledge of God's word. They're learning scripture, they're learning doctrines, they're learning facts, they're learning things to do or not do perhaps, but in that portion of scripture, Hebrews four, one and two, the problem Israel had is they heard the word of God, but it was not mixed with faith. We have to make sure that we receive the word of God in a believing way. in a believing way. It's kind of like saying, we're going to let this airplane land, and either there's a landing strip, or it's just a bunch of rocks and holes. And have you ever seen a plane land in the wrong place? I've watched planes trying to land in the water, emergency landings, and if they don't watch out, the nose goes in, they flip completely upside down. But you know, we try to bring in the word of God, but can it make a good landing? Faith is the way to make the proper landing strip, to receive God's Word, and then the plane can land safely and be unloaded and do much good. Hebrews 5.8 to 6.12, that was crossing the chapter divisions, a little bit larger portion, and it's been a very controversial passage, and we're not going to rehash it right now. But the main point was, is that people become lethargic and fruitless. Now, I got the word lethargic there. The King James Version has the dull of hearing. Dull of hearing, it's like, whatever. And when you try to teach people who don't really care if you teach it or not, they don't care how well you teach it, just don't teach it too long, please. It's hard. It's hard to get the job done. Do you sense the wonderful interconnectedness of this book? We have so much. And it is interconnected so that we can keep learning and comparing. And the Bible becomes a commentary on itself by comparing Scripture with Scripture. Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little. Like Solomon said, much study is weariness to the flesh. Oh, but if we don't care to put time into it. Look how hard people work for other areas of knowledge and expertise. vocation. They put so much work into going to college, and learning, and getting degrees, and having books, and having special teachers, and being mentored, and tutored, and they put all that into a job to make money, or a hobby that they love. But what about the vocation of knowing God through His Word? Okay, then last week, another controversial passage, Hebrews 10, I've got verses 26 to 39 written in the notes here, but people trifle with the precious blood of Christ. That is a summary statement of a very difficult place where it looks that people have outwardly received Christ, they've made a confession of Him, they've perhaps done some things. You know, we have a man in the Gospels named Herod, and he loved the preaching of John the Baptist. And for John's preaching, he would do many things. But then one day John came up and said, it's not lawful for you to have your brother Philip's wife. And the old saying from the South is, you quit preaching and go on to meddling, boy. And John lost his head over that. Got his head chopped off. Because we went from just liking the sound of preaching, liking the atmosphere of it, oh, this is good, but now got too personal. And we talk about the blood of Jesus. We talk about the gospel of the cross. But what happens is when people turn away from that and want to do things their own way, there remains no more sacrifice for sins. You're going to have to come back to only this. The blood of Christ cleanses us. The blood of Christ establishes us with a relationship. And people who have outwardly agreed, outwardly conformed, what they do is they trample underfoot the blood of the Son of God. Well, anyways, that's a short summary of what we've spent weeks studying. Today's lesson from Hebrews 12, 1 through 3, it's going to encompass the whole chapter, mind you, but people get their eyes off of Jesus Christ and become weary of the race that is set before them. Now, I sort of highlight a few things here right at the beginning. We're going to take more depth later. But people that get their eyes off Jesus Christ, people then become weary of the race. It's like they've lost their motivation. And I've told you before about a man that had practiced for a marathon. Practice and practice, months and months, and he got into the actual marathon race, you know, 26-mile race. And he's plugging along. His legs are fine. His lungs are fine. But he became so fatigued that in his mind, he forgot why he was running. And they say that people driving and they're fatigued, they can forget where they are and forget where they're going. And I'm ashamed to tell you, I was very fatigued one time. And I remember that. All of a sudden, I go, where am I? What's going on? And it's very disorienting. Didn't make me have a wreck, but the runner started to do that. Why am I doing this? And he couldn't think of a good reason why. So you know what? He just stopped. Not because his feet hurt. Not because he was out of breath. He just couldn't remember why he's doing it. You get your eyes off Jesus, you may forget why to do it, then you won't even want to do it. Now, I told this in the past. And you either forgot it, and they're going to love me saying it again, or you're just going to put up with the fact that I've got to tell this. It was related as a true story. I don't actually know that it is, but the building of the Taj Mahal over in India, a man wanted to dedicate the most magnificent structure to the honor of his wife who had passed away. And it is said that as they began this grand construction, He had a type of coffin with his wife in it put on site to sort of hallow the ground. It's all for her. And they're working around it. Well, you know, this took so many years to build that the man himself passed away. And it went on and on. It is a beautiful thing. It's, I think, a modern wonder of the world. It's so glorious. But in time, people lost track of this box. Now, I'd have been fancy looking, but what's this box? It's in the way. Get it over there. No, no, no, no. It's in the way there. Move it over here. And later on, move it over here. Finally, they said, phooey, and they threw it in the swamp. She was the reason they were building the building. It was in the honor of her, but she got tossed out. Now, it may not be a true story, but I like the story, and it makes the point. Here's Jesus in the book of Revelation standing outside the door of his church knocking. And they don't even notice. If the electricity went out today, we'd notice. But is Jesus here? Does he have to knock to get in? And he says, if any man hear me and open the door, I'll sup with him and he with me. That's how revival starts, folks, one person at a time. But getting our eyes off Jesus to like, what are we doing all this stuff for? And we get to arguing about music, or programs, or buildings, or tons of things, issues. But did we forget Jesus? And so, as this chapter proceeds, we've got a couple places here, verse 5 and 24 and 25, where they refuse his heavenly counsel and correction. They become ungraceful, ungrateful, and irreverent. That's more than just drifting a little. But that's in verse 28. Now, we need to keep our eyes on Christ. And every now and then I just do this. I put in a list, and it's just one of those priority lists. Like, how are you and the Lord doing? Where's your focus? Where's your priorities? I'm going to take a little moment to look at a few of these, but when you see big lists like this, you know what I'm saying is, please take that home as a homework assignment. Make note of this, and maybe do your own front-end alignment once in a while. Check up on yourself. The Bible says to examine yourself. Well, Scripture provides a nice light for the examination table that you have to put your mind and heart and your life upon. But back in Hebrews 2, verses 9 and 10, I'm just going to share a few of these. I wanted to comment on a few of them, but Hebrews 2 verses 9 and 10, and it says, but we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death. crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, or it was appropriate for him, it was necessary for him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Now, every one of these scriptures could lead to more scriptures and more scriptures. This is depth here. But I'm supposed to be seeing Jesus with my mind, seeing him with my heart, seeing how he left the if you can call it the comforts of heaven or the glory of heaven, he left all that, hung his glory on a hall tree, so to speak, and came down and took on a human form, became a servant, and he was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. That's all Philippians 2 material. And we're told to have the same mind in us. But it was necessary for him to suffer, to fulfill things that would complete the full scenario of Him dying for our sins. He couldn't come down like an angel and do it. He had to be a man, and not a sinful man. So He had to be God and man both. What a mystery. But as you move down a little farther there in chapter 2, in verses 17 and 18, Wherefore in all things it behooved Him, It was necessary for him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succor them." If you've got a King James Bible, succor means help. Help in a substantial way, though. Them that are tempted. So he not only qualified himself to be one who could die in our place and pay for sins that he had not committed, but he rises from the dead, and now he has a ministry of being a priest, a counselor, an intermediate one. There's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, and here he is. But in being tempted, now mind you, he wasn't tempted like, oh, I think I want to do that. He was exposed to temptations. and he never sinned. But he can say this, when you come to him with whatever's aching you, and you may feel so embarrassed, you may not think you can even talk to God. And I've heard people do this. They'll say, well, I'm not worthy. I can't talk to the Lord about this. Oh, what are you going to do? He set himself up with an emergency room. the throne room of grace. You come to him because when you tell him whatever it is that's tempting you or bringing you down, he can honestly say, I understand. I was in a body like this. I was in a world like yours. I was weary. I was hungry. I was lonely. I suffered many things of people that I didn't deserve. And he says, I understand. And you know, raising six kids, you're forever being told by your children, you don't understand. And it may seem like it. We look like we're from some other planet, these old people. But we were kids too. We were teenagers too. And I try to tell teenagers what almost every, yeah, all adults have told me when we're on the subject, they say, I never want to be a teenager in this world today. I don't want to go back and be young again. Oh, I'd like to have the knees from when I was young again. I'd like to have the back and a few other things I'd like to have like that. But I don't want to actually be a young person in this world. Now, folks, that's showing respect for what teenagers are going through and other children. And they need to understand that. What they expect is, and don't you hate it when they already think they know what you're thinking? Oh, by the way, adults do that to me too. They already think they know what I'm going to say, and they've already refuted it. But they think we're going to say, well, I didn't do that when I was young, and boy, you ought to know better. And here, if you listen to what I went through, now you won't have to do it. And that just doesn't work. That just doesn't work. And I hate to say it, but we often have to experience for ourselves failures so that we can learn how to get grace. And I like what one African gentleman once, he was trying to define repentance. And he said, it hurts so bad, I don't want to do it again. And sometimes you can tell people and tell people and tell people, but that doesn't change their mind. But they're going to have to find out their own way. And this is where Jesus comes in. He can succor them. He can help them because he knows. He really understands. And when he paid the price he paid for us to be healed, he's not some quack doctor who's just trying to make money off us. He didn't need us, but he wanted us. And he went through all the vulnerabilities of being a human and suffering all of that. so that he could not only pay for the sins, but also be the counselor that would help us through and apply practically the wisdom and the life of God. Now that goes on in chapter 4, and you got verse 14. Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession, for we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come." And by the way, did you see the word us? Now, you may not want to believe Paul wrote Hebrews, so you do what you want there. Whoever wrote it was a servant of God, a knowledgeable servant of God, and this person didn't say, you guys can go boldly to the throne of grace. He says, us guys. Now, that's my special English translation of the Greek, us guys. We all have this. We all have this need, and we all have this throne room of grace, so let's all go without fear, boldly. so we can obtain mercy and find grace to help, grace to succor in time of need. Yeah, go over to chapter 13. That's, when I say go over, that's the end, the last chapter. We'll have some wrap-up things about chapter 13 another day, but we're tapping into it right now. Verse 8, Hebrews 13, and we're going to look at verses 8 through 16. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Be not carried about with diverse and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace. Not with meats or foods which have not profited them that have been occupied therein. This is that, you know, Romans 14 stuff. Can eat pork, can eat this, can eat that, can eat a shrimp, you know. Your mind's all on that. It'd be better spent focusing on grace. And like what Peter learned that one fateful day in Acts 10, what God has cleansed, don't you call common. But we need to be established with grace. Now we have an altar, verse 10 says, whereof they have no right to eat, which serve the tabernacle. The old covenant stuff has served its purpose. It's now our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. And the Lord isn't looking to the Old Testament sacrifices to do any business with us except to bring us to Christ, to the once and for all sacrifice of his son. And so we have an altar different than theirs, and they have no right to come to our altar unless they come the same way we come, is through Christ and faith in his blood. It says in verse 11, for the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the camp or outside of the camp. Wherefore, verse 12 says, Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without or outside of the gate. In other words, Jesus was rejected of his people. He was pushed out and crucified, rejected. Now it says, let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing his reproach. Now if you were a Jewish person, and this is the book of Hebrews, this would be very powerful. Because when you were a Jew, just a Jew, you had the Romans, all the non-Jewish people after you, insulting, persecuting, various things. But when you became a Christian Jew, now you had all your other Jews after you too. So you're surrounded. You're surrounded with problems. And so you receive Christ, you're going to be persecuted. You're going to suffer persecution. Let's go. Jesus did it. With joy set before him, Hebrews 12 told us, 12.2, joy was set before him to do the will of God. Joy was set before him to receive those whom the Father had given him. Joy, to know that where I am, you will be also, because I'm sanctifying myself that you can be sanctified. Let's go. Let's follow Jesus, verse 13. Let's go forth, therefore, unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. Verse 14, for we here have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. New Jerusalem, by the way. By him, therefore, let us offer. Oh, we're talking about offerings, but not animals. Let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. but to do good and to communicate or share, forget not. For with such sacrifices God is well pleased." So we have the sacrifice of praise, we have the sacrifice of obedience, good works, and giving and sharing with others for Christ's sake. These are offerings made unto the Lord in this heavenly sense, the new and living way that Hebrews 10, I think, verse 19 talked about. Now, bear with me. I want to highlight something here in John 6, verse 40. John chapter 6 and verse 40. And if you wish to turn there, that's great. If not, I'll read nice and slowly and carefully, but verse 40, And this, Jesus said, this is the will of him that sent me, referring to the father sent him, that everyone which seeth the son and believes on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. Now, the interesting thing in the Greek language is one English word can have many different Greek words, and we have to know which one is which, and translators help us with that. But when Jesus said in John 3, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. He wasn't talking about seeing with your eyeballs. He wasn't just saying, well, you won't see the pearly gates unless you're born again, even though that's true. But see there meant to comprehend with the mind. to see what you're seeing, to see this kingdom. It's invisible to the natural man because it's not made up of castles and fortresses and other things. No matter what buildings are built, the actual kingdom is when you see Christ ruling in the hearts of people. And sometimes you'll meet a person, and within moments you'll know they're one of his followers. You're seeing the kingdom. But that's because your spirit within you is the same spirit in them, and it's like contact cement. Bonds. So to see there means to comprehend with your mind. Another place Jesus said in John 10, I think it is, you have seen me and believe not. Now that one means just to see with your eyeballs. You see me, but you don't believe. So this one here, I wanted to point out in verse 40 of John 6, everyone, the will of the father is that everyone which sees the son and believes on him may have everlasting life. And this one means to see and carefully notice detail. Now that's where I hope you're at. You have seen the kingdom of God. You are seeing, now, Christ. And day by day, you're seeing more and more. You're studying him. You're looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith, and considering him so you don't faint in your minds. You're observing more things. We got an entire Old Testament dedicated to revealing Jesus to us, but it's like treasures put in a dark, unlit room. But Jesus and the apostles have a flashlight, and they're going to take you from the New Testament into the Old Testament and guide you safely and properly so you don't come out arguing about pork chops and shrimp. You think I'm on a surf and turf theme here, but we get caught up in legalities, and rules, and histories, and do's and don'ts. But 1 John 5, 10-13 says that the Scriptures are the record that God gave concerning His Son. And we're here to look at Jesus with detail. Carefully noting detail. And I felt it was important to emphasize and stress that one. I can't go through all these verses. You know I want to. John 10, 27, 28, my sheep know my voice, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Yeah, you know what sheep do? They listen to their shepherds. They listen to their shepherd. I've been told that a group of shepherds can all bring their flocks into one massive field, and the shepherds can visit and enjoy and just keep watching their flocks, and the sheep get all mixed up. And man, if I had to pull the wool apart and look for a branding somewhere in there to identify my sheep at the end of the day, we'd never get home. All they do at the end of the day is go to separate corners of the field, and they make their call. The sheep do the sorting. Ah, there's mine. There's my shepherd. Oh, get out of my way. That's my shepherd over here. And they sort themselves. because they know the voice of their own shepherd. So, sheep want to see their shepherd. Sheep want to hear their shepherd. It means they've got to get pretty close to them, looking unto Jesus. And the good news is, if every one of the Lord's sheep want to be close to him so they can see him and hear him, they'll find out they're keeping good company. Other sheep are doing the same thing, and lo and behold, where the shepherd is, they're all there. That means we get to like sheep too. Other sheep. It's not just some lone wolf sheep. Okay. Well, anyways, you know how I want to go on and on. But I'm going to move on now. We're putting chapter 12 into two sections. And the notes will fool you. It looks like the biggest section is the most words. But I'm telling you, the second half may look shorter. But I tell you, I could preach for two weeks on it. which I won't. But the point we first have made here in the first three verses, it's going to take the entire chapter 12 to let that just unfold. And you know, I hope you didn't have... Something else she needed to do as far as, oh, I wish he'd preach on this or preach on that. I hope looking unto Jesus is a good theme that we can spend two weeks on instead of one. So in the first 13 verses, we need to run our race. And I emphasize our race, the race that is set before us. It's not just some general race. You have a specifically designed race put in front of you. You know, you can't tell by looking at me now, but I used to be a track runner. And they sorted us out between sprinters and long distance runners. And they didn't know what to do with me, so they made me a long distance runner. They figured that'll keep me busy. Because I was no sprinter. But because I ran cross country also, I tried all the long distance races, and they felt too much like sprints, I'll be honest with you. And the way they're going today, getting faster and faster. But here's the point, is that The guy who runs the two-mile race doesn't want to run the 100-yard dash. The guy who runs the 220 doesn't want to run the two-mile race or the one-mile race. They're trained to run a certain way, and this is their race. And if it's a relay race or whatever it is, they train for that. And in a sense, we all have a race that's similar. It's in the same area, the world. We're being designed to run a particular race we're given. And I can't judge you, and you can't judge me for what race we're running, as long as it's in scripture. How we run it? When I ran my race, the rest of the meet, I spent cheering the other teammates, the guys who ran the 100-yard dashes, and the 220s, and the hurdles, and whatever else. So my job was to cheer them. And they did the same for people like me, cheered us on. And that's where we got to find ourselves, cheering each other on, because we all have our race. And so we need to run our race continually looking unto Jesus. Okay? He's going to be called the coach here pretty soon. He has a lot of titles. I don't have that exactly in a verse of scripture, but it matches with the captain of our salvation. or the shepherd of our soul. He's here to coach us. Keep your eyes on the coach. I know in our track group, when the coach yelled out something, everybody stopped what they were doing and turned their heads and looked at him and listened to him. That's what we need to do. But we are a spectacle before others who witness our Christian testimony. Now that is including Christian people and non-Christian people. And when you see the words in verse 1, we also, we also, I hope that'll help you understand that chapter 11, does not mean that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Noah are all up in the grandstands, you know, yelling for us and cheering for us. I don't believe that's what this is teaching. What it's saying is chapter 11 was full of all these stories of how those people lived out their faith, how they demonstrated faith. And they had a whole world of witnesses around them. Every story is going to be laced with how they interacted with people, whether they were believers or non-believers. Hebrews 11 is this tremendous collection. If you weren't here before, I could help you with this. Back when we taught on Hebrews 4 verses 1 and 2, in my notes it's called part 4, but where people gain unprofitable knowledge of God's word, there's a supplemental page. And we were talking about how to mix the word with faith, so we took Hebrews 11 and diagrammed it. And we listed all those people and what it said, that here's their faith and what it accomplished. Here's what they did, and it showed this kind of faith. And so it was a handy chart for that. Well, it's kind of like now we're at the other side of it, chapter 12. And you can say, we also means we're like them. We're like them. We, too, are living our life today. And somebody could write a book. I hope they don't, but they could write a book about what I'm doing. I'm in this world, not of it, serving the Lord, obeying his principles, getting resistance, getting victories, failing, being forgiven. We all have our God story. And there's one place Paul says we are epistles, living epistles known and read of all men. And so they may not write it in a book, but we're writing it in people's minds and their eyes are reading us. What kind of gospel are we portraying with our lives? So, having said that, we point out that the Christian life is sometimes described as running a race. And there's some references here, 1 Corinthians 9, 24-27, Philippians 2, 14-16, 2 Timothy 2, 5 and 4, 7. Again, we are not competing with other believers. We all have our own race. We're here to encourage each other. But we are competing against the world, the flesh, and the devil. That's been pointed out as the basic outline any preacher could preach at any given time. We're competing with what the world is doing to be anti-Christ. We're competing with our flesh that naturally does not want to serve the law of Christ. We're competing with Satan, who's trying to undermine the work of Christ in our testimony. If he can't keep our soul from receiving Christ, he wants to keep our lives from being able to glorify Christ. So we're competing against those forces. And we're on the same team, folks, meaning to cheer each other on, encourage each other, and so forth. Now, if we don't do the preparations and take the precautions and follow the rules of the race as an athlete, we will fail, even quit, our race. So if you don't know from personal experience, you can know in some other way that athletes have to be disciplined. They have to train. They have to follow rules. The best runner we had in the relay For the mile, each runner ran 220. And the best guy, I called him a two-legged horse. He was so fast. And we're cheering him on. And he's coming around the final. He was the last guy in the leg of the thing. And we had been falling behind. He came up and caught all of that. And he's passing the guy that he's got to pass. Only problem is he passed him on the inside of the lane instead of the outside. He put one foot on the other side of that chalk line, and there was a referee caught it. And he come in, and people were screaming. Other people didn't see what I saw, or more importantly, what the referee saw. And he's thinking he's won. He didn't. He was disqualified. And I remember reading about a boxing match one time, a horrible day of bare-knuckle boxing. And this guy beat another guy. And the crowd was so mad, they came and stormed the ring and attacked and interrupted the fight. They actually broke the guy's fingers. And so they declared a rematch. But fingers had to heal in time and so forth. And so the guy that was powerful had virtually won, and would have won that boxing match. He got cocky. I'll show him, just wait. And he didn't do a lot of training. And the other guy did. He says, man, that guy was beating the daylights out of me. I'm going to work harder. And he started disciplining himself and training himself. And the other guy who could have won the fight, the day of the fight, he ate two chickens and about four quarts of beer. Yeah. On any given day, that's horrible, but the day of the fight, you've got to be kidding. What's he going to do? Well, he got wiped. He got wiped. He was the best fighter, but he didn't prepare himself. He didn't discipline himself. He got confident in his self. We can do things just like this. There's lots of lessons from athletics that can be applied to the Christian race. So let's see Christ our example. I'm going to go back to Hebrews chapter 12, and I'm going to look at verses 2 through 4. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 2 through 4. I think I would have put a bookmark in there so I could be fast, but I didn't. Okay, I'm there. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 2 through 4. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Now some of you will have different words, originator and completer or whatever, but he's from start to finish. Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. You have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin, like he did. So we need to keep looking unto Jesus so that we do not become weary and quit our race. Jesus had the joy of the Lord for his strength. He despised but endured the mistreatment of sinful, unbelieving people. He fought sin so that he could save us from it. This led to the sacrificing of his life. Now, the joy that was set before him. On one hand, he despised the contradiction of sinners against himself. He despised that shame. But joy was set before him. And you know the verse that says, the joy of the Lord is your strength. But back in Hebrews chapter 10, go to verse 5. There's a reference here in which they quote Psalm 40, which we won't turn to that, but in Hebrews 10 verse 5, wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, and they're quoting from that Psalm 40, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin that thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written of me to do thy will, O God." Now, if you do go back to Psalm 40, and that's Psalm 40, verses 6 through 8, it has one extra little phrase. I delight to do thy will. He's been given a body that can suffer and die, but he says, I delight to do it. It was his pleasure to do the will of his father. It was his pleasure to embrace the gift. The father made people a gift to him. He embraced it as a gift. And he says, I'll do this. I'll do this. And he found joy set before him doing it. And then verse 8, above when he said sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein which are offered by the law. Then, in verse 9, said he, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first that he may establish the second, which is meaning all those offerings of the past, the purpose for them has been completed now. Now that is a picture to point us to Christ. And it'll go on to say in chapter 10 that the one time offering, by one offering he has perfected forever them that are sanctified. His one offering has accomplished this. But I wanted to make sure we emphasize that delight. That delight. We go on. And we see the Lord's pleasure, the Lord's love, the Lord's grace that made him do the things that he did. Matthew chapter 16. He started to talk about how he would have to suffer and to die. Peter seemed to have a problem with that. And I read in Matthew 16, and I start with verse 21. From that time forth began Jesus to show unto his disciples that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day. And it seems like every time Jesus said that to his disciples, they never caught the rise again part. It's like they didn't hear it. Oddly enough, the Pharisees noticed it. That's why they wanted guards to protect the tomb so that they didn't fake some resurrection. But the disciples seem to always escape that, but it says here in verse 22 of Matthew 16, then Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, be it far from thee, Lord. Kind of hard to have those two things in the same sentence. No, this isn't going to happen, and then call him Lord. Well, this shall not be unto thee, he says in verse 23, but he turned, Jesus turned and said unto Peter, get thee behind me, Satan. Just a few verses earlier, blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And now he's saying, get behind me, Satan, to the same man. Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto me, for thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. Then said Jesus unto his disciples, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" So here's Christ our example. You say, what I'm doing is unearthly. It is unnatural, but it's the will of the Father. Later on, and we're not going to turn there, but later on in Matthew 26, Peter sees that they're going to come and take Jesus, and he's going to keep going with that idea. I'm going to stop this. I'm going to stand up for the Lord. I'm willing to suffer, go to prison, or even die for Jesus any minute. But he gets out there, and he tries to chop off a guy's head, and I think maybe one of those invisible angels graciously deflected his sword so it only took an ear off instead of a head. Jesus could put the man's head back on, but that might have caused too much uproar. So just an ear, Jesus puts it back on and looks to Peter and says, put your sword away. If you live by the sword, you'll die by the sword. Don't you think I could call to the Heavenly Father right now and bring down legions of angels to stop this? But then he says this, but how shall the scriptures then be fulfilled that thus it must be? Now folks, that may not sound like a happy, smiley conversation, but that was the joy of the Lord before him. Don't mess this up. This is my opportunity. Since before the foundation of the world, I've wanted to do this. You're not going to mess it up, Peter, with that earthly sword. Put it away. Which was rather confusing to Peter at the time. But later on, he could write about this extensively and wonderfully. Because he, like us, was growing. He was a work in progress. And so, Christ, over and over, is identified as the one who loved us and gave himself for us, who purchased us, washed us with his own blood, and made us kings and priests unto our God. The grace of our Lord Jesus. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus. How, though he was rich, he became poor, that we, through his poverty, might be made rich. Beautiful, beautiful thoughts. Again and again, this example Hebrews 12, 15. We're told to look unto Jesus and keep looking, continue looking. Hebrews 12, 15. Sometimes we don't get the connection. Some of the translations have reworded it so that it may not be as catchy, but I'm going to make the connection right now in verse 15. It says, looking diligently in my Bible. Looking diligently. Some translations focus on the other part where it says, lest any man, and they say, see to it that no man does such and such. But even there is the word see. But the idea is that as I am carefully looking at Jesus, now I'm looking around at my brothers and sisters in Christ. And I want to make sure that they do not fail or fall short of the grace of God by becoming bitter and defiled. Let me read the verse fully now. Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled. Now, I'd like to talk about that in more detail. I can't. But the point is, I'm looking unto Jesus, and then I'm looking around at the sheep alongside me. Are they okay? His example for all of us, my example for all of them, my concern. We are interacting in this. You have it there in Hebrews 10.24. Hebrews 10.24 says, let us consider one another to provoke or inspire or encourage unto loving to good works. We're here to be interactive with each other, not just a bunch of one-on-one. Oh, you've got to have the one-on-one with the Lord, but you've got to also remember, you are part of a group. We are called together. And, you know, when Peter made that promise, Lord, I would suffer for you, I'd go to prison for you, I'd die for you. About the time he's telling them, before the rooster crows two times, you're going to die on me three times. And of course, Peter didn't want to believe that. But then Jesus says this profound statement, Simon, Simon, Peter, Peter, Satan has desired to have you so that he can sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you. That's right, those nights where he worked all day and stayed up at night praying, or he got up extra early to pray before a big day, what's he praying about? One of them was Peter. because he knew what he was going to do with Peter, but Peter had to have an experience. I have prayed for thee that thy faith faileth not. And when thou art converted, strengthen the brethren. When we usually use the word conversion, we think of that act of going from unbelief to belief, of being a lost sinner to a saved sinner. But I think conversion is something that has many stages in our life. I mean, becoming a Christian happens when you whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord. But in becoming conformed to the image of Christ, becoming like Him and being useful to Him, I believe we have to be converted to basically every doctrine of the Bible. It has to take on a personal meaning and application that transforms us in another way. Peter, I prayed for you. And when I'm done with you, when you're converted, you go and strengthen the brethren in that. You're zealous now, you're sincere now, but you're not ready. We got to put this back in the oven and let it cook a little longer. There's too much sticking on the toothpick here. I got to let you cook some more. And things like we would read in Matthew 26 is part of the process. And again, if you ever have a problem with Peter's actions and attitudes, just get right on over to 1 and 2 Peter and look at the end result. How good it is, because this man can talk about submission and faith and not operating in the flesh. He's excellent at it. Well, I'd love to deal with those passages more, but my enemy, the clock, is moving us along here. I want to just say a few things about Christ our coach. And somewhere here, I'll pick up again next week as God lets me. And of course, you can just read the notes and not have to come to church next week, right? Because you already read it. Well, we'll see. I know I want to read it again and again and again. But Christ our example, not Christ our coach. Just going to explain here what this is about, we'll detail it later. But in verses five through 11 of Hebrews chapter 12, you know, I've always just associated this with the father. It's a quote in here that's from the Proverbs. So I think of the father, the father, the father. But then Jesus said, no man can pluck them out of my hand. And then he says, my father who gave them to me is greater than all. Nobody can pluck them out of my father's hand. I and my father are one. And like in the book of James, and here's the half-brother of Jesus calling his half-brother Jesus, Lord. And the references to Lord in the book of James get you so confused. You don't know, is that the Father or is that the Son? And eventually you realize it doesn't matter. They are united as one. If you honor the son, you honor the father also. If you don't honor the son, you're not honoring the father. So don't let this disturb you, but I'm taking here Jesus being the one who's correcting us. And it's so good, I don't want to... rushed too fast, but I want to point this out. Verses 5 to 11, I want you to think about Jesus doing this, and I'll explain just a little bit, but not all. So verse 5, you've forgotten the exhortation, which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not? But if he be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye, sorry, you are bastards, illegitimate children, and not sons." Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live? For they truly for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness." Now, no chastening for the present seems to be joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Now, what we're going to look at here, and maybe I should just give you time to think about this, but in many places in the Scriptures, at least, well, more than one or two, Jesus is referred to as a father, and we are his children. And even in the book of Revelation, as he's getting after one of his churches, as many as I love, I chase them. Be zealous therefore and repent. And we want to see Jesus as coaching us through, and we mustn't despise this. We mustn't give up and faint. Chasing really feels bad sometimes, and I don't know if you've had it, but do you know when Jesus describes himself as having stars in the palm of his hand? There's the seven lampstands in their churches, but these seven stars in his hand are the messengers. I believe that's referring to pastors of churches. That's an honor position. It's close to the Lord, but guess what? He got the squeeze on us, too. And James warns us, don't be many masters for there's greater condemnation. And I'm here to tell you that when I mess up, I get it really hard sometimes. Because a lot's at stake. The effect it'll have on the rest of the flock, or the testimony in a community, or the future of a church. And so, I know what it feels like to be chastened of the Lord. I've needed to be chastened, folks. And most of you probably don't doubt it, but just in case you did, I've needed to be really chastened. And the more serious it is, the more he wants to show his love, the harder that chastening will be. But don't despise it. Don't reject it. Don't turn away from it. Got some good things to share with you, like in verse 26. Excuse me, verse 25. See that you refuse not him that speaketh, for if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. I want to talk about that word that's translated refuse. You can read about it, you can study it, but I really like to make this a little more carefully presented, but I'm giving you a hint here. Jesus is the example. Jesus is the coach who, like a father, disciplines, trains his children. Where there's correction needed, take it. It's for our good. It doesn't seem pleasant sometimes, but afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them who are exercised thereby. You know, kids on a high school team can get so mad at their coach. They think he's killing them. But it's kind of like if you ever took care of grapevines. In grapevines, when they prune them, you look like you're killing them. But that's the only way they come back stronger and more fruitful. And the Lord sometimes is chasing us and training us and giving us hard things, not because we're bad, but because we're good. And we've done good, and he wants more. He wants to make it better. Or we've done something that might risk the future fruitfulness, and so he has to deal with that. But always the motivation is love and goodwill with an outcome of better things. Better things. So keep your eyes on Jesus. Don't make him have to run around and chase you. Run to him, not from him. He's worth it. I hate to say he's safe because that doesn't feel right, but he is the only one to come to. He's the only one to come to. Let us keep our eyes unto Jesus. Father, I've said all I can say. I've tried to deliver my soul. If you'll let me, Lord, next week, go on. Help me to go on. But please, Lord, have your way in our hearts that we never want to get our eyes off Jesus. And thank you, Lord. He never takes his eyes off us. He beholds us. He yearns for us. He seeks and saves us. And for all that loving attention, help us to respond to him in kind, and that we might be a good recommendation of the grace of God to others. Give faith where it's needed now, Lord, to each one here or to each one that's hearing this message somewhere. I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.