Andrew Fountain - Winning the Race of Life (Hebrews pt.10)

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Sermon notes - Winning the Race of Life (Hebrews pt.10)

• I’m going to work through the first 13 verses of Hebrews 12, verse by verse
  • We are going to hear what God is telling us in these verses

• Are you weary in the race today?
  • Is life just too much for you, or following Jesus too much? Is that how you ever feel?
• Athletes
  • Why do some athletes give up and some keep going?
  • Some of them make you have doubts from the start because you are worried about their motivation

• What is the problem with this guy
  • If his number one motivation was to finish the race, what would be different?
• Let us imagine someone who is seriously out of shape

• If he fills his mind with images of food all day, what is going to happen?
• If, on the other hand, his hero is the gold medal winner of the cat-O-lympics
  • And he spends all day thinking about his hero...
• So, there are:

• Here are those same two points in Hebrews 12:

1. The enemy is sin—like heavy clothing that is dragging you down
   • see it for what it is!
   • see the long-term damage it is going to do you
2. Endure by keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus
   • Example of someone learning to drive, look at where they want to go not focusing on what they want to avoid, or they will hit it
   • Example of a sports player—keep your eye on the ball!
   • How do we actually do this? —can anyone make a suggestion?
     • thinking a lot about Jesus?
       • Do we keep focusing on my mistakes, or on Jesus?
       • Runner who keeps looking back at where they have put their feet wrong!
   • Primarily in defining where we are trying to get to
     • Recently reading a time-management guru called Matthew Kelly: “To be the best possible version of youself”
     • Sounds good, but can you imaging Jesus waking up each morning...
   • We know what Jesus thought:
     • “How can I do the will of my Father today?”
     • “how can I show his selfless love?”
     • “but at the same time be so uncompromising with evil that people will want to kill me?”
   • He says to us, die and I will raise you. If the seed dies, it will bring fruit
     • die to your own agenda. Does that sound like “The best possible version of youself”?
   • prayer, trying to copy him (like a child does his/her mom or dad)
     • Read about his life, breathe it in

v.2b The passage gives us part of the answer here

3. Continues to describe his example—he won, and so will we!
   • a problem—often we don’t see Jesus as copyable—he is superhuman
     • That is not what is being said here—we actually should see him as someone we should try to copy
     • children like to copy their parents (e.g. plastic steering wheel in car)

• Now we are going to move on to the next part of the passage
  • This has some difficulties, especially in some translations
  • I am going to read it in the King James, which has a problem

• This is a difficult passage
  • It looks like God is beating us to knock some sense into us
  • The King James translates v.6 as “scourgeth” which is a particularly nasty form of beating
  • Is God a heavy-handed father who is constantly bringing bad things into our lives to “correct” us?
• This leads to an attitude (very common)
  • whenever something goes wrong in our lives we must have done something wrong and God is punishing us.
• The problem here is that the word does, in fact, literally mean scourge or whip.
  • (Every other usage of it in the N.T. refers to Jesus being scourged)
  • So does God whip us?
• I’m going to give a technical explanation here, so you have my permission to switch off for a minute if that’s not your strength

• First, v. 5,6 are a quote from Proverbs 3:11–12
  • In the Hebrew, the word is a very general word for rebuke
  • There is a principle that a good father instills good values and discipline into his children
    • There is no overtone of harshness
• This Hebrew was translated into Greek, 300 years before Jesus, in what we call the Septuagint
  • The word “reprove” in Hebrew did not have an exact equivalent, so they chose “whip” with the understanding of the context was not of literal harshness, but more of loving correction
  • The writer to the Hebrews has quoted the Greek here, but anyone knowing the original Hebrew would know that it was not to be understood harshly
  • That is why good modern translations will say something like “correct”
  • It would be quite wrong to translate it as something viscious
• The word translated by the KJV as “chastise” —how would you understand that word today?
  • In fact “chastise” is a misleading translation
  • is a broad term for the training of children
    • The word is used of Paul’s education under Gamaliel
• Here is a better translation of the passage:
  • and all you people who switched off, can switch back on again...
• The context here is of the athlete
  • In that context, the best word I think is training – disciplined hard training
  • (I have put “training” because it would be too cumbersome otherwise, but that is how it should be read.)
    • The kind of tough training you go through if you’re going for the gold medal

Hebrews 12:5–11

5. And have you forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as sons?
         “My son, do not scorn the Lord’s training or give up when he corrects you.
               ⁶For the Lord trains the one he loves and reprimands every son he accepts.”
7. Endure your suffering as training; God is treating you as sons.
         For what son is there that a father does not train?
8. But if you do not experience training, something all sons have shared in,
         then you are illegitimate and are not sons.
9. Besides, we have experienced training from our earthly fathers and we respected them;
         shall we not submit ourselves all the more to the Father of spirits and receive life?
10. For they trained us for a little while as seemed good to them,
          but he does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness.
11. Now all training seems painful at the time, not joyful.
          But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness for those given excercise by it.

adapted from NET Bible

• It is very important that we get the right feel from this passage
  • God wants us to win! He want to be there on the finishing line, cheering you on as you win.
  • He is a loving father to us, not a harsh master
  • It is for us he is doing it, not for him!
• v.11 is about the athlete
  • change their attitude to the pain of training
• e.g. Hockey dad interviewed on the radio
  • costs $1,000/yr +
  • Getting up very early on weekend mornings
• So the King James translation makes no sense in this context of a race
  • The emphasis is on God’s commitment to get us to be the best we can be
• Notice also all the “son” references
  • Bact at the start of Hebrews we get the idea of
    • “what happened to the son (Jesus) will happen to the (sons) us (inc daugthers)
  • see them also in Hebrews 5 We didn’t deal with them back then because the’re a little hard so wait...)

• Difficult verse!
• Was Jesus a bit disobedient before, and learned to be obedient?
  • No, it was a new experience of it
• Some of you may have passed driving tests recently
  • Learn in the classroom first. Is your learning then complete?
• How was Jesus incomplete?
  • The original word can meet perfected
  • “made complete” is be a better word. He was completed as a human by going through this experience
• I am really trying to attack the idea that every time something goes wrong, it is because God is angry with us
  • very damaging
  • Did Jesus suffer hardships?
    • Yet this was not God’s anger on him
  • e.g. starved for 40 days
    • God tests us to strengthen us.
  • so stressed that his sweat was like drops of blood!

• Often this doesn’t make sense to us.
  • If I said “Keep your eyes on Superman as your example” ?
  • So how can this make sense?
    
    1. He really did feel at times like you do now (not guilt, but temptation to give up)
    2. He is in you, and you can draw on his strength

• One of the main truths to get out of this passage it is how you look at difficulties in your life.
  • They are not because God is angry with you
  • They are to challenge you to help you grow
• Pain in training to an athlete is different
  • ever heard “no pain no gain”? —what does it mean?
  • e.g. Dentist’s chair —because I know it is for my good, I can endure it easily
  • Our perception of the pain is so important—it controls whether the pain is suffering or seen as positive
• What about difficulties in your life right now?
  • Do you see them as opportunities to grow and be stronger and fitter?
  • How are you being trained and developed?
  • Don’t be tempted to give up!
• This is even true of people who are not Christians
  • Right now God’s desire is that you should follow Jesus
  • I know many stories of people who didn’t follow Jesus until God allowed problems into their lives
  • The purpose was not to punish them, but to take away false confidence and hope
    • There was a woman that Jesus met who had very bad experiences with men (5 divorces)…
  • Maybe you have some problems right now—it could be God drawing you to him

Updated on 2017-03-26 by Andrew Fountain