What is your perception of the Christian life? Many people think that becoming a Christian means that their lives will be better in every way and if not every day, almost every day. Unfortunately that is sometimes communicated in the gospel presentation. “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” if not placed in a larger context can miscommunicate the reality that the Christian life is a battle, a marathon, something that requires dedication and hard work. Jesus presented it as denying ourselves and taking up our crosses.
This doesn’t mean that it is “all work and no play,” but unfortunately too many Christians have understood the Christian life to consist of a decision to trust Christ followed by a life that then focuses on ourselves and our own desires.
Our author in Hebrews has been showing us that the life that pleases God is a life of faith, a faith that believes God’s promises and therefore obeys His commands. Sometimes that does lead to miraculous deliverances, at other times suffering and death. Our author marches out example after example of faithful men and women in order to motivate his readers (and us today) that we, too, can maintain a bold and determined faith. In particular, our author did not want his readers to abandon faith in Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ has been a primary theme in the first ten chapters, constantly showing how Christ was better than the prophets, the angels and the Aaronic priesthood. He provides a better sacrifice and enacts a better covenant. And although Jesus was not mentioned in Hebrews 11, our author gets back to Jesus in Hebrews 12. He is the greatest example of someone who not only possessed enduring faith, but possessed it to the utmost extreme.
Verses 1-3 in Hebrews 12 say…
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
“Look to Jesus,” “consider Him,” this is the primary focus of our Christian race. One of the key metaphors of the Christian life is that it is a race. The Bible uses the image of a race to describe the Christian life in several places, including Hebrews 12:1, 1 Timothy 6:12, 2 Timothy 2:5; 4:7–8, 1 Corinthians 9:24–27, and Philippians 3:13–14.
From these verses we know that we must “compete according to the rules,” exercise self-control and discipline, keep our eyes focused on the finish line, and run for heavenly rewards. Unlike normal races, we are not racing against other Christians and this race lasts for a lifetime. We cannot just meander or coast or go with the flow, but must run with focused determination toward the goal of Christ-likeness.
Race is the Greek agon, from which we get agony. A race is not a thing of passive luxury, but is demanding, sometimes grueling and agonizing, and requires our utmost in self-discipline, determination, and perseverance. (John MacArthur, Jr., The MacArthur New Testament Commentary–Hebrews, 372-3)
Sometimes the metaphor chosen to illustrate the Christian life is “walk,” but here it is the agonizing “run.” We only “run” when we are very anxious to get to a certain place, when there is some attraction stimulating us. That word “run” then presupposes the heart eagerly set upon the goal (Arthur W. Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews, 895). “It is the writer’s hope that the joy set before us is so attractive, we will give no thought to the pain or shame that goes with standing firm for Christ all the way to the end” (C.S. Lovett, Lovett’s Lights on Hebrews, 295).
Hopefully when we come to the end of our lives we will be able to say with Paul: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). As John Piper says, “Paul knows nothing of coasting Christianity. Paul simply does not recognize a Christianity that is not running a race and fighting a fight.” Or, as A. W. Tozer so presciently warns, “complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.”
“The Christian is not called to lie down on flowery beds of ease, but to run a race, and athletics are strenuous, demanding self-sacrifice, hard training, the putting forth of every ounce of energy possessed. I am afraid that in this work-hating and pleasure-loving age, we do not keep this aspect of the truth sufficiently before us: we take things too placidly and lazily. The charge which God brought against Israel of old applies very largely to Christendom today: ‘Woe to them that are at ease in Zion’ (Amos 6:1): to be ‘at ease’ is the very opposite of ‘running the race’” (Arthur W. Pink, An Exposition of Hebrews, 894-5).
The situation seems to be that the Hebrew Christians had gotten tired. A lot of time had passed since they were first fired-up for Jesus. Now they want to relax and coast and they were in danger of losing the race. Hebrews 10:32–33 says, “Recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle…and you had compassion on the prisoners…” In 5:12 it says, “Though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again.” They have begun to coast and, as 2:3 says, “neglect so great a salvation.” The situation is very serious and the writer suggests that some are showing that their faith is phony and they have “tasted the powers of the age to come” in vain (6:5).
Sam Storms says:
“Some of you may wish it were otherwise; you may prefer that the Christian life be compared to a vacation at the beach or a gentle walk through grassy meadows or a holiday on a cruise ship or perhaps even a lazy, late-afternoon nap on the back porch. But no one in the NT, not the apostle Paul and certainly not the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ever speaks in such terms.”
Chuck Swindoll writes:
The book of Hebrews was written to men and women in the thick of the battle against the flesh, the world, and the devil. Most of them were trembling in their boots. Others had retreated to the trenches. Many were tempted to turn tail and run. Already the author has warned his audience of the cost of defection in the midst of the battle. Now he continues to urge them toward a life of enduring hope that responds positively to God’s hand of loving discipline with maturity. He wants them to lean on Christ, who is superior for pressing on in the faith. He doesn’t want them to be “flash in the pan” Christians (Charles R. Swindoll, Hebrews, Swindoll’s Living Insights New Testament Commentary (Tyndale House Publishers, 2017), 192).
Jesus talked about these “flash in the pan” people in the parable of the soils. Jesus explains that the seed that fell upon the rock was a situation in which “when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away” (Luke 8:13).
Hebrews 12:1 is like the gun that indicates that runners are at the last lap. Don’t stop now, he says. I can remember my first track meet as a sophomore in high school. At that time Mena High School did not have a track. We practiced by running around the football field and the practice field. One of the events I ran in was the 440, now called the 400 meters.
I was doing quite well, in the lead as we came around the last curve. Now, I’m sure I had seen plenty of Olympic races where the runners run through the tape to win, but having never run on a track I saw a line on the track and thinking that it was the finish line I slowed down, only to have three runners pass me to the finish line less than 10 yards away. I stopped short of the finish line.
This author does not want his readers to stop short of the finish line, but to remain faithful to Jesus Christ to the very end.
So how do we run to win?
The first thing our writer calls us to do is to remember that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…” Our author is not saying that these are people who are watching and witnessing what we do, but rather they have lived exemplary lives and we need to receive their witness. We need to follow their example.
“Perhaps we should think of something like a relay race where those who have finished their course and handed [off] their baton are watching and encouraging their successors” (Frank E. Gaebelein, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary–Volume 12, 133).
“They testify that it pays to trust the Lord and remain faithful to Him no matter how rough the going gets. It is their part to assure us that the race can be won” (C.S. Lovett, Lovett’s Lights on Hebrews, 288-9), but not necessarily easily won.
He wants them to remember that others have successfully run this race in the past and that God considers those who finished the race winners. All those Hall of Famers in Hebrews 11 are saying, “I did it, and so can you. You can do it. Hang in there. Finish the race.” We need that kind of encouragement, to know that others have blazed the trail for us, finishing the race and being richly rewarded for it.
This “great cloud” of witnesses would include more than just the 18 mentioned in chapter 11. We have even more examples today of people who valued Jesus Christ and did not deny Him even when it cost them their lives.
These men and women are in the crowd encouraging us on because they successfully finished the race. As John Piper reminds us: “We look and we see examples of faith and perseverance under every imaginable circumstance: there’s David who committed adultery and murder, and he finished; there’s John the Baptist who had a weird personality, and he finished; there’s John Mark the quitter, and he finished; and Mary the prostitute, and she finished; and William Carey, plodder, and he finished; and Jonathan Edwards who got kicked out of his church, and he finished; and Job who suffered so much, and he finished; and Stephen who was hated and stoned, and he finished; and Mary Slessor and Amy Carmichael and St. Paul who served as single people all their lives, and they finished; and [there’s others you know as well.] (https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/looking-back-to-witnesses-up-to-jesus-and-forward-to-joy)
But all the encouragement in the world will do us no good if we are weighed down with unnecessary or unhelpful obstacles. Besides knowing that others have successfully run this race before us, we are then to throw off everything that hinders us from running this race. Everything!
This has reference to the radical stripping off of one’s clothing before a race, as in the Greek custom of the day. Many runners and fighters stripped naked to keep from being slowed down or having anything that could be grabbed to take one down in a wrestling match. While runners today might train with weights on their legs, they certainly take them off when running a race. Athletes today wear the most aerodynamic outfits they possibly can in both track events and swimming events, just to try to take hundredths of seconds off their time.
Our writer indicates two things that serious runners need to divest themselves from—anything that hinders, and any sin: “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely…” This must be done before the race begins. It is preparation for running the race successfully. We cannot win in the Christian life if we allow these weights and sins to cling to us.
I think it is obvious to most of us that we must jettison the sins from our lives, so let’s look at that first. We are to “lay aside…sin which clings so closely.” The word “sin” here is hamartia, which means “to miss the mark.” Sin is pictured as an attempt to keep God’s commands, but always messing up in some way.
In moral and ethical contexts, it means to fail of one’s purpose, to go wrong, or to fail to live according to an accepted standard or ideal. Sin is the failure to be what we ought to be and could be. Paul tells us that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). No one is righteous (Rom. 3:10).
One of the biggest problems with sin is that it “clings so closely.” The word is euperistaton and it is found only here in the New Testament. It has the idea of something that “ensnares,” some versions use the word “besetting,” to illustrate something that persistently comes upon a person unbidden, maybe unnoticed. The problem with sin is, we like it. We fall into it so easily. That’s what makes it so besetting, so ensnaring.
A phenomenon of nature, repeated billions of times, provides an ongoing allegory of sin’s billion-fold pathology. Perhaps you have seen it yourself while lying on the grass by a sundew plant when a fly lights on one of its leaves to taste one of the glands that grow there. [This is describing the Sun Dew plant.] Instantly three crimson-tipped, finger-like hairs bend over and touch the fly’s wings, holding it firm in a sticky grasp. The fly struggles mightily to get free, but the more it struggles, the more hopelessly it is coated with adhesive. Soon the fly relaxes, but to its fly-mind “things could be worse,” because it extends its tongue and feasts on the sundew’s sweetness while it is held even more firmly by still more sticky tentacles. When the captive is entirely at the plant’s mercy, the edges of the leaf fold inward, forming a closed fist. Two hours later the fly is an empty sucked skin, and the hungry fist unfolds its delectable mouth for another easy entanglement. Nature has given us a terrifying allegory. (R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews, Volume 2, pp. 158-159).
The specific sin is not mentioned here, and with good reason. “We each have characteristic sins that more easily entangle us than others. Some sins that tempt and degrade others hold little appeal for us—and vice versa. Sensuality may be the Achilles’ heel for many men, but not all. Another who has gained victory over such sin may regularly down jealousy’s deadly nectar, not realizing it is rotting his soul. Dishonesty may never tempt some souls, for guile simply has no appeal to them, but just cross them and you will feel Satan’s temper!” (R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews: Volume 2, p.159)
These sins are ours, our choices that we make to rebel against God’s will. As David Guzik says, “If such ensnaring sins were really the work of demonic possession or demonic influence in the Christian, this would be an ideal place for the Holy Spirit to address this. Yet we are never given reason to blame our sin on demons; the appeal is simply for us to, in the power of the Holy Spirit, ‘lay aside…the sin that clings so closely’”
What sin do you have the hardest time saying “no” to? What do you persistently struggle with? Covetousness? Envy? Criticism? Laziness? Hatred? Lust? Ingratitude? Pride? Envy? Whatever sin it is, we must ruthlessly strip it off and leave it behind.
Grace Still Amazes 