How to live by faith

Good evening. Please take a seat. And let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your living and trustworthy word. Help us, we pray, by your Holy Spirit, to learn more from your word about how to lives our lives trusting in Jesus. In his precious name we pray. Amen.

‘How to live’ by faith that’s what we’re going to think about this evening as we look at Hebrews 12.1-3. Last week Matt helped us finish our climb up the great mountain of Hebrews 11. So this week we’re sitting beside the cairn on the summit with our sandwiches and coffee, looking at the view. Or to put it another way, we’ve got to Hebrews 12, which begins, Therefore… that is, in the light of all that’s just been said in Hebrews 11. So we’re looking back down the mountain and we can see the path we’ve come up all laid out beneath us. It’s been a demanding and challenging route – but worth it. Let me just pick out some of the view-points where we stopped to catch our breath, and some of the people we met and learned from on the way. We set off from Hebrews 11.1:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

So faith is living by what God’s promises, even though we don’t yet see them fulfilled, because we know they’re true. And many have gone before us in this life of faith. By the way, that’s why I love reading Christian biographies. You see the life of one among the many, and get an inspiring glimpse of God’s faithfulness to a redeemed sinner living by faith. Hebrews 12.1:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…

Picture a great stadium – not like the nearly empty stadiums of this year’s Olympics, but filled to the rafters with those who’ve gone before us. You know how in the TV coverage of such events, every now and again the camera zooms in onto one or two faces in the crowd. Well that’s what Hebrews 11 does, as we’ve seen over these last few weeks. So there was (Hebrews 11.5-9) Abel, who by faith offered to God an acceptable sacrifice, and Enoch, who by faith pleased God and was taken up so that he should not see death. And Noah, who by faith trusted God’s word and in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household and Abraham who by faith obeyed when he was called to go out, not knowing where he was going – along with his wife Sarah. And then the promise to Abraham was inherited by Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and taken hold of by faith. And hundreds of years later Moses by faith chose rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin (Hebrews 11.25). And by faith the Israelites followed him out of Egypt, crossing the Red Sea on dry ground on their way to the Promised Land.

And then there was Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets and many more who by faith did great things for the kingdom of God, and suffered terribly, but kept on living by faith, and died still trusting (Hebrews 11.39):

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

So we might have got to the summit of Hebrews 11, but the life of faith goes on (headed for a glorious eternity) where if we live by faith and keep on living by faith we will meet with all these who have gone before, around the throne of grace, face to face with our crucified and risen Saviour and Lord. So we must not turn back. That’s what our brother and sister Hebrew believers who got this letter were being pressured and tempted to do. In the midst of their suffering for Christ they were promised an easier time if only they’d give up and turn back. But that promise was a lie, and they would have lost everything. They had to keep on living by faith in Jesus. So do we. But how? How do we keep going? Well, that bring us to these verses at the start of Hebrews 12, which answer that question: how do we live by faith? And there are three life lessons here for the life of faith to which we’re called. First, travel light. Secondly, don’t stop. And thirdly, keep your eyes on Jesus. Let’s think about each of those in turn. So:

First, TRAVEL LIGHT

This is the middle part of Hebrews 12.1:

…let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely…

The great irony of the life of faith is that we hold on tight to our sin (even as sin clings on to us, not wanting to let us go) because we think it’s what we want and we’re reluctant to part with it. As if our lives will be diminished and made more difficult if we let go our sin. But of course the opposite is true. Sin drags us down. I remember when I was a student hearing Bishop Cuthbert Bardsley telling us that as a Christian, as he put it:

You have to go far enough to have fun.

That was a striking and evidently memorable way of saying that if we hold parts of our lives back and refuse to hand them over to Jesus (if we hold on to sinful areas of our lives – then we end up being the losers. Far from making life easier for ourselves by compromising with sin, we are dragged down. The joy of living for Christ is sucked out of us. But if we go all out for Jesus, holding nothing back, then yes we will suffer – perhaps more than ever (and suffering hurts) but we’ll learn to suffer joyfully, because we’ll experience the presence of Jesus with us, and the joyful hope of glory to come. That picture of sin as a terrible burden that drags us down is one that the apostle Paul uses too. So in his Letter to the Galatians, 5.1, he says:

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

So if we lose sight of the gospel of grace, then we are condemned by our sin and find ourselves weighed down by it like burdened cattle trying to pull a plough through the heavy, hard ground. And in Galatians 5.7 Paul mixes his metaphors when he says:

You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?

So we’re back to that Olympic stadium again. And that was exactly the danger these Hebrew Christian were in – the danger of letting go of the gospel of the grace of Christ, and returning to a life of law and works rather than faith. So instead of allowing their sin to be lifted off their backs by Jesus, they were in danger of pushing him away. But if we do that, we find that our sin is a burden that ultimately drags us down to the grave. So:

…let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely…

We all need to ask ourselves: is there sin in my life that I am refusing to let go of? Does the Holy Spirit have his finger on an area of my life that I know isn’t pleasing to God? Do I have my fingers in my ears as I try not to listen? Well, let’s take our fingers out of our ears, and lay our burdens of sin down at the foot of the cross. And we’ll find that far from diminishing our lives, our hearts will be lighter and our step more springy as we discover more of the freedom that is Jesus’ gift of grace to us, for which he paid with his life out of love for us.

…let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely…

Travel light. Point one. Then:

Secondly, DON’T STOP

This is the last part of Hebrews 12.1:

…and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

How are we to live by faith? We are to keep going. Unrelenting. To the end. There is no prize if we stop and don’t keep going to the finish line. So the apostle Paul, after years of painful persevering ministry, got to the point when he could almost reach out and touch the finishing tape. And for him, that meant execution at the hands of the brutal Romans. So for him it got tougher than ever as the end approached. And he said (this is 2 Timothy 4.7-8):

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth 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 only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.

So the challenge is for us too, to keep on keeping on. So Paul prays in Colossians 1.11:

May you be strengthened with all power, according to [God’s] glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy…

Which is a reminder that if we’re going to keep going we have to draw on all the resources that the Holy Spirit makes available to us. We don’t have it in ourselves to keep going otherwise. We can be an encouragement to one another to keep going. Not least, perhaps, those of us who are older need to keep going, not only for own sake, but the sake of the generations coming up behind us. I think of an old lady who some of you will remember but many of you won’t. Her name was Joyce Ferry. The older she got, the more physically bent over she became, until towards the end of her life she almost seemed to be bent double. But faith-wise, as it were, she grew taller and more upright. She loved Jesus. She was full of faith to the day she died. And her example was and is to this day an inspiration to me. Are you finding the race of faith hard-going? Do you feel like giving up? Like Joyce, let’s endure. Travel light. Don’t stop. Then:

Thirdly, KEEP YOUR EYES ON JESUS

It’s one thing to take encouragement from one another, and we do, and that’s good and right. But we shouldn’t rely on each other totally. We’re all flawed followers of Jesus. It’s on Jesus we need to rely. He alone will never let us down. It’s on him that we need to keep our eyes fixed. Hebrews 12.2-3:

…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. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted.

The truth is that what inspires us in the example of others (whether it’s Abraham, or the apostle Paul, or Joyce Ferry) is not in the end them. It’s the spirit of Jesus who is at work in them. It is Jesus who is the rock on whom we stand. He is the one who by his death for us on the cross and by his resurrection to glory laid the foundation of our faith. He is the one who, truth be told, will carry us over the finish line as we hold on to him. He is the one, to mix metaphors again, on whom we need to keep our eyes fixed as we run this race of faith.

At the start of the Olympics, I found myself gripped by the drama of the triathlon, and I stayed up late to watch it to the end – first the men, and then the women. Two British triathletes came in just behind the leader to take silver medals – Alex Lee for the men and Georgia Taylor-Brown for the women. She even had a puncture before the end of the cycling leg of the race, and didn’t stop but kept on going, keeping the leader in her sights. But I was struck by what the bronze-medallist said in her interview afterwards. She said that in the final stages of the race, she kept on repeating to herself the names of the two runners she could see up ahead of her. Georgia Taylor-Brown. Flora Duffy. She kept her eyes and her mind on them. Watch them. Think of them. Do what they’re doing. Get to where they are. Finish like them. We need to do the same in this race of faith – but with Jesus in our minds and hearts, and with his name on our lips. Jesus knew there was joy and glory up ahead. He also knew that the route there took him through intense hatred and hostility from those he loved, and being despised and rejected, and finally being cruelly killed on that cross. And he endured all that for us and, in the words of Hebrews 12.2:

…for the joy that was set before him…

And then, as Hebrews 12.3 says, we will not grow weary or faint-hearted. Or to adapt to a New Testament perspective the promise of God in Isaiah 40.30-31:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? [Jesus] is the everlasting God…He does not faint or grow weary…He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but [those who keep looking to Jesus] shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Those, then, are the lessons of Hebrews 11. Travel light. Don’t stop. Keep your eyes on Jesus. That is how to live by faith. Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, thank you for Jesus. Thank that he died and rose to take away our sin. Thank you that he didn’t turn away for loving us, but endured the cross, despising the shame. Thank you that he has gone ahead of us to glory. Lord, you know our sinfulness, and our weakness. Please help us, by the power of your Spirit at work in us, to cast off our sin, to keep going, and never to take our eyes off Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen.