Episode Transcript
[00:00:19] Amen.
[00:00:20] Anybody heard of Derek Raymond?
[00:00:24] Okay. He was a sprinter from Great Britain who ran in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. And if you want to weep later today, you should go watch a two minute video clip of Derek Raymond and his father. Do we have.
[00:00:39] We have the picture? Let's go and throw the picture up. All right. There's Derek and there's his dad.
[00:00:44] Here's the story behind Derek Raymond in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, trained the entirety of his life to run the 400 meter race.
[00:00:52] And at the sound of the gun, they take off. The runners sprint off, and about a fourth of the way through, maybe 100 yards into the race, he tears his hamstring.
[00:01:02] So he collapses to the ground. And he sits there knowing he's lost the race. You can just see the agony on his face.
[00:01:09] And probably in what felt like an eternity. But when you're watching the video clip, in probably like 10 seconds or so, 5 to 10 seconds, Derek gets back up and he begins to limp to the finish line.
[00:01:19] And as he's limping to the finish line, he's doing everything he can, and he gets to a point where he's about to fall again. And then out of nowhere comes this man from the stands, and the man runs onto the track and he grabs him around the shoulder and it's his dad.
[00:01:36] And so his dad just wraps his arms around him and he just begins to hold Derek as Derek limps his way to the finish line. And all of these.
[00:01:43] It's very emotional. Like, all of these Olympic workers begin to make their way out to the track to try to stop him. And the dad is just shooing him off, like, get out of here. You can just see the anger. And it's like, get away. It's my son. Get away. And he holds Derek all the way to the finish line. And they receive a standing ovation. It's just one of the most beautiful moments in the history of the Olympic sports.
[00:02:04] And he's wearing a just do it hat, which is like. It's like a Nike infomercial. It's crazy, but it was just this beautiful, amazing moment. And there's so many things that you could draw out from this moment with Derek and his father. But I think some of the highlights from this that I've been considering this week that I want to propose to you are just a couple of questions. One, do you view the Christian life as a race?
[00:02:34] Not a sprint, but a race?
[00:02:39] Do you view the Christian life as a race that's going to consist of many, many trials and sufferings, many setbacks, a lot of joys and comforts and pain, triumphs and failures, moments of great victory and moments of crushing defeat.
[00:03:04] This is the Christian life.
[00:03:07] And what the author of Hebrews poses to us today is a very simple exhortation. And it's the name of the. It's the title of the sermon, and it's run.
[00:03:17] Run.
[00:03:19] This is what you and I are called to do by God, is to run, and more specifically, to run with endurance.
[00:03:31] Too many of us have been exposed to this version of Christianity that sounds something like this.
[00:03:37] If you pray this prayer and accept Jesus into your heart, you'll be saved.
[00:03:42] There are remnants of that statement that are true.
[00:03:46] Okay? Romans says, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's true because God has said it.
[00:04:01] But what we've done over the years, hundreds of years, is we've taken that statement and we've made it into this thing that some call easy believism, where you just pray a prayer and you accept Jesus into your heart, and then you just kind of move on. Living your life, almost like Jesus now has a seat at the table of your life to give you a little bit of input here and there, but he's not at the center of it.
[00:04:28] And that, friends, is not Christianity.
[00:04:32] That's not what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
[00:04:35] Being a follower of Jesus simply means that Jesus is not a part of your life. He is now your life.
[00:04:43] Jesus is the center of your life and the center of mind. And the Christian life is a marathon race.
[00:04:52] However many days, years, precious and fleeting as they are, they're going by fast, that God has sovereignly given you and I. And the call is to run and to run with endurance, knowing that this race, as was the case for Derek and his father Jim, is going to consist of pain.
[00:05:14] There's just gonna be hardships, there's gonna be setbacks and trials and pain and suffering and sin and battles and fights and victories and defeats and all of these things.
[00:05:25] And you and I, together, by the power of the Holy Spirit, are called to run, and we're called to finish.
[00:05:33] So that's what.
[00:05:35] That's what we get to be reminded of this morning.
[00:05:39] And the author's going to do it by starting off with an encouragement. Okay? So we're just going to go almost word by word through These amazing two verses just jam packed with these amazing truths and encouragements. Keep in mind the Book of Hebrews is a book about endurance.
[00:05:56] Okay? It's written. Many scholars believe it's written to a house church who was feeling tempted to go back to their former ways of Judaism, to go back to the law of Moses as their hope and their guide, rather than Christ and his finished work on their behalf. We all fall into that temptation, don't we?
[00:06:17] Like, receive Jesus and then live the best you can.
[00:06:21] And it's not sustaining. It doesn't sustain us, and it did not sustain them. And so the author, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is calling them to endure, primarily by reminding them of who Christ is and what he's done.
[00:06:35] That's the means.
[00:06:37] And so in Hebrews 12, he starts with an encouragement, and this is what he says. He says, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, what does that mean? Well, here. Here's seminary professors. It's kind of like a dad joke in seminary style. We'll say, anytime you see the word therefore, you need to ask, what's that? Therefore. Therefore, okay, that's a good, like biblical interpretation practice. You should ask that. So why does the Author begin chapter 12, verse 1, with Therefore? It's because he wants to point us back to what he's previously said in chapter 11, this amazing chapter filled with men and women who, by the grace of God, put their faith in Jesus. And that faith was sustained and preserved by the grace of God through the entirety of their life, specifically in moments of deep suffering and even death. And so he says, therefore, in light of this, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, the word cloud is really significant in this context because I think it's only used one time in the New Testament. And here's what the word cloud means. The word cloud in the Greek carries this picture of a borderless mass that covers the entirety of the sky.
[00:07:57] So think about that for a moment. We always picture this as kind of like an amphitheater. And I think you can view it that way like you're an athlete running in the race and there's an amphitheater of people around. But I think it's even bigger than that borderless cloud, cloudy day that covers the entirety of the sky. You can't see its beginning and end.
[00:08:15] And this cloud of witnesses, as mentioned in Hebrews 11, is so vast and so great that it's not just great in quantity. It's great in quality.
[00:08:28] So when you go back and read the Men and Women of Hebrews, chapter 11, you read things like this.
[00:08:36] What more shall we say? This is verse 32 in chapter 11. For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Isn't that amazing?
[00:09:15] Refused to accept release because they were thinking about the country to come.
[00:09:21] Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy. Might it be said about us wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves?
[00:09:40] This is the great cloud of witnesses surrounding you and I today.
[00:09:46] Can you picture that?
[00:09:48] Borderless great in both quantity and quality. He says, since friends, you and I are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, this is what I want you to do. And this is the first thing that he. He says, let us lay aside every weight.
[00:10:11] Since you're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight. This is the first exhortation for us to lay aside every weight. If you and I are going to run together by the power of the spirit, finishing well, which should be the goal, not having the most.
[00:10:37] I don't know that we're in danger of this necessarily in this room, maybe, I don't know, like Instagram followers or building the biggest platform or being the most popular, being the most successful in your job, or whatever the case is, but finishing well.
[00:10:52] If we are going to finish well by the power of the spirit together, the first thing he tells us we must do is, in light of this great cloud of witnesses who's gone before us and persevered by the grace of God, Lay aside every weight.
[00:11:09] Lay aside every weight. This word could also be translated as encumbrance.
[00:11:17] So lay aside every weight or lay aside every encumbrance. This just means bulk or mass.
[00:11:26] So if you were an athlete, in other words, this is athletic imagery, which I love.
[00:11:31] If you're an athlete and you're running in a race in early Olympics, they would actually Run naked.
[00:11:37] Okay?
[00:11:39] Because it would. The excess weight, whether it be the clothes or the whatever, whatever it was that was on their body, actually kept them from running as fast as. Did that word make you guys laugh? The fact that I said the word naked?
[00:11:51] All right, so they would lay aside every unnecessary weight in order to run as fast as they could run to win the race. And that's the image. That's the idea of what this author is telling us to do, is to set it aside. Almost like another image would be like a weighted down wet towel.
[00:12:14] Taking it off, laying it aside. Imagine, in order to run the race, when I played football, I never had the privilege of playing for a good football team. We were always like very mediocre. We were either like 5 and 5 or 2 and 8. That was about as good as we ever got. But we had, I'm convinced, the most difficult off season in all of the state of Texas. We'll die on that hill. Objectively, it was the most difficult. And one of the things that we would have to do were 400 meter tire relays.
[00:12:45] So we're on a 4x4 team with our guys. And you had to carry a tire, which felt like the heaviest thing in the world, and you had to run as fast as you could an entire lap, 400 meters with a tire on your back. And there were two things that typically happened when you crossed the finish line on the way back with the tire. One, you would take the tire off and you would immediately vomit. That was like the typical response. You would just vomit, and then you'd hand the tire off and your friend would run. And then after you ran through the first round of laps, you would do a second one without the tire.
[00:13:17] And when you run without the tire, you recognize one thing. Like, you're a lot faster without the unnecessary weight.
[00:13:25] Okay, so what the author's telling us here is he's saying, he's asking this question for us to consider. Like, what are those unnecessary weights in your life, those encumbrances, that bulk or mass that's slowing you down or that's distracting you?
[00:13:44] Maybe it's not sin, but maybe it's something that you and I do or listen to or watch or participate in that just kind of cools your affections for God?
[00:14:00] Or maybe it distracts you from things of the kingdom and it just kind of subtly leads you.
[00:14:09] The way Paul talks about this in the New Testament is not getting entangled in civilian pursuits.
[00:14:15] He's like, you're a soldier of a different kingdom.
[00:14:20] Like you're, you're a citizen of a different place doesn't mean you're not a citizen of the United States and that you shouldn't be the best citizen you could possibly be for the glory of God. But it does mean ultimately your identity is not full. First, as an American, you're a citizen of a higher country with a greater king.
[00:14:42] And so in what ways have you and I become entangled in civilian pursuits?
[00:14:49] Just kind of slowly, subtly, And I think that's typically how it happens. It's not like this dramatic thing.
[00:14:55] We begin to become a little bit more distracted and a little bit more in love with the things of this world.
[00:15:02] What are those things?
[00:15:07] What's slowing you down today from experiencing more of Jesus?
[00:15:15] From sitting in his presence, from being in his word.
[00:15:21] John Lennox is one of my favorite theologians, mathematician from Oxford, and he was asked, he's in the fourth quarter of his life and he was asked, if you could tell 20, 30, 40 somethings, one piece of advice, what would it be? He said, just read the Bible more.
[00:15:39] I mean, we're not going to make it to the end of our life and wish we wouldn't have read the Bible so much.
[00:15:47] It is probable, though.
[00:15:48] Speak for myself, I wish I wasn't on YouTube so much.
[00:15:53] I wish I wasn't taking every opportunity, every little pocket of silence that I'm given throughout the day and filling it with noise.
[00:16:05] What are these encumbrances the Holy Spirit's telling you today? Telling me, lay it aside.
[00:16:13] If you want to run the race and you want to run with endurance, finishing well, by the grace of God, you must, I must set aside the weights.
[00:16:25] At best, the weights slow us down.
[00:16:29] At worst, they become something else.
[00:16:35] So he goes on, he doesn't just say, lay aside the weight, he says, and sin, which clings so closely, lay aside every weight.
[00:16:48] And sin which clings so closely.
[00:16:54] I want to just lock in on that phrase which clings so closely and just remind us, friends, the reason sin is so enticing and difficult to fight and conquer.
[00:17:13] By the grace of God, it already has been conquered, if you're a believer in Jesus, but to fight it by the power of the Spirit, because it clings so closely, it feels good.
[00:17:27] Sometimes it even feels right in the moment.
[00:17:30] It's fun opportunity to take control over a particular situation rather than giving control to God in whatever way that's expressing itself.
[00:17:44] Sin, sin is not just a matter of our actions, it's a matter of the heart.
[00:17:50] So sin is not just the bad stuff. We do.
[00:17:53] It's a heart disposition that says, I want to worship the creature over the Creator.
[00:18:03] I want to be in love with the things that God provides, even sometimes good things over the Creator who's provided them.
[00:18:13] Sin has its root in pride. It has its root in idolatry.
[00:18:18] Sin is always a matter of worship.
[00:18:21] Our sinful actions and however they're expressed, whether it's gossip, whether it's outbursts of anger, whether it's pornography, whatever it is, is a worship problem, not merely a behavioral problem.
[00:18:44] It clings so closely.
[00:18:49] And so as followers of Jesus whose. And we'll get to this in a moment, whose sin has already been defeated at the cross of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus, we ought to hate sin.
[00:19:03] So if you have the Holy Spirit of God living in you, you ought to hate sin growing in your hatred for sin. But there's still something in us that loves it.
[00:19:12] And I think that this reality is captured really well. If you've been around any amount of time at Redemption Hill, you know that I'm a CS Lewis fan.
[00:19:21] I think that it is captured really well in his book the Great Divorce. And so I just want to read an excerpt to you from this book.
[00:19:29] The Great Divorce is an allegory of sorts about heaven and hell and the divide between heaven and hell. And you have to be careful not to draw too many theological implications from the book and just kind of take it for what it is. But essentially, it's a story of these quote unquote people.
[00:19:47] Lewis calls them ghosts who live in hell.
[00:19:50] And hell is a gray place. He says it's not really a place of. He doesn't describe it so much as eternal conscious torment. That's where I'm saying, like, don't over theologize it. Just kind of take it for what it is for a moment. Moment.
[00:20:01] But it's a gray place. It's just a bl.
[00:20:04] Place where, if you can imagine it like this, people who die in their sin and go to this place, this gray place, experience an eternity locked into their sin, where every day is worse than the day before.
[00:20:23] So imagine living in solitary confinement forever in your anger, as your anger gets worse and worse and worse for all of eternity.
[00:20:33] Isn't that terrifying? That's the idea that he paints. Okay, so you have these people who live in this great place, and he calls them ghosts. And they have an opportunity to take a bus that leads them, that drives them to heaven. And as they get to heaven, they come across the solid people, these majestic, beautiful, angelic beings. Who come and talk to them. And much of the book is these solid people trying to convince the ghosts to leave hell and come to heaven. They're inviting them into heaven. But the problem that they run into time and time and time again Is that the ghosts do not want to do the one thing necessary to enter heaven, and that's repent.
[00:21:11] And so the message is not get better, do better, try harder. It's lay aside your sin.
[00:21:19] And so he gives this really, I think, helpful picture of this struggle and confronts us with a really convicting dilemma of do you really want to lay aside your sin?
[00:21:41] Do you really want it? Do you really want to do that?
[00:21:45] Here's what he says. So it's an interaction between one of the angels or the solid people and one of the ghosts.
[00:21:51] And this particular ghost always carries a little red lizard with him. There's a little red lizard that sits on his shoulder.
[00:21:59] And this is the interaction. It says, a mighty angel approached the man and asked, would you like me to make the lizard quiet?
[00:22:07] So every day, all day, this little lizard just speaks lies into the ears of this man, Tempting him to do things, sinful things.
[00:22:17] All day. That's all he hears all the time.
[00:22:20] Would you like me to make the lizard quiet?
[00:22:23] Of course I would, said the ghost.
[00:22:25] Then I will kill him, said the angel, taking a step forward.
[00:22:31] Ah. Oh. Look out. You're burning me. Keep away, said the ghost, retreating.
[00:22:37] So, do you see what's happening here?
[00:22:39] Do you want me to make the lizard quiet? Of course I do.
[00:22:43] Then for him to be quiet, I must put him to death.
[00:22:46] And there's resistance.
[00:22:50] Don't you want him killed? The angel said.
[00:22:54] You didn't say anything about killing him at first.
[00:22:57] I hardly meant to bother you with anything so drastic as that.
[00:23:01] It's the only way, said the angel.
[00:23:03] Shall I kill it?
[00:23:05] Look, it's gone to sleep of its own accord. I'm sure it'll be all right now. Thanks ever so much.
[00:23:12] May I kill it?
[00:23:14] Honestly, I don't think there's the slightest necessity for that. I'm sure I shall be able to keep it in order. Now. Some other day, perhaps.
[00:23:23] There is no other day.
[00:23:26] Get back. You're burning me. How can I tell you to kill it? You'd kill me if you did.
[00:23:32] It is not so.
[00:23:34] Why? You're hurting me now.
[00:23:36] I never said I wouldn't hurt you. I said I wouldn't kill you.
[00:23:41] Suddenly, the lizard began chattering loudly. This is what the lizard Be careful, it said. He can do what he says. He can kill me.
[00:23:51] One fatal word from you and he will.
[00:23:55] Then you'll be without me forever and ever.
[00:23:57] I'll be so good. I admit I've sometimes gone too far in the past. But I promise I won't do it again.
[00:24:04] Have I your permission? Said the angel to the ghost.
[00:24:08] You're right. It would be better to be dead than to live with this creature.
[00:24:13] Then I may blast you.
[00:24:16] Go on. Can't you get it over? Bellowed the ghost, but ended whimpering. God help me. God help me.
[00:24:23] Picture of this man shrieking on the floor is the picture that Lewis paints.
[00:24:28] Next moment, the ghost gave a scream of agony such as I never heard the burning one. The angel closed his crimson grip on the reptile, twisted it while it bit and writhed, and then flung it, broken back on the turf.
[00:24:47] Then I saw, unmistakably solid but growing every moment, a soldier.
[00:24:54] The ghost materialized into a man not much smaller than the angel.
[00:24:59] At the same moment, something seemed to be happening to the lizard.
[00:25:03] At first I thought the operation had failed.
[00:25:06] So, far from dying, the creature was still struggling and even growing bigger as it struggled. And as it grew, it changed.
[00:25:14] Suddenly I stared back, rubbing my eyes.
[00:25:16] What stood before me was the greatest stallion I have ever seen, silvery white, but with mane and tail of gold.
[00:25:23] The man now free from his torment, climbed upon the stallion that had been his sin and rode in the glowing sunrise toward the Savior.
[00:25:36] Do you want to kill your sin?
[00:25:46] It feels good. In a moment of conflict with your spouse to get the last word.
[00:25:51] You have control.
[00:25:53] You don't walk away feeling weak or like you've been run over or taken advantage of.
[00:26:02] Feels good.
[00:26:04] Do you want to kill it?
[00:26:08] Because the Holy Spirit can?
[00:26:13] He can.
[00:26:14] Because God has already promised us in his word that over 2000 years ago the Son of God came to kill your sin.
[00:26:22] He's already done it in his body on the tree.
[00:26:26] He has disarmed the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.
[00:26:33] He has taken your sin and mine and cast it into the depths of the sea, by which one theologian says, in that sea there's no fishing allowed.
[00:26:43] He's done away with your sin forever. He's crushed it under his strong feet. He's cast it behind his back. He's imputed to you his very righteousness, and he has filled you with his very spirit.
[00:26:58] Do you want it to die?
[00:27:04] To run the race, we must.
[00:27:09] To run the race with endurance and to finish in light of this great cloud of witnesses cheering us on, empowered by the spirit, we must lay aside Every weight and every sin which clings so closely.
[00:27:32] How do we do it?
[00:27:34] This is the means that he gives us as we look to land the plane.
[00:27:42] We cannot lay aside every weight and sin through a redoubled effort to be a better person.
[00:27:51] You cannot and I cannot lay aside every weight and sin and run with endurance the race that is set before us through a redoubled effort to obey the law of Moses.
[00:28:06] The law of Moses is good and holy because God gave it and it reflects who he is. But the law was never meant to save. It cannot save because the law reveals sin.
[00:28:21] The only way that you and I will successfully learn over the course of our life to lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and to grow in godliness and to grow in the fruit of the Spirit is by looking to Jesus.
[00:28:46] The person of Jesus, Paul says, inspired by the Spirit, by looking at the glory of God. It's the glory, by the way, the glory of God. When the Bible talks about the glory of God, the glory of God is the full manifestation of the perfections of God.
[00:29:07] And so when Jesus says one day that you and I partake in his glory, that we'll be on the new heavens and new earth and we'll see his face and we'll share in his glory, that's what he's saying, that we'll behold the full unhindered perfections of God forever.
[00:29:32] It'll never get old.
[00:29:35] And if hell is a place where every day is worse than the one before it, heaven is a place where every day is better than the one before it.
[00:29:45] Scripture says that we are transformed not by works of the law, but by beholding the glory of God, where in the face of Jesus Christ.
[00:30:00] Jesus Christ is the full manifestation of perfections of God in a person.
[00:30:10] Isn't that amazing?
[00:30:14] And so the author tells us, friends, if you want to finish well, if you want to learn how by the grace of God, you can lay aside every encumbrance and sin which is destroying your soul, look to Jesus.
[00:30:33] And so I just. I want us to consider which Jesus you're looking to.
[00:30:39] Are you looking to the real Jesus or are you looking to a false Jesus?
[00:30:46] And I'm going to quote Ray Ortland, who talks about two false Jesuses that we have a propensity to look to.
[00:30:54] One is what he calls nice Jesus.
[00:30:58] Okay, Nice Jesus is.
[00:31:02] Appears to be a great friend in time of need.
[00:31:08] He's gentle, he's meek, he's friendly.
[00:31:13] But he doesn't really care too much about your sin.
[00:31:18] And if you're honest, he's not very helpful.
[00:31:23] He's not a very helpful Savior.
[00:31:26] He's not very helpful in a sense of you and I are looking to a day where justice will prevail, righteousness will dwell, evil will be obliterated. He's not really capable of doing that because he's just so nice and so he doesn't really tell you and I hard things. He doesn't correct us when we're wrong.
[00:31:45] He doesn't call us to repentance.
[00:31:47] He's pretty okay with just kind of being in the background of your life. That's nice Jesus.
[00:31:54] Is that your picture of Jesus doesn't account for The Jesus of Isaiah 6 Isaiah saw seated on his throne, which is a preincarnate Jesus, I believe, by the way, seated on his throne, by which the angels circle the throne, saying, holy, holy, holy. Can't even look at him. And so they cover their eyes with their wings like that. It's not that Jesus.
[00:32:18] So are you looking to Nice Jesus? Nice Jesus will not help you kill your sin because nice Jesus isn't strong enough to have already conquered your sin.
[00:32:30] The second false Jesus is Harsh Jesus.
[00:32:35] So this is the Jesus who has a perpetual frown.
[00:32:40] Everything you do, all your greatest efforts to fight sin and walk in holiness and live in community and confess your. I mean, all these things are just never quite good enough for harsh Jesus.
[00:32:52] He's a judge, but he's not a friend.
[00:32:55] He comes down hard on sin, but he's not as described as Jesus describes himself in Matthew 11:28, gentle and lowly in heart, a God who draws near to the brokenhearted.
[00:33:12] We're called to look to the only real Jesus, and it's the Jesus of the Bible.
[00:33:18] There is no other Jesus.
[00:33:21] The Jesus of Islam is not the real Jesus. The Jesus of Mormonism is not the real Jesus.
[00:33:26] The Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses is not the real Jesus.
[00:33:33] There's only one Jesus, and it's the Jesus of scripture. It's the historical Jesus. And so who is this Jesus? Well, look at how he's described.
[00:33:46] Let us look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising its shame. Jesus is pictured in the Bible as being like a lamb.
[00:34:07] He's not Harsh Jesus because like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, Isaiah 53 says so he opened not his mouth, but he meekly, humbly, lovingly went to the cross. For you took the punishment that you deserved and that I deserved upon himself. A more literal translation of that text, by the way. I've always wondered what it meant when it says who for the joy set before him. I think a more literal translation would say, rather than the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross.
[00:34:41] Jesus is fully God. He was also fully man. Meaning that Jesus had to make an actual decision in the garden.
[00:34:49] He had to make an actual decision, empowered by the Spirit to not choose the comforts of the world but the cross.
[00:34:59] And that's what he chose to do. Out of love for the Father and out of love for his people rather than the joys of the world, he endured the cross despite its shame, knowing that the cross wasn't only going to come with physical pain, but it was going to come with shame. And ultimately the cross was going to mean that for the first time in all of eternity, it it'll never happen again. The Son and the Father. The Father separated himself from the Son and Jesus cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? As the wrath of the Father that was due us was put upon Christ once for all, experiencing separation from the Father once for all, that you and I might never be separated from the Father who are in him by faith, experiencing the wrath of the Father for sin, that you and I might never taste the wrath of God.
[00:35:56] He endured the cross despite its shame. He's like a lamb.
[00:36:03] So if you're here and you're just neck deep in some sort of besetting sin, you have a savior, friends, who is gentle.
[00:36:13] He's going to receive you gently.
[00:36:17] He's going to embrace you wholeheartedly.
[00:36:22] He's going to love you more tenderly than anybody will ever love you.
[00:36:27] He's going to woo you like nobody could ever woo you.
[00:36:33] He's going to be patient with you like nobody else will ever be patient, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. He's like a lamb, but he's not just a lamb.
[00:36:47] Says that he's now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. He is the lion.
[00:36:55] He's gentle and lowly in heart, and he is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
[00:37:04] He will put an end to sin in the world once for all at his return.
[00:37:11] And he's already, because of who he is, put an end to yours and mine. If you're in him by faith, Jesus is the better everybody else. In Hebrews 11 we have a great cloud of witnesses that we're to be reminded of and encouraged by amazing, broken, sinful men and women like you and I, who've gone before us, who, by the grace of God, finished their race well. But even better than that, we have the founder and the perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, or rather than the joy set before him, endured the cross on our behalf and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God, awaiting a day when he returns and makes all things new. And so it's him that we're to look to.
[00:38:02] So as we prepare to sing, let's do that. Let's look to the person of Jesus as our great hope to lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely. He's already defeated it. For those who are in him, let's pray.
[00:38:26] Sam Sa.
