The Perseverance of the Saints

Many Christians would admit they've always felt like it's just a struggle to live each and every day, that life is war, that the battle between the flesh and the spirit sometimes rages so mightily in our hearts and in our lives that we barely feel like we're making it from one day to the next.

Would you say that describes you? The pressures of the world, the flesh, and the devil can be overwhelming. But today on Renewing Your Mind, Ligetier teaching fellow, Dr. Burke Parsons, will remind us of the very great and precious promises we have as believers. And one of the most encouraging promises reminds us of God's sovereignty and salvation, that He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion. This is a message that was delivered originally to our ministry partners, those who commit to supporting us financially on an ongoing basis.

We want to share it now with you. I am honored to have been asked to lead us in a short devotional from Scripture. I am not preaching a sermon here today or preaching from the pulpit of St. Andrews, but rather sitting in the studio at Ligetier Ministries, speaking to you, our faithful ministry partners. And it is my hope as we spend a few minutes today in Scripture to come to understand and love the Word of God more, and more importantly, to love our Lord more. And we are going to turn in our Bibles to Hebrews chapter 12, a passage I'm sure many of you are familiar with, a passage that I have looked to many times in my life, a passage that I've memorized, as I'm sure many of you have. And so if you have your Bibles, open to Hebrews chapter 12, and we're going to look at just the first two verses of chapter 12, where the author of Hebrews writes, 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, 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. Now these two verses follow Hebrews chapter 11, a chapter wherein the author of Hebrews gives to us a long list of those who lived and died by faith.

You can recall that long list of Hebrews chapter 11, wherein the author of Hebrews talks about Abel and Enoch and Abraham, Moses, and so many throughout history who lived by faith. And then at the beginning of chapter 12, we read, Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, it seems that the author of Hebrews is drawing our attention to those who've gone before us, to those faithful fathers and mothers in the faith who have lived, trusting the Lord and who have died in faith, to look to them and to consider them. This cloud of witnesses he speaks of, and that we are surrounded by them, encompassed by them.

The language here suggests the context of a large stadium or a large coliseum with thousands upon thousands of spectators looking down upon us as we are engaged in some sort of athletic competition. But the author of Hebrews here speaks not of clouds of witnesses, but of a single cloud of witnesses, suggesting that they are all of one mind and all looking down upon us, these faithful forefathers from the past. Now we know that there is really no biblical evidence to suggest that those who have died in the faith are somehow now omniscient, that they now know everything, that they can see everything. We don't get the impression from Scripture that in reality, those who've gone before us can now look down upon us and see us. But that's sort of the idea that the author of Hebrews is giving us, that they have passed on, they have gone to be with the Lord, and that somehow in some way they are cheering us on. They are there as witnesses looking at us, cheering us on to continue faithfully and to persevere to the end. Now, those of us who have lost loved ones, those of us who have seen our fathers or our mothers or even our grandparents go on to be with the Lord, there's a sense in which we have a feeling.

There's a sense in which we feel that they are somehow looking down upon us. I lost my father when I was 16 years old, very similar to Dr. Sproul. In fact, it's something that we shared that his father also went to be with the Lord when he was, when R.C. was just a teenager. My father was born in 1924 and passed away in 1992.

Dr. Sproul's father passed away in the mid-1950s when R.C. was just a teenager. And we both shared that very difficult experience, and I think we both shared a sense that in some way our fathers were somehow, though we knew it was not truly possible, but that they were somehow looking down upon us. That we wanted to honor them, that we wanted to show them respect, that we wanted them to be proud of us.

Now I've admitted in recent years, having served with R.C. for so long, about two decades, that after he went to be with the Lord, that I sensed that R.C. was now in some way looking down upon me and that I have sought to honor him. That as he has cheered me on from the heavenlies, that I have wanted to show him honor, that I wanted to make him proud.

Now again, we know that our loved ones are not somehow looking down upon us in reality, but we get that sense that they are. There's a story that I'm often reminded of when I look at this passage. It's a legendary story.

I don't know if it's true or not. But the story goes back about a hundred years to a coach at Georgetown, that time college, now Georgetown University. The coach was Lou Little, and he was the football coach at Georgetown. And the story goes is that he had a player on his team that was not all that good, that came out and sat on the bench during games.

He was good for scrimmages and practices and so on, but he was not a great player. And every time there was a game, that young man, that football player would go over to the stands and would take his father arm in arm and would walk him into the bleachers, make sure that he was seated, and then that player would come down on the field just to sit on the bench. Well, as the story goes, that boy's father passed away. And Coach Lou Little felt so badly for the young man, he put him in the game. And he had never played before, but that day he played with such passion and such energy that he brought the entire team to victory over Fordham University. And Coach Lou Little came to that young man and said, son, what's gotten into you? Your father came to each and every game and you never played, but now your father has passed and you played your heart out.

You led our team to victory. He said, what got into you, young man? And the player looked at Coach Little and said, well, Coach, I'm not sure you understand. You see, my dad was blind.

And he never got to see me play a game until now. That young man had a sense that his father was up in heaven cheering him on. And he played his heart out because he knew that in playing well, he was honoring his father and he wanted his father to be proud of him.

He wanted his father to see how well he could play. We have that sense about those who've gone before us, that they're somehow looking down upon us and we want to do well. And the author of Hebrews here is telling us to consider those who've gone before us, to consider how we're surrounded by those faithful witnesses from the past and so we can persevere. Now, I'm sure many of you know that the recipients of the book of Hebrews were Christians who were being persecuted.

Most of them were Jewish Christians, that is Jews, who trusted Christ Jesus as the Messiah, and they were being persecuted throughout the world. And so this letter is written to the Hebrews to press on, not to give up, to persevere to the end. And so how does the author of Hebrews encourage them to do so? Well, first by looking to the cloud of witnesses, but then he says this, let us also lay aside every weight. Notice that Hebrews doesn't just say lay aside the big weights, but it says every weight. We are to lay aside everything, not just the big things in our lives, not just those things that we know we can't handle. We're to lay aside every little thing, every little weight and the sin which clings so closely. I think so often in our lives, we think that we can handle the little sins, that certainly we want to lay aside the big sins, but the little sins we can keep for ourselves. The little sins we can hide away and we know how to handle them.

But we are called, if we are to persevere in the Christian life, we are called to be striving to lay aside each and every single weight. And that sin which clings so closely. Some of you may recall the older King James version, which reads there, and the sin which doth so easily beset us. It was very common for people to talk about our besetting sins. And sometimes we would ask, what is your besetting sin?

As if there's only one. But the reality here is that all sin besets us. All sin entangles itself around us. And that's the language here of Hebrews. The sin which so easily clings to us or that sin which entangles us or encircles us.

Think about a weed that is springing up from the ground and it is actively attempting to encircle itself around our ankles in order to trip us up. And then the author of Hebrews writes, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Now, when I hear that, when I hear let us run with endurance, that immediately makes me feel exhausted. There are many, many Christians who when they hear things like this, when they hear let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, they think to themselves, I don't think I've ever run the Christian race like a runner running a race.

I've never felt like I was a victorious Christian running a race. Many Christians would admit they've always felt like it's just a struggle to live each and every day. That life is war, that the battle between the flesh and the spirit sometimes rages so mightily in our hearts and in our lives that we barely feel like we're making it from one day to the next. Well, it's interesting because the language here, the language that Hebrews uses is not quite exactly the way we would envision it at first glance. First of all, we read let us run with endurance.

Well, when the early Christians thought of endurance, they thought of having to endure something that was difficult, to endure something that was painful, to endure something and to persevere through something that was a struggle. And that's exactly the language that is used here. The word for race is not what we commonly think of as a long distance race or even a short sprint. But the language here in the original is the language from which we get our English word agony, to agonize. Now, when we think of agony and to agonize, we can certainly think about running a race. But for the ancient mindset, this was not simply a race that you had to endure to get through to the end. This was an agonizing competition.

This was a struggle from beginning to end. And ancient philosophers would speak about these competitions and they would say that even the toughest men would sometimes crumble during these great struggles, these great competitions. So Hebrews here is getting at the reality of the Christian life, not simply being a marathon race, but rather a struggle that the Christian life is agonizing at times. That through the trials and the suffering and the war between the flesh and the spirit that we experience in our lives, we have to endure, we have to remain steadfast and persevere to the end. And the author of Hebrews is trying to encourage us by looking at the cloud of witnesses to consider them, to lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely.

Don't think that you can take on just your little sins and hide them away and enjoy them as often as you can without anybody noticing, but rather lay them aside and to run with endurance the race that has set before us, the agonizing competition that has set before us. Now, there's something really interesting here. At the end of verse one, when we read about the race that has set before us, did you notice that? Notice it's not just a race that we're on. It's not just a track that we're running on, but rather a race that has been set before us.

And what's going on here? What's contained in that language? Well, what's there is language of the sovereignty of God, that God has set this race before us. It has literally been prepared for us, the languages of something being placed beforehand that we are to endure. You see, the race that we're on is not just a guessing game.

It's not some sort of game that God is playing with us. Rather, it is a race that He has set us on. And it's a race that is unique to each and every Christian. And our race might look different than a friend's race, than a brother's race, a sister's race, a spouse's race. The race that He has set before me is different than the race He has set before you.

And that's sometimes why your race that you're running looks much harder than your friends. Because God in His sovereignty has given you just the race that you need for your eternal good, for your salvation, and for His ultimate glory. Now notice in verse two that Hebrews doesn't just leave us there. The author of Hebrews doesn't just say, run the race before you.

He doesn't just say, look to the cloud of witnesses and consider them. Rather, the author of Hebrews tells us to look in a precise direction, in a precise place, to a precise person, looking to Jesus. Our tendency, our tendency when sin is entangling itself around us, when trials and suffering come upon us, our tendency is to look down at our sin.

Our tendency is to focus our eyes upon those weeds that are entangling themselves around us and to just spend all of our time fixed on them. Or sometimes our tendency is not to look down, but to look around us, to look to one side or the other. And we all know that when a runner runs, he looks at the finish line.

He doesn't look beside him. He's not looking at other runners beside him and looking back, he has to focus on what's ahead of him and keep his pace and remain steadfast with a fixed eye at the finish line. And we too often in our lives do not have our eyes fixed ahead of us. Too often, we're looking aside.

And who are we looking at? Well, we're looking at other Christians. We're looking at the world and we begin to compare ourselves with other Christians and we sometimes even begin to compare ourselves with the world and we rationalize and say, and we reason, well, as long as I'm doing better than this Christian, or as long as I'm doing better than that friend of mine, as long as I'm a little bit more holy than they are, well, I'm doing okay. Meanwhile, we're sort of hiding certain sins in our pockets, playing games with God. We're not to look aside.

We're not to compare ourselves with one another. We're not to look down at that which is entangling us around our ankles. Rather, the way in which we as Christians persevere in the faith, the way in which we endure, the way in which we can remain steadfast is by fixing our eyes on Jesus. Not just looking to him, but the language here in the original speaks of putting all other things aside, getting our gaze off of everything else and fixing our eyes on Jesus. You see, as we strive in our lives to put sin to death, to mortify, to kill sin in the flesh, as Paul tells us to do in Romans, as we do that, the question is, well, how do we do that?

We do it not by fixing our eyes on the sin first and foremost, but by fixing our eyes on Jesus because he is the founder and perfecter of our faith. Those are two of the sweetest words in the Bible, founder and perfecter. And the word founders always fascinated me because the word is a compound word in the Greek. It's made up of a verb, which means to lead. And the second word in the compound word is the word arc.

We know that word from archaeology and archetype. It means early. It means first. And when you put those words together, we get this idea in English of someone who is going from the beginning, someone who is leading from the outset, someone who is there at the front, who is going ahead of us.

The word is translated elsewhere as pioneer, that Jesus is seen as not just the founder of our faith, but the one who is actually going before us and leading the way. You can think of the different sorts of army generals who have led their troops in different ways. And some would stand at the back of their regiments, simply waving their troops into battle while they remain safe at the rear of the battle. And then you can think of other leaders throughout history who've not simply sat comfortably upon horseback as they waved their troops into battle. We can think of those commanders who've gone before their troops, who were the first ones to raise the sword, the first ones to enter the battle.

And that's the image here. The image here is of a savior who is going before us. He didn't just establish our faith. He didn't just found our faith. He is the one who is actively going before us in the battle.

He is that one from the front, from the forefront, who is going out conquering and to conquer. He is the founder and perfecter of our faith. Notice it doesn't just say of the faith, but of our faith. That our savior is the one who not only went before us, he is the one who is perfecting that faith within us. He is the one who found us and he is the one who keeps us. He is the one who started us and he is the one who will complete us.

For he who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it to that day. Our savior is the one who initiates our faith and by his spirit regenerates our dead hearts and gives us faith. And he is our savior who completes it within us, holding us in the palm of his hand as we read in John 10, not letting us go so that we will persevere. The hope here, the hope here for struggling Christians, the hope here for all who have ever doubted, the hope for each and every one of us is not in ourselves.

It's not even ultimately in our ability to run in and of our own strength. Our ultimate hope is in our savior because he has promised and he is faithful and he is the perfecter of our faith. And he demonstrated that he has already completed this 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.

Because Jesus has completed the race, because Jesus is now in heaven at the right hand of the father, because he atoned for our sins on the cross, because he endured the cross with joy that was set before him. Notice that he had his eyes fixed on glory. He had his eyes fixed heavenward. And that, dearly beloved, is where we are to fix our eyes if we are to persevere to the end. What a great message of hope and comfort.

You're listening to Renewing Your Mind on this Wednesday. I'm Lee Webb, and I'm grateful that you could be with us. Dr. Burke Parsons is the senior pastor of St. Andrew's Chapel here in Sanford, Florida. He's also a Ligonier teaching fellow and one of my colleagues here at Ligonier Ministries.

He serves as our chief publishing officer. The devotional we heard today was recorded earlier this year as an exclusive message for our ministry partners. We're airing messages like this all week because they highlight the benefits of becoming a ministry partner with Ligonier. This is a group of people who commit to give a monthly donation to Ligonier, and as our way of saying thank you each month, we provide access to exclusive content like the messages you're hearing this week. These special devotionals are available only to our ministry partners, and today when you sign up for $25 or more per month, these messages will be available immediately in your learning library, along with the entire ministry partner archive of messages. Sign up today, and it's like you've been a partner for years. In addition, you'll receive a Reformation Study Bible, a subscription to Table Talk Magazine, exclusive monthly messages, and discounts to our Ligonier conferences. I hope you'll partner with us today when you go to renewingyourmind.org slash partner, or when you call us.

Our number is 800-435-4343. And if you're already a ministry partner, in honor of our 50th anniversary, would you consider increasing your monthly commitment to $50 or more per month? We are indeed grateful for your faithfulness to this ministry. Well, tomorrow we'll bring you a devotional by Dr. Derek Thomas, recorded for our ministry partners. I find the title of it intriguing, Clash of the Titans. I hope you'll join us Thursday for Renewing Your Mind. .