IX.
An Exhortation to Perseverance ()
A.
Let us Run with Endurance, Looking to Jesus ()
1.
Our author has included this passage for a very definite reason. As he looks into the future, he sees the high probability of persecution coming down heavily on the lives of his readers. As one who loves them, he desires that they be ready and fit for the trauma. We can sense that he does not wish to indulge them in sympathy, but to stir them to stand as did those who have gone before. Do they think they can get off with any less commitment or cost than the saints who earlier bore their witness? No, what was required of the witnesses of the past will be required of this generation.
2.
() The setting is a great stadium of spiritual athletics. The stands are filled with the great athletes of the past who have run their races and completed their events and are now eager to encourage the new contestants. Notice, they are alive, aware, and present. No mere sense of historical memory is expressed here, but the picture of an active, watching throng shouting encouragement to those now struggling in their own events.
a.
(; ; ; ; ; ) Abel is there, having offered a sacrifice in the attitude of faith which pleased God. There was no self-trust in his sacrifice. Noah is sitting beside him; having heard the command of God to do that which was ridiculous in the eyes of his neighbors, he obeyed in the simple faith that God knew what He was talking about. That mindset of the spiritual athlete is so critical to success. Abraham is next, there with Sarah, his wife. The promise given to them was totally unreasonable by human understanding of physiology, but when God persisted in His promise, they believed Him. That great old saint left the land of his fathers and went out to a land whose location he did not even know, and he did not demand of God an explanation or map. He trusted Him. That is the attitude of the spiritual champion. Close by was Enoch, whose simple life was one of walking with God. Some folks are not known for their awesome feats, but just for the quality of their personal lives. That is the quality that marks the athlete of the Spirit. Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were in the author’s mind as athletes who had looked to the tape at the finish of their race and were so confident of its reality that they blessed their children in the light of God’s promise. () Moses caught everyone’s attention. His massive frame and intense eyes gave him that charismatic countenance that draws the breath of others in seeing it.
3.
Now comes the moment of our race. The call for the race is given; the athletes begin to prepare themselves for the event. It is evident that a great deal of training has gone on. As warm-up suits are laid aside, lean and conditioned muscles witness to months of intense discipline. Our writer encourages those who read his exhortation to “lay aside every encumbrance” (12:1) The Greek word for “encumbrance” (weight) can mean body bulk, excess weight. For spiritual athletes that can be a case of too many irons in the fire, too many dissipating interests, too many branches of good things that suck the vital energy from the very best. () Jesus said that God, the Vinedresser, prunes the best branches of any suckers that they may bear even more quality fruit. Encumbrance also shows that our warm-up togs now must be discarded. Protective warmth is fine for preparatory periods of spiritual growth, but there comes a time when these pleasant weights must be laid aside and we expose our bodies to whatever conditions prevail as we run the race.
a.
Weight may also mean a spirit of overconfidence and arrogance. Many a great team with championship potential has taken the field in an attitude of haughtiness only to receive a drubbing at lesser hands. The idea that a certain contest is a “pushover, a breather, an easy day” anesthetizes a team into complacency. That is the making of an upset! When we let down our concentration on the basics of the Christian life and become distracted, we are in for a sudden and shocking surprise. Many a great saint has been caught off guard by a sloppy attitude toward relationships, disciplines of preparation, or commitment to excellence, only to find the situation lost and the opportunity gone.
b.
The writer to the Hebrews says, “lay aside” (apothemenoi) such weights; they have no place for the Christian disciple who wants to compete in the race that Jesus has laid out for him. Christ’s demand and design will require everything we have in ourselves and much more. There cannot be any extra weight. To “win,” every ounce of human and divine energy must be directed to the race. () Anything less will cause us to fall behind the intentions and designs of our God. In a day like this, where the world teeters on a fine edge of tragedy, we must be all we can be for the purpose of salvation and ministry. Anything less will be a burial of our talents in the soil of dissipation and indulgence. One day when our Master returns, we will all give an accounting. May that be a glorious day for all involved! () “Well done, good and faithful [servant]! (vs. 21)”
c.
We are also told to lay aside the “sin which so easily entangles us” (). Runners are careful to wear no clothing that fits too tightly or binds their movement. Just so, we spiritual athletes are to have no habits that hamper movement, no dissipations that everything us so easily. The Greek word here (euperístatos) is not used anywhere else in the New Testament. Neither is it found in the LXX nor in the classical writers. () How easily we are ensnared by sin, that self-centered orientation that adds glorious weight to the spiritual athlete! () We are to put it off by the power and authority of Christ!
4.
We are to “run with endurance the race that is set before us” (). The Greek word translated “race” is ago¯n, from which we get our word agony. It signifies a race in which endurance and determination must overcome the aching desire to quit. In a race such as the quarter mile, there are moments toward the end of the race when the body cries out to let up. Pain starts in the calf and works up through the hamstrings to the gluteus maximus. At times it is so intense it feels like a burning fire. Agony is the best way to describe it. () Paul describes his efforts to bring others to their full spiritual maturity as the agonizing of an athlete, but he said, “For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power which mightily works within me” ().
5.
() For the Christian disciple there is only one way to run this race successfully and that is to look to Jesus, whom our author describes first as “Author” (arche¯gon) and then as “Perfecter” (teleio¯te¯n) of our faith. Arche¯gon can mean founder, leader, or pioneer, or a prince or ruler. The meaning here is that of founder, the first, even the designer of this race. As a leader or pioneer, Jesus is meant to be followed. He is the first of many leaders we need to follow, but only as each of them follow Christ. Christ has set the course and we are to follow hard after Him.
6.
() Not only did He set the course, but He was also the first to finish it and to break the tape! Our author implores us to run this race with perseverance, our eyes fixed on Jesus as the pioneer that we are to follow. Why did Jesus run this race of servanthood and suffering? His motivation for this great effort was the joy that was set before Him, out in the future. Jesus too was a futurist. He could see beyond the immediate suffering and cost to a future of redemptive blessing for all humanity. In His inmost soul, He knew He was the fulfillment of the ancient covenants of God. () When God promised Abraham that not only would he have sons and those sons would have a land of promise in which to dwell, but that in his descendants all the nations of the earth would be blessed, Jesus knew He was to fulfill that covenant. () The expectancy of that fulfillment flooded Him with joy.
B.
Persecution Ahead; Discipline Needed ()
1.
() Very probably our author sincerely believes that persecution and bloodshed may well lie ahead of his readers. “In your striving against sin,” he says to them, “you have not yet resisted to … shedding blood.” “Not yet”— does that mean it is soon to come? Possibly. Under what circumstances? It has been my premise that this epistle was written before the fall of the temple at Jerusalem (see Lesson 1), but after the persecution of Nero had begun. Its full effect has not reached these believers, but its approach is imminent. In the past they have known some suffering, perhaps at the hands of the Jews who took strong exception to the Gospel as portrayed by Luke in his account in Acts. Most likely our writer perceives that it will be Christianity’s fate to be charged with criminal impiety — not believing in the gods of Rome. It is possible that word has reached his ears that Christians have died in the circus in Rome and that it will not be long until Christians in other parts of the empire will experience the same fate. Theirs might well be a “resistance to bloodshed.”
2.
() In our divine author’s statement, “And you have forgotten,” it is evident that he has concern regarding his readers reaction to the discipline of God. He reminds them of the teaching of . We might paraphrase this section: “Do not treat lightly the training of the Lord.” The Greek word for “loathe” means “to treat lightly, to disregard,” or “to think unimportant.” All too many Christians both then and now, have a blasé attitude about discipline of the spiritual life. We consider it a holdover from a pietism that we have rejected as narrow and stifling. We are too often like a football team that considers blocking and tackling already learned and unimportant, only to find themselves coming apart in a tough ball game and the score mounting against them with shocking rapidity.
3.
() In similar fashion, the writer of this epistle is convinced that his readers’ future solidarity in faith is going to depend upon this teaching of the Lord. Therefore, he is urging them, “Do not regard lightly” God’s discipline (vs. 5). God’s motivation for this discipline is His love — love for His people and love for His kingdom. Every believer is a child of God. With that child, God has made a covenant of intimacy. (; ; ) He longs for a full relationship with that child as any good earthly father longs for a full and loving relationship with his child. For a child to fall or fail is agony for the Father. Out of His love, He wishes to ward off such tragedy.
a.
Not to be disciplined by a father is an indication of lack of love. It takes energy to discipline. The task is fatiguing. Many a father does not discipline because of the cost. Not to pay that cost is to say to the child, “You are not that important to me. You are not worth it.” He may use busyness as an excuse; he may plead even the demands of the kingdom of God. The result is the same — loveless neglect. There is no product more important to any nation or culture than that of human beings. (; ) Not to put the best of materials into those humans is to produce an inferior product that will not stand up under the competition of the modern world, nor hold up under trying circumstances.
b.
When fathers and mothers spend the necessary time and energy to discipline children with fair and consistent training, in spite of momentary flareups and resistance, there is loving respect. When we as parents pay more attention to the flareups and the cry of resistance than to the call of the future, we deny our children both a sense of belonging and the opportunity to reach a mature and strong adulthood. If that is true with our earthly parents, how much truer is it of God? (; ); Admittedly, our human discipline is sometimes less than highly motivated or effective, but God’s discipline is for our ultimate good, without qualification. The result of His training is holiness, a likeness to God. There is nothing more beautiful!
c.
(; ; ; ) “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness” (). When a football team’s coach had all his players do strenuous exercises over and over, a few of the players thought about hanging him up by his thumbs as they considered the exercises took the wind out of them and then he had them run laps on the track until they were totally worn out. Finally, their last game of the season neared its end. They carried their coach on their shoulders because he led their high school players to win against all the high schools in their division. They greatly appreciated his strenuous exercises once they saw how it led to winning games.