Damein Schitter: Hello everyone.
Damein Schitter: This is Pastor Damian.
Damein Schitter: You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando.
Damein Schitter: At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life.
Damein Schitter: For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom.
Damein Schitter: Thanks for listening.
Gina Fickett: Please join me in the prayer of illumination.
Gina Fickett: Heavenly Father, we wish to see Jesus.
Gina Fickett: By your Spirit's power, give us eyes to see his glory.
Gina Fickett: Through Christ, we pray Amen.
Gina Fickett: Today's scripture reading is from Hebrews 12, beginning in verse 1.
Gina Fickett: 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.
Gina Fickett: Consider him, who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted In your struggle against sin.
Gina Fickett: You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Gina Fickett: And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
Gina Fickett: My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the Lord.
Gina Fickett: Nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.
Gina Fickett: It is for discipline that you have to endure.
Gina Fickett: God is treating you as sons, for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
Gina Fickett: If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Gina Fickett: Besides this, we have earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them.
Gina Fickett: Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live For?
Gina Fickett: They disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.
Gina Fickett: For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it, who have been trained by it.
Gina Fickett: Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
Gina Fickett: Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Gina Fickett: See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled.
Gina Fickett: That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal, for you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing.
Gina Fickett: He was rejected for.
Gina Fickett: He found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
Gina Fickett: This is God's word.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Thanks be to God.
Gina Fickett: Please be seated.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Well, we all know the saying life's a journey, not a destination.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: True, but getting to the destination matters, doesn't it?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: I suspect all of us, in some time and in some way, have experienced that feeling where you set off heading home from a long road trip, feeling where you set off heading home from a long road trip.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: You're coming south down the interstate and all is as you might pray it would be, the children are happy and peaceful, there are clouds but no rain, the road seems to move along smoothly, there are no crashes, no officers stopping you here or there, and you're ahead of time.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And then you find yourself reaching Ocala and for some reason I know not where, I know not when the interstate has been cursed, and what was an efficient, a speedy, a smooth trek home has become a parking lot, no bathroom in sight, no food to be had, no destination to be reached anytime soon.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Or perhaps you like to fly and you find that everyone boards the plane returning home.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: It goes smoothly, you're able to take off quickly.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: The book you're reading, the movie you're watching, it goes by fast, or better, you've napped, and suddenly you're being told prepare for descent and you're going to pull in, arriving early, so early, my friends, that when you reach the ground, they tell you I'm sorry, there's not a gate for us.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Tell you, I'm sorry, there's not a gate for us.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And so, with your newfound friends surrounding you, you're able to spend a little while waiting, watching, taking in the best of Central Florida.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: There, on the tarmac, we can start.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Well, it doesn't really matter unless we endure to the end.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: It doesn't really matter unless we endure to the end, until we see a journey through to its finish.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Life is a journey, not a destination.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: But it really does matter that you reach that destination, doesn't it?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And let's be honest, we live in a world where we hear often of deaths, of despair.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We live in a state where there are twice as many pain clinics as hospitals.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We live in an age, and as human beings, where we so often can grow cynical in our disappointment, bitter in the way in which our ideals have been taken from us At some point we know not when in years past.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And we can turn to many things.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We can turn to this or that benign distraction, or we can turn to those death-dealing tools that promise a way out.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Endurance matters greatly in life, doesn't it?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Life's not only a journey, not a destination.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: It's a marathon, not a sprint, and Christianity offers a different way.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And Hebrews chapter 12 offers us a map, a map of understanding the challenge of endurance, a map of understanding how God longs to see you through to the very end.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Consider the number of times in just the first few verses that idea of endurance is raised.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: In verse one we read let us run with endurance the race that's set before us.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: In verse two, we hear it said of Jesus that he endured the cross.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And in the next verse, verse three, we're told that he endured the cross.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And in the next verse, verse three, we're told that he endured such hostility from sinners against himself.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: This is a passage about enduring to the very end, and this is a sermon or a letter, this book of Hebrews.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: That is about endurance from beginning to end.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We can think back to chapter 3, verse 14, which told us we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold firm our confidence to the end.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Or in chapter 4, verse 11, where we read let's strive to enter God's rest so that no one may fall short.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Or in chapter 10, verse 23, let's hold fast to the confession of our hope.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And perhaps most pointedly, at the end of chapter 10, verses 35 and 36, we read don't throw away your confidence, which has a great reward, for you have need of endurance so that, when you've done the will of God, you may receive what is promised.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: It is a hard journey and there are many trials and occasions to grow bitter cold, cynical, but Christianity, cynical but Christianity, more specifically, jesus offers promise and hope.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Let's dig into Hebrews 12, 1 through 17, seeking to gain a map, a map through the pain and the trial, a map where God carries us and calls us to endure to the end.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: The first thing we see here endure to the end.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: The first thing we see here, as we consider how Hebrews 12 frames this journey, is that pain is a threat.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Let's begin at the end, if we could.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: The strange mention of Esau.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Esau does not get a lot of love in the Bible, but this is a brief reference to a famous story from Genesis 25.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: You know it Jacob and Esau are these two brothers.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Esau is the older, he's the manly man of the fields who hunts and provides, and he's gone out.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And you've got to know Esau he is the heir to the birthright.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He's going to be the next great patriarch and yet here, at the end of Hebrews 12, we read of how a single error costs him all.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Esau, for a bowl of stew or porridge, sells his birthright to his brother, jacob.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Why?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Well, we're told that he's exhausted.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He says that in Genesis 25 in his own voice, that he is famished or exhausted and he longs for the stew which he smells the aroma coming from.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: They had brown bags back in the day, hunters carried food with them.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Unstated in Genesis 25 is that Esau did what I'm sure no child at New City would ever do, and that is went to school without his lunch bag, went off on the hunt unprepared, didn't attend to the fact that he grows weak, that he has a feeble frame, that he demands calories throughout the course of, I'm sure, a trying hunt, a busy and full day.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And in that moment of weakness, in that experience of hunger pains, he makes one of the more absurd trades in human history.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He sells his birthright, he sells the promise for a bowl of soup.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: I love a good bowl of soup, but that's a high price.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And he is here an example, a warning to us all.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We ought not overlook the power of pain.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Pain is a real threat.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Reminded of another verse in the New Testament, paul, writing to the Ephesians in chapter 5, verse 18, says don't get drunk with wine, for that's debauchery.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Okay, not shocking.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Christians aren't supposed to get hammered.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Paul tells the Ephesians that it's a little bit surprising that he follows up don't get trashed with, be filled with the spirit.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Like don't get loaded, do get.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Charismatic.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Seems a strange pairing, until you realize what's going on underneath.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Paul's not merely concerned and not predominantly concerned about external behavior.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Why would one of the Ephesians get drunk with wine?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Why do most people get drunk?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: They want to check out, they want to get rid of the pain, they want to forget what has otherwise led them to despair and disappointment.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And notice Paul isn't content there to say don't go to the booze, but he offers a positive path to deal with the pain.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Because pain is a real threat.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: If we don't listen to it, if we don't attend to what it communicates, we will find that eventually we give in, like Esau or the Ephesian drunks, to something that can cause detrimental harm, lasting pain and loss.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Pain is a threat we dare not ignore and that's why Christians, like Jews before us have attended to the significance of naming our hurt, of lamenting our loss, of praying before God, of all the ways in which we experience disappointment and frustration, both from what's outside us and, so often, what we harbor within.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Pain is a threat we dare not ignore.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: That's the first thing we learn as we look at the way Esau is invoked here at the end of our passage.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: There's a second thing we see Fear is a killer.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Here at New City, we come from the Presbyterian and Protestant tradition.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We look back to the great 16th century pastors who reminded us of the importance of God's grace, of Christ's all-sufficient love and mercy, of the fact that, as Hebrews said once for all, he has satisfied God's demands and he has sat down at the very right hand of God, having made sacrifice and atonement for sins.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: It's important to know those weren't cliches and bumper sticker slogans.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: In the abstract they mattered greatly because of a real human problem.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Like us, and even more so in the 16th century, life was hard.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: There were famines, there were plagues, they didn't have antibiotics, they didn't even have essential oils, my friends, it could get dire and one might be led to despair, thinking that if it's so hard and it's so difficult, I must be cursed of God.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: This must be a sign that I'm due to experience hell and judgment, curse and condemnation.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: How could you not interpret it that way?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: The cards are all dealt against you.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Life is a long and plodding experience of what eventually will be overwhelming and eternal.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: That was what Christians in the 16th century were tempted to believe, and against that we have the remarkable witness of pastors reading and preaching Hebrews.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: John Calvin, looking at this passage, said God offers himself as father to all who endure his correction.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Martin Luther, looking at this passage, said the life of suffering is the way and direct path to salvation.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: There are those persons who, having suffered infirmity or poverty or violence, complain that they're not able to serve God.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Yet God says here that true righteousness is made perfect by suffering of this kind.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: What do we see here?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We see that fear is a killer, but not for sons and daughters.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: If we read on through Hebrews 12, we encounter two remarkable words about the difficulty and the trial that faces each and every one of us.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: In verses five through seven we hear this have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: My son, don't regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: It's for discipline you have to endure.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: God is treating you as sons.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: However much we might receive the trial and the suffering of this day, the frustrations and the aches of this world, we need to remember they're not foretastes of judgment.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: They're fatherly provision that we might grow.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And if we read on, there's a second remarkable reframing of how we experience, how we perceive, how we imagine the difficulties of the journey.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We see in verses 11 and 13 that what we're undergoing is not bare suffering or challenge, trial or frustration.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: No, it's God's training and God's healing.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: In verse 11, we read for the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness in those who have been trained by it.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We read in verse 13, make straight paths for your feet so that what's lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: There's a remarkable difference between a bully and a coach, between a parent and a sadistic human.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: What we see here is that God leads us on this journey with, yes, its challenges and trials, but he does so as father and he does so for our good, our growth in grace and unto glory, not to punish us, not to curse us.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And you and I can know why, because we are now 12 chapters deep in Hebrews and this anonymous author has said so very much about all that Jesus is and has done on your behalf.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We are long past him being put forward as a propitiation and sitting down, having made atonement for our sins.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We are long past him being the captain of our salvation, having come and born flesh and blood, all the aches and pains that he might sympathize with you.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We are long past all the many ways in which Hebrews 10 reminds us that, once for all, god's wrath and judgment, his curse and condemnation, were dealt with.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We are long past all of that, and so we can experience the challenge of today and we can weather the harms of tomorrow, knowing they are not a sign of God's scowl, but they're the demonstration of God's commitment to you.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: They're the provision of a father who wants to discipline you.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: They're the training of a coach who wants to see you flourish.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: They're the gift of a physician who is in the business of healing you from all the struggles you bear within.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Fear is a killer, but not for sons and daughters.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We might expect it to end here.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Life stinks.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Jesus is a savior, let's go have some dessert.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: But the text goes on and Hebrews isn't content simply to say he died once for all, that he's the final sacrifice that the great high priest can sit.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Hebrews takes you and your humanity so very seriously, more seriously than Esau and I suspect you and I do.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Hebrews wants to communicate ways in which God not only provides a savior, but a community and an example, a captain and an encouragement that you might know this, that you might remember this, that you might live in light of this.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And so we see still further provision in these verses.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Third, we see community is for encouragement, and in two ways.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Where does our text begin?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: But talking about community, looking back, you'll remember at chapter 11, which we spent a couple weeks on, looking back at what here is named as a great cloud of witnesses.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Notice what we're told.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: 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 set before us.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: It's calling you to be mindful of all that's just been said, all that you've just been reminded of by faith Enoch and Noah, by faith Abram and Sarah, by faith Rahab and so many anonymous followers of God.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: They obeyed, they followed, they risked, they endured, and what we learned was that God was faithful.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: What we saw was that God's goodness was steadfast.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We're those who go through fits and starts, and Hebrews 11 has showed us that God is faithful and steadfast again and again.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Here you have witnesses invoked, those who might testify in a trial in a courtroom, those who might speak on behalf of another.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: These are references, these are witnesses.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: These are those who, in their lives and often in their deaths, could attest not their merit and know-how, not their genius and their cunning, but God's faithfulness and his steadfast love exist for you, not that you might imitate their idiosyncrasies, not that you might dress or speak as they do, but that you too might run the race set before you.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: I've not been called to build a boat or to leave or to let spies in through the city walls, but I have been called in my own life, in my own vocation, to be mindful, to remember and to be encouraged, knowing that the God who did call Rahab and Abram and Noah is the same God who calls me and that the God who made good on those promises then is the God who remains faithful today and preview of coming attractions.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We're not done with stories.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Hebrews 13, which we'll get to soon in verses seven to eight, brings it much more close.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: It says remember your leaders, those who taught you the word of God.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Consider the outcome of their way of life.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Imitate their faith.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Remember your leaders, people of just the last generation, not the famous old people, the Noahs and the Abrams.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Remember the grandfather, remember the elder, remember the last pastor.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Consider what they've done.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Don't imitate every detail.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: You're not them and your race isn't the race they were called to run.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Imitate their faith.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And the next verse tells us why.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Living by faith in Christ made sense then and it makes sense tomorrow.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And I assure you it makes sense now because the same Christ who was steadfast, the same Christ who is faithful a generation ago, is the same Christ who, for such blessing as we've sung of, will be steadfast and faithful to you and me and our children and our children's children to a thousandth generation.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: What we see here is a reminder that, because God is faithful and because his love is steadfast.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We can learn from the community of the past and be encouraged for the future.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: But we also see communities for encouragement not only then but also now.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: If we look to the end of our passage, we see here in verse 14, strive for peace with everyone, for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We not only need examples from the past to encourage us to testify to God's goodness.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We need a cohort, we need a community today those who are with us in the valley, those who are alongside us as we face difficulties and trials, overwhelmedness and indwelling sin.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: That's why bitterness is so dangerous.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Did you catch that?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: The root of bitterness which splinters communities, the root of bitterness which splinters communities, which inhibits our ability to be honest and candid with each other, is such a threat Equal to sexual immorality here.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Why?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Because we need each other, because we're meant to be vulnerable and intimate with one another, that we might be encouraging and hopeful for one another.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We need not only examples of God's provision in the past, but we need people who remind us of God's commitment to us in the present.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Think of those road trips again.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: How often have we journeyed long and far and found ourselves still on the way home, even as we go through the middle of the night.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And what is more lonely and perhaps more dangerous than the solo driver trying to keep themselves awake?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Late, late, early, early.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Staying alert as one drives through the middle of the night is a task made for a wingman, someone who will keep you alert, awake, attentive, alive, someone who will keep the music going or the conversation flowing, someone who will make sure that you do not grow dull and tired, weary and overwhelmed with the long day past.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And if that's true, for the road trip, how much more for the journey of faithfulness to Christ?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: For the journey of faithfulness to Christ, how much more do we need?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Not a solo effort, but a wingman, a community, those who will encourage us, those who will keep us attentive.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: That's why, so often and so frequently, and with such energy, we communicate the importance of community here.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: That being a Christian is not an individual act, though it is a personal commitment.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Being a Christian, a follower of Jesus, is about finding a family, a community, those who will keep you alert, those who will encourage you no matter the circumstance.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Fourth and finally, we see not only that we are given community for encouragement, but we are given an example.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Christ is the example of faith and endurance.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: You want to see what life is meant to be and you want to see how death and difficulty are meant to be experienced.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Read the first verses of our passage.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Yes, we are called to run the race set before us.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Yes, but notice, the author leads us to one more thing.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Look to Jesus, we're told in verse three.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, right there in verse two, we see Jesus is not oblivious, jesus is not out of touch.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Jesus is being ostracized as Jesus is being tortured and he's not unaware.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: It's not that his being God somehow renders him incapable of pain.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He was long known as the man of sorrows and we've already read in chapter 5 that it was with loud cries and tears that he went before his father in prayer that night.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Here we're told he despised the shame of the cross.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Jesus is not a masochist and Jesus is not a stoic.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He's aware of the pain and the difficulty of the trial and of the death that is imminent.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He's aware of the physical extremities his body's about to be taken to.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And he's not indifferent either to the fact that this is a shameful act meant to humiliate somebody before everyone.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And yet he endured.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He endured that in the face of such difficulties.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Why?
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, hearkening back to the great words of the servant song of Isaiah 53, where, in verse 10, isaiah prophesied of one who would see the fruit of his travails and would take joy.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He would see you.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He would see his delight, his people his redeemed, and he would be heartened.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He would see you, whom he poured his life out for, and he would endure.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He would see you, for whom he'd come from heaven on high and he would persevere.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Jesus here is not merely the great sacrifice and priest who is once for all made atonement for our sins but, sisters and brothers, we're reminded, he is the great model, he is the example of faith par excellence.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He is the true Adam, the only human fully alive in this world, unencumbered by sin, unhindered by all of our corruption, living a life fully dependent upon his father's grace, entrusting his very life to his father's resurrection power, father's resurrection power.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And he does that such that we might look to him.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Looking to him not only to stand in the gap and to serve as our substitute, looking to him to be, as we've read earlier, the captain of our salvation, the leader at the head of the pack, the one whom we follow.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We so frequently talk about how we're meant, in discipling others, to say follow me as I follow Christ.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And we can say that because Jesus, in the way he walked about this earth, he said follow me as I follow our father.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: He showed us what it is to live by hope, to walk by faith, to bear trial and pain and difficulty and to endure to the very end, knowing God's life-giving promise.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: And he longs for you not only to rest in all that he's done on your behalf, but to put on your shoes and to go walk another day, to stand up yet again and look forward and to follow the captain of our salvation, that we too may walk by faith, for God remains faithful and his love it, is still steadfast.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: Let's pray, god.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We thank you for the rich abundance of your word, for the fullness of your grace, and we pray even now that you might remind us of the all-sufficient mercy you give us in Jesus and of the way in which you long for us to live, no longer marked by fear, but that we might experience the joy of walking by faith.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We have need for our weak knees to be strengthened, and we pray, oh Holy Spirit, that you would come, that you would be Lord by being life giver, that you would reign and rule by strengthening and renewing each of us who grow so weak and weary.
Rev. Dr. Mike Allen: We turn to you with open hands and hearts, praying for your provision now, in Christ's risen name, amen.