Living a Successful Christian Life
Hebrews 12:1-3
What comes to your mind when you hear the term "a successful Christian"? How you answer is dependent on your definition of success. Many consider success to be power, prosperity, and prestige. The most common definition of success given is simply achieving one's personal goals. For example, a football coach may consider himself to be a success if he wins every game. A college student may appear successful if he or she makes straight A’s. The problem is that success by that definition varies being dependent on our individual goals. I believe God has a different outlook and definition of success for the Christian. What is it that would make God see me as a success? Charles Stanley says from God's standpoint "success means walking in His way". To God our greatest achievement is a continuing desire to be the person He has called us to be and to strive to carry out the goals He has for our lives. To accomplish this is to live a successful Christian life.
Hebrews chapter 11 provides us with what has been often referred to as "Faith's Hall of Fame". It is the testimony of those who lived successful lives as followers of the Lord. By the world's standards most were anything but successes but in God's eyes they succeeded to live and die for Him. Based on their testimony, the writer of Hebrews, in the opening verses of chapter 12 tells us what it will take for us to live a successful Christian life.
I. We need to imitate those who imitate Christ.
A. Hebrews 12:1 "THEREFORE, SINCE WE ARE SURROUNDED BY SO GREAT A CLOUD OF WITNESSES let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."
B. S Lewis Johnson writes that in interpreting the witnesses in this verse "Many picture the saints who have gone before as spectators in the stadium. So we as Christians are running a race with the spectators observing us. Even your loved ones may be looking down and they are watching you carefully. This may be a motivation for you to run well. If I knew that Moses, and Paul and all the prophets were there watching, that would indeed be an incentive for me. However, that is not what he is talking about. Rather it is the lives which faithful men have lived and the stories found in the Scriptures which are witnesses to us. It is not what we see in our spectators that is to move us, but what we see in the Scriptures!...So as we look at these men and women, there should come to our minds this conviction - that the God of yesterday is also the God of today. In other words, the things that God did through Enoch, through Noah, through Abraham, through Jacob, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, the things that God did through them, He is able to do today (through you and through me beloved)!." - copied
C. 1 Corinthians 10:11 "Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction..."
D. We need to realize that these witnesses are not watching believers today. The witnesses are those who have just been presented as having lived victorious successful lives for God. Someone has said that "The witnesses are like a coach who encourages his team to victory by crying out... Others have done it, and so can you! They were able to overcome and they won the victory, so there can be no excuse for us who have so much more at our disposal such as the completed Word of God, the power of the resurrected Christ and His indwelling Holy Spirit to fail, to fall by the way, to be defeated and be “saved so as by fire.” - copied
E. Warren Wiersbe comments that the men and women of Hebrews 11 "are the “cloud” that witnesses to us, “God can be trusted! Put your faith in His Word and keep running the race!” When you read the Old Testament, your faith should grow, for the account shows what God did in and through people who dared to trust His promises (Ro 15:4-note). When you read the Gospels, you see the greatest example of endurance in Jesus Christ. (Wiersbe, W: With the Word: Chapter-by-Chapter Bible Handbook. Nelson)
F. The testimonies of the Old Testament saints ought to challenge us to “see the invisible, choose the imperishable and do the impossible”
G. So I take the witnesses of Hebrews 12:1 to be the saints who have run the race before us, and have gathered, as it were, along the marathon route to say, through the testimony of their lives, "By faith I finished, you can too!.... John Piper
H. Hebrews 6:12 "... imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises."
II. We need to remove anything keeping us from living for Christ
A. Hebrews 12:1 "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, LET US LAY ASIDE EVERY WEIGHT, AND THE SIN WHICH SO EASILY ENSNARES US, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
B. "Let us lay aside" - (apotithemi from apo = away from + tithemi = put) means to put or take something away from its normal location and put it out of the way.
C. Note the first part of the word apo is a marker of dissociation, implying a complete break from a former association. Understanding this should help us picture what we as believers should do. The idea is that we should "place some distance between" our old life and not to allow it to hold us back from going forward for Christ.
D. Ephesians 4:22 "Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life..."
E. Like Olympic runners who are willing to gain any legitimate, legal advantage in order to win, we are to lay aside anything and everything that binds us to this earth and run with our face set like flint toward the city Whose Builder is God.
F. Colossians 3:9 "... put off the old man with his deeds"
G. 2 Corinthians 6:17 " Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you"
H. We are to put away "every weight" that is to say we are to put aside any and all encumbrances without exception. As someone has said "every 'ounce' of unnecessary, nonessential weight is to be cast off and away from ourselves." - copied
I. The word "Weight" or "Encumbrance" (ogkos) literally refers to a bulk or a mass and refers to that which serves to hinder or prevent someone from doing something - a hindrance, an impediment. An encumbrance is whatever deadens your soul, and holds you back when thou should be pressing forward to the upward call.
J. Everyone of us must honestly judge what hinders our faith and decisively lay it aside, even if others seem to be unhindered by the same thing.
K. We are also to lay aside "THE SIN WHICH SO EASILY (BESETS, ENTANGLES, CLINGS) TO US.
L. Steven Cole adds that we must lay aside every sin that so easily entangles us explaining that "In biblical times people wore long robes. You can’t run with a long robe entangling your legs. You must either pull it up and tuck it in your belt or cast it totally aside. In the case of sin, you must totally get rid of it if you want to run the Christian race. This doesn’t refer only to certain besetting sins, but to all sins. Sin always begins in the mind, and so we must judge all sin at the thought level. Pride, lust, envy, greed, anger, grumbling, selfishness-all of these things originate in our thought life. If you cut it off there, it goes no farther. If you entertain these things, they incubate and develop into sinful words and actions (Jas 1:14, 15). But the author’s point is, you can’t run the Christian race if you keep tripping over your sins." (Hebrews 12:1-3 Faith to Run the Christian Marathon)
M. It's interesting that the Latin Vulgate is translated "the sin standing around us" ("circumstans nos peccatum") and this appears to be the idea in this verse. Thus one could render it "the easily encompassing or surrounding sin." The Latin circumstans is related to circumstances which we so often use as an excuse for our sin.
N. 1 John 2:1 " My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not."
O. We are to put off everyone of our besetting sins - Sins which we hate being criticized or rebuked for, sins that have the most power over us, sins we we seek to defend or argue about, and sins we are unwilling to part with - our pet sins.
III. We are to run the course of our lives with patient endurance .
A. "LET US RUN" - The writer is telling us that if we are to succeed as believers we are to intensely set our all all on getting to the goal as quickly as possible.
B. The Christian life is not a sprint but a marathon. the word used for run is a word which pictures a lifelong race. That race ultimately can be run only in God's strength
C. Dr. Joseph Stowell says that running well involves at least three forms of preparation:
1. First, we need to unload the baggage, getting rid of things in our lives that distract us from the business of living for Christ.
2. Second, we must shed the sin which blocks our fellowship with Christ and disqualifies us from the race.
3. Third, we must stay at it, running with a commitment to hang in there when it gets tough and finish the race. - copied
D. "...let us run with endurance the race" Running with endurance means to be steadfast and unflinchingly bear up under every circumstance, never surrendering to circumstances or succumbing under trial.
E. 1 Corinthians 4:2 "Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful."
IV. We must keep our hearts, minds and eyes fixed on Christ
A. Hebrews 12:2-3 "looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted."
B. Having glanced at the testimony of others now direct your attention without distraction to Christ
C. Focus on Christ - He endured all that He might be able to help you run with endurance and is there to help you each step of the way.
D. Hebrews 2:18 " For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted."
E. Hebrew 4:15-16"For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
F. We need to have eyes only for Christ.
G. Micah 7:7 "But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me."
H. Corrie Ten Boom, "Look …Look around and be distressed. Look inside and be depressed. Look at Jesus and be at rest."
I. Isaiah 26:3 "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.
J. Having the right focus you needn't fear sinking. (illus. Peter walking on water)
V. We should consider the example of Christ and never quit. - vs. 3
A. Hebrews 12:3 "Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted."
B. Consider where all creation would be if Christ had quit., where you would be.
C. Galatians 6:9 "And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."
D. DON'T YOU QUIT: When things go wrong as they sometimes will, When the road you're trudging seems uphill, When the funds are low and the debts are high, And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When cares are pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don't you quit. Life is strange with its twists and turns As all of us sometime must learn. And many a failure turns about, When we might have won had we stuck it out. Don't give up, though the pace seems slow, You may succeed with another blow. Success is failure turned inside out, The silver tint of the clouds of doubt. And you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far. So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit- It's when things get worse that you must not quit. T. L. Osborn
