Well, please turn with me in your Bibles to the letter to the Hebrews. We will read the first four verses. Let me set the context for you. The writer describes this letter in the closing chapter as a brief word of exhortation. Now, whether exhortation is the best translation, I'm never quite sure. It has a double-edged nuance. He describes it as a brief letter of exhortation that's rich with encouragement. And he has written this letter because he has heard of believers, Jewish converts, who were under great pressure to turn back from Jesus Christ. And he's writing as a pastor. This is how a pastor writes to people who are struggling, who are considering turning back from Jesus. And essentially he does two things throughout the letter. He warns them of the great danger of turning back from the Savior. How shall we escape, he writes in chapter 2, if we neglect so great a salvation? So he warns them. The letter is punctuated with warning passages, but that's not his main concern. His main concern is to hold before them the excellency, the preeminent excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ. And again and again and again, he's saying to them, how can you think of turning back from so great and glorious and majestic a Savior as Jesus is? And there are two words, you find them in chapter 3 and in this chapter, that summarize the letter. In chapter 3, he says, consider Jesus. And in verse 4 of this 12th chapter, he says, consider him. That's what the letter to the Hebrews is essentially about. That's this pastor's burden. to help people who are under great pressure, and He's going to help them by holding before them the excellency of Jesus Christ. And so He writes in the twelfth chapter, 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. 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 you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." I'm pretty sure if I asked each one of you this morning, what do you think are the two most difficult books in the New Testament to understand, I would guess almost everyone would say, that's easy. It's the letter to the Hebrews and it's the book of Revelation. And I would understand why you would think that. But actually, the letter to the Hebrews and the book of Revelation are perhaps the two easiest books in the New Testament to understand. I don't mean that everything is comprehensible because that's clearly not the case. But if you were to summarize the book of Revelation, you could do it in two words. Jesus wins. That's the book of Revelation. Men may plot and plan, Satan may scheme, the powers of darkness may do their utmost, but Jesus wins. And the letter to the Hebrews similarly can be condensed into two words. Consider Jesus, chapter three, verse one. or verse 4 of our own chapter here, chapter 12, consider him. That's what this pastor is seeking to do. He's writing to believers who are struggling. How do you help struggling believers? How do you help believers who are suffering persecution? who are having their homes and their inheritances taken from them, as we read in chapter 10. How do you help and encourage believers who are finding that the society in which they live is holy against them? You hold up to them, Jesus Christ. There's a paragraph in John Owen's Volume I, The Glory of Christ, that I read regularly. He writes, how are we to help the people of God who are struggling with the cost of obedience? How do we help the people of God who are struggling against the temptations of the devil? How do we help the people of God who are finding daily faithfulness costly beyond measure? Well, says Owen, you tell them about the glory of the Savior. And that's what this letter to the Hebrews is seeking to do. It's seeking to say to these believers, your great need, your great need amidst all your trials and tribulations and troubles and fears, your great need is to be reacquainted with the greatness of your Savior. If I'm allowed to quote John Owen for a second time. He writes, our sin as well as our trouble is our unacquaintedness with our mercies. Our sin as well as our trouble is our unacquaintedness with our mercies. Now, I don't know the vast majority of you here this morning. I don't know what life has been for you these past weeks and months and years. I don't know what trials and troubles and difficulties you may be facing in the immediate days that lie before you. But I can tell you this, whatever your circumstances are, you're in great need this morning. is to be reacquainted with God's mercies to you in His Son, Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ Himself is the gospel. He is the one given to us by the Father. He doesn't give us justification. He gives us Jesus Christ, our justifying righteousness. He doesn't give us redemption, He gives us Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. Your great need and my great need this morning, whatever our circumstances may be, is to consider Jesus, to consider Him. And this is what the writer, as he's drawing to a close this letter of encouraging exhortation, it's really a paracletic epistle, paraclesis, the one who's called alongside to comfort us, encourage us, and spur us on. And he says to them, you're in the midst of a race. And how often the New Testament likens the Christian life to a race, doesn't it? Perhaps most memorably in Paul's almost final words in 2 Timothy 4, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I've kept the faith and henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness that the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day and to all who have loved His appearing. I finished the race. I didn't simply begin the race, though by the grace of God I did begin the race. I didn't simply continue in the race for some time, maybe years and decades, but by the grace of God, I have finished the race. My last breath draws nigh, and by God's almighty enabling, I have finished the race." And he says to these recipients of His letter, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us also lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." And how do you run with endurance the race that God has set before you? Well, he says, looking to Jesus. That's how you run the race. Now, you'll know the context, the wider context of these words. In chapter 11, the writer has set before these hard-pressed Jewish converts the great high moments of redemptive history in their heritage. He's taken them, you'll remember, from Abel, as it were, right through. And he said, you know, there is a great cloud of witnesses. And they're, as it were, looking on. Almost, you think, there must be the imagery of the Olympic Games in mind. They're cheering you on. But, he says, you've not to look to them. You've not to look to them. Every single one of them. Though great in faith, were men and women who failed. And sometimes failed spectacularly. He says, no, you have to run the race looking to Jesus. Not to the crowd round about cheering you on. That's the temptation, you know. We look around us. We want to impress people that we respect and admire. No, he says, you have to have a single-minded look. And it's not to the great cloud of witnesses. You have to look to Jesus. Now, it's unfortunate that almost all of our English translations, I think I've only come across one of the 20 or 30 I briefly looked at, Only one of them captures the force of the verb. And it's the force of the verb I want to focus on with you this morning. Looking to Jesus aforantes. It's actually looking away to Jesus. It's a verb that has a double-edged nuance. You have to run this race, number one, looking away from yourselves and looking to Jesus. And so to run this race, we first of all need to learn, by the grace of God, to look away from ourselves. One of Satan's great ploys, his methodea, his methods, is to turn us in upon ourselves. You may remember how Martin Luther described sin as that which turns you in upon yourself, incurvatus in se. And the writer is saying, there will be no help for you in this race, looking into yourself, looking to your circumstances. There will be no help to you in this race, looking to your failures or your triumphs. Because Satan's great design is to so turn you in upon yourselves, you become wrapped up with yourself. Perhaps especially with your spiritual advances. I'm further on than I was this time last year. And we give God the praise, but so sinisterly. The evil one comes and we begin to think well of ourselves. And we measure ourselves by ourselves. He says, no, you have to look away from everything connected with you. You have to look away from everyone you admire and respect. that you hold in the highest degree of honor, you're to look away from everything and everyone, for they will not ultimately help you finish the race as God would have you finish it. Now you know I don't mean we're not to learn from one another, we're not to respect one another, we're not to hold one another in high esteem, you know I don't mean that, but the danger is we become bifocal in the running of the race. We have to look away from ourselves, from all that's good in us, from all that's bad in us. We have to look away from the fellowship of the saints. You think, is that a strange thing to say? Well, of course, if you think I mean we're to distance ourselves from the fellowship of the saints, or to hold one another at arm's length, of course that would be wrong and sinful. But the writer is saying to these hard-pressed converts, do you understand what I'm saying? Don't look to me. Don't look to the apostles who brought you the gospel. Look away from yourselves. to Jesus Christ. And so the second emphasis in the verb is not simply looking away from something, but it's looking to someone. And that someone is Jesus. Looking to Jesus. If you're going to run this race, if you're going to finish this race, and many run the race, but don't finish it. you will need to cultivate the grace of looking to Jesus. And he tells us three things here, especially about Jesus. He tells us he is, first of all, the founder, the archegos, the initiator, the originator and perfecter of our faith. You have to look to Him who not only began a good work in you, but who can bring that work to perfection. Nobody else can bring that work to perfection. Your pastor can't do it. Your husband can't do it. Your wife can't do it. Your children can't do it. Only Jesus Christ can bring your faith to the perfection that enables it to run the race faithfully to the end. He is the, it's difficult to translate, the pioneer, the originator, the founder, and the perfecter. That's why we need to look to Jesus. Nobody else, nobody else can do that for me, but the Son of God who loved me and who gave Himself for me. But then secondly, and this again is to do a little bit with translation, the writer may well actually be more thinking about Jesus as the perfect man of faith, because in the Greek text, the word our, the founder and perfecter of our faith, the word our isn't there. He is the archegos, the originator and perfecter of faith. He is the one who exemplifies persevering faith. That's why we need to look to Him. He is the one man who perfectly persevered by faith in this life without failure. That's why we need to look away to Him and live out our union with Christ, Him being the one who not only had faith at the beginning when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the womb of the Virgin Mary and planted new life within her, but who took that faith and persevered with it through every stage of life, through babyhood, through childhood, through adolescence, through manly adulthood, who Persevered. And look where He is. Look where He is. He is the founder and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Look where your persevering Savior is now. Do you want to be there with Him at the right hand of the majesty on high? Then look to Him. Look to Him, He can take you there. Faith, the first movement of faith is to look to Jesus Christ. Look to me, all the ends of the earth, and be saved. You see, the great thing about faith is not that we have it. Faith won't take you anywhere. I remember vividly in our front garden in Cambridge, our next door neighbor, a retired university don, nice couple. We got on so well with him. We were talking and he said, you know, Ian, I wish I had your faith. I said, you know, John, it's not faith you need. Faith won't take you anywhere. It's Jesus Christ you need. Because the glory of faith is not faith itself, but its object. It's object. That's why the Bible is very categorical in its use of prepositions. We're not saved by faith, we're saved by Jesus Christ whom we receive by faith. Look where He is. Yes, life is hard for you. It's a struggle. You're suffering greatly, but you're persevering Savior. Look where He is. And if you persevere with Him, look where you will be. He's writing as a pastor. He's not writing abstract theology. But then thirdly, He tells us He is seated. at the right hand of the throne of God. And that, of course, echoes back to the first chapter and to the third verse, where we read, He upholds the universe by the word of His power. After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. It's a picture here of a Savior who Yes, is now enthroned, but is enthroned as the one who had made purification for sins. How can you turn back from Him? He made purification for sin. He became the sin-atoning sacrifice you could never become. He is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. And so, you see, this writer is persuaded that the greatest good he can do these hard-pressed, struggling converts is to point them to Jesus Christ and to have him so absorb their minds and their hearts and their affections that the last thing they would ever think about would be to turn away from Him. Let me try and conclude this with three applications, though I hope the application has run through. You know, Jesus Christ Himself is the great application of the gospel. You know, congregations sometimes, and I understand why they say this. They say, I wish my ministry would be more applicatory. I actually always, always think I wish my ministers could be more expository, because application is embedded in exposition, rightly understood. You don't preach brute chunks of fact. Jesus Christ is the great application of the gospel. Let me try and apply that in three ways. Number one, it means that faithful pastors should first and foremost preach Jesus Christ. There's a great phrase in Colossians chapter 1 verse 20, I think, where Paul writes to the Colossians, him we proclaim. That is the absorbing passion of an authentic Christian pastor, him we proclaim. And so when Paul writes to the church in Corinth who were being deceived by charismatic showmen, Paul writes in the fourth chapter, verse 5, I think, he says, we preach not ourselves like these charismatic showmen, small c charismatic. We preach Jesus Christ as Lord, and listen to this, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. And it's those two elements I want you to notice. We preach Jesus Christ as Lord, but we do it as men who are your servants for Jesus' sake. In his exposition of that verse, if I remember rightly, Calvin says, the highest office that a man can aspire to is to serve the people of God. And what Paul is saying is, we preach Jesus Christ out of a life of servant-heartedness to His people. We don't preach Him dispassionately, clinically, coldly, orthodoxly. We preach Christ as Lord, as your servants for Jesus' sake. And that's why congregations must hold their pastors to account. And if you feel that we are in any wise drifting from preaching Christ in all the Scriptures, We need to have the courage and the grace and the humility to say, brother, can I speak with you? I'm just a little concerned that you're drifting off into this area and that area, and good though they are, but you're called to preach Christ. And secondly, it's a word that should speak not only to Christian pastors but to Christian believers in general, that the great focus of our Christian lives should be the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, that He is to be the one to whom we look, for whom we seek. We read the scriptures to know Him better, to love Him better, not simply to acquire information, though that's good in itself, of course. The danger is that we can, in our circles, our spheres, we can subtly, we can oh so subtly divorce the Lord Jesus. from the doctrines of the Lord Jesus. And we become familiar and rightly familiar and content but wrongly content with knowing the doctrine of Christ but not knowing Christ. It's like knowing all the bits and pieces about your wife, her height, her breadth, if she has any breadth. Her peculiarities, every single detail about her, the size of her shoes. You know all about that, but you don't really know her. Him we proclaim. That's why Jesus, when He restores Peter, you remember Peter has so tragically denied the Savior. And when Jesus restores him, John 21, he doesn't say, Peter, do you promise from now on to be faithful, to be courageous, to be bold, to stand fast? He doesn't say that, does he? Three times he says, Peter, do you love me? You see, Peter's collapse was not ultimately a collapse of courage, though it was a lack of courage. It was ultimately a collapse of love. He thought he loved the Savior better than he did. Peter, do you love me?" And that's what the Lord says to us this morning as we look out into a new year. He's saying, do you love me? He's saying, Stephen, do you love me? Jim, do you love me? Esther, do you love me? Nothing compensates for a lack of love in the eyes of the Savior. What's the first and greatest commandment? Well, said Jesus, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. So brothers and sisters, we're to look away to Jesus, not look to our piety, our Bible knowledge, our faithfulness at the means of grace, our theological understanding. We're to look to Him. We're to look to Him. And then the third thing is that this is a word that speaks to unbelievers. I don't know most of you, really. It would be strange if in a congregation like this there weren't some few who had not yet come to embrace Jesus Christ as He is freely offered to us by God in the gospel. And perhaps if that's where you are this morning, then you need to understand this, that there's no hope before God outside of Jesus Christ. You have to look to Him. Remember Spurgeon's conversion? He tells us in the early years, the first volume was autobiography. He was 15 years of age and he was heading for church in a snowy, very snowy London. He manages to get there. He's the only congregant and the minister doesn't turn up. And an old gentleman, probably what we would call in Scotland, the beadle, the man who would bring in the Bible, he just opened it at Isaiah 45. And he read the words, look to me, all the ends of the earth and be saved. And then he turns and points his finger at Charles Spurgeon and says, young man, you look miserable. You need to look to God and be saved. You know, it just takes a look. A look will do it. A look of helplessness. Lord, have mercy on me, the sinner. And so that's the great burden of the Bible, actually, from beginning to end. Look away from yourself. Because nothing in you will do you any ultimate good. Look away from yourself to Him who can do you everlasting good. And so when you meet, perhaps in the coming days of this week, a fellow Christian who's struggling, or maybe who'll even come to your door today and say, brother or sister, can you please help me? You bring them in, you sit them down. And you say, I want to speak to you about the glory of Christ. Now they may look at you and say, well, could we do that another day? I really, really need your help today. And you say to them, brother, sister, this is the greatest help I could ever give you. It's the help that God would give you. Let me tell you. about how great, how preeminently glorious your Savior is, seated at the right hand of the majesty on high, having made purification for sins, who rules the heavens and the earth, in whom you are by God's grace. Look to Him. Feed on Him. And so as we come to the Lord's Supper, our exclusive focus is the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to Him who was broken for us. Look to Him who shed His precious blood for us. Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters in Christ, lift up your heads, open your eyes, and by faith receive the blessing of the triune God. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you. Be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you. Give you his peace. Amen.