They Are Watching Us!

Hebrews 12: 1-17

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, 

This must be all the saints that were mentioned in the last chapter. This encourages me, that those who went before us are able to look down on us to see how we're doing. But they don't have anything more to do with what goes on in the World any more, their time here has passed (Ecclesiastes 9: 5-6).

let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, 

Encumbrances are those things that are burdensome, useless, or superfluous; a weight that we don't need to carry. And sin is described here as a snare that we get our foot caught up in and as a result we're tied up. Let's lay aside these things, and not hold on to them.

and let us run with endurance the race that us set before us, 

We are seen here as athletes running a race. Runners never wear or carry anything that would slow them down at all. They strip down to their running shorts and leave their water bottles at various points along the way. Totally unencumbered. 

Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, 

Jesus is our example, our model. As He left Heaven to come to Earth as one of us, He is the originator and He is also the finisher of what we believe. The beginning and the end (Revelation 1:8, 11; 21:6; 22:13). We trust Him to have done everything that is needed for us. He is the Creator; He plotted out the whole Plan of the Ages with His Father and the Spirit; He is the Lord God of the Old Testament who gave the Law and told the Prophets what to write; He came personally to this Earth, becoming one of us, to fulfill everything He said He would do; and He will return again to finish everything He said would happen. He is the Beginning and the Ending of our whole story. 

who for the joy set before Him 

What was this joy? We read in His High Priestly prayer: Father, I will, that they also, who You have given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory ... (John 17: 24). He came to be with us where we are, now He wants us to be with Him where He lives, and to share in His glory. 

There was only one way we could do that--for Him to cleanse us and make us new. For Him to: 

endured the Cross, despising the shame, 

Jesus asked three times in the Garden of Gethsemane for the Father to not make Him go through this, if there could be any other way. But He knew there was no other way. This was the Plan, and He had agreed to it. He was the only one who could do it. So He submitted His will to the Father's will, and did it.

and has sat down at the right hand of the Throne of God. 

He became for a little while lower than the Angels, and submitted Himself to be executed as a criminal, taking our place in death to pay our debt in full. Now He is risen to the glory of Almighty God, to rule at the Right Hand of God the Father on His Throne. 

For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Think about how much Jesus had given up, and how much He suffered; we will never have to face or endure even a tiny fraction of what He went through. And He did it. So He will also strengthen us to be able to go through whatever we may face in this life.

You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 

His readers have not yet faced such harsh persecution as to be put to death yet. So they and we need to steel ourselves now before the hard persecution hits, so we will be strong to not break or waver when it comes. 

And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,

My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him; for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives (Job 5:17).

He is saying that what they and we are experiencing now, the stuff that the World throws at us because we are Christians, is being used by God in our lives to discipline us, to teach us to do what is right, to be strong against the wrong, with the attitude of doing what benefits all of us in the long run.

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 

It is to learn the lessons He is teaching us. But if we're not experiencing anything like slander or malicious gossip or other adversities, then maybe we need to examine if we really are born into His family, because:

But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 

God is our good Father, He is a perfect Father, who only has our good in mind.

Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 

Our human fathers tried to teach us to do right, and we respect them for it, because that showed their love and care for us. How much more does God Love us and care for us?

They disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 

Our fathers sometimes disciplined us for selfish reasons, too, in anger or looking only at their own reputation. God doesn't need to worry about His reputation, He will take care of that; He is looking to mold and make us into the image of His Son, who shares His glory. And He wants us also to share in the glory of His authority, as His kings and queens, governing under King Jesus.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; 

Yeah, it hurts!

yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

But if we take it to heart and see it as learning to do better, then we won't have to go through that lesson again, going on to the next one. And when we're learning everything He wants to teach us, then we'll be a force of good in the World around us, promoting the peace that comes from doing right. And we will eventually be prepared to graduate, and be awarded our rewards and our positions in glory.

Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak, and the knees that are feeble.
And make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. 

Don't look down on one another because we're not perfect yet! We all have weaknesses in different areas. Hands, knees, feet, are all different parts of the body with different abilities. If I am strong in one area, I'm probably weak in another. And you are, too. 

So we are to help one another: where I am strong and you are weak, then I am to strengthen you in that area; and you can help me where I'm weak and you are strong.  

Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. 

We need to try to get along with everyone, as far as we can, without compromising the Truth that leads to the Lord. Our witness is powerful, in that no one can argue that we didn't have the experience of being confronted by the Lord. Only explanations and interpretations are subject to dispute.

But sanctification as spoken of here has the definition:

to make holy; set apart as sacred; consecrate.

to purify or free from sin.

So unless we are purified and freed from all sinfulness, we are unable to see the Lord God. He is so pure that not even a shadow of a stain of any sin can stand before Him without being consumed. That's why Jesus came. To purify us.
 
See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; 

We must all examine ourselves to make sure that we understand and apply to our thinking processes to be able to reason through the whole Grace idea: that it is a free gift from God that we can do nothing at all to earn. 

that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;

Be careful that any resentment or anger or disappointment be dealt with; so it won't fester into a root of bitterness that would cause the kind of trouble that draws others away into error.

That there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal. (Read Genesis 25: 29-34 for this story.) 

Esau is called godless because he had no regard for the promise God gave to him in being the first-born of his father Isaac. He didn't care if the Messiah would come from him or not, he didn't care about God at all. He was godless.
 
For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. (Genesis 27: 34 tells us this.) 

He found no place for repentance, because he couldn't change the past. He had already legally bartered away his birthright, and that bargain stood. So he could not have the blessing, either, that went with the birthright. 

Even though Isaac didn't know Esau had thought the birthright was worthless, God did. Then, when Esau wanted the blessing of material prosperity, it wasn't available to him, having already rejected the spiritual promise. 

This is a strong warning to us, too. Although Jesus' Blood cleanses us of all sinfulness, we still live in this World, and the consequences of past choices and decisions still affect us. We still suffer the results of bad decisions we make, so we need to be careful to make good decisions. 

God uses these consequences to teach us to make better choices in life. And the great cloud of witnesses who are watching how we are doing, are, doubtless, cheering us on to do right. Even though they don't do anything to affect anything here any more, they can still "sit in the stands" and root for us.

When we realize this, we can take their encouragement as an extra incentive to do right and make our choices in life with godly wisdom. 

O my Father, You are such a wonderful Father to us! You Love us with Your unconditional Love that wants only good, the very best, for each of us, and You were willing to pay the highest price for us! 

O Father, help us to understand Your great Love! Help us to comprehend how huge and magnificent is Your power and authority, and how enormous is Your Being! This whole Universe You made resides inside You, we are Your imagination--if You were not thinking about us, we would not exist! 

Father, You have told us all the stories of those who went before us, that would teach us the consequences of the kind of decisions we make. You have demonstrated for us in these ancient people how good choices bring great blessing, and how foolish choices produce suffering and poverty and sicknesses. 

You want us to cooperate with how You made this Earth to work, so that we would build our World on it rightly. But we, as a human race, were deceived into all kinds of detours and side-roads that lead away from the good You want for us. 

But when we reject the spiritual dimension, or embrace "the dark side" instead of Your Light, then we build our World in unrighteousness, and suffer the consequences as a society. 

You save us one-by-one, because You see each one of us. But when You have saved each one out of each society who seek You, then You will judge that Nation. Not just as You have in the past, as Nations have vanished from the rolls of history; but with the Sword of the Spirit that proceeds from the mouth of King Jesus, His Word that cuts them into ribbons. (see Revelation 19: 11-18, and 14: 20.) 

Father, help Your children to discern what is worldly from what is godly. This World we built here, and our enemy who works against us, and our own human flesh, all three of these do their darndest to draw us off that straight and narrow path You have set our feet upon. 

Teach us Your ways, Father; even down to the most subtle shade of good, compared to the foolishness that resides in our own hearts. 

Hold my hand firmly, Father, that I will learn all the nuances of Your will for me, to walk confidently in Your footsteps. 

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!