How to Run When Running Is Hard
So I don’t think I’ve ever started a sermon before by telling you its title … most of the time if my sermon has a title it’s an afterthought — but today’s different. I’d like to call this sermon on Hebrews 12, verses 3–11, “How to Run When Running Is Hard.”
And the reason I want you to know the title is because I want you to keep in mind that everything said in these verses is connected back to verses 1–2 (which we looked at last week) on running with endurance. And it’s all meant to be practical. The writer of Hebrews is going to take us deep into the meaning of suffering in verses 5–11, but the whole thing is still about our endurance in faith. And to that end, the writer wants us to do three things:
Get perspective to keep running (v. 3)
Get perspective by remembering what Jesus suffered (v. 4)
Get perspective by remembering God’s fatherly discipline (vv. 5–11)
Those are the three points. Let’s pray again:
Father in heaven, thank you for your Holy Scriptures. Thank you that you address us through your Holy Scriptures. And thank you for your discipline. In Jesus’s name, amen.
1) Get perspective to keep running (verse 3)
Now why am I saying this? Where do I get this idea of perspective? Well this all has to do with verse 3.
Action: Think Carefully About Jesus
Look at verse 3 again:
“Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself…”
This is the action; it’s what we do. We consider Jesus.
And right away I want you to draw a connection between verse 3 here and verse 2. Two of the same ideas are repeated. In verse 2 the writer told us that in our running, as we run with endurance, we look to Jesus, the founder and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross…
Note two concepts in verse 2: looking to Jesus and enduring the cross.
Now they show up again in verse 3:
“Looking” to Jesus (or fixing our eyes on Jesus), is not just repeated, but it’s intensified. Verse 3 tells us to consider him. This is the only time this particular word is used in the New Testament. It means to think very carefully about something. It’s to examine. So we’re running, fixing our eyes on Jesus (verse 2). And now we’re thinking very carefully about Jesus (verse 3). And it’s about his endurance …
In verse 2 the writer tells us that Jesus endured the cross.
In verse 3 he uses the same word and tells us that Jesus endured “from sinners such hostility against himself.”
So let’s put this together: verse 3 is the same way of thinking we saw in verse 2, but now it’s just that the writer focuses in more. He zooms in. We think carefully about Jesus, and in particular, we think carefully about his endurance in the face of hostility.
Now, look at the second part.
Purpose: To Keep Running
We do that for a purpose — second part of verse 3 — Consider Jesus … so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.
To “not grow weary or fainthearted” is still working in that running metaphor from verses 1–2. These words mean exactly what they say in English — weary means to be weary, it’s to be tired and worn-out; faint-hearted means your heart is gonna faint — and both of these are what could happen to anybody who does endurance running. Runners get exhausted … and sometimes they don’t make it.
In fact, fascinatingly, one commentator says that in ancient Greek these words were used to describe the condition of runners who collapse from fatigue after running. We have evidence of these words being used to describe runners who drop — and the writer of Hebrews does not want that for these Christians … or for us.
He doesn’t want us to drop. We wants us to keep running, to endure, to make it — that’s why he tells us to think carefully about Jesus — Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, the one who has run before us, who is our example — Think carefully about Jesus and the suffering he endured.
That’s verse 3, and now the writer is going to elaborate on this in verse 4, but first, I want you to see that, in general, the writer is saying that what we need to keep running is perspective. We need to do something with our eyes. We need to see things a certain way. Perspective really does makes a difference.
Perspective Matters
I remember when I was a kid I used to love this one picture book about a bug — and I cannot find the title of this book; I looked for it online this week and had no luck (apparently there’s a trillion children’s books about bugs) — but this one picture book I loved, it tells the story of a bug that goes on this long, epic journey. And each page of the book features a different part of the journey, and this bug is going over stuff and under stuff and through stuff, and there were challenges at every turn. I remember it was full of adventure and trial and courage, and finally, by the end of the book, the bug makes it to his destination. He’s arrived and safe and it’s amazing! But then the last page of the picture book zooms out and it shows a little garden in someone’s backyard, maybe 30 feet wide.
This bug’s epic journey was just from one end of the garden to another. And man, this made an impression on me as a kid, because I remember thinking that the bug really didn’t go that far, at least not from my perspective, but from his perspective — he almost didn’t make it!
Objective reality is that he went 30 feet, but 30 feet is a long ways for a bug. Just like 15 years is a long life for a dog. And 2000 years is a long span of time for us.
Perspective makes a difference. And when it comes to our running with endurance, for us to endure, to not grow weary or fainthearted, to not drop, we need the perspective that comes from thinking carefully about Jesus.
In particular, we need to get that perspective by remembering what Jesus suffered (verse 4).
2) Get perspective by remembering what Jesus suffered (verse 4)
Verse 4,
“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”
Now why does the writer say this? It seems kind of jolting, doesn’t it? He’s telling us to consider Jesus and all of a sudden he says: and you’ve not suffered as badly as Jesus did!
When I read this, I think: Okay, man. Easy. Where did that come from? And then he starts talking about how God disciplines us — if I’m honest, the intensity of verse 4 does not appear to be overtly natural to the flow of the text, at least not in a first reading. Because we go from this 1st-person plural encouragement in verses 1–2, to a sudden 2nd-person semi-rebuke in verse 4 — so what is going on here?
Here’s what I think it is…
Remember that the writer is speaking to real Christians in the early church who were being tempted to forsake Jesus. There were some who were dropping from the race, or on the verge of dropping, and do you know what they were saying?
They were saying:
All this running makes my side hurt!
It’s taking too long and I’ve got blisters on my feet!
I’m exhausted from laying aside all these weights!
I’m so tired of this struggle against sin!
In other words, they were gonna stop running because the race felt too hard — Why’s it gotta be so difficult? — that’s the question they were asking.
And we know that question, because there are times we’ve asked it too:
Why does the Christian life have to be so difficult?
Why is God’s call on my life so uncomfortable?
How do I run with endurance when the running is so hard?
Well, the writer of Hebrews is anticipating that kind of question, and so that’s what he starts to answer in verse 4. And basically, the way to categorize verses 4–11 is that it’s a defense of why the Christian life is so difficult.
The Antagonizomai Is Real
Right away in verse 4, the writer acknowledges that the running is hard. He says, “in your struggle against sin.” That word for “struggle” is another word that’s only used once in the New Testament. It’s the Greek word antagōnizomai. And it means exactly what our English word “antagonism” means. It’s active hostility. We’re not friends with sin, we’re fighting against it. We’re resisting it (which is another word in verse 4). That word means we’re actively opposing something. These are heavy verbs. The antagōnizomai is real.
And sometimes it’s overwhelming, and we get fed up with it. And the writer of Hebrews is saying to us in verse 4:
Yeah, I get that the running is hard. Enduring in faith is hard. But don’t get too far down that road of thinking. Get perspective here. Remember what Jesus went through, because Jesus suffered worse than you.
He is saying that in verse 4,
“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”
You have not suffered the way Jesus did: He sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane as he agonized about the suffering of the cross; he was scourged repeatedly by Roman soldiers with a whip that shredded his skin and left him unrecognizable; large thorns were beaten into his head; nails were driven into his hands and feet.
There was a lot of blood.
Any of y’all ever seen the movie The Passion of the Christ? There’s the scene of Jesus’s crucifixion — and I know it’s a movie, but it’s supposed to be pretty historically accurate to what a crucifixion looked like. They really nailed him on the cross, and then they hoisted him up on this thing. And it was Jesus with just blood everywhere.
And the writer of Hebrews would say, “Look, I know the running is hard. But you haven’t done that.”
Get perspective by remembering what Jesus suffered. Compare your suffering to his and know that he had it worse.
Comparing Suffering?
And this gets a little uncomfortable, doesn’t it? I didn’t think we were supposed to compare suffering. Is it okay to think that someone’s suffering is worse than another’s? Shouldn’t we think it’s just equal suffering for everyone? Well of course that’s not true.
In general, we should be very cautious to compare suffering, but that is what the writer tells us to do here. So how should we think about this?
What is the right position when it comes to comparing suffering?
Here it goes. Track with me:
We should not compare suffering if the result is to suggest that our suffering is worse than someone else’s. But, we may compare suffering if it reminds us that someone elses’s suffering is worse than ours — because that’s perspective.
A negative example of this reminds me of an experience I had in college. My baby cousin passed away at 5 months old, and she spent most of her life at Duke Children’s Hospital, in the Intensive Care Unit. My uncle and aunt were by her side everyday, and other family members would visit all the time. I went there several times, and spent a lot of time in the waiting room area, and as you can imagine, when you’re in a waiting room of a hospital, you’re surrounded by other families who have a sick child. Toward the end of my cousin’s life, there was an 18-year-old who was brought in because he suffered a traumatic brain injury, and it was later communicated to the parents of the child that he would not survive. Which is just horrible. And in this room of heaviness, one of the grieving parents of this 18-year-old said to my family, who were in their own grief, that “my cousin was only a few months old but they had invested 18 years in their son. …”
Now, no doubt that person spoke from pain, and we should be gracious when people speak from pain, and, at the same time, that was a very foolish and sick thing to say. Never keep a scorecard on how your suffering is worse than others. Never dismiss or minimize the pain of others because you think yours is worse. Can we all agree that’s wrong to do? Don’t do comparisons like that.
But, there are other times when it may serve you to remember that your suffering is not as bad as others.
We still need to be careful here, but this kind of comparison, a kind of remembering, it can give perspective … which we need, because sometimes we get all messed up over relatively small things: I can’t find my favorite sweatshirt … someone took my device and didn’t put it back … it’s rainy and cold and I feel low today … my car gotten broken into last night … my trashcan cabinet-thing in the kitchen is broken … I’m running late for my appointment … “Today is going to be the worst day of my life!” … Well, a few weeks ago Israeli babies were beheaded. … Just stop.
It doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating when people take your stuff. Doesn’t mean you can’t be irritated when you lose something. Doesn’t mean you ignore your sickness or stress or crisis or loss — no, you must pray and grieve and weep, all that — and also get perspective. There are other saints who have suffered unimaginably and God brought them through it, and that is always true in the case of Jesus. He experienced the worse, most ultimate suffering, and he endured. Verse 4 wants us to get perspective by remembering that.
Here’s the third point. We also need to …
3) Get perspective by remembering God’s fatherly discipline (verses 5–11)
Look at verse 5. Remember, the writer is giving a defense for why the Christian life is so difficult. He’s speaking to those who are running and about to drop because the running is hard, and he says, verse 5:
“And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?”
That’s the ESV — it’s translated as a rhetorical question. In some other English translations (KJV and NAS), this is put as a statement, like an indictment: YOU HAVE forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons!
Again, what’s needed is perspective. They’ve forgotten something, so they need to remember, and so the writer quotes Proverbs 3:11–12,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.”
The word “weary” here is the same word in verse 3. Don’t be weary when the running is hard.
Verse 6,
“For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
He’s saying that one way to make sense for why things can feel so difficult is because of the fatherly discipline of God. This is a reason for the difficulty: God disciplines those he loves; he chastises everyone he accepts as his child.
That’s Proverbs 3:12 in verses 5–6, and now in verse 7 the writer starts to expound what this means. He tells us that God’s discipline does three things — and this is the rest of the sermon — A-B-C …
A. God’s discipline affirms we are his children. (vv. 7–8)
Verse 7 is the great summary statement on how to apply Proverbs 3 to our suffering:
“It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.”
Notice that word “endure” again:
Run with endurance, verse 1.
Jesus endured the cross, verse 2.
Jesus endured hostility from sinners, verse 3.
Verse 7: We are to endure ‘whatever it is we have to endure’ as God’s discipline.
This is really important because it gets to the question: What exactly is God’s discipline?
How do I know when something is God’s discipline or not?
Is God’s discipline a response to my sin?
How do we think about this?
Well this passage doesn’t specify that God’s discipline is one thing and not another; and this passage does not say God’s discipline is because of our sin — now discipline could be corrective discipline in that way; sometimes God disciplines us because of our sin, but it’s not always like that, and here’s a danger to beware: If you think discipline is only God’s response to your sin, then you’re gonna think that things are only hard for you because you’ve done something wrong. That’s not what this is. The word for “discipline” here is much more expansive than that. It means cultivation and guidance. It’s about how you’re being shaped.
Verse 7 says,
“It is for discipline that you have to endure.”
Endure what? Endure whatever requires endurance. Whatever is hard. God’s discipline is behind whatever we have to endure.
Verse 7 then leads us to understand that everything that is difficult in our lives, if we are God’s children, it is God’s discipline of us.
Whatever makes the running hard for you. Whether from the outside or the inside — natural disaster and emotional depression, calamity and cancer, hurricanes and headaches, persecution and sickness … broken relationships, disappointments, torn Achilles heels … whether it’s circumstantial and indirect, or someone has premeditated an attack on you for your harm — “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God — God — is treating you as sons.”
Look at the second part of verse 7:
“For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”
I like the way the New Living Translation captures this:
“Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?”
Verse 8,
“If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all.”
How bout that for perspective?! We’re over here scratching our heads about why it’s so hard, and the writer of Hebrews says that if it’s never hard it’s because you’re not really God’s children. Do you see how this perspective is so important? The people who should be scratching their heads are not the people suffering, but the people who are not suffering!
Brothers and sisters, this hard thing that you’re going through as God’s discipline of you means that is God saying to you: I am your Abba; you are my child.
God’s discipline affirms we are his children.
That was A. Here’s B …
B. God’s discipline earns our respect. (v. 9)
Verse 9,
“Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?”
Here the writer makes a comparison between our earthly fathers and God as our heavenly Father, and he’s working from the general assumption that children respect their fathers. Now, of course, the Bible commands this: in the Ten Commandments, “Honor your father and mother” (Exodus 20:12); in the New Testament, Ephesians 6:1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord [which includes fathers], for this is right.”
So the Bible commands that children should respect their fathers, but notice that the writer doesn’t cite any commands in verse 9; he just talks about this like it’s a natural expectation. Children respect their fathers — of course! That is normal and right.
And apparently it was enough of an expectation in the ancient world that the writer of Hebrews just draws from that expectation — and, get this: there are still vestiges of that expectation in our world today. Because this is just part of reality. We all know, deep down, that children should respect their fathers.
Proverbs 17:6 gives us a universal truth. It says: “the glory of children is their fathers” — which is why no matter how much your earthly father may have failed you, you still hold onto the things about him that you can be proud of. We are wired to respect, and want to respect, our earthly fathers — and if that’s true of our earthly fathers with all of their imperfections, how should we think of our heavenly Father? … who is always faithful, always patient, always kind, always generous, always present, always good — obviously he deserves our total respect. Complete trust.
That’s B. Here’s C … It’s the final thing to see about God’s discipline here in verses 10 and 11.
C. God’s discipline accomplishes a purpose. (vv. 10–11)
In verse 10 the writer continues the comparison to our earthly fathers. Earthly fathers disciplined us for a short time “as it seemed best to them” — earthly fathers are not infallible. Even the best of dads, who do the best they can, are doing what seems right to them. They (or we as dads — I feel this as a dad) — we do what we suppose to be best. We’re doing what we think is best, but we don’t have the perfect knowledge of all things with infinite, unsearchable wisdom that is joined together with absolute, irresistible power and sovereignty over all that happens. Earthly fathers can’t do that, but church, you have a Father who can.
Verse 10: you have a heavenly Father who disciplines us for our good — not a cross-your-fingers, hope-this-will-work kind of good, not a best-of-intentions kind of good, but a guaranteed, effectual good. That is, the purpose of God’s discipline is that we share in his holiness. God disciplines us for the purpose of our being conformed into the image of Jesus.
And notice that this purpose is part of the discipline itself. It’s not an afterthought. We don’t live in a world of chance and random hardship. It’s not that we are at the mercy of fate or Satan, and only after things go horrible, that’s when God gets to come in and do the best he can to repair stuff. No!
God is treating you as children. He disciplines us. Whether it is a circumstance that he orchestrates or sin that he allows, God is sovereign over the worst of it, and he will accomplish his purpose. And yes, in the moment, it seems painful rather than pleasant — God, it hurts! Let the cup pass! — it’s painful, “but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
It is for our everlasting good. Oh, to have that perspective! And to remember that one day we will — maybe not in this life, but certainly in the new creation we will sit back and be able to look at all of it and see how God was at work for our good, and we will worship him for it.
There’s an old quote from Jonathan Edwards about this. I ran across it a few years ago, and it just captured me. I wrote it down in my prayer notebook and I read it everyday. It is all about this: sovereignty, suffering, our eternal good. Edwards says:
“Every atom of the universe is managed by Christ so as to be most to the advantage of the Christian, every particle of the air and every ray of the sun, so that he in the other world [us, we in the new creation] when [we] come to see it [when we look back over everything], shall sit and enjoy all this vast inheritance with surprising, amazing joy.”
How do you run when the running is hard? Remember that. Get that perspective.
Church, keep running. We will make it. And it will all be worth it, and more.
And that’s what brings us to the Table.
The Table
If you’re here and you’ve never put your faith in Jesus, what are you doing?
Trust him right now. Give your life to Jesus Christ.
And for those of you who do belong to him, let’s give him thanks. The bread represents his body; the cup represents his blood, and when we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are remembering his death for us. We remember that we are united to him by faith. If you are, would you join us this morning at this table. The pastors will come, let us serve you.
