Looking to Jesus

The pastor's message is about the importance of looking to Jesus and not relying on new ideas or self-improvement schemes. He emphasizes that the simple gospel is the answer to life's complexities and that truth exists apart from personal opinions. He highlights the faith of Old Testament figures who believed in the promises of God and encourages his listeners to do the same. The pastor emphasizes the need to have faith in Christ as the fulfillment of God's promises. The following message is brought to you by the people of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. For more information, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org. And now, here's Pastor Jason Booth with the message. Hebrews chapter 12, and we're going to consider a couple of verses. And as we do, I will probably refer back to previous verses in the chapter leading up to it, but our main focus will be on the verses that we will read together. In Hebrews chapter 12, the title of my message this morning is Looking to Jesus. Looking to Jesus. If I could say anything to you about the gospel, it would be this. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. And of course, as the Lord gives us strength, we can now begin to unravel what that phrase means in more full measure this morning as we go before Him during this time of preaching. And so let us read Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, the word of the living God. 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. And we pray the Lord would add His own blessings to the public reading of His holy and inspired word for our good and for His glory. Amen. Amen. It is interesting this time of year. And if you read the article that I wrote in this week's edition of our newsletter, you'll know that this is the time of year people begin to ask questions about what they can do to change their circumstances. How can I become a better me in 2023? How can I give more in 2024? How can I, I don't know, thrive in 2025? And you know as well as I do, the New Year's resolutions are going to fly in and fly out in about three to six weeks after the first of the year. And I don't have a new resolution for you. All I can tell you is that we should be resolute in the timeless truth. We need no new resolution. We need no new fangled idea of self-improvement or some new scheme to make us better. In fact, I think the reason the American church world suffers so greatly is because men and women are constantly trying to improve on an already perfect gospel. They're trying to add their own two cents. Well, now if we paint our churches jet black and pump them full of fog and wear tight enough skinny jeans, then people will quote unquote choose Jesus. Well, no, beloved, they won't. In fact, they might choose your romper room. They might choose to go to the rock concert you call a church service. But are you preaching the truth? Are you resolute? Are you looking to the author and finisher of the faith? Or are you looking to something else or someone else? You see, once we take our eyes off of Jesus, everything we call gospel unravels into nonsense. And so the scripture here, the writer of Hebrews calls us not to think up or drum up new ideas, not to put our hope and confidence in things outside of Christ, but rather to look to Christ, the author and finisher. The ESV says the perfecter of our faith. One day I will see him as he is. And beloved, perfect faith is realized when faith shall be no more. Because we will see him as he is. I'm thankful that the Lord is the author, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Why would we need look to anything else, to anyone else? Now, I've picked on the hipster church movement. And mind you, I'm sure it's not all bad. I'm sure the motivations aren't all nefarious. But I also know that when well-intentioned men reached up to grab hold of the Ark of the Covenant as it was sliding off that ox cart, they too thought that they were doing God a service. Saul of Tarsus thought he was doing God a service when he went out to persecute God's own people. There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is destruction. Look to Jesus. Now, this isn't some Luddite call to turning our back on society. I'm telling you that we live in a society that believes itself too complex for the simple gospel. I'll give you a few examples. There's such confusion in our society about basic things. Things that we would once consider passé or common knowledge are now debated in open forum. Men and women are living in a world where certain voices are telling them that you can decide and make up your own reality. Truth itself is under attack in a world with no absolutes. Ironically, the same people who say there are no absolutes are making an absolutist statement and declaring there are no absolutes. The lunacy of it all is mind-boggling. And so, when we look at this old, old story and we tell people Jesus is the answer, they look at you like you're foolish, like, oh, you child, you simpleton, you Sunday school fable-believing silly little person. My problems are too complex for your simple little gospel. And people will say, now, now, we live in a more modern, more refined world. We need an answer to these problems that is more robust than the simple old gospel. And I will tell you that the greatest lie that anyone will ever believe is that your problems or that your circumstances are too great for God. This is a lie that men have believed for centuries, for millennia. Think of this. The children of Israel were standing in that valley plain looking at the entire Philistine army arrayed in their splendor. And here comes their champion, Goliath. This monster of a man, eight, ten feet tall, depending on how big a cubit is. If your arm's a little shorter than mine, then a cubit goes from your elbow to your fingertips. He was so many cubits and a span tall. This man was eight to ten feet tall. Anyway, you slice it. And the average height of a man in that ancient Bronze Age was maybe four foot ten, maybe five foot. This was a man that towered over them. And the people of God were afraid. And what did God do to confound the wise? He sent in a shepherd boy with a handful of stones and a strap of leather to destroy the problem that was facing His people. This insurmountable, complex problem that they didn't have an answer for. Let me tell you, the answer is Christ. He'll always confound the wise. We don't know what truth is. Augustine once said, Where I find truth, there I find my God. Truth exists in this world. And it is not ours to claim. People will say, this is my truth. There's no such thing as your truth. There is such thing as your perception, your experience. There's such thing as your life circumstances. But beloved, truth is by necessity truth all its own. It stands as reality itself stands. Apart from the opinions and qualms of man or woman. The gospel is that simple answer to all of life's problems. Because beloved, there's a simplicity to all this complexity. We think we're so refined, don't we? We're so complex, aren't we? Yes, yes, yes. No, we're not. We are creatures of sin and shame. And we always will look for those things that bring us maximum pleasure with minimal effort. Oh, we're so complex. I think... No, correction. I know that we think too highly of ourselves. The answer is Christ. What is this preacher telling you? Look to Christ. Now, he says in this text that there's a great cloud of witnesses that attest to the validity of these claims. And if you read throughout Hebrews, you'll see that all the way back in chapter 11, verse 4, you see that Abel is listed in this litany of the faithful. Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. And why did he do that? Verse 4 of chapter 11 says that Abel did this by faith. And so we go on and on and on. Verse 8, I'm skipping around just a little, but verse 8 of chapter 11 says that by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. Abraham did this by what? By faith. Now, these men, and let's just add a woman. Why not? Verse 11, by faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive. She was an older lady outside of the typical lifespan criteria of childbirth. And God gave her a child by faith. You see, there's a thread that ties all this together. They all had faith. Faith in who? In the object. What was the object of their faith? The promises of God. And who is the greatest fulfillment of God's promises? Christ. Christ is the fulfillment of the great promise. And we look to Him just as all of these Old Testament saints did. And the Bible says in verse 13 of 11 that all these died in faith, not having received a thing's promise, but having seen them and greeted them from afar. Oh, don't you know that when the Lord's people hear the truth of the Gospel, they lovingly accept it. I tell people all the time, you might not know every single in and out of every single doctrine, but if you belong to God in His good times, you're going to receive the truth of His Word. You're going to receive all of the doctrines that you don't even understand right now. You're going to be just fine with them. And why is that? Because all of the promises of God are yes and amen. And you're going to greet those saints, even as the Old Testament saints did, from afar. You're going to see them. And the Bible says that Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him as righteousness. By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, verse 17, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son. Abraham, by faith, was willing to sacrifice his own son. But of course, we know that God provided a ram in the thicket. But by faith, Abraham was willing to do that which God called him to do. And so on and on through chapter 11, we see vignettes of the faithful who've come before us. They all believed the simple promise of God. They sought that city whose builder and maker was God. And by faith, they were accounted as righteous. And through the millennia, God's people have believed this old story. What have they done? They've looked to Jesus. The Old Testament saints looked forward to the day Jesus would come. The New Testament saints. You and I, we look back to the cross of Calvary where it all, the Bible says, was consummated with the blood of Jesus Christ right there when He said, It is finished. And in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. Hallelujah. The old, old story. Listen, this world thinks itself awfully high, awfully complex, but the answers are simple. Look to Jesus and live. Look to Jesus and live. Our Lord said, if I be lifted up, I will draw men unto Me. Our Lord says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me. And beloved, there is one mediator, one advocate between God and man, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so today, our privilege is to look at this so-called complex world with all of its complex problems, with all of its new ways of doing old sin, and we look to Christ as our rest. We've talked about this for many, many years. You will never live sinlessly in this world. And I'm not calling you to hold your nose up when you're around people that perhaps sin differently than you do. Oh, they're real sinners because they commit sins that I don't commit. Isn't that convenient? Well, what's stopping them from saying the same thing about you? So we treat people well. No one should be barred from walking through those doors on a Sunday morning to come and hear the gospel. Now look, I don't care what kind of life they live. I don't care what they think truth is or isn't. No one should ever be barred from coming into a place like this to hear the gospel because everyone has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We all need to hear the old, old story. This simple answer to all of life's problems, as it were. This answer that brings heaven down to man. This answer that washes away sin. No one should be barred from coming in to hear this message. If this church were filled with women of the night, I don't care. Let them come to church. What, is it going to be a scandal? No, it's not. They need to hear the gospel. You think you've sinned too much. You've gone too far for the grace of the Lord in Christ to do any good for you. You're wrong. He's the Lord of glory. Though your sins be as scarlet, they can be as wool. Should the Lord desire? Should the Lord in His holy decree from time immemorial put His love upon you? Let me tell you that if you believe the gospel, there was never a moment in time wherein God did not have His love set upon you. It's an eternal love, beloved. And I'll let the other brothers argue about the timing of justification. I just know this. Look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of faith. Look to Jesus. We can rest in His finished works. All of the rigmarole of this whole world. Think about it. How many of you busied yourself into a frenzy this holiday season? Don't confess. I don't need to know. We all did goofy things, right? Buying boxes and putting paper around them so that you can rip the paper off before you rip the paper of the boxes off to get to the junk you're going to throw away in two weeks. It's silliness, I know. And some of you might keep Christmas, some of you might not. And I don't care. Again, I'll let the other brothers have that argument for themselves. But isn't it nice to know that in the heat of all this stupidity, all the technology that we think in this world should make life easier, doesn't it just complicate everything? Everything we do is just complicated over and over and over again. And yet there is a simplicity in knowing that we can rest. I feel for those who go to so-called churches where they never hear anything about assurance. Where their preachers will never look at them and say, the Lord's got you in His hands and He'll never let you down. That Jesus finished the work. They're constantly telling their people that Jesus started a work that they have to finish. That's no Gospel at all. You're no longer looking to Jesus if you're looking to your works. By definition, you are not looking to Christ if you're looking at your own work. And the Scripture calls us to be a people that look to Jesus. Why? Because He is the founder and perfecter of faith. Are you the perfecter of faith? Are you going to finish it off? No. Neither am I. And the Scripture then says this to God's people. Here is our task. Are you ready? Because we've seen so many witnesses who've come before us, Sarah believed the promise of God. And she was counted righteous. Abraham believed the promises of God and he was counted righteous. Abel, by faith, sacrificed that more acceptable sacrifice. Why? Because he believed God and was accredited and imputed and called righteous by the work of God. They all looked forward to the day. We look back to the day. But we're all called in light of these witnesses to lay aside every weight. This is a daily, continual thing. A battle that we struggle and fight with. There's no reason why you can't fight and struggle with your sin. I've never told you one time from this podium that you ought to just wallow in all sin that you can come up with. That's not the gospel way. But rather, recognize sin. And what's the best way to recognize sin? I love this analogy. A bank teller isn't given thousands of counterfeit bills to count through to see and to learn about counterfeit money. A bank teller handles so much real currency that when they see something phony coming down the pike, they can steal it. But they know it's not right because they've exposed themselves to so much of the genuine article. Beloved, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. If you want to wage that war against this old flesh, then saturate your life with the word of God. Most of us in this room would gladly sit and watch a three-hour football game. Or maybe a two-and-a-half-hour basketball game or a four-hour baseball game, especially if it's a World Series. For my European friends, you might go and see a football match for many hours at a time. And there's a lot of folks in the Christian world that won't spend even 20 minutes a week studying the Scriptures. How are you going to get good at anything if you don't study it, if you don't look at it, if you don't ponder it? Study to show yourselves approved, beloved. And what is the task at hand? The task at hand is to struggle to lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely. Notice it doesn't say it used to cling closely. It says it clings closely. So as we live in this world, we look at the great cloud of witnesses who've come before us. We see and we know the faithfulness of God in Christ. We are now called to lay aside these sins, to fight, to consciously consider what we can do in Christ to please Him. Remember, this is a reply of faith. This doesn't give us assurance, but assured people look to Christ and they look at their own heart and they confess their sins. The Bible says these sins that cling so closely. Boy, that tells me that they're going to be a fight. They're going to put up a fight until the day we die. They cling closely, don't they? And let us, then the Scripture says, run with endurance the race that is set before us. I want you to understand that if the race is set before us, then we have good works that we can walk there in. Why? Because the Father has appointed them or prepared them that we should walk there in. He set the course and now let us, with the Holy Spirit's endurance, run with patience. And as we do, what does the Bible call us to? The Bible says, look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross. This is an interesting passage of Scripture and we'll talk just for a moment about this as we close. Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross. Beloved, the cross itself was not a joyous experience for Jesus Christ. But I want you to understand the depth of His love for His people. He endured the cross because of the joy that He would have in eternity, sitting at the right hand of God, having finished the work and having gathered His people all around Him. Beloved, you were the joy set before Him. You were the joy. There's an old southern gospel song that may ring true. It says, when He was on the cross, I was on His mind. And in a very true sense, the joy set before Him was on His mind. And who comprises this joy? The shepherd who will lose no sheep takes joy in the fact that he knows his sheep. He knows how many he has. And the Bible goes further than that. God the Father knows the very numbers of hairs on your head. Don't tell me that His people aren't joy for Him. Hallelujah. The joy set before Him. Jesus saw it and He endured the cross, despising the shame and today is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Look to Jesus. This world will tell you, oh, we need more than that. Look to Jesus. The churchy world, churchianity will tell you, we need gimmicks and programs and all kinds of enticements. And I will tell you, no, preach and look to Jesus. Your life's getting too complex. Look to Christ. You delude yourself into thinking that you're somehow above or beyond the grip of His grace. You are not. Where can you flee from His presence? Ask Jonah about it sometime. He says, if I descend into the very belly of hell, there you are. You can't run from Him. Aren't you glad that you can't run from Him? Hallelujah. I am thankful that I'm incapable of doing any of this. This is too marvelous for me to attain. So what is left for me to do? Beloved, we're to look to Christ. Let me say it another way. We are to simply stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. I am thankful to know that I have a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before me. And I'm thankful that by God's grace, you and I will be a cloud of witnesses to the coming generation, should the Lord tarry. But it's not a testimony to our faithfulness. It's a testimony to God's faithfulness. For He took a ragtag group of people like us, and He secured our redemption on Calvary's tree, and He perfected us when He glorifies us one day. We're going to be completely perfect. And in the meantime, He who beginneth the good work in you shall be faithfully completed until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look to Jesus, beloved. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. And we'll give God the glory and the praise forever. Amen. Amen. You have just heard a message from Pastor Jason Deutze of Redeemer Church of Piketon, Ohio. To learn more about the good news of Jesus, please visit RedeemerPiketon.org.