What does it mean to be faithful?  When we hear that question, most of us immediately think of marriage, and the vow to remain faithful in marriage. 

          And if pushed to explain what we mean by faithfulness in marriage, we would probably explain that it is a promise not to be unfaithful.  And in marriage that means not entering into a sexual relationship with someone other than one’s husband or wife.

          But isn’t this a low standard of faithfulness?  Sadly, a lot of people fail even to manage this minimum standard of faithfulness.  The statistics for marital faithfulness these days are not very encouraging, even among Christians.

          True faithfulness is much more than avoiding being unfaithful.  Think for a moment about God’s faithfulness.  To begin with, it means he will not turn his back on us.  God won’t walk out on us.  Ever.  Under any circumstances. That’s just the way God is.

          But God’s faithfulness is even more.  It is a faithfulness that means caring involvement with us.  The Psalm we read and sang earlier says “For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies.”(Psalm 57:10)  This is not minimal faithfulness, but faithfulness that is infinite.

          Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he pledged his faithfulness to his followers, and that includes us.  He gave the great commission, saying

          “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” 

          And then, he pledged his faithfulness, saying,

“And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

          God’s faithfulness is a promise to never leave us.  And even more, it is a promise to be intimately involved in our lives, day in and day out.  That is true faithfulness.

          We are also called to faithfulness.  Not just in our marriages, but in all of our relationships.  We are called to be faithful to God, and we are called to be faithful to the church.

          Being faithful requires discipline.  When you are faithful, often you do things, not because you necessarily feel like it, but because it is the right thing to do.

          In chapter 12, the writer of Hebrews likens the Christian life to a race, which requires discipline.  This chapter comes right after the great chapter about the Old Testament examples of faith, like Noah, Abraham, Moses, and many others who had faith in God. 

So as our passage in chapter 12 opens, when the writer refers to a “great cloud of witnesses,” he is referring to these Old Testament examples of faith.

          I’m going to read through this passage verse by verse and comment on each verse or section, so I invite you to follow along in your Bibles.

 ¹Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

          What the writer is doing here is encouraging us to compare our path through life to a race.  Remember that the Olympic Games had their origins in ancient Greece, and the original audience would have understood what it was like to be in a big competitive race. 

          By the time this was written, the Olympics had already been around for at least 800 years.

          If you’re going to run a race and try to win, you start by getting rid of anything that is weighing you down.  If you want to win, you have to prepare yourself.

          What might be the things that weigh us down when we set out to run the race that Jesus has marked out for us?  I think that for each of us, the answer might be different.  That’s why we need to take the time to read the Bible, pray, and reflect on how we are living our lives.

            As we read the Bible and pray, the Holy Spirit will make us aware of the things we need to change in our lives.  Often, there will be things that need to go.  There will be stuff in our lives that needs to go if we are going to run this race well.

          Then, we need a goal.  If we’re going to run a race, it helps to know where we are headed.

²Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

          Jesus is our goal.  He is the one standing at the finish line cheering for us.  He wants us to do well.  He set an example for us in everything he did.  Everyone needs heroes or examples, and Jesus is our example; -he’s our hero. 

          Jesus knew his goal, and that helped him as he endured the cross, and suffered on our behalf. 

          I don’t know how many of you have ever run a significant race.  A number of years ago—well, quite a few years actually, I ran in a ten kilometer race.  I trained for many months, just to be able to run ten kilometers, which is 6.2 miles.  It was difficult. 

          There was some pain involved.  For me, it took an enormous amount of discipline to keep on preparing for that race—not so I could win, but so that I could just run that far.  I am by no means a natural athlete.  But I did it, and yes, I felt a lot of joy in my accomplishment.

          Our Christian walk is also to be like a race.  We don’t come to Christ to become spiritual couch potatoes.  There is a race to be run.  There is a purpose for us.

³Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

 ⁴In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

          The reference here to shedding blood points to Jesus.  We may struggle, but we have not yet given our lives in that struggle, as Jesus did.  It’s not likely that any of us will suffer as Jesus did.  But we should not be amazed if we are called to suffer for our faith.

          As we keep our eyes of Jesus, our goal, we will not grow weary and lose heart in this race.  Of course, the race we’re talking about here is more like a very long marathon—it is symbolic of our entire life.

          In the next section, the writer talks about discipline.  Now, we don’t talk much about God’s discipline these days.  But the picture here is that God, as a father, does discipline us, his children.  In fact, says the writer, God disciplines us because he loves us and because we are his sons, or children.

⁵And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
   "My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
      and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
 ⁶because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
      and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

 ⁷Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?

 ⁸If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons.

 ⁹Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live!

¹⁰Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

          None of us like to be disciplined.  But have you been around a child who is rarely disciplined lately?  Usually, that is a child that you just wish would go away!  They’re annoying to have around, because their parents have not disciplined them, teaching them how to behave properly. 

          Sometimes parents think they are doing their child a favor by going easy on them.  But in the long run, the child is the one who suffers, because people simply don’t want to be around them very much. 

          God does not want his children to be undisciplined.  He wants to teach us to live our lives well.  So when we go through difficult times, we can think of it as God’s discipline that has a purpose.  God is teaching us something through the hard times, if we will only pay attention.

¹¹No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

          I think for most of us, self-discipline is the hardest.  Long ago, I discovered that it was a lot easier to tell one of my kids they could not have a cookie than it was to tell myself I couldn’t have a cookie. 

          As a parent, I had pretty clear ideas about what my children should eat and when.  So when that cookie was inappropriate, I could say no.  But when I know that I don’t need any cookies, it’s a lot harder for me to say no to myself.  

          Maybe cookies are not your issue, but undoubtedly you have your issues, too.  Verse 10 is one you might want to memorize.  Let me read it again.

¹¹No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

          Discipline means doing the right thing at the right time in the right way.  Generally speaking, we know what is right to do.  It’s just that there is a spoiled child within each one of us who doesn’t want to do the right thing at the right time in the right way. 

          We want to do as we please, and we naturally seek our own comfort and our own immediate gratification.  It’s not easy to always be disciplined, but in the long run it is best.

          That is what this passage is telling us is true, not just with things like eating cookies or running races, but in our spiritual lives as well.      Verse 12 encourages us to train for this race:

 ¹²Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. ¹³"Make level paths for your feet," so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

          Everyone knows that if you want to be an athlete, you absolutely need to work out.  You need to “strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.”  In the same way, we who want to win the race that Jesus has set before us also need to prepare ourselves. 

          The spiritual disciplines of reading the scripture and prayer are the most important things we can do to spiritually “strengthen our feeble arms and weak knees.” 

          As we spend time reading the Bible and praying, God helps us grow in our spiritual walk.  It is a way of being faithful to God, who is always faithful to us.

          God calls us to be faithful, but only after he has already pledged his faithfulness to us.  I like this little story about faithfulness that was told by Mark Hatfield. 

          He tells of touring Calcutta with Mother Teresa and visiting the place that people called the "House of Dying."  There, sick children are cared for in their last days.  There was also a dispensary, where the poor would line up by the hundreds to receive medical attention.

          Watching Mother Teresa minister to these people, feeding and nursing those left by others to die, Hatfield was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the suffering she and her co-workers face daily.

He asked her, "How can you bear the load without being crushed by it?" Mother Teresa replied, "My dear Senator, I am not called to be successful, I am called to be faithful."

          We, too, are called simply to be faithful.  It’s pretty easy to get all worried about results.  But God calls us to be faithful in whatever he has called us to do. 

          We are called to lay aside the things that weigh us down, to strengthen ourselves, and to keep our eyes on Jesus, our goal.

Prayer:

Thank you, Lord, that you are always faithful to us, and we can count on your faithfulness forever.  Help us to grow in faithfulness to you and to one another. 

Help us to make time with you a priority—to spend time reading the Bible and praying, so that we will become spiritually fit.  Help us to keep our eyes on you, remembering that you are our goal. 

When we go through difficult times in our lives, remind us that you are there with us, always faithful. 

Remind us also that you can use those difficult times as a discipline that will strengthen us in our faith, and produce in us a harvest of righteousness and peace. 

Lord, when we come to the end of our lives, our prayer is that you will find us faithful.     Amen