Christ is the ultimate example of running the race with endurance; John 15:10.

Title: Christ is the ultimate example of running the race with endurance; John 15:10.

 

John 15:9 "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

 

How do I continue to abide in His love?

 

John 15:10"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love.

 

 “keep” - tereo[tereo - aorist active subjunctive] = to guard something that belongs to you as precious. “commandments” = Bible doctrine has been graciously given to every believer.

 

 “commandments” - evntolh,[entole - accusative feminine plural noun] = an order, a command, a charge, an injunction. The feminine means that commands respond to your use of them.

 

Every doctrine has its own set of finite sentences. Sentences are inspired by God, verse numbers are not. When we study a doctrine a number of sentences from Scripture are used in context to convey the absolute truth of that doctrine. In every sentence there is a word of action, or what we call a verb. The verbs associated with any doctrine can take on one of six moods.

 

 

There are six moods of Greek verbs: indicative, subjunctive, imperative, participle, infinitive, and optative (very rarely used in the NT).

 

Every doctrine is full of these and within them are the imperatives which are the commands, of which there are over 400 in the NT.

 

The commands alone would be somewhat meaningless to us without the supporting material of the other verbs, and this would most likely lead to legalism.

 

If I pulled out all the commands of the NT and read them you would probably go home condemned and ready to quit.

 

All the other verbs and their sentences are the supporting cast to the imperatives, so by guarding imperatives we guard them all. Without the supporting cast the imperative seems tyrannical rather than a divine remedy for slavery.

 

“Are you able to drink the cup that I’m about to drink?”

 

Luke 22:41-42

And He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, "Father, if Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Thine be done."  

 

 

 

We are not asked to pay for the sins of the world, but we are asked to submit to the will of the Father by guarding His commands, which refers to all categories of doctrine, just as He did with total submission and humility. We are not asked to drink His cup. That cup was for Him alone. We are asked to be willing. We are asked to have a yieldedness to drinking the cup that the Father has designed for each of us.

 

HEB 12:1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance [rebound and PVTD], and the sin [OSN] which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance [PVTD in all circumstances of prosperity and adversity] the race [marathon and not a sprint] that is set before us

 

HEB 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author [archegos - hero, originator, captain, Prince-Ruler] and perfecter of faith [fulfiller of doctrine], who for the joy set before Him [fulfilling the Father’s plan and bringing many sons to glory] endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

 

“having occupation with Christ, the Prince-Ruler and fulfiller of doctrine, who…”

 

Before I move on I want to impress upon you the reason for this place. The local assembly is the classroom of doctrine that produces invisible heroes. The invisible heroes are going to be the ones who are hot on the heels of the growth of the pastor. This means that when it gets technical the future invisible hero gets technical. When it gets euphemistic he enjoys the euphemism. When it gets challenging he accepts the challenge. When doctrines become 20 to 30 hours long he girds up and perseveres with patience to absorb the whole realm of that doctrine.

 

The local assembly is not a place to play church or to go through the motions. This is the classroom that is going to equip you with the accurate and clearly framed doctrine that will change your very thinking into the image of Christ (which I will repeat again and again), to the fullness or completeness of His stature. As we will see, the positive believer becomes the aggressor in his own conflict because he is an applier of the doctrine he has learned. The imperatives become the bugle call in battle.

 

 “for” - avnti,[anti] = instead of, in the place of.

“set before” - pro,keimai[prokeimai] = present

“Him” - auvto,j[autos] = His

“joy” - cara,[chara] = the perfect happiness of Christ

 

So it must be translated:

 

 “who instead of His present happiness” - In His deity He had perfect happiness and in His humanity He had completed happiness from doctrine. The cross was substituted for the place of both for three earthly hours.

 

He will be separated from His own deity as well as from the Father.

 

The misery of the cross was substituted for the happiness that Christ always experienced.

 

In the envelope of this misery He endured the cross, but what gave Him the power to endure such misery? 

 

 “endured” - u`pome,no[hupomeno] = to stay under, to endure, to bare. PVTD gave our Lord the ability to endure the three hours of substitutionary spiritual death misery on the cross.

 

This word “endure” in this passage always has the same technical connotation.

 

It means Bible doctrine in the soul meeting every exigency, every problem, every heartache, every adversity, and every blessing.

 

That same Bible doctrine is the capacity for blessing as it is the ability to endure adversity.

 

And He didn’t despise or hate the shame, rather He laid it aside.

 

 “despising [kataphroneo = to think down upon, to disregard, to look at with contempt] the shame” - disregarding the disgrace.

 

Romans would crucify criminals naked. Christ was beaten physically more than any man in history and as such He is displayed publically naked. Kataphroneo tells us that His attitude was, “So what that I am disgraced, the strategic victory in the AC is far more important.”

 

It doesn’t say that He hated the shame or disgrace of the cross. It says that He disregarded it. The shame was not as important to Him as the victory and so He endured a time when misery was a substitute for His perfect happiness.

 

Doctrine gave Christ the capacity to endure the misery. Doctrine gave Christ the capacity for agape love, which motivated Him to lay down His lifehappiness as a substitute for you.

 

The Lord maintained His perfect happiness right up to the cross and through the first three hours of the cross, from 9am to noon. From noon to 3pm, for the first time in all of time and eternity, and for the only time, His happiness was lost and for it, as a substitute, misery replaced it. He was alone, separated from God and separated from His own deity, and being judged for disgraceful things He did not do.

 

And all of it was accomplished by means of doctrine and the plan of the Father. Imagine the power that is contained in God’s system!

 

Corrected translation: HEB 12:2

 “having occupation with Christ, the Prince-Ruler and fulfiller of doctrine, who instead of His present happiness endured the cross, disregarding the disgrace, and [as a direct result] has sat down [perfect - and will always have this position of authority] at the right hand of the throne of God.

 

The key word in this verse is “anti” which is poorly translated as “for.”

 

 “for” - avnti,[anti] = instead of, in the place of.

 

Hold your place and go back to Matt 20 and see if you remember this verse and now see if you realize why I repeat and repeat passages.

 

Again, we have mom asking for her sons to be promoted and then the question, “Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”

 

Matt 20:25 But Jesus called them to Himself, and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.

 

Matt 20:26 "It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant,

 

Matt 20:27 and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave;

 

Matt 20:28 just as [Christ’s example used again] the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. "

 

 “His life a ransom for many” - yuch.n auvtou, lu,tron avnti, pollwn” psuchen [soul] autou [of His] lutron [price for redemption] anti [in the place of] pollon [many, numerous, great] = “His life as the price of redemption in the place of the numerous.”

 

The Lord’s life is here not bios which would refer to His physical life nor is it zoe which would refer to His lifestyle of spiritual maturity, but rather it is psuche which refers to His soul and everything within it.

 

The cross will substitute our Lord’s spiritual life, happiness, communion with the Father, and His own communion with His deity, as He is identified with the sins of the numerousworld.

 

There is an mental attitude, a momentum, a spiritual maturity, a plan under the filling of the HS that He guarded His entire life during  the first Advent so that He would have the power through agape love to do this, and “just as” or in the same fashion we will become the servant and slaves of others.

 

I didn’t say you must become, but I did say you will become, and not dying for the sins of the world, having the same attitude [Phil 2], momentum [endurance Heb 12], spiritual maturity [Eph 4], and execution of the plan under the filling of the HS [John 15] to gain power through agape love.

 

If you guard doctrine in your soul and protect your positive volition amidst all the distractions and oppositions and reach spiritual maturity, then this will be your attitude since it is God’s attitude.

 

To many in the world this attitude is weak, but that is only because they are under the influence of the ruler of the kosmos.