Hebrews 12:1-2
Will I Still Love Him When His Hair Falls Out?

If you’re visiting with us this evening, we are in a series of sermons on Marriage and Family, and we’ve been looking at some fairly sensitive issues on marriage, the home, family, children, and the like.  Turn with me tonight to Hebrews chapter 12:

 “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of  the throne of God.”

  Amen. May God bless to us the reading of His holy and inerrant word. Let’s pray together.

 Our Father in heaven, as we bow this evening in Your presence as a company of Your people, and in particular this evening as families, as husbands, as wives and children; as those who are called upon to reflect something of the beauty and glory of Jesus in our human relationships, we ask for Your blessing; we ask for Your presence.  We ask, O Lord, that You would help us and we look into this passage, and as we think especially about marriage and its continuance, and we ask it for Jesus’ sake, Amen.

       Last week we were addressing what was perhaps the young, and I’m glad that one’s over, and move on to the more mature.  Now, how can you tell if you’re one of these to whom I’m referring?  Well, if you’re arms are too short to hold your reading material, it’s probably for you.  If, by the time you get your spouse’s attention, you’ve forgotten what it is you’re going to say, then this message is probably for you.  If you’re exercise regimen isn’t doing you anything anymore, it’s probably for you.

      My theme is “Growing Old Gracefully,” and “Growing Old in Marriage Gracefully.”  I’ve been reading books again, books with titles like this: Add Life to Your Years by Ted Engstrom. It’s a book which advertises real stories that reveal the amazing lives of people from 60-90 who are finishing strong.  Steve Farrar’s book, Finishing Strong, which I know some of you have read; Bob Buford’s book Game Plan, winning strategies for the second half of your life, and he also has a book he wrote earlier, Half Time; Dave and Claudia Arp The Second Half of Marriage; James Dobson’s book, Love Must Be Tough, and perhaps the sanest one of all, Wayne Mack’s Strengthening Your Marriage.  I’ve been reading some wonderful stuff this summer.

      Now let me turn to this familiar Scripture of Hebrews 12, and let me say that I certainly want to do justice to the exegesis of this passage.  I want us to see what this passage has to teach us, but I want to move very quickly from that to see what this passage has to teach us about marriage and about finishing strong in marriage.

      The book of Hebrews, as you’re well aware, is a book written to Jewish Christians who were undergoing ill treatment from fellow Jews.  It’s a letter which is urging the people of God to endure, to endure patiently, to persevere, to keep on keeping on, persevering amidst obstacles-- that’s the theme of the book of Hebrews.  Now, it’s about a lot more than that, but that will do for now.  

I. The Christian life, and marriage in particular, is a long distance race.
      That where I want to go now, with marriage in mind, persevering amidst obstacles, keeping on going, enduring.  I’m going to make three statements, the first is this: the Christian life, and this includes marriage, is a long distance race.  Now, one look at me and you’ll know I’ve never run a long distance race in my life.  And, I will be absolutely honest and say, I have no desire to.  But the Christian life, and marriage in particular, is a long distance race; it is a race that is set before us, the writer says.  And the point of the book of Hebrews is to say that the Christian life isn’t the 100 meter sprint or dash, but rather it’s more like the marathon.  It’s a race in which you have to endure what people tell me is called “the wall,” a point at which every cell in your body is telling you to stop.  It’s a pain barrier that you have to get through in order to get to the finishing line.  It’s a physical and psychological barrier.  When everything around you and everything inside of you is saying, “Stop!” the writer of  Hebrews says, “Realize this is a long distance race, you’re in it for the long haul.”  The Christian life is like the Duracell advertisement, “It keeps on going.”  And in fact, for Christian marriages, they ought to keep on going when others have stopped. 

      Now consider with me what can happen.  A couple called Nancy and Joe, and I’m quoting them, “Our twin daughters were the spark plugs that kept our family lively.  But when they left for college they took their energy and vitality with them.  Everything changed.  It was so quite.  Our marriage was stagnant, we had little in common, few things to talk about.  It’s not that either of us intentionally ignored the other, but with the demands of two very active and social children over the years, we drifted apart.”  That’s not an uncommon story.  In fact, for those of you 40-somethings, and 50-somethings, that’s all too close to home. 

      I was reading Bob Buford’s story this week; it’s a fascinating story.  He has some very interesting things and useful things to say to those who are, I think, highly successful, whatever that means.  People who have made beaucous of money, I think is what he means.  A midlife crisis is when you’ve bet the whole store on the first half of your life.  And that has a grain of truth in it that is worthy of pondering for our purposes this evening. 

      Note the theological principle of Hebrews 12, the necessity of endurance.  The word endurance has two senses.  It has an active and a passive sense.  In the passive sense it is sometimes rendered patience, and in the active sometimes perseverance.  The idea in the word that’s used here is what Americans call stickability, and what I think back home they would have called stick-to-itiveness, but whatever, the point is that the Christian life and marriage in particular, requires the most intense effort and exertion on our part.  It’s where our Calvinism can sometimes fool us into thinking that because we proclaim God as sovereign; we have nothing to do.  And, on the contrary, we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because God works in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.  How much effort do we put into the Christian life?  100%.  How much effort do we put into living the Christian life in our marriages?  100%.  Full exertion, the utmost concentration, is what the author of Hebrews is advocating here to these Christians under pressure and under trial.  And that, he tells us, will require self denial on our part. 

      Two things are mentioned: sin, of course, needs to be denied; the sin that so easily besets us or the sin that clings to us so closely, and, not only sin, but things that are legitimate in themselves but actually hinder us in the process of running this long distance race.  Try running even a long distance race in walking boots, and you’ll get the idea that the writer of Hebrews is saying here.  There are things that may not be sinful, but they are a hindrance to your perseverance.  They take your eyes away from the goal, so whether it’s sin which clings to us, or those things which hinder us in the race, we are to deny ourselves of them.

      Now, let me apply that to marriage.  Marriage is a long distance race.  Marriage is until death us do part.  It’s not, until I find someone more attractive and trade them in, like a new car.  When  your wife has born you that fifteenth child, and she isn’t the 120 pound nymphet that you married, and you hire in your office a secretary which reminds you of what she may once have looked like; marriage, men, is for the long haul.  Marriage is a long-distance race. 

      What might be that sin that so easily clings to us; that we are to get rid of in order to run this race?  Let me mention two possibilities. Let me mention two habits that can so easily form a part of our marriages especially when we are reaching that 40-something or 50-something. The first is a selfishness about communication. It happens, I think, something like this. For years, for the first half of your life, you marry, you have children, and you learn to communicate to your spouse through your children. Now that the children are gone, the silence is deafening; and you’ve grown apart and you’ve forgotten how to communicate lovingly to your spouse. And in its place has come the besetting sin of sulking, of self-pity, of moodiness, expecting your spouse to be a clairvoyant who can read your mind even before you’ve walked into the room. And perhaps you men deal with this by staying late at the office. You’ve become a workaholic and you may well once have justified being a workaholic because you were trying to climb the social ladder. And now you are justifying it because you just don’t want to go home because you have forgotten how to communicate. It’s a besetting sin that must be dealt with.

      A second one--an unrealism about expectations. You know, living in the south is a burden. Let me explain to you what I mean, and I’d better explain quickly. It’s all these manners that you have; they can be a burden to you. So to invite someone to lunch requires a maid service. And husbands, here I go again to the men, sometimes your expectations can be unreal, and sometimes your expectations go far beyond what is fair of your spouse. Maybe you walk into other people’s homes and they are like magazines, and when you come into your home, you want to see exactly the same. And very often there is an unreality about our expectations; there’s a besetting sin that needs to be dealt with. And it often comes at the midpoint when children leave home and all you have is each other again. The Christian life, and marriage in particular, is a long-distance race.

 II. The Christian life, and marriage in particular, includes a measure of opposition.
       The second thing I want us to see is that the Christian life and marriage in particular, includes a measure of opposition. That’s, of course, the context of Hebrews. That’s, of course, the main thrust of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Don’t be surprised when the trouble comes, don’t be surprised at the hostility, don’t be surprised when trouble and trial strikes. And when that strikes not just in your individual lives but it strikes in your home and in your families and in the things that are most precious to you. Don’t be surprised by that. The specifics of the Epistle to the Hebrews is that we are to expect, as Christians, to endure hardships and conflicts and difficulties.

      Now it’s a well-worn path that I won’t go down this evening and we were treading it this morning in James when Ligon was taking us through the first chapter of James--the reality of trials and difficulties in the Christian life. The point here is that opposition and difficulty is not only a fact that we need to be aware of but it is a positively dangerous thing that we need to be wary of.

      Now let me bring out two things that the writer of Hebrews brings out here, and I want to apply them to marriage. The first, and if you have your Bibles, look at verse 5. You’ve forgotten the exhortation that addresses your sons and now he quotes, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor be weary (or your translation may have fainting or lose heart) there is the possibility as we endure trials and difficulties and tensions of fainting, of losing heart, and of growing weary. That is what he describes in verse 12, “the drooping hands and weak knees” phenomenon. And he’s not describing old people, you understand, he’s describing the psychological and emotional reaction that can come in the wake of trials and difficulties. You can nurse your sorrows instead of working to overcome them, and a kind of spiritual depression and lethargy can come and inactivity, a sense of hopelessness. And in marriage an overwhelming sense that the spark has disappeared. The coexistence of two people who have become, to all intents and purposes, strangers—that’s what he’s warning us about. There is the possibility of growing weary; there is the possibility of fainting; there is the possibility of weak knees and drooping hands. Isn’t the Bible so terribly realistic?

      Is this where you are tonight in your marriage, in your relationship to your spouse?  Facing tensions, difficulties, obstacles, and you are weary and your spirit is drooping and you are at the point of fainting? 

      Now, there is a word of grace for you, there’s a word of help for you, there’s a word of exhortation for you too. Here’s the possibility. Here’s the reality that can sometimes face us.

      But there’s a second thing he warns us of, in verse 15, something which he calls the root of bitterness. “See to it that no one fails to see the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up.” Why do marriages, in particular, grow bitter? And they do. Why do elderly people sometimes get bitter? And they do. Because they nurse the belief that life’s providence has been unfair to them. It’s like kudzu.  Do you know what that can do to you? It can strangle the life force out of your soul. If you nurse bitterness, if you nurse anger—maybe your marriage isn’t what you thought it was going to be the day you married. Maybe all those dreams and ambitions that you had many of which were wrong in the first place, maybe they were never filled. Maybe you didn’t climb the social ladder that your friend did, maybe you don’t earn as much as your friend does, maybe you nurse the root of bitterness in your soul that life and providence and yes, do you hear what you’re saying, that God himself hasn’t treated you the way you think you should have been. Marriages will experience trouble because the Christian life experiences trouble. Just as a Christian will experience trials and tribulations and tensions, so they come in marriages. I don’t need to tell you that, but you need to recognize those bitter responses that have worn you down and you’ve become like a lemon—wrinkly and bitter, because you have failed and are failing to commit yourself to the one to whom once you said, “I want to grow old with you.” Do you remember the day you said that? You need to let them go. You need to let those things go. You need to learn to forgive those expectations of the past which were never fulfilled. We need a biblical realism about the dynamism of a marriage and how, in the midst of a marriage, tensions and difficulties may often come which is part and parcel of the way God is molding and shaping and fashioning us so that we may become like his son Jesus Christ; it is the evidence, Hebrew 12 tells us, that God loves us that we are being treated as His sons, that He is determined to rid us of those besetting sins.

 III. The Christian life, and marriage in particular, is to be lived looking to Jesus.
      But there’s a third thing that I want us to see here. That the Christian life, and marriage in particular, is to be lived looking to Jesus.  Now, he says, several things here about Jesus.  He says, in verse 4, something about the intensity and uniqueness of the sufferings of Jesus.  He goes on to tell us that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith.  He is the trailblazer, He is the one who goes before us, paving the way for the rest, with whom He is in union, to follow in His wake.  He was tempted and tested in every way.  He endured, seeing the prospect of future glory before Him, for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, and has sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. 

      Now, there are two things that will do for a marriage.  Looking to Jesus will do two things.  Looking to Jesus as He is described here in Hebrews 12 will do two things.  First of all, it will provide the answer to the question, “Who is in control?”  When you find yourself in the midst of immense pressure and immense tension and yes, immense frustration perhaps, the answer to the question, “Who is in control?” is “Jesus.”  Jesus in control of my life.  He is the one who has blazed a way through to heaven itself and is sitting at God’s right hand having endured through every trial and temptation of this life.  And there is no trial, and there is no temptation, and there is no difficulty, not in your marriage, not in anybody else’s marriage, that He is not in control of, that He does not have the power to resolve, because He’s king, I tell you, because He is Lord, I tell you, because He sits on the very throne of the universe, I tell you.  And in the midst of, perhaps, very, very real problems in which you may find yourselves this evening, and you’re crying out, “Is there anybody there to hear me in my difficulties?” can you hear the answer, “I am here.”  Jesus is here, and He’s sitting upon His throne in heaven.  In every trouble, in every difficulty, in every disappointment, through every hurt, Jesus is Lord and King.

      But it provides us with something else.  Looking to Jesus according to the pattern that is laid down for us here in Hebrews 12, looking to Jesus provides us with the pattern for relating in Christian discipleship to our spouse.  And that pattern is always, always the pattern of self denial. Jesus reached the right hand of God through the pattern of self denial.  In the language of Philippians 2, “He emptied Himself.”  He counted Himself of no reputation.  He did not stand upon His dignity. 

      Now, what does that say to us in marriage?  It says to us that the way to relate to each other in marriage is always a Christ like way.  It is always the way of self denial.  It is never the way of “me first.”  It is never the way of standing upon our own dignity, but considering the dignity of our spouse and of our partner.  He put you first, He put me first, and how dare we in our marriages insist that it’s got to be my way, it’s got to be my way!  You know, when you’re tempted to sulk, and men can sulk as well as women.  Oh yes they can.  They do it in different ways, but they can sulk and pout too.  When you do that, when you are tempted to do that, you are putting yourself first.  When you’re spending too much time away from home, making more money than is good for you, you’re putting yourself first.  It’s time to look to Jesus, that’s what I’m saying.  Never quit giving yourselves away.  What did you do on your wedding day?  What did you do when you stood with your wife or husband on the steps, maybe it was here, maybe it was in this very room.  For many of you I’m sure it was, right there.  You were giving yourself away.  You were saying to your partner, “I want to grow old with you.  I want you to fill my vision.  I want to give my life for you.”  Be a friend to your spouse.  And if you’re going to survive, and if I’m going to survive, and right where this sermon is – I may not have known what I was talking about last week, but I do this week – from tomorrow I’m going to be married to an older woman.  Right at this very point, that’s where we are.  Be a friend to your spouse. 

      I came across this saying this week, it’s been in my head ever since. You’ve probably heard it, “To the world you may be just one person, but to one person, you may just be the world.”  How are you going to ensure that you will live out the second half of your marriage to the glory of God, in a God-glorifying way?  You know, I’m making some assumptions of course.  I’m assuming that at 50, I’ve got a second half, and I may be dead next week.  None of us knows.  Absolutely none of us knows how long we’ve got.  And the Lord Almighty could call us in an instant, in an instant, we may already be in the second half and approaching the finishing line, and we just never knew it. 

      So, how are we going to insure, that in this long distance race, that is encountered by men, full of difficulties and tensions, when two sinners have to live with each other for all their lives, how are you going to insure that you live that second half to the glory of God?  By looking to Jesus.  By looking to Jesus.  You know, those wonderful words of Psalm 92, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon, and are planted in the house of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God, they still bear fruit in old age, they are ever full of sap and green.”  That’s what you want to be. 

      Isn’t it wonderful to see in this congregation, examples of, oh, let’s not beat around the bush here and talk about mature people, I’m talking about old people now.  If I was going to be fired, I would have been fired a long time before this sermon tonight, but I’m talking about old people, I'm talking about people who are still bearing fruit in old age, and don’t you sometime pass them by and whisper to yourself, “I want to be just like that.  Lord, help me in my marriage to be just like that couple.”  You more mature men and women, you have such a responsibility to fire an enthusiasm in the younger marriages of this congregation, to help and pray and exhort and love them, so that they might finish strong, like you’re finishing strong.  But it’s not self effort.  It’s looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.  Every day, every day, that’s my prayer, “Lord, help me to finish this race without stumbling.”  May God help us to do it, for His name sake.  Let’s pray together.

      Our Father in heaven, we come to you tonight because we are very conscious of our weakness and our sin and our failures, and it would be all too easy to leave the sanctuary this evening depressed and glum and downhearted, with yet another hammer blow upon our hearts that we are sinners, but You are God, and we look to You and we look to our Savior and we pray, Lord Jesus, help us, enable us, give us conviction, give us zeal, give us enthusiasm, help us to overcome our frailties, help us to love our spouses, as Jesus loved the Church, and hear us Lord, because for Jesus sake we ask it, Amen.