Consider the Sufferings of Christ

Kelly Gneiting is not a name many people are familiar with. He grew up in Idaho where he graduated from high school in 1988. He wrestled in high school and, as a wrestler, received a full college scholarship.

After getting his degree and working in data analysis and research and also as a long-haul truck driver, at age 29, Kelly decided to go back into wrestling. He won his first national championship in 2005. Three years later, Kelly decided to pursue a lifelong dream of running in a marathon.

Kelly’s 2008 run was record-setting, but due to not checking in according to proper procedure, it wasn’t recognized as an official record. Three years later, in 2011, he made it official, completing the marathon substantially faster than his first attempt.

A full marathon is just about 26.2 miles. That’s over 105 laps on a full outdoor track. The winning time for the 2011 Los Angeles Marathon was 2 hours, 6 minutes, and 35 seconds, which is an average less than 5 minutes per mile.

Kelly’s official time was 9 hours, 48 minutes, and 52 seconds. He was the last of 11,891 men in the race, taking over 7 hours longer than the winner. His pace was over 22 minutes per mile.

Kelly’s official world record that day was becoming the heaviest person to ever complete a marathon. He was 6 feet tall, had a 60-inch waist, and weighed 400 pounds.

A Los Angeles Times article about him said: “He doesn’t inspire much confidence at first. Every step is a shuffle, every breath a bellowing wheeze. But … he keeps going, big neck bent, big body leaning forward, one foot in front of the other.”

The article went on to highlight Kelly’s athleticism, his confidence, and his determination. Kelly said, ““I don’t care if I am going to have to crawl to the finish, I don’t care if I am going to end up handicapped afterward, I am going to finish a marathon.”

Because of Gneiting’s pace, the Los Angeles streets were reopened before he finished. He had to complete the race on public sidewalks, stopping at traffic lights.

He jogged for the first 8 miles, and then he walked the rest of the way having to face heavy rain, cold weather, and painful blisters. He felt delirious after 10 miles.

At mile 15, a friend met him to give him clean socks. He said, “I was really struggling in the last 5 miles, but I said to myself: ‘If I have to crawl, I will.” When he finished the marathon, he said, “My feet were on fire. Twice, blisters popped and just about brought me to my knees… But I kept going… I did it, but it was hell. Pure hell.” As the marathon went on for Kelly, he said every step was excruciating.

That may not be the typical story for a record-breaking marathon runner, but it’s a story about determination and endurance, nonetheless. Every step was intense pain, but Gneiting kept going until he finished the race.

Last week, we saw from verses 1 and 2 that in order to endure in running the Christian race, we need to remember the saints, get rid of the stumbling blocks, and behold the Savior. We need to get rid of any baggage or weight that holds us back from true faith, and we need to put away the sin of doubt. We also need to be looking back toward those who have run this race before us, and look forward to the reward.

Verse 2 refers to Jesus as 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.

This morning, as we continue into verses 3 and 4, we see an expansion on the idea of focusing on Jesus Christ.

The opening words of verse 3 are “Consider him,” speaking of Jesus Christ. In other words, think about Jesus. Give Him some focused and prolonged attention. Contemplate Jesus.

If we think about Jesus in the right way, the result will be what it says at the end of the verse—so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

We all know the experience of feeling tired or weary. It might be on a hot day. It might be on a day when you didn’t have enough to eat or drink. It might be on a day when you feel sick. Whatever the extenuating circumstances, the point is your desire for relief or comfort is becoming greater than your desire to continue. You don’t feel right. If you felt right, you could continue, but you don’t.

The verb behind the word “fainthearted” has the idea of something being dissolved or dismantled. Again, there’s no longer any desire to continue.

What do you think about when you’re tired? What do you think about when life brings trials rather than triumph?

I think most of us just think about what we wish life would be like. And the result is grumpiness and discontentment.

But if we look to Jesus, if we think about Him, God says we will gain endurance.

What is it about Jesus that we are supposed to think about? We could think about His power or His promises, but here the focus is His pain.

Look at verse 3 one more time. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

We understand that Jesus is the Son of God. He is the second member of the Trinity, with the full power and authority of God the Father and God the Spirit. But we can’t let the reality of His deity diminish the reality of His humanity. The Word became flesh. Jesus lived a life that would count in our place, which means He lived it as a man. He lived it by faith, trusting in His Father’s plan.

And as a man, Jesus endured the pain of ministry. Mark 1 describes a full day of ministry. It’s the Sabbath day. He’s teaching in the synagogue. He casts out a demon. And then he leaves to Peter’s house where he heals his mother-in-law. That same night, everyone in town starts bringing him those who are sick and oppressed by demons. That was a long day of ministry. Then, it says, he woke up early the next morning, while it was still dark. That’s part of the pain of ministry.

But the specific pain Hebrews 12 points us to is the pain that comes from facing the hostility, opposition, an hatred of the world. Satan is the god of this world, and this world rejects Jesus Christ and His truth.

The main rejection Jesus faced in His ministry was from the religious establishment. This was the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the scribes. It didn’t take long for them to begin planning how they might put him to death.

The hostility against Jesus obviously came to its maximum in Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. Don’t let the familiarity of the story hide how painful it was, both physically and emotionally.

Jesus’s arrest begins with Judas, one of his chosen disciples. He finds the Pharisees and agrees to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Jesus was betrayed by one of his closest friends. Some of you might know what is like.

Then, as Jesus is with His disciples, praying in Gethsemane, a crowd shows up with swords and clubs, and Jesus is arrested. There are Christians around the world who now what it’s like to be arrested for their faith. Some people in this room know what it’s like to be arrested.

Jesus is forced to stay awake all night as He is interrogated by Pilate and by Herod. We’ve got new moms in our room. They know what it’s like to be robbed of a night’s sleep. That affects you physically and emotionally.

As Jesus is being questioned, they bring in false witnesses. Have you ever had someone tell lies about you? During this time, Jesus also gets slapped in the face, and they spit on Him.

Then when morning comes, the Jewish crowd turns on Jesus, and they ask for a murder to be released instead of Him. They call for Jesus to be crucified.

Jesus is then scourged. This was a specially made kind of leather whip with multiple straps. On the end of each strap there were pieces of metal or bone. It was designed to bruise and to tear the tissue.

Roman soldiers then strip Jesus of His clothing. They mock Him as the King of the Jews by giving Him a scarlet robe and forcing Him to wear a crown of thorns. Then they beat his with a rod and continue spitting on Him.

Jesus is forced to carry the cross until He can no longer carry it Himself. Then, when He finally arrives at the crucifixion site, nails are driven through His hands and feet hanging Him on the cross. The criminals next to Him, and the watching crowd, continue to mock Him, until He finally breathes His last breath.

It’s a gruesome picture, and yet that’s what God wants us to remember, to have in mind, to consider.

What’s the point of thinking about that? It is so that we would say, “Jesus endured what I’m going through.” Jesus endured whatever it is that you’re going through because of your faith.

The specifics of our Christian lives are going to change, but we all face some kind of pain that tempts us to give up, to stop running the race.

Maybe it’s the pain of being single. Maybe it’s the pain of being married. Or the pain of having children. Or the pain of not having children. The pain of work. The pain of not having a job. The pain of caring for a home of your own. The pain of not having a home of your own. It could be the pain of fighting sin. Or the pain of hostility against you for your faith.

Whatever the pain is, and whatever form the hostility takes, we need to remind ourselves: Jesus endured through it. Jesus faced this.

Consider Him, so that you will not grow weary.

And we can help each other consider Jesus, too. When someone tells you about a particular struggle in their life, point them to Jesus. Ask them, how does this remind you about what Jesus went through? And remind them how Jesus responded.

How did Jesus respond? How did He endure? Verse 2 says He remembered the joy that was set before Him. He knew what was on the other side.

There’s another answer we get in 1 Peter 2. You can go ahead and turn there with me if you like. First Peter, chapter 2, verse 21. Peter’s audience is suffering to, and this is what he tells them. First Peter 2:21—For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. [22] He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. [23] When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

Whatever it is you’re facing right now, or whatever it is that you’re going to face tomorrow, Jesus has gone through it, and He endured.

Go ahead and turn back to Hebrews 12. Besides reminding yourself that Jesus faced what you are facing, you should also remind yourself that Jesus faced even worse. Jesus gave up His life in obedience to the plan and purposes of God. So, as long as you’re still alive, you haven’t given up as much as He did. He’s given more.

Look at Hebrews 12:4. It says—In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

I take “shedding blood” as a reference to death. In other words, he’s saying, “You’re not done yet. You haven’t suffered as much as you could.”

I think this is a particularly appropriate message to a generation like ours that isn’t good at suffering. We’re so quick to whine, to complain, to want to be relieved of any discomfort. Endurance isn’t easy. We want rewards now. We want all the hard stuff to be over, so we can just sit and watch a movie.

And God reminds us that there’s more we can endure. Jesus went through whatever it is you’re going through, and Jesus went through worse.

Running with endurance doesn’t mean you’ve always got a smile on your face. It doesn’t mean that you will overcome the problems from an earthly or a physical point-of-view. It means that even in the pain, your faith remains, and you continue trusting in God.

Back in Hebrews 4, we read that Jesus is our High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses. And we can go to Him for mercy and grace. He knows what we’re going through, and He has been through worse. The race isn’t over. The pain is not at its maximum level.

Kelly Gneiting’s 2011 world record didn’t last long. A man by the name of Charles Bungert heard about the record and was inspired to do the marathon as well. Bungert worked as a body guard and spent 12 hours a day on his feet. He believed if the other man could do it, so could he.

Charles Bungert ran the 2012 Los Angeles marathon at 419 pounds. He finished in 8 hours and thirty minutes. However, since he didn’t go through the Guiness World Record process, it wasn’t an official record.

The following year, in 2013, he decided to try it officially. This time, Bungert weighed 427 pounds, and his mother had recently been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and given 8-12 months to live. She was scared about the upcoming treatment schedule. Charles decided to run as an example to her of strength, willpower and endurance.

Two weeks before the race, Charles slipped two discs in his lower back. He had electrotherapy daily. According to Guiness World Records, “When he contemplated giving up, he remembered his mother, who was fighting an unbearably painful battle of her own. Without further hesitation, he laced up his sneakers and prepared to run for his second attempt. “

Charles said, “My mom was my main reason to finish, it wasn’t about getting the record - which in my mind I knew I already had. This time it was about her.” He also said “At different points, you want to give up plenty of times, or just sit down. You can't stop though."

What an appropriate thing to say, right? “You can’t stop.” You can’t stop. We need to run with endurance. One step at a time, no matter how painful it might be.

Jesus endured. Jesus went through worse. And as we’ll see next time, Jesus uses the pain in our lives. He has a purpose for it.

As we close, I want to address the huge difference between the persecution Christians in the early church were facing and our persecution today. Honoring Christ means we deny ourselves daily. Some of us might have even lost a relationship or a job as a result. But in general, here in our part of the world, we aren’t facing the severe kind of persecution that the audience of Hebrews and First Peter were facing. What do we do with that?

What do we do with a passage like 2 Timothy 3:12 which says, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

First, I think it’s appropriate to respond with thanksgiving. We should thank God for all our blessings, and that includes the blessing of a culture that still, to some degree, values or allows us to proclaim and live out our faith.

A second response can be self-examination. Self-examination. If we feel like we aren’t suffering—if we feel like the Christian life isn’t all that difficult—we should examine our lives to see whether we are really living a life of faith to our maximum potential. We aren’t seeking persecution, for the sake of pain, but we should ask ourselves if the reason we don’t experience persecution is because we aren’t doing all we can to serve Christ. Can we do more? Or is it the fear of persecution that keep us from it?

Lastly, in addition to thanksgiving and self-examination, I think a healthy response is also one of preparation. Preparation. Just because we aren’t suffering much right now, that doesn’t mean suffering won’t come sooner than we expect. Don’t take blessings for granted. Be prepared to suffer should God decide that time has come.

Easy lives can make for soft people. We need to be careful that isn’t happening in terms of our faith. We need to be running wit endurance, looking to Jesus who suffered more than we ever will. There is no sacrifice we shouldn’t be willing to make for the sake of our Lord.

Let me close with a final passage from Paul’s letter to the Galatians. This is from Galatians chapter 6 as the letter is coming to a close. Beginning in verse 8, Paul writes—For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. [9] And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Don’t grow weary. Look to Jesus, and run with endurance.