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I hope that your hearts are prepared to receive the Word of the Lord this morning; I will be speaking to you from Hebrews chapter 13. If you will take your Bibles and turn there, Hebrews chapter 13. We will be looking at verses seven and eight.

Today we continue to make our way through this epistle, verse-by-verse and in the providence of God, we now come to this text that is very powerful, very practical, as you will see. And I've entitled my discourse to you "The Power of Enduring Faith." Now may I remind you of the context here, once again. It's been a while since we've been here. I've been gone for a few weeks. So let me remind you that after 11 chapters of rich doctrine aimed at Jewish believers that were struggling with their new found faith in Christ, those who were tempted to return to Judaism to avoid persecution and so forth, the writer then offers some specific exhortations in chapter 12 about how to run the race of faith with endurance. You will recall how he explained the purpose and the power of the Father's loving discipline in our life. He gave practical exhortations for church members that we are to encourage the exhausted and strengthen the feeble. We are to be a good example to unbelievers in the church. We are to pursue peace with all men. We are to be on guard for and confront unbelievers in the church who deceive and cause trouble.

And then in chapter 13, being moved by the power of the Holy Spirit, he continues in that vein, exhorting believers to love and to hospitality and to compassion. He explains the importance of cultivating contentment in your heart and avoiding the sin of covetousness, being content with what God has given you, knowing that he will never leave you. He will never forsake you; that he is your helper. And then he exhorts them in the realm of marriage and the profound importance of sexual purity. All of these, of course, virtues that are never self-generated, but rather they are the fruit of the Spirit that grows on the vine of a believer whose life is in intimate communion with the living God.

And now, in verses seven and eight, he exhorts them to do something that is most fascinating, something I believe, we seldom consider, but something that is very important in helping us run the race God has set before us. Notice what he says in verse seven.

"Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

Remember, consider and imitate three present tense verbs. Three actions that must be done in the present but must also continue in the future: all three being a part of the biblical concept of remembering. Now folks understand that this would have been of profound encouragement to these early Jewish believers, who again were tempted to fall back into old covenant Judaism -- into trying to keep the law, all of the rituals, all of the ceremonies; tempted to go back into legalism -- all because of mounting persecution and the sheer pain of being rejected by their family members and by other people in the community; and how easy it is for all of us to fall back into our comfort zone, to fall back into ways of of thinking and acting that might be consistent with some errant doctrine, some novel doctrine, or some new movement within the ranks of evangelicalism that that we grab a hold of, and we think that, oh, now I'm more spiritual than I used to be because I'm involved with this way of thinking, or embracing this doctrine or whatever. One of the most important deterrents of choosing foolish paths that the enemy will often lay out before us is to remember and to consider and to imitate those who have led you in the past, those who have spoken the Word of God to you to consider their lives and imitate their lives. So these exhortations are immensely practical for each of us who endeavor to run with endurance, the race that God has set before us. And I hope this is the priority of your heart to live a godly Christ-honoring life, a God-glorifying life, so that you will one day cross the finish line of the race that God has set before you, knowing that you have given your all for the Master.

Now let's look closely at what the Spirit of God is saying through his inspired author. First of all, this concept of remember, notice verse seven, "Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you...." Now, beloved, this looks beyond the Old Testament examples that were given in chapter 11 and beyond the famous Old Testament heroes of faith that were mentioned there. He's asking them to remember the ordinary, the unnamed people who led them, who spoke the word of God to them. You know, one of the greatest miracles of divine providence is how God orchestrates the events in our lives, to use, frankly, just ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things; to raise up godly leaders to speak truth into our life: godly fathers, godly mothers, godly pastors, Sunday school teachers, youth workers, Awana workers, whatever. But he's not speaking here necessarily, of the current leaders. Later on, he's going to ask them to submit to their leaders. They have watch care over your soul. But rather, he's pointing to those who have spoken the Word of God to them in the past, and as we will see, those who lived out their life of faith, so that the fruit of their conduct can now be examined and imitated. And these are primarily those who, frankly, have probably died in the faith at this point, who finished well. Some of them, perhaps were still imprisoned. Others had been martyred by this time, and many more would be in the day's future. These were leaders who established the church and led the church, who spoke the truths of divine revelation to them so that they could receive Christ, truths that they had heard from the apostles, who had heard it from the Lord Himself.

And by the way, this is always the great mark of biblical leadership in a church where you will have godly men who have been uniquely called and gifted by God to expound and even enforce the word and the will of God within that particular church, to proclaim the gospel, to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Faithful churches are to have biblical elders, for example. Qualified consistent with First Timothy three and Titus one; men who themselves can exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict. Men who, as the Scriptures say, are apt to teach both privately and publicly. And without that, a church will never grow into spiritual maturity. It will always remain fixed in either a state of spiritual infancy or maybe kindergarten at best. That's typically what happens, and people won't even know any better. They will be ignorant of Bible doctrine. They will be bereft of spiritual discernment. They will be, as Paul says in Ephesians 4:14, "like children tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming." If you want to see craftiness and deceitful scheming, all you need to do is go to the Christian bookstore today and you'll see it all over, even the best seller rack.

How sad to see Christian in such a state of immaturity, and how sad to see families that do not have a father and a mother to raise their children up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. But obviously this first century church, filled primarily with Jewish people that had come to saving faith in Christ, understanding the gospel, obviously, these people had been led and had been taught well. So he's saying to them, remember those who led you, who shepherded you, who preached and taught the Word of God to you. You will recall in Hebrews chapter two and verse three, the inspired writer asks, "How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard." And we know that, first, Jesus imparts the great truths of the gospel, the apostles hear that, the apostles then entrust this to other people - other people come to Christ - other readers are are raised up. Other men are selected, even by the apostles to be elders among the church to shepherd the flock of God. You will remember Paul instructed Timothy in Second Timothy 2:2 he says, "The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also."

Now, by the time this letter was written to the Hebrews, many godly men had been raised up to proclaim the truth, to shepherd the flock of God. So this exhortation is a call to remember the original leaders who had heard the gospel from the Lord themselves, and then had given it to other people, and then ultimately, had given it to this particular church. This is referring especially to men who had labored in the word and preached it to them, who had applied it to their lives, who were living out the example of Christ- likeness; men who had shepherded them and taught them to obey all that the Lord had commanded them.

Now, I might add, there is no reason to believe that this text would exclude godly women who also instructed their families and other women. But what he's saying here is: I want you to pensively reflect upon those who first spoke the word of God to you; the word that radically changed everything about you. I want you to take into account what God did through these people, reflect upon the profound impact that they had on your life. Never forget that. Remember them. And the concept here is not to merely bring them to your mind -- to merely recall who they were -- but to meditate upon what they did, so as to rejoice in their example and imitate their life.

You will recall in Ecclesiastes, chapter 12 and verse one, Solomon says, "Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth before the evil days come and the years draw near, when you will say, 'I have no delight in them.'" "Remember" there is a Hebrew term that carries the idea of imprinting something. It involves more than an activity of the mind. It involves action, allowing the object of remembrance, in this case the Creator, to shape your thinking in the present and in the future. "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come..." In other words, before the inevitable times of misery and trouble come upon you in the final days of your life, when you are about to stand before him in judgment.

Another passage is the one that we read earlier in our scripture reading in Psalm 63. The context there is David had been run out of Jerusalem by his very own son who was threatening to kill him. He'd been run out by Absalom. A heartbreaking story. David is now in the wilderness of Judah. He's in exile, and he's yearning for fellowship with the living God as one who thirsts for water in the desert. In other words, that kind of fellowship is a matter of life and death to him, and so he says in verses six and seven,

"When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You and the night watches,

"for You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings, I sing for joy."

Folks, that's the power of this kind of remembering. Second Timothy 2:8, Paul says to Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel." And as we talked about a few minutes ago, when we come to the Lord's table, Jesus says, "Do this in remembrance of Me." So the idea of remembering is to keep the object of remembrance in your mind, to think about it, to retain it in your memory. And in this case specifically, those who led you in the past, those who spoke the word of God to you. So folks, this applies to you and to me as well. Is this the habit of your life? Do you meditate upon those who have faithfully led you and shepherded you down through the years? Do you thoughtfully reflect upon their commitment to proclaim and to protect the truth of the Word of God. And do you thank God that they did so? Do you remember how they spoke truth into your life, even when you didn't want to hear it, even when you were skeptical of it, even when you were indifferent towards it, and perhaps even hostile towards their words. Do you pensively reflect upon how they led you, how they shepherded you, how they cared for you, how they fed you, how they protected you, how they nurtured you in the faith? Do you go often to the treasure house of God's provision for your soul in this most profound way?

Now, once again, this would have been so important to those early saints who struggled deeply with fear and discouragement and doubt and instability in their lives; things that we all struggle with today, right? Exactly. O, the power of godly examples that God has given us. What a tremendous blessing it is to remember them, and how dangerous it is to take them for granted. "Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you..."  And beloved, I would submit to you that it is a supreme dishonor and a certain sign of ingratitude to God to forget them; to forget how God raised these men, and even women up, to speak truth into your life. So we must remember them.

But secondly, we must consider them, notice verse seven, "...and considering the result of their conduct..." This is so precious to me, I hope it will be to you. You see, not only are we to remember those who brought us into the Christian race, but we are to give careful consideration to the outcome of their life, "the result of their conduct." It carries the idea of meditating upon the effect of the manner in which they lived, the lasting fruit of their faith. It's the idea of considering in your heart, how they ran their race of faith, without wavering, without fainting, and how they finished well. And once again, we see the tremendous power of enduring faith and the profound influence that a life can have on the next generation. And what a reminder it should be to all of us of the example that we are giving to those who come behind us. I'm deeply moved by Paul's exhortation to young Timothy, when he said to him in First Timothy 4:16, Timothy, "Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this, you will ensure salvation, both for yourself and for those who hear you." Folks, I confess to you that my constant prayer is that my life will match my message. Beloved, please hear this. Our life and doctrine must be one and the same.

We are not to separate them. Our lives must adorn the gospel of God that we hold dear, and as a result of that, bear the fruits of godliness. We must, to put it in an expression we all know, practice what we preach right? Lest we preach in vain. One of the great stabilizing forces in my life, as I've thought about it, is those times when I consider the lives of godly men and godly women that he has placed into my life, those who practice what they preached. When I carefully considered what they said and how they lived, how they never allowed themselves to be conformed to the culture, but rather their lives confronted the culture for the glory of God; those who were never conformed to this world, but were transformed by the renewing of their mind. What an impact they have had on me. My heart is deeply encouraged whenever I consider the godly leadership of men who never compromised the truth, who were never seduced by the enemy, but whose doctrine and theology and Christian character were always in perfect harmony. I have many examples I could give you, and I'm sure they're going through your mind right now. Pastors that I knew, many theologians -- I'll give you a few in a moment that have died many years ago -- the pastors that I knew, my parents, my Sunday school teachers, my youth leaders, had a profound impact on my life. I remember the Men and Boys Brigade that would preach the Word of God to me and disciple me and sit around the campfire with me and some of you other men that are in this church, up in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota on canoe trips. I don't remember so much the things that they said, but I remember their lives; numerous, numerous saints.

You know, I've learned that in those seasons in my life when, by God's grace, I have enjoyed the greatest measure of spiritual growth, it's always been in the context of great difficulty and pain, but also as a result of the testimony of some great men of God whose life and ministry just blew me away. Martin Luther, John Calvin, George Whitfield, John Owen, John Bunyan, Richard Baxter. I remember reading John Knox and Charles Spurgeon. Jonathan Edwards, David Brainer, David Livingston, William Carey, Jim Elliot, David Martin Lloyd Jones and on it goes. Men whose life and whose message pointed me to Christ, the author and the finisher of my faith, men who lived well and finished well. You know, many of us start out well, but few finish well. If you know nothing, by the way, of any of these men or others like them, I would just humbly say you are not only uneducated in the realm of church history, but you are forfeiting much blessing and discernment in your life. And sadly, we live in a day where being theologically illiterate is almost a virtue. And I attribute much of the superficiality and doctrinal ignorance and evangelicalism today to a shameful, if not even a willful, ignorance of two very important things. Number one, Bible doctrine and theology, and number two, church history. This is why I'm so thankful for a reclaiming of reformation theology. I'm thankful for a resurgence in church history and for a resurgence in the Puritan writings and so forth.

And young people, if I can address you for a moment, please hear me. Never, ever succumb to the temptation of ignoring your spiritual roots; of somehow laughing at the past generations as though they had nothing to offer you as though they were just not as sophisticated as we are today in the current generation. Please hear me, if you sever your roots, your tree will die. Instead, rejoice in those who have gone before you. Acknowledge the debt of gratitude that you owe all who gave of themselves, that you might have the truth. Thank God for the purity and the power in their life. You know, it is the prayer of my heart that I will finish well, that I will someday collapse in utter exhaustion when I cross the finish line, having given all to my to my Master, and I know many of you share that as well. I want my children and my children's children, and all those that I have shepherded, and I have taught over the course of my life, to be able to look at me, and to look at my dear wife, and be able to say, "I want to be like them."

So we must remember and we must consider, but thirdly, we must imitate. Notice again verse seven, "Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith." What an encouragement, again, this would have been to those struggling with instability and doubt and fear and confusion. Remember the outcome he's saying. Remember the outcome of those that God used to speak truth into your life. Recognize the lasting impact that they had on you and others and then remember how they lived so that you can imitate their faith. Oh, dear friends, don't miss this great truth. There is such power in the example of our life. Can you say to your children, "Children, I want you to imitate my faith in Christ." I think of Paul after he had described how he had worked to the point of utter exhaustion and serving Christ; how he had been slandered and had become the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, he says, even until now, and how he had now become a spiritual father to the Corinthians. He said this in First Corinthians 4:16, "I exhort you, therefore be imitators of me." Can you say that? Again, in First Corinthians 11:1, "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ." Dear friends. Can you say that? Dads, can you say that to your children? Moms, can you say that? Church leaders, can the next generation emulate your deep love for the Word of God and your commitment to live for God's glory? Can they look back at your life and see an insatiable appetite for the Word and a passionate desire to obey it? Can they look at your life and say, "My, what selfless love and humility, what faithfulness in serving their spouse and their children and their friends?" Can they look at your life and say, "I want to imitate their burden for the lost. I want to imitate their ardent zeal for evangelism. I want to imitate their personal pursuit of holiness. I want to imitate their priority of prayer and their perseverance come what may? I want to emulate their joy in the midst of sorrow, their faith in the midst of adversity, their hope in seasons of tragedy, and their love in the midst of oppression."  Is this what others see in you?

I was reading an article sometime back in Touchstone, a journal of Mere Christianity, and I think it speaks well to this issue of example and influence. Let me just read some of this to you. "In 1994 the Swiss carried out an extra survey that the researchers for our masters in Europe. The author is saying, I write from England, were happy to record. The question was asked to determine whether a person's religion carried through to the next generation, and if so, why or why not? The result," he says, "is dynamite. There is one critical factor, and it is overwhelming. It is this: it is the religious practice of the father, of the family. That, above all, determines the future attendance and/or absence from church of the children. If both father and mother attend regularly, 33% of their children will end up as regular church goers, and 41% will end up attending irregularly. Only a quarter of their children will end up not practicing at all. If the father is irregular and mother regular, only 3% of the children will subsequently become regulars themselves, while a further 59% will become irregulars. 38% will be lost.  It went on to say, if the father is non practicing, but the mother is regular, only 2% of children will become regular worshipers, and 37% will attend irregularly. Over 60% of their children will be lost completely to the church." He goes on to say, "Let us look at the figures the other way around. What happens if the father is regular but the mother irregular or non-practicing? Extraordinarily, the percentage of children becoming regular goes from 33% to 38% with the irregular mother, and to 44% with the non-practicing as if loyalty to father's commitment grows in proportion to the mother's laxity, indifference or hostility." And then he says, "Before mother's despair, there is some consolation for faithful moms, where the mother is less regular than the father, but attends occasionally. Her presence ensures that only a quarter of her children will never attend at all. But he says, even when the father is an irregular attender, there are some extraordinary effects. An irregular father and a non-practicing mother will yield 25% of their children as regular attenders in their future life, and a further 23% as irregulars. This is 12 times the yield where the roles are reversed, where neither parent practices, to nobody's very great surprise, only 4% of children will become regular attenders, and 15% irregulars. 80% will be lost to the faith. And then finally, in short, he says, If a father does not go to church, no matter how faithful his wife's devotions, only one child in 50 will become a regular worshiper. But if a father does go regularly, regardless of the practice of the mother, between two thirds and three quarters of their children will become church goers, whether regular or irregular. And if a father goes but irregularly, to church, regardless of his wife's devotion, between a half and two thirds of their offspring will find themselves coming to church regularly or occasionally."

Well, forgive that long, rather detailed explanation, but I want to get it on tape, so you hear it. Dads, the point is, your kids are watching you, and you have a very important role to play. So what is your example to your children? Not in any way to take away from the importance of a mother, but your example is more powerful than moms. So are you the spiritual leader of your family, or are you merely a follower? What kind of example are you leaving to your children? You know, many people today are asking the question, "What has happened to our country? What is going on?" I mean, you can hear the toilet flushing, can't you? I mean, it's just a disaster. And while there are many variables that contribute to the demise -- the moral free fall of our country -- certainly one of the most important contributing factors is this: we have far too many, far too few, men who fear God and lead their families. We don't have enough men who lead and speak the Word of God into the lives of their families. We don't have men whose message and life point to others or point Christ to others. We don't have men whose life of faith is just exemplary, worthy of emulation. And how sad that for some of you, I know this is true. I've talked with you, you can't look back and think of a father who led you or spoke the word of God to you, and you certainly wouldn't want to live your life like him. You know, my heart aches when I go to funerals that I attend, and sometimes even ones that I have to conduct, especially funerals of men whose lives left no spiritual footprint in the paths of their life. The eulogy goes something like this, "Oh, boy, he loved to hunt and fish, yeah, buddy, and he could pick that guitar, wasn't anything he couldn't make. Wasn't anything he couldn't fix. He was a hard worker. Everybody liked him, and O, he loved those Titans. Yeah, we all remember when..." and then the funny stories come, and everybody laughs, and then everybody cries, but nobody celebrates a life that made much of Christ. How sad.

No one rejoices in a life that pointed them to Christ, a life worthy of remembering, of considering, of imitating every single day of your life in the future. And how different it is to hear people say, "Oh, this was a man who knew and loved Christ. This was a man who hungered and thirsted after righteousness. This was a man that loved the Triune God of the Bible. This was a man that loved the word and taught the word and defended the word. This was a man whose life is worthy of our imitation. This was a man that never compromised. This was a man that was not moved by strange doctrines or by some weird fad or practice. This was a man who would never be seduced by the sirens of this world, but this was a man like his blessed Savior, who was the same yesterday, today and forever." And that's the point of verse eight. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." He is our ultimate example, the unchangeable Son of God, the author and perfecter of our faith, the one upon whom our eyes are to remain fixed as we run with endurance, the race that God has set before us. Beloved, these are the kinds of people that we are exhorted to remember, to consider and to imitate.

We all know that everything in the world is changing. There's new leaders, there's new policies, there's a changing morality, changing values, all the different new and novel doctrinal positions I have to keep up with to protect you all from them. But dear friends, truth never changes, because truth comes from an unchangeable God, because Jesus was the same yesterday, today and forever. And our passion, passionate prayer, must be that God will make us like him; unchangeable in our commitment to proclaim and to protect the truth, and unwavering in our personal pursuit of holiness, absolutely resolute in our loyalty to the Word and the will of God.

And in closing, may I challenge you to do a couple of things, real simply. First of all, you families, take some time, maybe even today, to reflect upon those that God brought into your life to lead you and to speak the Word of God to you. Those who finished well, those whose life was worthy of imitation, discuss that with your family and all of the implications of that. And then secondly, may I encourage you all to get serious about reading church history. Is that so hard? Biographies of great saints that God raised up in the past. Ladies, for example, read John MacArthur's 12 Ordinary Women. Great book. Read The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom that saved hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust. Read the biography of like, I don't know Anne Judson, one of the first female foreign missionaries that spent, I don't know, like 55 years in Burma. Read the story of Amy Carmichael. I think she was the one that spent like 55 years in India. Is that, right? I forget all of that, but for all of us, get maybe Steven Lawson's book "Pillars of Grace, A Long Line of Godly Men." Great biographies: read everything you can written by Ian Murray. He's one of my favorite biographers. His book on the "Forgotten Spurgeon" has impacted my life profoundly. He's written another book that I'm just into now, it's called "Seven Spiritual Leaders who Led People to Heaven."  It includes the accounts of John Elias, Andrew Bonar, Archie Brown, Kenneth MacRae, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, W. J. Grier, and John MacArthur. Read these biographies. Remember these people and others that God has used. Consider their lives and then imitate them and watch what God will do. Amen. Let's pray together,

Father, thank you for these very, very important exhortations. May we each take them seriously. And thank you Lord, that by your grace, you have raised up men and women in years gone by to impact us for the sake of the kingdom and Lord, may we, like them, be those who know the word, speak the word and live the Word to the praise of your glory. For it's in Christ's name that I pray. Amen.