I am scheduled to preach today on the topic of Stewardship. Also called Generosity. And the idea is that every believer in Jesus should dedicate a percentage of their income to the Lord, through their own church. We do this to say thank you to God. We do this to honor and respect God with our lives. We do this to join the cause of helping lost people find and follow God. That's how we unleash a sacred dimension into our work week—because when we give God part of our income, we consecrate the whole.
If you've been at Pathway for a while, you know that we don't pass an offering plate. You also know that we don't pressure anybody to give. Grace makes people generous with the Lord, for the sake of Christ and the Gospel.
I said I was supposed to preach on Stewardship/Generosity today.
Okay. I think I've said enough. So, there. I'm done with that. There you go. I hope our Generosity Team will be okay with that.
Now let's go in another direction. A part of me wanted to title this sermon, the Worst Sermon on Giving Ever Preached.
Instead, I'd like us to turn to a different topic...
"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, [2] looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the Cross, despising [ignoring] the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:1-2)
Let me point out there is a cloud of witnesses. There is something to lay aside. There is a race set before us. There is Jesus, and what he did and why he did it.
The heart of this Scripture is Jesus. We're supposed to be looking unto Jesus. And the main thing we are supposed to notice here is that Jesus made a kind of trade here. A kind of exchange. He traded one thing for another.
What was that trade?
In exchange for the joy set before him, he endured the Cross. This was a deliberate choice.
He saw this incredible joy set before him, and he traded for it.
He traded comfort for the Cross;
he traded perfection for condemnation;
he traded glory for shame;
he traded life for death —
not his own, but ours.
Our cross, our condemnation, our shame, our death. On the day Jesus died, he took all those things from us, and took them into himself. Then Jesus suffered the death penalty, so that the justice system of heaven could forgive a sinner without compromising justice.
And why did he do this?
It says he did it "for the joy set before him." Literally in exchange for the joy set before him.
For the joy of accomplishing the plan of salvation.
For the joy of gathering one great family of people who are filled with his love.
The joy of seeing you personally, and me, totally forgiven, permanently saved, gloriously delivered, and absolutely bound for heaven.
Forgiven all our sins.
Released from all our guilt.
Healed of all our shame.
Freed from all our condemnation.
So we could...
Drop the handcuffs of every weight and every sin that so easily trips us up: all the bad stuff in your life, all the painful stuff, all the evil stuff, all the addictive, dysfunctional, heartbreaking, boring, lustful, stupid stuff...
So that he could see you — a person he loves more than words can say — so that Jesus could see you running and jumping and flying free with unspeakable joy one day up there in heaven.
Jesus saw all that joy, and the trade he made for it was to let himself be nailed to that old Rugged Cross.
Jesus knew he was trading up.
That's the main idea here. What we are supposed to notice here is that Jesus made a trade. An exchange. He traded one thing for another.
Whether you realize it our not, we're all doing that every single day. We're all making an exchange, we're all trading one thing for another.
