Preaching Lab: Interpretation

Sermon Transcript

This is Blue Letter Bible, and I’m going to go to this interlinear part. But I wanted to say this first, my pastor growing up said it like this, “To know the Word you must study the words.” What I find happens for me is that normally I’m going too fast and I’m reading. To really study, I have to slow down, so when I slow down and start kind of going word by word, often God just starts speaking to me. That’s just kind of how it works. In the first part of my inductive study, after I’ve kind of looked at the context, zeroed in on a couple verses, I’ve made some observations, I’ll usually spend an hour or two. Again, if I was probably by myself, because I like to use my computer for word searching, and then when it gets to reading I usually have a physical book, but because this is so fast and easy, I actually might look at every single word.

By the way, I’ve really gotten into the word “the.” Anybody with me? In the Greek language, ho, the definite article. Have you noticed that they use the definite article more than we do, that there are sometimes where in the original it says, “the faith,” “the Lord Jesus Christ,” or it’s a way of emphasizing different things. Anybody seen this with me?

Now, do I preach sermons on the word “the”? I know you guys don’t know me that well. I’m not that crazy. I’m not John Miller going backwards and studying after the text. In my personal study, especially as I’m just doing what I’m doing now, I’m interested in everything. I’m going to edit later. At this time I’m collecting ideas, so I’m actually kind of interested in everything. Again, for the sake of time, I’m going to pretty much focus on the words I’ve written down and just kind of show you how it works. It’s on the screens. This is just Blue Letter Bible, and maybe I'll say this, too, before I start. I tend to go to Strong’s Dictionary first. How many of you guys know about Strong’s? It’s a hundred years old. It’s not copyright protected. It’s free. It’s everywhere. I don’t mind admitting that…I’m going to say something horrible here, are we really filming this, so there’s no post-editing? I’m just going to say the truth—about ninety percent of my word studies come from Strong’s. Why? Because it goes back to the root of the word; if it’s a compound word, I can take it apart and put it back together; so most of my word studies are what is the root and what is the compounds, and it’s also there and so simple that most of the time that’s what I’m using.

Beyond that, I like to use Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. That’s fantastic because it tells me how many Greek words are behind the English word, and it does it very well. That’s a book I love. And, I like to use Kittel. How many of you guys know about Kittel? There’s a set of books, it’s ten volumes, every word in the New Testament, and what it does is it exhaustively says how was that word used in the Greek world. It’s the source. The good news is the ten volumes, there’s a one volume condensed, and I usually use that, but if you want background on how that word was used in the Greek world, the Roman world, the Jewish world…

Can I go to hyperspace one more time? We know that the writers of the New Testament were all Jewish except probably Dr. Luke, so they’re Jewish, but they’re writing in Greek. Sometimes you say a Greek word, but you have a Hebrew idea. For example, the word for peace in Greek is eirḗnē. We get the name Irene from it, but if a Jewish person writes in Greek peace, eirḗnē, it’s a Greek word, but it’s a Hebrew thought because the word shalom is so huge in the Jewish culture that when Paul says, Grace and peace, he’s not really saying, eirḗnē and cháris, he’s saying shalom, “Hey, shout out to my Jewish friends,” and grace, “Shout out to my Greek Gentile friends.” You have Greek words that actually have the Hebrew thoughts behind them. How many are still with me in hyperspace?

This Kittel book I’m talking about, always does that, too. Can I really go into deep space? How would you actually do that? Technically you can correlate the Septuagint—here I go, I’m losing it. Jess, pull me back, Jess. Pull me back. We have a Greek translation of the Old Testament so we know which Greek words connect to which Hebrew words, and sometimes you want to go back and here’s a simple example. I just started my study in the book of James. We have a Greek transliteration of a word, but James, and that’s English, it’s Jacob. The New Testament “James” he was a Jewish boy, born into a Jewish family, and his family gave him a good Jewish name. The James’ in the New Testament are all Jacobs. Wave at me here. You guys are looking at me funny. Did you have enough coffee? Everybody’s good? You’re all caffeinated?

Sometimes in your word studies, you have Strong’s, ninety percent of it I’m just looking at that, but then I might want to see if there were choices. You know, the most famous is the word for love. We have the English word for “love,” but how many Greek words do we have behind the word “love?” C.S. Lewis wrote a book called, The Four Loves. You’ve got eros, which isn’t in the New Testament, erotic love and sexual love; you’ve got storge, familial love, which only barely appears in the New Testament, but then the two words are phileo and agape, and we make the distinction so often when you’re studying your New Testament. Oh, it’s very powerful, which word for “love” is behind the English, but there are quite a few words like that where they had a choice, so I use Vine’s, that helps me do that for that. If I want to do the deep dive on how was this word used in the first century.

You know, the Apostle Paul liked to take words from the marketplace. He actually took secular words and Christianized them. Most people believe agape was a Christianized thing, that agape wasn’t some great…a selfless love was not a virtue in Roman culture. Self-sacrificing love, calling that God’s love, unconditional love, the love of the cross where, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us,” that he took a word that wasn’t popular and Christianized it. He said, “This is the kind of love that God has,” right? You study these backgrounds, and these words start to kind of come alive.

Back to where I started, ninety percent of my word studies just come right from here. Are you ready? We could talk a lot, word studies more. I got my word “therefore,” mostly, that is to check out chapters 11 and 12. That’s what we did right before the break was, the great cloud of witnesses seems to be referring back to the list of heroes, and then as he goes forward in the chapter, the metaphor of the race seems to kind of dominate this first section, so that’s my forrest. Now, I’m going to start looking at the trees. The words “we also,” I just want to mark that that’s first person plural, and this is sort of code in my mind that if we’re going to start to talk in the first person, that we’re kind of heading over to some application sections.

The first word I’m kind of interested in is the word “cloud,” néphos. Do you guys see it there? Néphos. Apparently, a root wood, it says. Do you see that “TDNT Reference” line? That’s the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, that’s the Kittel. That’s the big ten-volume set. They’re saying in volume 4, page 902, you can go crazy. But then, I’m just reading through the “Outline of Biblical Usage,” it’s a cloud, a large, dense multitude, a throng. Well, that immediately grabs me—a large, dense multitude. My whiteboard is smaller than my paper. I might write down, “a large, dense multitude.” I find that really interesting. Then, right away I realize, this is a rare word. The New King James Translation count is one, “cloud.” I get down to “Strong’s Definition,” néphos, apparently a primary word, it’s just a cloud. Normally, Strong’s will just say figurative and literal, and I was just talking to you about this that normally I want to think literal first, figurative second. Literally, néphos is a cloud, like in the sky; but figuratively it’s also the dictionary is saying it’s a large, notice back at the “Biblical Usage” again, a large dense multitude. That would be a figurative definition, but it’s also, these are funny things, used to denote a great shapeless collection of vapour obscuring the heavens as opposed to a particular and definite masses of vapour, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What’s it saying? That you’ve got a cloud. Literally, it’s a cloud in the sky; figuratively, it could be a big bunch of people. Now, that’s very interesting to me.

How you guys doing? This is a real test, if you’re a Bible nerd. Literal, it’s a cloud in the sky; figurative, it’s a dense cloud. But then, oh gosh, it’s only one time. Look down at the bottom of Blue Letter Bible. It occurs one time in the Greek New Testament, and it’s Hebrews 12:1. Sometimes I’ll mark down, like one time. It’s sort of a rare word, so I’m not going to easily cross-reference that. I can’t look anywhere else. If it occurred a couple more times, I might look up those other verses. One of the best ways to study a word is, how does the Bible use this word, because how the Bible uses it is really all that matters because the Bible might give it special meaning; but in this case, I just have one time. So, it’s a unique word, but I find myself, this “ . . . great cloud of witnesses,” it’s meaningful to me.

Let’s look at the word “witnesses.” Now, you might’ve done this word study. What is the word for “witnesses?” Martyrs, mártys. This is one of these kind of big words. How many of you have heard the word “martyr” before? You know the English, right? Masculine noun. Its “Outline of Biblical Usage,” it’s a witness in “a legal sense.” So, if I was preaching, I might say, “This is a legal term,” and most people know what a witness is, that you go into the witness stand and you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God. That is the origin of this word, a legal term; “an historical sense,” one who is a spectator of anything, i.e., a contest. That actually fits Hebrews 12:1, “ . . . so great a cloud of witnesses.” But then notice “in an ethical sense” those who after his example have proved the strength and genuineness of their faith in Christ by undergoing a violent death. The “Etymology” or the root of the word is just a witness, but then in the history of the church the word became known as a synonym for a person willing to die for their witness, so the word “martyr” becomes this very big word.

Then, I look down, I’m thinking, Okay. Well, let’s look at Strong’s. I’ll put it right on the top. “Strong’s Definition,” it’s a witness, (literally (judicially) like in a courtroom or figuratively; by analogy, a “martyr.” Then, I look down and I find it’s in the New Testament 34 times. Well, that’s a lot of times, so it’s a big concept in the New Testament. Well, let’s look back. It actually says, see right in the middle there now, the King James Translation, 34x, it’s translated witness (29x), martyr (3x), record (2x) which is partly telling you that in the first century the idea of dying for your faith kind of came later, that the original meaning of the word just simply was that you told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Now, when I’m thinking about this “ . . . great cloud of witnesses,” in light of Hebrews 11 and 12, it seems to be a picture of like a stadium as he’s running a race. If I were to bring in a little bit of history, culture, background into this—what is he saying, what did he see, what does he mean? I think he’s picturing a running of a race in a stadium.

When I was living in Europe, I got to travel a lot. I got to travel around the Mediterranean and do a little bit of amateur archeology. If you ever get a chance to go to Turkey, go to Turkey because you have 27 letters in the New Testament, 13 out of 27 were written to Turkey. I’m never going to try and steer you along. The Bible calls it Asia Minor, but if you add up your New Testament letters, half of the New Testament was written to Turkey. Don’t just go to Israel, try to go to Turkey. What you find is that these cities along the Mediterranean that Paul went to over and over and over, there’s a template that when you go into an ancient city in Turkey, there’s a main street. There’s what they called an agora, a marketplace. There’s a theater where they would have plays, and there’s always a stadium. You can look at the stadium, even in the ruins of it, and realize, “Hey, you know what? Five thousand people could watch a race here.” They were shaped like a horseshoe, normally they’re not enclosed. They’re like a horseshoe shape, and they would have their races.

I’m reading this, and I’m wanting to interpret. Part of interpretation would be this first century idea. If he says, “I’m running a race with this great cloud of witnesses,” can I go to hyperspace one more time? I’ve got somebody with me here. I’ve got a Marine backing me up. Twenty times in the New Testament, at least, we have sports, at least. I think Paul loved sports. Boxing, wrestling, races, judges, rules, being disqualified, athletics competition, training, they’re all sports words. But then, the number one was racing. Ten times in the New Testament Paul talks about running the race. I think Paul loved sports. Anybody blessed? It’s okay to like sports. Pastor Chuck liked sports.

If I’m trying to see or hear what this writer is saying about this “ . . . great a cloud of witnesses,” and running a race, that is the culture. This is where the Olympics were born. That Roman Empire was sports crazy, and somehow Paul liked to take the metaphor, but then what did he do? There’s a race of life. Can I do a shout out to Billy Graham? I was watching him once. Remember I was talking about him on Larry King the other day in that book? It was Super Bowl time and they said, “Hey, Billy. If you had sixty seconds to speak to the Super Bowl, all the billion people watching the Super Bowl, what would you say?” And, in a split second Billy Graham said, “I would tell them that there’s a game of life,” and he preached the gospel in sixty seconds.

You can use metaphor to preach, to talk about faith. Paul did it a lot. Even in word studies, we’re trying to think about, what did that mean? What was the culture? It was a sports culture. If he talked about running a race, every town that I’ve seen in my travels in Turkey has a stadium. Just like when you drive through our cities, right? Every high school has a stadium. Yeah, we know, but for him, it transcended. It’s a literal picture, a stadium, but then he’s talking about things in the Spirit. He’s talking about the “ . . . great a cloud of witnesses,” the ones who’d gone before, the martyrs, but you can begin to picture this.

How about the word “endurance?” In the King James it’s patience. When you use Strong’s, you’ve got to always have a little bit of King James in your blood. The word hupŏmŏnē. I love compound words. This is a compound word, and you hit the “Root,” so I’m going to hit that “Root Word” and it’s actually from two words. The first part, the preposition hupŏ, means under. The second part, ménō, means to stay, so literally the word for “endurance” is to stay under. Remember the old word “abide.” The King James liked to say, “Abide in Christ.” It’s the same word. It’s that you’re going to be steadfast. In fact, let’s see what we get if we keep going, to remain, to abide. “In reference to place,” not to depart; to continue to be present; to be held, to be kept; to last, to endure, to survive; to wait. This turns out to be a big word, 120x in the New Testament I’ve got this word.

You know, words that are over 100x might not be a bad idea to start collecting. The more you do it, you start to collect words. For me, this almost becomes like flash cards. After a while, you start to collect a lot of words that you know. This would be one of those words.

Notice it’s translated abide (61x), remain (16x), dwell (15x), continue (11x), tarry (9x). That is a little bit irritating because it hides how if you translated all these English words, they’re doing that according to context, but it does sort of hide how common the word is. Some translations, like the New American Standard for example, which I was surprised, Terry. Did you hear? Terry is a New American Standard guy. One reason to like that version is that they tend to be a little more consistent, so you can see repetition a little easier in that version, but it’s obviously a big word, hupŏmŏnē.

Strong’s just means to stay, to stay put, not to run off. There it is, 120x in 105 verses. Now, that just means that there’s some verses that’s actually going to be in the same verse more than once, repetition. It’s obviously to be, well sometimes it’s translated patience, to have endurance is a huge part of the New Testament, so I’m going to endure in a race.

Let’s go find the word “race.” You guys know in different languages, word orders are different? How many Spanish speakers in the house? We say, “Casa blanca,” house white instead of white house. It’s just we put the adjective second. Every language sort of does this, and I’m not a Greek scholar, but you know this, right, the word order is different.

The very last word of verse 1 is the word “race,” and it is the word agṓn. Oo, that’s good. Agṓn is short for agony. It’s helpful sometimes when we have an English derivative. I find that every time I find that it sticks in my mind that the word “race” is agṓn, but it’s good to look back at the root. Here’s sort of the “Bible Usage.” It’s an assembly, a place of assembly: especially an assembly to see games. So, what does that tell us? We’re kind of on the right track. If we’re building a picture of a race in a stadium, the word agṓn, translated “race” actually originally referred to the place where it happened—an arena, a stadium, an assembly of Greeks at their national games, a contest for a prize; any struggle or contest; a battle; an action at law, trial. In this context, these words, the “cloud,” the “witnesses,” the “endurance,” the “race,” is a literal picture of the first century stadium race—Paul seeing himself running, not physically, but it’s a picture of how he saw his life of faith. I’ve got to run with endurance the race set before me.

Now, when I start thinking, some things start going through my mind, and this is what I’m doing. I’m studying. I’m going slow. I’m reading the words, but things start kind of popping in my mind. For example, when I think about the race, an illustration, this just comes in my mind, right? What kind of race are we talking? Can I start preaching? This is an old illustration. There’s different kinds of races. Is the race of life a hundred meters? So, now I’m over here in application. I’m illustrating. I’ve left the first century, I’m going to start sort of applying it to today. It just popped in my mind, so I’m going to capture it. Is it 100 meters? Is the race of life, the race of faith, it is over in ten seconds? Absolutely not, and you might want to make a few jokes about that. Is it a 10k? We have middle distance races that are over maybe thirty minutes or an hour or is life, is the battle of faith, is it a 10k? No, that’s not going to work. What did the Greeks give the world? They gave us the marathon, 26.2 miles.

When he says, “I’m running a race,” I think we’re talking about endurance. We’re talking about life. We’re talking about, “Man, this is not going to be easy.” Agṓn, this is like there’s going to be some serious need for endurance. I can’t quit. As I’m starting to think about this, how am I going to make the bridge between the first century and the twenty-first? Well, if I’m tracking with the context of the race and the pictures, and I begin to translate it. I build a little bridge over to something that people might understand. I might use these words in like a marathon.

Have you guys ever been around a marathon? I lived in Kona. I told my Hilo friend, I lived in Kona for one year and they have the IRONMAN. If you ever get a chance, just to see people cross the finish line, I think you get 24 hours. Is that right? Then, they shut it down. Some people crawl across the finish line like 15 hours later. I remember we were like in the middle of the night, I was living on the YWAM base. In the middle of the night, people just start screaming and cheering, and it’s somebody crawling to cross the finish line of the IRONMAN. Things like that kind of stick with you. That’s the kind of…what am I doing? In fact, let’s go ahead and do it.

You’ve got the Triathlon. What I’m doing is taking something from the first century, if I’m studying and tracking well, then if I begin to connect it with something in our world that people know or have seen or maybe experienced—right?—all of the sudden they start to see it. That’s a very simple illustration, but am I a false teacher? No, this is very simple stuff, but the second you say, “They were a sports-crazy culture,” you start talking about that, then people instantly realize, you know what? We’re a sports-crazy culture, too. That’s persisted, and then you start to go from there to the spiritual application of what he’s saying, which is, verse 2. I find myself doing this a lot in my preaching is I’m re-creating what the text is saying and interpreting it and bringing it alive, and as I do, it’s going to go spiritual. I’ll say something like, “Is Paul talking about the marathon?” And my church will say, they know what I’m doing, “No!” He’s talking about faith and the life of faith, and they get it. But you’ve already helped them to see it.

But now let’s start to, how does this apply? Well, “Looking unto Jesus,” aphoráō. So, this is a verb. I can see right away that it’s two parts, so apó is a preposition. It means away or off. The second part, I love compound words! Anybody here speak German? German is famous for putting together words. They’ll put together three or four words. Greek does, too. Horáō, this word means to see with the eyes, to see with the mind, to perceive to know, to be acquainted by experience, to take heed to beware, to care for, pay heed to, I have seen. And, then down in Strong’s, to stare at. Oo, do you see that part? “Strong’s Definition,” to stare at. “Looking unto Jesus,” to stare at. That’s the root of the word. Let me go back. If you put together apó and to stare at, the “Biblical Usage”, to turn the eyes away from other things and to fix them on something.

You can sometimes just preach the dictionary. “Looking unto Jesus,” I know some of our guys do it this way, they’ll actually read right out of the dictionary. I usually like to try to put it in my own words, but sometimes, man, to turn the eyes away, that’s the apó part, away off, to turn your eyes away from other things, fix them on something, to consider attentively, to look.

Now, here’s another rare word. It’s only 2x in the New Testament, Philippians 2:23 and Hebrews 12:2. I’m doing my word studies, but if things start hitting, I’m capturing. I’ve got to preach tomorrow morning, so when I start thinking about look away from something and fix your eyes, look away from what. He just said, “ . . . we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,”—but I want you to look at Jesus. So, I’m going to do some application. If it pops in my mind, I don’t want to be fixed on the crowd. In fact, is it possible in the flow, in the context, after reviewing all the heroes of the Old Testament, Jesus is greater than all the heroes of the Old Testament? I don’t want you to just fixate on them, you’ve got a great cloud of witnesses, but a runner can’t be looking at the crowd, “Looking unto . . .” Don’t look at the crowd, I would also add the other runners. How many times have you watched a race and a guy is in front, and he’s almost at the tape, usually he does it in the last meter or two he’s…why, why? You look over your shoulder at the other runner, and what happens? You lose. How many times have you seen it?

Now, I’m going to really get into some application. You don’t want to look backwards. If I’m going to run this race, I’ve got to fix my eyes on Jesus. Don’t get caught up in the crowd. Don’t get caught up with other runners. Don’t be looking backwards. If you look backwards, you’re out of the race. Does that preach well? What am I doing? I’m talking first century. I’ve kind of left the track. I left the track, I made it alive, but I’m going to start applying it, start thinking about in life how would looking unto Jesus, what would that do to me in my life of faith if I was just totally focused on Jesus. We’re almost ready to preach this sermon. Now, do you see how…what is an expository sermon? “Looking unto Jesus,” what does that mean? Don’t look at other things. You’ve got to be the Jesus people.

Here’s some things, don’t get preoccupied with the crowd, or can I say the critics? Coaches? This is going to get edited out, but when I’m trying to get ideas, I’m just going to write … “Looking unto Jesus,”—right?—“the author and”—perfecter—“finisher of our faith.” I’ll tell you what I’m thinking is Paul talked about, “I run the race for the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,” like I’m running to the Lord Jesus, and that’s also a “running” Scripture. My understanding is the Greeks didn’t have a tape. You didn’t break the tape, you ran to a mark, and he’s sort of saying for the Christian the mark is Jesus. Run to Jesus, keep your eyes on Jesus, don’t let anything else distract you. I can go bananas here, guys.

Can I do a couple more? They’re all good. I’m going to skip “author and finisher” but let’s talk about joy, “ . . . for the joy . . . .” Chará, joy, gladness, the joy received from you, the cause or occasion of joy, of persons who are one’s joy. That’s actually kind of a reference when Paul said once, “You are my joy,” talking to the church.

A little personal testimony, I was studying this “joy” and I was there around Easter time, so I was seeking the Lord for my Good Friday message and this idea that “ . . . for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,” it just took over, so I did a deep dive and began to think about what would be the sources of joy at the cross.

Sometimes I just kind of lose my mind, so I searched how many times the Bible talks about joy. Well, in English, you’ve got to go “rejoice,” “rejoiced,” “joy,” “joyful,” all the parts of speech. I found 453 references to joy in the Bible, cover to cover, everywhere you look. Then I thought, I’ll do a little study on happiness. We all know that “happiness” and “joy” are two different things. I only found 25 “happiness.” It was “happy” 25 times, “happiness” in the King James Bible, zero. It’s the contrast between happy being circumstantial and temporary; “joy” being internal, a gift from the Holy Spirit, the power of God, really, the fruit of the Spirit in my life, “joy.” I began to make a list of reasons for joy.

I actually did a little bit of a John Miller sermon—shout out to John—where I almost did a theology of the cross because I did a top ten and listed out that He was paying for our sins, He was defeating death, and theologically all the things the cross accomplished. But at the end of that sermon I said, “The number one reason I believe is that it was the joy set before Him,” it was this little crazy thing here in the dictionary, the persons who are one’s joy, that when Christ was dying on the cross He could see each and every one of you that you coming to Him that you putting your faith in Christ, that Christ on the cross could anticipate the victory, and that His joy, one of the definitions, is how I preached it, “One of the definitions of joy in the Greek dictionary is you—you coming to Christ—that He could endure the cross because He could see you giving your life to Him.” It’s a powerful thing, isn't it. That was my Good Friday message, and it all came from this Saturday morning just going through my dictionary, and then I began to do a deeper dive and realized that this, it’s a common thought in the Bible that one of the definitions of “joy” is people. Does that work for anybody?

Let’s look at the word “endured.” This just is a little confirmation. It’s the same word, isn’t it. We’re asked to “ . . . run with endurance;” and Jesus “ . . . endured the cross.” It’s the same word. Somehow I can gain from Christ’s example in my own race. It’s the same idea.

Then, this word here really got me, “ . . . despising the shame,” kataphronéō. So, it’s a compound, katá literally means down or against; and phronéō means to think. If you start reading kataphronéō, let’s look at this, to contemn, to despise, to disdain, to think little or nothing of. “Strong’s Definition” literally it’s these two words together, to think against. That’s sort of a literal interpretation of those words. He “ . . . despising the shame,” He fought against it. I started kind of meditating on that and how when you’re running.

How many athletes in the house? Past? How many retired athletes? I started thinking about how when you’re running, I hated running because I was a basketball player, so running was discipline. You screw up? “Take a lap!” At the end of a practice we used to end practices with free throw practice and we tried to simulate game tiredness, so you line up the team, one guy shoots the free throw, he misses, what do you do? Run a suicide! What a term, “suicide.” You run and…any basketball players here? How do you do that? Well, you have to, athletes learn how to kind of, you think against, you dig deep. You don’t focus on the physical pain, you put your mind…it’s so interesting to me, He despised, phronéō, it’s your mind.

How do athletes sort of do it? You have to think about, past the pain. You train and you compete. It’s a mental game, isn't it. A good athlete, you have a way of keeping your eye on the goal. What you’re trying to do, you’re playing a sport, you’re executing your job on your team, so you think against—you’re ignoring your pain and focusing on the task and you endure and you get through. If you’re going to finish that triathlon, you’ve got to keep your mind on the goal.

To me it’s interesting that it’s saying that Christ, “ . . . who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame,” ignoring the physical realities in these things. In His mind, there was a source of joy—He could foresee the outcome and the goal. To me, you can only go so far, right? That Scripture about we have the mind of Christ, Oh my goodness, what a hard Scripture to interpret and to live. I barely understand it. I get almost afraid here thinking here’s an insight from the Bible, He was thinking against the shame, and He was focused on the joy, that somehow I can follow Christ’s example in endurance if I could somehow focus. Well, you’ve got Scriptures, “The joy of the Lord is your strength,” interesting, huh?

So, to know the Word I start to dig into these words. I slow down. I try to keep it in context and flowing. I’ve got a picture of running a race, but then I’ve got these spiritual principles that I’m trying to bring alive; and then, applications. I just threw a couple out there that popped in my mind. But then tomorrow afternoon, we’re going to pick up where we left off, and then I’m going to try to do as much application as I can. What I’m going to ask you to do is maybe just put a little thought in between now and tomorrow afternoon. We’ll pick up the application part of it and the illustration part and see if we can’t…a lot of times what I do in my outline is each section of my outline, I want to read, interpret, and apply. So, when I get to the point where I’ve outlined, and for me, I’m not a three-point sermon kind of guy. I like two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, whatever I need. But what I do is, again, these things actually become expository.

Remember this idea that your points, your main points, are from the text and your subpoints, so as I’m unpacking this, at some point I’m going to make an outline, and I’m going to have main points and subpoints. But what I force myself to do in my outline is I’m going to actually do application on each of those. I’m going to force myself to read, interpret, and apply each one of the points.