What does First B Jackson teach about cloud of witnesses?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First Baptist Jackson, the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12:1 is taught as something more than a motivational image. Both Pastor Carl and Pastor Mark traced the phrase back through all of Hebrews 11 to show that the people in that list were not untouchable heroes. They were flawed, sometimes visibly failing people who trusted God and kept moving. The Greek word behind "witnesses" is the root of the word martyr, but its original sense is a courtroom witness, someone who can testify to what they have seen and experienced as true. The cloud is not simply a crowd cheering from the stands. Their lives are evidence, and the testimony they give is that faith in God is possible and that it holds.
Pastor Ray pressed that point by bringing the list into the room. He named people from this congregation who had lived out their faith and died in recent years, introducing each one with the same words Hebrews keeps repeating: by faith. Bud Searles, Mark Upton, Grace McDaniel, Wes Flanagan, and Kurt Ripley, who had died just days before the service on New Year's Day. The point was that the cloud of witnesses is not only ancient. It includes people whose faces this congregation knew, people who shoveled neighbors' snow, led others to Jesus, and kept faith when things were hard.
The cloud of witnesses, in this teaching, is never the destination. It is the reason for the commands that follow in Hebrews 12. Surrounded by all of them, the call is to lay aside every encumbrance and sin and run, with eyes fixed on Jesus. Both Pastor Carl and Pastor Mark were careful to distinguish encumbrances from sin: some things that slow a person down are not wrong in themselves, just no longer compatible with the race being run. But the goal of all of it is Jesus, the archegos, the one who pioneered the way and stayed in it, and who is the only thing that keeps a believer from growing weary and losing heart.
Taught from Hebrews 12:1-3 · Hebrews 11:32 - 12:3 · Hebrews 12:1 · Hebrews 12:2 · Hebrews 12:3
The passage taught · 1 Peter 5:10
10 But may the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- January 12, 2020 Fix Your Eyes on Jesus A Wyoming pastor walks through Hebrews 12, showing how fixing your eyes on Jesus, not religion or your own efforts, is what carries you through.
- January 12, 2020 Fix Your Eyes on Jesus Hebrews 12 calls us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, and run with endurance the race set before us, laying aside sin and every encumbrance.
- January 5, 2020 By Faith: People of Whom the World Was Not Worthy Hebrews 11-12 sermon on living by faith, honoring those who ran before us, and fixing our eyes on Jesus as we endure the race set before us.
- January 5, 2020 By Faith: Men of Whom the World Was Not Worthy Hebrews 11-12 sermon on faith through suffering, tracing biblical heroes and beloved church members who lived and died trusting God's promises.