The True & Greater Encouragement (The True & Greater #19)
God blessed Leanne and me with four children, and for some odd reason, all four of them decided to run cross-country in high school. That stands out because Leanne and I are not runners. Leanne would much rather be on a bike or in a kayak. I would much rather be swimming laps or hiking in the mountains. My children decided that what other sports use as punishment, that is what they would do for fun.
Leanne likes to joke that the only time we run is when we’re being chased by a bear. Our kids will just go out and run six miles thinking nothing of it.
Even though I’m not a runner, standing out on those cross-country courses year after year, I learned how to cheer for runners. I learned to say things like, “Hey, get your eyes up.” Or, “If you’re with that teammate, stick with them and push each other.” “Lean into the hill.” I figured out what to yell and what not to yell. It turns out it’s not very motivating to yell, “My grandma can run faster than you.”
I will admit there was one time I drove an hour and a half to watch one of my kids run. Leanne couldn’t make it, so it was just me. And my kid was not doing well at all. I’m trying to encourage, trying to push, and they’re just kind of crawling along. Finally I’d had enough and I just said, “I didn’t drive an hour and a half to watch you dawdle.” Not my best moment as a cheerleader. And then to make matters worse, it turned out my kid had the flu. Now it all made sense.
Our author in Hebrews is about to become a cross-country cheerleader. He introduced this idea of running back when we started chapter 12. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” When you run, your body gets tired. You start feeling worn down. That is why we looked at it last week and saw that when you’re feeling worn down, when things are getting hard, don’t see that as punishment from God. God is working in you. He’s disciplining you, helping you become more like Jesus.
Now he continues with the cross-country image, and he gives us three encouragements. Keep going. Keep looking up. Keep listening.
Lift Your Drooping Hands
He starts with keep going right away in verse 12: “Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” When you are running and you start feeling weary and tired, your form falls apart. That is when a coach basically says, get back to the basics. That is what the author is saying. When you are going through discipline, when you are going through hard things, go back to that which you know. You need to keep going spiritually.
Colossians 2:6 tells us that just as you received Christ, so continue to walk in him. How did you receive Christ? Many of you received Christ by hearing about the gospel. You heard about Jesus dying on a cross for your sins, how he rose again from the dead. So continue looking at that, because that is the most significant thing about your life and in all of history. Many of you came to know Christ because you began to read the Bible. So continue studying and reading the Bible. A lot of you began to follow Jesus with a prayer. So continue in prayer. Get back to the basics.
Back in July, I missed a Sunday here because our family was up in Minnesota supporting our son Salem, who was doing a half Ironman distance triathlon. The first half went really well. His swim went faster than he thought it would. The first half of his bike was going fantastic. Then the heat and the wind began to rise. By the time he started the 13.1 mile run, it was 98 degrees and the heat index was over 110. There was no longer a run. Everybody on the course was just shuffling their feet. Their arms were dragging along. You could tell a bunch of them were thinking, this is the worst thing in the world. Why am I doing this? I am an idiot. I should just quit.
That is what happens when it starts getting hard. You start losing your form. The same thing happens to us emotionally and spiritually. The relationship just is not going well. The job search has gone on so entirely long. The finances are just so awful. We don’t understand why we’re still sick. We don’t understand why the depression won’t lift. We get slouched down and we start losing form. He’s calling us to get back to it. Lift your drooping arms. Strengthen your knees. Run a straight path. Go back to the basics. Do the simple things. That will help you keep going spiritually.
Strive for Peace With Everyone
The next thing he tells us is to keep going relationally. Verse 14: “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” Just as a cross-country runner is to strive for the finish line, we are to strive for holiness. But part of achieving that holiness, he says, is striving for peace with everyone.
As soon as I read that phrase, it made me think of Romans 12:18: “So far as it depends upon you, live at peace with everyone.” I truly believe that word “everyone” means everyone. All people. But remember, both Romans and Hebrews are being written to a church. So it is especially fitting for a church to live in peace with one another. Many people leave churches when things get awkward, when things get weird inside of these relationships. Instead he’s saying, don’t just up and leave and go find something else. Fight through it. Strive for peace.
Don’t Sell the Future for Lunch
That leads to the third way we keep going. We keep going graciously and yet truthfully. Verses 15 through 17: “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.”
Plants cannot grow without a root system. If they have a healthy root system, they grow and you see all sorts of fruit and produce come from it. Without roots, it doesn’t go. If you allow a root of bitterness to start, it is going to sow fruit of division and dissension. Many will become defiled. So if you’re going to strive for peace with everyone, it means you are going to have to give them grace. As soon as you feel like someone has done something against you, said something that offended you, or you just took things the wrong way, don’t let that root of bitterness get in there and begin to grow fruit. Cut that thing out. Go to them, or just decide to give them grace.
At the same time, when we realize we have been the one to offend, whether intentionally or unintentionally, we need to go and ask for grace. We are to help everyone obtain the grace of God. But he is not saying, just give everyone grace, it’s no big deal, it doesn’t matter what they do. He’s also saying, keep going truthfully. Because if it is nothing but grace, what can happen is we fall into licentiousness, which is simply thinking you have a license to do anything and everything you want. We see it as permission for selfishness. And selfishness helps create that root of bitterness.
He gives us an example of that selfishness. He mentions Esau. Esau was the first of the twins born, so by just being born first, he got the birthright. He should have been the next leader for their family, for their clan. When dad passed away, everything would transfer to Esau. But Esau was so self-absorbed he didn’t care about anyone else. He came back one day after being out hunting in the fields all day, famished, and told his brother, “Give me a bowl of stew.” Jacob, the younger twin, wished he was the older twin. He didn’t respect his older brother who was a selfish jerk. So he manipulated the moment: “Sure, I’ll give you a bowl of stew for the birthright. Let me be the leader. I’ll do a better job than you.” The scriptures say Esau despised the birthright. He said, “What good is it going to do me if I’m dead?” So he sold off the future for lunch, all because he was so selfish.
He is warning us. As you keep running, as you keep going, yes, give grace to everyone. But you have also got to help each other find the truth. Jesus says when you know the truth, the truth will set you free. We give grace because we need grace. And yet we hold each other accountable to what God calls us to do, because we want to help each other keep going.
Eyes Up on the Finish Line
The second thing our coach tells us is to keep looking up. If you have ever been to a cross-country meet and paid attention to running form, you notice that those in the front, the leaders, the fastest, their eyes are always up on the finish line. But as the race goes on, the ones who are trailing and falling farther back, not only is their form typically not as good, but they’re usually looking down. They’re so tired and worn out. That is why sometimes you’ll hear a coach just say, “Eyes up. Look up.” Because sometimes just looking up, even to the runner in front of you or the next collection of runners, sometimes that alone is going to help you run faster.
When we are going through hard things emotionally and spiritually, our eyes get down. All we can see is our circumstance, our pain, our suffering. The author is saying, get your eyes up. He gives us three things to look at.
Look to Zion, Not Sinai
The first is Mount Zion. Verses 18 through 21 describe what happened in Exodus 19 on Mount Sinai. God instructed Moses to come up on the mountain where he would receive the Ten Commandments and what we call the Old Covenant. God was going to establish a covenant with his people and give them all these rules and regulations on how to maintain their relationship with God and with one another. But when God’s presence came down on that mountain, surrounded by a cloud, God spoke and it terrified the people. They said, “No, no, we can’t be in the presence of God. Moses, you go for us. We’re too scared.” God even said that mountain became so holy not even an animal was to touch it.
The Jews the author was writing to kept looking back at the Old Covenant because that was all they knew. They thought it was all about rules and regulations. What he has been trying to say throughout this entire letter is that Jesus came to give us a new covenant. Look to Mount Zion, not Mount Sinai. To keep your eyes on Sinai, thinking your relationship with God is like putting on a backpack full of weights as you try to run your race, that is not what Jesus came to do. Jesus came to set you free. Lift your eyes up to Mount Zion. Let him take that backpack off. Now run the race with endurance.
In the Hebrew, the word Zion means “raised up.” I know this because my youngest son is named Zion. Mount Zion is the place where God’s city is raised up. It is the place where Jesus was raised up on the cross, where he was raised up from the dead, and where he was raised up to heaven. Put your eyes on Mount Zion.
Look to Heaven and Its Inhabitants
As you look to Mount Zion, let your eyes go further to the second place: heaven and its inhabitants. Verse 22: “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect.”
Colossians 3:1 and 2 tells us to lift up our eyes, set our hearts on things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set our minds, set our affections, set our longings up there, not on the things of this earth. Because that is where our joy is going to be found. Lift up your eyes. Look to heaven where God is seated on his heavenly throne. Look to heaven where the innumerable angels are in festal gathering. I love that. They’re joyfully gathering around God. It is where the saints are, all those saints we heard about back in Hebrews 11.
Look to Jesus, the Mediator
But there is one more place to look, and I would argue this is the most important. We are to look to Jesus, to the gospel. Verse 24: “To Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” A mediator is a third party who works to bring a resolution, an agreement between two separate parties. Jesus is the perfect mediator between God and mankind. Mankind was created by God, and yet mankind rebelled against God, sinned against him, and broke the relationship. So to help develop this new covenant, Jesus, God the Son, comes down and takes on human flesh. As God, he can perfectly represent God to mankind. As fully human, he can represent mankind to God. First Timothy 2:5 and 6 says, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.”
When he gave himself as a ransom for all, he gave his blood. That is why the next phrase says, “the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” One of our elders preached about Abel earlier in the summer. Abel was killed by his brother Cain, and yet he was completely innocent. Likewise, Jesus was completely innocent. He was without sin, and yet he went and died in the sinner’s place. His blood was sprinkled, was shed for us, making it better than the sprinkled blood of Abel. Through that blood, he established a new covenant. This is more than a legal document between us and God signed in ink. This is a spiritual covenant signed in the blood of Christ.
So as you’re running, as you keep going, you have got to look up. Look up to Mount Zion, where Christ was raised up. Look up to heaven, where God is seated on his throne. Look up to Jesus, the one who shed his blood to establish this new covenant.
Do Not Refuse Him Who Is Speaking
The third piece of advice: keep listening. Verse 25: “See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.” He is referring back to those ancient Israelites who were there at the mountain in Exodus 19, who were afraid when God’s presence came down. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.
God is a holy God. In some ways, you could say he is even a scary God. And yet he is our true God. He is our true and greater encouragement. He is like a coach trying to help us. Sometimes a coach has to warn you: if you keep going the way you’re going, you’re not going to have success in your sport. He’s trying to warn us: if you refuse to listen to God, it’s not going to go well for you. So you have to keep listening.
Some of you may be thinking, “But I don’t ever hear from God.” Let me ask you: do you own a Bible? If you do, then you can hear from God. That is not to say God can’t speak directly to a mind or a heart. If I tried to say he doesn’t do that, I would be in denial, because I have had that happen in my life. And yet, even if I never had another moment where God spoke to me in that way, I would still hear from him because he has given us his word. Hebrews 4:12 says, “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” This thing is powerful. It can coach you on how to follow Jesus. Second Timothy 3:16 says all scripture has been breathed out by God and is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness. So keep listening. Keep reading. Keep studying.
But I’m not much of a reader. Then get an audio Bible. Don’t make excuses. Don’t refuse him who has given you everything you need to follow him, to live this life, to know how to do marriage, how to be a parent, how to be whoever God is calling you to be. Listen, because it is for your good.
A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken
He warns us that listening to God sometimes can be a little scary, because verse 26 talks about how God’s voice brings shaking. “At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ This phrase, ‘yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken, that is, things that have been made, in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”
He describes the shaking as a sifting. Imagine a pile of your life gets thrown into a sifter, and God’s voice speaks into your life and shakes everything up. That which is unimportant falls away so that what really matters remains.
This past Thursday, Leanne and I hosted the Warburg Wrestling Team for a cookout. We’re kicking off our Bible study for the year, studying the book of Ephesians. After eating some burgers and brats, we opened our Bibles and studied just the first two verses. In Ephesians 1:1, you hear Paul describe himself: “Paul, an apostle by the will of God.” When someone asks who you are, you give your name, which Paul did. In America, we ask, “So what do you do?” So we tell them our job. If you’re in college, what’s your major? Who’s in your family? Where are you from? We have all these things that are part of our identity. And yet too often, we base our identity on things that aren’t going to last. We base our identity in certain relationships, or in certain jobs, or in certain income levels. All things that can change. And when those things happen and our life gets shaken, they fall away. If our identity is in those things, and they’ve now fallen away, we don’t know who we are. That is what begins to cause the panic within us.
That is why we need to do what Paul did. We need to do more than identify ourselves by our name or our job. We need to identify ourselves by Christ. He was an apostle by the will of God. In some of his other letters, he doesn’t even identify himself as an apostle. He identifies himself as a slave. His identity was completely wrapped up in who Christ was and what Christ did. He realized he had been purchased by the blood of Christ, so he belonged to God. His life was not his own. He couldn’t go and live like Esau, self-absorbed. His life belonged to Jesus. And by belonging to Jesus, he was now part of a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
So even when Paul’s life gets messed up because he gets arrested, gets ruined because he’s in a shipwreck, finds himself in prison, on trial for his faith, he has peace. Because who he really is has not fallen away.
So who are you? Are you in Christ? If you are, then you are part of the kingdom of God that cannot be shaken, because that is what matters most. If you have been putting your identity in anything else first and foremost, ask God to help you rearrange the priorities. Your job is important. Your marriage is important. Being a parent is important. Your schoolwork is important. But none of them are to be primary over Christ and his work in your life.
Keep Going. Keep Looking Up. Keep Listening.
So the coach tells us how to run this race with endurance. Keep going. Keep looking up. Keep listening. Because it will be for your good, for the blessing of the world around you, and for his glory.
Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, shed his blood. His life was poured out. And it is through that horrible, barbaric act of him being killed so gruesomely that we actually find life. The life is in the blood. The fact that his blood was shed meant his life was drained out, and yet through that death we find life.
When you come to the communion table, let those elements be a reminder to keep going, to keep running, to keep looking up. Let them lift your eyes to the cross. Let them help you say, “God, speak to me. Speak to me through your words. Speak to me through your Spirit. Speak to me through a friend. Speak to me through a song. Lord, I am yours. Speak to me whatever you need to say so that I can become who you call me to be and do what you call me to do.”
The bread represents the body of Christ. When you take it, you are saying, “Empower me through your Spirit, Lord.” The cup represents his blood. When you drink it, you are saying, “Jesus, empower me through your Spirit because of what you have done for me.”
If you have never given your life over to Jesus, then these elements are not for you yet. Because when you take them, you are saying the story of Jesus dying on the cross for your sins is now your story. What is more important than taking a little bread and some juice is to give your life to him. Confess your sin, acknowledge what he did for you through the cross, and offer to give your life to him.
If you have already given your life to Christ, then come. Let those elements be the spiritual sustenance that helps you keep going, keep looking up, and keep listening.
Let us do this in remembrance of him.
