Hebrews 12

The first half of Hebrews 12 is full of fantastic images of how we should live the Christian life.  It starts with the reality that we have been led in the faith by a long list of “pioneers” who have already been there and done that.  Not only the list we just read through in the faith hall of fame of Hebrews 11, or just the Bible being full of examples cover to cover, but think about those in your family or circle – parents, grandparents, church members – there are many who have “blazed the way” in the faith.  So while our own journey is unique, the road is not totally unclear.  The writer tells us though we need to “get on with it” and realize that our faith walk matters.  He gives us a list of things we need to be doing to really do that:

1. Strip down
2. Start running
3. Never quit
4. No extra spiritual fat
5. No parasitic sins
6. Keep your eyes on Jesus
7. Study how He did it

Seven key phrases that describe the race of life we are in and how we need to FOCUS on getting after our walk with God.  Can you see the trend here – it is described somewhat like training for a physical event – we need to have our spiritual running shoes on and be in spiritual shape.   We need to have spiritual disciplines.

 

Sometimes when we are trying to walk with God, we start to think it is too hard and want to just give up.  Realize that this is “an all-out match against sin”.  Life is not just about getting up and working all day.  It also has a very spiritual side to it that the enemy wants to defeat us in.  So we get discouraged and want to give up.  Check out what scripture says about that attitude: “When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he (Jesus) plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls”! Life is not a cake walk.  I know that from personal experience.  But we are not asked to do anything that others have not done before.  And we will never be asked to do what Jesus did.  So when we start to “feel sorry for ourselves” we need to realize that God is in the business of helping us win this battle against sin.  He wants to make us like Jesus.  He wants us to be godly and holy.  Anything short of that is not acceptable.  “God is educating you” – when we experience trials – “it’s training”.  We are being put through the training camp of life to get our spiritual training on track. “God is doing what is best for us, training us to live God’s holy best”.  Oh I know well that “discipline isn’t much fun”.  But it is the only way anyone really achieves victory in life.  That is true of our spiritual life just like it is with anything we want to do in life.  God is focused on making us “mature in our relationship with God”.  Don’t fight it – embrace it and train hard.  Get on with it and become a person who is spiritual fit and spends time daily making sure you are ready for the day.

 

 

 

Hebrews 11

Hebrews 11 ends with a continuing list of those who lived by faith.  There was Abraham who was willing to sacrifice Isaac in obedience to God, Isaac who blessed his sons, Jacob who blesses Joseph’s sons, Joseph and Moses who “chose a hard life…rather than an opportunistic life of sin”.  Moses gets quite a bit of coverage here – he had some major faith wins like crossing the Red Sea which is a big one.  There is the Israelites who marched around Jericho, Rahab (a harlot) who is called out as one who demonstrated faith by welcoming the spies and scripture tells us “many more–Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets” that don’t get anything more than mention here.  The reality is that living by faith is not an isolated thing in scripture, and shouldn’t be in our world today either.  God is still in the business of responding in the lives of those who believe and live life in faith.  What does that response look like?  The writer here makes it pretty clear with this list of what God has done.  Check it out – He is still doing stuff like this today:

1. toppled kingdoms
2. made justice work
3. took the promises for themselves
4. protected from lions
5. protected from fires
6. protected from sword thrusts
7. turned disadvantage to advantage
8. won battles
9. routed alien armies
10. loved ones back from the dead

 

You may remember the specifics of those stories from scripture.  But it wasn’t always easy.  The people in God’s Hall of Fame for Faith here had some tough times to endure.  They had to deal with: “torture…refused to give in and go free… abuse… whips… chains…dungeons… stoned…sawed in two…murdered in cold blood…wandering the earth in animal skins…homeless…friendless…powerless”.  We serve a mighty God.  He has a plan and that plan for each of us is to live by faith.  All day, every day.  He wants to do great and awesome things in and through us.  It does not mean there will not be difficult times.  It does not mean that life will be a bed of roses.  It does mean that He is able, His grace is sufficient; He wants to show Himself strong through us.  We need to trust and obey.  We need to be willing to go where He calls us to go and do what He calls us to do.  The details are in His hands.  That is what stands out to me.  These people did what God asked without seeing the end.  They just believed!

Hebrews 11

We are going to continue to camp here in Hebrews 11 today looking at another handful of verses 7-16.  There are three more extreme examples of faith that God calls out here through the writer.  Remember that these folks are normal people, like you and me, living life and trying to be obedient to God.  Sometimes we tend to make the people in the Bible out to be superhuman in some way, but they aren’t.  They messed up just like we do.  They put their pants on (assuming they wore pants) one leg at a time like we do.  The difference was how they chose to relate to God and live their life.  We have that same opportunity.  We can choose to live a life of faith just like these people did if we want to.  Check out the three today:

1. Noah “built a ship in the middle of dry ground”.  Remember that up to this point in history it had never rained.  Yet Noah listened to God’s call to build a boat – not just any boat – but a very large boat.  Scripture tells us “Noah became intimate with God”.  How – because of obedience and faith!
2. Abraham “said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place”.  That sounds pretty easy doesn’t it.  Maybe until you realize he “had no idea where he was going”.  He took off and followed God’s lead with no clue of where the end would be. 
3. Sarah “was able to become pregnant”.  Seems pretty easy – until you realize she was a very old woman and certainly past the normal childbearing years.  Plus she was married to an old man with “dead and shriveled loins”.  The result – “people numbering into the millions” are the descendants of this miracle of faith.

 

So what’s the big deal.  A few miracles for a very small handful of people.  The big deal is that we serve the same God who is still in the miracle business and is looking for people who will just have faith and take Him at His Word.  Scripture gives us the secret here.  It answers the question of how they did it.  “They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world”.  All great people of faith see God and know that this is His world and He is in absolute control.  They hand over the steering wheel and trust Him.  Completely and totally – following His direction and experiencing His touch in their lives.  God wants to do that for you and me.  He is still very much interested in people who are willing to live by faith.  That can see things with vision (which to me means seeing life from God’s perspective) and are willing to go for it with all they are.  Are you one of those kind of people?  Are you willing to be totally sold out to believing Him?  If you do, unbelievable things lie ahead.  God is still in the faith business.  The question is – are we?

Hebrews 11

As we begin Hebrews 11 we will be camping here a few days.  This is a very special chapter in scripture.  It is the FAITH chapter – or the faith hall of fame if you will.  The writer here shares a list of the great people through history who got it right – who lived by faith – and then shares some of the hows, whys and most importantly results of living that way.  First though – faith is defined.  Here is what is called the “fundamental fact” about faith.  It is “trust in God…the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living”.  How is that for fundamental?  Faith is the core of what we are.  It is the foundation upon which we live.  We have to get this part right.  Three examples are shared in the first part of this chapter:

1. Faith allows us to “see the world called into existence by God’s word”.  Creation is all about faith.  It doesn’t necessarily make sense by science or human understanding, but that does not change the reality of what God did.  Faith is key to our basic belief in God Himself.
2. Faith allowed Able who “brought a better sacrifice to God”.  The sacrifice was not the key but “what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference”.  God is about the heart – not just the external actions.  Faith is key to what happens in our heart.
3. Faith allowed Enoch to move on – he “skipped death completely” because “he pleased God”.  Faith is key to our ability to please God.

 

Is faith important?  The writer shares three examples here in the first section about just how important it is.  But the key lesson in these first few verses comes in verse six.  Check this out: “It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him”.  How is that for clarity about the importance of faith?  We cannot please God without faith.  It is absolutely impossible to have a relationship that is pleasing to Him if we don’t believe in His existence and caring.  It can’t happen.  This is a defining truth for each of us.  What are we going to do with this faith thing?  Will we believe it and make it our own?  Will be grow to understand the wonder of God’s creation and know Him intimately?  Cause if we don’t – things go nowhere fast.  We will see many more examples of faith in the coming days as we continue our walk through Hebrews 11.  But the question really is: what are you going to do with God and His truth?  What are you going to do with Jesus?  Here’s a hint: Faith is the only acceptable response.  We need to find it and make it our own. We need to hold on to it with all our energy and might.  We need to live it and teach it to every person around us.  Without it we can never please God.  Are you there?  Do you have faith?

Hebrews 10

The writer continues in the second half of Hebrews 10 to share a bit more about about the new covenant and what that means to us.  The forgiveness of Jesus is final.  Check out what scripture tells us here: “I’ll forever wipe the slate clean of their sins”.  Did you catch that very important word?  FOREVER. That is quite a while and describes the grace and mercy Jesus provides with His touch in our lives.  That allows us to live differently in relationship with God who will “hold us to account and make us pay” for the way we live.  “We can now – without hesitation – walk right up to God…..full of belief, confident we are presentable inside and out”.  WOW.  When we get right with God through a saving relationship with Jesus – we not only have direct access to the Father, we are made completely clean – white as snow.  Our sins are gone forever.  What a promise…and the writer makes that promise clear by saying “He always keeps His Word”.  We can be confident in our future if we allow Jesus control of our lives.  The other side of reality is that “nobody’s getting by with anything” so if you are banking on God just ignoring things, or you slipping through the cracks, or an administrative snafu, it isn’t going to happen.  We are all going to give account for how we stack up and without the cleansing blood of Jesus, the story doesn’t end well.

 

The other key lesson in this section has to do with the importance of being together.  Check this out: “Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on”.  Another version tells us not to neglect assembling together.  We need each other to walk faithfully in our quest for holiness and godliness.  Salvation comes from Jesus alone.  But the body of Christ – the church, Sunday school, small groups, conferences and all sorts of other ways we can meet and push one another toward God’s plan for our lives – that is His plan to help us live and walk right.  The Christian life is not a solo event.  It is not about individual performance.  It is a team thing – something we are told to do together.  We need each other.  Scripture calls out the issue when it says “stick it out, staying with God’s plan…stay with it and survive, trusting all the way”.  The reality is that few who run the race make it all the way to the end finishing strong, but even fewer make it at all running the race of life alone.  God’s design is clear and really quite simple.  We need to get involved in a local body of Christ – yes that means an imperfect church filled with imperfect people led by imperfect leaders who together act imperfectly all the time – but that is God’s design.  Realize that the day you find the perfect church and want to join it – well it just crossed the line from to imperfection because I know you are not perfect either.  So that excuse doesn’t cut it.  We need to dig in and let God work through us to help move that body toward Him.  It is a marathon – this thing called life.  We need to get in the race now by joining a local church, small group etc and “not avoid” as sometimes we do.

The weekend on the farm is just another way for us to do life together.  Nothing magic about it – a bunch of imperfect sinners who will spend a couple days trying to cheer each other on and worship the living God.  I look forward to that very much – only one week til takeoff!

Hebrews 10

The writer in the first half of Hebrews 10 continues to explain the difference between the sacrifices under the law and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  Boiled down here is what scripture tells us: “the plain fact is that bull and goat blood can’t get rid of sin”.  That is pretty straight and to the point isn’t it?  The only way for priests under the law to deal with the issues of life where people fell short and sinned was to repeat over and over “sacrifices and offerings year after year”.  It never dealt with the real problem.  I love how the Message version describes that continual effort.  Check this out: “No matter how many sacrifices were offered year after year, they never added up to a complete solution”.  Being a technology guy – we talk about complete solutions all the time.  Offerings and sacrifices dealt with the obvious pain and need to make things right today, but did nothing to really address the issues of the heart nor create an eternal solution for sin.  That is where Jesus comes into the story.  He is the total solution.  Scripture says it like this: “Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it”.  That sums it up pretty well.  The One who was perfect – who had a relationship with the very Father Himself because He was from Him and was Him, went to the cross as a sacrifice and then “He sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in”.  It helps to know the source of power.  It helps to know who really is in control and Jesus did and was.  And His death on the cross sealed the fate of the enemy and also created a new way to deal with sin once and for all.

How can this really be?  Because it is “God’s way–by which we are made fit for God by the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus”.  God determines the rules.  This is His universe.  He decided at the creation that obedience was the standard – perfect obedience.  Adam and Eve blew it in the garden.  The enemy was there then rooting them on to walk in disobedience to God.  We live in that same environment today.  God knows the situation and decided to make a total solution that would allow mankind to deal with the reality of sin.  That was sending His very Son to the cross to give us a sin solution.  Here is the crux of the whole story: “It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect people”.  God’s standard is perfection.  It has to be by the very nature of His character since He Himself is perfect.  We fall down.  We miss that mark.  So He has made a way for us to achieve that perfection, not on our own accord, but through a relationship with One who has achieved it and sacrificed His blood to make it available to us.  If we shoot for perfect obedience and godliness and holiness on our own – well it isn’t going to end well.  We won’t make it to eternity on our own.  But if we allow God’s design and plan to impact our life – if we repent and believe and confess and receive – we have an eternity that is secure and we can take that to the grave with confidence.  Jesus paid it all.  He was the perfect sacrifice.  He died for you and for me.

Hebrews 9

Hebrews 9 talks much about the old covenant and the replacement of it.  Sin can only be dealt with by shed blood.  Originally the “blood of sacrificed animals” but now it is changed because Jesus “sacrificed himself once and for all…the final solution of sin”.  The truth in this chapter is pivotal for our faith.  Have you thought about it lately?  Christ “using his own blood as the price to set us free once and for all” has put the entire sin problem behind us, as long as we receive the gift of salvation through grace.  This is amazing truth.  He went to the cross and became the ultimate sacrifice – “a one time event…that took care of sins forever”.  What an unbelievable story.  But that was the plan God had for us – for you and me – to be able to deal with our sin problem.  The writer describes what happens here so clearly.  When we receive Jesus He “cleans up our whole lives, inside and out… freeing us from all those dead-end efforts to make ourselves respectable, so that we can live all out for God”.  Do you want to be a new person, set free?  Jesus is the answer.  And that freedom is the platform of life that allows us to live all out for God.  We need to do that, with reckless abandon of self.  We need to never take for granted the gift we have been given and live daily, moment by moment for Him.

Hebrews 8

Hebrews 8 talks about the change in how God relates to the world from the old covenant to the new one.  The way of the old covenant was for people to be obedient and to offer “both gifts and sacrifices” to deal with sin.  Of course over time man corrupted God’s plan and created all these laws that were way off the original plan and people were unable to even come close to being what God intended.  So they quit working at it and just went their own way.  Sort of how a lot of folks live today – just ignore the God of the Universe and live a “me” life.  Scripture tells us God’s response to that: “They didn’t keep their part of the bargain, so I looked away and let it go”.  He won’t allow it – life is not centered on you or me – it is about God and under the old covenant – it was about being obedient to a set of laws that could not be met.

 

So God created a “new plan” – the new covenant and the concept is pretty simple.  “I’ll be their God, they’ll be my people…. get to know me firsthand… get to know me by being kindly forgiven”.  We still have the same sin problem they did under the old covenant.  But God realized that anything that depends on us to get done for us to achieve holiness just isn’t going to happen.  So His plan was to send Jesus to the cross, to become our sacrifice once for all, and create a “new covenant between God and his people”.  This covenant really changes things from us doing, to us receiving.  We need to receive God’s grace through the blood of Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for our sin.  We need to focus on building a relationship with Christ and God the Father and not be so focused on keeping the law.  It isn’t about going to “school to learn about me or buy a book called God in Five Easy Lessons”.  I love how the message version puts it.  Sort of making the point that we don’t need to go to the bookstore and pick up God for Dummies.  What we need to do is get right on relationship – we need to seek and find Jesus as He alone is the focus of the new covenant and thus the only real thing that matters.  If we miss that, we have missed the whole enchilada.  It is all about Him and not at all about me.  That is the reality of God’s plan today.  He has made it possible for me to know my eternity is secure because Jesus has taken over the responsibility of my future.  I just have to repent and get into right relationship with Him.

Hebrews 7

Hebrews 7 talks about priests and offerings and the changes that God made to allow us to deal with sin.  The Levites and later Melchizedek were provided as a way for people to live by the law and deal with the shortcomings of life.  One could bring sacrifices and pay tithes and have a continual process of handling sin in life.  But scripture tells us that “the law brought nothing to maturity”.  It was simply a way to deal with the events of the past but didn’t really cause life change.  It didn’t help people learn to walk in obedience.  It was a paying a price for the past, but not really focusing on the way we should live, so people did not come closer to the holiness God desires through growing toward maturity.

 

But God changed that when Jesus was sent to earth as the perfect atonement for sin.  “This makes Jesus the guarantee of a far better way between us and God”.  Jesus is our sacrifice “that brings us right into the presence of God”.  Big difference now – we are dealing with a relationship – not just something we do to try and make penance for the past.  God plan is for us to grow through the relationship we have with Jesus and through Him directly to the Father.  “He’s there from now to eternity”.  This won’t change.  Priests won’t change this law – it is eternal and will work forever.  Why – because of the very nature of Jesus.  Scripture tells us He was “completely holy, uncompromised by sin, with authority extending as high as God’s presence in heaven”.  We serve a risen Savior who will be able to deal with our imperfection, called sin, forever.  The law was God’s plan at the time, but it was changed to help us achieve His real goal – that our life would be changed from dealing with the past – to living for the future.  God desires us to grow and become like Him.  Jesus made the way for us to spend eternity in heaven.  Our job is to grow a relationship with Him and then walk with Him in obedience to God.  We have access to the Father through the Son.  We need to live in that relationship obediently and focused on becoming what God desires!

Hebrews 6

The writer in Hebrews 6 gives us a lesson in what is important.  The Message version puts it this way:  “The basic foundational truths are in place:

-          turning your back on “salvation by self-help”

-          turning in trust toward God

-          baptismal instructions

-          laying on of hands

-          resurrection of the dead

-          eternal judgment”

Want to know what matters to God?  Here is the list of the basics – those foundational truths we must know, understand and belive.  It is interesting that the first foundational truth is about “salvation by self-help”.  We must never forget that our salvation is a gift from God through Jesus Christ.  It is never something we do in any way by ourselves.  We can’t get to heaven on our own.  Jesus is the only way.  He is the only truth.  He is the only way to life.  Too many today want to make it on their own by living a certain way or doing good things.  That will never satisfy the price for sin.  Jesus is the way and we must never forget that.

 

Scripture also tells us that “He knows perfectly well” what we have done.  The writer admonishes us “don’t drag your feet” – we should never resist that which God has called us to do.  And the reality is this: “I promise that I’ll bless you with everything I have–bless and bless and bless”.  Need proof?  Scripture tells us “Abraham stuck it out and got everything that had been promised to him”.  Did you catch that?  He got EVERYTHING that was promised.  Abraham did not live a perfect life.  He screwed up on occasion but God was faithful.  We are told here that His Word is “a rock solid guarantee”.  How many of those do you know about in life?  It goes on to say: “God can’t break his word. And because his word cannot change, the promise is likewise unchangeable”.  Did you catch that?  God’s promises will never change.  You can take them to the bank.  They are going to happen.  And His Word is full of them.  We need to know that Word and understand what He has committed to us.  It is a fantastic future and hope, and the beauty is – it isn’t a dream – it is a reality that is going to happen.  So stand firm on His Word and KNOW that He will do what He says.  Always!