Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Hebrews

Equipped To Do His Will

About this sermon

Hebrews closes with a benediction: “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will.” It names the resurrection for the first time in the letter. Christ is the great shepherd who never dies. God does not command his saints to do his will without supplying what they need; he works in them what is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.

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Sermon transcript

Our scripture reading for this evening is taken from the book of Hebrews, one last time. Hebrews chapter 13, verses 20 through the end of the chapter. This is the word of God. Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good, that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings. Grace be with all of you. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we come because we need you. You have inspired, preserved, and given us this word, but we need your Spirit even now, that we might hear it, believe it, receive it, be blessed by it, that these might be words. We ask that you would give us this grace because of Jesus, in whose name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Perhaps you can imagine starting a new job, where your boss hands you a large project with high stakes, deadlines that affect the company’s future, tools you have never used before, perhaps even artificial intelligence, and no training. You feel completely unprepared, stressed, and on the verge of failure. Some of you may already be living this experience every day, every week. It may be especially close to home for some of you. Or there may be other reasons that you feel the demands upon you exceed what you have to give. But now imagine instead that your boss comes and provides not only every tool, every resource, and every skill that you would need to perform the task, but also works alongside you, guiding your hands and strengthening your decisions, even from within. Then the pressure lifts, because the success is not on your shoulders alone. And friends, this is a faint shadow of what God promises in Hebrews chapter 13, especially verses 20 to 21. In the most important assignment of all—doing His will and living a life pleasing to Him—God does not leave us overwhelmed and under-resourced. The God of peace equips us with everything good that we need to do His will and works in us what pleases Him. I have stood where some of you may be feeling right now, staring at God’s commands—love perfectly, forgive deeply, resist sin daily—and thinking, I cannot do this. I am not equipped. My heart wanders, my strength fails, and overwhelm sets in. Peace feels distant. But then I read this benediction from Hebrews chapter 13, and it strikes me afresh, like fresh air. The God of peace who reconciled me through Christ’s blood and raised the great Shepherd promises to equip me with everything good to do His will and to work in me what pleases Him. It is not merely to try harder; it is to trust Me to transform you. And if you are in Christ tonight, this is not just ancient words written long ago. It is your present reality. This is no fairy tale; it is the closing promise of Hebrews 13. The God of peace has raised our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, to equip us, His sheep, for every good thing that pleases Him. If you are feeling lost, weak, or unequipped tonight, hear this: your Shepherd is greater than any failure or fear you may have. Tonight let us unpack this benediction and see how the same power that raised Jesus from the dead equips sheep like us. This will be my last sermon on Hebrews in this series. I hope that if you have been with us over the past 18 months, you have seen that Hebrews is indeed a very glorious epistle. It stands out in the New Testament in a special way. And this evening, as we consider the close of this wonderful letter, which the author calls brief, some of you may disagree with that. I think we find that its closing benediction stands out as well. We will look at this passage under three headings. Number one, the God of peace. Number two, the great shepherd. And number three, the grace-equipped saints. So number one, the God of peace. This little phrase is very easy for us to skip over, the God of peace. But the writer of Hebrews has not used this descriptor accidentally. He has called God many other things throughout the course of this letter. He has called God the majesty on high, the most high God, the Lord, the majesty in heaven, the father of spirits, the living God, and most recently, a consuming fire. But now, as the writer of Hebrews closes out this letter, he wants his readers to remember God in one final way: the God of peace. What do we mean by the word peace? Well, negatively, we can speak of an absence—absence of conflict, lack of disorder, absence of confusion. But positively, the Bible speaks of peace as wholeness or completion, reconciliation. The Hebrew word is shalom, and in the Greek, it is eirene. Speaking of this wholeness and reconciliation, what does it mean for God to have peace? God is whole and complete. He is not worried. He is not in conflict with Himself. He is not stressed about anything. Nothing catches God by surprise. Nothing can make Him feel inadequate or as though there is too much for Him to handle. God never feels threatened by opposition. He is never confused. He is never at odds within Himself, or among the members of the Trinity. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit never fight, never argue with one another. There is nothing like the peace of God, which He has within Himself. This does not mean, however, that God has no conflict, because the God of peace is completely opposed to sin. He has pure, complete, and holy wrath against sin and unrighteousness. He is not intimidated or threatened by wicked people, even those who express hatred and disdain for Him. But His perfect holiness requires that He judge all wrongdoing and wickedness. This is not an attitude of, “I hate to judge, but I have to,” but rather a complete hatred for all that is evil. The God of peace is completely at war with sin. He is determined to bring perfect judgment upon all who break the law and do what is evil. In pursuit of His peace, the God of peace hates evil with an uncompromising hatred. This leaves you and I in a difficult position. As someone who breaks God’s law daily in many ways and continues to break it, what does it take for me to have peace with the enemy of all wickedness? What does it take for us to have peace with God? I find it fascinating that when the angels came to announce the birth of Jesus to the shepherds, they proclaimed in Luke 2:14, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom He is pleased.” It is the birth of Christ that brings peace to the world. Peace is also the title of the promised child in Isaiah 9. He is called the Prince of Peace. Peace is associated with Jesus because it is through Him that it becomes possible for sinners to receive peace with God. We see a reference in our passage to the blood of the eternal covenant. This is a reference to Christ’s most central work, indeed the focal point of all history, as Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3 states: “After making purification for sins, he sat down.” Or in chapter 2 verse 17: “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” Because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. And without forgiveness of sins, there can be no peace with God. But Christ did make purification for sins. He, the high priest, offered the only suitable sacrifice, which was himself on the cross at Calvary. The crucifixion of the rabbi from Galilee was actually a cosmic fulfillment of celestial atonement for sin, as we have seen in our study throughout the book of Hebrews. Christ’s mission was to come and to die so that the wrath of God against our sin could be satisfied, and we could have peace with God. Thus, this brief phrase, “the God of peace,” carries great significance. It should cause us to pause and remember why and how He can be a God of peace to us. He is the God who is at peace and who has made a way for us to have peace with Him. There is no other way to find true peace. If you do not have Christ tonight, you cannot have true peace. You may experience moments when people around you affirm you or make you feel good about yourself. But that will not last long. It does not solve the real problem. For the root of the problem is not merely the surface-level feeling of lacking peace. It is an eternal reality that sin will be judged by God. But if you are in Christ tonight, if you give your sin to Jesus, He will take away the guilt and give you peace with God. If you are in Christ, this benediction is for you. The God of peace is your God. He is speaking these words of comfort tonight. There will never be a single drop of wrath that falls on you for your sin. Your relationship with the living God, with the holy consuming fire, is one of utter peace. Secondly, we see in our passage a reference to the great shepherd. As we continue in our passage, we see another first-time reference in the book of Hebrews. Our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep. We have seen Jesus called many things so far in this book, but shepherd has not been one of them. In fact, the only other mention of sheep in this book is in chapter 11, referring to the clothing of some who suffered by faith. However, the writer of Hebrews does not expect us to read his letter in isolation from the rest of Scripture. He expects you to be familiar with the rest of the Bible. He has been quoting Scripture throughout the book. And he clearly expects his readers to be familiar with the shepherd and sheep imagery throughout the Old Testament, not to mention Jesus’ own words in John 10 in which He identifies Himself as the great shepherd. The Good Shepherd. Shepherd imagery in the Bible begins in Genesis. Adam and Eve’s son, Abel, was a shepherd. Later, Abraham and Isaac kept much livestock. Jacob, who became Israel, made his primary living as a shepherd. Moses became a shepherd for forty years in the wilderness before returning to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. And of course, the famous King David began his life as a shepherd. He first learned to fight by battling lions and bears in the wilderness that were attacking the sheep. But especially during David’s reign, as he wrote the Psalms and reflected on his position as ruler over God’s people, shepherding became more than just a literal description of some of God’s rulers. It became a metaphorical description for all the rulers of God’s people. We find the prophets picking up this language of shepherds to refer to God’s people. Nathan, for instance, confronts David about his adultery and murder by speaking of him as a shepherd to God’s people. And most significantly, Ezekiel, from captivity in Babylon, sends rebukes to the people of Israel, describing them, the leaders, as bad shepherds. In contrast to the wicked shepherds leading God’s people at the time, Ezekiel prophesies that God will send a good shepherd. In fact, God will come himself to shepherd his people. And the shepherd will be both God himself and a descendant of David. And that, of course, refers to the one that we have referred to in our passage this evening in Hebrews, our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep. Now there was a phrase that may be going out of style at this point. It was an acronym that my father, when he was teaching a few years ago, often used when speaking to middle schoolers. They called him the GOAT. Perhaps you have heard of the greatest of all time. In one sense, we could say that Jesus is the GOAT shepherd of the sheep, the greatest of all time shepherd of the sheep. The leaders of God’s people have been called shepherds for a long time, but none of them have ever measured up. They have all failed in various ways. And even your own leaders here at Grace have and will fail you in various ways, including myself. I’m not saying this to disrespect or disregard them. They are worthy of respect, honor, and trust. But they are not the great shepherd. They will sin, as will I. Their judgment will be imperfect. They will rebuke things too harshly. They will let sin go that ought to have been confronted. And ultimately, of course, we all will die. We will not be around forever. They are not the great shepherd. The Great Shepherd will never do any of those things. He will never sin. His judgment is always perfect. He never rebukes too harshly, nor does He let go that which ought to be confronted. And most important of all, as we see in this benediction, He will never die because He has been raised from the dead. That is why it is such good news to see what our passage says first about our great shepherd—that He was brought up again from the dead. Up to this point, the book of Hebrews has not spoken of Christ’s resurrection. The entire focus has been on His sacrificial death. But it is not as though the concept of resurrection has been entirely absent from this book. We saw in chapter 11 that Abraham believed that Isaac would be raised from the dead, and that Isaac being spared was figuratively a raising of him from the dead. But we also saw at the end of chapter 11 the mention of women who received back from the dead their loved ones by resurrection because of their faith. And the author of Hebrews also mentions the resurrection in chapter six as a well-known doctrine along with eternal judgment and other things. But here in this passage at the end, we have the first direct mention of Christ’s resurrection. Now the scriptures as a whole speak about Christ’s resurrection in a number of different ways. In Matthew 28:6 and 7, in 1 Thessalonians 4:14, and in other places, we see Jesus described as the one who rises, who has risen, and who rose from the dead. He speaks of himself as the actor in his own resurrection, explicitly in John 10:17 and 18, where he calls himself the Good Shepherd. He says, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” Thus, in some passages, the Scripture describes Jesus raising himself from the dead to demonstrate his power and authority over death. In a few passages, however, the Bible states that the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead. Romans 1:3–4 says, “concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Then again in Romans 8:11, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” Paul connects our resurrection to Christ’s resurrection because we share the same Holy Spirit who gave resurrection to Christ and will give resurrection to us. But by far the most common expression in the Scriptures is that God the Father raised Jesus from the dead. We find this in Acts 3:4, Acts 13:30, Acts 17:31, Romans 4:25, Romans 6:4, Romans 10:9, and other passages, just as we have here in our passage in Hebrews 13:20. Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep. The resurrection has many implications, but one of them is that Christ’s sacrifice was complete and accepted by God as sufficient. Therefore, it is very fitting that, as the writer of Hebrews has surveyed all the aspects of completion—Christ’s sacrifice having fulfilled the Old Testament ceremonies and sacrifices—he then speaks of this final resurrection of Christ, which was complete and accepted by God as sufficient. The God of consuming fire and wrath against sin has fully expended His wrath for your sin on the great shepherd of the sheep, for the sin of the sheep. Christ’s resurrection, being raised from the dead, was a vindication of the completion of His atoning work and the acceptance of His sacrifice. But speaking of Christ Himself, it is His having gone through death and being raised up—referred to also by the blood of the eternal covenant, His own death—that makes the great shepherd especially fit for His work. Because He died, He can never die again. Jesus says this to John in Revelation 1, verses 17 and 18: “Fear not. I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore. I hold the keys of death and Hades.” The phrase “the blood of the eternal covenant,” which we see in verse 20, may also be understood as a reference to what theologians sometimes call the covenant of redemption. And by this, they mean an agreement in eternity between the Father and the Son to accomplish redemption for their people before time began. The plan for our salvation was not a hasty response to undo what Adam did when he first sinned. It was not God trying to overcome the odds or find a way to save something from the ruined world created by sin. Salvation was a gloriously and meticulously planned before the world even existed, in eternity past, with perfect unity and harmony among the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—a covenant of eternal redemption. It was an agreement within God Himself to save a people for Himself. This brings us to the final point: the recipients of this benediction. Number three, the grace-equipped saints. Up to this point, we have looked at the descriptions of God who is doing the blessing. But now we take a moment to consider what this blessing is. Before we finish the benediction, I want to say a few words about the other verses in this passage, verses 22 through 25. He says, “I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings. Grace be with all of you.” Over a year ago, a year and a half ago, when we first started this series, we talked about the mysterious unknown author of the book of Hebrews. He does not identify himself at the beginning or the end or anywhere in between. He seems to be known to the audience, though. And he also seems to know Timothy, as we see in this passage. So he was probably also known to the apostle Paul and moved in his circles. We discussed various possibilities for his identity, but ultimately we do not know who this author was. We can see that the letter seems to be coming from Italy, as he sends greetings there. The epistle of Hebrews is unusual in its lack of a beginning greeting, leading some to believe it was originally delivered orally, perhaps as a sermon, with the final greeting added afterward. Then it would be written down, additional greetings included, and sent off. For whatever reason, God in his wisdom has chosen to keep the author anonymous to us. As a side note, as we read passages like this, I do not know about you, but sometimes when I read the New Testament letters with their additional details, or the Old Testament with its genealogies and descriptions of geographical locations that I cannot identify today, it can be easy to ask: What is the point? Why is this here? How is it significant that I read this detail or that detail? In 2 Timothy, Paul says, “Do not forget to bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas.” This may seem irrelevant to me, thousands of years later. But these details are important because God did not send his word as a download from the cloud, nor as messages floating down on golden tablets, as some other religions claim. His inerrant, holy, God-breathed word came in time and space through ordinary people, each with their own writing style and historical context. The people who wrote this word from God needed it just as much as you and I do. These small glimpses into their ordinary lives remind us that God used ordinary people to write down his word, and that he is at work in our ordinary lives, in your ordinary lives, with all the details—even remembering to bring your cloak. God did not remove all the secular details. He works with our humanity, not against it. Remember, he became man. He did not make us gods. But to continue with our benediction for our third point, we see that the author concludes his final statement with, “Grace be with you all.” This proclamation of grace, which I believe is connected to the central theme of his benediction in verses 20 and 21, I will read once more: “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” This benediction in Hebrews is my personal favorite. It is one of the main promises I constantly cling to. It is what I need every week, every day, every hour. My only hope for living a life pleasing to God is His equipping. I need Him to give me what is required to do His will. And if you are a believer here this evening, I trust you can feel that need as well. Equipped with everything you need to do His will. God’s will is outlined in His word. There is much to keep up with. For the tenderhearted Christian especially, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. In fact, I would suggest that if you do not occasionally feel overwhelmed by all that God requires of you, you are probably overestimating your own abilities or underestimating God’s requirements. But if you are feeling overwhelmed this evening, I have amazing news for you. Everything that you need to do God’s will, you will have. God will not withhold anything that you need to do His will. There is not one good thing that He will keep from you. In this fallen world, in your employment, many of you have been asked—or may still be asked—by your boss or your customers to do things that you are not equipped to do. In some cases, this is because your boss is harsh, uncaring, or unreasonable. In other cases, it is due to ignorance or a lack of understanding on their part. Either way, it is understandable and overwhelming to face a task that you are required to perform, yet have not been adequately equipped to complete. You do not have what you need. Depending on the stakes, of course, the stress can be very high. Some of you are undoubtedly experiencing this kind of stress day after day at your job. I cannot resolve your employment stress tonight. Or perhaps, if you are in school, you have struggled with turning in papers and assignments, and you know the stress that this can bring. I cannot make your boss or your professor more reasonable, nor can I provide you with what is necessary for your place of work. But I can assure you tonight that in the matter that is most important, in the place where your eternal destiny is at stake, you have not been left in this situation. You have been equipped. And yet there are millions of people all over the world tonight who are in this spiritual situation. God’s law stands as a requirement for all men and women. The whole world stands accountable to God. Romans chapter three, verses 19 and 20: “Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.” For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law merely comes a knowledge of sin. Every person outside of Christ stands in an impossible position. They have nothing that they need to do God’s will. They are left to their own devices. They find themselves helpless and without hope. This is a far more troubling situation than having inadequate equipment, time, or training at work or at school. The worst that can happen there is you will be fired or fail your class. But the effects of failing to live up to God’s will, as revealed in His law, last forever. They extend beyond death into eternity. But that is why this promised blessing is so precious. For those who are in Christ, they have and continue to have everything that they need to do God’s will. You, if you are in Christ, have everything that you need to do His will. And then He says, working in you, that which is pleasing in His sight. Every son or daughter has a longing to be pleasing to their father. Even those who have fathers who have failed in massive or persistent ways still desire this. There is a kind of emptiness in a son or a daughter’s heart that nothing else can fill. We read stories of successful writers, musicians, executives, and politicians, who despite all of their success and acclaim, from all around them, still find themselves longing for the approval of one person—their father. And it can be devastating and disappointing to be deprived of that approval. But that is why this benediction here is so precious. For not only does God, our Father, equip us to do His will, but He also works in us that which is pleasing in His sight. Now, equipping us might sound like providing us with everything we need and then leaving us to our own devices, leaving it up to us, which could actually set us up for greater disappointment when we fail. But that is not the way God works at all. That is not His equipping. His equipping is not setting us up and then letting us go. But by the Holy Spirit, He is working on us from the inside. So if you are trusting in Christ, you have not only been given all the information you need to be pleasing to God, but you also have the Holy Spirit powerfully working new desires and new affections for God within you. Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is not just something you know you ought to do, but something you are empowered to do by His Holy Spirit. And this is to give God all the glory. If God had only given us the equipment and told us to get it done, we might deserve some credit for doing it on our own. But of course, the reality is we would not receive credit, because we would be miserable failures, for we cannot do it on our own. That is why God does not do it that way. Since God does everything—both the equipping and the working within us—He deserves all the credit. So when you see yourself in Christ, putting sin to death, loving God, loving His worship and His people, putting your faith in God despite challenging circumstances, and all the rest, it is the Holy Spirit who gets the credit. Our salvation places us in a situation where we receive all the help, and God receives all the credit and all the glory. You receive the help you need, and God receives the glory, and both of you receive all the joy. There will not be a single situation in your life in which you are left alone. Struggling to find and to follow God’s will in your life. What a relief. What a rest for your soul. When you feel alone. When you feel overwhelmed by your own sin. When you look around wondering if you have missed God’s will for your life. This is a promise to hold on to. To embrace with all your strength. To hold tightly to your heart. The God of peace, who raised from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, will equip you with everything good that you need to do his will, working in you that which is pleasing in his sight. Amen. Let’s pray. Our God and Father of peace, who is in heaven and who has sent your Son, we thank you for this equipping and working in us that which is pleasing in your sight, for which we would be helpless and hopeless without your giving it to us. So we thank you and praise you and give you all the glory. In Jesus’ name, amen. Amen. In response, let’s turn to hymn 537. Let’s stand as we sing hymn 537, Jesus, Master, whose I am.

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March 22, 2026
Keeping Watch Over Your Soul With Joy

About this sermon

Hebrews 13 calls believers to obey their leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over souls as those who will give an account. The word translated “obey” carries the sense of being persuaded and trusting, and “submit” the sense of deferring. Leaders have no independent authority; as the Westminster Confession teaches, the Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture judges all decrees and opinions. Believers should follow faithful leaders so that the leaders may do their work with joy, not groaning. The writer also asks the congregation to pray for its leaders.

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Sermon transcript

Our text this evening is taken from the book of Hebrews chapter 13 and we’ll be looking at verses 17 through 19 of chapter 13. Hear now the word of God from Hebrews 13. Say your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray for us for we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner. Amen. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we need you. We need your spirit. We need your help. Lord, you have by your spirit inspired this written word and preserved it for us and now we ask the Lord we need your spirit to make us alive to its truth, to its life.

We ask the Lord that you would be present in the preaching and in the hearing. You might be glorified. We might be blessed. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen. You may be seated. Last weekend, Callie and I stayed at my cousin’s farm where they had a small flock of sheep. I think about seven or eight. These were low-maintenance kind of sheep, I was told by my cousin, because they didn’t require the shearing that we so commonly associate with some sheep, but I noticed they were quite speckled and spotted, so I think maybe Jacob would have claimed them as his wages if he had been around rather than Laban. I didn’t get a lot of time to spend with them or look at them since we were mostly in and out and only sleeping there, spending the day at the rest of the time with my family, Seeing those sheep last weekend reminds me that the leaders of God’s people have often been called shepherds, whether it was kings like David, leaders that we read about in Ezekiel, or the apostles in the New Testament, and even the elders that we have today in our church.

God is described as the shepherd of his people, and Jesus says he is the true shepherd. And then Jesus in John 10 makes a comparison between shepherds and hired hands there. Jesus, the good shepherd, lays down his life for his sheep while the hired hands run at the first sign of trouble. They apparently don’t think they get paid to risk their lives. They didn’t sign up to fight for wolves, to fight wolves. But the shepherd, Jesus says, cannot leave his sheep no matter how much it costs, because the difference between a shepherd and the hired hand is the reason that they are in it. The shepherd is in it for his joy. He wants to be there. He loves it. The hired hand is there for a paycheck, so he won’t tolerate the personal cost and threat of wolves.

Now, as we get close to the end of our study in the book of Hebrews, the author is closing with some words about the leaders among his audience, whether it’s a congregation or several congregations. He’s been driving home the point of Christ’s superiority and supremacy and the importance of keeping the faith and staying the course. But he’s about out of influence, about out of words. Someone else is going to have to continue the work that he has been doing in this letter. And true shepherds who are in it for the right reasons, the local leaders, that’s who he turns his attention to. They’re going to be the ones continuing the teaching, setting the example, caring for the congregation in the coming days. And so, as he prepares to close out his letter, he has a few words focused on the leaders.

This evening, we’ll consider three things from this passage, the aim of faithful leadership, the means of faithful leadership, and the response to faithful leadership. Number one, the aim of faithful leadership. In verse 17, it says, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. And we have here at the beginning, at the end of verse 17, a negative statement of outcome. If things are not working right, then the spiritual leadership won’t be useful to the people. This term advantage is often used to refer to economic profit in other situations in which the word is used. But in this case, the author is referring to spiritual benefit.

The aim of spiritual leadership is for the people’s good, for their ultimate good, for people to be saved and to stay saved. In previous chapter in Hebrews 6 verses 7 through 8, we saw the writer using the analogy of farmland that’s profitable versus unprofitable. He said, for land that is drunk, the rain which often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those whose sake it is cultivated receives a blessing from God, but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed and its end is to be burned. The writer of Hebrews is speaking of salvation. Land which bears fruit, which is profitable, are those who experience salvation while the land which bears no fruit and is unprofitable refers to those who are not saved. The Bible describes salvation in many different ways, but ultimately it is about being restored to a right relationship with God.

Because of our sin, every man and woman, you and I are separated from God, spiritually filthy, deserving of eternal judgment. For God, of course, out of his great love and mercy, did not leave us like that, commissioned his own son Jesus Christ to make an exchange with sinful men and women so that he would be punished and they would be made clean and free to commune with God. The sacrifice that Jesus made, though completed in history thousands of years ago, of course, is applied by the Holy Spirit to individuals today, producing repentance, a hatred of sin and its evil, and faith, a belief that Christ is perfectly willing and able to be all that they need. At the root level, of course, this is a heart change, not just behavior, but an entirely new disposition towards sin and towards God.

It’s a moving from death to life, a spiritual resurrection. The aim of faithful leadership in the church is for this change to happen in people’s lives, which will be to their eternal advantage. Faithful leaders in God’s church are not aiming for temporary behavior fixes or tweaks, but permanent, lasting change. And the Christian life, of course, is an ongoing reality. It must continue year after year. It’s a lifelong commitment. We call this the perseverance of the saints. The reality of faith is not judged on the sincerity expressed in a given moment, although that is important. The genuineness of faith is determined by its staying power, by its perseverance through time and trouble. This means that the goal of spiritual leadership is not simply getting people to make one-time decisions, but to persevere in lifelong commitments. Spiritual leadership is aiming at the end game, the final score for which the leaders will give an account.

But, of course, spiritual leaders in the church are ultimately aiming at a goal which they cannot accomplish. The power to give men and women spiritual, eternal life, to give them faith, to keep them in the faith, is not within the power of the most powerful preacher or the most godly and wise elders. The power to bring about faith and repentance lies with God alone, and yet this does not mean that faithful leaders in the church throw up their hands or lower their expectations or ambitions. Being faithful to God, to God’s calling, is about aiming for something that only God can do. Church leaders are content with only checking a box, doing their part, without concern for the final outcome or not being faithful. But at the same time, faithful leaders understand that they’re involved in a task that they have no power to accomplish on their own, in their own strength.

And that’s actually on purpose, because it’s meant to lead and to drive the leaders to prayer. Because prayer is not just an additional task for church leaders, something they also have to do. It’s a foundational attitude, and when prayer ceases in the lives of church leaders, the aim is not far behind, falters quickly. A prayerless leader will be relying on his own strength, and he’ll either become proud in his presumed accomplishments or burnt out and discouraged for miserably failing. But either way, there will be a tendency for the aim of spiritual leadership to shift, to drop away from that which is to be the aim. A properly aimed leadership will guide towards prayer, and a properly praying leadership will maintain a biblical aim. And if you think about it, this is the place that godly parents find themselves in as well.

Parents are tasked with faithfully raising their children in the Lord. The goal of Christian parenting is not to produce rich, smart, social, successful or influential children, it’s to produce godly children. And yet, this more than anything else is especially outside of a parent’s ability to accomplish. Without the converting power of the Holy Spirit, a parent can do everything right every minute of the day, which we never do, and their child will still remain a rebellious sinner to the day of his or her death. Only God can grant a new heart to rebellious sinners. Apart from God’s work, all human effort is worthless. Psalm 127 verse 1 famously reminds us that human effort apart from divine efficaciousness is useless. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.

Unless the Lord works in the hearts of the people, the faithful leaders serve in vain. And this is true in matters of parenting and matters of church leadership, but it does not diminish the aim of either one. It is still the aim of saving souls. Christian parents, godly leaders within the church are aiming at nothing less than salvation. Because despite the fact that salvation is not within our power as humans, anything less is of no advantage eternally. It will not matter how many years someone went to church, how many sermons they sat through, how successful or smart or rich a person they were if they do not have eternal life. Jesus famously asked the question in Matthew 16 26, for what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

For what shall a man give in return for his soul? So the aim of faithful leadership is the salvation of people’s souls. But then how do they do that? So number two, the means of faithful leadership. Verse 17 talks about faithful leaders keeping watch over souls. And I think that as we look back over the rest of the book of Hebrews, in conjunction with our passage, we see perhaps at least four things, four things that we’ll look at tonight that faithful leaders in the church are to watch. So the means of faithful leadership is to watch four things. Faithful leaders, number one, watch the word of God. Chapter 13, verse seven, remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. When we look back at verse seven of chapter 13, there’s a reference to the leaders who came before and they’re described as the ones who spoke the word of God to the people.

Faithful leaders watch the word of God because they serve as those who are under authority. We here at Grace Church are part of a denomination called the OPC, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and in our book called the Book of Church Order. It says this about church authority. It says in form of government, chapter three, paragraph three, all church power is only ministerial and declarative. For the holy scriptures are the only infallible rule of faith and practice. No church judiciary may presume to bind the conscience by making laws on the basis of its own authority. All decisions should be founded on the word of God. We do not believe in the OPC that the church has been given delegated authority to impose rules of faith and practice according to their own judgment. Despite what other denominations may believe, we believe we are bound to the word of God alone.

The first chapter, the Westminster Confession of Faith, which of course all the church leaders in our denomination hold as a faithful summary of the Bible’s teaching in the areas it addresses, says this in paragraph 10, the supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men and private spirits are to be examined and in whose sentence we are to rest can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the scriptures. Church leaders are not by their own authority given a pass, but they may all be examined regularly by the word of God. We do not believe church leaders have independent authority to declare things right or wrong based on themselves. Church leaders are to be obeyed to the extent that they are following the word of God.

We don’t believe that the Bible delegates its authority to church leaders who may then make whatever decisions they see fit. This means that faithful leaders in God’s church watch closely the word of God. They watch the word of God so that they can speak and teach it faithfully to the people. James, the brother of Jesus, writes in James chapter 3, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. Faithful leaders watch the word of God by studying it so that they know it well. This applies especially to those who teach and preach, but to all of God’s, the leaders in God’s church, they watch the word of God, but secondly, they watch Christ. Hebrews chapter 3 verse 1, therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus.

Or chapter 12 verse 2, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. Christ is the focal point of our faith. We could sum up the message of the book of Hebrews as, consider Jesus. In chapter 1, Jesus is God’s final revelation. He is the word of God in person form. There have been people all throughout history who have, and still today, want to define Christianity apart from Christ. Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, they want to have God without Christ. Muslims are arguably doing something similar with their attempt to hold on to a supreme God while relegating Jesus to the position of a lesser prophet, but the book of Hebrews vehemently precludes any of those notions in the very first chapter. Chapter 1 verse 1, long ago at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things and through whom he also created the world.

And Jesus also precludes any ideas. Himself in John chapter 14 verses 8 and 9, Philip said to Jesus, Lord show us the Father and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? We do not know, we know the God who made the universe, who wrote the scriptures, who is able to save us, but we do not know him apart from his revelation in the person of Jesus Christ and what he has done in his final word. Faithful leaders watch Christ as though their lives depend on it because they do. Christ is our life as believers and as faithful leaders in Christ, in God’s church, Christ’s church.

The church is Christ’s bride and Christ’s body and those who serve Christ’s body as are to have this perspective of John the Baptist who saw himself as the best man, preparing the bride to meet the groom, which was Christ and not himself. So as faithful leaders seek to serve the people, they keep their gaze fixed on Christ. His perfect righteousness and holiness keeps them from lowering their standards and while his perfect patience with them, with us, and his grace and love keep faithful leaders from dealing harshly or self-righteously. But most of all faithful leaders keep their gaze fixed on Christ because eternal life is to know him and to love him. And thirdly, faithful leaders watch their own conduct. We saw this in verse 7 of chapter 13, remember your leaders, consider their outcome, the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

We saw this in verse 18 of our passage, pray for us for we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things. Faithful leaders need to be good examples, capable of imitation by the people of God. Besides these passages in Hebrews, we see the apostle Paul making this point repeatedly in his letters. First Corinthians 416, he says, I urge you then be imitators of me. First Corinthians 11, verse 1, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. And Philippians 317, brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example that you have in us. Being a faithful leader is being an example, which means that leaders must keep an eye on their own conduct and this follows from the two previous points.

They watch the word of God and they watch Christ, but they don’t stop there, they look at themselves, how am I measuring up? As sinners themselves, faithful leaders won’t be perfect this side of glory, but their lives ought to be examples of humble repentance for their sin rather than regularly failing to temptation in significant and public ways. We all sin every day, we all get angry, but we don’t all commit murder, we all lust in our thoughts, but we don’t all commit adultery or engage in homosexual activity. And faithful leaders are called to be blameless, which is different from, different than sinless. Any leader who thinks he’s not sinless is not fit to lead God’s people because he is self-deceived, but blameless means there’s no public pattern of sin. An angry thought, a lustful glance is a sin before God which deserves the eternal wrath of God, can only be atoned for by the death of the eternal Son of God.

It’s not that smaller, more private sins don’t matter, or that we can do enough good to make up for our bad. This is not a matter of guilt and atonement, blamelessness is about imitability. A leader in God’s church should be free of public scandal for the sake of the reputation of God’s church and to be an example worthy of imitation. And additionally, faithful leaders watch themselves because they know that serving in this position puts them at extra risk of temptation. Paul Warren’s in Galatians 6 verse 1, brothers if anyone is caught in transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you too be tempted. So faithful leaders watch the word of God, they watch Christ, they watch their own conduct, and finally they also watch the people.

Verse 17, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Faithful leaders are put in place to help watch out for God’s people. Our passage says that they’re watching out for our souls. Church leaders aren’t appointed to diagnose your stomach pain, evaluate your blood work, dissect your business proposal, provide weather emergency warnings, or a million other things that we might want them or other people to do. They have a specific mission, they are called to watch out on behalf of your soul. The book of Hebrews has been replete with warnings about the danger of drifting away, of abandoning or missing out on salvation. We need faithful leaders in our churches to be on the lookout for our souls. That is their mission, their task, their focus.

How is this person doing spiritually? Not just are they saved, but how are they persevering in the faith? Where are they strong? Where are they weak? Where do they need encouragement and support? When might someone need a stern warning? Faithful leaders do this not only out of a concern for people’s souls, but because they know they have to give an account. This is part of the reason for church membership. It’s not just because Presbyterians like paperwork. Church membership is about the leaders being aware of who they are being held accountable for. Your leaders here at Grace are watching out on behalf of your soul. But don’t think of this as watching out waiting for you to fall. Faithful leaders don’t watch their people like the refs to see if they’re keeping all the rules. Faithful leaders are like the team coach, watching you with a vested interest in your success, making sure you don’t get injured and have everything you need to play at your very best.

Faithful leaders aim at salvation by means of watching God’s word, watching Christ, their own conduct, and God’s people. But our main text this evening that we’ve been focusing on begins and ends with calling for a response to faithful leadership. So finally, we consider the response to faithful leadership, verses 17 and 19 again, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you, the more earnestly to do this, in order that I may be restored to you sooner. The first word translated obey that we have here in our passage is actually not the normal word for obey.

The word that we see here in the Greek is patho, which sometimes refers to being persuaded or persuading. You may have heard of the debate term pathos, which comes from this word, and this relates to what I said earlier about the derived authority of church leaders. In Romans chapter 13, verse 1, we see the common term for secular rulers, let every person be subject to the governing authorities. This Greek word carries a different connotation, and it is used of the secular leaders, but the word that we have here in verse 17 relates more to trusting, to being persuaded. This is coupled with the idea of what is translated as submit, which could also be translated as defer. It’s a slightly softer word than the word translated submit in other places, and it’s actually only used here in the whole New Testament.

But what we have here with the obey leaders and submit to them, the author is laying out a biblical response to faithful church leadership. It’s an attitude of trust and deference. And this is because church leaders do not exercise an authority independent from God’s word. They’re not little monarchs given free reign to command whatever they see fit. But that does not mean that faithful leaders may be cast aside or ignored. They’re put in place for a reason. We ought to respect them, submit to them, and obey them as far as they are teaching the word of God, because they are put in place for the aim of keeping people following the word of God by the word of God. It’s tempting in this culture, which prizes independence, to think we can do Christianity ourselves. Some Christians tend to view the Christian life like a game of survival.

Only armed with prayer and my Bible, I can conquer the powers of the world, the flesh, and the devil. But the Bible doesn’t see it that way. While on the one hand you know yourself better than anyone else, on the other hand, sin is inherently deceptive. And that means if you are being ensnared by sin, you are the least likely person to see it. That’s why you need the church, especially the church leaders. Anarchy in society is not a biblical perspective, and it’s not biblical in the church either. We’re meant to live in harmony by obeying and submitting to faithful leadership. They’re looking out for our ultimate good. The author elaborates on this deferential, harmonious response by saying, let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Being a faithful leader in God’s church is not easy. It requires a lot of time and energy. It involves a lot of hurt and heartache. People are sinners. But it’s not all heartache and hardship. There are many rewarding aspects and privileges to leadership in God’s church. There are joys that come from using your gifts to serve God’s people in this way. But one of the biggest factors between discouragement and delight for a leader of God’s people is the response of those who are being led. The author of Hebrews is telling us, not only don’t be difficult to lead, but seek the joy of your leaders. Church leaders who cannot do it with joy won’t be helpful to the people that they’re supposed to be helping. This of course means for them that church leaders should try to cultivate their own joy in the Lord, focusing on Christ, as we mentioned before.

But it also means that those who are led need to be supporting them in this. One of the most important ways we can do this is through prayer. The author of Hebrews tells his audience to pray for their leaders. As a congregation, we must pray for our elders that they will be able to lead us with joy. So it will be advantage to us. And pray for your leaders’ holiness as well. Pray they will not let sin fester, but root it out, kill it, and repent when they do sin. As we come to a close, this passage from Hebrews should let the weight and wonder of it settle over us once more. Faithful leaders in God’s church have been given a high and holy calling. Keep watch over your souls as those who must give an account to the Great Shepherd himself.

And their aim is nothing less than your eternal advantage, your salvation, your perseverance in the faith, your growing likeness to Jesus from now until the day that you stand before him. And they pursue this not in their own strength, but by watching the Word of God closely, fixing their eyes on Christ, examining their own conduct with humility and vigilantly caring for you as the flock entrusted to them. And yet, this sacred task is never to be carried out in isolation or drudgery. The Holy Spirit, through the author of Hebrews, urges us, you, the people of God, to respond in a way that makes their watching joyful rather than groaning. He says, trust them, be persuaded by their faithful teaching of scripture, submit and defer to their authority and leadership as they lead you toward Christ and his Word, not as independent rulers, but under shepherds who will answer to the Great Shepherd Jesus.

So make their work a delight, by your teachable hearts, by perseverance in the faith, by humble repentance when corrected, by active encouragement. When you see them doing something right, let them know. And of course, above all, pray for them earnestly. Pray they would maintain their clear consciences, act honorably in all things and lead with joy rooted in Christ. When leaders serve with joy and not grief, it profits. It guards your soul, it strengthens the church, and it glorifies God. Amen. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, our Chief Shepherd, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, you have given gifts to your church of leaders. We ask that you would be our shepherd, and you would shepherd us, you would shepherd our leaders, and you would bring us all home safely to see you one day, that not one of whom the Father has given you would be lost.

We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen. Well, in response, let’s stand and sing hymn 525, hymn 525, Savior, like a shepherd, lead us.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

March 8, 2026
Therefore Let Us Go to Him

About this sermon

Hebrews reminds believers that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” and that grace, not food, strengthens the heart. Believers have an altar from which the old tent’s servants have no right to eat. As the priests burned the bodies of sin offerings outside the camp, Jesus suffered outside the gate to sanctify the people through his blood. “Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured,” without shrinking back from what others think. Through him they offer a sacrifice of praise and do not neglect to do good and share.

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Sermon transcript

We turn now, if you would remain standing for our reading. Our reading for our text this evening is Hebrews chapter 13, verses 7 through 16, and that’s found on page 1197 of the Pew Bible, if you need that. Hebrews chapter 13, verses 7 through 16. This is the Word of God. Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.

So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Amen. Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven, our Lord God, we ask that as you have inspired this word and preserved it for us, you might bless the proclamation of it and you might give us your spirit that we might hear it with faith, with understanding, that it might be life to us and not death, that we might be alive to your word.

We ask that what is spoken, you may empower these words to be words from you and not words of men only. Lord, we ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. May be seated. Imagine for a moment the ancient Israelite camp in the wilderness, the tents arranged in perfect order around the tabernacle, the center of God’s presence. Inside those boundaries, everything felt secure. The priests performed their rituals, the people offered sacrifices, and life followed the familiar rhythms of the Old Covenant. But outside the camp, that was the place of refuse, where the bodies of the sin offerings were burned after the blood had been sprinkled, defiled ground far from comfort marked by rejection and shame. And yet, that is exactly where the ultimate sacrifice took place, not in the holy sanctuary, but outside the gate on a hill called Golgotha.

Jesus, our great high priest, the perfect lamb, suffered outside, bearing the full weight of reproach, scorn, and separation, so that through his blood we could be sanctified, made holy, and brought into an intimacy with God, that no old ceremony could provide. The writer of Hebrews does not leave us watching that scene from a distance, but he turns to us with a bold, urgent invitation. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach that he endured. Today, in a world that prizes comfort, conformity, and self-protection, Jesus stands outside, calling us to join him there. Our passage this evening contains three key responses that the author longs to see in us. Number one is appreciation for our position of incredible privilege in Christ. Number two, of willingly pressing in to discomfort to be with him.

And number three, action in profession, speaking up for Jesus, and philanthropy, or doing good and sharing. We have a lot to get into, so we’ll jump right in this evening. Number one, appreciation for our position of privilege, verses seven through ten. And I get this from verse ten, which says, We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. This is the privilege which the author of Hebrews has been emphasizing throughout the entire letter. The New Covenant, in Jesus’ blood, offers incomparable privilege above what the Old Covenant ceremonies could provide. Adherence to the now-defunct Old Covenant ceremonies, rather than combining with the New Covenant and giving you extra credit, so to speak, actually excludes you from the New Covenant, he’s saying. The New Covenant provides the privilege of an intimacy beyond what even the high priests had.

And here the author speaks of that as an altar from which the Old Covenant priests are excluded. In the New Covenant, we all become priests who eat from the heavenly altar because we have access through Jesus into heaven. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s go back and trace this author’s thought in our passage. Starting verse seven, look at verse seven. Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. The author starts by telling his audience to remember their leaders who spoke to them the word of God. This is most likely a reference to leaders who are no longer alive. There are several reasons for thinking this. One, the call to remember seems to imply that they are gone in some way.

And this is in contrast to verse 17, where he says, obey your current leaders. Also, the word outcome that we have in the Greek is more literally their exit or their departure. So the author is calling his audience to consider their leaders who perhaps founded the community of faith of which they are a part through preaching and teaching God’s word and to remember and imitate the legacy of faith that they have. The author doesn’t specify whether these leaders were killed for their faith. His point is simply that they were an example of faith all of their lives. And he tells his audience to do three things to remember, consider and imitate. Remember them, who they were and what they did for you. And then consider, think carefully about how they lived their lives all the way to the end.

And then put that into practice. Do what you saw them do, imitate their faith. And in order to help them do this, he reminds them that Jesus, the Jesus whom their leaders trusted, is the same. The same one with them now. We see this verse eight. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Their leaders may have passed on to glory who first taught them the word of God, but the Jesus whom they believed in has not changed. He hasn’t gone anywhere. In fact, he is the same one for us today. We may not know the leaders who are being referenced in this letter, but we can share their faith in our Savior, who is the same yesterday for them, today for us, and will be the same for those who come after us.

In a world of constant change, a world where we may suffer insults and injury, where the future is uncertain, we have someone who is always constant. But one of the reasons in this passage to remember that Jesus is the same is so that you will not be led astray by enticing suggestions of new teachings. Verse nine. Do not be led astray by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. Jesus has not changed. He does not change and he will not change. So don’t get confused by newfangled teachings that propose a new understanding of salvation or faith or Jesus himself. And in particular, for this audience, the author has in mind the temptation to try to go back and add in Old Testament ceremonies and sacrifices to their faith in Jesus.

Because in that case, they would not be trusting Christ alone, but would be trusting in the temporary ceremonies, which are now defunct now that Christ has come. Faith needs to be strengthened and built upon grace by a firm confidence in an unchanging, all-sufficient Savior. The ceremonies that they’re tempted to turn back to aren’t benefiting the current practitioners, and they have actually become obstacles to true faith. Now, it is unlikely that many of you are tempted to try to return to practicing the Jewish worship ceremonies and sacrifices here today, this evening. But you may still be tempted to ground your faith subtly more in your practices than in the grace of your Savior. If you’ve been at this church very long at all, you’ve likely heard the terms, the means of grace. And this is the way to speak about the things through which God often works in our lives to make us more mature in faith.

And the three big categories are the word, sacraments and prayer. God’s word, when read, studied, sung and heard, is used by the Holy Spirit to convict us about our sin, to encourage us to believe in God, to provide wisdom and insight about God, ourselves and the world. And the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper are used by God’s Spirit to strengthen our faith by physically demonstrating spiritual realities. And finally, prayer is our communion with God. And by engaging it, we are changed and shaped into conformity with Christ. Worship on the Lord’s Day, as we’re doing now, is important for shaping us, especially as it is here that we experience the means of grace uniquely like the preaching of God’s word and the sacraments which are unavailable elsewhere. And yet, as with all good things, even things as holy as Bible reading and prayer can become a subtle object of our trust rather than a means to anchor our trust in God.

Of course, it is really a form of self-trust when we’re exhibiting a trust in our performance of certain practices rather than the one that they point to. The Pharisees are example, exhibit A of people who trusted in their own prayers rather than the God they were praying to. And so we all need to hear this warning that it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. And this then leads to the author’s punchline under this first point that we’re considering of acknowledging the privilege. Verse 10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. The author is reminding his readers of their incomparable privilege. The author is using priestly imagery, which he comes back to repeatedly in our passage this evening.

The priests in the Tabernacle were given the right to eat of certain parts of certain sacrifices. After God’s portion was set aside and burned up, the priest could either eat it right there or send it home for his family. And this was actually one of the ways that God provided for the priests and their families. It was, in a sense, supplementing their grocery budget. The author of Hebrews is making a reference to this practice, but then inverting it. He’s saying that the members of the New Covenant, those who are in Christ, have the privilege of eating from the heavenly altar, while the priests who remain or those that go back to serve in the defunct Tabernacle are excluded. They have no right to eat from the altar that we have a privilege of eating. And this literally flips the previous situation on its head.

Before it was the priests in the Tabernacle who alone were allowed to eat from the altar, while the ordinary Israelites were excluded from eating from the altar. Now it’s the priests of the Tabernacle, now it is the priests of the Tabernacle who are excluded, while the ordinary believers are given the privilege of eating from the heavenly altar. And it is this privilege that the author wants his readers to have an appreciation for, so they will realize there’s nothing that they could return to that would be better than what they already have. In Jesus, they have the highest privilege. It is only through Jesus’ own priestly ministry that we enjoy the priesthood as believers. So now the author now turns in our passage to speak of Christ’s priesthood. Number two, the attitude that the author wants us to develop, the attitude, press into pain, verses 11 through 14.

Continuing with the priestly practices, the author mentions another aspect of the sacrificial ceremony. Verse 11, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. The author is preparing to draw a comparison between the high priest in the Tabernacle and Jesus. So he sets up the parallel by explaining the practice on the Day of Atonement, which we read earlier in the service. The high priest would take the sin offering and burn it outside the camp. And now look at verse 12. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his blood, through his own blood. Jesus, as the ultimate, the high priest of all high priests, offered the ultimate sacrifice for sin, which was himself.

And he offered it appropriately, the author of Hebrews says, outside the camp. The author of Hebrews is pointing to the significance of even the place in which Jesus was crucified. We read the account in John 19, verses 16 and 17. John recounts, So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. Jesus was crucified outside Jerusalem, just like the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, because he was the ultimate sacrifice that all the other sacrifices had foreshadowed and pointed to. Jesus was actually paying the full price for sin. And so it was fitting, the author says, that in his death he was burned. He was crucified outside the camp, like the sacrifices that were burned. But then in the next verse, the author states a surprising implication.

Verse 13, Therefore, therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach that he endured. Jesus suffered as an offering for sin outside the camp. Therefore, you ought to see in this an example for you to follow. The author is seeking to stir up an attitude within his audience that instead of shrinking back from discomfort, follows Christ’s example and moves towards it. Christ’s sacrifice made a people holy so they would become like him, following his example of pressing into pain. And we saw a similar exhortation in Chapter 12, Chapter 12 of Hebrews, verse two, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus pressed into the pain, the pain and the shame of the cross.

And if we’re following him, we must have the same attitude. The author wants to develop in his audience an attitude of stepping out towards reproach. And his first reason is the example of Jesus. But that’s not his only reason. The author has a second reason in verse 13, which is so obvious it can be easy to miss. It says, therefore, let us go to him outside the camp. This means that Jesus is not sitting back telling his followers, you go out there. Let me know when you get back, when you’ve proved yourself worthy of following me. No, the call to go outside the camp, away from safety and comfort, towards danger and discomfort, is a call from Jesus to come. Come experience the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. Christ is outside the camp, getting rained on by the reproaches, and he’s calling you to join him.

Fellowship with Christ is not found by shrinking back from suffering, but by boldly stepping out into discomfort. Christians are not those who cling to comfort, who run away from discomfort. But following the example of their savior, they step into discomfort. Notice that the author does not speak of stepping into bodily harm, but of the reproach and the ridicule that Jesus endured. The author does not tell his audience to seek out death, to jump on a cross or ask to be killed, but to be willing to boldly step into reproach and ridicule. We see Jesus commending this in Luke chapter 6, Luke chapter 6, verses 22 and 23. Jesus commends this attitude saying, blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man.

Rejoice in that day, leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for so their fathers did to the prophets. This is countercultural. Kids, do you like it when your friends kick you out of your friend group or talk bad about you behind your back? Do you like being called names? Does it feel good when people exclude you? These things are not enjoyable, and sometimes this happens when you’ve done nothing wrong. But Jesus is telling you, telling us that even when this happens, he’s there with you. And then the author of Hebrews piles on one more reason not to cling on to comfort inside the camp. Verse 14, for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. This is the reason that Abraham was able to leave his home in Ur, and his son Isaac and grandson Jacob were all able to live a nomadic transitory life in Canaan.

If we remain inside the camp, avoiding uncomfortable conversations, avoiding uncomfortable situations, then we will miss out on many opportunities to participate in what God is doing. The word seek is a Greek word here that speaks of intense, eager longing, intense desire. We, who are the citizens of the city to come, are called to express that intense longing through going outside the camp, where Jesus is, and get hit by the reproach that’s hitting him. We can stay in where it’s safe and comfortable, or we can go out to where Jesus is, where people are maligning him, ridiculing him, and insulting him, and say, I’m with him, I’m with him. The author of Hebrews is reminding his readers that the comfortable camp they might be tempted to stay in is passing away. It’s scheduled to be shaken.

It’s not capable of permanence. It’s not part of the unshakable kingdom, and so they should not place their hope in it. They should look, they should not look to the camp for comfort and security. They should look instead, find their comfort in the city that is to come, which transcends earthly comfort zones. Believers have received an unshakable kingdom, this city which is to come. And while we can do nothing to merit the gift of this kingdom, it is by grace alone, based on the work of Christ alone, and received through the instrument of faith alone, we demonstrate our possession of it through our desire for it. Those who are citizens of the city to come have transformed desires, and now, instead of seeking earthly treasures and comfort as ultimate, are eagerly pursuing the eternal city through the embrace of suffering.

Stepping into comfort, discomfort, for the sake of witness, becomes easier when you see that the kingdom of self that idolizes the current comfort has a limited shelf life, while the kingdom of God never expires. There is an earthquake coming that will flatten all earthly cities, but there is a city to come which is unshakable and lasts forever. This second point of our passage involves a negative push to realize that the city we’re tempted to stay in of comfort and self-centeredness will crumble. So, get out of it. But then, on the other side, we have the positive painting of the possibilities. Consider the cost of staying, and then appreciate the possibility of going. When we go outside the camp, we join Jesus in his work of building that city. We participate in the Holy Spirit’s population plan for his permanent province.

And finally, in our passage, we have number three, action, profession, and philanthropy, verses 15 and 16. The author of Hebrews picks back up his priest analogy in verses 15 and 16 with the mention of sacrifices. Look at verse 15. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. We just considered the kind of attitude or mindset that believers ought to have. You and I ought to be willing to press into pain, to go outside the camp to meet Christ, where the insults and reproaches land on us as well. And now we see the author spelling out two kinds of actions that he has in mind, speaking and serving. Speaking is in verse 15. What started the whole discussion of going outside the camp to meet Christ was the fact that he had gone outside the camp to offer a sacrifice for sin.

Then believers were told to go out and join him despite the cost. And now that we’re out there, outside the camp, the author says that we are to join Christ in his priestly service by offering sacrifices ourselves. But we’re not offering animals. Verse 15 says that we’re offering a sacrifice of praise. At first, that sounds like worship. And in a sense, it is. This is the language of worship. But then the author specifies further. He says the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. The Greek word translated acknowledge here is homologeo. And it shows up all over the New Testament. And in most places, it’s translated confess. Here are some of the examples. John 922. His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.

John chapter 12, verse 42. Nevertheless, many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. Romans chapter 10, verses 9 and 10, famously. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. It’s also sometimes translated acknowledge, like we have here in our passage, or also in Matthew chapter 10, verse 32. And the parallel passage in Luke, Matthew 10, 32. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, Jesus says, I will acknowledge before my father, who is in heaven. The Apostle Paul uses it in First Timothy, chapter 6, verse 12.

Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made or confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. The point is, the author of Hebrews is using a word that means more than praising God in a worship service. He qualifies that the sacrifice of praise, which we normally associate in a worship service, and says what he means by a sacrifice of praise to God is our confession of faith before others. The going outside the camp and bearing Christ’s reproach involves opening our mouths, speaking about our faith to others. Because if we stayed silent, we might avoid being ridiculed or ostracized. The author of Hebrews is saying, don’t stay quiet, because when you speak of your faith, it is a sacrifice of praise to God.

Have you considered your testimony, your witnessing to others as an act of worship to God? When we stay silent and avoid sharing about our faith, we’re holding back in our worship to God. And God sees it when we do speak out and receives our confessions as worship. So as a priest with the privilege of access to the intimacy of God’s presence through what Jesus has done for you by suffering outside the camp, offer a sacrifice of praise to God by sharing your testimony with others around you, even if that exposes you to scorn and insult. One of the most tempting ways to hide from ridicule is to hide our Christian convictions or avoid sharing about our faith. No matter how friendly you are naturally, how good of a people person you are, sharing the true gospel with sinners will always involve crossing a pain point.

There will always be a point of uncomfortability that never goes away. The author of Hebrews knows that for his audience, just like for us today, there’s a temptation to shrink back from that pain. What will others think of me? Will they think I’m a weird Bible thumper? Will they label me and group me in with others that they had bad experience of religious people? Will people at work shun me? Do I risk getting fired for letting others know I’m a Christian? The author of Hebrews is telling his audience and us to lean into those situations of discomfort, the possibility of being ridiculed for our faith by actually expressing our faith, sharing the gospel, letting others know about our convictions and about the one to whom we owe our lives and allegiance. So often, our attitude towards suffering, especially in countries where there is such minimal risk to sharing our faith, is to avoid it at all costs, to shrink away by minimizing our witness, keeping quiet or downplaying our faith when others ask about it.

And the author of Hebrews wants to change that. Kids, that might mean making difficult choices around your friends to honor your parents when the other kids think it’s weird. It might mean talking to your friends or your cousins about Jesus when they don’t know him. It might mean asking your friends to pray or to read the Bible with you. Ask yourself, do I care more about whether my friends think I’m cool or whether I’m honoring Jesus? Jesus says he’s ready to meet you where it might feel uncomfortable, where your friends might not think you’re cool anymore, where you might not get invited to certain gatherings. Don’t be discouraged. Remember that Jesus is right there with you when people don’t like you for being a Christian. Before we close, we have the second action in verse 16.

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. In case you were confused by the word philanthropy in my third point, I simply mean it in its most general sense of doing good to others. And this is most likely connected back to what we saw in Chapter 10, where the believers had previously, by their kindnesses to persecuted brothers and sisters, become recipients of persecution themselves. So they would have been tempted to hold back material support from those who were receiving persecution. But the author reminds them that such generous support of those who are persecuted, which might invite reproach, is a beautiful sacrifice of worship to God, much like their testimony it was. For us today, it’s a good reminder of the place that hospitality can play in our witness.

The original audience had shown hospitality to fellow believers and experienced persecution as a result. Rosaria Butterfield has written several books on God’s story of bringing her to himself despite her being a most unlikely convert. One of the most powerful tools God used to soften her heart was the hospitality of a minister and his wife. Rosaria was someone definitely outside the camp. At the time, she was unbelieving. She was an unbelieving feminist literature professor set on discrediting the Bible, living in a homosexual relationship. And yet this pastor and his wife welcomed her and her partner into their home to dinner and discussion with them. Pastor Ken’s friendship with Rosaria took years to bear fruit, but eventually led to her conversion. Don’t underestimate the power of serving others as part of your witness to Christ and recognize that God considers it a beautiful sacrifice offered ultimately to him.

In conclusion, brothers and sisters, the author of Hebrews calls us to three essential responses as we stand on the unshakable foundation of our unchanging Savior, Jesus Christ. First, appreciate the extraordinary privilege we have in the New Covenant. We eat from a heavenly altar that the old covenant priests could never even touch. Through Jesus’s once for all sacrifice, we enjoy direct access to God, intimacy, grace, security that no ritual or performance can match. Don’t trade this supreme gift for anything lesser. Let grace alone strengthen your heart. And second, cultivate an attitude of pressing into pain rather than clinging to comfort. Jesus suffered outside the gate, bearing reproach to sanctify us. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach that he endured. And this isn’t a call to seek suffering for its own sake, but to join Jesus where he is.

To willingly face ridicule, exclusion, or scorn for his namesake, because here we have no lasting city, but we eagerly seek the one that is to come. Don’t shrink back into safety. Step out towards him, finding true fellowship in shared reproach and the promise of an eternal unshakable home. And finally, respond with concrete action. Continually offer the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess and acknowledge Christ, his name, even when it costs you social comfort. Speak boldly for Christ and don’t neglect doing good and sharing what you have through generosity, hospitality and service to others, especially those who suffer for the faith, because these are pleasing sacrifices to God. So go to him outside the camp, bear his reproach, confess his name, serve in love. For doing so, you honor the same Jesus who was and who is and who is to come forever.

So may we live as those who belong to the city that is to come, faithfully following our unchanging Lord until we arrive home. Amen. Let’s pray. Our Lord and our God, our Father, who sent his one and only Son, whom he was well pleased to suffer outside the camp for our sakes and who now calls us to follow him outside the camp, where the reproach, where the reproach is, but where the fellowship with Christ is sweetest. Lord, we ask that you would give us that same desire, that same spirit, that same, that faith to see Jesus where he is and to seek after him. We ask that you would give us the spirit of Jesus by the Holy Spirit. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Well, in response, let’s turn and sing him five eleven.

Let’s stand. Let’s stand as we sing and sing him number five eleven.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

February 22, 2026
The Confidence and Comfort of Contentment

About this sermon

“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” Like King Midas, whose golden touch became a curse, people who love money find that wealth grips their hearts, which is why Jesus said it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom. God commands contentment and grounds it in his promise of his presence. Believers respond with confidence: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear.” Either money serves God or people try to use God to get money.

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Sermon transcript

Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven we thank you that by your Holy Spirit you inspired this written word so many centuries ago and you preserved that word throughout these centuries so that we might have it translated into our own language today and we ask Holy Spirit that you would be with us that these words would not be dead words but they would be alive to us that we would be alive to them that your spirit would work in the proclamation the preaching of this word that our hearts might hear and receive that we might be given life we ask that you would do this for the glory of Christ and in his name we pray amen may be seated well have you ever heard of the praise the Midas touch it’s often used to speak of someone who’s able to successfully make money at almost any endeavor they turn to it’s also a reference to a story in Greek mythology King Midas he ruled the ancient kingdom of Phrygia which is in modern-day Turkey and he was already a wealthy unfortunate king living in luxury with a beautiful daughter he adored vast treasures and a magnificent palace despite having abundance his heart was consumed by a love of gold and a restless craving for more one day the Greek god Dionysius appeared and offered the king any wish that he desired and Midas blinded by his greed asked for the power to turn anything he touched into gold pure gold Dionysius warned him to reconsider he knew the peril of the wish but Midas insisted and Dionysius granted that wish at first Midas was overjoyed he touched a twig became solid gold he picked up stones they turned into gleaming nuggets he reached for food and drink and they transformed into inedible metal he ran through the Rose Garden turning blossoms into gold his delight knew no bounds he imagined endless riches but the blessing quickly became a curse when he tried to eat bread or drink wine they all turned to gold in his mouth and he could not nourish himself hunger and thirst tormented him worst of all when he ran to embrace his beloved daughter she froze into a lifeless gold statue at his touch and in that moment of horror Midas realized his greed had robbed him of everything truly valuable food water joy even his own child desperate and weeping Midas begged Dionysius to undo the gift and the god taking pity instructed him to wash in the Pactolus River near Sardis he was freed but forever changed having learned that true happiness lies not in material wealth but in love relationships and simple necessities and in our text from Hebrews this morning we’re considering the issue of contentment we’re going to see from this passage that when you know that the Lord will not leave you you can stop worrying about needing more which gives you confidence to repudiate the fear of what others might think say or do to you and we’ll look at the way this works in three headings number one God’s command which is contentment number two is God’s promise which is comfort and number three is our response which is confidence so number one God’s command which is contentment verse five keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have we have two phrases in parallel here negatively keep the love of money out of your life and positively be content with what you have and these aren’t two separate things but two sides of the same coin these statements are equivalent verse five starts out with the command this is a command from God’s Word keep your life free from the love of money don’t let the love of money have any foothold in your life he doesn’t say just minimize it keep your love for money and proper balance with everything else going on no the love of money has no place in a Christian’s life and Jesus reiterated this many times in the Gospels Matthew chapter 6 we see this in Jesus’s sermon on the mount Matthew chapter 6 verse 24 no one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other you cannot serve both God and money love for money and love for God are incompatible one will crowd the other out Jesus says both God and money claim exclusivity this is necessary for him to mention because there’s a tendency within the human heart to think that we can have both we can pay our allegiance to God but also give a corner of our heart to money but that’s as foolish as a married man thinking he can just split his affections between his wife and another woman no wife is truly happy with 75% even 95% of her husband’s affections both money and God have a tendency to require exclusivity and the more you give your affections to the one the more they will require with God this is a good thing because he is worthy of our absolute devotion he’s worthy of being obsessed over with money that is a real problem think of the workaholic spending all his time trying to get more always more he spends all his thoughts all his time all his energy pursuing money and what does he get in return his ceaseless labors only produce dissatisfaction because he never has enough can never enjoy what he has because he’s always looking for more the human heart is designed with a nearly infinite desire for satisfaction for the Christian author CS Lewis this was part of his reason for believing that heaven existed he said if I find within myself a desire which no experience in the world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world but if we’re not drinking deeply of God and finding our satisfaction in him we will seek to satiate our near infinite appetite elsewhere and it almost always requires money to the love of money is not loving actual bills or coins but the things the experiences the opportunities the favors the friends the positions the money can purchase whenever we find ourselves unable to be happy with the amount of money we currently have we have the root of the love of money growing in our hearts Jeremiah Burroughs a Puritan who lived in the 1600s wrote a book called the rare jewel of Christian contentment they did a book study on that at the smokestack few months back the first thing that he mentions in terms of application is that all the rules in the world will do us little good unless we gain a good state of mind within our hearts contentment never comes from outside of us contentment is entirely a disposition a mindset that we develop internally circumstances possessions and everything else will never satisfy a discontent heart a discontented heart needs an attitude change not a change in circumstances the Apostle Paul said contentment was something that he had learned in Philippians chapter 4 verses 11 and 12 the Apostle Paul says not that I’m speaking of being in need for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger abundance and need this means that contentment is not something that some people have a knack for and some people just don’t contentment takes effort and doesn’t happen by just getting our balance of stuff right Paul says he’s learned to maintain contentment regardless of circumstances or the number of possessions he has if he has a lot he’s content if he’s barely getting by he’s still content that didn’t mean he refused help or gifts he accepted them with complete thankfulness knowing that he already had God who’s more than enough and didn’t have any doubts that whatever was necessary for him to have he would not lack because God was always there which brings us to the second element in our text number two God’s promise which is comfort verse 5 the second half for he had said I will never leave you nor forsake you negatively we have keep your life free from the love of money the command to be content or positively we’re to have confidence and comfort we don’t often think of contentment as related to confidence but that’s what we have in our passage the writer of Hebrews is diagnosing discontentment as a lack of faith a disbelief disbelief that God is either able or willing or both to help us and to give us everything that we need discontentment the love of money is rooted in being afraid of what might happen what other people might do to us we want money to protect us from harm and from discomfort discontentment is rooted in fear fear of the future fear that we’re on our own fear that we won’t have enough that will be uncomfortable that others might harm us I know I’ve spent a lot of time dwelling in these types of fears throughout my life what do we need instead we need a big God who is always there we need something bigger than money money is pretty powerful if you have enough of it seems like you can buy almost anything money can buy security comfort pleasure and health but only for so long the thing about money is that you can’t take it with you heaven uses a different currency if you’ve ever traveled to a different country you’ll see in the airport a sign that says currency exchange and this is because the money that you’re bringing into that country will not be accepted by the merchants you must convert your money into currency that can be used in that country when we flew to Japan I had lots of US dollars in my pocket but the Japanese grocery stores find those bills to be worthless so if you want to be able to purchase anything you must exchange we had to exchange our US dollars for the local currency Jesus commends something similar for those that are going to heaven Matthew chapter 6 in the Sermon on the Mount verses 19 through 20 Jesus says this he says do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy where thieves break in and steal but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth nor Ross or neither moth nor rust destroys where thieves do not break in and steal Jesus says earthly currency is inherently inferior it depreciates it loses value it’s vulnerable to theft and damage and so when a young man comes up and asks him in Matthew 19 verse 21 Jesus recommends exchanging earthly currency for heavenly currency Matthew 19 verse 21 Jesus said to him if you would be perfect go sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me now lest we think that the primary way to gain heavenly wealth is to purchase it or exchange for it with earthly wealth we see how the story ends in the next two verses Matthew 19 verses 22 and 23 when the young man heard this he went away sorrowful free had great possessions and Jesus said to his disciples truly truly I say to you only with difficulty will a person with wealth a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven while Jesus recommends making an exchange of earthly treasure for heavenly treasure it’s not so easy to make that exchange for those that have earthly wealth and this is because wealth treasure tends to grab a hold of our hearts grab a hold of the hearts that those that possess it and so the more earthly treasure you possess the more likely it will be that you are loathed to exchange it and so the far better route is to simply hold the majority of your wealth in heavenly currency not waiting for a last-minute exchange heavenly treasure is far more secure it never depreciates and the more you own the more it captures your heart and puts your heart in the right place so what exactly is heavenly treasure well most simply it is God himself Psalm 73 verse 25 says whom have I in heaven but you there’s nothing on earth that I desire besides you and Psalm 27 verse 4 that we read earlier says one thing I have asked of the Lord and that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple in Genesis chapter 15 verse 1 God tells Abraham God is his reward after these things the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision fear not Abraham I am your shield your reward shall be very great you might remember that the Levites did not inherit an area of Canaan as the other tribes did because God was their inheritance and now if you’re thinking of heaven in terms entirely binary as whether just simply you’re in or you’re out it might not make as much sense to speak of stockpiling heavenly treasure once we’re saved we’re in we got it checked off if salvation is only a get-out-of-hell free card to you then this talk might not make sense but what if a husband treated his wife treated knowing his wife this way what if the husband after one day of marriage said that now he knows all he needs to know about his wife so we can check off getting to know his wife she no longer requires further attention if the husband treated his wife as something that is one and done we might say among other things he doesn’t understand marriage similarly if we think of salvation our restoration into relationship with God in purely binary terms we will not understand what it means to store up treasure in heaven because while there is a binary in terms of eternal destinations one will either when one dies be in heaven with God or in hell experiencing his judgment within those binaries our degrees hell itself is merely the minimum sentence for a sinful thought word or action because within hell exists levels of punishment perfectly matched to the crimes that are committed and conversely heaven is not a one-size-fits-all simple reality where all distinctions are erased and our lives on earth bear no consequence when we realize that salvation coming into relationship with God is more like a relationship of marriage than a get out of hell free card then we can begin to understand what it would mean to store up or to increase our treasure in heaven consider the expression investing in your marriage this means spending focused intentional time with your spouse getting to know them better doing things together spending resources to enrich your relationship you’re exchanging your earthly money for enriching that relationship not in a crude buying off your spouse but in the sense that you’re exchanging gifts for exchanging money for gifts for experiences for provisions for the one that you love and this can perhaps help us understand what it means to exchange our earthly money for heavenly treasure you’re not buying God’s favor or purchasing your own righteousness with your money you’re using your money as a tool to get what you want more than anything God and the more you invest in your relationship with God now the sweeter the fellowship you will have with him in heaven for some people who will arrive in heaven God will be a casual acquaintance when they’ve just barely know someone they ignored all of their life before being saved just before death perhaps or maybe they grew up in a church and found salvation young but barely ever read their Bible or prayed leaving them with a faith hanging on by the thread and every difficult circumstance in their life making them question God’s reality or especially his goodness they might reach heaven hardly knowing God either but for others it will not be that way at all there are others who will reach heaven on intimate terms with the one who saved them by persistent wrestling in prayer perpetual study of his word and perseverance in faith it will not find a God that they hardly know but one they have gotten to know well while still feeling like there is an infinite amount to learn heaven for them will be less like a honeymoon where you barely know each other and more like a deep rich anniversary after decades of joyful connection the Lord says he will never leave you or forsake you how well do you know him God is so kind he gives us every possible incentive to encourage us on the path of faith rather than fear and he gives us the comforting promise of his presence and this in turn is intended to give us confidence number three our response of confidence look at verse 6 so we can confidently say the Lord is my helper I will not fear what can man do to me what would it take for you to be able to say this you feel like you can say this now what our passage this morning models is the process that we follow in the Christian life God gives us a command we cannot obey this command on our own not in our own strength so he gives us a promise something for us to believe in something for us to hang on to something for us to trust in then we believe God’s promise we count on it we place our money on it being true and then we receive what we need the ability to obey God’s command we receive faith we find peace confidence contentment etc. faith comes by hearing faith comes from hearing God’s promise and then believing it is true and this is the way in which a person finds faith for the first time in the way a person finds faith for the millionth time the writer of Hebrews doesn’t just leave his audience with a bare command he provides the promise that is perfectly suited to provide the faith needed to obey God’s command for every difficulty and challenge in our lives there is a promise of God tailored to address that root of that problem and grant us faith faith does not come from introspection comes from hearing what God says and believing it’s true but don’t settle for the most general statements from scripture this is one of the reasons we must be students of the scripture you’ll never build your faith if you never read your Bible faith comes from hearing hearing the word of God and the promises of God are given for you for your faith because your relationship with God is not merely a matter of time consider the fact that in a marriage people could be married sometimes 20 or 30 years and still feel so distant from each other that divorce feels like a viable option time alone does not breed closeness or cultivate a relationship and it’s similar with our relationship with God it is not enough to simply hang out with people that know God you must pursue him personally yourself and this is more than simply attending church services even cramming theological facts in your brain or being able to rattle off some prayer requests sometimes knowing God means truly seeking him in prayer reading his word in such a way as to know his heart and obeying him by faith as we mentioned earlier treasure in heaven is knowing God the better you know God the more treasure you have in heaven instead of letting money crowd out and rival our relationship with God we must leverage it in our quest after God by the way one tool to help us guard our hearts is tithing a hundred percent of our money is God’s money in relation to God we don’t own anything we’re taking care of God’s stuff in order to remind us that 100% of our money is God’s he tells us give 10% back to him a tithe well there’s many reasons that for Christians to give to the church I often think of giving the tithe to God as mainly about getting it out of my hands it’s meant to help me remember that my money none of it is my own and you will either use God in the service of money or money in the service of God if money is your master you’ll try to manipulate God and use God to get more money and this is how there can be such perverse pictures as pastors who are brazenly pursuing opulence while professing to serve God but how many times do you and I end up doing something similar in more subtle ways how many of our prayers for God’s blessing or obedience to God’s commands come with an expectation of compensation a monetary upgrade in our circumstances on the other hand if God is your master then money will be something you use to build God’s kingdom God’s will in his kingdom takes priority and our money becomes a servant to aid us in this end this is the only way to live in true contentment the only way to be free from fear free from the love of money because we have no assurances from God that our net worth that our earthly net worth will perpetually increase but we do have a promise from God that his kingdom will be built and will increase if God in his kingdom are where your hope are you’ll never have to worry about appearance setbacks its ultimate success is assured your own monetary kingdom on the other hand is not so if you want to live without anxiety making God your master rather than money is definitely the way to go and that’s what allows you to live in fearless contentment to be able to say the Lord is my helper I will not fear what can man do to me the love of money promises protection and pleasure but it only delivers fear and dissatisfaction the writer of Hebrews offers us the antidote not more money but a deeper knowledge of the God who is more than enough God’s command is clear keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have but he doesn’t leave us staring at an impossible standard he gives us the promise that fuels obedience I will never leave you or forsake you this is no vague platitude it’s the bedrock bedrock reality of the gospel in Christ God has drawn near in the flesh died for our sins risen in victory and now dwells with us by his spirit he’s not a distant benefactor who might abandon us when the bank account runs low he’s our ever-present father our unchanging companion our eternal reward and when we truly believe this promise when we let it sink deep into our hearts something remarkable happens fear loses its grip discontentment withers we no longer scramble to build earthly kingdoms that moths destroy and thieves break in and steal instead we invest in the treasure that lasts intimate growing fellowship with God himself and the better we know him through prayer scripture obedience and surrender the richer our heavenly inheritance becomes not because we earn it but because we enjoy him more fully now and forever so we can confidently say what the psalmist quoted here the Lord is my helper I will not fear what can man do to me no economic downturn no job loss no criticism no threat can ultimately harm the one whose security is anchored in God’s unchanging presence people’s opinions may sting their actions may wound but they cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord so the question for each of us this morning is simple yet profound will you let money master you or will you master money in service to God will you hoard earthly currency that fades or will you store up treasure in heaven by pursuing him above all the path to contentment is not found in having more it’s found in knowing more deeply the one who has promised never to leave or forsake you let us pray that God would uproot every root of greed within our hearts flood us with the comfort of his presence fill us with the confidence that comes from trusting his word and may we leave this place today saying not just with our lips but with our lives the Lord is my helper I will not fear go in the confidence and comfort of true contentment secured not by what you have but by who has you men let’s pray our father in heaven we thank you that you have promised to never leave us never forsake us thank you that you have promised to be everything that we need that our God will supply every need according to his riches in glory Lord we ask that you would help us believe this you would help us to trust you in this you would help us to not worry but we would have confidence knowing you have us and are always with us we pray this in Jesus name amen one response let’s turn and sing him number 517 let’s stand as we sing him 517 I know whom I have believed

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February 8, 2026
Holding Marriage in High Honor

About this sermon

“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” In a culture that treats marriage as optional or redefinable, God calls Christians to prize it as his gift, which he ordained at creation as the exclusive covenant union of one man and one woman, reflecting Christ’s love for the church. They must preserve its purity. God is the judge of all sexual sin, which leaves every sinner in a perilous position; but those whom God has washed, sanctified, and justified in Christ receive forgiveness and a new life.

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Sermon transcript

For our scripture reading this evening. We’ll be looking at the book of Hebrews again, chapter thirteen. Our main text for this evening will simply be verse four. But I’ll start reading in verse twenty-eight of chapter twelve for a little bit of context. Hebrews chapter twelve verse twenty-eight. 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. Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them and those who are mistreated since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous men.

Father in heaven we come to you and because we are needy we are needy people Lord we have no power within ourselves we need your spirit to make this word alive to us see what you have for us so we ask that you would send your spirit you would open up our hearts that we might hear what is from you your words as they are proclaimed you might empower the proclamation of your word and also the hearing of it that it might be a blessing to us and that you might be present in this word we ask this in Jesus name, amen you may be seated imagine for a moment the most breathtaking jewel you’ve ever seen one that catches every ray of light sparkling with depth of color and value that makes your breath catch in your throat not something mass-produced or casually displayed but a rare treasure priceless handed down through generations guarded fiercely because losing it would mean losing something irreplaceable that brothers and sisters is how God sees marriage in verse four the Holy Spirit says let marriage be held in honor among all and the Greek word behind held in honor is timios which means precious or costly or priceless sometimes in Revelation it’s simply translated as jewel there’s no good way to describe it otherwise like a jewel of inestimable worth and God isn’t giving us a mild suggestion here he’s calling us to treasure marriage with that kind of awe and fierce protection which we reserve for that which is truly sacred think back to the garden to that tender holy moment when God looked at Abraham and declared it is not good for man to be alone one out of the side of that man he fashioned Eve brought her to him and in Adam’s awestruck voice we hear the heartbeat of the first true marriage this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh from that instant God established marriage not as an afterthought not as a cultural option but as the foundation stone of all human society before governments rose before friendships deepened before parents held children it was marriage one man and one woman united in covenant becoming one flesh launching a new family unit that echoes through generations and yet marriage is far more than a social foundation of course it is a living breathing portrait of the greatest love story ever told as Paul unveils in Ephesians five this one flesh mystery is profound and it points to Christ and his church in a world that treats marriage as disposable optional or endlessly redefineable God says no this is holy ground this is where my gospel is displayed in flesh and blood and yet how our hearts ache when we see the jewel trampled from the garden’s first fracture blame division and shame to today’s relentless assaults on God’s design marriage has been under siege Satan knows its power as a picture of redemption so he attacks it with fury redefinitions casual hookups adultery glorified covenant treated as breakable but we as God’s people are called to stand against the tide to prize marriage as precious to guard its purity to live in such a way that the world the watching world that glimpses might see something of Christ’s unbreakable love for us so this evening consider the truth your marriage or your future marriage the marriages around you is not ordinary it is a divine masterpiece a costly jewel entrusted to us by a holy God who judges what he treasures may we honor it protect it and let it shine as a radiant testimony to the gospel that has washed us clean and the one who has made us his own in light of the great confusion in our day around the institution of marriage and the cultural degradation of this holy institution I thought it would be good for us to return and linger on this verse this evening even though we’ve covered the broader passage in a previous couple weeks ago I thought we would return to verse four and consider under these three headings number one prize marriage as precious number two preserve the purity of intimacy and number three pay attention to heaven’s warning number one prize marriage as precious Hebrews thirteen four is telling us to hold marriage in high regard to think of it as a precious jewel that is worth protecting as I just mentioned the word held in honor is that Greek word that sometimes simply gets translated as jewel in other places that it shows up in the New Testament this Timios which is used all over the place to value to preserve something that’s precious or pricey and costly and we should prize marriage as precious because it is the foundation of human society we find this in Genesis chapter two verse eighteen Genesis two eighteen then the Lord God said it is not good that man should be alone I will make him a helper fit for him skipping down to verse twenty two that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and he brought her to the man and then the man said this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman for she was taken out of man therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh marriage is something that God created in the very beginning it’s older than government older than friendship or parenthood or any other human relationship and it is God made marriage to be the foundation of our entire society this of course does not mean that those who are not married are seen as lesser in God’s eyes at all but all the relationships that we have with one another are built up from marriage parents are meant to be so as a result from marriage siblings come out of marriage the one relationship which can unite and join generations together think of all your in-laws hopefully you get along with them but God says the man leaves father and mother and cleaves to his wife God made marriages to be the foundation level of human society not parenthood the man sets out from his parents and establishes a new foundation level entity by marriage he and his wife are now their own family unit that is in some sense is autonomous it is on equal footing with their parents marriage so we should prize marriage highly because it is God’s intended foundation for human society we should also prize marriage highly because it is a picture of Christ and his church the apostle Paul picks up the quote from Genesis and explains that when done well especially marriage points beyond itself Ephesians chapter five verses thirty one and thirty three through thirty three Ephesians chapter five verse thirty one therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh this mystery is profound and I’m saying that it refers to Christ and the church however let each one of you love his wife as himself let the wife see that she respects her husband marriage is a foundational relationship but it is only for this life our marriages in this life will not hold us in exclusive bonds in the next life and that is because marriage in this life is intended to help us understand the way that Christ is with his precious church the sacrificial love with which a husband is to lead and to serve his wife is meant to show us and the world the way that Christ loves his bride the tender affection a godly husband shows his wife his attempts to understand her utterly his honoring of her and laying down his life to protect her and to promote her life is all meant to help us understand Christ’s deep affection for his church in a godly wife’s submission even to a foolish and stubborn husband her tender respect for her godly leader, her eagerness to promote, care for and support her husband are meant to help us understand the people of God in relation to Christ if a godly wife can learn to love an imperfect husband submit to him and respect him how much more can we all learn to do the same with Christ and just as a wife is receptive to the godly initiative and leading of her husband so the church is receptive to the leading of her beloved Jesus Christ a husband and wife who live completely separate lives going their own separate ways is not a picture of harmonious union a marriage cannot survive two spouses headed in opposite directions unless the situation is remedied and in a similar vein we ought not to see the church pursuing a different path and agenda than the one that Christ is leading and providing and yet it is easier than you might think for the church to get off track and living in a way that demonstrates no dependence on Christ obvious examples might spring to our mind and abound in the churches around us in the world that are actively pursuing the world’s approval rather than God’s but a lack of dependence on Christ can show up in subtle ways as well we must ask ourselves continually as Christ’s bride whether we too as a church are truly displaying a dependence upon Christ in our worship and witness those of us who are husbands have the perhaps confusing to live as a husband to our wives and yet as a wife to Christ but this is not to diminish our masculinity but in comparison to Christ all of us are feminine it is Christ who takes the initiative the one that we respond to the one whom we submit to however of course as a godly wife’s submission doesn’t mean a lack of engagement even spirited engagement with her husband so our submission to Christ is never intended to be merely a sycophantic groveling or a passive disengagement Christ is never lacking wisdom goodness or perspective that a godly husband might lack and yet he calls us to engage with him actively in prayer and this also of course informs our view of biblical submission of wives wives are not called to be passive participants in marriage merely saying yes sir to everything that their husband says a wife is called to active engagement in relationship with her husband even when ultimately submitting to a decision she might disagree with so we prize marriage as precious because it is not only the foundation of human society but also a symbolic picture of Christ Christ’s relationship with his church and we should also prize marriage as precious because we live in a world that devalues it ever since God first instituted marriage between the first man and first woman it has been under attack Satan tried to sow division by inciting Eve against her husband and when questioned by God Adam immediately blamed his wife for the mess marriages preeminence in creation order by God and as a picture of Christ’s relationship with his church have made his people have made it a right target for Satan and sin throughout history pagan cultures who abandoned God God’s revelation and his rule disregarded God’s design of one man and one woman in covenantal union and that spirit from ancient times has only intensified in our day we see it all around us we’ve seen blatant attempts in recent years to completely redefine marriage through rulings by the Supreme Court in America as no longer simply one man and one woman but simply two individuals and to include all sorts of other combinations of men and women however not only does this go against God’s original setup but it also distorts the picture of Christ and the church that marriage was meant to be the command to let marriage be held in high honor were regarded as precious valuable not just for believers in private but universally in the Christian community and beyond and in a culture that often devalues marriage treating it as optional restrictive or redefineable Christians are called to buck that trend by viewing marriage as a divine gift a sacred institution ordained by God from creation one man and one woman in exclusive covenant now this high view of marriage strengthens families it reflects Christ’s love for the church and it counters worldly attacks on the institution and practically for us that means celebrating marriages supporting married couples and teaching younger generations its worth as people of God we ought to value marriage in a world that does not value it and one of the ways that we value it is also in the next phrase let the marriage bed be undefiled and so second we are to preserve the purity of intimacy the marriage bed refers to sexual intimacy which God designed as good a good exclusive gift for husband and wife alone free from shame within marriage and to be guarded from any contamination and this is a primary way that marriage is held in high honor prized as precious by putting those guards in place physical intimacy in marriage is to be guarded and preserved both within marriage and also by those of us that are not married within marriage that involves the obvious prohibition against adultery physically failing to preserve the bonds of the marriage covenant even in our secular culture which misunderstands and fails to value marriage in so many ways yet ironically still views adultery with at least mild revulsion it still understands something about that extra aspect of breaking your word the vows that you made to another person still even in this culture make adultery less than respectable in a society that misses so much else about marriage how much more as Christians because there is still an understanding in the culture that adultery is not merely a sexual act but on some level a covenant breaking act a violating of your word and in light of this as the text urges us to be on guard I would urge all of us do not underestimate sexual temptation and sexual sin adultery is not the unforgivable sin every sin can be forgiven by the blood of Christ but it does do lasting damage that may never be fully healed in this life can be helpful to think about that on the outside of such a thing because we sometimes think of King David as a picture of God’s forgiveness that covers even adultery which is true but his life also portrays the lasting damage it can affect his adultery damaged him and his family even his own son eventually tried to kill him and take his throne among all the other dysfunctions that flowed from David’s sin the man David was a mere shadow of his former self for the rest of his life after his fall into adultery with Bathsheba but we too should be on guard because the person committing adultery this sin never comes out of nowhere there’s always a gradual lead up and so all of us ought to be aware if we think we stand lest we fall even this week as I was preparing this message I experienced stronger temptations and spiritual attacks in the area of sexual purity myself Satan is on the prowl this is a spiritual battle there are many preachers and teachers writing books about sexual purity only to fall days years later discrediting much of their witness none of us is ever beyond the realm of temptation in this area and every time that we give sin a little bit of flack in our lives we make it more likely that we’ll give in to the bigger stuff and so I would urge whether in marriage or out of marriage I would urge all men and perhaps women as well to consider internet accountability blocking software sexual sin is too easy to find online and too easy to fall into whether accidentally or on purpose to leave it up to your own willpower to stop it feel free to talk to me after the service if you need help setting something up or an accountability partner don’t be ashamed you’re not strange or weak you’re simply being wise to proactively deal with the danger of temptation because let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall by preserving the purity of the marriage bed it does mean guarding sexual intimacy both pre-marriage and singleness and post-marriage within a covenant and it means guarding our thoughts as well as our actions our sexuality is an integral part of who we are but it is not the most important part of who we are despite what the culture says and it is designed by God to be expressed only within the boundary of marriage there is much to experience about life much deeper joys in the Lord than merely being sexually fulfilled and even a good marriage will not satisfy the wandering heart but intimacy in marriage is more than physical much of marriage intimacy is also emotional marriage is designed to be a place where two people can be utterly vulnerable with each other which is why it’s designed to be within a covenant becoming one flesh is more than a physical union it’s a vulnerability an intimacy of emotions and it’s designed to advance our sanctification marriage is designed not only to point us to Christ but also to make us more like Christ of course this does not mean that those who are not married can never be sanctified God has a multitude of means at his disposal but for those of you that are married marriage is one of the most intensely sanctifying tools in the Holy Spirit’s toolbox marriage is designed to be enjoyed, deeply enjoyed but it will be best enjoyed when you pursue its purpose of holiness holiness of course should not be thought of at odds with joy and especially in marriage and the vulnerability in marriage is part of what makes it such a tool for sanctification our flaws are exposed to another person in a way unlike any other relationship no one knows us quite like our spouse and as sinful humans we are so easily deceived so easily self-deceived especially we like to think of ourselves as better than we really are but our spouse sees us for better and for worse and the beautiful thing of course is that in a good marriage they love you anyway the part of a biblical love in marriage means not only covering the faults of those that we love but boldly but kindly confronting and addressing those areas of sin in the other that are exposed biblical love between spouses neither highlights every problem every possible problem with the other nor passively overlooks out of fear or apathy preserving the purity of intimacy means bringing that piercing power of love to bear in the most vulnerable spaces in our marriage it means allowing ourselves to be fully known as well as seeking to fully know our spouse this is a godly picture of marriage and all of these things this preserving the purity as well as holding marriage prizing it in high regard as precious all of this is presented under the shadow of the last phrase of the verse for god will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous and so our third exhortation this evening is pay attention to heaven’s warning only three verses prior to this reminder of god’s judgment were told in verse twenty nine for our god is a consuming fire but while there are many positive reasons to prize marriage as precious and preserve the purity of intimacy there’s also a very negative reason the judgment of a holy holy holy god one of the things that this world misses about marriage is that it’s not just an agreement between two people jesus addressed this misconception in matthew chapter nineteen matthew chapter nineteen verse four jesus answered have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh so they are no longer two but one flesh what therefore god has joined together let not man separate contrary to popular thought even among the jews in the first century marriage involves more than just an agreement between two parties there is a third party who is also involved the creator of all the inventor of marriage and the magistrate who has final authority to join together and to separate with this in view a violation of the marriage covenant is more than an injury to human parties it’s an offense against god himself god created marriage to be the foundation of human society to provide stability protection and safety for families and to be a living picture of christ relationship with his people so when individuals within a marriage or outside of it violate its precious boundaries they’re attacking something that god cares about deeply we also see in scripture that god sees adultery as uniquely able to picture idolatry not only did actual sexual immorality often accompany pagan worship practices throughout history but god’s prophets often compare the people of israel’s idolatry to spiritual adultery because it was betrayal of the covenant relationship that they had with god alone verse four says to keep the marriage bed undefiled this word speaks to the constant reference in the old testament sacrificial system of uncleanness because sin makes us spiritually filthy no matter how much we shower no matter how nicely dress no matter how much we act nice and get others even to like us because of our sin we’re dripping with filth in god’s sight sin is not just wrong but disgusting and revolting to god he hates sexual immorality more than we can even imagine our culture only finds a few forms of sexual immorality slightly revolting but god finds it all repulsive the problem for each of us is that he doesn’t just hate it he’s in a position to do something about it god’s hatred of sin is not an impotent hatred where he goes off and wishes that people wouldn’t do it anymore he is the judge and he’s in a position to not only do something about it but he’s required to that leaves sinners like you and i in a treacherous position in fact except for god’s intervention it leaves us without options the apostle paul stated it very bluntly in first corinthians chapter six verses nine through ten first corinthians chapter six verse nine do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of god do not be deceived neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of god he says don’t be deceived with all of the voices around us telling us it’s okay if it feels good you should do it there’s a big danger of being deceived into thinking that sexual immorality is okay it’s no big deal sexual immorality might not be that bad you might start thinking i can still keep up with church and all these other christian things while indulging on the side no one will ever know what i’m doing in secret many a pastor has fallen that way the bible says do not be deceived god sees sexual immorality and it will exclude you from the kingdom of god you cannot cling to your sexual immorality and be welcomed into god’s kingdom it sounds pretty dark but the passage does not end there we see in the next verse first corinthians chapter six verse eleven the hope and he continues after listing all of these things and such were some of you but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the lord jesus and by the spirit of our god so we just had here a list of all the kinds of sins that keep people out of the kingdom of god and i’m on that list myself and yet we find that this same list is also a list of all the kinds of people who will actually be entering the kingdom of god and the key is in the end something that god did to these people you were washed you were sanctified you were justified despite the disqualifying filth from sexual immorality these people are actually set up to inherit the kingdom of god that they had forfeited jesus the son of god took that punishment the wrath of god against the sexual immorality of these people god judged it in jesus jesus died and he was punished disinherited so that they could be washed and sanctified and justified and he was raised of course to give them new life and this washing sanctifying and justifying was done by the holy spirit he took what jesus did for them and applied it to them so that as they repented of their sin and put their trust in christ this is what was done for them and so despite the sexual immorality of you and i the same can be said of you and such were some of you in christ you can be free free from the filth of sin and fear of god’s judgment but beyond that you can be free to fight its temptation with divine power and so here as we close let us prize marriage as precious a divine jewel far more valuable than any earthly treasure to preserve the purity of intimacy guarding the marriage bed as something sacred and undefiled and pay attention to heaven’s warning for god will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous and here’s the gospel of course that changes everything that jesus bore the judgment we deserve and across he was crushed under the full weight of every sexual sin every betrayal of confident purity he was condemned so that we could be washed clean he died so that we could be sanctified and rose so that we could be justified as it says and such were some of you but you were washed sanctified you were justified in the name of the lord jesus and by the spirit of our god take comfort if you have fallen in this area whether in thought or word or deed do not despair run to christ this evening today confess and repent and receive his mercy he does not leave us in our filth he washes us clean and empowers us to walk by his spirit in the newness of life and for those of you this evening walking faithfully still press on guard your heart cherish your spouse teach the next generation and let marriage shine as a testimony to the gospel and in doing so you not only honor god’s design you point the world to the ultimate bridegroom who is coming again for his spotless bride let’s pray our father in heaven we thank you that you have given us this gift of marriage though it is for this age only and though you have not called all of us to this calling yet we thank you that all of us are included in the marriage supper of the lamb all of us are included in the marriage which all marriages point to and all of us are included in the joy which is in store which overshadows which puts to shame which makes all joys in this life pale in comparison that joy union with our lord the one who laid down his life for us jesus christ lord we ask for your spirit empower us to walk in this godly faithfulness whether in marriage without that we might value and prize this institution for the sake of christ and his glory we pray this in jesus’ name well in closing let’s turn now and in response sing hymn 471 the sands of time are sinking

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

February 1, 2026
Four Loves in the Unshakeable Kingdom

About this sermon

Hebrews 13 names four loves for those who belong to an unshakable kingdom. Brotherly love (philadelphia) is the family affection that should mark believers’ relationships. Love of strangers (philoxenia) opens doors to people we do not yet know, a countercultural witness in an isolated age. Marital love honors and protects the one-flesh union. And believers are to keep their lives free from love of money, which easily supplants God in the heart, and be content, because he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

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Sermon transcript

Well, tonight we come to the final chapter of Hebrews and specifically to the opening verses of chapter 13. After 11 chapters of majestic teaching about the supremacy of Christ, His once for all sacrifice, the new covenant and the unshakable kingdom that is coming, the author now turns to very practical down to earth instructions for how we are to live as citizens in an unshakable kingdom that is coming while we walk on the soon to be shaken ground. In verses one through six, as we’ll see this evening, the writer gives us four different kinds of love. Four ways love is to characterize the people who belong to Christ in this present age. These are not optional add-ons to the Christian life. They’re essential expressions of the reality that we have been brought into an unshakable kingdom that will endure when everything else is removed.

The four loves we will consider tonight are brotherly love, Philadelphia, the affectionate family love that should mark every relationship among believers. Number two, the love of strangers, hospitality that opens doors to people that we do not yet know, and marital love, the honoring and protecting of the one flesh union between husband and wife. And then fourthly, the love we must refuse, which is the love of money, a misplaced affection that threatens to steal our trust away from God. Notice that the passage begins and ends with love. It opens with the command to make sure brotherly love continues, and it closes by warning us against letting our lives be controlled with the love of money. In between we find the love of stranger, love for the persecuted, and a love that guards the marriage covenant. Why does the author gather all of these loves together here?

Because in the great shaking that God is bringing, everything that can be shaken will be removed, but the things that cannot be shaken will remain. And among those that endure, enduring realities is love. Love that flows from the love of Christ for us, love that marks his disciples, and love that will last when every other foundation crumbles. As we walk through these verses tonight, our prayer is that the Holy Spirit would stir us afresh to live out these loves in a world that desperately needs to see what the people of an unshakable kingdom look like. So number one, love your brother, Philadelphia. We see this in verse one. Let brotherly love continue. Now you may not have realized this, but all of you living in Pennsylvania know at least one Greek word already. It’s the other major city besides Pittsburgh, Philadelphia.

Yep. Philadelphia is a straight up Greek, unadulterated Greek word that means Phil, which is love, and Adelphia, which is brothers, or so brotherly love. So verse one says let brotherly love continue. Now this is actually a command, but the let in English sounds rather weak to our ears, because in this case we’re running into a situation in which English does not fully correspond to Greek expression. In Greek you can have a third person imperative, and imperative in English is a command, obey for instance. But in English we don’t have to put a personal pronoun in front of a, in connection with that command. But in Greek it would be either you all obey, or you obey, or it could be he or they obey. When you add the third person pronoun in English though, it just doesn’t sound like a command anymore.

Sounds like maybe a statement, a fact, or a permission. So one way that many translators, but in Greek it’s very clear that this is a command. It’s just in the third person. And so one way that many translators translate it is by saying let. Now unfortunately this still sounds a little limp and passive if you don’t actually know what’s going on in the text. But now that you know, you can understand when you see this, let brotherly love continue. You ought to understand that the author of Hebrews is not saying please allow this to happen. He’s saying make sure brotherly love continues. Ensure Philadelphia remains. The word translated continue here is the same word used in verse 27 of chapter 12. In order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. So here’s a clue to us of the way that the author is viewing the connection between chapter 12 and chapter 13.

In the midst of things that will be shaken away, there are enduring realities of God’s kingdom that will remain and must remain. One of those realities is brotherly love. Remember that Jesus repeatedly says that deep affection for each other would be a distinguishing mark of his disciples. In John chapter 13 for instance, verse 34 and 35 in the upper room after Jesus has just washed his disciples feet, he says a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. We also find it mentioned in first John all over the place. For instance, first John chapter 311, for this is the message you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another.

Or chapter 3 verse 23, and this is his commandment that we believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ and love one another just as he has commanded us. Or chapter 4 verses 11 and 12, beloved, if God has so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. I think you get the point. Love between Christians is foundational to their Christian identity and is directly connected to our relationship with God. This term Philadelphia is broadly used throughout Greek literature in other writings to refer to love between literal brothers. But the New Testament writers distinctly refer to and call this Philadelphia between members that are not literal brothers, but rather between Christians who are not otherwise related.

So it’s distinctly Christian to think of people who are different in many ways and yet siblings and to love them accordingly. So that’s why the scriptures call for us to exercise Philadelphia. And in the book of Hebrews, we’ve seen this reality connected to its source. The Christians are not only brothers of one another, but ultimately brothers of Christ, Christ himself. The wonder of Christ’s redemptive work is that he came down to be our permanent brother. As Hebrews chapter 2, 11 says, he is not ashamed to call them brothers. Christ does not treat us with the stereotypical sibling rivalry, jealousy, bitterness, or disdain. He has every right to treat us as lesser. The sibling you try to pretend doesn’t actually exist when you’re in good company, but instead he treats us as brothers and sisters of whom he is not ashamed.

And this should translate into our own attitude towards fellow Christians. The early church was known and was misunderstood for their close affection to one another, even by the pagan world around them. In the second century, Lucian of Samosota writes disdainfully about the Christians that quote, their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshiping that crucified sophist himself, meaning Jesus, and living under his laws. Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property, receiving such doctrines traditionally without any definite evidence. The pagan Greeks looking on at the Christians thought that they were crazy for worshiping Jesus and for calling each other brother and sister. Now while I think that the congregation here at Grace OPC demonstrates brotherly love quite I don’t think that this kind of love comes naturally.

So I think we need to be aware of actively engaging in it. It comes supernaturally. And so the author of Hebrews, who in chapter six verses nine and ten assured his readers of his confidence in their brotherly love, feels the need to command them here in chapter 13 as well to ensure that brotherly love continues. And so I think we need this reminder ourselves as well. The next love that we see in our passage is the love of stranger. So number two, love the stranger. Filio xenia. Verse two, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Now with the phrase hospitality to strangers, you can see where I might have gotten the idea of loving strangers. But not every translation of this verse includes the word strangers. And this is because the word stranger isn’t exactly there in the Greek.

What I mean is that the phrase in Greek is very compact. It’s basically three words. Don’t forget hospitality. But this word translated as hospitality in Greek is actually quite interesting. It’s a Greek word combo, a combination of filio and xenia. Filio means love and xenia means stranger. You may have heard the word xenophobic thrown around these days, which is hatred of strangers or fear of strangers. And this comes from the Greek word for stranger and for fear. Filio xenia means love of strangers. So the Greek word for hospitality is literally stranger love, love of strangers. The ESV translation of show hospitality to strangers gives us that meaning very clearly here. But in Greek, this would have been a little redundant because the word hospitality means loving strangers. There isn’t any other kind of hospitality except hospitality to strangers.

We can sometimes think of hospitality as something that close friends give to one another. But in the Greek, we’re reminded that the heart of this idea is a willingness to bring people in who we’re not already particularly close to. Now this doesn’t mean that the biblical command to fulfill it, that we have to invite every stranger off the street into our dinner table and put them up in our guest room. We’re not prohibited from knowing something about the danger that might be posed and take certain precautions. But in our haste to qualify this command of stranger with considerations of safety, we should not dismiss it altogether. Consider the next phrase of the verse, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Clearly the author is envisioning true strangers whom the host did not even know previously.

He didn’t even know they were actually angels. The two notable examples in biblical history come from Genesis in which Abraham, as we read earlier in Genesis 18 and then Lot later, showed hospitality to two angels while remaining apparently oblivious to their supernatural identity. In many cultures around the world, as in Old Testament times, hospitality to strangers is considered a basic virtue. My brother visited Honduras a number of years ago and was struck by their hospitality there. Despite the impoverished living conditions, living on dirt huts with dirt floors, sometimes struggling to get enough to eat, every house kept a thermos of hot milk ready to serve a cup to any impromptu guests that showed up. There was no consideration of which party could better afford it. It was simply considered basic courtesy. I’ve had similar experiences in Uganda when I visited there, and I’m sure many of you who have traveled abroad have found other various cultures to be quite hospitable as well.

Callie and I have experienced firsthand that kind of hospitality here at Grace. Since we first came and visited in June 2024 and stayed with a family we had never met before, we were given a tour around Pittsburgh by someone we’d never met, and hosted for a pool party at the house of more people we had never met. The congregation here shows a wonderful love of strangers and in the process turns them into friends, and we have been beneficiaries of that. Hospitality is also a very powerful tool for evangelism. While America is a nation that has a history of generosity towards immigrants, despite the current issues of illegal immigration, we’re not often as hospitable on a personal level. Our culture is increasingly isolated and insular, and it’s becoming more and more rare to even know those people that live close to you or have them in your home or be in theirs.

But this creates an incredible opportunity for the body of Christ to stand out as counter-cultural by showing stranger love to those around us, because in these days, the bar has been set incredibly low. In a previous church I was a part of, they did a series on a curriculum called The Art of Neighboring. It was this whole series with resources and ideas of how to engage and be counter-cultural in loving your physical, literal neighbors in order to share the life-transforming good news of the gospel. It was all about learning how to be counter-cultural by going out of our way to actually engage our literal neighbors, get to know them. And so we ought to view hospitality as a way to engage our physical neighbors. But in verse 3, we see that this brother love and stranger love come together.

Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated since you also are in the body. This verse is always very convicting to me, because I am only rarely this sympathetic towards believers who are persecuted. For the original audience, this would have been a call to not distance themselves from those that might cause embarrassment or danger to them. But for today, it means being aware, praying for those who are both strangers to us and yet are brothers and sisters in Christ. I’m thankful that at Grace we regularly list the persecuted Christians on our prayer sheet for prayer meeting Wednesday evenings. But in this age of information and desensitization, we can easily become or remain blissfully ignorant of the plight of God’s people across the world. And this can lead to a distorted view of our own situation in history as Christians.

We can begin to think that persecution is an abnormal reality for Christians. This can sap our Christian witness generally and attack our courage in evangelism. Because if you think that persecution isn’t normal, you’ll be more likely to quit as soon as you start sharing the Gospel and it gets painful or awkward. You’ll be more likely to give up, to try to blend in and hide your faith from your neighbors and co-workers. The Apostle Peter reminded us, he tells us that remembering the situation of persecuted brothers and sisters is an essential element of fighting the devil. In 1 Peter chapter 5 verses 8 and 9, Peter says be sober minded, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him firm in your faith knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood all over the world.

From Peter we see that we need to remember our persecuted brothers and sisters. Not only for their sake in prayer but for our own sake. Satan will try to make you feel sorry for yourself and like what’s happening in your life is totally unique. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen and you’re more likely to fall to Satan’s attack when you lose sight of what your brothers and sisters around the world are suffering for the Gospel right now. So Hebrews comes and it calls us to remember those in prison as though bound with them. We ought to pray for them to be delivered loving them as we love ourselves seeking their deliverance but also pray for their endurance through the suffering that they would keep the faith. When you’re regularly doing this I think that you’ll find it expands your prayer life and it strengthens your own faith to endure the trials that God has put in your own life.

The third love in our passage, number three, love your spouse. Look at verse four, let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Now in this case the Greek text doesn’t offer us any special angle on the word love but the concept of marital love is clearly present and I think this conceptual link is why we have this exhortation, verse four, on the heels of verses one through three. I find it apropos for this exhortation to honor marriage to come in the context of these exhortations to brotherly love because many distortions of intimate desires have come to be called love today when they should be called debauchery. Sadly this is not much different in the Roman world of the first century in which this letter was written.

Today healthy boundaries within the concept of love are transgressed and even erased in the name of love but Hebrews chapter 13 verse 14 stands in stark contrast, stark opposition to this satanic movement because to love brothers and sisters and strangers means to value and preserve the marriage bond as set apart and as precious. Husbands and wives love their children as well by preserving this intimate affection between each other. It is good for children to know that mommy loves daddy more than anyone else and that daddy loves mommy more than anyone else. This provides security for the children since the family unit is held together through marriage. But it is important for those outside of the family to respect this as well and to honor that exclusive relationship between a husband and a wife. This means that friends don’t let friends come between spouses and pull them away from each other.

It means that spouses love each other and others by preserving their unique union with each other. This means not only guarding deeds and words but also eyes and thoughts that might stray. Husbands and wives must continually ask themselves, am I prizing and protecting my marriage and what I think and say and do? This comes with a stern reminder of the consequences of the alternative. It can be easy to try to forget or ignore the consequences of sexual immorality. In the moment it often carries its own promise of pleasure which can crowd out thoughts of consequences. But the Bible is clear. The consequences are consequential. Judgment falls on those who fail to treat the marriage bed with honor and respect. We’ll come back to this verse next week and consider it more deeply. But this evening we’ll move on to consider the fourth love.

Number four, don’t love money. Afil ar geria. Keep your life free from the love of money, verse five and six, and be content with what you have for he has said I will never leave you or forsake you. So we can confidently say the Lord is my helper, I will not fear, what can man do to me? The fourth love in our passage is a love that we should not have. The whole phrase keep your life free from the love of money is actually two words in Greek. The one conveys life or lifestyle and the other word says keep it free from the love of money. The word is afil gerias. It has three parts, a means not, phil means love, and ar geruos which is silver or money. So the author seems to be deliberately tying this back, this idea of love, back to the previous verses because this is not the normal word that would be used for greed.

Instead, he uses this compound word describing the love of money. As you can see, it’s hard to translate this single word in Greek concisely, but I think the idea is very clear, our lives must not be characterized by a love of money. Now when I was young, I used to think, why would anyone ever love money? It seems silly to tell people not to love money because the number of people who cartoonishly adore money simply for money’s sake would have to be quite small. I imagine Donald Duck diving up and leaping down into piles of gold. Who does that? Who actually does that? But as I got older and started to make money and need money for various things, I soon began to understand what a pervasive temptation this is. Most people do not love money in and of itself.

What they love about money is the power, the opportunities, the friendships, the comfort and the security that money can provide. Money is the most natural substitute for God in our lives. We use money to function because we do not individually have the time, effort and energy in one area to create everything that we have, everything that we need to sustain ourselves. And so we offer our time and effort and energy in one area, which compensates us with money that we offer in exchange for what we need. And there’s nothing wrong with this system. The Bible assumes the foundation, the foundational reality of private property, otherwise there could be nothing wrong with stealing. In fact, you couldn’t even call it stealing if there was no such thing as private property. Money is not inherently evil, but it is tempting.

Money’s ability to provide things in this life can quickly capture our heart. Trusting and loving money is a form of trusting and loving yourself. You can start to enjoy the feeling of self-sufficiency. If you have enough money, it feels like you can do anything you want. You can love money if you have a lot of it. But you can be equally infatuated with money if you don’t have much. The temptation can be very strong to say, if I just had a little more, then life would be okay, then I could actually be content. If I only had as much as that other person, I wouldn’t be so stressed or miserable in my life. It’s not wrong to ask for a raise or to recognize your worth as an employee, necessarily. But beware that even these legitimate and good things can be done out of a covetous or a proud heart.

The heart of the problem is that money has a peculiar way of supplanting God in our hearts and lives. Money is the means that God uses to provide us according to the normal order of things. Granted, God did feed Elijah directly with ravens, but that was an unusual event. Normally, he uses money. But our sinful myopic hearts have a tendency to fail to keep the ultimate source in view. We lose sight of God and think that money is our real source of comfort, our real source of security, happiness, even meaning, instead of seeing it as coming from God, who is our real source of comfort, security, happiness, and meaning. The antidote to the love of money is being content. And this is fought on the field of our hearts with God’s promise. I will never leave you or forsake you.

When our hearts get captured with a desire for money, we begin to doubt God’s provision for us. Sometimes this is because we’re not totally sure that the standard of living that we want matches up with what God wants for us. So we begin to doubt that God will make all of our finances flowing freely at the level that we would like. We become afraid and start acting out of fear. We don’t think that we can actually trust God to keep our standard of living exactly where we want it, so we don’t think that we can trust him at all. But this is not true. This is where we need faith, and we need to come back to remember that God is not out to get us, but he is out to make us like Jesus so that we can enjoy heaven forever.

He’s willing to put some financial hardship in our lives, if that’s what it takes. But he will never leave us, and he will always give us what we truly need, even if it is not exactly everything that we want. I quoted the ancient church preacher John Chrysostom in the past, and about this particular verse he says, For as when he is our enemy, it is no gain, though all men should be our friends. So when he is our friend, though all men together should war against us, there is no harm. When God is with you, when he is your helper, you are secure. You cannot be shaken, and there is nothing to fear. So as we conclude, we see the message of Hebrews 13, 1-6 is, in a world that is being and will be profoundly shaken, love remains.

Everything else may be stripped away, comfort, status, possessions, even the visible structures we once leaned upon, but love that flows from the unshakable kingdom endures, and it endures because it is first the love of Christ poured into our hearts. The author has placed before us four loves which must mark us as citizens of this coming kingdom. A continuing brotherly love, Philadelphia, that refuses to grow cold, treating every believer as a true family because Christ himself is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters. A courageous love of strangers, Philoxenia, that opens doors, extends tables, and remembers the imprisoned and mistreated as though those chains were our own. Number three, a fierce protective love of marriage that honors the covenant, guards the marriage bed, and stands as a living testimony against every distortion that the world celebrates.

And finally, the resolute refusal to let the love of money take root, choosing instead the far richer security of the promise, I will never leave you or forsake you. These are not optional decorations of the Christian life, they’re enduring things, the realities that will remain when every other foundation is removed, and they are visible evidence that we belong to a kingdom that cannot be shaken. When your heart grows weary, when the shaking feels overwhelming, when fear whispers that you will be left alone, lift your eyes to the one who spoke the promise that anchors everything, I will never leave you nor forsake you, because that is the deepest love of all, the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, and free, an ocean that rolls over us, under us, all around us, carrying us home.

Let that love be the love from which the other loves flow. Let it be the mark that distinguishes us in a shaken world. Let it be the song that rises from our lips as we wait for the day when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. And until that day, may we live as those who truly belong to the unshakable kingdom, loving one another deeply, because love never ends. Amen. Let’s pray. Lord, our Father in heaven, we thank you that we can bank on that promise that you will never leave or forsake us, that when you are with us, when you are for us, it matters not who is against us. Lord, we ask that you would sink that promise deep into our hearts and lives, that we might be able to live these loves based on that foundation and security.

Out of the love that Christ has for us, we might love our brothers, the strangers, the marriage bed, and we might reject the love of money. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

January 18, 2026
The Things That Cannot Be Shaken

About this sermon

Having come to Mount Zion and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, believers must not refuse him who is speaking. If Israel did not escape when God warned them on earth, much less will those who reject him who warns from heaven. God has promised to shake once more not only the earth but the heavens, removing created things, so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Believers receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken, so they should be grateful and offer God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

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Sermon transcript

If you would turn in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews for our reading this morning will be taken from book of Hebrews chapter 12 and we’re focusing in particular on verses 25 through 29 but I’m going to start reading in verse 18. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 18 this is the word of God for you have not come to what may be touched a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them for they could not endure the order that was given if even a beast touches the mountain it shall indeed so terrifying was the sight that Moses said I tremble with fear but you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to 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 into Jesus the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel 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 how much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven 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 amen let’s pray father in heaven we thank you for this your word that you have spoken you have written down you have preserved for us and you have given it to us we ask that you would accompany this word by your spirit that as the word is proclaimed this morning your spirit would give power and conviction to the speaker and also receptiveness believing accepting to the hearers that we might have life and you might be glorified so Lord we pray that you would send your spirit to these ends for the sake of Jesus in whose name we pray amen may be seated on May 22 1960 the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in human history struck southern Chile near the city of Valdivia registering a staggering magnitude 9.5 it unleashed energy equal to tens of thousands of atomic bombs with intense shaking lasting 10 minutes which must have felt like an eternity the ground rippled like water tearing open massive fissures triggering enormous landslides that buried entire villages and causing widespread destruction liquefaction that turned solid earth into quaking flurry whole forests sank lakes vanished and volcanoes erupted in the aftermath the earthquake generated devastating tsunamis with waves up to 80 feet high that ravaged the coastal towns of Chile and then raced across the Pacific Ocean striking Hawaii 15 hours later and even Japan 22 hours after the initial rupture causing destruction thousands of miles away nearly 2,000 people lost their lives tens of thousands were injured and over 2 million were left homeless entire towns like Valdivia or Puerto Montt were reduced to rubble with countless homes churches factories and bridges built on unstable soil or without adequate reinforcement collapsing completely yet even in this apocalyptic shaking some things did endure a few well-constructed buildings on firm ground survived with minimal damage traditional Chilean homes simple flexible wooden structures tied together without rigid nails often remained standing while modern concrete buildings nearly nearby crumbled in some areas structures anchored to solid bedrock or designed with natural flexibility fared far better than those rigidly fixed to the shifting ground when the earth finally stilled and the waters receded everything built on shaky foundations lay in ruins but the things rooted deeply in what cannot be shaken remained our passage promises a final shaking one day that will come and friends this small shaking is a vivid picture that God of what God gives us in our passage in Hebrews chapter 12 he warns that a final greater shaking is coming and one that will not only shake the earth but the heavens themselves everything that can be shaken will be removed so that only the things that cannot be shaken will remain forever as we stand here on January 4, 2026 the first Sunday of the new year question echoes across the centuries to us this year what is your life built upon the shifting ground of this world success security or comfort or the unshakable kingdom of God offered to us in Jesus Christ let’s turn to our passage this morning discover the things that cannot be shaken as we examine our passage this morning we’ll consider three exhortations number one listen to the voice that cannot be silenced number two release the things that will be shaken and number three cling to the things that cannot be shaken number one listen to the voice that cannot be silenced now before we consider the specifics of verse 25 let’s take a few moments to orient ourselves within the book of Hebrews as a whole as we’ve been going along the author is placing his original audience and including us as later readers as well into the drama of redemption we’ve seen this move from the author of Hebrews starting from verse 1 of the letter verse 1 long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets but in these last days he’s spoken to us by his son the author tells the readers that they are current participants in a final epoch in the unfolding of the drama of God’s redemption all throughout the book of Hebrews the author has been highlighting the way the place in which his readers exist in the history of redemption is superior to all others because of the coming of Christ we’ve seen the author explain the multitude of ways in which Christ is superior to the Old Testament priests sacrifices and figures in chapters three and four the author cautioned his readers that they face their own current Canaan crossroads he made clear the stakes and urged his readers that the story of redemption never ended with Israel but God’s rest is a present reality available to all who enter by faith all throughout the book of Hebrews we’ve seen that theme that the previous history of God’s people is part of a larger story which is not yet complete this made his warnings more intense as the author reminded his readers that if anything the stakes have only gotten higher today the danger of ignoring missing out refusing or walking away has only increased over time and at the present point in the drama of biblical history it has reached a fever pitch but then we noticed those last two verses of Hebrews chapter 11 verses 39 and 40 all these though commended for their faith did not receive what was promised since God had provided something better for us that apart from us they should not be made perfect so while the danger is greater so are the blessings and instead of us having to look back longingly to the good old days when God was invested in history the story is not finished the Hall of Faith is not merely a record of historical admiration and exemplary interest it is held out as an unfinished story of which we too are a part we are involved in the continuation of the story that they started God never finished the story with them because it involves you and I we’re not mere spectators of bygone multitude of faithful Saints but we are the continuation of the grand story of God the drama of redemption which is climaxed in the death of Christ but not yet concluded in the heavenly Jerusalem God’s story in redemption is not merely in the past it remains present and future we rightly place our hope and security in Christ who has done his work in the past died on the cross and rose from the dead but we’re not meant to run the race of faith facing backwards faith is inherently forward-looking and as we saw all the patriarchs who in Hebrews 11 15 if they had been thinking of the land which they had gone out they would have had opportunity to return instead they looked ahead and for us to have faith it will require us to look ahead look forward as well not back to the land from which we came it is quite possible to believe that God has provided for Saints even ourselves in the past while remaining doubtful that he will be able to help us today or even tomorrow you need faith that believes God will help you now that he will still have everything that you need tomorrow and chapter 12 started out telling us to run forward looking at Jesus throwing off anything that would keep us from completely trusting God and now as we come to the end it is ending with a reminder that the gaze of faith is forward not backward last week we saw that we have not come to look back at Mount Zion Mount Sinai but we have been caught instead come to look forward to Mount Zion which brings us up to verse 25 where he says see that you do not see that you do not refuse him who is speaking for if they do not escape when they read when they refused him who warned on earth much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven our passage is a continuation of the contrast between the threatening Mount Sinai and the celebratory celestial Mount Zion which was set up in the previous verses and which we looked at the author painted vivid pictures of these contrasting mountains which represented the distance which existed in the old covenant despite the sacrifices and ceremonies versus the accessibility and the intimacy available in the new covenant because of Jesus but immediately after describing Festal Mount Zion the author returns to a theme that he has been focused on ever since chapter 2 chapter 2 therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it for since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation the superiority of the new covenant brings with it a greater severity for ignoring despising or rejecting it and we saw this laid out most clearly in Hebrews chapter 10 verses 28 and 29 anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses how much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who is trampled underfoot the son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and is outraged the spirit of grace recall as we saw last time that within the heavenly Jerusalem resides God the judge of all Sinai was terrifying but Zion will be worse for those who refuse to listen because with greater privilege comes greater responsibility and there is now no option of going back to Sinai so we have come to Mount Zion whether we like it or not Mount Sinai is irreversibly in the past you have not come to tangible Mount Sinai Mount Zion is the present reality God has spoken his final word in Jesus Christ and this means that the rewards are much greater but the stakes are much higher imagine the difference between ignoring a beeping smoke detector which may or may not be legitimate and completely ignoring air traffic control while you’re attempting to land a commercial jet the people of Israel had Moses the Ten Commandments written by the finger of God the tabernacle the pillar of cloud and fire dwelling in the midst of their camp and yet that generation that left Egypt failed to enter the promised land and even after entering as a nation they were eventually exiled for persistent disobedience and unbelief but despite its tangibility the Old Covenant was unable to bring about intimacy with God instead it pointed ahead to the realities that Jesus fulfills and this is why it is all the more important to listen to the voice it cannot be silenced the voice of God’s final revelation speaking from heaven which is Jesus therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard Hebrews 2 says the Israelites tried to turn down the volume on God’s voice on Sinai they asked Moses to be their go-between in verse 19 of our chapter 12 the hearers begged it says the hearers begged that no further word be spoken to them and the Greek word therefore begged is actually the same root word as the word we have translated as refuse in chapter 25 which is why he picks up on that concept that the previous they refused him who warned them on earth Israel refused to listen to God asking Moses to become a mediator between them and the God of Sinai and yet Moses pointed ahead to the ultimate mediator between God and man Jesus Christ but now that Jesus has come there is no mediator between him and humans he is the mediator he is also the final authoritative word of God it was dangerous to refuse the thunder from Sinai but that was given locally to Israel Zion is far more dangerous as Psalm 2 makes clear Psalm 2 verses 5 and 6 then God will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury saying as for me I have set my king on Zion my holy hill and verses 10 and 12 now therefore O Kings be wise be warned O rulers of the earth serve the Lord with fear rejoice with trembling kiss the Sun lest he be angry and you perish in the way for his wrath is quickly kindled blessed are all who take refuge in him when it comes to Christ there are two choices refuge refuse or take refuge the author is urging his readers not to choose to refuse Sinai was terrifying but it was local it was God’s voice on earth but Zion on the other hand is global it’s God’s voice from heaven which brings us to our second exhortation which is to release the things that will be shaken verses 26 and 27 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 the things that cannot be shaken may remain as he makes his point the author brings in a quote from Haggai chapter 2 verse 6 which we read earlier in the service for that says the Lord of hosts yet once more in a little while I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land the author breaks author of Hebrews breaks it down for us this is a reference to the final judgment that is coming yet once more means it’s still in the future there is a final once for all shaking that will take place the shaking is not merely a disruption a remove but a removal a sweeping away think of a sieve or a strainer which is shaken until all of the particles the smaller particles fall through and only the large ones remain and this is the picture of the final judgment that we have in our passage if you recall from chapter one of Hebrews he quoted Psalm 102 and the author uses the imagery of changing out the created order like old clothing Hebrews chapter 1 verses 10 through 12 he says and you Lord lay the foundations of the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands they will perish but you will remain they will all wear out like a garment like a robe you will roll them up like a garment they will be changed but you are the same and your years will have no end what we see here explicitly is that God is the one constant he remains no matter what happens to everything else and this presents us with two categories things that are shaken and removed and things which cannot be shaken and remain there is coming a day when this distinction will be utterly unmistakable and inescapable but for now the distinction is muted it is discerned by faith Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen and verse 3 by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what was seen is not made out of things that are visible we saw when we looked at that earlier a number of weeks ago faith acts like night vision goggles helping us see things that we could not otherwise see it orients our hearts and our minds so that we gain clarity on reality so that we can properly perceive and value what is permanent and distinguish that from what is transient in this world so many things feel solid and permanent we build houses on concrete slabs we build skyscrapers on foundations of bedrock the earth under our feet feels stable but in an earthquake we suddenly see things very differently what we see with our eyes right in front of us often feels more solid and stable then holiness and then eternity and faith is the only way to gain an eternal perspective ahead of time on this side of judgment before it is too late so often our problem is that we obsess over things that are inconsequential we obsess over temporary success and status pouring endless energy into climbing ladders that will one day collapse promotions titles follower counts net worth the approval of people whose opinion opinions will not outlast this age we obsess over physical appearance and comfort hours in the gym or diets or fashion or anti-aging routines or the perfect home decor all focused on a body and world that are wearing out like a garment our bodies and homes are gifts to steward but obsessing over them as if they are eternal is to mistake the shadow for the substance we obsess over control and security in a shakeable world stockpiling money insurance policies political solution or even prepping for every possible crisis as if we could make this present order permanent jesus warned against storing up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and instead to store them in heaven the final shaking will make every earthly safety net irrelevant we obsess over grievances and minor conflicts we nurse grudges replay arguments cancel people over disagreements lose peace over slights that an eternity’s light will seem absurdly small we obsess over fleeting pleasures binge watching scrolling shopping food sex entertainment anything to numb the ache and fill the void these are not wrong in and of themselves but when they become our functional heaven we’re clinging to things that will be shaken not what is real and stable the tragedy is not just that these things are temporary instead obsessing over them crowds out the things that cannot be shaken every hour spent frantically grasping at shadows is a is an hour not listening to the voice from heaven or clinging to christ and his kingdom the picture we have is of all creation melting away under our feet falling through a sieve with god being the only thing that remains god and those who are connected to him by faith our passage portrays a divine judgment by which some will be proven to be eternally established in god’s presence while others will not the final shaking will even sift the church the writer of hebrew is not giving this warning only to those outside out there he’s speaking to the community of faith this is a judgment that cuts through the church as well as the world because just being a member of a covenant community does not exclude you from the shaking and if you’re not anchored if your soul is not clinging to christ you will be swept away so our final exhortation number three is to cling to the things that cannot be shaken verses 28 and 29 therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and let us offer to god acceptable worship with reverence and awe for our god is a consuming fire we might have expected a final exhortation to shape up to obey to pay attention instead we’re told to be grateful how does gratitude fit in well gratitude is a response that fits in between two wrong responses one wrong response would be to refuse i don’t need your help i don’t need an unshakable kingdom thank you very much i’m fine another response would be to say well i deserve your help i deserve nothing less than unshakable than an unshakable kingdom but gratitude accepts the help that it knows it needs but it doesn’t deserve and that’s why gratitude is such an appropriate response to this astounding gift of an unshakable kingdom one of the ways you show your appreciation is to hold on to it if i gave you a gift this past christmas and find it the next day in the giveaway or throwaway pile i might be a little offended and i’m definitely not thinking that you’re grateful for my gift now sometimes there are gifts that warrant that but the point is to give it away immediately is not to appear grateful gratitude is to hold on to it and the same is true with god’s unshakable kingdom here if you ignore it if you pretend it doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter to your life that’s the opposite of being grateful so we’re told to be grateful that we’re receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken the language receiving here echoes that of daniel chapter seven the famous passage in which daniel sees a vision of the end of time with the son of man which is the title that jesus takes to himself who rises up and receives a kingdom and then we’re told in verse 18 but the saints of the most high shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever and ever the unshakable kingdom is not something we build it’s a gift that we receive so therefore an unshakable soul is not achieved by human effort but by being firmly anchored to the unshakable realities god gives us in christ so how does your soul become unshakable well hear and receive the voice from heaven the process begins with listening god is speaking today through his son in the gospel to refuse or ignore that voice is to remain rooted in the shakeable what will be removed to repent and repent and trust christ alone for your salvation for forgiveness and righteousness faith is the open hand that receives the kingdom in the moment you believe you are transferred from the domain of darkness into christ’s eternal kingdom let the number two let the coming shaking do its work now god’s final shaking will remove everything temporary so that only the eternal remains and you ought to allow that future to shape your present priorities regularly examine your life what am i obsessing over that belongs only to this passing world release your tight grip on inconsequential things status comfort control grudges pleasures the more you loosen your grip on the shakeable the less the future shaking will unsettle you cling to christ the unshakable foundation jesus is the founder and perfecter of our faith he endured the ultimate shaking on the cross was raised imperishable and now sits enthroned forever and union with him makes your soul bedrock steady abide in him daily through prayer scripture the lord’s supper remind yourself constantly my life is hidden with christ in god colossians three verse three your life is untouchable it’s hidden with christ in god and when trials come preach to your soul christ cannot be shaken therefore i cannot ultimately be shaken and finally cultivate grateful reverent worship gratitude anchors you in grace received reverence and awe anchor you in god’s holiness our god is a consuming fire worship reorients your heart towards what is eternal so make god make thankful god-centered worship a daily habit a weekly habit in every circumstance joy or pain say i have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken therefore i will give thanks and draw near with holy fear in short your soul becomes unshakable not by becoming stronger in yourself but by being united to the one who is eternally unshakable jesus christ and by living increasingly for that kingdom that you have already begun to receive the shaking is coming but if your life is hidden in christ when everything around you falls you will stand unshaken because he holds you fast therefore dear friends brothers and sisters as we conclude this morning hear the urgent plea of hebrews 12 the final shaking is coming yet once more god will shake not only the earth but the heavens heavens themselves removing everything that can be shaken so that only his eternal kingdom remains what will be left of your life on that day the fleeting pursuits of this fading world its successes comforts and leisures securities or will it be the unshakable realities of mount zion so do not refuse him who speaks from heaven today release your grip on things destined to fall and instead with grateful hearts cling to christ and to his kingdom the gift that you are now receiving around that no earthquake no judgment no power in heaven or on earth can overthrow let gratitude fuel your worship let reverence temper your joy and awe remind you that our god is a consuming fire holy yet welcoming all who take refuge in his son so finally run the race looking to jesus live today in light of eternity and when the final shaking comes you will not be moved for you are anchored to the rock that cannot be shaken amen let’s pray our father in heaven we thank you that you have spoken to us from heaven despite the danger that comes with such speaking such danger of turning away and incurring judgment but lord we thank you that that word from heaven this is my beloved son my beloved son with whom i am well pleased gives us comfort and security if we are in christ so lord we ask that you would give us eyes of faith to see christ for who he is our treasure and our glory and we would rest in him give us hearts of resting in christ all our days till we see him face to face we pray this in jesus name amen well in response let’s stand and sing him 404 the church’s one foundation let’s sing him number 404 the church’s one foundation

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January 4, 2026
Beware Bitter Roots and Birthrights

About this sermon

Hebrews calls believers to lift drooping hands, strengthen weak knees, and make straight paths, so that the lame may heal. They are to strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord, peace and holiness that flow from being justified by faith. They must see that no one fails to obtain God’s grace, that no root of bitterness springs up and defiles many. Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal, warns against despising spiritual inheritance for momentary appetite; he later sought the blessing with tears, but God rejected him.

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Sermon transcript

Please remain standing as we turn in the scriptures to our passage this evening which is taken from the book of Genesis chapter 12. We’re continuing our series in Hebrews chapter 12 this evening starting in verse 12 through verse 17. This is God’s word from Hebrews chapter 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. Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it then 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. Then 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. Let’s pray. Father in heaven we thank you that you have given us this your word which is a light to our path. It is life to us. Lord we ask that you would send your spirit because without your spirit we are dead to this word. We ask that you would send your spirit in the preaching that you would open our hearts. Believe it, receive it. You might empower the words that I speak. It might be from you and have your blessing and power. We pray these things Lord Jesus in your holy name. Amen. May be seated. When 2011 22 year old Derrick Rose exploded on the NBA scene as the youngest MVP in league history.

He was electric, a fearless drives to the basket, impossible finishes, lightning-quick cuts that left defenders grasping at air. The Chicago Bulls rode his athleticism to the top of the standings and the future seemed limitless but beneath the highlights warning signs were flashing. Throughout the MVP season and the next Rose battled a string of nagging injuries, sprained toes, twisted ankles, pulled groins, back tightness. His hyper explosive style placed enormous strain and stress on his joints and stability. Yet he kept pushing, playing through pain on a relentless schedule and then came game one of the 2012 playoffs. With the Bulls comfortably ahead late in the game and victory already secured, Rose drove to the hoop one more time. His left knee buckled, jump stop, no contact, no foul. What looked like a sudden tragedy was actually the inevitable result of ignored fatigue and overload.

These minor injuries had quietly eroded his foundation until the big collapse came. Rose missed an entire season recovering, returned briefly, then tore the meniscus in his other knee. Chronic setbacks followed. The explosive MVP never fully returned. He played respectively in later years but as a shadow of his former self, retiring far earlier than anyone expected. A trajectory towards all-time greatness was forever altered in the heat of the race. Friends, Derrick Rose, his story is an urgent warning in Hebrews that our author gives us tonight from chapter 12, especially verses 12 and 13. Don’t ignore the spiritual drooping hands, the weakening knees, the root of bitterness or the unaddressed sin. Strengthen them now through prayer, repentance, fellowship, and God’s grace before a minor limp becomes a disqualifying collapse. Tonight we’ll walk through three headings. Number one, stabilizing joints, straightening paths from verses 12 and 13.

Number two, pursuing peace and holiness from verse 14. And number three, growing bitter roots and treasuring birthrights from verses 15 through 17. Number one, stabilizing joints, straightening paths. We start out in our passage with an exhortation to take care of frail body parts that are in danger of further injury. Look again at verses 12 and 13. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. This imagery of weak knees and lame feet fits with the way that the author had started chapter 12 with the analogy of running a race. Last time in our series we looked at the author’s digression in which he addressed the issue of suffering and the Lord’s loving discipline.

In addressing the Lord’s discipline the author focused his exhortation on his audience as individuals, but in our passage this evening focused back to his audience as a group. As we consider verses 12 and 13, it doesn’t take long to realize that he’s speaking metaphorically. While it would be beneficial to watch over and care for our physical bodies, that’s not the passage. It is intended as an analogy of spiritual health. The author of Hebrews is not calling you to go see a physical therapist or a chiropractor. Although that might be a good idea. But the language actually comes from a passage in Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 35 which we read earlier in the service, especially verses 3 and 4. Isaiah 35 verses 3 and 4 it says strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees.

Be strong, fear not. Behold, God will come to you with vengeance. With the recompense of God he will come and save you. In the prophet Isaiah the poetic parallel to strengthening weak hands and knees is speaking words of comfort to anxious people. So we can assume that the author of Hebrews might have something similar of a proposal in view. And this makes even more sense when we remember that the scriptures often call the people of God the body of Christ. If you are around Christians for even a short length of time you will often hear them speaking of the body. Most often they’re referring to the group of believers together and united to Christ by faith since that is the way the Bible talks about it in many places. In 1st Corinthians chapter 12 we find an extended discussion of this imagery which fits what we are talking about in Hebrews chapter 12.

Look with me briefly at 1st Corinthians chapter 12 verses 14 through 26. This is a little bit of a longer passage which is an important foundation for this concept of weak knees and hands which need strengthening as being members of the body. But for the sake of time I’m only going to read a few selections of 1st Corinthians 12 14 through 26. Verse 14, for the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say that would not make it any less a part of the body. Verse 17, if the whole body were an eye where would the sense of hearing be? Verse 19, if all were a single member where would the body be? And going on to verse 24, but God has so composed the body giving greater honor to the part that lacked it.

That there may be no division in the body but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers all suffer together. If one member is honored all rejoice together. The Bible doesn’t portray Christians as mere individuals who show up once or twice a week to sing, pray and hear a message. Maybe give in the offering plate. When someone puts their faith in Jesus Christ they don’t just become part of him but they become part of the body of believers. You get a whole new identity which is rooted in a new community and the church is called Christ’s body with Christ as the head. No community posits such an intimate relationship with their God because all of them are counterfeits. Distortions of the God who created all things and who called a people into fellowship with him through repentance and faith.

Christians have a unique bond with each other that transcends even this life and lasts forever because it is rooted into their connection to Jesus Christ. And so the exhortation in Hebrews chapter 12 verses 12 and 13 is to care not only for ourselves but to be mindful of the others in the body. Therefore lift up 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. This exhortation is not so much focused on figuring out what your personal spiritual bad knee or weak ankle might be. This is less about introspection and more about outrospection. Looking around, looking out for the people around you who may be struggling. Last time was about each person considering their own personal discipline from the Lord but in our past now the author is telling us to look around, pay attention to others who might be struggling.

In the body don’t let the body get taken out by a weak ankle, a bad knee, a fragile wrist. Not an individual activity but something we’ve got to do together just as our physical bodies could never run races or even walk without multiple parts of the body all working together. The church won’t work if we ignore or leave behind believers who may be struggling. We need to understand this because sooner or later all of us will be an injured knee, a throbbing elbow, a wobbly ankle and we will need the care of others. From the context this these weak and wobbly body parts are struggling with faith. They are reconsidering whether their faith in Christ is worth the hardship and pain that might come with it. We see this also because of chapter 3 verse 10 we saw that unbelieving Israel is said to always go astray in their hearts and thus in verse 13 the author says thus make straight paths for your feet.

Don’t go astray in your hearts and don’t let those who are going astray in their hearts continue. Going astray meant failing to continue in the faith and so making a straight path means persevering and continuing in the faith. Imagine helping someone with crutches to walk. Are you going to leave all kinds of junk in front of them to navigate around and hop over? Of course not. You’re going to get everything cleared out of the way to help them get through so they don’t injure themselves worse. The danger of weak body is not only though the danger that they pose to themselves but it’s to the entire community. My father-in-law got knee replacement surgery a few years back and he stayed at our house while he was recovering. I was so surprised that the day after he got home from the surgery the physical therapist had him trying to walk around and bend his knee right away.

He said that that was to promote the proper healing. If the knee had stayed locked in one position it would heal wrong and sometimes we need a little gentle prodding and encouragement spiritually so that we will continue in the faith. We need people asking how we’re doing, whether we’re reading our bibles, whether we’re spending time in prayer, worship and we need to be those that ask those of others about their spiritual life in a spirit of encouragement and not judgment since there is just as much grace for others as for our own. But we need to do it because there are serious consequences at stake and this leads us to the next thing that the author addresses in verse 14. Number two, we see pursuing peace and holiness. Look at verse 14, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

We start off with a word that resonates with the prevalent running imagery. The word translated strive is dioko in Greek which means to set into quick motion or to pursue. In other passages of the Bible it’s used to describe persecution and the idea is that peace and holiness must be urgently pursued within the church. As with verses 12 and 13, this is not merely an individual endeavor. This exhortation flows directly out of what we saw in verses 12 and 13. One commentator says the previous verse concluded with an exhortation to make straight paths for your feet and the author will now explain how that is done. In a word, the paths are the paths of Christian fellowship. The peace and holiness the peace and holiness which are to be pursued are must be done in community and they don’t happen automatically.

Peace is something that lots of people are thinking about this time of year because it’s famously what the angelic messengers told the shepherds was coming with the birth of Jesus. Jesus’s work, what he was going to do by dying and rising brings us peace with God but even more than that his person who is God and fully human also brings us peace with God. Romans chapter 5 verses 1 through 5 connects some of the dots of peace and holiness as concepts in the Christian experience. Romans chapter 5 verses 1 through 5 therefore since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and through him we have also obtained by faith access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God but not only that but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Peace with God leads to sanctification in our lives according to God’s fatherly discipline as we saw last time in Hebrews 12 4 through 11 and even though Paul doesn’t use the word sanctification the concept is present here as he moves from the peace that we have with God to the formative power of suffering which is what sanctification is. From Hebrews we’ve seen that the holiness of the outcome is the outcome of Jesus priestly ministry Hebrews 9 14 10 10 10 14 and 13 12 and the heavenly father’s molding of his children Hebrews 12 10. Peace and holiness are something that God has given us and therefore we should make every effort to see it manifested in our community. Peace has manifested but what seems most in view in verse 14 of Hebrews 12 is members.

Injured joints are more likely to pull away to try to isolate and have wounds fester. One comment the author’s description represents the organic connection between one one’s relationship with God and one’s relationship with people. Apostasy from God manifests itself as alienation from and conflict with God’s people. Pursuing peace means it won’t always come without uncomfortability or at least awkwardness. Peace doesn’t just happen it has to be chased down. It requires an active approaching of those that we might have problems with intentionally talking to those we might not like with the intention of reaching understanding or at least greater unity and loving confrontation of problems head-on is the only way to find true resolution to strong disagreements. It’s always easier to see people as completely defined by their one or ten worst traits when we don’t interact with them and that’s why the author says we’ve got to pursue peace we can’t just sit around hoping that it will happen that’s what i’d prefer to do just ignore it and hope that peace somehow happens but that’s not how peace happens in the body of Christ and it’s not how holiness happens holiness is also a community project that doesn’t mean you just make it your business to highlight everyone’s sin whenever you see it i’m thinking more of how you can’t by yourself see all the ways that you aren’t living like a christian just like how you can’t see your whole self ever in a mirror you can’t see yourself spiritually either sin is inherently blinding and even as believers we’re still not free from his presence there’s a corporate aspect to this pursuing holiness just like the author mentioned in chapter 10 verses 24 to 25 and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near we’re called to pursue holiness by encouraging one another to stay involved and to keep using the means of grace to grow individually and and our passage the importance of pursuing peace and holiness is emphasized by a warning against the alternative but this is underscored by his final warning in verses 15 through 17 15 through 17 so number three destroying bitter roots treasuring birthrights look at verse 15 as we come to the climax of this passage see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of god then no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled the exhortations that we’ve seen strengthening weak knees making straight paths pursuing peace and holiness all build to this urgent warning having just said that without holiness no one will see the lord the author now a community where grace is missed bitterness takes root and many are defiled first let’s consider what this root of bitterness is referring to now it’s easy to hear bitterness and think of personal grudges or unforgiveness he certainly guards against that but what this phrase the root of bitterness is actually a reference to deuteronomy chapter 29 verses 18 through 19 i’d encourage you to take a look at that deuteronomy chapter 29 verses 18 through 19 let’s go back and take a look at this phrase in its context deuteronomy 29 18 beware lest a man or a woman or a clan or tribe in israel or tribe whose heart is turning away from the lord our god to go and serve the gods of those nations beware lest there be among you a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit one who when he hears the words of this sworn covenant blesses himself in his heart saying i shall be safe though i walk in the stubbornness of my own heart this will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike this is near the end of deuteronomy and moses is warning the israelites here about the possibility but contagious apostasy the bitter root here is not about unforgiveness towards others but about turning away from god and so it makes perfect sense why the author of hebrews would be referencing it here this is another way of saying what he’s already been saying that you have to nip apostasy in the bud both privately and as a body don’t let apostasy grow as though it were harmless when we look closely at deuteronomy 29 we see that apostasy grows out of the soil of presumption verse 19 describes someone who tells himself that he doesn’t need to worry about judgment even though he’s unrepentant there have always been individuals who are part of the community of god and thought that their public corporate identity would keep them safe if weren’t changed the author of hebrews is concerned that the same kind of dangerous presumption could be present in the community that he’s writing to presumption spreads dangerously in our own lives and in the lives of the community of god and in the end it leads people to think that they might not even need the larger community either if you don’t personal heart change to be saved from hell why do you need to actually identify as a christian especially when it might be uncomfortable or cost something the author of hebrews moves on with an illustration to drive home his point the tragic story of esau look at verses 16 and 17 then 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 now at first we might be puzzled by the introduction of the mention of sexual immorality especially in terms of esau but when we realize that in the old testament god constantly compares idolatry to sexual immorality to sexual unfaithfulness it makes a lot more sense we don’t have a record of flagrant in sexual immorality he did marry hittite women who were unbelievers outside the covenant community which was wrong but he was not known for sexual immorality so most likely the author of hebrews speaking figuratively about esau’s abandonment okay and then it describes him as unholy the word unholy is sometimes translated by other translations as worldly this worldliness of esau led him down a dangerous path so that he knew the things that are inherently valuable he saw a bowl of stew as more valuable than his birthright very likely you remember the story esau came in hungry hungry from hunting and asked his brother for the stew that he had made jacob not very upstanding himself drove a hard bargain hard bargain demanding the birthright of firstborn which he had missed personally by a few minutes instead of haggling esau handled it over with hardly a moment’s thought jacob did take advantage of the situation esau revealed his own disregard of his birthright not only was esau foolish in terms of physical inheritance but even more so because of what this represented spiritually spiritually the birthright represented the inheritance of faith that god had promised abraham and esau treated god’s covenant blessing as worth nothing more than a bowl of stew instant gratification over long-term value and this is where presumption will take us all if we’re not careful presumption upon god’s grace means taking it for granted those who are trusting on christ for salvation should be able to rest on god’s grace for them rest on god’s grace for them rather than constantly questioning it but those who are truly resting on god’s mercy and salvation are equally aware that they do not deserve it and this drives them to repeated repentance when they act according to the sin nature which remains in them presumption on the other hand is counterfeit assurance it begins to wonder if grace really was so undeserved after all and it feels less and less of a need for repentance presumption is more likely to find loopholes and excuses for why we can’t be expected to live perfectly after all instead of repenting and turning to god for mercy the people of israel generally had major problems with repentance with presumption throughout their history and when john the baptist showed up this presumption was still very strong in order to shock them out of their presumption as native israelites that they had an inherent right to god’s favor john the baptist says this in matthew chapter three verses nine through ten he says do not presume to say to yourselves we have abraham as our father abraham is able to raise from these stones to raise up children for abraham even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire their presumption had led them to completely disregard god’s law and so they assumed that they were fine the pharisees they started out dead set on obeying god’s law completely and setting israel on a path of reform and yet somehow along the line instead of regularly repenting for their sin they began to make excuses for their failures and exceptions for themselves and exceptions for themselves they started presuming upon god’s favor on the basis of their own superficial self-righteousness so whether dismissing god’s law outright or studiously exempting oneself from the difficult parts of god’s law presumption at its heart leads to a lack of repentance and this is precisely what we see in esau look at verse 17 for you know that afterward when he desired to inherit the blessing he was rejected for he found no chance to repent though he thought it with tears esau’s bitter root of presumption had grown into full flower as he pursued temporary fleeting pleasures of sin until it was too late there does come a time when it is impossible to repent now it certainly comes at death for all of us as hebrew says it is appointed for man to die once and then comes judgment but in terms of before death i don’t think that we can easily say when that might be for ourselves or even for others the bible doesn’t call us to make that judgment call it simply calls us to repent esau serves as a warning to us all not to test that limit don’t presume that you’re in control of tomorrow’s grace esau lived his life thinking that he could simply repent whenever he wanted and he was presuming that he was in control but when he saw the consequences when he had eaten his fill of sin he thought he could just flip the switch for himself and he was wrong repentance always has been and always is a gift it’s part of his grace because it requires not merely seeing the consequences of sin as fearful but to see sin as repulsive in and of itself it doesn’t take special grace to find everlasting torment terrifying it does take supernatural grace for a sinner who loves sin and hates holiness to turn completely around into a person who finds sin repulsive and god delightful and that’s the kind of miracle that god does every day that’s why this warning was written down preserved translated read and preached to you this evening so that by hearing this warning about esau you wouldn’t waste another moment thinking that you can repent later whenever you want but you would ask god right now god’s not looking for perfection asking you to turn your life around before coming to him to ask for help in fact the less you do without him the better because anything you do in your own strength any righteousness you try to or think you accomplish in your own strength is worthless is worthless even insulting to god esau’s solution to isaac’s displeasure was to double down on his sin genesis chapter 28 eight and nine describes this so when esau saw that the canaanite women did not please isaac his father esau went to ishmael and took as his wife besides the wives he had mahaleth the daughter of ishmael abraham’s son the sister of nebaiath don’t tumble down repent even better ask god to help you repent and then believe in the free gift of great of grace from god that covers you in love don’t presume upon it but do rest in it trust it to hold you and trust brothers and sisters hebrus 12 has hit us hard tonight let’s review briefly stabilize the weak drooping hands strengthen feeble knees clear straight path we run together because one limping member slows down the whole body pursue peace with everyone and the holiness without which no one will see the lord chase them hard because they won’t come easy and destroy the bitter roots of presumption before they destroy us that hidden presumption while i live in rebellion poisoned esau he traded his press his priceless birthright for stew and then wept when repentance was gone forever so don’t ignore the warning signs until the collapse act right away lift the weak pursue peace and holiness uproot presumption treasure your birthright in christ the inheritance that never fades god isn’t waiting for you to get it together come weary limping empty ask him tonight to grant you repentance to hate sin and love him more and ask him to knit us together so that no one misses his grace and then of course rest boldly rest in the savior who holds you fast and gives his spirit to carry us all home to see him face to face amen let’s pray our father in heaven we thank you for this sobering word tonight lord we ask that you would give us tender hearts not like ethos but that you would give us the grace of a changed heart like you gave to jacob though he did not deserve it though he sought to deceive and lie to his brother yet you came to him and you granted him repentance that he did not you granted him repentance that he did not or we pray that you would tenderize our hearts you would knit us together as and you would watch over us by your spirit we pray these things in jesus name amen let’s conclude with the singing hymn number 400 let’s stand as we sing number 400 gracious spirit dwell with me

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

December 21, 2025
The Nurture and Admonition of the Lord

About this sermon

Hebrews 12 reminds believers of the exhortation that addresses them as sons: “Do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord… for the Lord disciplines the one he loves.” Suffering in the Christian life is not punishment for sin, which Christ bore, but the training (paideia) of a loving Father, a sign that they truly belong to him. Earthly fathers disciplined for a short time as seemed best to them, but God has no sin or limited wisdom; he disciplines for our good, that we may share his holiness. Discipline is painful for now, but later yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

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Sermon transcript

Let’s turn next to our reading this morning. Our sermon text is from Hebrews chapter 12 verses 4 through 11. You can find that on page 1196 of your pew Bible. This is God’s word. From Hebrews chapter 12 starting in verse 4. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Amen. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, Lord God, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, we need your help. We need you to bring your spirit so that these words which you have inspired, which you have breathed out, which are without error, might also be life to us. Lord, we ask that you would come by your spirit in the preaching of this word and in the hearing that it might be blessed to bring you glory and to bring us much good, even eternal life itself.

We pray this confident in Jesus’ name. Amen. You may be seated. How bad is it? Are you bleeding? Are you bleeding? Are you even bleeding? How many of you were asked this classic parental question growing up? Or perhaps you were or still are the parent asking that question. In some cases the query is a way to determine medical seriousness, but in other cases it’s an attempt to frame the adolescent injury within a bigger picture. Are you seriously injured or merely uncomfortable? As a typical boy I was always more satisfied when I could find blood from an injury. It helped justify and validate that stubbed toe or smashed finger. At least it hurt because it was bleeding. My dad’s common solution offered to me and my siblings who sat crying from a minor injury, whether bloodless or not, was to facetiously suggest amputation.

A stubbed toe could be remedied by cutting off the foot or even leg. Sometimes the proposed injury, proposed remedy was to injure an entirely different part of the body so that it would eclipse or at least distract from the pain of the other part. I don’t ever recall finding it amusing myself, but it does work for some kids. But regardless, it did often distract me and my siblings long enough to realize that there was more to life than the throbbing toe which was already starting to feel better. But if my dad’s solution didn’t fix the problem, my mother would also be consulted. My mom’s solution was to provide comfort and kisses which seemed to work just as well, if not better. Brothers and sisters, let’s be honest for a second. Nobody woke up here this morning hoping the preacher would talk about suffering.

We’d rather hear about blessing, favor, the good stuff. But the writer of Hebrews doesn’t give us that option. He walks right into the room, looks at a group of tired, tempted, wavering believers, looks them in the eye and basically says, you haven’t bled yet, stop acting like the fight’s over. That’s where we’re going today in Hebrews 12 verses 4 through 11. And I warn you up front, this is tough love preaching. The author of Hebrews isn’t coddling anyone, he’s putting our pain in perspective, our complaints on mute, and God’s fatherly heart on full display. We’re going to see three things in our passage. Number one is tough love. You and I haven’t resisted sin to the point of shedding our blood, so we haven’t fought hard enough to quit. Number two, discipline, not punishment. The pain you’re feeling right now is not punishment, it is the loving discipline of a perfect father who refuses to leave his kids immature and unholy.

And number three, God the Father knows best. Because God is our Father, infinitely wiser, perfectly loving, eternally committed, He always knows best, even when His training hurts. The passage is going to confront us, to comfort us, and if we’ll let it change us. Because here’s the bottom line even before we turn to the text, if you are in Christ, every ounce of suffering that you will ever face is from the hand of a father who loves you. Too much to let you stay the way you are. The pain that you hate is the love that you need. So number one, tough love. The author of Hebrews comes out swinging on our passage, verse four. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. He’s not playing around and he’s not pulling punches.

You haven’t died yet. You haven’t been physically maimed, so don’t complain. Obviously the author has written this letter as we’ve already seen in previous chapters, to address believers who are wavering in their resolve. We just saw he just gave them the hall of faith in chapter 11, example after example of Old Testament saints who hung on to God’s promises even when things looked bleak. Yet the chapter concludes with a surprising observation that they still don’t possess fully everything that God has promised because they’re waiting for God to give it to all of us all together. And then chapter 12 opens with the urgent call to look to Jesus as not only the prime example of our faith, but as our source of life and our object of faith. He endured the greatest suffering in all of history on our behalf and this should fuel our faith and support a similar willingness to endure hardship in solidarity with him since we are united with him by faith.

And that was the argument, but it was mostly implied. And now the writer of Hebrews gets up in his readers faces. How hard have you actually had to endure? He just mentioned a few verses earlier in chapter 11, those who were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword. The nature of faith is not that it does not require the shedding of blood. Clearly others in history have resisted to the point of shedding their blood, but the original audience had not yet been asked to make this sacrifice. So the author is putting their pain into perspective. One preacher from the 4th century named John Chrysanthemum says, what he means is this, ye have not yet submitted to death.

Your loss has extended to money, to reputation, to being driven from place to place. Christ, however, shed his blood for you. While you have not done it for yourselves, he contended for the truth even unto death, fighting for you, while ye have not yet entered upon dangers that threaten death. This is something that we, Christians in the United States, share with the original audience. I don’t know every one of your stories here, but I would guess that most of you like me have not been required to shed your blood for our faith in Jesus Christ. But before we go any further, we should also clarify what the author means in verse 4, by your struggle against sin. While the term sin is quite general, very likely he has a specific meaning in view. The author’s chief concern all throughout this epistle has been that his audience not fall away, turn back, apostatize, or throw away their confidence.

So the specific sin that he has in view would be that of renouncing the faith that you once held. And this becomes obvious with his statement that their resistance to sin hasn’t reached the point of shedding blood. Because while Jesus, he did command his disciples to gouge out eyes and lop off ears, and lop off hands and feet if necessary to avoid sin, he was using hyperbole to emphasize the seriousness which we should fight sin, not literally expecting the majority of Christians to physically maim themselves. So we shouldn’t think that the author of Hebrews is referring to any kind of self-mutilation here. Instead, it is a resistance to throwing in the towel, to giving up on faith, to renouncing allegiance to Christ. Picture fighters in a ring. Hebrews is saying, don’t give up if your opponent hasn’t even drawn blood.

In fact, don’t give up at all. Knock your opponent out. Defeat sin through faith in Christ. And this has implications for thinking about the resistance we encounter when sharing the gospel. I personally have a tendency to think that if telling others about my allegiance to Christ is awkward or uncomfortable, I maybe shouldn’t do it. But I think the author of Hebrews would ask me, would it kill you to tell them about what Jesus has done for you? Resistance shouldn’t be a surprise, and it shouldn’t be taken as a sign to give up. I will also say that for myself I have found this verse to be helpful in a secondary sense, to exhort me in fighting all types of sin. Even when I’m not facing persecution, I face temptations to sin all the time. And those temptations can be very strong sometimes.

Maybe you find yourself battling lust, or bitterness, or covetousness, or idolatry. I’m often tempted to give up after a short fight. But this verse is like a slap in the face. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. How hard have you really tried? Are you really fighting sin to win? Or are you just doing enough to say you made an effort? Why does it hurt? That’s what I’m inclined to ask. Look at verses 5 and 6. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. The pain has been making the original audience reconsider their loyalty to Christ.

Pain is a way of doing that. When something hurts bad enough and goes on for long enough, it starts making us question everything. The author started out by reminding his audience they weren’t dying. They weren’t even bleeding yet. But the other way that he puts things into perspective is by reminding them that the suffering that they’re experiencing is discipline and not punishment. He quotes from Proverbs chapter 3, verses 11 and 12, which we read earlier in the service. My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, or be weary of his reproof. For the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father, the son in whom he delights. Discipline comes from a place of love, and its reason for being administered is entirely beneficial. That’s why Proverbs says to value, not disregard, the Lord’s discipline because it is given exclusively to his children.

Which brings us to our second point, that this is discipline and not punishment. The author of Hebrews reasons backwards to bring out an important implication in verses 7 and 8. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. The presence of discipline in the lives of the original audience, he says, should be comforting, rather than disconcerting. Because it means that you are truly children of God. The difficulties they are facing, though not yet physically dangerous, are still uncomfortable and discouraging. So the author of Hebrews says, you need to understand, this is not punishment for doing something wrong. This is the discipline of the Lord.

This suffering is not a sign of his rejection, but a sign that you belong to him. You are a real child of God. The Greek word translated discipline here is paideia, which is closely related to the word for child, paidareon. But the word paideia has broader meaning than just discipline. It centers on the training that must be given to young children, all the way from discipline to instruction. Training and instruction are given even when a child has done nothing wrong. The purpose of training is given for the improvement of the person being trained. The goal of training is never to leave the person weaker or worse off than they were before. Many Christians miss this absolutely crucial distinction between punishment and discipline. Those who don’t believe in God at all sometimes describe unpleasant happenstances to karma.

Everything from getting a flat tire or a wrong order at a drive-thru must be a result of something they previously did wrong. They speak of karma as a kind of cosmic punishment system that due to an impersonal law of cause and effect mysteriously repays bad deeds and sometimes rewards good ones. Believers don’t ascribe good or bad things to karma since they believe in a personal sovereign God who governs everything that happens with perfect power and wisdom. But there are still some Christians who live under a near constant dread of God’s judgment and believe he primarily acts in their lives to punish them for their daily sins. They will sometimes attribute a car breaking down, the loss of a job or a loved one, or simply difficulty and disappointment in their lives to God’s retribution for their sin.

They might even live with the feeling that if they’re enjoying life too much, if things are going too well, at any moment God is going to rip the rug out from under them. This was the mistake that Job’s friends famously made and this is a misunderstanding of the Gospel. Romans 8 verse 1 famously says, there is therefore no condemnation or penalty for those who are in Christ Jesus. The very heart of the Gospel is that Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, took the full penalty due for sin on behalf of those that put their trust in him. If you are in Christ, he didn’t just pay for some of your sins or even most of your sins. All of them. It is an all or nothing deal. So if you are a child of God, a trustor in Christ, you will never ever be punished for your horrible, wicked, disgusting sins that deserve the eternal fires of hell.

Jesus took every drop of punishment, every second of God’s white hot wrath against sin so that there is nothing left for you to experience. This is crucial to understand and to remember because it means that the suffering that the children of God experience is never punishment for sin. God would be unjust to punish you for something that Jesus has already paid for. Discipline is what God’s children receive but never punishment. And this is not a distinction without a difference. Discipline has deep significance for your daily life. If you are a child of the sovereign God of the universe, there is nothing that can happen in your life or to you that is outside of his control, including both pleasant and unpleasant, comfortable and painful. Of those things that come into your life that are painful, not a single one of them is punishment for your sin.

Not a single one. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, you stand before God fully justified, not only innocent of your sin but positively righteous before him. And this means that every bit of suffering that you do experience is exclusively for your benefit, it is purely training. There is not one single bit of gratuitous or superfluous or retributive suffering that you will taste in this life. The suffering that you experience is from the Lord’s hand and it is entirely directed to take you deeper into relationship with him. We see this in verse 10. The end of verse 10, he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness. Some people when they hear the Bible talk about becoming holy think it’s just about keeping a whole bunch of rules. Apparently, when I was young, quite young, I sternly asked my younger brother if he would like to sit in a metal chair and be very, very, very, very, very good.

My brother replied, not that good. I think many people, many of us would find ourselves responding the same way to the command for holiness. We might want God to make us a little better than we are, but maybe not that holy. Some are inclined to read verse 10 as though the purpose of God’s discipline is merely to make us behave. But God’s holiness is not him keeping up with the rules that he made for himself. His holiness is his absolutely glorious, unmatched, unblemished moral integrity and set apartness. He’s not constrained by external rules. He is absolutely free to do all of his holy will. God’s holiness is what sets him apart from all creation and makes him the rightful object of greatest desire and satisfaction. And there is one way to have fellowship with this perfectly glorious and holy God.

You also must be holy. As I’ve already mentioned, Jesus Christ died to give us peace with God through justification so that we are declared righteous. But without holiness, no one will have fellowship with God. Praise God, Christ’s death does also secure our holiness as well. We call it sanctification. But it is not accomplished in an instant like the justification we receive. Sanctification is a process by which, through suffering, the Holy Spirit conforms. Not just our behavior, but our heart, our desires, what we love and what we hate into what God loves and also hates. The knowledge that God’s discipline is for the purpose of making us share his holiness should make us marvel in awe and wonder. The holy, holy, holy God desires so much that you be in fellowship with him, that he is willing to go to such lengths to make you share his holiness.

He is sharing his holiness with us. And that leads us to our final point. Number three, God the Father knows best. As we think about the purpose of discipline, we have laid out a contrast in our passage between earthly and heavenly fathers. The author of Hebrews argues from the lesser to the greater. Look at verse nine. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live? As the author of Hebrews seeks to garner trust in his audience in the Lord’s discipline, he turns to the example of physical fathers. We have all had fathers, and some of us are fathers, who have exercised discipline. While I know that many children have not experienced wise and loving discipline from their fathers, for the sake of his argument, the writer of Hebrews is assuming a wise and loving earthly father.

By God’s grace, there are many here who have experienced this. The author of Hebrews asks his readers to imagine their own response to discipline from earthly fathers. Godly fathers possess an unparalleled opportunity in their children’s lives for instruction, for correction, and discipline. Children have a natural inclination to respect their fathers and trust their judgment, at least and especially when they are young. Despite the presence of original sin by God’s grace, the majority of children are often submissive to loving discipline. And rightly so, but if the wisest and most loving earthly father deserves respectful submission to his discipline, instruction, and training, how much more so does God the father? Now the phrase earthly fathers here literally reads in the Greek, fathers of our flesh, which parallels with the phrase father of our spirits. Because while it is possible to translate the phrase in verse 9 as the father of spirits, a better translation is the father of our spirits.

Because the author is not merely speaking of God being in authority over or dwelling in the realm of spirits in general, but emphasizing that he is caring for and training more than just our bodies. He is the father of our spirits. And then in verse 10 we see another contrast brought out between the earthly and heavenly fathers. For they disciplined us for a short time, as it seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. The best earthly fathers do their best to train their children. But as every parent knows, your window of opportunity is short and your own judgment is far from perfect. Every good parent knows the pain of having made a bad judgment call in administering discipline. And hopefully repenting and apologizing when appropriate.

To any parents fearing that apologetic repentance will undermine your authority and respect from your children, rest assured it will only do the opposite. The mistake in discipline is often obvious to your children. So making clear that you understand and desire their forgiveness can do wonders to garner their respect. But all in all, at the end of the day, earthly fathers have a limited view. And they have their own sin clouding their best efforts to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But this is not the case with the father of our spirits. God the father is not limited by our brief childhoods. He is our father for all of our lives. He is also not limited by anything within himself. He has no sin, no limited perspective, no lack of energy, no lack of wisdom.

He sees the end from the beginning and he knows you better than you know yourself. This is true all the time. God never has a single lapse of judgment or a miscalculation. His purpose is to conform your heart, your will, your desires, your entire self into the image of his son, Jesus Christ. This is important to remember because as the author reminds us in verse 11, God’s perfect loving discipline often hurts. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Discipline is painful. Even though as we saw earlier it is not punishment, this does not mean it is painless. The Lord shapes and molds and trains his children through the difficult tool of suffering. This suffering takes all shapes and sizes.

It can be both actual and potential loss. It can be consequences for foolish actions. It can be inexplicable cruelty from others. It might be a health trial, the loss of a loved one. Even simply a tumult of emotions which come seemingly out of nowhere. As a child of God there is nothing that can come into your life apart from the Lord’s providential hand. As Joseph famously told his brothers in Genesis chapter 50 verse 20, As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. There might be conflicting motivations from others from what comes into our lives, but the constant that you can rest in is that God means it all for your good. Your own greatest good, which means your deepest, fullest joy is God’s priority. Because God is most glorified in you when you are most delighted, most satisfied in him.

And he will stop at nothing to procure your greatest satisfaction in him. And that includes bringing suffering into your life. If God is not punishing you for sin, what is he doing, allowing suffering in our lives? Big picture, he’s conforming you to the image of Jesus. That means he’s killing idols. You might have an idol of home, of marriage, of comfort, of career, of children, of health, of status, of intelligence, of wealth, or many other things. God wants you to have good things, but idolatry is deadly. And God loves you way too much to let you make an idol out of anything. And he will not stop until your heart is completely his, until you share his holiness. C.S. Lewis puts it this way in Mere Christianity. Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house.

At first, perhaps, you understand what he is doing. He’s getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on. And you knew those jobs needed doing, and so you are not surprised. But presently, he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably. It does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of. Throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it himself. The pain that you hate is the love you need. Every trial that makes you gasp is the chisel of a father who is making you fit for a palace.

He is not punishing a criminal. He is training a son or a daughter. He is not venting wrath. He is sharing his holiness. And he will not stop because he will not stop loving you. So stop scanning the horizon for an easier gospel. There isn’t one. Stop waiting for a season when following Jesus will feel like a perpetual spring breeze. It won’t. The same Jesus who endured the cross for the joy set before him now endures you through the furnace for the joy set before him, conformed sons and daughters who will one day shine like him. One day the training will be over. The pain will cease. The peaceful fruit of righteousness will ripen forever. You will look back on every tear, every closed door, every night that you thought you could not go on.

And you will say with wonder, he did it all because he loved me. He made me holy because he wanted me close. Until that day endures a beloved child, run as one who has already been declared righteous in Christ, and fight sin to the point of blood if God ever asks it. Because your older brother already did, and he’s not ashamed to call you family. The Lord disciplines the one he loves. So take heart. If it hurts, you are loved. If it is hard, you’re his. Amen. Let’s pray. In heaven, we thank you for this challenging word, but comforting word. That you desire us to share your holiness. That you, treating us like sons and daughters, would train us, discipline us for our good. For Jesus, we ask that you would give us more holiness, more love for you.

We pray this in your own name, Jesus Christ. Amen. Let’s turn and sing now, hymn 497, More Love to Thee, O Christ. And let’s stand as we sing in response. 497.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

December 7, 2025
Keep Running

About this sermon

Surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, believers are to lay aside every weight and sin and run with endurance the race set before them, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of faith, who endured the cross for the joy set before him. The life of faith is supernatural and runs against the world and indwelling sin. Desire is not the problem; trying to satisfy it apart from God makes him look small. Believers keep running by considering Christ, who endured such hostility, so that they do not grow weary, and by feeding on his person and work, as the Lord’s Supper calls them to remember him.

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Sermon transcript

Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, and this evening we’re looking at Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 through 3. Hebrews chapter 12. This is God’s word. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted. Amen. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, Lord Jesus, and Holy Spirit, we ask that you would come near.

You would make this your word, which has been breathed out and preserved for us. You would make it fresh and alive to us this evening. You would open our hearts, that we might receive it with faith and love. We might receive it as the word of God, which it is, the power of God. So we ask that you would come by your spirit, that we might hear it rightly, receive it rightly, and that it might be spoken and preached rightly. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. You may be seated. Imagine for a moment that you’re standing at the line of a marathon, or an ultramarathon perhaps. The gun is about to go off. The course stretches out in front of you, long, demanding, full of hills you can already see, and probably a few that you can’t.

You’re wearing the right shoes. You’ve trained, but you still feel that little knot in your stomach. Can I actually finish this thing? Now look to the stands. They’re packed, not with strangers, not with critics holding scorecards, but with people who have already run this same race, all of them breathless, leaning over the railing, eyes fixed on you, shouting with everything they have left. Keep going. Don’t stop. He is worth it. That’s the picture. The writer of Hebrews paints for us in chapter 12. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus. This is not a casual jog. This is not a fun run with snacks at mile 18.

This is the race of faith, long obedience in the same direction, trusting God when the road disappears, when your legs burn, when your heart wants to quit. And the good news of this passage is that God never intended you to run it alone or to run it in your own strength. And over the next few minutes, we’re going to see three truths that will help us keep running when everything in us and around us screams stop. So number one will be single-minded, but not alone. We strip off every hindrance and fix our eyes on the goal while being embraced by a family of faith that’s cheering us home. Number two will be what did Jesus do? We look to the one who’s already run this race perfectly, who endured the cross by locking his eyes on the joy that was set before him.

And that joy is you. And number three, meditate on Jesus. The only way to not grow weary or faint-hearted is to keep coming back again and again to the one who loved us and gave himself for us. He’s not just our example, he is our life. So church, if you’re tired today, if you’re limping, if you’re wondering whether you have another mile in you, lean in. This text was written for you. Number one, single-minded, but not alone. Let’s start with a look at this first phrase in verse one. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, the author of Hebrews begins chapter 12 with a transitional therefore to tie what he’s saying to what he has just recounted as we’ve been looking at in chapter 11. He’s basing what he’s about to say in what we just read in chapter 11.

And he describes the numerous individuals as this cloud of witnesses. Now the word for witness here in Greek is the word martus, which is where we get the English word martyr. Originally this word was used to merely describe someone who testified, like in court. In the case of the early Christians though, their testimony often costs them their very lives. And as a result, the term martyr began to be used exclusively of those who held firmly to their allegiance to Christ at the cost of death. In current usage, the definition of martyr has expanded even beyond the Christian faith to refer to anyone who is killed for their convictions. So while in English death has become inseparably tied to the definition of a martyr, originally this meaning in Greek centered on the word testimony or witness.

And the ESV is right to translate it as witness here, but it can be helpful to think in our minds of the other connotations which that word martus would have had. The conclusion of the Hall of Faith includes those who were by faith, as we saw at the end of chapter 11, willing to be killed and tortured because they desired a better resurrection. This would fit our modern definition of martyr, but the term witness is used to encompass all of the examples that we saw in chapter 11 from Abraham and all the rest. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. The author says that our current position in the line of faith with such a rich history as background ought to motivate us to press on in our own faith.

As we sit on the cusp of history with centuries of examples of witnesses testifying to the power and value of faith it should empower our own life of faith. Now if you’re anything like me, the idea of being surrounded by so many people watching me as it were tends to make me feel a little nervous and it doesn’t help that many of them would put me to shame by their faith. While some people are motivated by a fear of failure, that kind of scrutiny usually makes things harder for me. I’m tempted to think that this crowd of impressive witnesses might be looking at me critically, tallying up the ways that I’m not measuring up in my own race of faith, but that would be precisely the opposite of what the author of Hebrews wants you to feel about this passage.

He means for this cloud of witnesses to be an encouragement and we can see that in a few ways. First he says that the result of knowing we’re surrounded ought to be that we run. He says since we are surrounded let us run. Secondly when we look closer it’s clear that none of these individuals that we looked at were perfect and so there’s no reason to think that they’re expecting perfection of us, of you. Third the end of chapter 11 says apart from us they should not be made perfect which means this crowd is not booing our failures but rooting and cheering for our success. Their perfection depends on our perfection, our completion. God won’t make them complete without us. But fourthly we can also gain encouragement from the word which we find translated as surrounded.

While surrounded is a perfectly fine translation of this word it doesn’t appear anywhere else in the New Testament and the connotation in Greek when it’s used outside of the Bible is much more intimate than what we might think of the English word as surrounded. This is a word that gets used to describe something like a necklace or a chain that gets hung around the neck and in classical Greek Greek it even described an embrace, a physical hug. So the writer of Hebrews doesn’t intend for us just to think of distant spectators observing our progress from afar but to think of ourselves as intimately embraced by this cloud of witnesses. The writer of Hebrews wants believers to see these ancient examples of faith as family, a family enclosing us in one big group hug. It is in light of this that the writer of Hebrews says let us run.

This encouragement, this encouraging embrace by our family of faith is meant to provide motivation for the race of faith. Verse one, as verse one says, therefore since we are surrounded or embraced 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. As we saw in the lives of the witnesses in chapter 11 that we’ve been looking at faith requires endurance. The author of Hebrews says that faith is like a race that’s laid out before us. In order to run well there’s some things that need to come off. Have you ever tried to run in baggy jeans or a heavy winter coat? It makes everything harder. He says let us lay aside every weight.

The word here in Greek is used sometimes to even refer to body weight so the imagery goes beyond merely shedding physical clothing and includes even the idea of metaphorically slimming down, getting lean. It pictures a runner who’s doing everything in his power to run his fastest. I know that there are many elite athletes when biking or swimming will even shave the hair on their arms and legs to eliminate anything that would create any drag that would possibly slow them down. But this doesn’t mean that the Christian life should be seen as primarily a hurrying endeavor. We shouldn’t confuse the analogy of faith as a race with becoming overly busy ourselves even necessarily in terms of ministry. The race of faith is not a rush to stay busy loading up hectic schedules or making sure we’re doing more than others around us.

This race of faith is a race of endurance to keep a clear-eyed view of God and confidence in his ability and willingness to fulfill his promises to us, especially to save us. And notice the writer says every weight and sin. He’s talking about a kind of single-mindedness towards holding on to this faith. I think it might be helpful to think of possible examples. In Mark 4, Jesus tells a parable about different soils in which the word of God either effectively germinates or it does not. And he describes certain people for whom faith appears genuine but gets weighed down and choked out and choked out in the end by the thorns. Mark chapter 4 verses 18 and 19, Jesus is explaining this and he says, and others are those are the ones sown among thorns. These are those who hear the word but the cares of the world and the desires of but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word.

And it proves unfruitful. The imagery in the parable is of plants struggling to compete with weeds but I think it fits with Hebrews description of weights and sins in chapter 12. Now the cares of the world, what might this be? It might be an obsession with the news. While it is good for Christians to be informed citizens, aware of what’s happening around us, worrying about politics or current events, foreign countries or environmental catastrophes can derail faith. It can undermine a believer’s confidence in and dependence on God when it’s not filtered through scripture and prayer. I’ve been guilty of that myself. The cares of the world can become a weight that dangerously slows us down as we try to run the race of faith, can even take us out. The deceitfulness of riches, as Jesus mentioned secondly, is something that the Bible talks about in many places because it is a very sinister and subtle weight that can easily wiggle its way in and derail faith.

Riches are never described as inherently evil and wealth is a blessing, not a curse from God, but we must be always on our guard that legitimate desires to prosper and provide for ourselves and others do not weigh our faith down and cause us to deprioritize eternity or start depending on our own resources rather than God’s provision ultimately. And third, Jesus’ catch-all, the desires for other things. God made humans with an infinite desire for more because he designed us to be satisfied in him, but that limitless desire within us can easily be directed on a whole myriad of things, other things in our lives doling our interest in God and making faith seem a bore. The life of faith for a believer is supernatural. It goes against the grain of the world and our own remaining sin nature.

Our desire itself is not the problem, but it’s attempting to fill that desire, that thirst in other ways that make God look small or worthless. And this is another weight we must be aware of. Running the race of faith means throwing off these weights and sins, getting rid of anything that undermines our faith, our trust in and dependence on God. Even those things that aren’t directly sin, but they may hinder our running. The question we must ask ourselves is not merely is it a sin to do such and such, but does it help me run? Does it help me see sin more clearly and treasure and trust God truly? But running the race of faith doesn’t just mean getting rid of weights and sins. That’s the negative side. It also means positively valuing the future reward.

And we see this at our next point. Number two, what did Jesus do? Verse two, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Faith is not looking inside of ourselves for grit and determination to remain confident or positive. Faith for Abraham was looking away from his own inability, which was clear, and instead to God and his ability. But all of the previous examples that we’ve looked at in Hebrews 11 pale in comparison, of course, to the preeminent example of Jesus Christ. There’s no greater example that we can look to for faith. And the author describes Jesus as the founder and perfecter of our faith. He is the beginner and ender, the starter and the finisher.

He’s the one who completed the race perfectly from beginning to end. And as such, he presents us with the preeminent example of faith, most centrally, of course, in his death and resurrection, his humiliation and his exaltation, who for the joy that we set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. So how did Jesus do it? How did Jesus keep on running and complete the race of faith? Very simply, he loved the joy and despised the shame. Crucifixion was a punishment specifically designed to maximize pain and shame of its victims. Jesus was neither the first nor the last to fall victim to this hateful method of torture the Roman soldiers had invented to dispirit their enemies. But in his case, the suffering went way beyond what any Roman soldier could inflict on him, since of course he was the least deserving individual ever to suffer such a fate.

And beyond that, he suffered the wrath of God itself on behalf of wicked, rebellious sinners. Like you and I. And Jesus’s example of enduring suffering is very instructive for us. Luke records Jesus’s agonized wrestling in prayer mere hours before submitting to his crucifixion in Luke chapter 22. Luke chapter 22 verses 40 through 44 reads, Thanks. And when he came to the place, Jesus said to them, pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will, but yours be done. And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him. And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. His sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.

Hebrews tells us Jesus found the strength to endure the cross by looking to the reward, the joy that was on the other side of death. And you and I should not think that we can run the race of faith any differently than Jesus. There have been philosophers who have called themselves Christians, who have posited that the highest motivation someone can have for doing the right thing is mere obligation, doing your duty. They claim that any other motivation is self-serving and thus wrong. Sometimes this sort of thinking can creep into the church, and Christians can begin thinking that the way to live the Christian life is simply to do your duty and don’t ask questions. They frame the Christian life primarily as a life of obligations. And this is what the Pharisees did. While it is our duty to obey God’s law, duty is not meant to be our highest motivation for obedience.

Jesus was not motivated to go to the cross simply because it was his duty or it was the right thing to do. He did it because he believed the reward would be worth the suffering. He believed that the joy that was coming after the cross would completely eclipse the pain and shame that it cost him. If the Christian life consisted merely of keeping rules out of obligation, obedience merely because it is the right thing to do. It would put the spotlight of glory on us rather than on God. Even if we acknowledged all the way that it was God who empowered our obedience by the Holy Spirit, we would still be the target of admiration because when obedience is done for obligations sake, it turns the focus inward towards the one who’s obeying. Look at how admirable that person is for obediently suffering even when they get nothing out of it.

On the other hand, when the coming reward is the motivation for obedience, it places the spotlight of glory on God where it should be. People look at us, look at someone obeying, and look at how worthwhile God must be if people are willing to obediently suffer so much to get him. Suffering out of obligation, a sense of duty might point to us while suffering for the sake of reward and joy that is coming points to God. This focus on reward, coming joy, enabled Jesus to despise the shame. He put the temporary shame on the scales and weighed it against the coming glory. And he said with Paul in Romans 8, 18, that is to be revealed to us. But the only way for the shame to become light, inconsequential, counted as nothing as Jesus did, is for it to be compared with the coming joy and glory.

This is the way that faith worked for Jesus on his way to and through the cross, and is the way that it will work for you and I. When we obey God through suffering, because we are longing for the coming joy, it puts the spotlight of glory on God. He looks great, and that’s how we want it. Jesus saw joy, and you’re not intended to get through life’s trials differently than Jesus. For Jesus, the way he got through it was knowing what was on the other side. On the other side of his crucifixion and death was not only his own resurrection and exaltation though, but part of that joy was the salvation of his people. And you’re not just meant to follow Jesus’s example, but also be fueled by a vision of his love for you.

Because the joy set before him, it was not only his own exaltation, but it was the salvation of sinners like you and I. And so our third consideration is, meditate on Jesus. We see verse three, three. If you were reading these verses, verses one through three in Greek, you would see that this word consider here is the first imperative. It is the first word in the grammatical form of a command. The previous two exhortations to let us lay aside and let us run can be viewed as commands, but they’re not grammatically in the same form as this word consider. The Greek text includes a four at the beginning of this verse, which is omitted in the ESV for some reason. But what this means is that as we approach verse three, we should understand that it’s clearly connected to the previous two verses and it is the climax of the author’s thought here.

You could think of consider here as having a therefore in front of it and an exclamation point behind it. Therefore consider. And the Greek word for consider means to think carefully, to calculate, or to meditate. Remember that the biblical idea of meditation is not mindless repetition or an emptying of the mind, but a focused consideration of and contemplation of God. Verse two said that we should be looking to Jesus as an example, but here in verse three, he’s more than our example. He is the object of our faith. The race of faith finds its basis and sustenance in gazing upon Christ. As it said earlier, he is the source, the founder, and the perfecter and finisher of our faith. It’s what our faith is rooted and grounded in. We start and we end with Jesus and we need him every step of the way.

Meditation on Jesus is the antidote to growing weary or faint-hearted, or more literally growing weary in your soul. Our souls are not designed to be self-sustaining. Our faith must look outside of ourselves for sustenance. Have you ever felt weary in your soul? I’ve experienced burnout multiple times in my life, and there are always physical factors at play. But when my soul feels weary with the world, when I feel as though I cannot go on, when I feel utterly insufficient, struggle to find joy, my soul needs to remember I’m loved by Jesus. I think this is one reason that Jesus instituted the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Baptism is a sacrament of initiation into the family of God, and it’s done once, but the Lord’s Supper is again and again. Because even after we’re in, we need to remember daily, even hourly, that deep down we are loved.

Many communion tables have engraved on them the words of Christ, this due in remembrance of me. Jesus’s person, who he is, and work, what he did, is our food for the race of faith. Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to remember me because he was lonely or insecure. It had nothing to do with his need and everything to do with theirs. Because as soon as you lose sight of the grace and love of Christ that you have received and the fact that you need it, you will be unable to show that any grace to others. The unconditional love that Christ shows us when he endured from sinners such hostility against himself is our fuel for showing grace and love to others. Your daily food as a Christian is Christ. You and I never grow up from our dependence on Christ, and Christian maturity actually means becoming more and more aware of our abject dependence upon Christ.

I once heard someone say that God has no grandchildren God has no grandchildren. Now what he meant by that was that each person must have his own direct relationship with of faith with God. It’s not enough to merely be the child of someone who believes or be friends with someone who believes. True saving faith is a personal individual connection directly between the believer and Christ. And all of us human beings men and women boys and girls are born of course with a sinful rebellious nature requiring the personal intervention of God. We must each individually be connected to Christ by faith in order to be saved. And when that happens God makes us his children directly. Christ alone is our mediator between God and us and no other human mediates our relationship with God. He is the founder and perfecter, the beginning and the end.

You start a life of faith trusting Jesus and you end your life of faith trusting him and you keep trusting him every day in between. We don’t start with Jesus and move on to something else and this includes the fight our fight of sin our fight against sin in our own lives. When you find yourself struggling with bitterness and anger when you’re battling lust when a brother points out pride in your heart when you’re overcome with guilt and shame when you face criticism from your friends and enemies alike when you face impossible decisions when the future is unclear when you lose a parent or a child when you lose a job when you simply can’t face the day’s responsibilities and the pressure of living feels impossible. The one thing that you need first and foremost above all else is to remember Jesus.

Of course his love for you. When you start trying to fuel the Christian life by something other than Christ you’ll find pretty quickly that it’s not the Christian life that you’re fueling. You’re fueling a life of self-righteousness which produces pride on the one hand and shame and guilt on the other. I find it’s very easy to get off track to begin trying to fuel my life that I think is of faith instead by achievement by performance even by obedience but obedience is a fruit not it is a result of the Christian life and not the fuel of it and as soon as you view your own obedience as the basis of your identity as a Christian you’ll stop showing grace to yourself and it will be harder to show others grace. How long can you go without breathing?

That’s how long you can go without remembering Jesus without considering him. He’s not just our example or even someone who got us up on our feet and sent us on our way. He’s the one we depend on daily hourly. He is our life and there’s no spiritual life apart from him. Your obedience as a Christian is produced by your Christian life which is fueled entirely by depending upon Christ knowing you need him and absolutely falling on trusting in resting in his unrestrained love without condition for you in spite of your own unworthiness. The refrain of the Christian life is Jesus loves me this I know for his death and resurrection tells me so and this is what we need to avoid becoming weary and faint-hearted throwing in the towel giving up on the race of faith.

So remember the cloud of witnesses who are embracing you reminding you of how precious Jesus is so that you’ll keep on running. Remember Jesus who was motivated to undergo his death on the cross by his joy at including you in the fellowship of the triune God and then in this spirit in this mindset get rid of any weight any hindrance especially any sin that would make it harder to run that would make Jesus look less glorious God’s reward less worthwhile. Consider Jesus. Amen. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus we come. We come to consider you. We come to ask you to be our life. We know that our life as Paul says in Colossians is hidden with Christ in God and that when Christ who is our life appears we shall appear also with him in glory that the joy that you looked forward to is the joy that we also look forward to and that you are with us by your spirit as you said in the Great Commission even to the even to the end of the age and every step of the way.

So Lord Jesus we praise you and thank you and ask you to keep us keeping on running the race of faith. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. One response let’s let’s stand and let’s sing number 290. Sing number 290.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

November 23, 2025