Almost every single passage in Hebrews that we have looked at over the past few months has given us, at its heart, a very simple message. There’s often been a complicated rationale behind it, complex yet profound explanations of the old and new covenants, we’ve really got into the solid theological food that we should be getting into if we want to grow as Christians – but, ultimately, there’s always been the same message. And that message is this: Whatever you had before, whatever you believed before, whatever you trusted in before – now you’ve got something better in Jesus Christ, so stick with him. Don’t cop out, don’t fall by the wayside – stick with Jesus.
And in many ways this passage has the same message. It alerts us to a number of ways in which we should order our lives and order our thoughts to ensure that we don’t miss the grace of the Lord. It is full of the language of exhortation – strong words of calling, emphasizing the seriousness of these instructions. “Make every effort” doesn’t really capture the urgency – a number of translations say “pursue”. Be singularly focused on. These aren’t “give it a try and see how you go” sort of words. They’re not the sort of words you hear from some Christians – “oh, we’re all sinful you just need to try as best you can.” It’s like Yoda when he’s speaking to Luke Skywalker in the swamps of Dagoba in Episode 5 as he’s trying to lift that mighty big plane out of the swamp – “Do not try – do!” That’s the sort of imperative we’ve got here.
But what is it we’re to do? Well, let’s look at the passage in a bit of detail.
“Make every effort to live at peace with all men.” When we look at the church, at those who identify as Christians, particularly those in leadership, throughout the world do we think to ourselves “these are people who pursue peace with all men”? As the Christian right in America bays for the blood of terrorists and shouts down those who want greater gun control, or as church after church apparently implodes on issues of human sexuality are we pursuing peace? – or are we allowing a bitter root to grow up and cause trouble and defile many? Now, of course, there are many issues which we need to take a stand on – and human sexuality I think is one of them. And war is not unknown to the people of God – sometimes it is appropriate. And Jesus does say he came not to bring peace but division. But aren’t many of the arguments and quarrels in our lives – and indeed in the world – more about bitterness and pride than about principle? Make every effort to live in peace. Sometimes it’s not possible, and when Paul gives a similar teaching in Romans 12 this is what he says:
18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. 20On the contrary:
"If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."
21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
At the end of last year I had a run in with one of the staff at school. There’s no need for me to go into detail, but suffice to say I over-ruled her on the discipline of a student in our end of year presentation assembly. That was the second last week of the year and we didn’t exchange another word even at the staff Christmas party. I was full of self-righteous bitterness. Having thought about it for a while I tried to change the situation. When I saw her this year I consciously tried to say hello and ask her how she was. So far I haven’t really got a response and I admit that that bitterness that grows up to cause trouble is still lurking beneath the surface. I need to actively pursue peace.
When I first sat down to write that story earlier this week I found I had to re-write it several times because I went into all these details about the incident and it just ended up sounding like an attempt to justify myself, to prove that my actions were right and she’s the one in the wrong. But I’m not going to win her for Christ, I’m not going to be an effective witness for the gospel to her by proving to her that I was right or by piously waiting for her to apologise. I need to let the bitterness go. As far as it is up to me I need to pursue peace. I need to overcome evil with good. I’m sure we’ve all had little run ins like that. Lose the bitterness and pursue peace.
Vs. 16 – See that no one is sexually immoral. It’s a fairly simple teaching. We don’t get a lot of detail because we don’t need a lot of detail. The readers knew what sexual immorality was – it’s adultery, homosexuality, promiscuity. Any sexual behaviour outside of the place where God intended it – marriage between a man and a woman. Nowadays, of course, the very leaders of churches are engaging in that sort of sexual sin – and they’re proud. The Uniting Church is in the process of voting to continue to allow actively homosexual clergy to continue to be leaders – the faithful members of that assembly need our prayers as the final vote is to occur today. But our concern isn’t so much church politics. It’s our own lives – it’s our own behaviour for which we’ll be called to account. Don’t be sexually immoral.
And finally in this little section, don’t be godless like Esau. You remember Esau? He’s the older twin brother of Jacob. Apart from the normal land and flocks, his birthright was the blessing of his father Isaac, and to carry the promises that God made to Abraham. But after a hard day hunting he comes home and is desperately hungry. Jacob is making some lentil stew and Esau wants some. Jacob sees an opportunity and says “First sell me your birthright”. To which Esau responds, “Look I am about to die…what good is the birthright to me?”
Esau’s godlessness was to despise the blessings of God which were his birthright. To consider something as insignificant and immediate and material as some lentil stew as more important than God. As Jesus says – What profit is it for a man to gain the whole world but forfeit his soul?
Esau tries to take back his rashness, he tries to still inherit the blessing, but it’s too late – he can bring about no change of mind. And in vs. 17 we again see the depth and the seriousness of the warning the writer of Hebrews is trying to impart. The choices we make have consequences. If you’re someone who knows Christ and who has shared in the Holy Spirit if you then choose to reject him, if you then choose to deliberately, willfully pursue a lifestyle of sin then it’s over, it’s too late. To do that is to subject Christ to public disgrace as 6:6 tells us , and, as 10:26 says, “no sacrifice for sins is left”. Esau had the blessing. He had the birthright. But he chose to reject it and then even his tears could not bring it back to him.
We’re not talking about those who don’t yet know Jesus here. If that’s you then please keep searching, keep reading the Scriptures because God loves welcoming his children home.
But those of us here who are Christians we need to be watching ourselves closely. As a sort of summary in vs. 14 we’re told to “be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God” and in vs. 25 we will not escape if we refuse him who warns us from heaven. Now that’s not saying that we earn our way to heaven by our holiness. Rather, holiness is the mark of being a Christian, the mark of someone who is forgiven and transformed by the blood of Jesus. That’s what the sacrifice of Jesus does for us – it makes us holy, it sets us apart as God’s special people. 10:10 We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
And if we deliberately choose to live an unholy, ungodly life then we have chosen to renounce that.
We often think our choices to be ungodly are just small and insignificant. It’s just a little sin. No one will really notice.
A magazine called the New Internationalist mainly concerned with global justice and poverty had a striking image of an Indian man in his thirties or forties with a very blank look on his face standing with his nose against a cement wall. Underneath the photo was the story. The man had traveled on an Indian train without a ticket and as punishment he was bashed by the guards. He received a head injury that affected his speech so much that people thought he was mad and locked him in an asylum. Since then he had become insane and now he spends much of his time standing with his nose against a cement wall. How is that for an example of an extreme consequence for making the wrong choice. A decision to jump on a train without paying and life evaporates. A decision to sell the birthright for stew and the blessing evaporates. A decision to reject holiness, reject forgiveness for a little bit of materialism or immorality and the future evaporates, our inheritance in heaven evaporates, God’s grace evaporates.
Is that supposed to scare you? Yes! Many modern Christian leaders never want to talk of judgment or hell because they say scaring people into repentance is wrong. But I’m not going to apologise for it, because the Bible doesn’t apologise for it. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! (10:31) If we fail to recognize the potential judgment of God and the power and wrath of the Lord then we’re missing an incredibly important part of his character. We should fear God, and we need to take these warnings seriously.
But, of course, that’s not the whole story. God is jealous and angry and fear-inspiring – but he is many more things as well.
The book of Hebrews has been one of contrasts. The Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Angels and Jesus. Moses and Jesus. The Aaronic priesthood and the Melchizadekian priesthood. The earthly tabernacle and the heavenly tabernacle. The sacrifice of bulls and goats, and the one sacrifice of Jesus.
And here in chapter 12 we have our final contrast – Mt Sinai and Mt Zion. Look with me at vs 18 (read 18-21). We heard read earlier from Exodus 19 of the preparations the people needed to make for the coming of the LORD, how no one except Moses was even allowed to approach Mt Sinai, and how God descended upon the mountain in fire and thunder and lightning and smoke and a great trumpet blast. At the pain of death the whole community, even the animals, had to stay away. It’s a mighty scene. God is awesome.
(Pause) But it’s hardly a scene of intimacy between God and his people. It’s hardly a scene which emphasises God being approachable.
In fact, Mt Sinai is in the middle of the desert and looks something like that (show ppt). It’s on that mountain that God gives Moses a set of laws which demand holiness and obedience but which provide no ultimate mechanism for that holiness to be achieved by a profoundly sinful people. The Sinai covenant was good for its purpose, but it is in the end a place of barrenness, darkness and gloom – because, as we’ve heard over the past months, the sacrifices of that law do not bring forgiveness.
The contrast with Zion is startling. (read vss. 22-24). Jerusalem itself is, of course, in the heart of the Promised Land, the rest of God’s people. But what the writer of Hebrews is really talking about is the heavenly Jerusalem. This is an eternal, spiritual kingdom he’s talking about. It’s an image that seems to be taken straight out of Revelation 21, although Hebrews was almost certainly written beforehand. We’re not there yet, but the implication is that we’ve come to heaven itself. The place where the living God dwells, where thousands of joyful angels congregate, where the people of Christ, the church of the firstborn are made perfect and have their names written in Lamb’s book of life.
At Sinai the people had to stay back. God was too holy and they were too imperfect to approach. But at Zion vs. 23 says “you have come to God, the judge of all men”. Revelation 21 says we will see God face to face. And how? Because we’re also coming to Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant whose sprinkled blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
(pause)
If you’ve been with us since the beginning of our series on Hebrews you may have been able to stay with me through Moses and the Promised Land and God’s rest, hopefully too the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. But here the writer throws another OT reference in for good measure.
“The sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel”. It’s of course a reference to Genesis 4 when Cain, in a fit of jealousy, kills his brother Abel. And this is what God says to Cain:
GE 4:10 The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."
Abel’s blood cries out – and what word does it speak? It speaks guilt and speaks vengeance. It cries out to God, condemning Cain for his sin and calling on God to act with just punishment. But the blood of Jesus speaks a word of forgiveness rather than accusation. It speaks from the right hand of God in heaven, not from the ground. It cleanses us of guilt rather than condemning us for it.
And so we have the words that God has spoken – the thunderous, terrifying voice on Sinai under the Old Covenant and the word of the blood of Jesus shed for us. Both those words are from the same God and we should be thankful that are we this side of the cross. We are this side of the victory that Jesus won. So we can approach God with confidence.
So what are we to do? We are to listen to these words of God and obey – vs. 25 “See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks” and then the writer again returns to the warning. “If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven.” If the Israelites could not escape when they were warned from the mountain, if Cain could not escape when Abel’s blood cried out from the earth, how can we escape our God who now speaks from over and above and beyond the earth – from heaven itself? Just as the reward under the New Covenant is greater, so the peril is greater. You wouldn’t simply be throwing away lands and herds and servants like Esau – you would be throwing away eternity.
As I said earlier, many people seem to be offended nowadays when we talk of the judging, jealous aspects of God’s character. When I was a primary schooler Ralph Millet was my Scripture teacher in year 6 and he spoke the gospel as it is, to his great credit. He spoke of mercy and love but he also spoke of hell and punishment. The school received an angry call from the parent of a girl in my class saying how dare Mr Millet scare my daughter with teachings like that. And she was pulled out of the Scripture class. I remember thinking even then that Ralph should wear that episode as a badge of pride.
Our society doesn’t like the teaching of judgment. It frowns on a belief in which an appropriate response to the deity is fear. But not liking the teaching does nothing to alter the reality of what is to come.
Vs. 26 – At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” When God shook the earth at Sinai even Moses was trembling! How much more so when he shakes the heavens as well!
This is a quote from the prophet Haggai and we should read a bit of the context. 6“This is what the LORD Almighty says:
‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. 7I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty.
This second shaking of the heavens and the earth and the sea and the land is what we may know as judgment day. The temporary things will be cast aside and those things that cannot be shaken – the eternal things of God including his people - the desired of all the nations - will be in glory in the house of God. Our inheritance cannot be shaken, it is firmly established – so more fool us if we give it up.
Judgment is scary. It’s awesome. But we know that because Jesus has been sacrificed once for all we have nothing to fear from the Lord if we stand firm. That woman who pulled her daughter out of Ralph’s Scripture class was only showing that she wasn’t confident before the judgment seat of Christ. If you follow Jesus you should be looking forward to this earth shaking day. We pray for that every Sunday in fact – “your kingdom come”!
And how should we wait – vs. 28 “let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.”
When I’ve got exams to give back at school you always know the kids who are confident and think they’ve done well. They’re the ones asking you everyday beginning from the period after they’ve done the test “when are we going to get it back, sir? Have you marked it yet, sir?” And then there’s the others who didn’t prepare or think they never do well in tests anyway, or who remember leaving half of it blank – they’re the ones who never mention it, and when it is thrust in front of them they stuff it in their bag or in the bin trying to not even look. They’re not confident about the judgment, so they fear it. Just occasionally I get a sort of perverse pleasure in going up to one of those “have you marked it yet, sir?” kids in their supreme confidence and plonking a paper with a big fat 5/20 on it in front of them. I did something like that once not long ago. One student who always does exceptionally well in everything – I wrote 8/20 in extra big letters on the front of his test and put it in front of him. I had made sure I gave it to him last. His look was priceless. For the first time in his life he has nothing to say. I looked at him with a expression of disappointment on my face and walked away, waiting for the protests I knew would be coming. Before he had a chance to start I walked back to his desk. His face had gone a sort of reddish shade by now. I looked at his paper again and said “Oh, sorry, I left out a number” and wrote a big one in front of the eight. His friends burst out laughing. He eventually saw the funny side – a few weeks later.
Our response as we wait for that day should be neither over-confidence nor dejection. We can be so confident of our salvation that we end up trivializing it with flippant attitudes or inappropriate language. Instead, we are to be filled with gratitude to our incomparably holy God who has made himself known to us sinful people.
God is a consuming fire. There’s a refrain that goes through the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis that the lion Aslan, the Christ figure, is not a tame lion. Too often our society wants a tame God. But we have a God who on one hand consumes his enemies in the fire of judgment – so take that as a warning and live a holy life – and on the other hand is the refining fire of purification and sanctification and salvation. In the presence of that bright light all sins are exposed, but, mercifully, in its flames those same sins can be consumed and forgiven.
