Hebrews 12:14–29 CEB

14 Pursue the goal of peace along with everyone—and holiness as well, because no one will see the Lord without it. 15 Make sure that no one misses out on God’s grace. Make sure that no root of bitterness grows up that might cause trouble and pollute many people. 16 Make sure that no one becomes sexually immoral or ungodly like Esau. He sold his inheritance as the oldest son for one meal. 17 You know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected because he couldn’t find a way to change his heart and life, though he looked for it with tears. 18 You haven’t drawn near to something that can be touched: a burning fire, darkness, shadow, a whirlwind, 19 a blast of a trumpet, and a sound of words that made the ones who heard it beg that there wouldn’t be one more word. 20 They couldn’t stand the command, If even a wild animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned. 21 The sight was so frightening that Moses said, “I’m terrified and shaking!” 22 But you have drawn near to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, to countless angels in a festival gathering, 23 to the assembly of the God’s firstborn children who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous who have been made perfect, 24 to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks better than Abel’s blood. 25 See to it that you don’t resist the one who is speaking. If the people didn’t escape when they refused to listen to the one who warned them on earth, how will we escape if we reject the one who is warning from heaven? 26 His voice shook the earth then, but now he has made a promise: Still once more I will shake not only the earth but heaven also. 27 The words “still once more” reveal the removal of what is shaken—the things that are part of this creation—so that what isn’t shaken will remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that can’t be shaken, let’s continue to express our gratitude. With this gratitude, let’s serve in a way that is pleasing to God with respect and awe, 29 because our God really is a consuming fire.

More Evidence of our Faith

I read recently a quote from a great preacher from the past.

"Christianity is not a voice in the wilderness, but a life in the world. It is not an idea in the air but feet on the ground going God's way. It is not an exotic to be kept under glass, but a hardy plant to bear twelve months of fruits in all kinds of weather. Fidelity to duty is its root and branch.

Nothing we can say to the Lord, no calling Him by great or dear names, can take the place of doing His will. We may cry out about the beauty of eating bread with Him in His kingdom, but it is wasted breath and a rootless hope unless we plow and plant in His kingdom here and now. To remember Him at His table and to forget Him at ours, is to have invested in bad securities. There is no substitute for plain, every-day goodness." [1]

I really like that first sentence.

Christianity is not a voice in the wilderness, but a life in the world.

We are called to live out our faith. Last week I said:

The Church of the Nazarene believes this new and holy way of life involves practices to be avoided and redemptive acts of love to be accomplished for the souls, minds, and bodies of our neighbors. [2]

The first is practices to be avoided because either they are sinful or they cause harm to our relationship with others. The second is redemptive acts of love to be accomplished for the souls, minds, and bodies of our neighbors.

So when I talk about do’s and don’ts it is not as in a checklist. The do’s and don’ts are meant to keep sin away from our lives and also to reach our neighbors with the message of Christ.

What would happen if we began to live that out daily?

That is a question that we must answer if we are to really live out our faith on a daily basis.

I started seeing postings this week coming out of Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky. The postings were about a revival that has begun there with the students on Wednesday. It was an ordinary Wednesday that the students went to their chapel service. It was anything but ordinary as the Holy Spirit began moving among the one present there. They began confessing their sins and crying out to God to fill their lives.

There are reports of healing, reconciliation, salvation, callings to the ministry. One report I read said that the chapel was packed Friday evening as people came from out of state to witness what God was doing there. There was a group of students who traveled from Ohio Christian University to there and they said that revival was breaking out at their university.

Praise God! Oh that the Holy Spirit would fall on us this morning!

These young people are seeking out a real authentic relationship with God. It begins with confession and repentance.

The author of the Hebrews wrote in verse 14

Hebrews 12:14 NRSV

14 Pursue peace with everyone, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

That peace that he writes about having with everyone is not possible without first having peace with God.

Thankfully God has provided that peace through Christ. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans

Romans 5:1–2 (CEB)

1 Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness, we have peace with our God through Jesus Christ. 2 We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory.

When we come to faith in Christ, believing he can save us and we repent, we have been made righteous. Because of what Jesus has done we have peace with God.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that the Ten Commandments contain commandments about our relationship with God and about our relationship with our neighbors.

The things that we do or don’t do impacts both relationships. In the Covenant that I have been referencing and mentioned earlier says

The Church of the Nazarene believes this new and holy way of life involves practices to be avoided and redemptive acts of love to be accomplished for the souls, minds, and bodies of our neighbors.

How do we do that? James addressed in the passage we looked at last week about not being hearers only, but we must be doers. There are things that we are to do that are summed up in the two great commandments.

As I was studying that last week the thought ran across my mind that we can’t really love God with every aspect of our being and we really can’t love our neighbors as we love ourselves if there is known sin in our lives.

One of the things has has troubled me in the past about the church is that we can get so caught up on the do’s and don’ts of our faith that me miss out on what the Holy Spirit is trying to say.

We we focus on the do’s and don’ts I believe we do just as much damage as we would if we were actually sinning. I’ve jokingly used that old saying “I don’t drink and I don’t chew and I don’t go with girls who do.”

That saying is funny, but we don’t provide any context.

The context is that we are to first of all, at peace with God and then with our neighbors. The second which is part and parcel of the first is that we are pursue holiness or sanctification. If we don’t do that we won’t see God, because we will not be counted among the righteous.

The Covenant of Christian Conduct states:

In listing practices to be avoided we recognize that no catalog, however inclusive, can hope to encompass all forms of evil throughout the world. Therefore it is imperative that our people earnestly seek the aid of the Spirit in cultivating a sensitivity to evil that transcends the mere letter of the law. [2]

In other words “When we make a list of things to avoid, we know that no list, no matter how long or detailed, can cover every evil or sin in the world.”

Last week I said there were 7 things that we are specifically told to do from the Covenant. This week I want us to begin looking at 8 things that as Christians we should avoid. I know that I will not get through all of them. We’re going to look at the first 3 and next week, Lord willing, we’ll look at the other 5.

1 - Taking the name of God in vain. We all know that one comes from the Ten Commandments. This one deserves more time than I have this morning to spend on it. There are two parts of this. The first is the name of God. Who did God say He was when He told Moses to go to Pharoah to release His people? He told Moses to tell the Pharaoh that “I Am Who I Am” has sent you.

Dr John Piper wrote

“Don’t take the name of Yahweh your God in vain,” means “Don’t take God, or anything that his name expresses about his reality, in vain.” God is I Am, absolute being, Jealous, Holy, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Jesus, Word of God, King of kings, Lord of lords, “the Alpha and the Omega” (Revelation 21:6). That is who he is, his name, his reality, his God-ness. Don’t take him or any aspect of his being, his name, in vain. [3]

The second word in that command is the word vain. What does that mean? It means futile, empty, pointless, wasted. Why is that an issue? Jesus answered that in

Matthew 15:8–9 NIV

8 “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’”

He’s saying they weren’t living out their beliefs. Piper went on to write

When the heart is emptied of affections for God, and words are emptied of the truth of God, all thoughts, all words, all emotions, and all actions are empty, pointless, futile, in vain. Therefore, to take the name of God in vain is to take up some expression of God’s reality into our thoughts or emotions or words or actions when the truth of God has gone out of them, and true affections for God are missing. [3]

Growing up all I ever heard was that when you take God’s name in vain is that you are cursing, like “G D it” or “Oh my God” or “Jesus Christ.” The command is way broader than that. It involves all the aspects of God and who He is. If we claim faith but don’t live out that faith we are taking God’s name in vain.

Ok, are you ready for number 2?

2 - Profaning of the Lord’s Day. Uh oh, the pastor is really going to meddle now.

This is another one that comes from the Ten Commandants that says “Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy.” This is another one that would take several messages to explore it fully.

In our Covenant it goes on to state “by participation in unnecessary secular activities, thereby indulging in practices that deny its sanctity.”

The Sabbath or Lord’s Day is to be holy, meaning it is set aside for God. It is a day of rest. We specifically stated that we keep it holy by avoiding unnecessary secular activities. Back in the dark ages when I was a kid, there was nothing open on a Sunday. There were all sorts of “blue laws” which prohibited that most places of business be closed on Sunday.

There are many things that could be unnecessary secular activities. The issue is that the day is God’s day. We are to observe it as a day that is Holy and scared. It is a day to worship and to serve Him.

Ok, so we need to explore that one some more. Let’s move on. Those first two significantly impact our relationship with God. The next ones impact our relationship with our neighbors

3 - Sexual immorality. I struggled with what to say about this one. Remember holiness is for the Christian. The unbeliever is a sinner and does what sinners do. I have met many unbelievers who were very moral in their living.

Sexual immorality impacts use personally, it impacts the person that this immorality includes and it impacts our relationship with God. God was very specific in that sexual relationships were to be expressed in the relationship of marriage between one man and one woman. All other expressions are a violation of God’s intent. In Leviticus and I know that I would get push back from those who promote other expressions of sexual intimacy would say that this doesn’t apply. Let me just read a few verses from Leviticus chapter 18.

Leviticus 18:24–25 (NIV)

24 “ ‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

So there is two things here. God is telling Moses to tell the people not to defile themselves like the people who were living in the Promised Land defiled themselves. God even says that the land was defiled because of those people’s immorality.

Do you see what is being said? The people that lived in the land had defiled themselves and they defiled the land. This is a principal that has a universal application. This principal did not end when Jesus came. This principal still applies to today.

What does that word defile mean? It is a verb and it means

to make unclean or impure: such as

a: to corrupt the purity or perfection of

b: to violate the chastity or virginity of

c: to make physically unclean especially with something unpleasant or contaminating

d: to violate the sanctity of

When we take sex that God intended for the married couple and use it in any other way, we have defiled ourselves and we have harmed our relationship with God. God defines that all expressions outside of marriage make us unclean.

We need to pray for our children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. They are being exposed in schools to some very immoral practices and teachings related to sex. No girl should be afraid of going into a locker room and having the person next to them that is getting changed is a male who thinks he is a female and exposing himself to the biological females there.

The Psalmist wrote

Ps 24:3-4 “3 Who can ascend the Lord’s mountain? Who can stand in his holy sanctuary? 4 Only the one with clean hands and a pure heart; ”

Doesn’t that tie into our Scripture text this morning?

Hebrews 12:14 CEB

14 Pursue the goal of peace along with everyone—and holiness as well, because no one will see the Lord without it.

Taking God’s name in vain, profaning the Lord’s Day and all forms a sexual immorality destroys the peace that we have with God.

God calls us to a holy life. The writer to the Hebrews urges us to pursue peace and holiness.

We have to read that verse correctly and carefully.

Having peace with others might not be totally possible because it is dependent on the other person. Will they have peace with us.

Holiness is different. It is entirely possible. The NIV translated it this way.

The New International Version Chapter 12

without holiness no one will see the Lord

Holiness is possible because God has provided it. We have to live it out. We are to be sanctified wholly, meaning fully or completely.

God has called us to be different from the world. We are called to be Holy. Staying away from these sins shows that difference.

Are you seeing that what I’ve been saying is not about keeping a list of do’s or don’ts? This has been about honoring God with all of life. Let’s commit in a new way to honor God and bring glory to Him by how we live.

[1] Wikipedia contributors. (2022, September 30). Maltbie Davenport Babcock. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maltbie_Davenport_Babcock&oldid=1113217940

[2] The Covenant of Christian Conduct – MANUAL 2017–2021. (n.d.). Nazarene.Org. Retrieved February 11, 2023, from https://2017.manual.nazarene.org/section/covenant-of-christian-conduct/

[3] Piper, J. (2021, April 18). How We Take God’s Name in Vain: The Wonder and Warning of the Third Commandment. Desiring God. https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-we-take-gods-name-in-vain