Unshakeable Kingdom (2)

Introduction

Kingdom - to provide safety, securtiy, protection

Neuschwanstein pic

We’ve already talked about our unshakeable founder and we might say foundation

Ephesians 2:19–22 ESV

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Jesus is the cornerstone - the stone from which all others line up and find their direction and strength.

Fix your eyes....consider Jesus

Who faced opposition but it’s suppose to be safe

So why do we face opposition, hardship.

I. Shaken to Unshakeable

This is really just another way to talk about what we call sanctification but in light of the unshakeable kingdom I want us to think about this.

Here’s some further context of what we’ve been looking at

Hebrews 10:26–30 ESV

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. 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 has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”

These believers are struggling to remain faithful and possibly walk away.

After this warning he lays out what we looked at in Ch 11

And then begins Ch 12 with our founder

And now this section on hardship as discipline

In other words, in our battle for faith and against sin the Lord is working so that we might learn to remain faithful

And in this case even in our hardship

And so he says “endure hardship as discipline”

God allows hardship so that we learn to be disciplined

or God brings hardship in order to discipline us

or God uses hardship to bring about discipline in us

I think all the above

but the word discipline here isn’t punishment for wrong doing

We have been forgiven and have Christ as our mediator and High priest

Rather the word has a range of instruction, rearing, education and correction

Perhaps this verse is instructive for us...

Hebrews 2:10–11 ESV

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers,

It’s not that Jesus had sin and needed to be corrected or instructed but rather through his suffering he showed us how to remain faithful and sinless.

And unshakeable

And so through the hardship we face God uses it to make us more and more unshakeable

“Shaking off” what is shakeable, temporary and ungodly

Psalm 119:67 ESV

Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep your word.

All until, as Paul lays out in I Cor 15, we forever and fully put off our perishable and put on the imperishable.

II. Secured by Love

So the writer says endure....God is treating you as sons

He uses the reality of human fatherhood

Let’s be real, that picture falls short and the writer acknowledges that

Remember what Jesus said,

Matthew 7:11 ESV

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

The author here is saying something similar

If we as earthly imperfect fathers look to discipline our children, how much more does God does this perfectly for his children

In other words, God’s discipline is the loving act of our perfect Father

Our sins are forgiven in Christ but we need to be transformed

God uses hardship as one means to do this

This not an act of condemnation and judgement

Romans 8:1 ESV

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Rather the author says, “It is for our good, that we may share in his holiness”

In our humanness this is difficult to see and believe. Heb 11

It is so difficult to see true love (an actual care for our good) and good (those who actually know what good is) in our world

God is and does truly love us and knows what is good

Again do we believe and trust that?

III. Strengthened in Hope

vs 11

not pleasant, but painful

I’ve recently started working out again

It is not pleasant

But I’m feeling so much better

And so that keeps me going....enduring

“to those who are trained by it.”

I have to choose every day to go and workout

We have to be humble enough to realize we need this discipline and to listen or see what the Lord is showing us

We have to allow God’s discipline, listening to and understanding it and seeking God through it, in order to be changed by it.

Just as we can be disciplined by our parents and keep doing the same thing

Enduring therefore doesn’t mean just hang in there until it is over

It’s enduring with the perspective that God is doing for our good and transforming us through it

Perhaps we continually find ourselves in hardship, we aren’t actually learning, repenting and changing.

But the writer says it can, if we allow our selves to be trained by it, bring about the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Righteousness - right relationship with God and others

So then we can help each other.

IV. Striving toward the Goal....Together.

Therefore lift your (plural)

In fact he is writing to a church so it’s been plural all along but also speaks to us individually

In this moment of hardship be strengthened and strengthen others

The writer says you’ve done it before....

Hebrews 10:32–39 ESV

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

“We are not those who shrink back” ....In Jesus....Together

But we have faith and therefore strive forward

to righteousness

peace with everyone - right relationships

Describes it this way...

no root of bitterness

rather forgiveness and restoration

holiness

no sexual immorality

why Esau -

He was a man, opposite of those in Ch 11, who looked first to the physical and lost sight of the promise and faith in God.

And so he gave up his birthright for food.

What’s looking to pull you away today? Is the thing your facing causing you to want to walk away from the Lord?

Endure....turn to him....talk to others so that you might stand firm

Conclusion