Your Spiritual Therapy Prescription

Welcome and Introduction

Thank you for being here with us this morning. Everyone, please find a seat and open up your Bibles with me to Hebrews chapter 12 verses 12 through 17. _____My name is Troy Cash. I'm an intern here at Christ Community Church. And kudos to you if you were here last week and you learned that the intern is preaching and you still showed up. _____ I presume that means you know you have a need for God’s perfect word, no matter who the imperfect delivery man is. _____ And if you’re visiting with us this morning, I’ve prayed that you would see, hear, and understand that from us as well: this is just a music stand that holds my notes, and this is just a small wooden box elevated so that we can see each other better, in them there is nothing authoritative. _____ But this is not just some book. _____ In this book is contained the whole counsel of God, given to us to make us wise for salvation. And in it is the testimony of Jesus Christ the Son of God and savior of men. So I am making it my aim not to waste any of your time this morning in telling you my opinions or things that I’ve found interesting this week. But, rather, what I believe that God wants you to understand from these verses in Hebrews chapter 12. So with that being said, would you stand with me for the reading of God’s perfectly holy and perfectly wise word. Hebrews chapter 12 verses 12 through 17.

READ HEBREWS 12:12-17

This is the word of the LORD. Thanks be to God!

PRAY FOR GOD’S BLESSING

You can be seated.

Context

Last week it was presupposed that you’re tired. And I think that’s about a safe as a presupposition as anybody can make. You ever want to presuppose something about me? Presume I could go for a nap and I’ll tell you you’re right about 100% of the time. ___ But of course the point isn’t about just physical exhaustion, is it? It’s about spiritual exhaustion...struggling against sin is exhausting! Saying no to what your flesh wants is a tiresome battle. It can wear you out. We got some comfort in our text last week when the author said, “Look to Jesus. You haven’t suffered in this battle with sin to point of shedding your own blood. Christ shed his blood as an innocent man to gain victory over sin. Look to what he’s done. Be encouraged! He has overcome the world. Also, know that his obedience was a proof that he was the legitimate Son of God. So you can know that when you’re being disciplined away from sin, you’re being treated as legitimate sons and daughters.” What an encouragement that is, to know that we’re being treated as sons and daughters, especially when the discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. So he says look to Christ. Be comforted, be encouraged. And today he says, but don’t forget: keep a watch over yourselves...Look at Christ: be encouraged...but also look at yourselves, be on guard.

Let me ask you, do you know the warning signs of burnout in your own life? Do you have patterns you recognize when you’re exhausted? Common things are escaping on your phone to avoid work, maybe for you it’s diving into more work because the exhausting thing is the conflict in a relationship that you’re avoiding. Whatever it is for you, when you have that thing that builds up until it feels like its at a tipping point and you either heed the warning signs and say hey okay, somethings seriously off here, I need to slow down and think...Or have you ever experienced neglecting to heed those warning signs? Or not listening to the people around you about them? I’m talking a full-on crash after a burnout. It’s not pretty is it? It can cause a lot of damage. A lot of pain to ourselves and others when we implode. God’s word itself is a pretty serious warning sign this morning about things that we’re prone to turn to when we’re borderline spiritually burnt out from this battle against sin.

You have as a title for the sermon in your bulletin, “Your Spiritual Therapy Prescription.” because the text shows us, you need to know what to look out for when your exhausted...and you need a prescribed regimen to follow if you’re going to be strengthened. There are two parts to this prescription. Pursue peace…and pursue holiness. First, before we get into the prescription, let’s look at the need for it in verses 12-13.

Spiritual Therapy (12-13)

Observe

“Therefore, lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees and make straight paths for your feet…”

Interpret

There’s something being presupposed here! What is it? That you have drooping hands and weak knees. You have need for your feet to be set straight. That the hard battle against sin will actually reveal just how weak you really are.

Illustrate

I’ve recently had a revelation. I’m not Captain America. Shocker, I know. Given the resemblance. But, I’m not. Unlike Captain America, I need to lift weights if I want to get stronger, otherwise I won’t be able to win those wrestling matches in a couple of years. What I’m trying to tell you is I recently got back into the gym, and the first time wasn’t pretty. I was shaky. I couldn’t lift the same weight that I used to be able to. When I finish a work out now I tend to look more like the description in the text with drooping hands and weak knees. If you also subject yourself to the physical torture of working out you know exactly what I mean. But what’s the alternative? To just accept physical atrophy because exercise is difficult?…that doesn’t seem like a valid option to me. Here’s my point: look at verse 13 with me, it says, “so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” If something is lame, it is effectually paralyzed. If you bring to mind Paul’s words in Ephesians 2 he says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.” Oh, you aren’t naturally lame to sin. You don’t need to be trained in that, you can walk just fine. You’re naturally lame to righteousness. Paralyzed, unable to walk in it. And the author says, what’s lame suffers the risk of dislocation if it’s not exercised. Paul goes on to say, but you have been made alive with Christ. Dead to sin, alive to righteousness; but still needing training. Physical therapy is often a painful process, but the goal of it is rehabilitation of the body. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the path to healing, is to be put under stress. I eventually started becoming less shaky with the weight that I was lifting. I grew in strength because of the stress that I put my body under. It’s necessary for growth.

Apply

Folks, the first point is this: don’t neglect the training of God in this life because it’s accompanied with pain and suffering. Don’t begrudge the hard things that God uses in order to bring about the healing of your soul. You know the old saying, “Don’t pray for patience because God will put X, Y, or Z hard thing in your life to make you become patient.” What a ridiculous thing to say! This says I would rather simply avoid hard things than to become more like my redeemer. Don’t ignore, or downplay, or run away from difficult sin struggles in your life because they reveal your weaknesses to others. It is much better to be seen as weak, looking to a strong Christ for healing, than to be seen as fine when you’re deteriorating on the inside. Don’t risk falling out of joint, the author says, because you’ve considered your eternal reward of righteousness as unworthy of some temporary suffering.

What, then is this prescription for healing? How do we go about this process of Spiritual rehabilitation? Otherwise known as sanctification. It’s two-fold: pursue peace and pursue holiness. Verse 14 says, “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” Okay there’s our prescription if we would be those who will one day see God. Let’s take them one at a time. Striving for peace.

Pursue Peace (14-15)

Observe

Verse 15, “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God”. What’s one way that you could fail to obtain the grace of God? You let a “root of bitterness” spring up and cause trouble, and by it become defiled.

Interpret

Now there’s an interpretive decision we have to make here, what does the author mean by “obtain the grace of God”? We know and understand the Scriptures to teach that salvation is by grace alone through faith in Christ alone...not through works so that no man may boast. I could site passages all day long to back this up because the whole bible attests to it. But Ephesians 2 is what I was just paraphrasing. So what does this mean to obtain the grace of God? And how could someone fail to do that if God’s gift of grace is based on the merit of Christ and nothing that I can offer? Is the writer of Hebrews saying that we can win the favor of God by our striving for peace? If these questions have come to your mind, I hope I can bring some clarity here. We’ve got to dig into the text to see what’s actually being communicated. And this isn’t a detour away from our main point. Because if you go away thinking you can merit the grace of God by your pursuit of peace, I think we’ve severely missed the point. First let’s take it at the word level… We cannot equate the term obtain necessarily with the idea of merit. It is true, you can win a prize by your own effort, and as a result, you obtain whatever that prize is. I go to the fair, I shoot a basketball into a hoop, I win a stuffed animal. I’ve obtained it. But necessarily to obtain something is simply to take possession of it. If I choose to give that stuffed animal to my son, he has now obtained it. No effort, but full possession. This word which is rendered “fail to obtain” is often translated as “not lacking”. Again, other Scripture’s can help us with clarity here. The word is used in 1 Corinthians where Paul writes: “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus...even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you...so that you are not lacking in any gift...” Therefore we read our text, “see to it that no one is lacking the grace of God”. You can’t merit what’s already been given. But you should take possession of it. You should attain it as your own and walk in it. In fact, we actually see that the action we’re being commanded to here is not obtain...its actually: ensure that others aren’t failing to obtain it either. The command is that we would watch over one another in such a way that no one is lacking the grace of God...And how might that happen? Can you think of another more poisonous threat to the grace of God in the life of the body of Christ than a heart of bitterness? What does bitterness do? It defiles. Not just you, but many. Bitterness makes impure. It desecrates, makes more like the world, and less like God. That’s what bitterness does. If you want to know what’s in the mind of the author of Hebrews when he’s talking about this “root of bitterness” then let me read to you the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 29. He says, “18 Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today 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, 19 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 heart.’ This will lead to the sweeping away of moist and dry alike.”

Apply

Friends, I don’t know if you have bitterness in your heart this morning specifically. But what I do know about bitterness is that it can deceptively creep into our lives and has ruinous consequences. How many times have you been ignorant of the danger of your own self-righteousness until you’ve already experienced the consequences? An argument with your spouse or your children or your parents and you know you’re in the right, right up until it all falls apart and you’re left in a state of confusion, thinking, “What just happened?” I didn’t want this to happen. If I would’ve just let it go...if I would’ve just entrusted it to the Lord’s mercy and not tried to control the situation...maybe if I would’ve pursued peace...things would’ve turned out differently. The root of bitterness is poison. We drink it little by little and it tastes like self-righteousness, so it seems safe. But eventually its digested and it pierces the heart and it does permanent damage to ourselves and the we’re in relationships with.

See all sin is deceptive by its very nature. The root of bitterness being chief among them. That’s why the call of Moses and the call of the text in front of you is to the whole body...not just to the individual. Don’t let your brothers and sisters be wanting of the grace of God. Pursue peace with everyone in order to drive bitterness out of your midst. It has no place among the people of God. It takes root, it poisons, it drags others down with it, and makes them godless. But you are a holy nation, a royal priesthood...a people set apart...not for yourselves...but for the LORD your God. Would you be one who sees the Lord? Then pursue peace with everyone in order to stamp out godless bitterness.

Pursue Holiness (14, 16-17)

Your prescription part one: pursue peace. Prescription part two: pursue holiness. Look at verse 16, see to it “that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.”

Observe

Esau, if you recall, is the first-born of Isaac, the son of Abraham. Esau, simply by virtue of being born first in the line of Isaac, was to inherit the promises that God made to Abraham. Promises to make of him a great nation. A promise that God would be his God and the God of his offspring after him. And the Genesis narrative tells us that Esau came home from hunting one day and he was exhausted and hungry. So much so, that when Jacob his brother proposed a trade; some stew for his birthright (recall that birthright being the innumerable provision of God for him and his offspring)...Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” When we’re reading the story we want to stop here and go, “Esau, think about what you’re saying...Esau you’re saying that God’s promise to you to be your God is of no use..” Does he ever truly recognize that? It doesn’t seem like it. But he definitely regretted his decision.

Oh that he could’ve gone back and said, it greater to die as an inheritor of God’s promise than to live as the one who throws it away for a moment of personal satisfaction.

Interpret/Apply

See we need to understand this connection between sexually immorality and holiness.

Folks, our culture honors and glorifies sexual promiscuity as if it is the great liberation of self; the way that I can finally break the chains of these cultural norms and really express who I truly am. That’s the way our culture views sexual activity. If we, the covenant community of God, generation after generation, are going to survive amidst a culture which is that antithetical to a biblical sexual ethic, we must deeply understand the beauty of God’s design for sex as being the union of one man and one woman within a covenant commitment to one another. Yes, its about get uncomfortable. Because just like the poison of bitterness destroys within the visible body of the Church...so does a looseness with our view of sexuality. The world we live in says that what I do with my body is my choice because there is no other God before me. We should shudder at hearing such an idolatrous statement. But don’t be so foolish as to think that those same ideas don’t infiltrate the minds and hearts of people in the church.

In 2024, Pure Desire Ministries and the Barna Group conducted a study on pornography usage among self-reported Christians. According to their polls: 54% reported current pornography usage. Over half of those who were polled. This was a study size of just under 3000 people, both men and women. Of those 1500 people, give or take, 84% said that no one else knew about what they were doing… In the medical world they call high blood pressure the “silent killer” because it often goes undetected as a root issue until all sorts of other detrimental related issues begin to present themselves. Could it be that sexual immorality is the “silent killer” of holiness in the Church? I believe that’s the conclusion that our text would have us to come to. And lest you think this is a problem that is, “out there”: think about how you’ve seen the effects of sexual sin in your own life...whether you or someone you know. How many men and women in the covenant community, have committed or suffered from infidelity? Young people, or those of you who are not married, is it not a perennial temptation to give yourself away wholly to another person you feel close to before entering into the covenant commitment of marriage? Jesus, himself, said that whoever looks at another person with lust has already committed adultery in his own heart. All of these sexual sins, from the most public to the most private, are not harmless. They erode holiness. And I believe the crux of the matter is this: we often value sex as Esau valued stew. Just a thing that will satiate my physical desire. And we often value holiness as Esau valued his birthright, something that has no use to me when I’m faced with some pretty serious hunger pains.

Friends, if you’re ever tempted to think that holiness has no value to you, let me remind you that it is holiness for which Christ saves. Holiness is the promise of God which Christ died to secure for you. Holiness is your birthright. Would you throw it away for a single meal?

Conclusion

If we are going to be those who see the Lord we must pursue peace, and we must pursue holiness. I want to conclude by going back to these words at the beginning of our text. Our “Spiritual Therapy” if you will, of lifting our drooping hands and strengthening our weak knees. And specifically I want us to look at the source of these instructions in the text that we read earlier in the service. Go in your bulletin to that passage in Isaiah chapter 35.

I wonder if we can read this passage now and see why it is that peace and holiness make up our prescription. This is Isaiah’s prophecy about the return of the Ransomed of the LORD to their heavenly home. It reads,

English Standard Version Chapter 35

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;

the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;

2  it shall blossom abundantly

and rejoice with joy and singing.

The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,

the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.

They shall see the glory of the LORD,

the majesty of our God.

3  Strengthen the weak hands,

and make firm the feeble knees.

4  Say to those who have an anxious heart,

“Be strong; fear not!

Behold, your God

will come with vengeance,

with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you.”

5  Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

6  then shall the lame man leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

For waters break forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert;

7  the burning sand shall become a pool,

and the thirsty ground springs of water;

in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,

the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

8  And a highway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;

the unclean shall not pass over it.

It shall belong to those who walk on the way;

even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

9  No lion shall be there,

nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;

they shall not be found there,

but the redeemed shall walk there.

10  And the ransomed of the LORD shall return

and come to Zion with singing;

everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;

they shall obtain gladness and joy,

and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Christian, your prescription for therapy isn’t the same as this world’s because you are being prepared for a place that is entirely different. The preparations you make now; when you lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees...when you uproot bitterness and pursue peace...when you maintain sexual purity and pursue holiness: you are proclaiming, “I no longer identify with fleeting desires of this world...I’ve been ransomed by the LORD’s redeemer. My joy and gladness is not obtained in my self-interest here on earth, but in the fact that I am being prepared for a place where all of it’s inhabitants will see the glory and the majesty of the LORD their God.” The work entitled “Holiness” by J.C. Ryle ends this way, “Let us all learn and strive to live on Christ...to live in Christ...to live with Christ...to live to Christ. And in so doing, we will prove that we fully realize that Christ is all. In so doing, we will feel great peace, and attain more of that holiness without which, no man shall see the Lord.”

Let’s Pray.