Hebrews 12:13-29
Notes
Transcript
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Senior Sunday 7.12.2020
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Lord, here we go again!
Pray.
Think myself empty.
Read myself full.
Write myself clear.
Pray myself haught.
Be myself.
Forget myself.
Lord, let this message be a beacon for you. Let me be forgotten and invisible. Let them see and know you, only you. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Psalm 19:14
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The word Gospel means “good news”. It’s pretty important to understand that. The Bible is not a book that tells us what we have to do to earn salvation, it is a book that tells us what God did to earn our salvation. What he did was send Jesus. Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves and he paid for what we had done in his body on the cross. God created human beings and intended for them to be ruling creatures. We were supposed to be under God but over everything else. We were supposed to rule over creation under the guidance and authority of God’s Word and to function as conduits for all the blessings of heaven. That’s how it was supposed to be, but unfortunately, the Bible tells the story of how our first parents, Adam and Eve, fell into sin by choosing to rebel against God’s Word in order to become autonomous ruling creatures. Basically, they wanted to be gods unto themselves, deciding good and evil. From that point on, humanity has been on a downward spiral moving further and further away from God and our original design and glory. The heart of the Gospel is the Good News that Jesus has come as God in the flesh and has obeyed God perfectly and has therefore won the right to all the blessings God originally intended to give to men and women. Furthermore, through his sacrificial death on the cross, he has paid the debt that we owed to God for disobeying his commands. There is therefore no need anymore for us to hide from God. In Jesus, we can come home and we can be restored. The climax of the Gospel is the great news that he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven where he now intercedes on our behalf. He gives the Holy Spirit to all his people and he slowly but surely, changes our hearts, reforms our desires and teaches us how to be the children of God we were always intended to be. For now, Jesus remains in heaven, changing the world one person at a time, but one day he will return and judge the world in righteousness. He will remove from this world all sin and all causes of sin and he will restore the cosmos to a state of peace, prosperity and flourishing and all those who have received him as their Lord and Savior will participate in his rule and enjoy his goodness forever.
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PRAY
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Maturity of what is important
12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that 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; 16 that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. 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 sought it with tears.
18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 22 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, 23 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, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
25 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, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. 26 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.” 27 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. 28 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, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
12:12-13
Change in posture
Imperitive- keep strong Prov 4 (level paths for your feet)
limp not in limpers but instead of near the strong
Commitment in our
“See to it...” List
#1- Stay Strong/Stay straight (how storng and striaght am i? compared to last year)
#2- Strive for peace; Harmony an Holiness“make every effort” pursue with passion straining of muscles of horse or hound in chase of a fox
Apply self to harmony and holiness
It takes effort, not natural
Not a check box
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;
20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
Not an optional extra!
“electric windows on a car”
How do you know your diffeern if there is not change? Are you a changing or just have an interest in God?
#3- Grow in grace not bitterness (v. 15)
Don’t miss the grace of God;
1 Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.
Are you missing it byt sticking your fingers in your ears?
-No bitter root
16 “You know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed.
16 “You know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed. 17 And you have seen their detestable things, their idols of wood and stone, of silver and gold, which were among them. 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. 20 The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and the curses written in this book will settle upon him, and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven. 21 And the Lord will single him out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law. 22 And the next generation, your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which the Lord has made it sick— 23 the whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and wrath— 24 all the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger?’ 25 Then people will say, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt,
You can’t see roots the majority of the time
They are hidden underneath. They are destructive and entangling! It’ painful to dig up!
Deal with it when it’s small!
The tree roots vs. weed root
#4-No sexual immorality or unholiness, the rejection of sexual immorality and godlessness
We are set apart from God, Set apart from sin
Pagan-then, Pagan now
remember who you are called to worship
Esau—Who is he?
Why is it here? Physical appetite for Esau was more important than the heritage in his home.
Selling out in a moment for sin,. sexual immorality
No prayer meeting needed, no discussion aout it
Why do we have to have a discussion? Trash in here, should be out-Get it out
Discussion with the kids
We “see to it” because that’s what sons and daughters do.
No change of mind, he wept for the blessing he’d lost and not the sin he committed.
vv. 15-17 Decisions and actions have consequences
“We should be cautious about suggesting that someone who genuinely wants to repent of their sin and get right with God will ever be refused; but we should be equally cautious about imagining that someone who enjoys Christian fellowship but then plays fast and loose with the consequent moral responsibilities will be able to come back in whenever and however they feel like it. Decisions and actions have consequences.” N. T. Wright pg 69
18-29
Mt. Sinai vs Mt. Zion
what are these?
Law vs Gospel
Reminder that they were there but no longer there.
Law vs Gospel!
Don’t go back
Arrived at an approachable and accessible city
#5-Don’t refuse him who speaks v. 25
Prophets warned, people responded with deaf ears
Wanted cheery prophets
They refuesed the prophets, whould they reject him who warns from heaven.
His voice comes through the Bible, through teachers, through conversations, through the Holy Spirit
We make light of God’s Word by mimicking it and replicating it in ways that makes us feel good but we want to ignore how it applies.
vv. 25-29
Shaken into something new
Chaff
Digging for gold
New from the old
Purified
#6--Worship God acceptably- v. 28
with reverence and awe
not superficially
not trivially
not halfheartedly.
Worship—is not about our feelings, but rather we have a thankful heart and approach God in reverence and awe.
God is a consuming fire!