Hebrews 12:14-17
You may be seated. Please turn
in your copy of the scriptures to the New Testament, to the
book of Hebrews. Our reading is chapter 12, verses
14 through 17. We’re just about 45 verses from
the end of Hebrews. And so we’re making our way to
the very end of it. Let’s give our attention to God’s
holy and inspired word as we read from chapter 12, verse 14. The writer of Hebrews says to
us, strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without
which no one will see the Lord. 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. that
no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his
birthright for a single meal. 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.”
Let us pray together. Our great God, as we come again
before your holy word, may it speak into our lives. May we
recognize its authority, its source, its heavenliness, its… eternal nature and its benefit
for our lives. And we pray, Father, that your
word would pass through our heads and give us knowledge, but that
it would pass through our hearts and give us desire to serve you
and to serve you in the way in which you would like, you would
desire to be served. Help us in this, we do ask and
pray in the name of Jesus and by the power of your Holy Spirit.
Amen. You want to finish well, I’m
very sure of it. You want to finish life very
well. You sing the great old hymn,
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. And you say, “‘Tis grace
has brought me safe thus far, and grace shall lead me home.”
At least somewhere in your mind, somewhere in your heart, you
say to yourself periodically, maybe it’s daily or weekly or
monthly, something of that nature, you say, I want to finish the
race that God has put before me. I want to finish it well.
This passage from Hebrews chapter 12 is part of a larger section
of this scripture that’s saying to us, don’t stop running the
race. Don’t quit now. Don’t give up. Don’t get weak. Don’t get weary. It’s saying to us over and over,
with your eyes on Jesus, continue in the Christian life and finish
well the race that is before you. He said to us at the beginning
of chapter 12, we need to endure. And we need to endure because
Jesus has endured. He endured the cross and is now
in heaven. We need to endure for the endurance
of the hardship that we face. is God disciplining us. We need
to endure by lifting up each other’s weak arms and strengthen
each other’s weak knees. We need to keep on straight paths,
making our way to heaven. Now, He has mostly spoken to
us as individual Christians. He’s spoken to each of us and
said, don’t grow weary, don’t grow faint, don’t quit, don’t
stop, keep running. But today in our passage, he’s
going to speak to us as a congregation, and he’s going to give to us
a couple of concerns for the covenant community. He’s going
to speak to us in a way that will encourage each of us to
encourage one another in our Christian walk. And there are
two concerns for the church that he has for us. These were for
the Hebrews in their current context, but they’re for us today.
And those two concerns are this. One is pursue peace and holiness,
chase it down, pursue it. And the second is watch over
one another. This is nothing new. He said
to us to be holy. He said to us to be at peace
with one another. He said to us over and over in
the book of Hebrews, look out for one another. Remember the
command, as long as it is today, let us encourage one another.
Let us spur one another along to love and good deeds, not forsaking
the assembling together as some are in the habit of doing. So
let’s consider these two concerns the writer of Hebrews has for
the covenant community. Their concerns, for sure back
in the day to the context, the original audience of Hebrews,
but they fit us here at First ARP as well. The first is this,
pursue peace and holiness. as members of the covenant community,
as members of the household of faith, as Christians, we are
to pursue peace and holiness. Now we know our church is not
perfect. We know that not everything is the way it should be. We know
that if you were to measure our church by these two standards,
pursue peace pursue holiness, we would find ourselves lacking.
There are portions of our congregation where there is not peace. There
are places in our midst where we are not as holy as God would
have us to be. You may say, how do I know that?
Well, first, I’m your pastor. I know a lot. I have the special
sense. I can see things. But the Bible
tells us We’re sinners. Sinners are not at peace with
one another. Sinners are not as holy as God would like for
us to be. And so, we are to pursue peace. We are to pursue holiness. We’re
to chase it down until it is ours. In this passage, it mentions
Esau. And as we’ve just read a few
moments ago, even in the womb, Jacob and Esau were at each other’s
throats. One was the heir of Abraham and
Isaac. The other was the heir of the
nations who would live a pagan life. And you see they’re at
war with one another. They cheat one another. They
steal one another’s blessings. They pursue not peace and holiness,
but godlessness. wickedness and you see in their
lives there was lifelong strife there was lifelong hardship yes
it was God’s choice for the younger to rule the older yes it was
the parental failures in their lives not to not to teach them
the promises of God but there was bad blood between the two
of them and friends that can be the way it is in the covenant
community there can be bad blood between us there can be strife
there can be hardship and difficulty. And there can also be the lack
of the pursuit of holiness. Now, think of church life this
way. If we got into tough times, if
we got into hard times in the United States of America, just
like the early church, like our audience in Hebrews, where it
was not safe to be a Christian, where it was not wise to proclaim
and announce that you walked with the Lord, and we had to
abandon our church building. But our desire was to worship
together. Our desire was to keep the Lord’s
Day. Our desire was to be together in God’s house on the Lord’s
Day. What if we found a little place,
a little cave, a little cavern, a little tomb like they had to
do in the early days? And what if a number of us gathered
in those close quarters? There was not really the elbow
room that we have here in our large building with our long
pews and our extended sanctuary, but we had to be close together.
We were crammed in, shut in together in tight quarters. We would get
to know each other very well. And do you see how the call to
pursue peace? The call to pursue holiness would
be a little different. We’d be closer together. We would
be in each other’s faces. We would be in each other’s business.
As it is now, we can make our way down the halls. We can sit
on this side and that side and in the front and in the back.
But in tough times, we may have to sit closer and be a little
more intimate together. You see, that question I posed
to you, that scenario may never come to pass in our lifetime.
It may come to pass in our children or our grandchildren’s lifetimes.
But you know, that’s the bottom line of the church. To be at
peace with one another. To pursue holiness together in
the life of the congregation. That’s what the writer of Hebrews
is telling us. Pursue peace. Pursue holiness. Be the true
church. Don’t pretend. Don’t check the
boxes. Don’t just show up because that’s
what you’ve always done. But be the true church together,
striving for peace. Let’s take those two commands
separately. Strive for peace is the first
one. Remember, Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers. Remember
that we have peace with God through the precious blood of the Lord
Jesus. Remember the Apostle Paul’s admonition at the end of Romans,
as far as it is possible with you, be at peace with all men. You see, in the covenant community,
there is a command, there is a need for, there is a sense
where the church will only be healthy when there is peace within
the congregation. And so, in the covenant community,
what can kill that peace? Well, it’s arrogance. It’s pride.
It’s envy. It’s strife. It’s being hurt
or touchy. It’s being idolatrous. It’s a
desire to be first or to let petty things bother you. It’s
making people big and God small. It’s all kinds of things. But
God here is calling us to relational peace. Just as we have peace
with God through the cross, we are to have peace with one another
through that same cross. And just by way of extension,
we’re to be at peace with all men. Maybe it’s a pagan neighbor
or a difficult coworker or someone that we have contact, a family
member even. We’re to be at peace even with
all men. But the admonition here is for
us to strive for peace, to chase after peace, to pursue peace. But the other side of the coin,
if you will, is that we are to pursue holiness. Peace and holiness
go hand in hand. And he says, pursue the holiness
without which no one will see God. Do you recall any time you’ve
read in the scriptures of a human being coming in contact with
God, coming face to face with Him? There was some sort of veil
between them. God would pass by the back of
them. Remember the angels in the presence of God with their
wings, their specially designed wings, their faces were covered
for they could not see God. You see, friends, we cannot just
casually enter the presence of God and say, here I am, and expect
entrance. It requires holiness. And notice
how he says, pursue holiness. And it is the holiness without
which we will not see God. There will not be any sweet-talking
our way into His presence. No last-minute ticket sales where
you can slip a 10 or a 20 or a couple wadded-up bills and
say, I want in. No, he says, without holiness,
no one will see the Lord. What’s he speaking of here? He’s
speaking of your sanctification. He’s speaking of your being more
like Christ, your being made holy as you are washed by the
Word of God with the power of the Spirit of God. He’s speaking
of your lifetime of letting the Word do its work in your life. Yes, God has saved you. and that
has secured your eternal redemption. But the Christian life in this
world is God washing you, God changing you, God sanctifying
you, God making you less wicked and more holy. And so as you
are walking to heaven on a straight path and not walking away from
God, not doubting, not living a faithless life, You’re letting
the word saturate into your life. You’re letting the sacraments
do their work. You’re in prayer and fellowship with other Christians.
You’re drinking from the well, you are hungering and thirst
for righteousness, your heart is beating for what God’s heart
beats for. Like King David says in the early
Psalms, as the deer pants for the streams of water, so my soul
longs after you. You see this two sided coin that
the writer of Hebrews gives to us. Pursue peace and holiness. Pursue peace with one another.
Pursue holiness in your own life. And without that holiness, you
will not see God. He second moves on to another
concern of the covenant community. There’s what we should pursue,
that’s peace and holiness. But he, in the second instance,
says three times we’re to see to it. We’re to see to it, to
look over one another’s lives and make sure that we don’t fall
into three areas of great danger. Now, you know what a bishop is,
right? Not the piece of chess on the
chessboard. but a bishop. A bishop is a pastor. A bishop is an overseer, literally. The word in the New Testament
where we get our word elder, or sometimes it’s translated
bishop, simply means one who oversees. One who sees over.
In a couple weeks when we get to chapter 13, we’ll be reminded
that your elders oversee you. They are watching over your spiritual
life. On behalf of Christ, they are
looking into your spiritual life to make sure things are in order
and that you’re making your way to heaven safely. Well, generally
we think that bishops and overseers are the only ones to do that
work. But here he is saying it is the responsibility of the
congregation to watch over one another. We’re to watch over
each other in the covenant community. And we’re to help one another
grow in grace. We’re to spur one another on
to love and good deeds and to pursue peace and holiness. But
there’s three things as we watch over one another’s lives we’re
to avoid. He says first, lest anyone to
fail to obtain the grace of God. One of our concerns is Christians
with our fellow Christians. is to make sure no one fails
to obtain the grace of God. This morning in Sunday school
classes we were talking about prayer. We talked about this
idea that sometimes as Christians we don’t live out of all the
resources of grace that God has set apart for us. That Christ
has won victoriously for us on the cross. We don’t live out
of the riches of heaven. We live out of the rags and the
pennies of this earth. And He’s saying to us, as we
watch over one another, do not let anyone in the covenant community,
don’t let anyone in your church family fail to obtain the grace
of God. Now, we could take this idea
of failing to obtain the grace of God in several ways. The most
dangerous way is this, don’t let anyone walk away from the
faith. Don’t let anyone fall short and not make it to heaven. Don’t let anyone drop out and
quit. Don’t let anyone miss the goal,
which is heaven. Don’t let anyone arrive at the
finish line late, or too late, and the awards have been given
out. That’s one way to look at it. Don’t let anyone apostatize. Don’t let anyone say, I’m a Christian
one minute, and the next say, I disavow my allegiance to Christ. Or he could be thinking, I’m
not apostasy, but don’t let one another tucker out. Don’t let
one another live out of resources, not gods. This is a very appropriate,
I think, thing for us to think about. Sometimes we depend on
our checkbooks a little too much. Sometimes we have our fingers
to the pulse of the speed dial to our financial advisor more
so than we do to the God of the universe who calls us to pray.
Sometimes we live out of earth’s resources. when heaven’s resources
are available and will benefit us more greatly. So yes, there’s
the danger of apostasy. We should warn those who are
falling away, but we should also help those who are tuckering
out, those who are living out of resources, not God’s resources.
You know what will happen if you depend on your checkbook?
One day it’ll have a zero balance, but not so with God. You know
what will happen one day if you live out of your successes? and
your own blessings that you’ve achieved in this life, one day
they will pass away. But God’s achievements for you
never will. And so one way we might apply
this to our congregation is let’s encourage one another to sit
under the Word, to be in worship, to attend prayer meeting, to
be together when the church gathers. For God has promised in His worship,
in His Word, and in our fellowship and through the sacraments, And
through suffering life together, He has promised good things.
But we must participate in them. We must not grow weary of them
or say, I don’t need them. We must engage ourselves in the
life of the church. We need to encourage one another
to be in the place of grace where God speaks, where His riches
are made available to us. Well, in this area of watching
over one another, he says, not only should we not let anyone
miss the grace of God, but he says, watch over one another
lest anyone have a root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble,
and by it, many become defiled. If you have any green thumb in
you and you’ve had a garden, you recognize that in order to
get your garden to grow well, you’ve got to rid it of weeds.
You’ve got to keep the pest out, the deer and the gophers and
the other rodents that will destroy it. You’ve got to put things
on your plants to keep the pest and the bugs away that will destroy
your crop. And this is exactly what our
passage is teaching us, that in the church, noxious, poisonous
weeds, weeds of bitterness, can pop up in the church. And they
will take over. And they will take over in such
a way that it will choke the life out of the rest of the congregation. And he’s saying, take care as
you’re watching over one another. As you’re watching over one another’s
lives, take care lest a root of bitterness spring up and cause
trouble. and choke out and many become
defiled. Now, some of you think, personally,
I will never let a root of bitterness pop up in my life. Some of you
may think a root of bitterness may never pop up in the life
of our church. We’ve got it too good. Just think back to the
wilderness generation. This is what this passage is
referencing. God in His Word in the Old Testament
speaks of a root of bitterness as idolatry. A root of bitterness
is something that will destroy the covenant community. And you
think back to how very quickly God’s people, as they cried out
and said, we’re under the heavy hand of Pharaoh. Rescue us from
our slavery. Take us up out of this place.
And God did so. He rescued them out of Egypt,
out of the hand of Pharaoh with a mighty hand and an outstretched
arm. He took them into the wilderness.
They crossed the sea on dry land. The sea closed back up and destroyed
the Egyptian army. And very soon after, very soon
after, the people of God the church. They fussed. They complained. They fashioned
a golden calf. They did things that we would
say we would never ever do. And friends, you see why this,
you see why this is such a strong command. This is such a gracious
word from God saying, see to it as you’re watching through
the congregation, as you’re friends with others, as you listen to
them, as you can see their heart by their attitude, see to it
that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and many
become defiled. You see, the people of God, the
covenant community can can fall into ruin. through just a little
bitterness. Just as a weed can take over
your garden, that root of bitterness can seep through the congregation.
In the first church where I served, there was a man, I won’t mention
his name, wouldn’t help you anyway, but there was a man who came
to me one day and he said, I have the spiritual gift of criticism. I’m not kidding. He said this.
And I said, well, it’s from Satan. and it doesn’t belong to the
church. And he said, Oh no, it’s a gift from God. I have a critical
spirit. And I said, yes, I know you do.
He said, I have a critical spirit and it’s my job to go throughout
the church and find everything wrong and to point it out. And I said, again, that is not
a spiritual gift. That is a satanic gift. And it
is from hell. No, the church is not perfect.
It won’t be perfect until heaven when God redeems his bride. But
by God’s grace, we live by his word, we live by his spirit.
And yes, we need to see where there’s things we can improve
on. But this man went around the church and he would divide
the church. He had a spirit of being critical. And eventually our church split
and his little group went out. about 8,100 people. And it was
the great blessed subtraction, let me tell you, because these
people were so difficult, they were so bitter, and they were
following this leader. And that root of bitterness gone,
our church was healthy again. Now, I’ll tell you this. Many
said, you will not survive. You will not survive with a loss
of that many people. And these were key people. These
were elders. We lost four elders. We lost workers, worker bees.
We lost tithers. And everybody said, we’re not
going to make it. Guess what? God blessed us. was profitable in our ministry.
We never skipped a beat, and God was gracious. But you see,
a root of bitterness had popped up in the church, and these people
thought their root of bitterness was godly. Friends, that is the
danger of sin, so let me encourage you. When you hear negativity,
when you hear godlessness, when you hear bitterness, and you
hear roots of envy, and things which are in reality idolatry,
speak into it. and say to the brother or sister,
this is not God’s way and this is not God’s will. This will
not do in our church. Notice the danger it speaks of
with this root of bitterness. The root of bitterness sprouts
up, it causes trouble. It literally means it harasses
the church and many become defiled. Now compare that with the previous
command, be at peace and be holy. See, bitterness has nothing to
do with peace, and being defiled has nothing to do with holiness. It is ungodly, and it will take
over a church, and it will make that church unclean. You remember
what Jesus says to His churches in Revelation? He writes seven
letters to the seven churches. And God, let me tell you folks,
is not afraid to say to a church, you are no longer a church. You
have become a synagogue of Satan. You’ve let the world and the
roots of these evil things take over, and I will close you down,
and I will remove your lampstand from you.” So as we watch over
one another, as we see sin and its destructive ends, we should
speak into people’s lives and say, there’s a root of bitterness,
there’s idolatry, there’s envy, there’s strife, there’s greed.
We should call sin what it is. You know, we can allow it. For
the sake of peace, we say, just overlook it. We do this in our
homes at times with our children. Just for the sake of get along
and go along. See it as no big deal. But friends,
you let sin grow in your home, you let it grow in your business
or in your workplace, you let it grow in your church, it does
take over and it wreaks havoc. It defiles the whole community. And if we overlook it, one day
we will wake up and say, where has our church gone? There’s
a third thing that he speaks of here. We’re to pursue peace
and holiness. We’re to watch over each other’s
lives and not let anybody miss the grace of God. We’re not to
let bitter roots pop up into our lives. This is an interesting one. or
to take care lest anyone become sexually immoral or unholy like
Esau who sold his birthright for a single meal. This is what
he’s saying to us. Do not let anyone in the midst
of the congregation live in immorality. Do not let them live in sexual
perversion. Do not let them live like the
world. I mean, nowadays, it’s kind of
standard. We were called upon on Friday
by our presidential candidate. Just overlook it. It’s locker
room talk. Friends, not before God’s eyes. God calls us to be
holy. And He calls us out of immorality. He calls us out of idolatry.
He calls us out of wickedness. Now, what did Esau do to earn
this status, this title? Well, remember, he married Hittite
women. Remember that instead of marrying
the type of girl He chose Hittite women, and he
pursued them, and they led him away into godliness. Now remember
the story before Abraham, or before Isaac and Jacob and Esau,
the story was of Abraham in his old age. He wanted to secure
a good wife for his wife, for his son. And so he sent his servant
out and said, go find a wife for my son Abraham. Get a good
one. We need a godly one. It needs to be everything just
right. And God blessed his servant. God blessed him, and Isaac found
Rebekah. And you see the disregard Esau
has. I’ll spite my parents. I’ll show
them what’s what. I’ll show them what I make of
them and my upbringing. But really he was shaking his
fist at God and saying, I don’t care about your rules. I don’t
care about your ways. I do not care about your salvation.
I don’t even care about my birthright. Remember his birthright? Part
of the promise to Abraham. I’ll bless you. I’ll make a nation
of you.” He gave that up for a pot of stew. He gave it up
for a can of chicken noodle soup. He gave it up for nothing. And
so the warning to us is this, lest any of us become sexually
immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a
single meal. Friends, we trifle too much with
the world. We love its ways, its glamour, its economy. We
love the blessings it promises to us. We love its lifestyle. And what is this passage saying
to us? If you see a fellow Christian who’s thinking with his belly
and not his brain, you warn them. You go after them and say, what
is it that you are doing? You’re like Esau. You’re going
to sell all that you have from God for a measly bowl of lentil
soup. You see, friends, we want the
long term, eternal blessings of God, or do we want a short
term belly full? That’s what God is putting before
us. What would our church look like if it were picture-perfect?
What would it look like if everything was just hunky-dory? Well, we’d
worship together. We’d be present together every
Sunday, not missing a Lord’s Day, and we’d be participating
with our whole hearts. The singing would be so loud
that the roof would go flying off its joists, its rafters,
its beams. discipleship. The classrooms
would be full, hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
People would would gather and fill the rooms and say, I need
more. I want more. I haven’t got enough.
Our community would be full of peace and unity. There would
be relational harmony and it would be a picture of heaven.
But you see, the reality of the church is what the writer of
Hebrews, this pastor is speaking of. You see, we’re at odds with
one another. There’s not peace. We steer clear
of one another. We walk down a different hallway.
We come in a different door. We don’t have the conversations
that we ought to have. And that peace then keeps us
pursuing holiness. The pursuit of God’s blessings
of grace on this earth. And so what happens when we are
not at peace and we’re not pursuing holiness? We are fulfilling the
three warnings that were just given to us. We’re graceless. We don’t believe
God can fix our problems. We’re idolaters. We’d rather
peace and security and having our own way over fixing things
graciously and in a godly way. And we’re satisfying our appetites
for comfort, for ease, and for our own little world to be just
right. And what is God saying to us in this whole passage,
this last section of Hebrews? Be strong. Finish well. Run the race faithfully. Don’t
be like Esau and give it all up for comfort or for a little
bitty meal. Notice how verse 17 warns us
very strongly. It says afterward Esau. Afterward
Esau desired the blessing, the one he had sold for a bowl of
lentil stew. He desired blessing that he had
previously rejected and there was no chance. There was no opportunity
for him to repent even when the tears flowed. The blessing was
already distributed to his brother. It was too late. And so you see
the weight. You see the burden of these.
These commands from our God don’t despise the gospel. Don’t look
down on your upbringing. Don’t look down on the God you
serve and say, I will fill my stomach full of the things of
this earth. Friends, it will only give you
heartache. It will only give you heartburn.
Strive after, pursue peace and holiness and grace and be single-minded
living for God. And do you know what the promise
is, the result? When you finish the race, when
you finish strong, when you finish well, You will behold the face
of God in heaven. Esau will not be there. But Jacob
will, because he trusted in God and put his faith and hope in
him. So what is it you want? Do you
want a belly full in this life? Or do you want the eternal bliss
of seeing God’s holy face forever? Let’s pray together. Our great
God, we thank you for this word to us. It reminds us of our priorities. They are not of this world, they
are of heaven. It reminds us of our duties, what we should
pursue. So help us chase after peace
and chase after holiness. Lord, it also reminds us of what
we ought to avoid. We don’t want to be godless.
We don’t want to be bitter. We don’t want to be immoral or
defiled or unfit for heaven. And so help us by your spirit
in these things to look to Jesus, to rest in him alone for our
salvation. We do pray in Jesus name. Amen. Let’s stand together and respond
to his good word as we sing number 372, living for Jesus. so so Yeah. you you Amen. As you go into the world
to serve our God, go with his blessing, with his benediction
upon you. Look up and receive it now. The Lord bless you and
keep you. The Lord make his face shine
upon you and be gracious to you. And the Lord lift up his countenance
upon you and give you peace now and forevermore. And all God’s
people said, Amen.