Sometimes in a very serious way, sometimes in a very painful way, but it moves us to improvement, not destruction. So your lifestyle, if it is set around you, your family, your life, your career, whatever it may be, and you're not doing anything for the king, you don't have a straight path.
You need to get out of your pajamas. You need to get into work clothes and serve the Lord. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Hebrews.
Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will continue in Hebrews chapter 12 and his study called Training Put to Use. There's great purpose in all that God has you go through, and whatever it is you're facing, troubles from someone else, troubles from within, temptation, trial, whatever, fear, loneliness, you name it. God has purpose in those things. Many times, if nothing else, to show you how much work you have to do, that maybe you're not all those things you thought you were.
Maybe that you just need to be fully blown in your dependence on Him, blown out, full-blown dependence in that way. 1 Corinthians 16, Paul echoes this, writing to the church at Corinth. He says, Watch, stand fast.
That means don't let the feeble knees cause you to collapse or flee. Stand fast in the faith. Remember, unbelievers, those without Christ, they have courage too. They can stand fast, but not in Christ, not in the faith.
That should put a lot of meaning on what we're doing or not. Watch, stand fast in the faith. Be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love. Love's so easy to talk about, isn't it? Oh, you know I love them when you don't really mean it.
Or you can love them and not like them, but you better treat them like you love them. When God says to me, I want you to be strong, your work will be rewarded, I take courage in that. Then I face some monster. It could be a little one. It could just be a temptation, something that I want, something that I don't need to have, or maybe I should not have it. I have to face it anyway.
Find that I'm struggling. Okay, what if you face that boogeyman and you lose that round? What do you think God's going to say to you? He's going to call you a weasel, right? Of course not. God is going to come back again and say, be strong.
Your work will be rewarded. He doesn't change. He keeps coming back. He's long suffering with the righteous as well as with the sinner who is not saved. He comes back and He says, don't crumble. Don't allow the enemy to steal your will to fight just because you've been hurt.
Listen, if there was no such thing as getting hurt, there'd be no need for encouragement. The Bible would have maybe one or two for when you were in a mood, a bad mood. But they're all over the scripture because this is what it takes. So you go to a great Bible study or you have your devotional time and the word minister you, what are you going to do with that? Now what happens to you? Is it just going to be, wow, that was impressive, and then you go and do everything in the opposite direction for the rest of the day?
I hope not. So in verse 13, he continues. He's going to continue throughout this section to make this point. And make straight paths for your feet so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather healed. Clear the lifestyle, clear the cluttered thinking out of the way or there'll be no progress in Christ. It's a fundamental, a very basic concept. If you do not make the path straight for you to travel, that's what your feet will be doing on that path, then you won't travel it.
Challenging. Yes, because that's what the Spirit needs because the flesh will strip you of a motivation to go forward. In Christ, clear the lifestyle. You know, you can have as a Christian a relatively moral lifestyle and be doing nothing for the kingdom. Yeah, you don't sin. You're not robbing banks. When you say you don't sin, you know what I mean.
You're not committing moral crimes against the kingdom, but you're also not doing anything. I'm not singling you out. This is the way it is. This belongs to our faith. There's no sidestepping it.
It's not my intention to make you feel small or uncomfortable. It is my intention to preach the Word in season and out of season, to convict, to rebuke, to exhort with all longsuffering and teaching, for the time will come when they will no longer endure sound doctrine because they have itching ears, and they will heap up for themselves teachers to be turned aside from the truth. Well, I don't want to give you any of that, the turning aside from the truth, the tickling of the ears.
There are many clever things a pastor can write and say that sound so, you know, oh, that's cute, but you can't call upon it when you're in trouble. What you need is something to jar you. We need that, something to shake us, to move us.
Sometimes it moves us in a jolly way, sometimes in a very serious way, sometimes in a very painful way, but it moves us to improvement, not destruction. So your lifestyle, if it is set around you, your family, your life, your career, whatever it may be, and you're not doing anything for the king, you don't have a straight path. You need to get out of your pajamas. You need to get into work clothes and serve the Lord. It takes nerve, it takes faith, and it takes action. And without that, nothing gets done. So move away from the self life to the Jesus life.
Take little steps in the beginning if you're not able to take the big ones. This is what we're discussing this morning because this is what the Holy Spirit is giving us. He says, so that what is lame may not be dislocated or just injured. So that what is already not working well may not be further damage that matters would not worsen for you. Stumbling blocks are hazards.
You get hurt with them. You know, in the path that we're traveling down, there's no mention whether it's illuminated or not. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you can see the stumbling blocks. That doesn't mean they're easy to move.
Other times, you can't see them. And so you've got to travel a little bit more cautiously at those times. The obstacles that interfere, stumbling blocks that are hazards that cause injury, obstacles that interfere with your walk, slow down the progress and hurt the work. Keep it from going forward.
Well, you've got to learn how to blast some things out of the way, bulldoze even others, hurtle some, come up with different ways to deal with whatever is in front of you. And the debris of this life that piles up around us has to be routinely demolished. I'm the one in my family that takes the stuff to the dump. I don't like it too much, especially in the summer.
Those yellow jackets, they could be a little fierce. But anyway, it's routine. The alternative is unacceptable. Then your house becomes the dump.
The debris piles up there. And so it is spiritually, he says, but rather be healed. Be made better. Be restored.
Do something that's progressive. Now, of course, he's not emphasizing here the physical healing. This is spiritual. He's talking about spiritual matters at this point, the attitude of the head and the heart together, not one without the other. If I get in any head or heart trouble, I'm not going to the world for a solution.
I'm going to Christ. Too bad Christ didn't have the psychologists. Too bad the apostles didn't have them to help him out. Too bad they did not have the psychologists' world, the world of the psychologists, to come up with some disorder for them, why they weren't serving well or suffering or whatever it is. We didn't need them then.
We don't need them now. If I'm going to anybody, it's going to be the people of God, God's Word, prayer and study, endurance. Now, that does not mean for one moment that God is going to appear like a genie out of a Bible and somehow just sweep it all away and make you better. It does not mean that if that is true, if that is how it works for you all the time, I want to know about it because I'm doing something wrong. What I have found is that when the Bible says endure afflictions, it's not joking.
God is saying take them. You can. Well, I find out also that I don't have a choice many times. Well, there are self-inflicted wounds. I have a choice to avoid those, but I have to face them.
He'll face them with me. It's kind of irritating. This is irritating about God. Don't tell him I said this. I can't force him to do anything. I can't move his hand backwards, forwards, sideways.
He moves when he's good and ready. That's what makes him God. What makes me his follower is that I follow that.
I give him license to treat me any old way he wants because I know who he is, his character, and I know where all this is going. And I accept it. I accept it joyfully overall. The day will come where I will not be looking back at this life. It will be gone.
I'll be looking forward at the new life. But rather be healed, and I've covered that. Verse 14. Pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
Well, that first section, the first clause, pursue peace with all people. We can make light of some of that, but then you look at the whole verse and you say, well, wait a minute. It's a very serious and solemn thing. Holiness is nothing humorous about holiness. Humor has its place, but holiness ain't it.
Without which no one will see the Lord. You see the consequences of not having holiness. Nothing funny here. This is down to business right now.
We get back to funny some other time. Now, pursue peace with all people, not just the people we like, with all people. Not at the cost of your morals or principles either. Now, this is important because there are those that somehow think truth is more important than love. Look, without truth, you have no love. Truth is everything. It's what separates us from the people who worship fake gods.
We worship the real God. First purity, then peace. That's the biblical pattern. James. Now, in Hebrews, we have to pause here.
The complexion of the Hebrew letter is one that is mild and soft and smooth in comparison to James. We'll be coming up to James when we're done, and so you'll be issued a pair of goggles and a life vest, because James does not fool around. He's like, I only got five chapters to say what I got to say. So, he lets it go. Well, I'm quoting James now, and so that's sort of a warm-up. James chapter three, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure. It doesn't move. It never changes.
That is static. There's no license to sin. There's no situational ethics. Well, if the situation calls for it, then you're ethical.
If they don't call for it, you can be unethical. Now, the world does that kind of stuff. We're not to applaud it, though we may crack under the pressure of it, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable in that order. And then if it's peaceable, it's gentle, willing to yield, not on morals, but the non-essentials, full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy. Well, that James laying down the laws just said, this should be on every Christian life.
Amen, brother. And so, pursue peace with all people. But I'm not going to pretend that evil is not evil and sin is not sin in the interest of peace if the topic comes up. So, there you are at a, you know, a family dinner or something, and you know that there are family members. This is just an example, it can be something else, but you know there are family members that have opposing views to Jesus.
They're totally against him. And all they want you to do is put a little pinch of compromise on the altar of their pagan god. Just compromise. Just keep the peace.
You can keep your mouth shut. But if your mouth opens and you have opportunity to say you are either for Christ or not, you better say you're for Christ. You stand with him. The sin is a sin. If that disrupts the peace in the home, then so be it.
I've come to bring a sword. That is the proper application of those verses and that thought. So, we do pursue peace with all people, but not at the cost of the word of God or morality. It doesn't always have to come to that. But when it comes to that, that is spiritual war.
And there is no treaty to be signed with hell. And if more Christians would get that earlier on in their walk, they'd have less of a problem dealing with those who don't share their views later on in their walk because they would have gotten it out in the open. And so, we ask ourselves, as I pursue peace, do I make life difficult for the peacemakers? Am I one of those folks that I do more hurting than helping? A little snide remark here. A little, you know, rolling of the eyes there.
A mis-supplied word. That rather than helping, I hurt the other with some envy-born this or that. I hope not. I hope that's not us trying to out-hurt the other one. What happens when we get a taste of our own medicine? And that's, hopefully, won't have to happen. Avoid that scourge. Moodiness, envy, things like that. They do not bring peace.
They chase it out the door. You have a responsibility to not give in. Make an effort at the very least. It goes a long way, believe it or not.
It goes a long way. It is critical to live in harmony with God. That requires holiness. And we've got to discuss holiness a little bit because the unsanctified life is not interested in holiness.
He's going to use Esau as an example of that in a little while. But Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God, that's what the demons called him and they were right. The demons could recognize who he was.
Many people cannot. We know who you are, the Holy One of God. Jesus said you got that right.
And we are to recognize the same thing. Now holiness, it includes purity, principles established by God. But some make holiness out to be sinlessness in men. And that is not the case in this life. If God said you have to be holy and that meant you also have to be sinless, then we'd be done. But it does mean that we pursue holiness and sinlessness. We are fully given to that as best we can. We are totally on board with God.
We are not opposed to his requirements and his request. And when we fall or falter, it is not because we want to. The flesh does.
We understand. But the spiritual man totally knows it's wrong. Without that, you cannot have peace with God. Without that, there is no salvation. To be opposed to God's holiness and say, well, you know, I think that's a bit overboard.
I think that if two men want to get married, they can. This is not right. This is sin. And we're hated for saying we don't agree with you. You're there free to agree with us and we're not free to hate them back. But they will disagree with us and then you'll find even Christians caving on this. Oh, that's so mean.
Is it not? Look, if standing by what God says is mean, then I'm mean. If you want to carve your little definitions and play with your words to accuse me of being that which you think I am, then have at it.
But as for me and my house, we will side with the Lord. And this is something that it's not easy to communicate to the lost. Because on one hand, you want to take them and shake them and say, are you out of your mind? And on the other hand, you want to say, look, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. So how do you balance the two? Well, when I figure it out, I'll preach on it. I mean, it just comes down to sometimes you have to be right between the eyes with it and other times you have to just be more sensitive.
Depends on, you know, you've got to find the right lid for each pot. But back to this. Without which no one will see the Lord. That's rather forceful, wouldn't you say? That's rather, there's something eternal and final about that. If you don't get holiness, holiness is our relationship with God. Righteousness is our relationship with men based on our holy relationship with God. Holiness involves purity. It means we filtered out all the things that we know God is very serious about and what he says. And we've accepted that against everything else. That's holiness. That's a portion of it.
And those who disagree with that suffer. Leviticus 10. Some of you know that just that chapter alone reminds you of Nadab and Abihu. Two of the first priests in Israel. The two eldest sons of Aaron, the first high priest of Israel. At the day God sent fire down to kindle the offerings, to bless the nation. But these two men decided to do something outside the box that God had put on the congregation that day. Leviticus 10 verse 3. Well, before I read the verse.
So fire came down from heaven and struck the two men dead. Aaron, their father and the first high priest of the nation, there with Moses. Moses says this, and Moses said to Aaron, This is what Yahweh spoke saying, by those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy. And before all the people, I must be glorified. So Aaron held his peace.
Because there was no comeback to that. As sad and tragic as that moment, I don't even want to try to imagine being Aaron at that moment. The point of the scripture, and where the writer of Hebrews is going, and they would have known that, without holiness there's no relationship. By those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy, as pure, as higher than anything else. No auxiliary God.
No alternate Gods. Jesus said it this way, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. How do you get a pure heart agreeing with Jesus? That's how you side with Him. And so some want help in this life from God.
This might illustrate what I'm trying to say better. Some want help from God, they just don't want His holiness. I just want God to bless me, but I don't want to have to abide by the Ten Commandments, for example. Thou shall not lie. Thou shall not covet. How about that one?
That gets everybody. Thou shall have no false Gods before me, no other Gods before me, pardon me. So this holiness, if you want God's help, it has to have holiness on it. Again, Wednesday night, Rehoboam the king, he wanted God's help.
When Shishak the Egyptian king came rolling up north into his territory, to take all that he wanted, Rehoboam submitted to God. But he never got holiness. He just wanted the help from God. And as a result, the Bible tells us at the end of his life, he did evil because he did not seek the Lord.
See, this makes it doable for every human being, no matter how weak or strong you may find yourself to be. You can seek the Lord your God. You're to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Mark's gospel, it's all about Jesus. Christ, the Lord. That view only comes from a heart that's been born again and is in the holiness of God.
And so, things for us to consider. Verse 15, he says, Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. Well, he is just rolling it out. This is just hitting them left and right. Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God.
Well, that's spooky. Who wants to fall short with God? Okay, so again, you're standing on a cliff and there's another cliff, I don't know, five feet away from you and there's something chasing you and all you have to do is jump across to the other side. What happens if you fall short? You don't make it. That's what happens.
I mean, what happens if, you know, you're just a mile offshore, drowning, and you make it a half mile, but you don't make it all the way, then you fall short. So, when you read this description, we don't decide, well, let's theologically make this fit our theology. We look at it for what it says. Remember, these Jewish Christians, these Hebrews at this time, were looking to abandon Christianity and go back to Judaism or mingle Judaism with Christianity.
And the writer is saying, don't you do it, because if you do, you will fall short of the grace of God. You've been listening to Cross-Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply log on to crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross-Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com, or simply search for Cross-Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Hebrews, right here on Cross-Reference Radio.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-04-27 14:39:11 / 2023-04-27 14:48:48 / 10