Kootenai Church Morning Worship

Turn now if you will to Hebrews 12. We're starting Hebrews 12 this morning. Having finished chapter 11 last week, you might have been able to predict that the next chapter was going to be 12. Sometimes the chapter divisions that are there in the text of Scripture can trick us into thinking that there is some break in the passage, some break in the flow of thought. And we always need to remind ourselves that chapter divisions were not added until hundreds of years after the passages were written, and verse divisions were added even later than that. And so it does us well sometimes—I think we are well served to remind ourselves to put out of our minds as much as we can the chapter divisions and the verse divisions when we are reading and studying Scripture so that we can see the flow of the passage and get the argument of the author and read it and understand it in the way that the original audience would have. Because in their minds, in their text, there were no chapter divisions or verse divisions.
But the chapter division in this case does allow us the opportunity to zoom out a little bit and to remind ourselves of where we're at in the book of Hebrews and how all of these final passages in the book of Hebrews fit together. There is a division at the beginning of chapter 12, or what we mark as Chapter 12. There is a division in this sense: the author is moving on from the examples that he gives us in chapter 11 to applying the lessons that we learn from those examples in chapters 12 and 13. So he's done with the Old Testament examples of men who persevered and endured in faith, and now he's moving on to exhortations of faith.
And as we went through chapter 11, we dove deep into the lives of those men and women who are mentioned there in chapter 11. We took all of thirty-seven sermons to work through all of those examples in chapter 11. I know it doesn't seem like it was that much, does it? It seems like it just went by like that for all of us. Unless you're a postmillennialist; then it felt like a long, insufferable train of spiritual abuses that you wanted to get to the end of. But for the rest of us, it went by really quickly.
It was almost a year that we spent looking at those examples, but now we kind of come to where the author has turned a corner of sorts, and it's good to zoom out, to kind of come up to the surface and get sort of an overview of the landscape of these last couple of chapters, remind ourselves of what the author has started to do back in chapter 10, actually, and how that sort of unfolds all the way through the rest of the book. So that's what we're doing this morning. I'm just going to give you an overview of these next two chapters of Hebrews. We're going to go through chapter 12. I'm going to give you something of an outline of chapter 12 and show you how the author wraps up with application and exhortations the grand and glorious truths that he has unpacked for us in chapters 1–10.
So chapters 1–10 are very doctrinal. Chapter 11 is filled with examples of the kind of faith that is the response to the truth that he gives us in the first ten chapters. And then chapters 12 and 13 are these admonitions and exhortations, these commands of what it looks like to live a faithful life. So go back now, if you will. We're not going to go back to the beginning of the book of Hebrews, certainly, but just into chapter 10. Turn back to Hebrews 10. I probably should have just told you to do that instead of turning to Hebrews 12, but that might have exhausted your patience. You would’ve been like, “We're back in chapter 10 again? What happened to chapter 11?”
Back in chapter 10, the author extolled the glories of Christ and His sacrifice, that once-for-all, perfect sacrifice whereby in one offering He has done what millions of animal sacrifices under the old covenant could never have done, namely to perfect forever, to perfectly atone for, and to pay the sin penalty for all those for whom that sacrifice was made. This was something that all the thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of animal sacrifices under the old covenant could never do. But what could never be accomplished by the blood of bulls and goats has been accomplished by the blood of God's only Son. He has perfected forever all those who are sanctified. So chapter 10 is this explanation, a long theological explanation of the superiority of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice to all of the forms and the functions and the animal sacrifices of the old covenant.
Look at chapter 10, verse 10: “By this will [that is, the will of God] we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” That is a glorious phrase. Once for all. Not the millions of sacrifices, not the countless feasts, not the countless festivals, not all of the offerings, not all the gifts, and not that priesthood. But now we have been perfectly made complete, total, and whole by the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Chapter 10, verses 12–14: “But He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”
Look down to verse 18 now: “Where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin.”
And the application of this glorious truth—that in the one death of Christ, through the one sacrifice of that better blood by a better priest to inaugurate a better covenant, He has done something that all the Old Testament forms and functions could never do—the response to that, the application of that, is laid out beginning in verse 22. It is very simple, and it is clear. You and I are to draw near, to hold fast, and to encourage others to do the same. Do you remember that outline? We spent three or four weeks on that. We are to draw near, to hold fast, and to encourage others to do the same.
Verse 22: “Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.” That is a call to faith. You see, given what Christ has accomplished in His sacrifice, you and I are to draw near to God and to respond in obedient faith, to draw near in full assurance of faith. We're called to respond this way, to trust God's Word and what it says concerning the sacrifice of Christ on behalf of those for whom He has died. And in response to that, we are to, with faith, with belief and trust in God's Word and what it reveals concerning His death, we are to draw near unto God. That is the invitation.
And it is not faith to doubt the sufficiency of Christ's work. It is not faith to doubt whether or not His sacrifice on the cross was sufficient to pay the debt for all of my sin. It is not faith to wonder as to whether or not I am included in that sacrifice. Faith is expressed when we draw near unto God and believe what God's Word says concerning the sacrifice and the death of Christ on our behalf.
And then having drawn near, you and I are to hold fast to that, to endure in that faith, not just to draw near and then fall back. Not to draw near and then fall away. Not to come near and then distance ourselves again. But having drawn near, to hold fast to that. Verse 23: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” This is the call to enduring faith. The examples that we looked at in chapter 11 were men and women who, having drawn near to God, endured in faith, waited for the fulfillment of God's promise, and trusted Him and His Word and what He said. You and I are to emulate that exact same kind of faith, the faith that draws near and then the faith that holds fast.
And our drawing near and our holding fast is to be done inside of a community of believing people who have done likewise. They have all drawn near, they have all held fast, and then, having done those two things, we are to encourage others to do the same. Verse 24: “Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” And we can't leave verse 25 out of the mix because this addresses our coming together and doing this as part of a corporate body. Verse 25: “Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” He is going to return to this theme of assembling in chapter 12. But I want you to notice here we are to draw near, to hold fast, and then to encourage others to do the same. These things we are to do in terms of the corporate body of believers, something we do together.
And then verse 26 begins a warning. The one who does not draw near and the one who will not hold fast to this once-for-all perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ has no further sacrifice available for their sins. But in the words of verse 27, they can expect nothing but “a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries” because they will fall into the hands of the living God. And that is a terrifying, terrifying thing. In other words, neglect that sacrifice, do not heed the warning of judgment that is to come, and you have nothing to look forward to except the terrifying expectation of fiery judgment when God consumes those who will not draw near and hold fast and join with others in encouraging one another to do the same.
Now that's a warning to unbelievers who are pretending to be believers. But it does not describe those of us who are believers. Verse 39 does. “We are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.” Those with that soul-preserving faith will endure all of the reproaches that are listed in verses 32–35. The one who is righteous by faith will live righteously by faith, looking forward to, as it says in verse 35, the great reward that is to come. So that is not to say then that persevering is easy. It's not to say that enduring is simple and that it is effortless. But it is to say that all those with the kind of faith modeled in Hebrews 11, the kind of faith that draws near and holds fast, all of them have that faith to the preserving of the soul, and all of them will persevere and will endure all the way to the end, never falling back to destruction, but always holding fast and holding on to the Savior who has saved them.
Now, are there examples of people in Scripture who have drawn near to God, held fast to Him, and endured through hostility, through persecution, through suffering and affliction, through good times and bad, to trust in something that they had to wait even a very long time to receive as a reward from God? Are there examples of such men and women? Why, yes there are. That's what Hebrews 11 is all about. And then we have this list of examples of those who have drawn near and held fast and encouraged others to do the same.
So chapter 10 shows us the necessity of faith for righteousness. Chapter 11 gives us examples of men who had faith to righteousness. And then chapters 12 and 13 are the admonitions and exhortations to those who have that faith to continue and persevere in lives of righteousness. So we turn something of a corner at chapter 12, where we have moved on now to some admonitions and exhortations.
And I hope you see, by the way, how all of this is connected, how the exhortations in chapter 12 are grounded in the realities of the salvation of faith that we have in chapters 11 and 10. In fact, chapter 12, verse 14, says we are to “pursue . . . sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” Well, that exhortation to pursue sanctification is grounded in the amazing truth that we find all the way back in chapter 10, verse 14, that “by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” You see, it is our positional sanctification in Jesus Christ that enables us and strengthens us to persevere and to pursue sanctification, which He has purchased for us by His death.
So all the admonitions of chapters 12 and 13, those exhortations, those commands, these statements that we're going to read in these two chapters, they are all grounded and rooted in the realities of the gospel. That one-time, once-for-all death of Jesus Christ, that is what enables us to obey these exhortations. If it were not for His sacrifice on our behalf, we would never be able to understand the reality of these commands, let alone obey them with affectionate hearts that long to be sanctified and to live righteously through that obedience. It's all because of what Christ has done, explained in chapters 1–10, that we are able to follow the examples of chapter 11 and the exhortations of chapters 12 and 13.
So as we go through 12 and 13, I'm going to try as often as we can to ground the exhortations and admonitions of these two chapters back into the truths that we have sort of seen as we've worked our way through the first nine chapters of the book. And when we get to chapter 12, we turn something of a corner. It's a corner, I guess, that was turned back in chapter 10, but it becomes more apparent in chapter 12, and that is that the author is done explaining the long theological details of the old covenant versus the new covenant. You get to the middle of chapter 10, before that exhortation to let us draw near, to let us hold fast, and to let us encourage others to do the same. Right when you get to that, you get to the end of the long theological treaties on various subjects. We saw that in the first ten chapters. We don't have that in the last few chapters. It's not that the death of Christ is not mentioned in the final chapters—because it is. It's mentioned in chapter 12 and it's mentioned in chapter 13. But it is that the explanations of those realities are in the first ten chapters.
Do you remember the time we spent talking about Melchizedek? How long and insufferable that was? That was some long, dry stuff, wasn't it? I mean, it wasn't Ecclesiastes long and dry, but it was in its own right. This long explanation of these nuances from the Old Testament, we don't get that anymore in chapters 12 and 13. Now, he's all about encouraging us to live righteously in light of everything that we have learned.
So we have in chapter 12 all of these admonitions. Let me give you an outline for chapter 12, and we're going to read it here in just a moment, not the whole thing at once, but we're going to read through it all before we're done today. And then I'm just going to give you a brief survey of chapter 13. In verses 1–3 of chapter 12—those are familiar verses to you. Let your eyes just kind of look over that. There we are encouraged to endure hostility. Then down beginning at verse 4 of chapter 12 through verse 17, we're encouraged to embrace discipline that comes to us as those who are sons by faith. And then in verses 18–29, we are to expect the kingdom. We are to endure hostility, embrace discipline, and expect the kingdom.
If we were going to do just one sermon on Hebrews 12, that would be it. In fact, if you wanted a brief description of what the Christian life entails while we wait in faith for the King to return and to bring to us the reward, I don't think that you could get any better than that summary statement: that we are to endure hostility, we are to embrace His discipline, and we are to expect the kingdom. There is an element of perseverance there, which has been a theme throughout the book of Hebrews. There is an element there of enduring the sufferings, which has been a theme throughout the book of Hebrews. And then there is the element of expecting the reward that is to come. Endure that hostility from sinners, embrace the discipline that comes to us from the loving hand of the Father, and while you're doing that, expect the kingdom.
Let's look first at the example of Jesus, where we are encouraged to endure the hostility. Verses 1–3:
1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (NASB)
See, all of the examples that the author gives to us are not just found in chapter 11. Here is an example that comes to us at the beginning of chapter 12. But the example is not of one who lived by faith. Jesus is not an example to us of one who had faith. Catch that. Everybody in chapter 11 is an example of those who had faith and persevered. Jesus did not have faith. Jesus is the object of faith, He is the author of faith, and He is the perfecter of faith. But He is not an example of one who had faith. Instead, He is the one who gives us faith.
And notice the connection here between enduring reproach and the reward. You'll notice the word endure or endurance is there three times in that passage. In verse 1, we are to “run with endurance the race that is set before us.” How are we to do that? By “fixing our eyes on Jesus, . . . who for the joy set before Him endured the cross” (v. 2). Verse 3: “For consider Him who has endured such hostility.” There is the theme of endurance. Remember that goes back all the way into chapter 10. At the end of chapter 10 in that warning passage, the author said to his audience, “You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised.” Right? We need endurance.
The mark of faith is not an emotional response to a truth that you hear or something that comes out of man by which we just react to a song that we sing or a really good message by a really good preacher. That is not the mark of faith. The mark of true, genuine saving faith is endurance. The one who can suffer affliction, the one who can face tribulation, the one who can endure through all of life's trials and come out the other end with their faith intact and their confident belief in God, that is true and genuine saving faith. And that is what the author wants to work in us. That's what he wants to see.
So if we are to ask for the most ultimate example, it's not the example of faith. It's the example of Jesus. It's the example of endurance. Consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, so that you will not what? Grow weary and lose heart. He doesn't want us to grow weary and lose heart.
And notice the connection with the reward that Jesus gets for His endurance—for the joy set before Him. There's the reward. Reward has been a theme of ours since back in chapter 10, right? Remember, those who endure faith's reproach receive faith's reward. Jesus, for the reward that was set before Him, endured the cross and despised its shame. We do not want to be among those who shrink back, but among those who hold fast to the preserving of the soul. So you want an example of endurance? It is Jesus, and He endured that hostility.
You and I are going to face hostility from sinners, and we can trust that even in the face of hostility, God is accomplishing His purposes, He is accomplishing His work, and that sovereignly, all of those things come into our lives so that He may produce in our lives the peaceable fruits of righteousness. See, the affliction that comes against the righteous by virtue of their faith because they are the faithful, that affliction, that suffering, that hostility is not wasted. Rather, it is used by a sovereign God to refine His people, to purge us of sin, and to set our affections on heavenly things. So the Father doesn't waste any of that hostility. In the lives of His people, He uses it as a form of discipline so that we be purged of sins and pursue the sanctification without which no one can see the Lord.
And that brings us to verse 4. Not only are we to endure hostility, we are to embrace the discipline that comes to us as sons. Verse 4:
4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
6 for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you [there's our word again] endure. (Heb. 12:4–7 NASB)
This is all connected. This idea of endurance goes all the way back to chapter 10. “You have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised” (Heb. 10:36). You will not receive what is promised if you do not endure. Now, am I suggesting that you will lose your salvation and your eternal reward? No. But I am suggesting that those who do not endure to the end were never saved to begin with. The mark of true, genuine saving faith is that endurance that goes all the way to the end.
Verse 7:
7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?
8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.
11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Heb. 12:7–11 NASB)
That subject of discipline—and this is not talking about church discipline, by the way, confronting a brother in sin and bringing it before the body. That's a different kind of discipline. This passage is often treated on its own, as if it is sort of a standalone subject. But you can see with the reference to endurance that the idea of discipline is not isolated from its context. It is the suffering and affliction and hostility that the unbelieving world pours out against the church which the loving Father uses to bring discipline into the lives of His people.
There is nothing like suffering to make us holy. I tremble to even say that, lest the Lord say, “I think Jim needs to be more holy.” I don't even want to have to say those words. But it's true. There is nothing like suffering to make us holy, because suffering reveals the true nature of our faith, and it makes us long for the world that is to come, and it makes us see how paltry sin is, how horrible sin is, and to pursue sanctification. And so the Father, the loving Father, uses suffering in the lives of His people to train us and to teach us in endurance.
If you want to produce endurance in somebody's life, you give them opposition, you give them hostility, you make them suffer. That will produce endurance. And if Jesus, the perfect and holy Son, if He had to endure hostility against Himself, how much more you and I? How much more should you and I?
In Hebrews 12, this endurance, this righteous end, this sanctification, is to be worked out amongst a body of believers. Chapter 12, verses 12–13: “Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.” There is a healing and strengthening purpose in discipline that the author mentions in verses 12–13. This purpose is to bear fruit in the body of Christ.
And you and I have a role in this. After talking about discipline in verses 12–13, he wants to make sure that we apply this idea of discipline and that we work out amongst us, with each other, these purposes, help each other—how do I say this? We help—that's the wrong way of saying it too. We work with the Lord in accomplishing His disciplinary purposes in our lives as we work in community with one another to strengthen the weak and to strengthen the knees that are feeble. So if I see somebody going through discipline or I see somebody facing hostility, there is a role for the rest of us in the body of Christ to come alongside them and see to it that we are working alongside God to accomplish those sanctifying and redeeming purposes in the hostility that they face. That's the idea in verses 12–13.
Notice the change of focus is from the individual now to the corporate body, which he continues in verse 14: “Pursue peace with all men.” Now listen, if we were intended as Christians to be isolated mavericks on our own, doing our own thing, isolated from the body of Christ, there would be no need for such a command as you find in verse 14 to pursue peace with all men. But the reality is when you bring sinners into a congregation together, seat them next to each other, and do life together, there are opportunities for conflict and misunderstanding to come up. And when that happens, you “pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord” (v. 14).
Now these are body commands in terms of the entire church body. Verse 15:
15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;
16 that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.
17 For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. (Heb. 12:15–17 NASB)
These are warnings to be heeded amongst the entire church body. Sanctification and holiness and righteousness is a community pursuit. We're to do this as an assembly together. The Christian life is a life lived in a body of people. It's not intended for us to be isolated and by ourselves and out doing our own thing, but it is to be done in the context of a local gathering together. Remember his command from chapter 10, verse 25: “Not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” This is how we stimulate one another to love and to good deeds. In order to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, there must be an assembling together of the saints. There must be a life lived out in community. That's the focus of verses 14–17.
Now, speaking of communities and assemblings and the gathering together of peoples, here's another contrast between the Old Testament, old covenant gathering of people, beginning in verse 18, and the gathering that we have under the new covenant. Verse 18:
18 For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind,
19 and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them.
20 For they could not bear the command, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned.”
21 And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, “I am full of fear and trembling.” (Heb. 12:18–21 NASB)
And that's a reference to that original assembly of the children of Israel coming out and receiving the law at Mount Sinai. Remember the thunderings and the warnings and the threatenings? Those are for a disobedient and stiff-necked and hard-hearted people. But we're not amongst those people. Instead, verse 22 says we
22 have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels,
23 to the general assembly and church 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, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. (Heb. 12:22–24 NASB)
You get the impression there that the author is just exhausting his vocabulary to describe all of the great graces and blessings that are ours in Jesus Christ and that are ours as we participate together. We've not come to the foot of a mountain, to cower in fear at the foot of that mountain, wondering if the thunderings of judgment will fall upon us. Oh no. The thunderings of judgment that belong to us have fallen on another so that now we can come to the mountain of God and do what? Draw near and hold fast and encourage others to do the same. So we are now able to draw near, just as he has told us back in chapter 10, and to hold fast, just as he told us in chapter 10. Why? Because we have come to the church of the firstborn. We have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, to the myriad of angels. Ours is all of the blessings, all of the grace. We have a greater light, a greater revelation, a greater salvation, a perfect city, a better mediator, a better covenant, a better sacrifice, a better blood.
And so the obvious conclusion then is if you neglect all of that and if you don't listen to all of that, how will you escape on judgment day? If you think you can escape the all-searching One who sees all and knows all, if you think you can somehow skirt around Him on judgment day and get out of that condemnation, having not drawn near by faith and held fast— So there's a warning in verse 25. The warning, then, is the fifth and final warning passage. “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven” (Heb. 12:25). You see, there's an argument from the lesser to the greater. And this is another warning passage.
Some people say that this warning passage starts back at the beginning of verse 18, and I'd be fine with that because he does set up the sense of judgment there and thundering and what we have been given and sort of the “they had this, and we have this. What we have is greater, therefore how shall we escape?” So he comes to the conclusion—really the whole point of that warning passage in verse 25—if you refuse Him who is speaking, how will you escape? How much less will we escape if we turn away from Him who warns from Heaven?
Verse 26—here is a picture of eschatological, end-times judgment.
26 And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.”
27 This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. (Heb. 12:26–27 NASB)
And when we get to that passage, we'll have an opportunity to go back into the Old Testament and look at what the Old Testament warnings are concerning those eschatological judgments that he is just briefly referencing here in this passage. This is judgment. This is the final judgment. And he's warning us here that there is a final judgment that is to come, and only a fool would ignore those warnings.
God has an incredible track record of warning of judgments and then fulfilling His word. It's unbelievable. So far, it's 100 percent. Now, I have no reason to believe whatsoever that He's going to bat 99 or 98 percent by the time it's all wrapped up and said and done. So far, it's 100 percent. God warns of a judgment that is to come, and people ignore those warnings, and then they face judgment.
And here the author is drawing the conclusion that these thunderings and threatenings that were there under the old covenant, God fulfilled that when He judged His people for their sin. If you refuse to heed, to draw near, and to hold fast and encourage others to do the same, then those final, eschatological judgments will fall upon you. All the curses, all the damnation, all the just judgment for your sin. Continue on in your blindness, continue on in your love for sin, refuse to heed His warnings, and you will face it. There is a judgment that is coming. It is a sobering warning in verse 25 to those who will refuse that judgment.
The good news and the glorious news of the gospel is that those of us who are in Jesus Christ, who have repented of our sins, we have come to One and we have drawn near to One by faith who has borne all of those judgments for us in our stead and in our place. And therefore, we who are in Jesus Christ, we get to expect the kingdom. Verse 28: “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken. . .” That final judgment in which everything is shaken—in other words, it's all dissolved, it is all judged, it all comes crumbling down, it is all destroyed. We receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken. “Let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire” (vv. 28–29).
Verse 28, that's our joy. We get to offer to God acceptable service with reverence and with awe. It is the joy of those who are in Jesus Christ to do that, to serve the Lord in that way. But we are to do so with reverence and awe. Why? The statement in verse 29 is for you and I. “Our God is a consuming fire.” So here are these two very awkward things that do go together. We are to draw near, and our God is a consuming fire. And we have to have in our minds both of those realities.
I think that verse 29 is there to explain to us why it is that we serve with reverence and awe, why we should not think that God is our chummy buddy, that we can cuddle up next to Him like He's a stuffed purple dinosaur, that we wrap our arms around Him, we speak of Him flippantly, we think of Him flippantly, we approach Him with flippancy, without any kind of reverence or awe. We ought not to do that. We ought to draw near while remembering that our God is a consuming fire.
Now, it's not going to consume us as believers. It will consume the unrighteous. But He is still our God, who is a consuming fire. We have been brought near. We have come to His grace. We have received His blessings. We can approach His throne. We do have a mediator who stands between us and the Father. We have been brought into and given an eternal kingdom. And it is true that all of the end-times judgments fall upon those who will not draw near by faith. And it is true that all of the end-times blessings fall upon the head of those who do draw near by faith. But let us not forget that our God is a consuming fire.
Yeah, we get to draw near. We have that blessing. We have an unbelievable grace. Don't forget the grace that he mentioned at the end of that section, verses 18–24. We have come to this mountain. We're not among the children of Israel who came up to the foot of the mountain and heard the thunderings and the quakings and the shakings and the threats of judgment. That is not our lot. We're part of a different assembly. We're part of the assembly that has been brought near to the mediator who has shed a better blood and inaugurated a better covenant and gives us better intercession. He's a better priest. We have all of this grace and all of this revelation. That is all true. But let us not embrace that thinking that we can do so with a flippancy and irreverence. We do approach Him, because He is a consuming fire, giving Him acceptable service with reverence and awe.
Now, what does acceptable service with reverence and awe look like? That's chapter 13. So in chapter 12, we are to endure hostility, we are to embrace the discipline, and we are to expect a kingdom. In chapter 13 we are to engage in good deeds. I want you to get a survey just of the things that are in chapter 13. Many of these passages will be familiar to you, so I just want your eyes to glance down over chapter 13 as we wrap this up.
Verse 1—here's what acceptable service with reverence and awe looks like: We love the brethren. Verse 2, we show hospitality. Verse 3, remember the prisoners. Verse 4, keep your marriage bed undefiled. Verse 5, you stay free from the love of money and be content with what you have. Verse 7, honor your leaders. Verse 9, guard against false teachers and false teachings. Verse 13, gladly the reproach of Christ. Verse 15, offer sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. Verse 16, do good and share with others. Verse 17, obey your leaders. Verse 18, pray for others. That's the big picture of the book of Hebrews.
What are you and I to do with that great sacrifice of Jesus Christ, given that it is a reality, given that it was offered on our behalf and has paid the price for our sins? We are to draw near, to hold fast, encourage others to do the same, to approach God with the same kind of faith that the Old Testament saints approached God with, following the example of Jesus in enduring hostility, embracing the Father's discipline as those who are His sons, anticipating and expecting the kingdom while we engage in good deeds. That is what you and I are to do while He leaves us here and we wait for the return of the King.