The Book of Hebrews 12:12-17 The Sanctification
Hebrews 12:12-17 · Vern Peterman · Jul 20, 2014
Hebrews, No. 61
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926434547544

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. Those were all great songs. I still am puzzled, though. I have no idea what I would do with 1,000 tongues. I have difficulty with the one that I have, right? OK, anyway. We are back in Hebrews after taking the month of June and the last two weeks on top of that to address parenting issues.

Of course, last couple of Sundays, we've looked at defense of the faith. kinds of questions and We're actually going to touch on that slightly here in this message And we'll see what that is when we get there Hebrews begins with explanation and finishes with exhortation five times we pointed this out in the past and Here we are now in chapter 12. We're resuming in the passage that Randy read for us verses 12 through 17 and And so we're going to return to that and continue on in our study with the book of Hebrews and the rest of chapter 12 and then on into 13 and finish up the book then.

One of the things we're going to find as we go through this passage and on into the rest of the chapter is that there is an increasing focus upon the body of Christ. And we're going to kind of see some additional warnings and rather intense things, but a general shift towards the body of Christ as a whole. There will be also a number of short exhortations, that is one or maybe two verse exhortations that come along as well. And so we're going to see a kind of a change of pattern there. All of this, whether it's warnings, intense statements and whatnot, are to build up the body of Christ and the individuals who make it up.

One other thing we're going to run into, this question, can I mess up God's discipline? Can I mess up God's discipline? Believers, yes, can and believers do mess up God's discipline. God's discipline is not failing. But we can fail, and as a matter of fact, this passage here contains some guidance, direction to the body of Christ, to individuals, on how to avoid messing up God's discipline. We can indeed take a wrong turn, and so this passage kind of gives several pointers on how to avoid that wrong turn. This passage tells us a few things, what the body of Christ ought to do, And that's the first couple of verses here, as well as what the person under discipline ought to do, and it gives warnings about what not to do and directions not to head.

You see, when we're under God's discipline, it's easier, it's easy rather, for us to try to find some kind of an out. The way one pastor put it, he said, I have people come to me and they want me to help them take the rock out of their road, right? And sometimes God wants the rock in the road. And I don't want to be a part of taking the rock out of the road when somebody needs to have a rock in the road. If that's God's discipline.

Now let's start with Hebrews 12, 12 and 13. Take a look at that. 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.

Alright, so what's this pair of verses about here? Is he saying that I should take up weightlifting? Is that what I need to do? Is that strengthening the hands that are weak? It looks like this guy kind of went too far. Anyway, it's probably more like this.

Like the beginning of the chapter, these two verses make reference to athletic analogies. Remember the beginning of it? It talked about letting loose of every encumbrance and every sin that entangles, and that I run the race set before me. And then it changes to Christ's race, where He, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross. So, in reference to athletic analogies made here.

So what's he talking about with all this strength in the hands and the knees and all these things? He's gotten through talking about discipline. Discipline. Now, God's discipline of a believer, because he doesn't discipline unbelievers. They've got something else coming on. God's discipline of a believer can be overwhelming at times. Exhausting. Can be difficult for people to handle and that's really what he's talking about here when we see a fellow believer who is under God's discipline as is the case here or a Related thing they're going through a trial Not because God's you know disciplining them, but that God has that trial there for their growth Others in the body of Christ ought to come along ought to come along alongside Now, one of the questions that also comes, he says, strength in the hands, where does strength come from?

Well, ultimately, spiritual strength comes from the Lord. The Lord himself, he has no limitations of strength and might and power. God has no place at which he says, I'm sorry, I've given it all I've got. In this pair of verses we see that strength from the Lord comes through the believers in the body of Christ. Ah, isn't that interesting?

So those who are walking in dependence upon and in fellowship with the Lord and receiving His strength and power and might are then to come alongside those who have been disciplined by the Lord and are getting to the place where they can just barely keep going, barely keep doing things.

God's intent is that we in the body of Christ be, okay now let's keep these words straight, interdependently dependent upon the Lord. I once heard it said, we should be independently dependent upon the Lord. I thought, wait a minute, that's not quite right. Because there should be an interdependent aspect to it, between one another, depending upon the Lord. So interdependently depending upon the Lord. The body of Christ we all rely upon the Lord. There are times when one person's dependence upon the Lord is the means that God uses to reach and to aid and to come alongside another believer. We are interdependently dependent upon the Lord. Key truth here. Now, you have, and this is a half page on the bottom part of page one, you have a number of different verses here that talk about the strength and the might that comes from the Lord.

Here's an example, Romans 15.1, Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves.

So, you see that? That's the same kind of teaching as you saw there in Hebrews 12, 12 and 13. Those who are without strength, those whose hands are weak, whose knees are feeble, those other believers who have, at that time, good strength and dependence from the Lord, are then to come alongside. And so you see that here.

In Ephesians chapter 1, this is the English translation that says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. The reality is, the Greek says, I pray that the eyes of your hearts, having been enlightened, so that you'll know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.

By the way, that's His inheritance in us. Isn't that amazing? His inheritance in the saints. And what is the surpassing? That's the overthrown greatness. That's the mega, by the way. Mega. The greatness of His power toward us, and that word toward actually means into us. Power into us who believe these are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might, which He brought about in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places. Do you realize the magnitude of the power that God has directed into us, into you and me as believers? It's resurrection power. It's the kind of power that raises Christ from the dead to being alive forevermore. That kind of power. That's the kind of power that's directed into us, and that's where the strength and power that we are given can be directed to other believers who are going through it, whatever it is.

Ephesians 6.10, finally be strong in the Lord and the strength of His might. It's His strength and power that we're dependent upon.

We're going to find out as we get into Hebrews 13.9. Grace does something else. Look at this. Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings. We've got plenty of those around. For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace. Grace doesn't just say, oh, well, I'm not so uptight about all the sins yet. anymore. Grace strengthens. It does something. It's active. It is the agent.

So we'll see that more when we get to Hebrews 13.9. People tend to have a diminutive understanding of grace. That's something we're going to take a look at when we get there. Grace is far more massive and grace is far more impacting and far more essential Then we understand.

Here is 1 Peter 4.11 and 5.10.

Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking the utterance of God. Whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies. By the strength which God supplies. 510, after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. It's God's strength that we're talking about here, not our own.

Now, we have references to hands and knees. What's that talking about? The hands speak to what people do. And so weak hands can't do very much. So, the discipline that at least some of these believers have been under is making them barely able to do or accomplish anything. And the knees, as key parts of a person's ability to walk and to stand and to endure a weight, speak to a believer's ability to make progress and to endure under the circumstances. Weak knees in believers means that they can't make spiritual progress and can't even hold themselves up. Or is landscaping the real issue here? Sometimes our paths can get pretty crooked.

The expression in the Bible, this comes back to Proverbs, okay? Trust in the Lord with all your heart and he will make your paths straight, right? Straight paths here is an expression from the Bible. A straight path or paths means a path in which we do not stumble or head off course. A path in which we do not stumble or head off course. If you have curvy paths, you've got to watch out about the turns, right? because that may mean you're going to get into a problem. So straight paths means one we're not going to stumble or head off course.

This is using a figure of speech to convey the way in which we walk spiritually. That's a word that we've used here, spiritual walking. It ought to be the one that does not lead us to stumble or head off course. Some people will get into difficulty and actually spiritually injure themselves by stumbling and they actually will choose to repeat that stumbling pattern.

It is a matter of the flesh that what the flesh likes to do is, do you have a weakness in this area? Hey, let's go there again. Right? That's what the flesh does. The flesh likes to align itself with our weaknesses and keeps bringing us back there. That's why you have people with addictions. That's why you have people with obsessions. The flesh keeps taking us back to the place where we're going to stumble.

He's saying, don't go on those stumbling places. Make the path straight. Make the path straight. Now it talks in this passage also about lame or healed. And he's basically saying, look, if you pick your path, that's going to determine the outcome here. The path which causes you spiritual joint injury from stumbling will not be a good one.

Though the flesh wants to keep returning you back to that area of stumbling. When I see that guy, he always makes me mad. When I come to this issue in my life, I always want to keep doing it again and again and again. It never works out, but I still get pulled there. Obsessions and addictions are areas where the flesh wants to pull us in that direction. He's saying, look out for this path. Look out for that place where you keep going back to the stumbling.

A walk with the Lord and with one another leads to spiritual healing and growth, both individually and for all of us together as a church body. A walk with the Lord and with one another leads to spiritual healing and growth individually and for all. One of the things that we've recognized doing counseling over time is if someone is having a difficulty of some kind, their resolution of that is frequently going to be growing out of it. Growing out of it. It is healing. It is growth. that is going to take us from whatever struggle we're having to the place where God wants us to be.

If someone chooses a path that causes that believer to stumble, then spiritual injury can happen. Just like this joint here that has a problem. If we keep picking the stumbling path, spiritual injury can happen. go on a straight path, a path that does not cause us to stumble, then spiritual healing can happen. So lame or healed, we pick one.

Let's look at Hebrews 12.14 here.

Pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. So pursue. While it is certainly critical that we believers understand our position and possessions in Christ, that does not mean that we have nothing to pursue. It is very important that we learn about our position and our possessions that we have in Christ, the things we have. But while it is important, it is also important to realize that we do have things to actively pursue, and two of them are given here. The author of Hebrews gives us two.

One, peace with all men. The person who is under-disciplined may get in the place of agitation and go around and start disrupting other relationships. Whether it's a believer or unbeliever, pursue peace with all men. We're going to take a look at more detail on that. Secondly, sanctification, also translated holiness in some of your Bibles. Being set apart for a special, and I'll add the word, spiritual purpose. Being set apart for a special spiritual purpose. There goes my thousand tongues. Okay.

Romans 12, 18. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Very similar message there, but notice the preface there. If possible, is it sometimes not possible? Yeah, it might be. So if possible, and I think this is an important criteria to recognize, it is not our job to seek peace at any cost. And we'll see more on that in a minute here.

It's not our job to seek peace at any cost. It is our job to, if possible, so far as it depends on our part, to be at peace with all men, believer and unbeliever alike. In some circumstances, it may not be possible, and we're not to seek peace at any price. We're not to seek peace at any price.

James 3, 17 and 18 gives us an additional insight here, and one of the reasons why it may not be possible. So James 3, 17 and 18, but the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable. I don't get peace at the expense of purity. I don't make compromises morally or spiritually in order to head for peace. It is not, again, peace at any price. It's not peace at any price. So we have some biblical guidance here on the seeking of peace. It's not just, I'm going to go out and get peace, and boy, I don't care what it takes, I'm going to get peace. Nope. If possible, so far it depends on you. First pure, then peaceable.

Important priority there. Now, there is the sanctification, and that's the second thing to pursue, the sanctification, and it is definite Article V. Sanctification, which is holiness, is being set apart for a special, and we'll insert, spiritual purpose. In our previous exploration of Hebrews, this is Hebrews 10, 10 and 14, we'll take a look at that, we said that our position We've, in our position, we have already been totally and completely sanctified.

Here is the church at Corinth. Lots of problems. Big, big problems. Lots of problems. But before Paul starts in with them, and boy does he have a list of issues, before he starts in with them, he tells them, you are sanctified completely. He uses it in the perfect tense like this. in the perfect tense as you're completely and totally sanctified in your position. Done deal. But there's also a progressive sanctification as we grow into the position that we already have. Got that? We grow into the position we already have. In our position, have we got some percentage sanctification? Nope. That's 100%. Done deal.

Already accomplished. accomplished in us, who believe, accomplished in those Corinthians. As believers, we are always catching up to what God has already done. That's what growth is. We're always catching up to what God has already done. So here's Hebrews 10, 10 and 14.

By this will we have been sanctified. That's perfect passive. through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. For by one offering is perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, a present passive." Now some people have the idea that this passive, perfect passive, is this. That's not quite right. Here, what we're going to look at is this.

If having been sanctified was done to us, that's what this passive means. It means that the sanctification was done to us. And in both verses, it's a passive. It means the sanctification is something that God does to us. Then how can we pursue it if God's the one who does it?

And we got a contradiction here. Oh, the Bible's full of contradictions. You heard that, right? Okay. Sanctification is pursued by the moment-by-moment living out of Christ's life in and through me. It starts by pursuing fellowship with Him. That's how it happens. No formula. There is no way to get there apart from fellowship and relationship with the Lord. That's how it happens.

Now there's this phrase, see the Lord. We've seen that we who believe we're sanctified in our position already. Completely, the moment you believe. See what happens is somebody presents the gospel. Do you believe that Christ died for your sins, was buried and rose again? Yes. Then you're saved. Now there's a whole bunch of things that God does, because how does God do things? He says, you believe, that's good, I'll do the rest.

And a whole bunch of things happen the moment we believe, and we're spending the rest of our lives catching up to what that was. When we go to see the Lord, and I hope He comes for us all today, when we go to see the Lord, our sanctification will be complete. We will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. But the author of Hebrews is pointing to the God-intended process of sanctification, what God is doing in the life of the believer. That process of sanctification is to take place between the time we were saved and sanctified in our position, done deal, and the time when we go to see the Lord when our position and our condition will be the same. We talk about our position, in our condition here at Holly Hills, and it's important to make that distinction. But when we go home to see the Lord, those will be one and the same, always, forever, for eternity.

Let's look at Hebrews 12.15 here. 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. Now, see to it is more than just make sure. But it actually means to oversee and watch circumspectively. That's the meaning of that word. But short of grace?

Grace is God's provision for living life. Do you have any provision from God that you earned? No. It was all given by grace. All of it by grace. To come short of the grace of God, Looks like this gymnast is coming short of the bar. Means to not take advantage of God's gracious provision for the life of the believer. God has graciously provided everything for us. Our position, our strength, everything. He has provided it all for us. The person who does not take advantage of that, though they could, is coming short of the grace of God.

It means to have a mindset, I'll do it all by myself. I'm all by myself. You know that song, You've Got to Walk That Lonesome Valley? Horse feathers! You do not have to walk that lonesome valley. As a matter of fact, don't you dare. That's not what God has in mind at all.

Now what we have here to get at the root of is motive, means, and opportunity. And you'll see that on the detective and lawyer shows on TV. Motive, means, and opportunity sound like the things that the prosecutors and the detectives look for, but it's a key set of words for the believer in how life gets lived. Motive, means, and opportunity. So let's take that. Grace is our motive.

How do I know that? Let me give you an example. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, if you do not forgive, your Heavenly Father will not forgive you. Whoa, that's pretty intense. But in Ephesians 4.32, the Apostle Paul says, forgive one another as God in Christ, notice the tense, has forgiven you. Forgive not in order to be forgiven, Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talking to the Israelites under the law, but forgive because you've been forgiven.

Grace. Grace motive. Okay? Grace motive. Forgive because you've been forgiven. You've already been forgiven, so just turn around and forgive another because of God's forgiveness of you. The means is God's enabling, energizing, and empowering. Those three E's. Enabling, energizing, and empowering. That's how God gets it done. Is it our job to get it done? No, it's His job through us. Big difference.

And the opportunity is the good works, this is Ephesians 2.10, the good works that God has prepared beforehand that we might walk in them. That's the opportunity. God does not want us to go out and do good works without a grace motive and without God's enabling, energizing, and empowering. God never asked, intended for you and me to do anything apart from a grace motive and His enabling and energizing and empowering.

Period. That's it. Now there's a warning in verse 15 about a root of bitterness. Now, how can this root of bitterness come along? God will have someone under His discipline And have you ever heard of somebody getting mad at God? And they not only get mad at God, they get bitter. Really bitter. Right? So they get bitter, and it starts off small, but maybe God brings in something else in their lives, and now they're really mad at God.

It was nothing before. Now this thing is blossoming. Can you imagine that? It looks ugly as it starts growing. I recently ran into this, this root of bitterness thing. I'm going to crank through something. There. This plant here, see that? It has a nice name. It's yellow sweet clover. Doesn't that sound nice? This is a noxious weed. I was digging some of this stuff out. Huge root, eh? This sweet-looking yellow plant with really nice green little leaves. Ugly root, eh? Ugly root. This root of bitterness is a problem.

Okay, now, bitterness can start small, and that is the insidious nature of bitterness. Oh, it's not a big problem. I can keep a handle on it. Not so much. This verse tells us, since many may be defiled, that bitterness can grow in its impact. It spreads. It spreads. It's like a disease. It's like this noxious weed. Pretty soon it's all over the place. Now, let's take a look at verse 16, and I'll start by reading verse 15 and work my way into it.

Now, Esau was sort of a real piece of work. His philosophy, when hungry, sell your birthright. Hey, that sounds like a good trade, right? Well, Jacob went back to his extended family for a wife or two, as he was to discover. Esau married a couple of local girls, Canaanites. Hey, I'll just marry... Hey, she looks good. Nah, she looks okay too. I'll pick those two, right? That's what he did.

Just marry local girls. Esau was apparently a good hunter, but had no idea how to choose what's important. aside from hit the target. He wasn't spiritually minded. Hunting, food, and a couple of Canaanite girls was all of life. That's as much as he does and sees. Hunt it. Eat it. Love the wives. That's life. No spiritual perspective whatsoever. None.

Now, I have something to point out here. And this is sort of an extra about Jacob and Esau. I presented it briefly in the elective right before this service. And it's an aside about Jacob and Esau that I think is as good a proof as any of the truth of the Bible. Is this God's word? If you had that question. Here is the kingdom of Edom at the south end of the Dead Sea as it was. That's the location.

This is the place where Esau set up home and where his descendants established themselves. Genesis 25 tells about the births of and the blessings on Jacob and Esau. And as you may well be aware, Isaac was tricked into giving the firstborn blessing to Jacob. And by the way, in the culture of the time, you couldn't undo it. If you gave something by mistake, even by deception, it could not be undone.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Obadiah, and Malachi all tell prophecies against the land and people of Esau. All of them tell prophecies against the land and people of Esau. There are no good prophecies about Edom and Esau. There aren't any. Obadiah even says that the line of Esau will be cut off, and it was in 70 AD. That's the last mention we have of them. And that, as a people, they just died out.

In contrast, there are about 13.5 to 15.5 million descendants of Jacob on the earth. And as we pointed out in the elective, not only since 1948 has Israel become a nation again with many Jews there, not all of them of course, a great many Jews there in Israel. There are a great many Jews throughout the world. We pointed out that one in every five Nobel Prize winners over the years is a Jew. And so a remarkable contrast. The descendants of Esau, gone. We have no identifiable descendants of Esau. And yet the descendants of Jacob, millions of them, and now after 19 centuries of no nation, they have a country as of 1948.

This is a great proof that it is God who inspired his word. and not just some random thing. You could not have predicted this because those predictions are all 24, 25, 26, and 27 centuries ago. You could not have predicted this that far in advance except that God inspired his word. It comes from God.

Now let's take a look at Hebrews 12, 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 it with tears." It is possible for someone who is being disciplined by God to end up not having a clue what's going on. Not having a clue what's going on. Why am I being disciplined by God? I don't know.

How do I get God off my back? How do I get God off my back? Do I tithe? What do I have to do to get God off my back? Sorry. There isn't any way to get God off your back. He is disciplining you. And so Esau was given as a perspective, as an example, of someone who just doesn't get it. Doesn't know what to value. Doesn't know what's important. Just keeps on doing whatever he's going to do, whatever he feels like doing. and no spiritual perspective whatsoever. So guess what happens? God's judgment continues.

If the Lord has something he wants us to learn, what I've seen time and time again is even when people opt out, I'm going to go do this and do that and get out of this situation, guess what? The Lord's going to say, OK, let's bring you back around to that gate there. You haven't learned that lesson. And so the Lord brings us around to the same lesson again and again and again. Why? Because that's the next thing we've got to learn. That's the pattern that I've seen. Now, feeling badly, as Esau did, doesn't fix it. Esau felt badly. He even cried. It says he wept. Oh, he felt terrible. But his sense of what was important was never improved. He didn't get it.

Fixing a temporary problem by taking on a permanent loss is not a good exchange. Boy, I'm hungry. Yeah, I'll sell my birthright. Really bad deal. Feeling badly doesn't fix it either. Sometimes people have this idea that repentance means you've got to feel really, really bad. You've got to have the blues. Blues for the Jews. No. God doesn't intend that repentance means feeling really bad. You may or may not feel really bad.

But that's not what God wants when He's asking for repentance. Repentance comes from seeing things truthfully. Repentance comes from seeing things biblically. And it means to have a change of mind. It's a change of mind, not feeling like I've got to sing the blues. God's not looking for the blues. God's looking for a change of mind based on His Word and truth.

Now, I think a key thing is to start off where this chapter began, because that's ultimately where this is headed. We've looked at a lot of little kind of details in today's passage, but here's where I think this comes. Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, 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. You see, the author of Hebrews is writing about and writing to people who had this entanglement and they had the sin. They had the problem and he says, lay it aside, let us run with endurance, the race set before us. We're going somewhere. We've got a race set before us. Then, verse 2, there's a pivot. That's my race. His race.

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. Looking to Him. I can do nothing looking at myself that's going to fix it. Other than, what do I have to get unentangled from here? I've got a race set before me, and I'm going to be looking to Jesus. Whatever is distracting me from that. I need to just shed it Okay, I need to have it just out of my way and gone. I need to have it off of me Fixing our eyes on Jesus Let's do that now Lord we thank you for your word. We thank you for the truth set before us in this passage We thank you for the way this chapter started off and the truths that that I Brings to us their life gets complicated at times But there's no substitute for our looking to you are beholding you We just thank you for what you've revealed because you love us and care for us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen