Hebrews 12:2 – Jesus Has Moved In to Stay and Renovate

The phrase “The Author and Perfecter of our faith” includes the idea that when Jesus first came into my life, He came to stay. Permanently. It indicates that, as the Perfecter or Completer of my faith, Jesus Christ is permanently involved in every single area of my life. Every single area. There is not one single part of my life where He is not involved. There is not one single area where He is not at work. Remember, He said: “My Father is always at work, and so am I” (John 5:17—my paraphrase). In the context the religious elite are challenging Jesus about healing someone on the Sabbath. Jesus’ response to them is reveals there is not a single day (made up of seconds, minutes, and hours) when God and Jesus are not at work. Jesus also said: “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

Jesus does not come into the life of anyone who becomes a true follower of His, and then act like an out of town visitor. He comes to stay and restore. He comes to renew, rebuild, and remake. It is like the old illustration of refurbishing a house. He comes and guts it and begins over.

But the point that stands out is that He comes to stay permanently in spite of how broken down the house is, how much disrepair it is in, or how much work will actually be needed. Hint: our lives are in worse repair than we realize or care to admit.

Jesus will never stop working no matter how many times I keep getting it wrong. He will never stop renewing. He will never stop. Never. Hebrews 12:2 also tells us that Jesus knows how to look beyond all the pain, suffering, and struggle and see the end result. He knows what He is doing in my life because He knows what He is working to accomplish. In fact the text tells us the joy He experienced looking beyond the cross to what the cross would accomplish.

He has moved in to stay. He is not moving out. And He is not sitting around idle and wasting time. He is definitely not waiting for me to figure it all out. No matter how much I fail, forget, and how foolish I am, He is committed to His work in me until it is finished in this life and I see Him face-to-face.

Hebrews 12 – Why You Cannot Compare Your Troubles with Others

One of the easiest things to do when we face various trials, is to compare what we are going through to someone who has had it worse, and then minimize what we are experiencing. There is a very good reason why that is not good (besides the fact that Scripture says is it not wise—2 Corinthians 10:12). And since our eyes are not solely focused on Jesus when we compare, we are going to miss what He is doing in us.

In John 21:18-21 Jesus explains to Peter how he is going to die. Peter sees John following and asks Jesus: “And what about him?” Jesus replies by simply telling Peter that Jesus doesn’t deal with us all the same and Peter shouldn’t be trying to figure out God’s work in someone else.

Hebrews 12:1b tells us something about our lives on earth that is easy to miss. “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” This is a definite game changer. At the very least this verse lets me know God is personally, intimately, and eternally involved in my life. All that is happening to me is for my holiness. The race I am in is the race marked out by God for me. It will not be the same as that of other followers of Jesus. So there really can be no comparison. The same gracious God involved in the lives of others is involved with me.

Jeremiah 10:23: “I know, LORD, that a person’s life is not his own. No one is able to plan his own course.” (New Living Translation) God made us to be absolutely dependent upon Him. In our Western culture we consider independence, autonomy, and self-sufficiency to be virtues. God does not.

Proverbs 3:5-7: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. 7 Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.”

We look to Him. We focus on His work in us personally. There is no way to compare the race marked out for me with the race marked out for someone else. What God is doing in our lives is for us, for our growth, our holiness. What He is doing in someone else’s life, no matter how worse it seems or even less in intensity, is for them alone. We learn to look to Jesus, not at others, in this race marked out for each of us.

If God Really is Working in My Life as Philippians 1:6 says, WHY Do I Keep Missing It?

The Apostle Paul helps us understand why we just don’t see God working in our lives. It goes back to the foundation to the letter to the Philippians in chapter 1:1-2.

Paul reveals at least three things we don’t know about ourselves or keep forgetting.

1. We are slaves of Christ – Our lives are not about us. It is not my life; I belong to Christ.

2. We are saints in Christ – He has given me identity, purpose, and meaning. When I forget I try to find all that somewhere else.

3. As a believer in Christ my salvation is forever – I find I just do not think about eternity enough even though all that God is doing in me today is done with an eternal perspective.

So this is why we fail to see God at work every day. This is why we just don’t grow as God intends. We forget who we are in Christ and fail to live accordingly.

 

Philippians 1:6: Plan A – The Only Plan All the Way

In my church we are working through the book of Philippians. In it we discover we must always remember our foundation in chapter 1:1-2: – As true believers in Christ we are slaves of Christ, saved in Christ, saved forever. This must be in place in order to grow as God intends and enjoy the life He offers to us. We have to continually see ourselves the way God does; not the way others do or even the way we feel or think about ourselves. The reality of who we are in Christ helps us makes sense of our lives, our church, and the world around us, as we will see in Philippians.

When I was much younger I shared a particular view of failure with my peers. From 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 we believed that if you failed big time, especially in your marriage, God was finished with you, would put you on a shelf, and that would be that until you died. So when I did fail I still remembered that and as a result lost all hope, believed God had rejected me, and spiraled downward for several years. One major problem is that is not what that Scripture passage is saying. If only I would have studied it better…

Philippians 1:6 tells me something entirely different about Jesus and my relationship with Him my entire life on earth: “You can be fully assured that the good work Jesus began in you when you came to Him by faith, He will, without fail, mature and perfect you every day, all the way, until you see Him face to face” (my paraphrase).

There are three things to take away from this marvelous verse:

1. He began His work in me – this is my initial salvation in Christ.
2. He will carry it on – this is my sanctification (spiritual growth).
3. He will conclude it – this is my future glorification (when I see Him).

God has promised this to every true follower of Jesus Christ. It is a guarantee. There is no rejection, dismissal, or “being put on a shelf.” There is no plan B; it is all plan A. I may have made some unwise choices in my life but they do not hinder, frustrate, or change the plan of God for me in Christ. I may have some consequences that affect me the rest of my life, but God was not surprised, caught off guard, or backed into a corner wondering what to do with me now.

We learn to continually “look to Jesus the Beginner and Perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:3). We soak in the marvelous grace of Jesus: “Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more” (Romans 5:20). We keep looking to and living in Jesus Christ who died for us, was raised, and now lives to complete the work He started in us.

 

Full audio and outline available Sunday at: www.sycamoregrovemennonite.com

Hebrews 12 – Jesus Began My Faith and He WILL Finish It!

Hebrews 12:2 calls Jesus the Author and Perfecter of our faith. The truths behind these two words are absolutely staggering. These words bring assurance, encouragement, and strengthen endurance in our Christian lives.

As Author the writer is helping us understand that it is Jesus Christ who began our Christian faith. He initiated it; we did not. “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Jesus brought me to God; I did not bring myself to God.

Throughout the Bible God tells us He pursues us, He comes after us, He gives us the faith to believe (see Ephesians 2:1-10), and He is more concerned about our growth in Jesus than we are. In vs. 10 God informs us why He saved us: “For we are God’s workmanship…” The word from which “workmanship” is translated also gives us “poem”. God is writing our lives us into His grand story. Even though the lines don’t always rhyme, He knows what He is doing. This takes us to our second word.

Jesus is also the Perfecter of our faith. He is constantly perfecting what He began in us (Philippians 1:6; Hebrews 10:14). Remember, He began it; we did not. So He will continue what He began. He will do whatever it takes (as we see in Hebrews 12) to produce in us the character of Christ (Romans 8:28-29). This is what the Bible calls “sanctification.” We often refer to it as spiritual growth, Christian growth, growing in Jesus. His discipline in is for my present growth and eternal joy.

This is a lifetime process that includes all that God describes in Hebrews 12:1-17. It includes Romans 8:28-29. God does accept me as I am but loves me way too much to leave me that way and He is making me fit to live with for all eternity for His glory and my everlasting joy. He will never stop working in me until I see Him face-to-face. He WILL finish it; He really will!

 

 

Philippians 1:3-8 – God Designed Biblical Fellowship for Our Growth

People have been disappointed in and hurt by churches. As a result there are those who have given up on the church and spend their Sunday mornings for themselves believing they still have a good relationship with the Lord.

But God has designed true biblical fellowship for our spiritual growth. Many of us have not consistently experienced that kind of fellowship. But it is a major means of God’s grace for our spiritual growth. Many attend church as a consumer rather than a participant. Consumers are mainly interested in “What’s in it for me?” So if they decide a church just isn’t giving them what they want and think they need, they move on or drop out. They do not understand that true fellowship involves serious participation. Therefore no matter how close they think they are to God, they are not growing as God intends.

Fortunately for us God’s purpose for today is still the church. And the Apostle Paul helps us understand that true fellowship involves more than what we normally call fellowship. God calls us to participate together.

In Philippians 1:3-8 God has given us at least four key areas of real fellowship; the kind that God intends to produce real fruit and joy in true believers and the local church:

1. The fellowship of affirmation – vs. 3. ”I thank my God every time I remember you.” Paul looked for ways to encourage and build up other believers whether they were reciprocating or not.
2. The fellowship of intercession – vs. 4. “In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy.” This is a huge area of the fellowship God delights in. They learned to pray together. They spent time together to pray. They prayed when they got together even if that wasn’t the primary purpose. Some of the richest times of fellowship I have experienced in our church have been with those who gather together on Wednesday evenings for a brief study and time in prayer.
3. The fellowship of participation – vs. 5. “because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” They made the gospel of Jesus Christ the center of their fellowship and all their church did. They understood their part in the Great Commission (going, sending, praying).
4. The fellowship of affection – vs. 7-8. “It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart; for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. 8 God knows how much I love and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus.” They looked for ways to show kindness to each other.

The believers in this church were definitely participants in God’s grace rather than consumers who could suck life out of the church.

The outline and audio will be available after this Sunday morning at http://sycamoregrovemennonite.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Hebrews 12 – Discipleship Includes Refinement

The Lord’s discipline or discipleship of His own includes a continual process of refinement or purification or being made holy. That is why He saves us: “He chose us in him…to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Ephesians 1:4). We could keep looking at other Scriptures that say the same thing but the idea is that when God saves us in Christ, He begins a process of purification in us that will last our whole lifetime on earth.

He constantly uses His Word to change us. “For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are” (New Living Translation). But He also regularly uses affliction, pressure, struggle, troubles, and even pain to accomplish His work in us. —“God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10).

What happens in the process of purification? “For you, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver” (Psalm 66:10). Refining is the process of purifying impure material. Silver is purified under extreme heat—1,764 ºF. The process is not random but controlled. As the ore is heated impurities rise to the surface. That is what we see in our lives. We are made aware of our impure motives, desires, and thoughts. We see our selfishness, our wrong fears, and our desire for our own glory. We see where we have failed Jesus and others. The list could go on but you get the idea. Even though this is a very simplistic and abbreviated explanation of the process of silver purification, the idea is to learn to see what happens to us under the pressure of God’s discipline.

There is much more going on when we face various kinds of trials but we see the stuff that comes to the surface, and even then we still miss some things. So the process continues all through life. We do not nor can we see below the surface. We will not fully understand what God is up to in our lives. We can only trust Him and worship Him. “Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods! 34 For who can know what the Lord is thinking? Who knows enough to be his counselor? 35 And who could ever give him so much that he would have to pay it back? 36 For everything comes from him; everything exists by his power and is intended for his glory. To him be glory evermore. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36 New Living).

So what do you see about yourself when you experience difficulties even inconveniences? Do you see a lack of love, patience, peace, kindness, self-control, and gentleness? Do you see in yourself envy, hatred, discord, jealousy, anger, and fear of the future? If so then you are beginning to understand impure human nature and why God wants to change us (See Galatians 5:16-23). You are beginning to understand that God wants to produce holiness—His character, in you; for “without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

Hebrews 12 and David’s Remarkable Prayer

King David prayed an amazing prayer. I have memorized the verses and often thought of them. But when I realized what he was really praying for I began to wonder if I really wanted God to answer it.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. 24 Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life” (Psalm 139:23-24 New Living Translation).

Notice David asks God to test him. This is the part I often overlooked. The word “test” means “to try, prove, test as gold is tested and refined.” I always placed the emphasis on the “search me and know me” part. The entire Psalm is about how intimately Jesus knows my life; He knows every single aspect. So it was easy to pray: “Since you know me so well, show me where I need to change in Your eyes.” I was missing the really really serious part of the prayer: “test me.”

He is actually asking God to bring pressure, trouble, and difficulty into his life so his heart will be exposed. He wants to know what there is in his life that does not please the Lord. He wants to know where God wants to change him. This reveals that David at least knew he needed to be inwardly changed, but wasn’t always sure where. He knew that pressure would reveal what was really in his heart: what was most important to him, what he loved, feared, and wanted most. He knew he would see what his true treasure is. He understood that the kind of relationship God wanted to have with him included struggle and pressure. But he also could see the outcome—the path of everlasting life.

Hebrews 3:12-13, among other Bible verses, helps us understand we are blind to the areas God wants to change in our lives. We see so clearly the areas where others need to change, but not our own. And it often takes some sort of pressure in order for us to realize what is most important to us—either the desire personal comfort and circumstantial happiness, or the desire for godliness which results in true joy and deep satisfaction. David was obviously very serious about his relationship with the Lord. And it reflects how serious the Lord is about His relationship with David.

If we are truly serious about our growth as believers in Jesus, we have to get serious about daily life as God sees it. We have to understand He will pursue us, woo us, change us, and use whatever it takes to teach us to share in His holiness because it makes an eternal difference, not just a present one. How serious are you about real growth in Jesus? How important is eternity to you?

Hebrews 12 and The Rebukes of God

Has this thought ever crossed your mind when you were facing something out of your control: Lord, if You really loved me, You would ___________________.

Think of that; our finite mind trying to counsel the infinite mind. Me, the created, think I know better than the Creator. Put like that it sounds rather, well, stupid to put it mildly. Yet that is often what we think when we face various troubles, difficulties, and struggles. And these can range from the inconvenient to off the chart pain. Honestly, I don’t like inconvenience or difficulty or struggle or uncertainty or anything that gets in the way of my schedule or plans.

In Hebrews 12:5-7 we read: “And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: ‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, 6 because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.’” For some reason I thought when I got older and moved away from home I “outgrew” being disciplined. It is easy to forget what it means to be a child of God as He sees it.

In the last post we saw that God is not separate from our troubles but in the midst of them. Here we can see the reason for that: He really does love us and doesn’t want us to continue on in our own ways.

There is a marvelous parallel passage to this in Revelation 3:19: “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.” The context for this is Jesus’ letter to the church at Laodicea. The culture of that context was very similar to that in America now—an affluence that dulled them to what their deepest needs were.

It is pretty easy to assume our material blessings are a sign God is well-pleased with us. That is a false assumption. When God “gives us richly all things to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17), we have a natural tendency to cling to those things and find our identity, our meaning, our purpose in them. But Jesus is rebuking the believers here for this attitude. Why does Jesus in His love discipline us? He wants us to see our deepest needs. We fail to see because we get too comfortable with, and enjoy this present and temporal life more than we enjoy Him. And we get attached to comfort to the extent that when it is threatened we don’t always respond well.

Remember, He says He is committed to our holiness and that means He will disrupt our personal comfort. Think of that: Our struggles, troubles, trials, and difficulties are His rebukes and evidences Jesus is personally pursuing us for His purposes.

The Sign From Above on the Wings of…Difficulty

If you know that old song then you definitely like the ending of this verse much better than how difficulty and trouble are described and explained in Hebrews 12.

When troubles surround us, when evils come
The body grows weak
The spirit grows numb
When these things beset us, God doesn’t forget us
He sends us His love

On the wings of a snow-white dove
He sends His pure sweet love
A sign from above
On the wings of a dove

Yep. I like that ending better. But God says it differently in Hebrews 12:6: “because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” And He does send a sign of His love—the very difficulties I am currently experiencing.

The song separates the troubles in our lives from the love of God. But in Hebrews 12 God actually says the troubles are a sign of His current, active, and never ceasing love. That would place Him in the troubles rather than apart from them.

I was told many years past that God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life. I was never told how “wonderful” things could be. And I never did back then associate trouble with God’s love.

It is true God loves us and accepts us just as we are. But He loves us too much to leave us that way. He uses trouble, difficulty, struggle, and pain to correct us, train us, change us to share in His holiness (Hebrews 12:10). What’s so great about that? The writer of Psalm 66 answers it this way: “we went through fire and through water, but you brought us out to a place of abundance” (vs. 12).

He brings us through trouble in order to bring us into a more fruitful life, a life of rich satisfaction and completeness. So then, holiness is not a life of strict piety but a sharing of the rich and abundant life of God Himself. It is becoming like Him—like Him is His ways, motives, desires, and enjoyment of life as He intends.