Strength in Weakness

 

KESWICK CONVENTION PORTSTEWART

NOTES FROM SATURDAY 6 JULY 2024 – SIMON GENOE

HEBREWS 12 VERSES 1 -3

Albert Motyer said “Hebrews is not for the theologically fainthearted but for those whose endurance will be rewarded.” 

Hebrews is for the fainthearted.  If you feel weak, tired this book is for you.  We don’t know who wrote it.  Many may have theories about the authorship but we don’t actually know for sure.  There are certain indications that it was written before the destruction of the temple in AD70.  We can see clearly that this is a church with a Jewish background.  They were beginning to get weary, to step away.  They were looking back at the old way of doing things and saying that maybe this is the way it was meant to be done.  Hebrews 10 verse 36 and Hebrews 12 verse 3.  These are wearied Christians. Someone has said to me “If the whole body of Christ was like you what would the church be like?”   The writer to Hebrews determines this church’s body language – “therefore lift up your drooping hands and your weak knees and make a straight path for your feet so that what is out of joint can be restored.”  Imagine the arms drooping and the knees being weak – the body language is not good.  What is the body language like at your church?  In the church at large? When you look in the mirror?  Hebrews is an exhortation – chapter 13.  The writer wants to give a word to the weary church.  He has 4 thins to say to this church:

1.      Run with endurance

2.      Remove hindrance

3.      Remember the witnesses

4.      Refocus on Jesus

Run with endurance.  The scriptures tell us we are part of God’s family.  We are also servants in his house and soldiers in his army, sheep in his pasture.  The writer to the Hebrews wants to remind them they are runners in a race.  The key imperative is to run.  In truth the Hebrews readers started well, came out of the blocks really well.  In Hebrews 10 verse 34 he reminds them of their former days. They had many struggles and sufferings.  They were publicly exposed, they had compassion on the prisoners, their property was plundered.  They have endured a lot more than maybe our churches, maybe even ourselves.  They have become weak.  The race we have been set on is not a 100 metre spring, it is a marathon.  Eugene Peterson “a long obedience in the same direction set before us.”  The race has been set before us.  Look at where you are right now.  The track has been prepared in advance for us to run but will be run it?  Some Christians will talk about knowing the will of God – having a sense of knowing it was in God’s will and they were stepping into it.  I am not sure about this as it can lead us to believe if God calls us to do something it will be easy.  That is not what those who have run this marathon of faith have found to be true.  The Christian life is filled with miracles  and mysteries.  We are told to run with endurance the race that is set before us.  The Greek word for race is “agonas” from which we get the word agony.  This race is run with agony.  There will be pain.  In face the word for endurance is that which means be up under.  The writer is saying we need to be up under agony.  Walking the Christian life will not always be easy.  We are prone to avoid pain but we should not in the Christian life.  If we are to run it we must be up under agony.  In the Mexico city Olympics of 1968, Mamo Wolde of Ethiopia won the mens marathon.  When he crossed the finishing line the crowd in the stadium went wild.  A couple of hours later the last man to finish the race, John Stephen Akhwari from Tanzania came in to the stadium when the crowd had almost dispersed.  He had taken a bad fall earlier in the face and his leg was bandaged.  He limped his way over the finish line.  The audience actually applauded him even louder than the victor.  Someone asked him “you are so badly injured, why did you not quit?”  The reply “my country did not send me 7000 miles to start this race and not finish, my country sent me 7000 miles to run the race to the end.”  The Lord did not want you to start his race but to finish it.  This race is not against one another or looking at those beside us measuring ourselves against one another.  The race is for each of us.  Acts 13 verse 36 “For David, after he served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption.”   We all need to achieve the purpose of God in our generation.  What an awful generation we might say.  I am sure many of us despair at the things we see – like Eurovision -witches representing Ireland on the stage.  We see things happening in our churches and society that make us despair at what is happening.  Do not despair.  This is the race God has set before us.  God calls us to run it.  What a time to be alive.  God knows it.  He has entrusted us.  He has put us here.  We are the ones who will start at this moment – let’s take the moment and endure it.  We need to run the race and we need to do what God has purposed for us to do.

Remove the hindrances. “Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw of everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”  We need to ruthlessly eliminate weights if we are run fast and free.  There are 2 categories here in Hebrews 12 – lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely.  The weight that weighs us down.  The sin that trips us up.  We need to get rid of both of those  if we are to run.  We know sin trips us.  We remember that in our generation so well.  Well known pastors who have had some sort of fall.  Some 50 year old in.  For every pastor we read about there are 50 that haven’t fallen.  They are faithful.  Sin will trip us up.  Deal ruthlessly with sin.  I have a friend who preaches in Oxford.  When he and his wife moved into the house they were aware of squirrels in their attic.  They wondered how they would ever sleep with such scratching.  After a few weeks they realised they didn’t notice it at all.  We cannot be like that with sin because we all know this theologically but we need to know it practically.  Sin that is allowed to exist in our life is a stranglehold for the enemy.  He will trip us up.  The Bourne Identity film is the story of a secret agent who lost his memory.  He famously said “I all I know is that I can pick up anything in this room and use it to kill someone.”  Hidden sin in your life will be used to kill you.  It can entangle us so easily.  When we think about running we think of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.  A woman with a powerful imbalance.  The danger of that moment – being entangled by this woman.  What did Joseph do?  He cast off his robes and ran.  Maybe we need to cast off and run from those things that would easily entangle us.  James 4 verse 7 tells us how to deal with the enemy – “submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from us.”  In other words – run.  We need to deal with the problem of sin.  There is nobody who does not need to deal with it.  We need to kill some sin in our lives.  We will not reach perfection this side of heaven.  Not one person has no sin that needs to be dealt with.  “Every weight” suggests that there is a difference between that which will trip us up and that which will weigh us down.  The picture of running is one Paul was familiar with.  The Greeks when they ran, ran almost naked.  The reason – to run without anything distracting or preventing them from running well.  That is why today you will see people coming to the starting line with a lighter pair of shoes – so that they run better.  The question is – will it help me run?  John Piper has said that so many come to him with the question “is it a sin?”  All they want is to know that they can walk away and say it is ok.  That is the most low common denominator question for a Christian to ask.  It is non-negotiable.  It needs to be kicked out.  The question we need to ask is “is it something that will weigh me down, help me or not?”  We need to get rid of every weight so we can run properly.  We have a job to do for this generation.  If we have a sin or weight it will not help us.  Meatloaf used to sing a song “I would do anything for love but I won’t do that.”  What is your sin?  Let the Holy Spirit show you those sins.  We weary ourselves down with the cares of this world – with houses that never needed mortgages, with relationships that are not unequally yoked but are dragging us down.  We need to get ruthless in dealing with these sins.  There are endless items and your item might be different from someone elses.  What is a weight for you is not necessarily a weight for me.  Some of us are incredibly addicted to social media.  It finds us getting lost in it.  Get rid of it.  John Piper has said “one of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the last day that prayerlessness was not for a lack of time.”    Wilbur Chapman ha said “my life is governed by this rule – anything that dims my vision of Christ or takes away my taste for bible study or cramps my prayer life or makes Christian work difficult is wrong for me and I must as a Christian turn away from it.”  Will we be ruthless enough?  Do we want to run?  To deal seriously with weights and sin because this generation and this nation requires a church that is cold on sin and cold on trinkets and hot on Jesus.  That is what is required and must be required of us.

Remember the witnesses.  We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.  It follows the word “therefore”.  This takes us back into Hebrews 11 and the list of 18 individuals who are named.  They are heroes of the faith. We would like to think they are cheering us on.  It is not the idea of them standing in heaven looking down on us but rather they are witnesses of the faithfulness of God.  That is their job – to witness to us.  They are there to witness to God’s faithfulness, that he will not let us down.  We can trust God.  Running this marathon we have the pages of scripture to encourage us because there on the sidelines are those witnesses of the faithfulness of God.  Think of Moses who walked away from the riches of Egypt.  Or David even when he committed adultery.  They witness to the fact that although they failed so many times but God was faithful.  Think of Samson and the fact that God will use us if we are faithful.  Or of Sarah, even though she was old God came through with his promise to her to have a son.  This cloud of witnesses are saying he is faithful.  Someone has said there are 7,500 promises in the bible – all those promises are yes and Amen.  They had been tried and proven.  Keep running.  Keep on keeping on.  Don’t faint away.  The people to whom this book was written were close to fainting.  Did you ever someone running with their headphones on?  Take the headphones off today and listen to those witnesses of the Old Testament – God is faithful.

Refocus on Jesus.  “Looking unto Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith.”  Something has happened that has made them think they should go back to the priest or walk into the temple.  The writer tells them “put your eyes back on Jesus.”    We need a fresh vision of Jesus that we would die for.  The word for witness is where we get the word martyr from.  To die for Jesus.  We need to run with our eyes fixed on Jesus.  Have you a vision of Jesus?  Are you gloriously obsessed with Jesus?  The hymn writer Fanny Crosby wrote 9000 hymns and she was blind.  “visions of rapture now burst on my sight ... watching and waiting , looking above ... but purer and higher and greater will be my wonder, my transport when Jesus we see.”  Someone once asked her “are you not angry with God for losing your sight at 6 weeks old?”  Fanny responded “If I could live this life again I would pray to be blind again because the first face I will see in glory will be Jesus.”  Our life is governed by this vision just as Wilbur Chapman said – “I must turn away from it”.  Look at Jesus, fix your eyes on him.”  As the Psalmist said “I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”  Leonardo Da Vinci when he painted the Last Supper asked his friend, an art critic to look at it.  He was amazed at the details of every item, each of the disciples, Jesus himself and the very goblet which looked so real.  Da Vinci took his paintbrush and put an X through the goblet saying “nothing must distract from the figure of Christ.”