1. "The progress we make in everything from the military to medicine, our abilities seem to grow continually, only exposing more and more clearly that our accompanying wisdom does not grow in the same way."

2. "Once Christ had come, those symbols no longer had any more point than a longbow on today's battlefield."

3. "God's holiness revealed inevitably shows us more of our unholiness, doesn't it? If we see more clearly what God is like, the light increases morally. We can't help but notice the spots on our own clothes, on our own souls, in our own character."

4. "Imagine the terror of a growing perception of God's holiness, of His goodness, with no clear gospel being presented."

5. "Sin is a bad master, it's fundamentally short-sighted. It asks what our pleasure is rather than what God's pleasure is. As if we would finally judge ourselves. God is the one who will finally judge us."

6. "Thinking about trading Christ for the commandments was about as silly and stupid a trade as could be made."

7. "Christianity is personal, but it is not private. And you can't run it as a private, just in your head, religion. The real thing isn't like that. We help each other avoid idols. We help each other to persevere in following Christ."

8. "Those little sins won't tell you they're trying to get you to stop following Jesus. Generally they're gonna lie to you and they're gonna say, no, I can go along with Jesus, no problem. Just keep me in your life and don't worry about it."

9. "I pray that you will see what a great gift it is when God shows us things that we can repent of. It's a wonderful gift. Conviction of the Holy Spirit is not something you can go buy at the store."

10. "It's a kindness of the Lord to His children that He does not leave us in a fallen world, always having to persevere. We do have to persevere for a while, but our time of perseverance will seem tiny compared to the eternity of bliss."

Observation Questions

1. According to Hebrews 12:14, what two things are believers instructed to strive for, and what consequence is connected to holiness?

2. In Hebrews 12:15, what three dangers does the author warn the community to "see to it" that no one falls into?

3. How does Hebrews 12:16-17 describe Esau's character and actions, and what happened when he later sought to inherit the blessing?

4. In Hebrews 12:18-19, what specific sensory experiences characterized the mountain that believers have "not come to" (what could be seen, heard, and felt)?

5. According to Hebrews 12:20-21, why did the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them, and how did even Moses respond to the sight?

6. Looking ahead to Hebrews 12:22-24, what does the author say believers "have come to" instead of the terrifying mountain, and who is identified as the mediator of this new covenant?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does the author of Hebrews contrast Mount Sinai (verses 18-21) with Mount Zion (verses 22-24), and what does this contrast reveal about the difference between the old and new covenants?

2. The sermon explained that the "root of bitterness" in verse 15 refers to idolatry based on Deuteronomy 29:18, not merely personal bitterness. How does understanding this Old Testament background change the way we interpret the warning being given to these Hebrew Christians?

3. Why is Esau presented as a warning example in verses 16-17, and what is the significance of the distinction between regretting consequences and truly repenting of sin?

4. The command to "see to it" in verse 15 is addressed to the entire congregation (second person plural). What does this reveal about the New Testament's vision for how local churches should function and care for one another?

5. How does the terrifying nature of God's self-revelation at Sinai—with fire, darkness, trumpet, and trembling—actually point to the need for Christ and the new covenant He mediates?

Application Questions

1. The sermon emphasized that Christians can be tempted to trade their spiritual birthright for something far less valuable, like Esau did. What "lesser things" in your life right now might be competing with your wholehearted devotion to Christ, and what would it look like to identify and resist that trade this week?

2. Verse 15 commands the congregation to "see to it" that no one fails to obtain grace, falls into idolatry, or gives in to immorality. In practical terms, what is one specific step you could take to exercise more "affectionate care and watchfulness" over a fellow church member this month?

3. The sermon pointed out that sin often lies to us, claiming it can coexist peacefully with following Jesus while slowly deadening our conscience. Is there an area of your life where you have been tolerating a "small sin" that you need to bring into the light with a trusted Christian friend? What is holding you back?

4. The preacher asked, "How will you know if God is against something you want?" What practices or relationships do you currently have in place that allow God's Word and other believers to challenge your desires and decisions? What might need to change?

5. Reflecting on the call to strive for peace with everyone (verse 14), is there a specific relationship in your life—at home, work, or church—where you need to pursue reconciliation or peace-making? What concrete action could you take toward that person this week?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Exodus 19:10-25 — This passage provides the original account of God's terrifying appearance at Mount Sinai, which Hebrews 12:18-21 directly references to show what believers have not come to under the new covenant.

2. Deuteronomy 29:14-21 — This passage contains the warning about a "root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit" that the sermon identified as the background for understanding the "root of bitterness" as idolatry spreading among God's people.

3. Genesis 25:29-34 — This narrative records Esau's actual sale of his birthright for a bowl of stew, illustrating the foolish trade that Hebrews uses as a warning against exchanging eternal blessings for temporary satisfaction.

4. Hebrews 3:12-14 — This earlier passage in Hebrews contains a similar call for mutual exhortation among believers to prevent hardening by sin's deceitfulness, reinforcing the theme of congregational watchfulness.

5. Hebrews 10:19-25 — This passage describes the "new and living way" opened through Christ's sacrifice and includes the command not to neglect meeting together, connecting to the sermon's emphasis on persevering in Christ through committed church membership.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Military Technology as an Analogy for Spiritual Regression

II. God Gave His People His Law (Hebrews 12:18-21)

III. God Has Now Given His People His Son (Hebrews 12:14-17)

IV. The Call to Mutual Watchfulness and Perseverance in Christ

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Detailed Sermon Outline

• Hating punishment without hating sin is not true repentance

I wonder how many of you have been to Fort Washington, just south of DC.

Not the town, I mean, but the actual fort. There's a fort there. That's what the town is named for, Fort Washington. Fort Washington was built in 1804 originally to defend our nation's capital against enemy ships that might come up the Potomac. Sure enough, as soon as Napoleon lost in 1814, here came the British ships.

They came and they saw Fort Washington. They blew it up with the guns on their ships. Our little fort didn't stand a chance. And the Brits came right on into Alexandria, where I'm sure they enjoyed the good shopping.

Some of you are very familiar with defense and military work. You know that throughout history, warfare, advantage has been gained from improving technology or improving tactics. Initially, what would have been physically stronger weapons, which would better withstand contact from weaker ones or Longer shields or the phalanx tactic where the Greek troops become like this wall. These technologies and tactics change. The 15th century saw the English perfect the use of the longbow in massive numbers and so they had crucial victories over the French, only to be met and bested eventually by the French development of cannon.

Which made the longbow pointless. On land and sea, offensive and defensive weapons make a previous generation's plans obsolete.

In the 20th century, air was added as a significant sphere for military planning. And now in the 21st century, space has become, if not the final frontier, at least the next one.

The progress we make in everything from the military to medicine, our abilities seem to grow continually, only exposing more and more clearly that our accompanying wisdom does not grow in the same way. In a day when popular conversation includes lasers and hypersonic missiles, how effective would it be to try to return the conversation to the thickness of a wall? Or the tactics coordinated use of longbows. I mean, what strategist today thinks that Taiwan merely needs to thicken its walls or that the Ukrainians simply need to do more longbow practice? Well, that's essentially what a group of early Christians were doing, not militarily, but religiously.

You see, the entire introduction so far has only been an analogy. Don't get excited about further lectures in military technology. It won't come from me. That's what you guys do for work. I'm simply using something that you're familiar with to show you how silly what these first century Christians were doing.

They were turning back from what they knew to be the apex of truth about Christianity, that God himself had sent his only son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And now having understood that they were turning back to what had become the obsolete symbols who existed only to point toward Christ. Once Christ had come, those symbols no longer had any more point than a longbow on today's battlefield. And yet that's what they were doing. For whatever combination of reasons, they were in crisis and they were considering turning from Jesus back to Judaism.

And the writer of the Hebrews is concerned that by so doing they were ignoring God's greatest provision for them. In fact, the provision that all those lesser provisions of priests and prophets and temple and sacrifice and law were meant to point to.

Let's turn then to Hebrews chapter 12, beginning with verse 14. Hebrews 12:14, if you're looking at the pew Bible, you'll find it on page 1099.

Hebrews 12, beginning at verse 14.

Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled. That no one is sexually immoral or unholy, like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears. For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them, for they could not endure the order that was given, if even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.

Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. Friends, I want to consider first that God gave His people His law. It's verses 18 to 21. God gave His people His law. It's verses 18 to 21.

And then the fact that God has now given His people His Son. And we see that in verses 14 to 17. So even as our author has throughout this letter so in our passage, he makes it clear that God gave His people His law. This letter was written to a regular assembly of Christians. What John wrote in 1 John 3 would have been true of them.

And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. So the letter to the Hebrews has been all about this. It will come again in our next study passage in verse 24 in a couple of weeks when the writer reminds them that they've come to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

So with that in mind, look again at verses 18 to 21. He says, For you have not come to. So what he's going to describe now in verses 18 to 21 is what he's telling these Christians, this is not what you've come to. It doesn't just describe what you had come to as Jews in the past, but this is not what brings us together in this assembly. This is what you had come to, verses 18 to 21.

For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them, for they cannot endure the order that was given, if even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear. In this book of Hebrews, it seems like two mountains had come to symbolize what was going on in salvation history. There was Sinai, the giving of the law, the Old Testament, Moses, and Zion. That's what he calls it in the very next verse after our passage, you see, in verse 22, but you have come to Mount Zion, Zion.

That's what they have come to. We'll get to that next time. Mount Zion. These two mountains came to typify the two different covenants that the writers have been talking about throughout this whole letter. Sinai and Zion.

So next time, Lord willing, Mount Zion, more clearly in our passage in a couple of weeks, the end of chapter 12. You see what he's going to say starting in verse 22. But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to To God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. But here in our passage he makes it clear that their answer is not Sinai. That is not what they should be looking for.

You as Christians, he's saying, have not come to Mount Sinai. Sinai is, of course, the mountain in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan where the Lord gave the Israelites the law through Moses. And thereafter it became associated with Moses and with the covenant God gave His people through the Ten Commandments, through eventually the tabernacle, and then ultimately the temple and its sacrifices, the priests, all the laws of ceremonial cleanness. Now, we've thought about that quite a bit this year as we've gone through Hebrews. Much of the message of Hebrews is exactly a comparison between relying on the regularly repeated Jewish sacrifices in the temple versus relying on the once only sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

Our writer does that again here as he paints in vivid colors the covenant that these Christians, as he put it here in verse 18, had not come to in becoming Christians. He's just trying to make it very clear to them You have not come to, he says in verse 18, what may be touched. Now, of course, Mount Sinai was a physical mountain. In that sense it could be touched. And this mountain had been burning with a blazing fire.

See here in verse 19. And if we were to turn back to Exodus 19 and parallel the account, we would see so many things picked up here. In Exodus 19 we find that Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently. This mountain was also characterized by darkness and gloom.

Exodus 20:21 reads, the people remained at a distance while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. He says too here in verse 18 in our passage that that mountain was marked by a tempest and in verse 19 he says the sound of a trumpet. And when you turn back to Exodus, That too is what you find. Exodus 19:16, On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.

And again, Exodus 20:18, When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance. And there was such a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them, for they could not endure the order that was given if even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned. So what the author is doing here is he's going to the account in Exodus 19 and 20, and he's making the point to these Christians he's writing to then that it's not that the old covenant is a false covenant, but that it was one which kept God at a distance, still hidden, still removed. Our author says here in verse 21 that indeed so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I tremble with fear.

So these events at Sinai filled the Israelites with fear, with awe. So if even Moses himself reacted like that, What would it benefit all of them to leave the church and go follow Moses' teaching? What had it done for Moses himself?

God's holiness revealed inevitably shows us more of our unholiness, doesn't it? If we see more clearly what God is like in His goodness. The light increases morally. We can't help but notice the spots on our own clothes, on our own souls, in our own character. That's just what happens as we get to know more of what God is like.

So for instance, I was meditating on this yesterday. Just imagine their situation.

Since Adam had been created and fallen, had there been any humans on the planet that had been more clearly taught what God was like? They were now not only witnesses of His power as He had brought them out of Egypt miraculously, they had begun to hear truth about Him through Moses, but they had seen Him provide for them. They had seen this physical storm on the mountain, and now in In 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924 of Exodus, they're getting the Ten Commandments. They're beginning to get God's moral character pointed out, explained more clearly than any human being ever had since creation.

At the same time, they're understanding His power. They saw it in Egypt. They're seeing it now on the mountain. Now, friend, how would you feel? If you were coming to understand the holiness of God, His goodness, His utter righteousness, better than anyone ever had before you, than you ever had, and yet in all of this growth in your knowledge and perception, there was nothing about how you as a sinner could be forgiven.

Imagine the terror of a growing perception of God's holiness, of His goodness, with no clear gospel being presented. I have great sympathy with the terror that the Israelites were experiencing.

Imagine beginning to have this sure and certain conviction when the way that God had devised to show mercy to sinners was yet so obscurely revealed before Christ. Oh, so many things we could say from this. For one thing, Christians, I hope you see the utility of the law in your evangelism. There are some people who are well known for saying you have to use the Ten Commandments in order to evangelize people. I think that's false.

Having said that, I think it's a really good idea. So I would encourage you, grab those Ten Commandments, pick any one you want. Start having times where you reflect on your own life, where you pray, or where you use them to talk to a non-Christian friend about the truth of what God is like, about what he calls us to be like. I mean, how do people know they're sinners if they've never been confronted with God's law? We're made in God's image, and if the law is the revelation of His character, then you can see how exposing non-Christians to the truth about what God is like helps to show them their distance from God and what they're literally made to be like.

God's law is clear. Now friend, if you're not a Christian, we're thankful you've come to be with us this morning. You are always welcome here. But I want you to consider what God has revealed about Himself, how completely good He is.

God told the people not to serve anything other than Him ultimately. He said, explaining, For the Lord your God, I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. Friend, consider what it means that God who made you describes himself as jealous.

That means he cares about how you live, particularly about how you might serve gods other than him. And he doesn't take it kindly because they didn't make you. Only he made you. It's his image that you bear. He wants the truth told about himself.

He's instructed you to have no other gods before him. He's instructed you to not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. For he the Lord, he says, will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. You realize what that means. I mean, have you thought of God wrongly or spoken of him?

Wrongly? Have you only spoken reverently of God with respect?

Are you superstitious? Have you wrongly quarreled with your words? Have you burned up time opposing God's truth, His grace, His ways? We could continue to meditate on these things, just going through the commandments one after another and their implications. And that would be a good thing for you to do when you get home today or when you lay down on your bed tonight.

Remember that there's a God and that this God has revealed the truth about His character and what should be your character. And if God is this good, what does it mean will happen to you, a creature made specifically in His image? To show His creation what their Creator is like. Friends, that's the good news of Jesus Christ. That God has come to meet all of His requirements in His only Son.

That He has lived that life in perfect conformity to the law of God, in perfect trust of Him, and that He died on the cross as a sacrifice specifically for the sins of everyone who would ever trust in Him. He calls us to repent of our sins and to trust in him. God raised him from the dead to do that. And that means you today. Repent of your sins.

Turn from them. Trust in him. If you want to know more about what that means, talk to any of us pastors at the doors on the way out. We cover all the doors. We are happy to talk to you.

We have nothing more important to do today. There's no conversation we'd rather have. Talk to a friend that brought you. Help them to see help you to figure out what that means in your own life. Because friends, right now the spiritual way we would describe you as a non-Christian is someone lost in sin.

So you may be richer than the member who brought you, you may be their boss, you may be smarter, you may be prettier, you may be more successful in the world's eyes, but the Bible says you are lost in sin. That is you're like a sheep without a shepherd. You don't know why you're here and what you're supposed to do. And Jesus has come to teach you the truth in his love and in his mercy. Friend, you wanna hear about that.

Sin is a bad master, it's fundamentally short-sighted. It asks what our pleasure is rather than what God's pleasure is. As if we would finally judge ourselves. God is the one who will finally judge us. We want to know what pleases Him.

That's what we're interested in. Sin tends to tell us to trust what we can touch. When all we can touch is literally in the process of passing and vanishing away. This is why we need our Creator and Judge, God, to speak to us the truth about Himself and about us. So this Old Testament covenant at Sinai, this covenant was truly from God.

And he said that at the very beginning of this letter in chapter 1, verse 1, he said, Long ago, to our fathers, God had spoken. He wasn't saying this covenant was false. No, it's a true covenant, but it was true for those whom he said at the end of chapter 11, who were incomplete because they had not yet seen the coming Messiah, Jesus. If you look over in chapter 11, in verse 39, he calls them, these did not receive what was promised. So the faith of all the people in the great hall of faith, chapter 11, from Abel down to Samuel and the prophets, was praised exactly because they were acting in faith of what was promised.

That God would provide what He said He would. But for people now, since Christ has come to leave off following Christ, and that's what these people that the letter to the Hebrews are considering doing, that's what they're being tempted to do. For these people now to leave off following Christ and instead go back to the law of Moses, complete with priests and sacrifices, as if the one they all pointed to had still not come. And was not at all the same thing as those people before Christ, faithfully following those laws and looking forward to the coming of the promise and the Messiah. See, once the Messiah had come, then turning away from him to go back to the mere promises of his coming was like loving the shadow instead of the body.

It was like loving the picture instead of the person, going back from marriage to engagement. It just doesn't make any sense. That's not the way things are made to go. The author didn't want these Christians to forget what the old covenant had been like. Even when it was graciously given, it had filled these Israelites with dread.

And the books of Moses show us that even he was repeatedly trembling with fear. His first encounter with Yahweh, the burning bush, he trembles with fear. Perhaps they were forgetting what it had been like. To have only this knowledge of God. This old covenant that the people were thinking about returning to was a covenant that foretold that God would seek his people himself.

But he came and sought them in Christ. Brothers and sisters for us today, if we would avoid the lesser penalties of the violation of Old Testament laws, we certainly don't want to violate the new covenant. We certainly don't leave off following Jesus and so call down on ourselves the much more terrible penalties of the New Covenant. To reject Jesus is to reject the greatest help God could ever give us. So you don't reject Jesus and ask, Are there any other medicines here that will work?

There's not. This is the greatest God has. Now the writer will have more instructions for us in the rest of this book, in the rest of chapter 12 and chapter 13, but all his instructions are given to us as followers of Jesus. Not for us instead of following Jesus. So it won't do any good for you to take all the moral oughts that you like in the Bible, New Testament and Old, put them together and put them in the place of Christ.

Friends, outside of Christ you have no hope. None. He is your only hope. But Mark, what if I am perfect from this day forward forevermore? A couple of things on that.

Number one, you won't be. Number two, you already haven't been. And those are real days that really matter to an eternal God. So our own goodness and righteousness is just not even in the story. We need to understand that God has given us righteousness in Christ.

Thinking about trading Christ for the commandments was about as silly and stupid a trade as could be made. I mean, can you think of a time in the past when you've made a bad trade that you have regretted ever since? Just take a moment and think. Again, it would be this kind of an analogy like I used in the introduction. I'm not saying this is as important as your soul and Jesus, I'm just saying can you think of an example of a bad trade?

You know, I can think of one time as a teenager when I was probably 13 or 14 years old, I got involved in a local TV charity auction. Now you've got to understand, in the 1960s and 70s, TV and local TV was a big deal in rural Kentucky, because it basically didn't exist. So for there to be a local charity auction that was being broadcast live from inside my town was amazing, and for some reason, yours truly ended up bidding on fishing lures.

The amount of time I have spent fishing is probably less than it took me to read Psalm 119. My uncle was a devout fisherman. I went once, I was bored silly, I just never took to fishing. No offense to all of you fishermen out there, we depend on you, we're thankful for you, but anyway, somehow I started bidding on these fishing lures and I simply got hooked on the contest of it. And I finally was the person who had bid the most.

The problem is, I was a teenager. I had no money. This is where it gets very painful, except for my silver dollar collection.

You already get there. You understand what's about to happen. So in winning the glory of supporting this charity through winning this particular bid in this auction for this package of fishing lures, I traded over my silver dollars. Because that's the only way I had to pay. I can't remember if I went to my parents to ask for some kind of help, but I'm confident that in their wisdom they would have just smiled and shaken their heads.

No, I've made this bet. I need to fulfill this bet. Friend, that was a silly, foolish trade. And that's just the smallest taste of the kind of foolish trade we contemplate. When we think about leaving Jesus for anything else.

Are you considering a bad trade this morning? Well, God had given His people His law, but this whole letter has been about the fact that now God has given His people His Son. And that's what we see in verses 14 to 17. So every son of God by adoption through Christ now has as his birthright forgiveness and the joy of having having been adopted by God through the work of Christ on the cross. And that's what this whole letter has been about, showing these early Christians all they have received in Christ.

Listen again about this, even in how the letter begins back in chapter 1. Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. Whom He appointed the heir of all things through whom He created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature. He upholds the universe by the word of His power.

After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs. So we sinners have been made God's children not by Sinai's laws, but by Zion's sacrifice. Moses is only of use in showing us more of how we can follow Jesus. Jesus is the one we're about. Remember how he began chapter 12.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter, that is the completer of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted. So now here in our passage in verse 14, he has instructed these young Christians in the danger of fainting along the way or following the bad example that Esau set. That's the one he pulls out from the Old Testament. This example of Esau selling his birthright for something that wasn't worth it, like me giving away my silver dollars for some fishing lures, only this trade they were in danger of making in the first century was infinitely more important.

Look at what he says here in verses 14 to 17. Strive for peace with everyone and for holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled. That no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

Friends, holy is what we Christians are destined to be.

Ephesians 1:4, He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless in him. And part of that holiness is being in a loving, godly, peaceful relationship with others. That's part of holiness. Such true holiness is perfect only in Christ. True holiness in us is essential to show that we're really His.

This holiness guides us in how we relate to God and others. Now this holiness that's essential in us will not be perfected in us in this life, but it is real. It is true holiness. It's Christ's holiness alone that gives us our place with God. But having been given that place, His Spirit then makes us actually holy ourselves.

The root of bitterness there in verse 15. Is an image of the damaging introduction and tolerance of idolatry among God's people. Look back at the Old Testament with you would for a moment. Turn with me back to Deuteronomy 29. You can even mark this in your Bible as a place to go to understand that odd phrase, the root of bitterness.

I think we see what it means very clearly. In Deuteronomy 29, this is where Moses, Deuteronomy, second reading of the law, it's right at the end of everything, right before he's gonna die and they're gonna go into the promised land. He's rehashing everything to them and he's recounting what's gonna happen. And he's telling them, Look, you're going to disobey. And, well, this is in the middle of that.

Deuteronomy 29, look with me at verse 18. Deuteronomy 29:18, Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you and then here's the image, a root bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.

So this passage in Hebrews is not warning you against bitterness. It's true bitterness is not good, but that's not what the point of this passage is. It's the root of bitterness, that thing which causes bad or painful effects. And the image is straight out of Deuteronomy 29, warning that idolatry brings bad, painful effects. So idolatry should not be tolerated among God's people.

Idolatry should not be allowed to begin to grow up among God's people. So that is what the writer to the Hebrews is saying, devotion to the temple in Jerusalem is in his day. When it's pitted against Jesus. If they leave the assembly to go to the temple, turning away from Jesus for whatever reason, social embarrassment, cost, I don't know, family pressure, to go back to the temple where there's no Jesus, but if they do that to go there, then what they're doing, they're making ironically of irony of ironies, they're making the temple itself a kind of idol. Israel.

It's being worshipped over against the true God who's revealed Himself in the coming of His Son. That's the root of bitterness he's talking about here. That's the equivalent for them of idolatry, turning aside from Christ, going back to Sinai, as it were. So for us, we should consider that it sends nature to spread. You can see it in the Old Testament history of the spread of idolatry in Israel.

We see it in churches today. As churches come to accept sin, it just kills them. Frank Thielman teaches New Testament at Beeson Divinity School. He's taught there for like 25 years. A dear friend of mine.

He's a Presbyterian, great scholar in Paul's letters. I knew Frank when he met his wife, Abby, up in Boston. And she was from Boston, and I was a groomsmen at his wedding, and it fell to me to go pick up his dad. Well, his dad was a very well-known Presbyterian preacher. He preached at Montreat Presbyterian Church where the Grahams lived.

And so the Grahams were officially members at First Baptist Dallas, but First Baptist Dallas was not careful in their membership practices. And so every Sunday they were at Montreat Presbyterian listening to Cal Thielman preach, Frank's dad. Well, so he told me to go pick up his father from the airport. I did. Cal was a man of few and direct words.

And as I was driving him through the cute little New England towns, we would see white, clabbered, wooden churches, church after church. And Cal would always just ask me very briefly, Does that church believe the Bible? And because I had lived there for four years, I knew a lot of these churches. I would just say, no. And he would just say, I wish God would strike that thing with lightning and burn it down.

I don't know how many times I heard Cal pray that brief prayer. And I also don't know how busy the fire departments were the next few weeks. But I understand what he means. That means when the church stops preaching the gospel and the Bible, then like that temple in Jerusalem after Christ had come, it becomes a kind of idol. It becomes a roadblock in the way of the gospel.

We see that happen with church after church after church. Praise God for 150 years of faithfulness here. Brothers and sisters, I don't think we can find a decade in which the truth of the gospel is not preached from this pulpit. There's no praise to us. There's nothing better about us than churches around us, but praise God that he has been so kind and faithful in setting out a light as he has and keeping that light burning.

Practically, I think one of the most important things for us to notice in our passage is really the beginning of verse 15. Beginning of verse 15 in our passage is like the beginning of the Great Commission in that it has a participle functioning as an imperative. So the Great Commission It doesn't really say go. It says going. It assumes we'll be going and the imperatives make disciples.

But going, right at the beginning, as a participle, it functions like an imperative telling us to go. It's exactly what this is. It's episkopos, the word for bishop. It's the verbal form of it, the overlooker, the overseer. And they translate it here correctly as a command, see to it.

See to it. You see that there at the beginning of verse 15? See to it, he says, and then he gives three really quick dangers. You can see that. No one, no one, no one.

See to it. One that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. Two that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble and by it many become defiled. Three that no one is sexually immoral or unholy. Well here's the big question.

Who is to see to it? How you answer that question is what's divided otherwise united Christians in history.

As I say, it's a command. This participle is in the second person plural. So he's not simply saying this to me as an individual Christian, like, I should hear this and I should read this as being about myself. I need to look to my own life. I do need to do that.

It's true. But that's not the point of what he's saying here. He's not saying this to me as the pastor, the bishop, as I look over the members of the church say as I will tonight at the Lord's Supper, when I sit and watch as the elements are distributed to our large table as it were. This is in the second person plural. He's saying, you, all, you all see to it.

He's speaking to the same audience as he has throughout this whole letter. He's speaking to the whole congregation. The gathering is a whole in all its members. You see, the New Testament The Testament envisions the church as a gathering of a family who exercises mutual care and watchfulness over each other, who want that in our own lives, and who are willing to give that kind of care to others. And so he writes here, does he do it?

That no one fails to obtain the grace of God, that there's no root of bitterness that springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled, that no one is sexually immoral or unholy. So friends, this is my work here, to do those things. This is also the elders work here, not just mine, it's all the elders work. But this is each of us also who are members of this church. This is our work.

This is calling for involvement in each other's lives. We're called here by the Holy Spirit to work to see that no one of us fails or faints to give ourselves up to Christ entirely. None of us fails by giving in to immorality or any other kind of ungodliness. It's all of us who are given that work. It's kind of like what he says back in chapter 3 in verse 12, where he says, chapter 3, verse 12, Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

But exhort one another every day, so it's not just listen to Mark's sermon every day on the web. No, no, no, you guys exhort each other. Every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. So like I say, this word here for see to it in verse 15 is the word that we get our English word bishop from. But this is the duty not just of one man over all the Christians in D.C. Bishop is used interchangeably in the New Testament with pastor and shepherd.

Each church is understood normally to be given by Christ its own pastors and shepherds. Not fundamentally dependent on some cathedral church miles away. But this is the duty not just of me for all of you, or even of the pastoral staff of the church. Bishop or overseer and pastor or shepherd in the New Testament are used interchangeably with the word for elder. And that's why you'll see us when we have, like, Preston Dunlap up here leading services, he sometimes calls himself an elder, he sometimes calls himself a pastor.

It's the same thing. The pattern in the New Testament is that one local church would have multiple elders leading the work there. But again here in verse 15, the seed to it is not just the duty of those of us who are elders here. This is the duty we all take for each other as members of this church. And this is why you normally need to formally join a church.

Christian, this is why you normally need to formally join a local church. This is why we have a statement that we members all affirm about what we think the Bible teaches. That's our statement of faith. It shows that we all think the Bible is true and that it teaches us about Jesus and about ourselves. And this is why we have a church covenant, that we, the members, pledge before God and each other, as we hope to do again tonight as we come to the Lord's table, in order to say how we intend to live together.

Now these are things that used to be common in Baptist churches, but got left out somewhere in the middle of the 20th century when Baptists forgot what a church was and thought a church was just a stationary Billy Graham rally. And they were big on evangelistic numbers, but the church membership began to mean nothing, which ironically is the exact opposite of what Baptist churches historically were. So when I came here, this congregation wasn't using the church covenant. So we literally found the church covenant downstairs in the basement. We brought it up, we fixed it up, we put it out to the people, we started using it again.

And I suggested a members meeting. Why don't we do, in fact, we're going to do tonight, why don't we use it at the Lord's Supper every time, every month we have the Lord's Supper. Let's have those of us who are members, visitors remain seated, those of us who are members, let's stand and reaffirm this church covenant together. And fortunately, by God's grace, I was saying that in the 1990s, and there were members in their 80s and 90s, and so Jesse Nale Trainham could put up her hand remembering her childhood 70 years earlier, 80 years earlier in Mississippi, and say, Pastor, that's what my church did in Mississippi when I was a little girl. And I said, yeah, that's what every Baptist church used to do.

That was normal. We understood we needed a covenant with each other. There are all these commands throughout Hebrews and throughout the New Testament that aren't They're not primarily the ministers, they're to the Christians. And they're the kind of things you can't just do with your friends, it doesn't work the same way. And you certainly can't do with Christians you've never met.

It's the Christians you meet with regularly. It's the members of your local church. They're the ones who bear this particular responsibility. And so tonight we intend to once again pledge, we will work and pray for the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. We will walk together in brotherly love as becomes the members of a Christian church, exercise an affectionate care and watchfulness over each other and faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require.

Christians, I just want to say that I praise God for the joy of being on this journey with you guys. You all have wonderfully loved me and Connie for 28 years, and I am so thankful that you've done that. It's been a great way to follow Jesus, to do it with other saints. So I don't know if you're somebody who's just here for 28 days on business, or if you're going to be here 28 years, maybe you've already been here a lot longer than that. But I would tell you whether it's this church or another Bible believing church, commit yourself to a local church.

If you want to stay with Jesus for the long run, stop believing the foolish lie that you can do it alone. You can't. It wasn't made to be done like that. It was made to have other Christians in committed love with you.

Christianity is personal, but it is not private. And you can't run it as a private, just in your head, religion. The real thing isn't like that. We help each other avoid idols. We help each other to persevere in following Christ.

Just think for a moment, what do your friends here not know about you that we should?

Do they know the bad trade that you're considering making right now? Do you want to open your life up a little bit more to your fellow members so they can be of help to you and you can be of help to them? That's what the church membership is for. The cautionary example in Hebrews 12 that he gives here is of Esau. This is the one favored as the grandson of Abraham and Sarah.

He's the son of the promised son Isaac. You can go read his story this afternoon if you want in Genesis 25. The warning of his example to these first century Christians and to us is simply this analogy again. It's like my introduction. It's just making a bad deal.

It's warning them about his trading his birthright for some soup. And the writer of the Hebrews is telling these Christians, that's exactly what you're thinking about doing. If you were thinking about leaving Jesus to go back to the temple, that's like trading your birthright for some soup. Don't do that. It's not a good trade.

It will not age well.

Esau lived a life as a fool. He later regretted the trade, but he never really was repentant for it, it seems. This verse 17 about him not repenting is not really about a theoretical impossibility. It seems it just never happened. Esau seemed to bitterly regret the bad deal he'd made, but not the sin of making it in the first place.

In that sense he stands for everybody here today who hates sin's punishment but doesn't really hate sin.

You understand the difference? You don't want the punishment, but the thing itself, if there were no punishment, oh yeah, you'd probably do that. No, see, for the Christian, God's Holy Spirit conforms us to actually love Him and love what He loves and hate what hates Him and what He hates. Real holiness is not just cautiously avoiding punishment, but is loving God in all His ways and trying to live in such a way as reflects His image. That's what all of us are called to do as humans.

And we're called to do it doubly so as reborn, indwelt by God's own Spirit, people. So brothers and sisters, how are you doing in your struggle against sin? Those little sins, won't tell you they're trying to get you to stop following Jesus. I mean sometimes they do. Sometimes if they feel they've really got pretty much control of your heart, they can be honest with you.

They go, yeah, this Jesus thing, forget it. This is so much better. But generally they're a little scared of approaching Christians just like that. Generally they're gonna lie to you and they're gonna say, no, I can go along with Jesus, no problem. I've done this, I do this to everybody, really.

Just trust me. Let me have a free ride here. Just keep me in your life and don't worry about it. And you'll find what that sin does and then just slowly but surely deadens your conscience and then starts asking for more and more territory. You know, until finally there's not much left to your claim to be following Jesus.

Friends, through this sermon, I'm trying to turn the light on. You know, help the demon appear. Pray that you will understand spiritually what's going on when you're about to trade your birthright away for that mess of pottage, that steaming soup.

How are you doing in your fight against sin? In a fallen world following Jesus will always include fighting against sin. Are you growing in your understanding of sin and your hatred of it? Who's helping you with that? Who are you helping to do that?

Pray that your heart be led not merely to a carnal regret of the difficulties connected with a sin, but to actual godly hatred of sin, which is born out of a love for God Himself. Feed yourself on God's Word. Ask His Spirit to train your heart in His ways. Look at Proverbs 3:5-7: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil. We know that God wants everyone to repent, but Esau's repentance was too little, too late. He was unable to get the blessing back. Friend, I don't want you to be like Esau.

What opportunity do you have today that you might be about to lose? I mean, opportunity for the good, for the right, for repentance, for continuing following Jesus. I pray that you will see what a great gift it is when God shows us things that we can repent of. It's a wonderful gift. Conviction of the Holy Spirit is not something you can go buy at the store.

Conviction of the Holy Spirit is real spiritual work in our heart. I pray that you will see what a great gift it is, and I pray that He transform our regret and grow our remorse into sincere repentance before Him for our sins. God, help us to hate sin more than sins penalty.

That's how you and I can persevere in this race following Jesus. And Jesus is the only way, as he put it in verse 15, to obtain God's grace. You will not obtain God's grace apart from Jesus. We should conclude. Throughout our verses, the exhortation is really following on from the comparison our writer has been making between Judaism, the Judaism of the temple, and Jesus.

Now these two things were meant to go together, the sign of the temple and its sacrifices pointing to the true temple and the true sacrifice of Christ. But now a tremendous perversion began to call some of these early Christians away from Christ and back to slaughtering bulls and goats. And so this author has written this letter, this sermon to some people, warning them not to turn back, but to keep going in their following of Jesus Christ. In the passage we considered last time, up in verses 10 and 11, we considered the danger of rejecting God's discipline. Friends, persevering means accepting discipline.

If we won't have God's discipline, we won't know God's love. Just like parents know that an essential part of their loving their kids is disciplining their kids. To not discipline a child is to not love that child. So it's important to cultivate hearing God when He seems to be against you, or at least opposed to some way you're understanding yourself or acting. The first time I ever came to this church in '93, I actually went and saw a friend of mine who had been on staff with the parachurch ministry reaching college students, and he decided to basically leave his Christian life to pursue a sinful lifestyle.

I went and met him for dinner. I spent a long time just listening. He was telling me all about what he was choosing and why he was choosing to do this. I loved him. He was a good friend.

And at the end of it, I said, Harry, can I just ask you one question? The way you're teaching the truth now and reading your Bible, how will you ever know if God is against something you want?

That's all it was. I didn't press him. I just left it. Brothers and sisters, you need to ask that question of yourself. How will you know the way you're living your Christian life now, how will you know if God is against something that you're wanting to do?

Are you exposing yourself regularly to God's Word? Are you meditating on it? Are you making your life known openly and transparently to others who claim to be following Jesus, maybe who are members of this church with you?

Friends, that's why you want to join a church, to be here regularly, to build friendships, because they help to take off filters that we build against God and His Word. I pray for each one of us here today that we will not ignore the Word of Christ, that we won't develop unbelieving hearts, that we'll never stop our Christian growth. I pray that you will never give up on holiness. That you'll never lose faith in Christ and that you'll never reject God's fatherly discipline. We should persevere in this best way, this new and living way, as he calls it in chapter 10, verse 20, this new and living way by hearing and believing, by growing and persevering in holiness, by having faith and accepting discipline.

This is all the way we persevere. In following Christ. And friends, here's the good news in this: this perseverance, it's not forever. We're not promised an eternity of struggle like this. That is not the Christian message.

Friends, today would have been Aaron Fowler's 30th birthday, if you know his parents, send him an email. But I'll tell you the good news. In God's mysterious providence, God decided to call Aaron home this past summer. And so, you know what? Aaron doesn't need to listen to this sermon.

He's done with temptation. He's not going to be tempted to ignore the Word of Christ. He's no longer tempted to develop an unbelieving heart or to lose his faith in Christ. He doesn't need any further fatherly discipline. Praise the Lord.

He was called on to God's own rest, just as our sister Emma was, just as Connie Brown was, as other dear ones we've loved in Christ. Who have been called home in this past month or even in this past week.

It's a kindness of the Lord to His children that He does not leave us in a fallen world, always having to persevere. We do have to persevere for a while, but our time of perseverance will seem tiny compared to the eternity of bliss. We have in front of us with God. None of us knows how long our race will be. We pray for those who are in the heat of it right now.

We pray for our brother Sharif. I've told you about him repeatedly and the news I have this morning is not good. The corrupt officials in Zanzibar are now charging him with the murder of a friend of his who'd become a Christian and was killed. They found his body on the beach. The group that's taken responsibility for that killing has now put out a video saying they'll find Sharif and kill him.

And the corrupt officials in Zanzibar are now charging Sharif with that murder of his friend. And just that charge makes getting him out of the country incredibly more complicated. Pray for Sharif. You can pray God deliver him from that trial. But pray even more that he be faithful, that if God wants him, like his friend on the beach called home in a week or two, God will keep him strong for it, and he will bear good fruit.

So we pray for Sharif, and we pray for ourselves and for each other, that we will strive for peace with everyone. And for holiness. And we pray that none of us will fail to obtain the grace of God. Grab your membership directory, spend your Sunday afternoon just praying through it. Pray that no idolatry springs up, causes trouble among us, that God strengthens each one of us so that none of us surrenders to immorality or unholiness.

Because, brothers and sisters, we want to come safely home and see our testimonies folded up into those who've gone before us in chapter 11 for the glory of God and for the good of those who come after us so they can see the way. Let's pray.

Lord God, we have confessed that we are sinners in need of youf forgiveness through Christ.

And Lord, you, know those ways that sin is seeming sweet to us today.

You know, Lord, those of us who feel that we are hidden from youm and youd from us. When we feel like we're in the middle of a storm, God, we pray that no one here will be overwhelmed by sin. We pray that yout would help us to make the Lord Jesus all our hope.

And Lord, we pray that when we hear that trumpet sound, not of the terrifying trumpet of the the holiness of God being revealed on Sinai without the way home, but the wonderful, glorious sound of the trumpet of the returning Christ. Lord, we pray that each one of us will be found in Him, dressed in His righteousness alone. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.