The Cloud
We are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses. These are people who haven’t bought into
being a citizen of this world. These are
people who are searching and longing for a better and heavenly homeland. These are people of whom God is not ashamed
when they are mistreated, reject, abused, persecuted, and even killed. This is the cloud of witnesses that surrounds
us.
Since we are surrounded by them, we should put off sin. We should run the race that God has set
before us. We should be able to endure
as we look towards the example of Christ.
Sure, we may not be able to see Him, but neither could any of the
faithful people who lived in anticipation of His coming! We may not be perfect, but neither were any
of the cloud of witnesses. They are a
part of the cloud not because they were perfect but because they lived in
Christ longing for their citizenship in heaven.
Endurance
So now we get to the heart of the conclusion in this letter. We’ve talked about Christ. We talked about His supremacy. We’ve talked about His calling and His
faithfulness. Now we turn to our
response.
I don’t find it hard to believe at all that the author of Hebrews
needed to talk to His audience about endurance.
I think every single one of us reaches a place in their life where
endurance is difficult. We all reach
places where we want to quit, we want to give up, or we want to give in. A message of endurance is a message that
should be universally appreciated because I’m willing to bet we’ve all needed
one before.
The author of Hebrews doesn’t particularly pull any punches,
though. He makes a straightforward
assertion. “In your struggle against sin
you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your own blood.” In other words, none of us have given our
lives for what we believe in. None of us
who are still living have been asked to make the sacrifice that God asked of
His own Son. Of course, there have been
people in the past who have been asked to make such a sacrifice and I’m sure
there will be people in the future – perhaps even some people reading this
post. But as of right now, that level of
endurance has not been asked of any of us.
I really find that humbling and challenging today. I can convince myself that I’ve been asked to
make sacrifice after sacrifice. But I
really haven’t. I haven’t been asked to
give up too much, all things considering.
I have a good marriage, a good job, food on the table, and a roof over
my head. What have I really had to
sacrifice up to this point?
Painful in the Present, Fulfilling in the Future
Even in those things that I have been asked to make sacrifices, it
is as the author says. It is painful in
the moment. It is sometimes even
downright difficult to do the right thing and make the hard sacrifice. But every single time it has been for the
better. Every single time I give up
something in this world for the sake of God I end up being a better person
because of it. Of course I respect God
for disciplining me and asking me to make sacrifices so that I can draw closer
to Him. It’s just how spiritual growth
works!
So I should pick up my head – so should you! I should step out in faith – you too! We should do what we can to make sure that
nobody “fails to attain the grace of God.”
{Remember our conversation about husterew
(ὑστερέω) in
Hebrews 4? Anyone want to guess what
word appears in verse 15?} We
should do what we can to help people get rid of bitterness, stop being defiled,
leave sexual immorality behind, and stop trading their true spiritual nature
for worldly gain.
Reason to Take Things Seriously
Every time husterew (ὑστερέω) appears
in Hebrews we have a following discussion of warning. The author knows that we have reason to
fear. The author knows that there will
be a time of accounting. As the author
says here, once more God will shake creation so that only the things that
cannot be shaken will remain.
We know from other places in scripture that there will be a day
coming when all things will pass away.
There will come a time when the heavens and the earth will be discarded
and God will bring about a new creation.
What an incredible time that will be.
What an incredible failure to miss out because we long more for the
things that can be shaken than the things of the kingdom that cannot be shaken.
As the author says, “Do not refuse Him who is speaking.” After all, we know that when the Hebrew
people refused to obey God at Sinai they wandered the wilderness for 40 years
until the last of them had died. If that
was what God did to those who refused the temporary covenant, you can only
guess as to what God will do to those who refuse the true covenant.
Let us be grateful. Let us
approach God with awe and reverence. Let
us take time to offer up acceptable and pleasing worship to God.
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