Sermon Cloud

Hebrews 12:11-14            BFBC, am

Intro: “Son, this is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you.” “Yes, Dad, but not in the same place.”

1. Therefore – What’s it there for?
2. The admonition of these verses builds upon what has been given to us in the first part of the chapter. There is this cumulative effect as we read through this passage.
3. We must know that the “peaceful fruit of righteousness” is God’s goal for us. His discipline in our life is designed to train us and prepare us for the kind of life which can be useful to Him in His Kingdom.
4. The writer addresses us as runners in a race, and boxers, and warriors. He exhorts us as those who have a game, a race, a contest in which we compete.
   1. The Portrait of Failure
   2. The portrait that is painted for us in this passage is striking. It is the very picture of discouragement and despair and of giving in. This is the attitude of many today. They have encountered opposition and have wrongly concluded that they are better off to quit. NO! We must go back to v. 1-2 and find out where our attention should be.
   3. We must lay aside the weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us. We must realize that the entire process  of God disciplining us is to enable us to lay aside the weight and to leave that sin behind. God is not content with you where you are. Why are you content with where you are?
   4. If we may go back to that picture we saw briefly last week of the prodigal. He finally confessed that he had chosen wrongly and turned away from his loving father. Yet when the father welcomed him home, there was no word of reproach but only of gladness. The body language of that young man when he came home might be the picture of this verse. The physical attributes were of a person who has given up.
      1. It Is Easy to Quit
      2. “Can’t never did do nothing.”  “Quitters never win and winners never quit.” The problem with quitting is that we are losing sight of our goal. The reason that we cannot, we must not quit is that God has so much more for us than we can imagine for ourselves.

Are you willing to believe God even when you can’t understand and you can’t see His answer? That is real faith. Mostly we say we are trusting God while we try to work things out ourselves. Faith is the one thing that pleases God. That is what brought the commendation for all of those in ch. 11.