Growing to be like Jesus

We have been working through Hebrews chapter 12 with the theme of "Growing to be like Jesus" in mind.  Today we are going to look at verses 12 through 17.  Now the term Christian literally means we are like or belong to Christ.  Now this can be a term that we or others give ourselves, or it can be a description of reality.  Now not very many people will say, "I am exactly like Christ."  We all know that we fall short in many ways.  But when we use the term Christian it is not a statement implying we are done.  Rather as we follow Jesus we remind the world around us of him.  In fact this very thing is said of the disciples.  The religious leaders took note that these guys had been with Jesus.  It had affected them in a way that reminded others of Jesus.

In actuality it is an impossible task to grow to be like Jesus.  However, it is something that God himself has promised to do in us.  God promises us that when he is done working on us we will look completely like Jesus.  This is a work that will take all of our life plus death.  Perhaps the sceptic will say, "well then it isn't real.  It's just a figment of your imagnination."  Of course this is not true.  Any one who has truly followed Jesus for any number of years will be able to look back at year 0 of their Christian walk and be amazed at how their life has changed.  We should never look at that change and feel proud.  Because without God's help and grace we would still be stuck in our sins.  Now God Himself is the Author and the Finisher (i.e. Perfecter, One who makes Complete) of our faith.  This work is like a long distance race.  God will enable us to complete it, but we must Cooperate.  Now pause and ponder on that for a moment......

God is doing a work in me that will end in making me look like Jesus and I need to cooperate with him.  Last week we talked about how God disciplines us in life to help us along the way.  Sometimes that discipline is a "Woodshed" moment.  That is we are going through a hard time because of our own sin and failures.  God does not protect us from the lessons we need to learn.  But he does give us the grace to come through it.  Sometimes his discipline is merely teaching.  Things don't always go our way and it isn't always traced back to our failures or sin.  It is merely our heavenly father teaching us.  Don't get discouraged in either of these times because they are proof that you are God's child and he cares for you.

The enemy often gets us discouraged by getting us focused on us.  I don't like this pain or grief.  Why is this happening to me?  What did I do?  But God's Word tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus.  He is the one who will bring us through.  So challenge yourself.  If your faith is in you then you will only grow in discouragement.  But if your faith is in Jesus there is always hope.  In fact your failures will only cause you to lean on him more.  Is that a bad thing?  Have your closest times to God not been when you went through tough times?  Did you not pray more and search your heart more?  I tell you that if you have become like Jesus at all it was done in those difficult times.  So learn to embrace the discipline of the Lord in your life as difficult as that sounds.

Purposefully Focus on the Difficult Task of Faith

Now verse 12 of Hebrews 12 begins a transition from God's discipline to our daily life as a believer.  Here we see that we need to focus during these difficult times.  When you read verse 12 the tendency is to think that the writer means we need to help others.  It is true that this verse ultimately leads to that.  But the primary focus is that our own hands can hang limp at our side and our own knees grow feeble during times of discipline.  Part of our focusing is to stir up our faith and do the works of God.  We can be paralyzed because our faith is being tested and stretched.  Now in several versions the words are "strengthen the hands..."  The word literally means to raise up and it would require strength to do so.  But the strength her is the strength of faith.  Idle hands means our faith has been weakened.  But a strong faith will express itself through our hands, feet, lips, etc...  So the instruction is to not let yourself be paralyzed during difficult times.  This is the time of battle.  The time to put your hands to the work that faith in Jesus requires of them.  Also the term for "feeble knees," more has the picture that they have been twisted and malformed.  We are called to straighten out those twisted and malformed knees, by faith, and do the work we have been called to.  Of course we need to help others in this as well, but if we are not doing this ourselves than we have nothing with which to help others.  Jesus, the Living Word, spoke to lame legs and hands and they were restored to their proper ability.  However, many are spiritually twisted into inactivity as their faith is shackled under discouragement.  If we will allow it the Word of God can, even now, come into our lives and not make the tough things of our life go away, but rather give us the faith to shake off the paralysis of doubt.

Another part of focusing ourselves is making straight paths.  Here the writer alludes back to Isaiah chapter 40 and John the Baptist.  John warned people that the Messiah was coming so they needed to prepare the way of the Lord.  This is a picture of the preparations that must be done in order for the Lord to enter, not just the world, but even an individual person's life.  It is an imagery of road building.  All the high places of pride in our life and in this world will have to be cut down and used to fill in all the low places of lacking.  If we are going to be ready for Jesus' return and the Lord's judgment then there are things we need to get rid of in our lives and things we need to add to them.  Ultimately we need to drop the pride of "my way" and let the Lord Jesus give us true righteousness.  We also need to drop the false righteousness of our self and let the Lord teach us the things we truly need to do.

Often in road building we can try to avoid the costs of making a road completely straight.  It is too costly, too difficult and too painful.  The message here is that the Lord requires a straight path, "the hardest to build for long distances."  This road must be straight and level.  So part of the focus is to keep focused on the difficulty of the work we have been called too and to not cut corners.  If we do so then there will be some effects.  "Dislocated" verse 13 could rather be translated turned aside.  If we only focus on the body then dislocated makes sense.  But in this verse a lame person on a road, trying to make their way, is in view.  Just as their foot, knee, leg has been affected or twisted in some way to debilitate them, so they may be "twisted or turned aside" off the road.  It is a powerful image that is difficult to translate, but I hope you see that when we humble our pride and lift up what is missing in our godliness then we help others who are lame to not be turned off the road of salvation.  In fact in verse 15 he brings up the idea of falling short of grace, i.e. not finish the race.  How many people have been wounded and pushed out of the way of salvation by our own pride and lack of righteousness?  Oh, God forgive us and help us to see where our own self-righteousness can take out the injured instead of healing them.  God intends his Church to be a healing community.  Not just in the sense of miraculous physical healings.  But even more so in miraculous emotional, relational, and spiritual healings.

Purposefully Focus on Others

As is fitting with the metaphor of a road or path, the writer has also been using the imagery of running a long distance race.  So these metaphors are richly mixed in many ways throughout this passage.  In verse 14 they are told to pursue, "run after," peace so as to catch up with it.  And, to do this with all people.  Peace is an elusive thing that we can grow weary trying to have with certain ones.  Here is the recognition that peace must be pursued and not half heartedly.  The writer also adds holiness as something we should pursue with all and in fact warns that without holiness we won't see the Lord.  Now it would be easy to say, "Yes I have the holiness of Jesus."  But the word used here does not have the perfect righteousness of Christ in view.  It has our own sanctification in view.  It basically saying that if we have not grown to be like Christ one bit then we will not see God.  Can this be true?  Here are some other Scriptures.  Judge for your self.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; ⁴ that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, ⁵ not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord isthe avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. ⁷ For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. ⁸ Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given^[a] us His Holy Spirit."

The point is not that you must also have works, but it is pointing out the same thing James does.  You cannot say you have faith when it has produced nothing in your life.  Back to the point at hand.  If we were only to pursue peace with others then we could use unholy means to obtain it.  Thus righteousness is held up beside peace.  We are to pursue both.  Many in this world love the term "unity" and "peace."  However they are willing to sacrifice the truth of God in order to obtain it.  There can never be peace with the wicked and their wicked deeds.  We are not to pursue peace as "people-pleasers", but rather through godly love bring peace to the table.  What the other person does with that is their business.  We must reject being offended and giving up because this is not the righteousness of Christ.  Rather we continue to bear the affront and pay back good for evil.  This is the weapon of love.  Love can conquer where no other weapon can go.  Everyone will see the Lord in judgment but not all will enter the time of Revelation 22 where the righteous shall see His face and he will wipe the tears from their eyes.  His eternal acceptance is what is in view in verse 14.

Verse 15 says that we are to be carefully watching for problems that would keep ourselves and others from completing the race of faith.  Thus we keep focused on those things that could trip us up.  It can be easy to look down on those who struggle where we are able to run on, but such thoughts are vanity and will lead to our own downfall.  We are called to help those who are in danger of falling short of grace, giving up before the race is done.  He then mentions the "root of bitterness."  It would be easy to think of this in the terms of a person being offended by another Christian, but the term is actually an allusion to Deuteronomy 29:18.  Read it and then think about how we are to be tied to the vine of Jesus.  The bitter root is drawing poison from a different source.  They are not really connected to Jesus, though they may purport to be.  The root of bitterness is those who are spiritual fornicators and if allowed will poison the faith and life of other believers.  These are people who like Esau are driven by fleshly appetites and worldly thinking.  They are unrepentant even though they may appear contrite and spiritual to the untrained eye.  Such roots can only be dug out and expelled from the group, otherwise they will cause many to be defiled.  Such is the weight upon the overseers of any assembly of believers.  They watch over men's souls that they may not be savaged by wolves that will rise up among us.

To grow to be like Jesus takes courage and fixation.  Keeping fixed on the task of becoming like him.  O Lord help us to fight the good fight of faith.  Amen!