Hanging On

 

Text: Hebrews 10:19-25

Focus: Perseverance

Function: Provoking each others to do good deeds.

¹⁹Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), ²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²²let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. ²³Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. ²⁴And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, ²⁵not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

The translators of the New Revised Standard Version titled this passage in the scripture as perseverance. I titled the sermon “Hanging On.” I saw a sign on a Lutheran Church yesterday that titled it: Aspire to Inspire.

I met a man with a mighty possession of knowledge of the scriptures in my car the other day while driving for Uber.

At first he was concerned that Jesus was coming back real soon because of the political climate. We talked back and forth about the scriptures and what they have to say about the end times.

We only found a little bit of common ground in our discussion so I asked him to share his favorite verse of the Bible. He quoted two verses that have to do with studying scripture to have the knowledge to persevere.

It seemed to be his primary concern, how did he keep himself motivated for the Kingdom of God until Jesus returns? He was focused on his part of salvation and efforts to please Jesus. It was obvious that he loved Jesus.

And Christians not serving the kingdom is a common problem that we have. I have heard it a lot in the churches that I have pastored. The older, more experienced women, who have had bible training all their lives relegate the responsibility of teaching the younger ones because they did their share already.

I agree that we need to be building up new leadership in the church, but God has called us to service in the kingdom until we die. And when we die, we are released from that service. We know this. Serve God, it gives us a purpose here on life. And you know, we serve by loving others, forgiving others, helping others and speaking out for others.

So the author of Hebrews takes on the perspective of perseverance from a little different angle than just willing ourselves to be more faithful, have less doubts and to keep on working.

We are called to work but we are also called to rest in the power of the Holy Spirit to do that work.

I love the way Jesus promoted Christian service with the disciples. Early on in the ministry, Jesus sent the disciples out in pairs of two to proclaim the kingdom of God was here and now.

The disciples experienced the power of the Holy Spirit to the point that even demons were subject to them in the name of Jesus.

Jesus rejoiced because now that people are powered by the Holy Spirit, God can be present working His love and grace throughout the world in the people who constitute His family, the church, the Kingdom of God here on earth.

The text speaks of the power of prayer and the confidence with which we can pray and realize that God is listening to our prayers and responding.

He draws another symbolic parallel to the Jewish tradition. He speaks of the temple, and the veil that separated the holy place from the common area. Jesus, he says, is a symbolic type of veil.

The Temple was laid out with a room that contained the bread of presence, the incense burner and the ark of the covenant. Only the Priest, who was pure and holy, could enter the holy place. The Spirit of God rested on that place when the temple was dedicated. And an amazing thing happened when Jesus died. The two rooms has been separated by a thick curtain, or veil. When Jesus died, the veil was torn in two, from the top to the bottom.

It is said that it happened so that the Holy Spirit, which could now dwell in the hearts of men, women and children, could leave the Holy Place of the temple and now dwell in the hearts of humanity.

Jesus broke the barrier between man and God.

The author wants us to have confidence in this statement. We are accepted into the family of God through the blood Jesus shed and we are alive and empowered through the presence of the Holy Spirit that dwells inside of us.

Through that process, our consciences are also made clean, that is how we know that God has saved us. We symbolize it by our baptism, and since it says “having the bodies washed…” we practice full immersion in our baptism. However, I believe the reference to our bodies washed clean, in conjunction with the cleansing of our evil conscience, is that we been washed by the power of the Holy Spirit as we are received into the family of God.

He gives us two instructions in the passage to do: Verse 23: Hold fast to the confession. Verse 24 Provoke each other to good works.

So, let us break those down. Hold fast to our confession without wavering means what it says. The confession he is speaking of, I believe, is the confession of our faith. I would say that my confession is that Jesus Christ is my Savior.

Hold on to it. When I remember my confession, I actually say that Jesus is my Lord and Savior then my confession means that I will rest in Him to save me after all, He is my Savior. I will rest in His salvation. I wanted to say that to the man who was mighty in scripture. What about the rest that we have? He was compelled to being faithful and it almost seemed like he was afraid that he was not going to make it.

But the author of Hebrews reminds us of the power of the gospel to save us and we keep on expressing our faith in the good news with our continued confession.

Jesus saved me. I cannot save myself. Jesus did it for me. Jesus is indeed my Savior. That is how the confession works for me, I remind myself of it and the change that came when I made that confession so that I don’t lose heart.

I am reminded that if Jesus saved me, He will also keep me in His fold. He loves me, doubts, failings, insecurities and all. So, hang on the power of our confession, it releases the power of salvation for us.

The second instruction he gives us is to provoke one another to good works. I like the word provoke. It goes beyond encourage. It confronts us at times, it gets emotional and it stirs up our passion. It powers the enabling. Remember, I believe that the mission of the church on behalf of its members is to enable and encourage them to be faithful.

The author of Hebrews reminds us that at times, we need to be provoked. That means that if I am going to be a good preacher, I need to, at times, make you uncomfortable with areas that Jesus is still working on in your lives.

I thank God that at times of weakness, God doesn’t just smooth them over, but makes me/us face my/our weaknesses so that He can heal the root cause that keeps me/us from being faithful.

There are often root causes to our prejudices and fears. Some of them are evolutionary as we tend to want to be with our own kind, and some are societal, and we are given the power of the Holy Spirit to over come them.

I grew in my faith when I have been provoked beyond my comfort zone as well. I’ll tell you a story about how God worked on my own prejudices and racism. When I was in Bible college, my Greek professor went through a rather humbling and open confession of sin and repentance.

He started every class with a Pollock Joke. We don’t hear them much any more, but they were very popular when I was growing up.

The professor, informed by the History professor, who was Church of the Brethren, discovered that Pollock jokes were started by the German propaganda regime in order to dehumanize the Polish people so that the Aryan’s of the German Reich would not feel bad about conquering the Polish people and subjugating them to their oppression.

The Pollock joke was used to commit great war atrocities.

My professor, convinced by my History professor, repented and changed his ways. He was provoked to good works.

When that experience happened in Bible College, it also happened to me, I was convicted of all the times I engaged in racially motivated jokes thinking they were funny. But I learned that they are merely tools of oppression to keep a people down. I too, repented and after I confessed my sin, I discovered how many ways the racial jokes colored my opinion of non white people. All of that happened after the love of God filled my heart with the Holy Spirit. He is saving, healing and correcting us to the very core and he isn’t finished with that process until we die.

So, let us remain open to the Spirit’s provocation in our own lives as well.