I heard a couple of sermons from Alistair Begg’s series on Hebrews 12 during the past week and wanted to post one because I found it very edifying.
The first sermon of this series is linked at the end of this post, for those who are interested in hearing the entire series.
Alistair Begg: Essentials of Christian Maturity, Hebrews 12:12ff
Sermon Highlight points [bracketed statements; emboldening, underscoring are mine]:
- Discipline; how to advance in discipleship
- 6 points stated in terms of a phrase in this text: ‘see to it’ which is a directive to act
- Persistence in the Christian walk vs a ‘flash in the pan’ kind of Christianity
- The first point: ‘see to it’ that you keep strong and straight: a directive to stay in the path of holiness via God’s grace (which levels paths)
- Pilgrims need to deal with discouragement via grace [reading the word; prayer; hearing preaching of gospel; Christian fellowship and the Lord’s supper]
- Assess your walk, where are you headed?
- The second ‘see to it:’ Pursue harmony and holiness; live in peace; make every effort. Be passionate about this pursuit, like a hound pursuing a fox, straining every sinew
- Effort is required, that is: 1 Thes. 4:3; 1 Cor. 6:20
- Talking about it is not the same as doing it. Action required
- Third ‘see to it:’ Grow in grace and not in bitterness; don’t miss the grace of God
- How might one miss the grace of God?
- Grace sets one’s feet on the path of faith; grace is required to continue therein
- One can miss the grace of God by partaking of it in a thoughtless manner: for example, reading the word, praying, hearing the gospel preached…without pursuing application of these things to your life – without the passion spoken of above: mindlessly going through the motions and checking an activity off one’s list
- Another way one might miss out on God’s grace is to let the root of bitterness, envy, anger, rage, despondency to harden one’s soul to God’s grace – these things divert one’s focus; harden one’s heart to grace
- Deuteronomy 29:16 cited re: root of bitterness and covenant living
- Problems caused by roots: churches dying due to certain types of roots having been permitted to grow
- Fourth ‘see to it:’ that immorality and godlessness are rejected
- One aspect of holiness is being set apart from sin
- Our culture exalts immorality: we must not let creature worship enter into our church
- Esau and how he mourned losing his blessing (not over sinning); Esau’s life used to explain this point
- One might live a godly life for 30 years and in 5 minutes lose that by immorality
- 12:18ff law vs gospel regarding those verses and why we, in gospel times, should fear missing out on living by grace; and fear having such disregard for Christ and His gospel: carefully explained via next point
- Fifth ‘see to it:’ Don’t refuse Him who speaks: that is, do not refuse the voice / words of God that He sent via His prophets because these words seem too difficult – they wanted easy words from pleasant prophets [like many today that find the Bible boring, dry, lifeless…but seek fresh revelation…]
- He reminds them that under the old covenant, Israel was exiled to Babylon for disobedience; those who ignore Christs words / gospel and the illumination via His Spirit, will suffer a greater punishment than the exile
- Partake of grace, do not make lame excuses
- Begg talked about the US Open presenting their rules as though they were commands, like God presented His commandments; he speculated at what people would have done had those rules been by God
- God would say, get off the broad road; and note that the sign above it says it leads to heaven and pleasures…but hell is down there
- The sixth ‘see to it:’ that you worship God acceptably with reverence and awe
- Not with superficiality and triviality
- Genuine awe begins by being concerned with the glory of God, not with man’s needs, explained
The following link is to the series from which the above video is the last sermon: Essentials of Christian Maturity. The link will take you to the first sermon of the series; at Truth for Life: