Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 30, 2016 | Route 66 - Hebrews

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October 30, 2016 | Route 66 - Hebrews · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: The World Series is being played right now.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Some of you know that.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: It's not looking good for the Cubbies.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: Three of us on staff.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Our staff is sort of heavily weighted towards Chicago Cubs.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: Three of us have lived there at some point in our lives, Hank and Nat, for a lot longer than I did.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: And um and you probably know about the sort of the curse of the Cubs, which looks like it might come true again this year.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: The last time that the Cubs made it to the World Series, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton had not yet been born.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: World War II had just been over for one month.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: Last time the Cubs actually won the World Series in 1908.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: That was ten years before the invention of grocery bags.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Twenty years before the invention of sliced bread and television.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: So a long time ago, and um I guess why would God want that glorious losing streak to end, right?
1:22
SPEAKER_00: So anyway.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: So that's pretty sad.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: I thought that in my lifetime they might win.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Hank, uh Hank's kind of he's sad, he's up there right now, but he's kind of glad because he paid good money for the license, his license tag, which reads next year.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: So we're in Route 66.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting, this is a series, a road series.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: We're going through the Bible, 66 books, 66 weeks, and we've come to the book of Hebrews, which is generally regarded, and I firmly agree, as one of the two most uh difficult, enigmatic, riddle type books in the New Testament, up there with the book of Revelation.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, we're a little familiar with it, we're familiar with Melchizedek or priest or you know, some of the stuff, but wow.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: And and yet I think that the message of this book is very practical and uh can really help us uh during this time when so many of us feel like giving up for one reason or another.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: So let's start with prayer, Heavenly Father.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: I pray for folks uh uh within the sound of my voice, uh perhaps uh here at Mulvaine Building or over at the College Avenue Building or overseas, who um are discouraged and who are um feel like stepping out, quitting, taking off their uniform, throwing in their chips, and just uh quitting.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And I pray that uh uh that you'll speak to us this morning through the book of Hebrews in Jesus' name.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Her name was Catherine, and she died at age 86 in a Philadelphia nursing home, and her story uh turned out to be so unique that it was carried in most of the major newspapers in our country.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh what seems that what happened is that when uh Catherine was uh 24 years old, she was um caught wandering the streets of Philadelphia.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: The police saw her, picked her up, and she was sobbing, she was weeping, she was almost uncontrollable.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: It seemed like she'd had a nervous breakdown of some kind.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: They talked to her, but she replied to them uh uh unintelligibly.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't understand her, they tried, they couldn't understand her, and finally they did what you do did back in 1920.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: They took her to the Philadelphia or to the Pennsylvania State Hospital, Philadelphia State Hospital, middle institution.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh for the first five or six years that she was in there, uh she spoke, but it was completely unintelligible.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: It was clear that she'd had a nervous breakdown.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: Uh but then after five or six years in 1927, uh Catherine stopped talking entirely.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: And she spent the next 42 years of her life not saying a word, just wandering the halls, wandering the grounds, looking at the walls.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh after she'd been in for 48 years, the governor of Pennsylvania announced that they were going to do a checkup on everyone in mental hospitals in Pennsylvania.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: And so they sent a team of people and they spent time with her, sent in some linguistic experts, and that's when one woman found out uh by that that that that those unintelligible words were not really unintelligible at all, that this was a language spoken in Ukraine.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: That Catherine, and then the story came out that when she was 15 years old, she immigrated to America and she fell in love with a boy and she married him and they had a son.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: But all of a sudden, when she was 24, both her husband and her son had died, and she had a kind of an emotional and nervous breakdown.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's when they found her wandering in the streets and they couldn't understand her.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: They took her out of the state mental house hospital course at that point.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: She's already in her 70s.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: She spent the last 13 years of her life in a nursing home there in Philadelphia before she died.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: But the tragic thing, of course, is that uh her time in America was nothing but really uh sad tragedy.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: And the tragedy, I think, is that she gave up.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Tragedy is there were mistakes made perhaps everywhere, but after five or six years, she just stopped trying.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: She just basically quit.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: And I know it doesn't come as a surprise to you for me to say that there are literally thousands of people in our country who quit every year.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Millions of people across the world who quit after every year.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Some of them commit suicide.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Yes, most of them don't.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: They they continue to live, but basically they do quit.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: They just simply give up all hope, they give up their joy, they just sort of throw in the towel, they continue to exist.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: And one of the saddest things, in my view, as a Christian, is that is that among us Christians, there are also Christians who who are tempted to quit.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: They're tempted to give up on church or on the assembly with other Christians.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: They are tempted to give up on God, they're tempted to give up on the Bible.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: They are tempted to give up on what Paul at one point calls the fight of the faith.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And if you are ever tempted to quit, then the book of the Bible that you need to be acquainted with is the book that's right here in front of us.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: It's the book of Hebrews.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Because this is the book that says as clearly and repeatedly as possible that you must never, ever quit.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: You have your study sheet.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: You'll notice that this was the problem in those days.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Never, I write, was it easier to quit.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Never was it more tempting to slip quietly away from Christian commitment.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: After all, there was ridicule and persecution from all sides.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Why continue to take the heat?
7:28
SPEAKER_00: Why be so fanatic for Christ?
7:30
SPEAKER_00: No.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Far easier to quit running the race, stop meeting with Christians all the time, drift back to the old gang, back to the old traditional religion Judaism, that was politically correct.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: The book of Hebrews, written to Jewish Christians, perhaps by Apollos, and I didn't always lean that way.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: We don't know who wrote Hebrews.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Many suggest Paul.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's some good reasons against that.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: First of all, Paul likes to identify himself at the beginning of his books, but there are other reasons.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: And I used to think for decades, most of my career at TBC, that it was probably Barnabas, Paul's very Jewish friend and co-worker.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: But now, as I've read in the past couple of years, some more academic studies that have come out on it, I lean toward Apollos.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: But whoever it was, he clearly was an inspired writer and also a very gifted writer.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: His language sometimes rises to the Shakespearean level of the book of Romans or the book of Isaiah.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: And his point in this book is he's writing to people who are tempted to quit.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: And he says in the what I'd chosen as the key verse of the book, Hebrews 10, 23, let's hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: In other words, never ever go back.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Don't lose heart and drift off the track.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: Don't grow cold and fall away.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: Instead, stay on the track and keep running.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: I think that's his point.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: And he gives he gives several reasons.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Three reasons, in fact, if you flip over your study sheet, three reasons in this book why we shouldn't quit.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: By the way, before you do that, would you glance down at the outline at the bottom of page one?
9:14
SPEAKER_00: The most controversial, the most, in some ways, the most interesting, the most provocative part of this book, and then the most unique part of this book are five warning passages.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: Five warning passages.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: I've included those as part of the outline.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: They start with the the crescindo up to the greatest.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: They start with the with the most minor.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: The first warning is don't drift away, chapter two, one through four.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: And you know what that's like.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: You've seen high school kids who just simply drift away.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: They graduate from high school, they love Jesus, and so forth, they go to college, right?
9:46
SPEAKER_00: And then what happens in some of you?
9:47
SPEAKER_00: It happened to some of you, like it did me.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, then you just sort of, with the peer pressure and with, you know, some of the things that the fact, you know, that your teachers are saying, you know, maybe about evolution or creation or whatever else, you just sort of drift away from the faith.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: You don't make a solid, uh, strong decision.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: You just stop going to church, you know, and you just kind of drift away, right?
10:07
SPEAKER_00: Am I the only one who's we're all familiar with that?
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but then then the second warning gets a little stronger.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: Don't harden your hearts.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: And he says, he gives illustrations always about Israel, back Israel, who were the the children of God, right?
10:21
SPEAKER_00: They're children, so they're what we'd call Christians.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: They're children of God, but they drifted away or they hardened their hearts.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: They decided not to go into the promised land.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: They were too scared, and as a result, they got, they didn't lose their status as God's chosen people or children, but they lost their fellowship with God and they and they were punished.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Third warning, don't fall away.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Fourth warning, don't throw it away.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Fifth warning, don't turn away.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: And there, you know, the crescendo rises to its peak and says God's a consuming fire.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And he's speaking to Christians that the fire of God's discipline can hurt, and so forth.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's on the front, but the whole argument is listen, stay on the track, don't drift away.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: And the first reason he says to do this is because of all that Christ is.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: This is really significant, friends.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Listen to me carefully.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: You and I are told not to quit because of who our captain is, who our leader is, who the author of our faith is, and the finisher, who is our coach, who is our champion, who is our hero, who our leader is.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: The book begins this way by talking about the amazingness, the majesty of Jesus Christ, our leader.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: It says that, you know, in the past God says, I've been speaking through prophets and stuff, but now in these days, I'm speaking to you.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: God has spoken to us through his son.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
11:46
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things you ought to know about him.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: For one thing, God made the universe through him.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Somebody called a couple weeks ago, a kid, uh, well, you know, uh middle schooler said, you know, and and said, you know, I know God created the earth, but I ran across this first that seemed to say Jesus made the earth.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: And so we talked about that.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it interesting?
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, God the Father made Genesis 1, 1, but three times in the New Testament at a minimum, we find that Jesus is called God the Creator.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: John 1, what's the second one?
12:21
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 1, Hebrews 1.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: God made the universe through him.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 3, the Son, in fact, is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his person.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: You realize how great Christ is?
12:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if God is the Son, Jesus is the sunshine.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: He's the radiance of God's person and the radiance of God's glory, the exact representation of his person.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: That's who Jesus is.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: He's not some subordinate.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: He's equal to God the Father.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And then the next line, he sustains all things by his powerful word.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Some of you will be reminded of the line in Colossians 1 that we mentioned back then.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: By him, Christ, all things hold together, whether it's atoms or solar systems.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: He sustains them by his powerful word.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: This is our leader, this is our celebrity, this is our hero, this is our quarterback, this is our champion.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And then down in verse 8, your throne, oh God.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Notice who's speaking.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: God the Father, speaking to his son, says of the Son, he says, quote, your throne, O God, God the Father calls his son God here, is forever and ever the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand for a moment the gushing about who Christ is?
13:47
SPEAKER_00: It's as though he's saying, look into the future.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: Look into the future as far as you can see.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: And what do you see?
13:53
SPEAKER_00: What do you see, Hebrews 1:1, is you see the Son ruling all things, because he is the heir of all things.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Look into the past.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Now turn and look into the past as far as you can see.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: What do you see?
14:05
SPEAKER_00: You see Jesus Christ creating all things.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Now look into the present.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Look behind the scenes of the present as deep as you want to look.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: What do you see?
14:14
SPEAKER_00: You see someone upholding the entire cosmos by his powerful word, sustaining everything.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: This is our Lord and Savior.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: This is our champion.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus Christ.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: You want to know why Topeka Bible Church does the things we do?
14:31
SPEAKER_00: All of the stuff we do, whether it's Sunday school or a Wanner or the Sunday morning program, or my wife's driving to Kansas City right now to pick up a team that just finished in Haiti this last week, and tomorrow I'll go down with another team to do a pastor's conference and a medical clinic.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: Why is it we do that?
14:46
SPEAKER_00: What's the primary reason we do that?
14:49
SPEAKER_00: It's not because it's our duty, though it is.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: The primary reason is not that by this we will lead people to life in Christ whereby they'll gain forgiveness of sins and eternal life, though they will.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: The reason is not that somehow we will lift some people out of poverty or help to do so, either at High Crest or in the Dominican Republic or Haiti or wherever.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Though they will, some will be lifted out of poverty.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: And the reason is not that somehow we can help with the stewardship of the environment or even that we will get eternal rewards, though we will.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: The primary reason why we do all these things and make an effort to lead people to life in Christ is because Jesus Christ is worthy of this.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: He's the desire of all nations, he is the hero of his father, he is the beloved one of heaven and earth.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: He created all things in the past, he's the heir of all things in the future, he sustains all things in the present, then therefore, this is why we should never ever give up.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Of course, there are good, sound reasons why perhaps you should give up.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: And when do we ever feel this way?
16:05
SPEAKER_00: More than during an election season.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: But in the end, says Hebrews, no, those are just reasons that sound good, because if you'll just look at who your leader is, the Lord Jesus Christ, then you'll know the giving up is the last thing that you should do.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: So the first reason is we should keep that we should keep on running and not quit is because of all that Christ is.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And the second reason is because of all that Christ has done.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: And immediately you'll be thinking and correctly of salvation, of dying on the cross.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's what he says right away in verse 3.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: He made purification for sins.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: And that's a phrase taken out of Jewish sacrifice life, right?
16:50
SPEAKER_00: That sins had to be purged in the Old Testament, therefore they would bring, you know, a lamb, and the lamb stood in the place of a person for their sins, and God temporarily was able to purge their sins until Christ his Son came and died for the sins of the whole world.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: And he purified, purged the sins of mankind so that anyone, anyone by simple faith in Jesus Christ, can gain salvation and the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: And if that's not something you have done up to this point that it's done, then it's something that you can do even sitting in the pew.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Many people do it just sitting in a pew here over the years.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: You can do that at any time.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: This is something that doesn't, it's not by works of righteousness which we have done, but he saves us through his son Jesus Christ and by faith.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: So he made purification for sins, that's what he's done, but then he did something else.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: And this is something that's really rather interesting and unique to Hebrews.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: It says, He made purification for sins and then sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Big deal.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: What is that therefore?
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Why would you put that right after?
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay, stretched out his arms to give us forgiveness of sins, and then sat down at the right hand of his father.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's not as though this is the only time, it's not as though Paul's sloppy.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: He says the same thing in chapter 10, verses 12 through 14, when he says in the New Living Translation, our high priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: There it is, purification.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Then he sat down in the place of honor at God's right hand, where he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet for by that one offering.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: He forever made perfect those who are being made holy.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Why does it mention sitting down afterwards?
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, the last line hints at it, it's because it is finished.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: He finished it.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: That was the perfection and the completion of his offering for sins.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: He's done.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take a lifetime of good works.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take, you know, straining for nirvana or doing this or discipline or spiritual.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: It's finished.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: But this book indicates there's another reason.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: Over and over and again, this book says he sat down so that he could be our representative in heaven right next to God the Father.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: He's our great high priest.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: He is seated at God's right hand in heaven.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, when you feel like quitting, let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, where we'll find mercy and grace to help.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 4, 14.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Since we have a great high priest who's gone through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, don't quit.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: Hold firmly to the faith we profess, for we don't have a high priest unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who's been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: So let's approach the throne of grace with confidence, where Christ is sitting, right?
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Right next to his Father, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 10 looks at it through another prism.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new living way opened for us through the curtain, his body, and since we have this great high priest before the house over the house of God, let us draw near to God.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: When you feel like quitting, pray.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Fall on your knees, cry out, draw near with a sincere heart.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: Let us hold, he completes the sentence, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: In other words, don't quit, for he who promised is faithful, our key verse.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: So keep running because of all that Christ is and because all that he has done.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: But also, now here's this third reason, and all that Christ offers us.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: What does Christ offer us?
21:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, you probably can guess.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: He offers us a special relationship with him if we don't quit.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: He offers us intimacy with him, he offers us rewards.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: This book actually puts it in a rather interesting and very unique way.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: It says in chapter 1, 8 and 9, God said to his son, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: The scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, God your God, God the Father speaking to the Son, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: What?
21:41
SPEAKER_00: Greek word medicoi.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting word used in this book.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: So here you have this picture.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Picture it with me.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: It's sort of the hallelujah chorus.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: Remember the end of uh Handel's Messiah, maybe the greatest piece of music you know ever written.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: And you know, at the end you get the hallelujah chorus, and everybody stands, right?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And everybody, and we all know the lines that uh that that the that it starts off uh hallelujah, hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: And then uh the notes start descending as the next line is, and uh choir sings, the kingdoms of this world are become, and then the music starts heading up the scale again, the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever and then over and over again, and he shall reign forever, right?
22:34
SPEAKER_00: And ever again.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sort of like that.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, that's not exactly like that.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: So that captures the vision which the writer of Hebrews is trying to convey to us that what you have in the future is that you have God, you have his son, and you have the heavenly choir singing and and the God you know handing the making the air of all things and and everything, and around the throne, you have God, you have Jesus, you have multitudes of angels, but you have someone else there as well.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: You have companions.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: You have companions.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, has companions, not angelic companions.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: He's a man.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is forever a man, not an angel.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: So his companions are people.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: There are men.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: And you you know what companions are like.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: We've seen them before in scripture.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: King Rehoboam, kings have companions.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: King Rehoboam, remember, all the people said, Tax is too high, tax is too high.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Do something about it, as he was taking the throne.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: So he goes to the old men, the Zikonim, and he says to them, Uh, Shall I, what shall I do about taxes?
23:45
SPEAKER_00: They said, Well, lower the taxes.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: Solomon's your dad's tax is too high.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: You lower them, they'll love you forever.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: And then he went to his companions, 1 Kings 12.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: And he asked his buds, his 30-year-old buddies who ran around with him and went beer drinking with him or whatever.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: And he, and by the way, we're learning that all those wine words in the Bible, most of them meant beer.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's something else.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm not kidding.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh, but so anyway, these are his beer-drinking buds, okay?
24:13
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes, What should I do?
24:15
SPEAKER_00: And they say, Oh man, you've got to be tough right off.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: You gotta be tough.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: And his companions talked him into going out to the people and saying, You need to double the taxes.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
24:22
SPEAKER_00: It's he was too easy on you.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be tough.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the kingdom split.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: It was horrendous.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: But here's a story of kings that have companions.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Even in these Roman days, it was talked about, they talked about Caesar had his companions, had his retinue, had his inside group.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: And we find that in in the Bible we know that Jesus had his followers, his disciples, his inner circle, his companions.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: And that's a sort of a it's a very special thing, and you and I know from literature and movies and so forth, about famous companions, right?
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Lone Ranger had who?
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Tonto, good.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Batman has his, and my favorite Sherlock has his.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: And these companions are very special people.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was reading the other day, Nolan Ryan was one of the greatest, his greatest pitcher in my lifetime, maybe.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: He was a pitcher for almost three decades.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: And starting when his first in organized baseball, really small, might have been when he was still in high school, Nolan Ryan, every time he pitched, would sometime during the game pop out of the dugout, and he'd come and he'd scan the stands looking for his wife, Ruth, I think her name was.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: And he'd he'd look for her, and then when he caught her eye and she caught his eye, he would wink and he'd sort of move his head, like, I see you, you're there.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's you and me.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: And she would smile and she would wave.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: And he'd go back in.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: And I just to think of how it must have felt for her to know that she was his partner, she was his lifetime partner in everything he did.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: And I I feel like that's sort of the picture of what Jesus is speaking of here.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, uh, you know, just a personal thing.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: When my wife and I were dating, Melanie and I were dating for the first number of years of our life, that's what we always wrote on our Valentine's Day cards and everything to each other.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Partner.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: This was that was sort of our word for each other.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's that's a key word in the book of Hebrews because it's as though it's as though the Lord speaks out of heaven, the Lord Christ and says, I'm looking for partners.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Will you be, will you join me?
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Will you be in a partnership with me?
26:28
SPEAKER_00: Almost as though a father says to his daughter or says to his son, I have this business, and yes, you're my son, yes, you're my daughter, but I wonder if you would also be my partner in the business.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Would you go into partnership with me?
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And in this book, that seems to be a term that is reserved for those who are in the company of the committed, those who are special companions or partners with the Lord Jesus Christ, and that starts off with refusing, refusing to ever walk off the racetrack, refusing to ever quit, refusing to give up, for we are made, he says in Hebrews 3.14 elsewhere, partakers, meticoi, same word, of Christ.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: If there's a condition, no condition for being a son or a daughter of the Heavenly Father, a condition for being part of the partnership.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: And we are made partakers or partners if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast into the end.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: I know there are a lot of, people have a lot of trouble with these passages in the New Testament that say, you know, if you've got to keep going until the end, you know, and so it naturally we would say, oh, that means you must, if you fall off at the very end, then you'll go to hell.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's what it's saying, and certainly not what it's saying in this passage, as one commentary puts it.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Even though we are already partakers of a heavenly calling, verse one, we can only partake of all that God wants us to enjoy in the future with the Messiah by persevering.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Conversely, we can lose the privilege of partaking with Christ fully if we stop trusting and obeying God.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: The condition the writer stated here is the same as in verse 6.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: We must continue to walk by faith.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Quote, hold fast the beginning of our insurance, assurance firm until the end.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, Hebrews may emphasize it more, but this idea is elsewhere in the New Testament.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: And I'll just finish here and get away from it, for many of you will breathe a sigh of relief, because we're we're here at sort of Bible school seminary level for a moment.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Revelation chapter 2 emphasizes the same thing.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: The one who overcomes or the one who is victorious and keeps my works to the end, I'll give him authority over the nations.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: And he'll shepherd them with an iron scepter.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: He'll shatter them like pottery, just as I've received this from my father.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Jesus will have these partners who will help him rule the nations.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: He says in the next chapter in Revelation, the one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I also conquered, and sat down, here it is, with my father on his throne.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: So all I'm saying here is that the Lord Jesus Christ offers us something absolutely unique.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: He offers us a chance to be the company of the committed, his special partners who, though we are tempted, like everyone is, to quit, to walk off sometimes because of, you know, people who hurt our feelings at church or people who treat us poorly or some terrible crisis, which makes us think, since God allowed that child to die, that maybe God doesn't like me and we're tempted to just quit like Catherine did.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: He says, please don't quit.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Please don't quit.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: God says, I want you to be partners with me.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: I want you to be part of my inner circle.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: And so his point is, because of all that Christ is and all that Christ has done and all that Christ offers us, let's keep running till the race is done and never, ever give up.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: He gets close to the end of the book and he says it really clearly in one of the most famous verses in the book, Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of the faith.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Look at those words.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: You notice this is why I tell people, I have no problem telling people at a funeral, yes, your beloved, your dear godly mother, grandmother, grandfather will still be conscious.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: They'll be watching you because this verse it clearly.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: There's a cloud of witnesses that starts with the Old Testament saints in the previous chapter, chapter 11, the hall of faith, Abraham, Moses, David.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: Those people are watching you.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: They're in the cloud of witnesses, therefore, and that cloud of witnesses can includes all who have passed on before, who love Jesus Christ, and they're watching you, they're witnessed, they're seeing you, and therefore, as you're running in front of them, as they sit in the heavenly stands, throw off everything that hinders you, the sin that entangles you, and run what?
31:14
SPEAKER_00: With perseverance.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: That means non-quitting, the race marked out for you, fixing your eyes on home, on Jesus.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the first and greatest motivation for not quitting because of who he is and what he did, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: That's a great message, isn't it?
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Isn't Hebrews a great.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, you're not non-familiar with this.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: We've heard about not quitting.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: You hear about this and running all the time.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: I love the line that goes, running is nothing more than a series of arguments between the part of your brain that wants to stop and the part that wants to keep going.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that true?
31:50
SPEAKER_00: I feel that way every single week when I'm exercising.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Part of my brain keeps going, stop, stop, stop.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: There's so many more fun things.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: You gotta check out sports on TV.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm oh wow, I wonder how the Cubs are doing right now.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, and you know, am I right about this?
32:05
SPEAKER_00: You have this argument.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: LaCrae was in Topeka recently.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: His famous line is, God gave you your own race to run.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Stop comparing yourself to other people.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: They have their race and you have yours.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Run hard and don't quit.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Stop comparing yourselves to the way other people are running.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: You run your own race.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: And then there's a rather more blunt uh uh urging to high schoolers not to quit.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: If you quit school, says a teacher, just remember two things.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: One, you tried your best, and two, I don't like pickles on my Big Mac.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: So, ways of telling people not to quit.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: Some of you will get that after a while.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: Or more famously, Winston Churchill's never, ever, ever give up.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And I found a picture here of Winston when he was two years old.
32:51
SPEAKER_00: Never, never give up.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Winston Churchill also said wonderfully, if you're going through hell, keep going.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's how you feel, isn't it?
33:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you're when you're going through it, you feel like you're going through hell, and that's when you're tempted to quit.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: Why would you quit when you're standing in the midst of hell?
33:09
SPEAKER_00: If you're going through hell, keep going.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther King, I think it was, put it this way: if you can't run, then walk.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: And if you can't walk, then crawl.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: Do what you have to do, just keep moving forward and never ever give up.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Picture not too long ago of uh the Austin, Texas Marathon.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: Famous runner, a Nigerian woman, uh, fell before the finish line, and she couldn't get back up, but she crawled across the finish line.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: And then someone came up uh just this morning between services.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: He'd been at the Kansas State Cross Country Championships yesterday, and she was amazing.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: There was a girl who collapsed before the finish line, and they tried to tell her to get up, you can't touch her, or else she'd be disqualified.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: She'd run over three miles, a 3.2 mile race, I think.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: You can't touch her.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: Just please get up, please get another runner.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, tried to help her up, another runner could do it, but she couldn't get up, and she finally rolled across the finish line yesterday, rolled across the line.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: If that's what it takes, then do it.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Roll across the line.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: But don't quit.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: And I know I'm speaking to some people here who say, you don't know what my life's been like.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: And my life, I took a wrong turn.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the kind of person that God would want as one of his medico, as one of his partners.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've done some things that I regret.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: I haven't been on the racetrack.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: I've been off the racetrack for a while.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: I may be on now, but I was off for much of my life.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, that happens in races, doesn't it?
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Famously, it happened during the New York City Marathon when the guy who was leading, actually, his name was uh um Silva, German Silva, and he was uh he's running neck and neck uh for first place with only less than a mile to go, with another Mexican, in fact.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, what happened was stunning.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: He turned right, he was just slightly ahead.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: He thought that you're supposed to run through Central Park and he turned right, and and you could see all of a sudden his his his his fellow countrymen keeps running straight ahead but just watches him.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: And the people all around him, if you look closely at the news picture, you can see the people behind him are yelling at him, stop, don't, they're pointing.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: You're running the wrong way.
35:24
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens, you know, when people run off track, when they stop going to church, when they start leaving the faith.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: They have friends in there yelling at them saying, Don't do that.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: That's not what you you don't want to do.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: That and you can see the people doing it, but he just kept running.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: He ran for 10, 15 seconds, 40 yards, and so forth.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden he did realize it.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: And he he did a U-turn and he came back and he ran, and now he only had a half a mile to catch up because he was well behind.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: But 200 yards before the finish line, he did catch up and he won the New York City Marathon.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: And I and that that's a lesson, isn't it, for all of us, because every single one of us has gone astray.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: We've turned our own way, right?
36:03
SPEAKER_00: And and and and and this, the Hebrews says, okay, I know that's what your life was like too, but you still can finish strong.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: God says through the book of Hebrews, and his son Jesus Christ says, I would love for you to be my partner.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Will you please stay on track?
36:20
SPEAKER_00: Will you please finish the race?
36:24
SPEAKER_00: So that's what he would say, I think, to all of those who've taken a wrong turn in life.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: I think it was Twila Paris who wrote, sang the song years ago.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: She dressed runner, though the road is long and you're just hanging on, and you feel like quitting, run the race, and when the race is won, you will fall into his arms.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: And this book would say something like that.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: It would say, Yeah, we all feel like quitting at times, but because of all that Jesus Christ is and all that he has done for us and all that he offers us, please don't ever quit.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: Stay in the race until it's done.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Just keep running, and then one day we will fall into his arms.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the reminder that your son Jesus Christ really, really loves us.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: He's so amazing, he's such a celebrity.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: One day, all of the celebrities of the world will fall on their knees before him because he will be shown to be so amazing and yet so full of mercy and grace that he died for all of mankind and then begs those who believe in him to be part of his inner circle.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray for those.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: And then the sound of my voice would feel like uh throwing in the towel, taking off the uniform, you give them uh another urge from the Holy Spirit, a motivation, a shower of your son-in-love.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: So that they'll stay in the race and they'll die in Jesus' name.