Note: At the local church I pastor, I preached through the book of Hebrews in 2011, with an eye to "fixing our eyes on Jesus." In this blog, I am reproducing the emails I sent to my congregation by way of Monday morning follow up. Some will recap the message; some augment; and some bring greater application. The sermon audios themselves can be found at www.rpcwc.org. My goal in posting them here is keep before us the Jesus we need to see as the ground and focus of our faith, and the Jesus we want others to see for the sure hope of salvation.
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“This has been the most horrendous year of my life! I am sure hoping next year will start out fresh and new and that I will be able to cope with my life better.”
That's a comment I read on Facebook that reflects the sentiment of many of us. We yearn for better days, less drama in our lives, a little more sunshine to warm and cheer us--please! But can we really expect 2011 to be any different from 2010? The hassles and hardships will just take different forms and be called by different names. Some days we'll be able to cope better than others.
On Sunday, we started a study of the NT book of Hebrews. Hebrews is a curiosity. On the one hand, it looks like a theological treatise. With the opening words, we jump into the deep end of biblical theology and redemptive history. Yet, on the other hand, Hebrews ends like an epistle, a pastoral letter tenderly speaking to the need of the moment for the original audience. It's like it can't make up its mind what it wants to be.
If you have a ruptured pipe that is spewing water all over your house, what do you want, words of comfort or concrete action? Actually, the concrete action would be comfort in itself, wouldn't it?
That's pretty much the approach the writer of Hebrews (we don't know the human author) takes. The original audience was Jews who had converted to Christianity, convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, but were having second thoughts because of the persecution they were experiencing.
The writer says in no uncertain terms how foolish and dangerous that would be to go back. How could they let go of the Reality to return to the shadow? So he takes them through a crash course on covenant theology. In so doing, he points them to Jesus.
The title for our sermon series is "HEBREWS: Fixing Our Eyes On Jesus." That subtitle presents us with our goal for the new year. Just as the original audience was dealing with fears and doubts and discouragements and struggles with sin and confusion, so do we. The answer to help them to persevere and to know joy and peace amidst the heartaches and hardships of life is the same answer for us. We need to see Jesus more clearly, more constantly, more gloriously, more personally.
That's just what the Spirit of God is going to help us do through the book of Hebrews. I would encourage you to commit to memory our theme verse behind the series' subtitle, Hebrews 12:1-3. And think about it. Like Mary, ponder these things in your heart. Meditate upon them on your bed as worry keeps you awake at night. Fortify yourself with them as doubts creep in. As sin's guilt and power presses in upon you, run the race of life in 2011 not with your head down, but with your eyes lifted to Jesus - intently, expectantly, joyfully.
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