Hebrews 12

Tripping

Posted on by Betsy

Today’s lesson will focus on tripping. And more importantly, how not to trip. I am an expert at both tripping and falling, so read this carefully.

Hebrews 12 (Common English Bible)

12 So then, with endurance, let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, 2 and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter. 

I don’t even know how many times I have fallen while running and it all has to do with what I where I was looking. The first time happened when Kenn and I were running and a lady with an adorable little Corgi dog came toward us. I slipped behind Kenn so they could pass us, but of course instead of looking where I was going, I was looking at the dog and BAM, my toe caught on a piece of the concrete that was raised up just one inch and I fell and broke my arm. Just recently I did the same thing looking for an alligator in a pond I was passing on a run in Florida. My toe caught a raised up edge of the concrete slab and I took a header. But there may be a case made for looking at the alligator in this instance, however.

Have you ever gotten tripped up because you were looking the wrong way? We can all relate to this hard lesson learned on keeping your eyes forward and on the path God has set before you! 

Getting tripped up by sin often starts subtly. A mild flirtation becomes a destructive relationship and a marriage ends. An envious spirit becomes slanderous gossip and reputations are damaged. A few missed Sundays turn into months and years away from a community of faith. We look up and suddenly realize we are so far from God’s path we can’t even see it anymore. How can we prevent that from happening?

The obvious question is, where are you looking right now? What are you looking at right now? Let us not forget that Genesis 1 tells us that Eve SAW the forbidden fruit and then ate.

Genesis 3:6 (Common English Bible)

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food & pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some & ate it.

It all begins with a look.

Are you focused on the course of faith that has been laid out before you or have your eyes strayed away to other distractions? Lord knows we live in a world of distraction. Social media, thousands of streaming channels that offer escape from the real world, political news that is endless in our 24-hour news cycle, attention diverted by wealth and greed and trying to get ahead of your neighbors, obsessing over the success of our children and having to post every minute of their lives … the list goes on and on. Many of us truthfully spend a good portion of each day looking at our phones.

But where should you be looking? Scripture instructs us to just keep looking at Jesus.

When we look at Jesus, we see the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

When we look at Jesus, we see a race completed with determination, endurance, and grace.

When we look at Jesus, we see his power to continue moving forward and away from old habits and baggage.

When we look at Jesus, we see our future.

Keep moving forward! Keep your eyes on Jesus.

Not Today, Satan!

Baggage

Posted on by Betsy

Today we continue our focus on Hebrews 12, where the writer encourages us to pursue a race with endurance that leads to a finish line of Christ.

Hebrews 12 (Common English Bible)

12 So then, with endurance, let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up, 2 and fix our eyes on Jesus, faith’s pioneer and perfecter. 

We notice is that verse references “the race that is laid out in front of us.” Just stop for a moment and consider that. This is a reassurance that God has a path, a way, a journey already laid out for us. Not in the predestination sense of the word; as Methodists, we don’t believe in predestination. We understand this more in a prevenient grace kind of way, like the grace that is spelled out in Jeremiah 29:11. In other words, God has a plan for your life, it is a plan to prosper you and not harm you, and it is a plan to give you a future with hope. If you run your life between the cones and follow God’s plan, you are sure to cross the finish line with grace.

That’s why we are instructed to lay aside any weight or sin that would keep us from being all that God is calling us to be. Verse 1b says: Let’s throw off any extra baggage, get rid of the sin that trips us up. Old baggage and sin will always cause you to go off course and stray from the lane that leads to a good finish.

I’m reminded of a story my husband tells about a time when he was at the airport in Tokyo moving from one plane to another in his Delta Air Lines uniform. He was walking down the hallway when he noticed a very small Japanese woman struggling with an overloaded cart filled suitcases and bags. Every time she seemed to make a little progress, another bag would slide off the top and fall onto the ground and she would have to stop and reload the cart. He approached her and offered to help, mostly using hand signals since they didn’t speak each other’s language. Maybe she mistook him for a porter! In any case, they finally got a plan for her to carry two of the bags that kept falling while he pushed her baggage cart all the way to her final destination.

I love that visual. Baggage can be overwhelming and definitely impedes your forward progress. We do well as a church to remember that we are called to help each other with our baggage issues. Every single person reading this has some kind of baggage that impedes their forward progress. Past history, past trauma, past poor choices, family dynamics, grief, addiction, struggles with body image, anger, resentment, abuse … we carry a lot, don’t we? 

The writer simply says to throw it off. Easier said than done, isn’t it? Many folks can spend years trying to throw off old baggage. But no matter how long it takes, it is worth the effort.

Jesus came to be our Baggage Claim. He stands at the ready to take the heaviness of everything that slows us down and prevents us from pursuing the path he has laid out for us. All we need do is ask.

Are you able to name your baggage? Can you ask the Lord to come and claim it from you?

May we find ways to ensure our continuing the race with clarity, forgiveness for ourselves and others, and the freedom to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

The Path Laid Out

Endurance

Posted on by Betsy

Our Scripture today was written by the author of Hebrews around 65 AD, prior to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans. The primary message of this book is that Jesus Christ is the completely supreme Son of God and is the ultimate fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies about a messiah. In fact, Jesus is greater than any prophet who came before him, any angels, and even greater than Moses and Elijah. The writer laid out the argument that Jesus is the ultimate High Priest, eliminating the previous animal sacrifice system of the old Jewish temple with his one sacrifice on the cross. His new covenant was superior in every way. 

When I was in seminary at the Candler School of Theology, I was required to take a Bible Survey course that covered all 66 books in one semester. When the end-of-semester test was imminent, I created a shorthand for memorizing the major themes of 66 books. My trick for remembering the theme of Hebrews was to break it down into He is Better than the rewst. Its awkward, but it worked. An easier way to remember it is this: any He that likes Brews is a superior fellow indeed. Can I get an amen?

Let’s talk about endurance today.

Hebrews 12 (Common English Bible)

12 So then, with endurance, let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. 

We are encouraged to run this race with endurance. The Greek word for “endurance” is hypomone, meaning determination, unyielding, and not delaying.  By the way, the Greek word for “race” is agona which running certainly can be at times. Agona means struggle or conflict.

So we understand this verse to suggest that we need a level of good conditioning, proper strategy, and determination to run this arduous race of discipleship. Those things only come about with good training, and so that is where we start our conversation.

Followers of Jesus are called to take their discipleship seriously. 

Let me ask you a question. Do you pursue discipleship like you are in training? As followers of Jesus, we know that we’re automatically in a workout of lifetime learning, growing, and developing the traits and skills of being more like Christ every day. Are you actively engaged in your training right now? 

I’ll never forget something lovely that Rev. Bob Pitsch told me years ago. Bob was a beloved retired pastor who attended our church after serving Colington United Methodist Church for decades. In 2010, at age 91, he signed up to take my Disciple 1 class. I was a little flabbergasted to have a man of Bob’s wisdom and knowledge in a class I was teaching. It would be like having Moses or Paul in your classroom. When I asked him why he signed up, he winked at me and told me that he was “studying for his finals”. Many years later I stood in the pulpit at his funeral as we celebrated that fact that he had indeed passed his finals with flying colors.

We’re all here studying for our finals. This race of endurance is a training program that needs dedicated Bible Study, weekly worship, daily prayer, passionate serving, engagement in a small group, generous giving, and most of all, discipline. 

Trying is not training. I invite you to take your training to the next level and grow deeper in your relationship with the Lord. The race is on!

Determined by Barbara Springfield

Go the Distance

Posted on by Betsy

Have you ever had a never-ending week that turned into a never-ending weekend that suddenly became the middle of the next week, and you had not yet come up for air? And then it became a month, then a year, then a life of never ending-ness? I think this is why God created the second wind. Were it not for our ability to catch a second wind, we would have all burned out decades ago.

So let’s talk about second winds for a second. (See what I did there?) According to Grammerist.com, a second wind is defined as:

A second wind is a renewed sense of vigor after becoming fatigued, a fresh conviction that one is able to achieve one’s goal, a burst of energy following exhaustion. The word wind, in this case, refers to breath. The idea is that one becomes fatigued and is out of breath, and then becomes reinvigorated and catches one’s breath. The term second wind may be used to mean a burst of energy after one becomes physically fatigued, or it may mean a burst of energy when one is mentally or spiritually fatigued. The term second wind was first used in the 1830s, to mean a renewed sense of vigor when one has become tired from physical exertion.

I love the fact that this definition mentions becoming spiritually fatigued. Spiritual fatigue can happen just like any other fatigue. When we push hard at something, even the rewarding task of spiritual development, worship, sharing the good news with others, trying to be a light in the darkness, or just getting through the day without punching somebody in the throat, exhaustion can happen.

We are living in a time when hate, anger, hostility, rudeness, and viral vomiting are the norm. These things hurt our spirit. These things exhaust our souls. It is exhausting to be the light when people feel the freedom to bash, criticize, condemn, and bully others on every social media platform, news program, and radio show that we turn on. We are surrounded by a cacophony of negative noise that makes it impossible to hear anything good or wholesome. And that wears us out.

Are you worn out? Need a second wind?

I think there are two things to keep in mind when your will to go forward goes backward and you just want to sit down and stop.

First, sit down and stop. The whole reason God created the sabbath is so that we would stop everything and have a sabbath rest. Some days you just need a day of disconnected, unplugged solitude in order to recharge. Pushing when you have absolutely nothing left in your tank just means your engine will stop anyway, just farther down the road.

Second, consider what Paul says about second winds:

Hebrews 12 The Message (MSG)

Discipline in a Long-Distance Race

12 1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

When you see yourself flagging in your faith, take a breath, stop to rest, wait for the second breath to come, and remember why you are doing this. Remember what Jesus plowed through. He went the distance for you. Remember the story, every step of the way, and how Jesus plowed through all the hate, anger, and hostility that he had to overcome.

You are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth. You got this.

Take a breath, and then a second breath, recharge, and get back in the race. And keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we are running. God is at the finish line, so breathe.

Just breathe.

Go the Distance

Acts of Faith

Posted on by Betsy

I love to run but I hate to do races. Races are the worst. You have to be diligent in your pre-race workouts for months, and then on race day, you get up at an ungodly hour and run a course you’ve never seen before, being passed by young people pushing strollers with their dogs trotting alongside of them. Or maybe that last part is just me. I have been beaten by many a kid/dog combination in our local Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day. It is a little humiliating.

I mention this to let you know that I have officially lost my mind and have registered for a Half Marathon in Celebration, Florida. This charming little town is a favorite place of mine, and I have loved morning runs there. But to commit to a long-distance run when I will have to get up too early to run too long to be passed by too many dogs and strollers is either an act of insanity, or an act of faith. We’ll find out in January.

But even now, that commitment has landed in my soul, and I am motivated to be faithful to my daily runs. I have included a long run once a week into my training, just to remind myself that 13.1 miles won’t be doable unless I keep going now. This is the only sane part of doing a race … your commitment to it in the future informs your discipline in the present. It is an interesting dynamic: commitment informs discipline, but discipline also informs commitment. Plus, there is always the hope that there will be one dog running slower than you.

Paul uses a beautiful race analogy in this passage from Hebrews:

Hebrews 12 (The Message)

12 1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in.

I have always loved this passage. We don’t know if Paul was a runner, but he sure knew how to finish a race. This passage comes right after a listing of all the people who suffered for their faith and performed many acts of faith to get us where we are today. These people kept their eyes on Jesus through persecution and suffering, knowing that the reward was just ahead. That fueled their running and kept them on track.

Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

Are you flagging in your faith? Have sin and doubt weighed you down? Remember the stories of those who came before us. Remember the path that Jesus created. Keep moving forward and don’t stop.

Never, ever quit. Keep that finish line in sight and keep on keeping on. Just fix your eyes on Jesus.

Celebration Lake

Second Wind

Posted on by Betsy

Have you ever had a never-ending week that turned into a never-ending weekend that suddenly became the middle of the next week, and you had not yet come up for air? And then it became a month, then a year, then a life of never ending-ness? I think this is why God created the second wind. Were it not for our ability to catch a second wind, we would have all burned out decades ago.

So let’s talk about second winds for a second. (See what I did there?) According to Grammerist.com, a second wind is defined as:

A second wind is a renewed sense of vigor after becoming fatigued, a fresh conviction that one is able to achieve one’s goal, a burst of energy following exhaustion. The word wind, in this case, refers to breath. The idea is that one becomes fatigued and is out of breath, and then becomes reinvigorated and catches one’s breath. The term second wind may be used to mean a burst of energy after one becomes physically fatigued, or it may mean a burst of energy when one is mentally or spiritually fatigued. The term second wind was first used in the 1830s, to mean a renewed sense of vigor when one has become tired from physical exertion.

I love the fact that this definition mentions becoming spiritually fatigued. Spiritual fatigue can happen just like any other fatigue. When we push hard at something, even the rewarding task of spiritual development, worship, sharing the good news with others, trying to be a light in the darkness, or just getting through the day without punching somebody in the throat, exhaustion can happen.

We are living in a time when hate, anger, hostility, rudeness, and viral vomiting are the norm. These things hurt our spirit. These things exhaust our souls. It is exhausting to be the light when people feel the freedom to bash, criticize, condemn, and bully others on every social media platform, news program, and radio show that we turn on. We are surrounded by a cacophony of negative noise that makes in impossible to hear anything good or wholesome. And that wears us out.

Are you worn out? Need a second wind?

I think there are two things to keep in mind when your will to go forward goes backward and you just want to sit down and stop.

First, sit down and stop. The whole reason God created the sabbath is so that we would stop everything and have a sabbath rest. Some days you just need a day of disconnected, unplugged solitude in order to recharge. Pushing when you have absolutely nothing left in your tank just means your engine will stop anyway, just farther down the road.

Second, consider what Paul says about second winds:

Hebrews 12 The Message (MSG)

Discipline in a Long-Distance Race

12 1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!

When you see yourself flagging in your faith, take a breath, stop to rest, wait for the second breath to come, and remember why you are doing this. Remember what Jesus plowed through. Remember the story, every step of the way, and how Jesus plowed through all the hate, anger, and hostility that he had to overcome.

YOU are the light of the world. YOU are the salt of the earth. You got this.

Take a breath, and then a second breath, recharge, and get back in the race. And keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we are running. God is at the finish line, so breathe.

Just breathe.

Resting Sun by Steve Hanf.