The Passionate Pursuit of Peace (Hebrews 12:14) | Worship Service

Psalm 93 and the Lord Reigns Over an Unshakable World

Welcome to Kootenai Church. Would you please stand? As we begin our service this morning we're going to open with a reading from Psalm 93. Yahweh reigns. He is clothed with majesty. Yahweh is clothed and girded himself with strength.

Indeed the world is established. It will not be shaken. Your throne is established from of old. You are from everlasting. The rivers have lifted up, O Yahweh. The rivers have lifted up their voice. The rivers lift up their pounding waves.

More than the voices of many waters, than the mighty breakers of the sea, Yahweh on high is mighty. Your testimonies are very faithful. Holiness befits your house, O Yahweh, forevermore. We're going to sing a new psalm this morning to the tune of Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee called The Lord Reigns.

He has armed himself with strength and does with splendor fully shine. The world is established firmly. It cannot be shaken. Your throne is you. Seas have without doubt ascended. Streams of mercy never ceasing.

Call for songs. Teach me some. Melody of song. Praise the mount. I'm fixed upon it. My love has safely home. He's a God. Rescue me. It's like a photo. Take and seal it. I'm sinning. I shall see thy lovely face.

Full of rain and blood washed linen. I sovereign you. For I know it was love. Yet for I knew the sin that had led me. God's love did the strength to fall. Ransom was a sin.

You may be seated. Will you please turn in your Bibles to Psalm 34. Psalm 34 and we're going to read this entire psalm together. The introduction to the psalm says, A psalm of David when he feigned madness before Abimelech who drove him away and he departed.

I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord. The humble will hear it and rejoice. Oh magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together.

I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to him and were radiant and their faces will never be ashamed. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and rescues them. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Oh fear the Lord you his saints. For to those who fear him there is no want.

The young lions do lack and suffer hunger. But they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing. Come you children. Listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life and loves length of days that he may see good.

Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears are open to their cry.

The face of the Lord is against evil doers to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He keeps all his bones not one of them is broken. Evil shall slay the wicked and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.

The Lord redeems the soul of his servants and none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned. Will you stand with me as we pray? Our Father, we thank you that you are a God of deliverances. That you have delivered us first and foremost from our sin and the wrath that our sin deserves.

We thank you that you have set us free from the power of darkness, from the kingdom of darkness, from the Lord of darkness. We thank you that you have made us your own. You have drawn us to yourself. You have granted us faith and repentance and opened our eyes that we may behold Christ and see him as precious and come to him for the forgiveness of our sins and the righteousness that he has earned on behalf of all who trust in him.

So we thank you for these rich blessings that you are a God who has delivered your people from not only the power of sin in this life but for all of eternity the very presence of sin. So we thank you and rejoice in that and we pray that as we lift our hearts in prayer, in singing, in adoration to you for your great works on our behalf, that you would strengthen us and unite our hearts together in the truth.

Give us a love for Christ and we pray that you would help us to see with the eyes of faith the great grace that you have bestowed upon us and that you would help us by your grace to walk in obedience and holiness and the truth.

We pray that you would do these things not just for the sake of your name now in here but also for our eternal fruit and blessing for all of eternity and for the glory of your name for all of eternity.

For it is in the name of our King, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we pray. And all God's people said, Amen.

The word from heaven he came and sought her to be his holy bride. With his own blood he loved Sal and Lord.

Ephesians chapter 3 verses 17 to 19 it says, So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you, being firmly rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

We're going to end our music this morning by singing, Speak, O Lord.

Speak, O Lord, to receive the food of your whole truth planted deep in us, shape and fashion us in your likeness that the might be seen today and our deeds of faith. You may be seated.

The Call to Speak Through Scripture and Be Conformed to Christ

And now if you'll please turn to the book of Hebrews, to chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12. And let's pray together before we begin. Our Father, it is our prayer that you would speak to us through your word, for that is where you have promised to reveal yourself in your sure and certain word.

We pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts to understand your truth, to understand your word and what our responsibility in obeying it is. We pray that you would use your word to sanctify us and conform us to the image of Christ, to motivate our hearts and energize them in service to our King.

And we pray that you would be glorified through the proclamation of your truth for the glory of Christ our Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen. Hebrews chapter 12, beginning at verse 12, we'll read through verse 17.

Therefore strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.

See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God, that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled, that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.

For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears. There are many areas of the Christian life in which we must walk in a balanced fashion, holding, as it were, two truths or two principles, two ideas in our minds and our hearts at the same time, without erring on either side of these things and excluding one over the other.

For instance, we hold and believe that God is absolutely sovereign, and that man is responsible for his sin. We hold and believe that God wrote Scripture, God wrote this book, we refer to this as the Word of God, and yet we also refer to Paul's writings, and Peter's writings, and John's writings, and we talk about the human authors of Scripture.

So we believe that both God wrote this book and that men wrote this book. We believe that God has chosen some for salvation from eternity past, and yet we also believe that the gospel is to be preached passionately, indiscriminately, and as prolifically and widely as we are capable of doing.

We believe that repentance is a gift of God, sovereignly granted by Him, and yet all men are commanded to repent. We believe that faith is a gift that God sovereignly grants to those whom He has chosen, and yet Scripture commands men to repent and to believe the gospel.

See, these are truths, and when we are balancing them, we can fall into a ditch on one side or the other and fall into extremes, and we always have to avoid that. And here is another one. How about your growth in holiness?

Is that God's work, or is that your work? Is that God's work, or is that your work? Now, there might be some here who are inclined to say, well, that's my responsibility. You see, God has done everything that He is going to do, and now He has left the rest up to me.

It is my job to mortify sin. It's my job to apply the promises of Scripture. It's my job to passionately pursue holiness. I need to do better. I need to be better. God has done everything, and now He's left the rest to me.

So if there is any growth in holiness to take place, it rests entirely in my hands, in my life. It is up to my effort to accomplish this. There might be some who would say that. And to that I would say, really?

You think you can accomplish that? You think you can kill the sin resident in your heart? You think you can transform your corrupt nature? You think you can mortify your flesh and master your sin and tame your lusts?

You think it's possible within the power of your own flesh and self-effort to mortify and kill the flesh? Do you really think that? And then there might be others who would be inclined to say, it's not all my work, it's all God's work.

He does all of it. In fact, the minute I begin to get involved in my own application of holiness, in my own pursuit of holiness, that's when things will go off the rails. I'm likely to mess it up if I get in there and try and be holy.

If I try and mortify sin, the best thing to do is just to let go and let God. Have you ever heard people say that? Let go and let God. That is one of the stupidest and worst phrases that you could possibly utter.

It sounds spiritual. It does. Let go and let God. That sounds like, man, I'm just... If anybody's spiritual in the room, it's me. I'm just letting go and letting God. And to that I would say, really? There's no effort to it whatsoever?

You don't have to do anything? There's no sin for you to kill? There's no temptation for you to resist? There's no work that you need to do? You just sit back and coast? There's no striving, no labor, no effort, no cost, no work, no denying, nothing to obey?

You're just going to sit back and think that God Himself all alone is going to make you holy? See, neither of those answers sounds right, does it? And it's because to answer one way or the other is not right, because in reality, it is a combination of both of those things.

It is the work of God, and it is something that we apply ourselves to. So pursuing holiness and becoming sanctified, progressing in sanctification, is something that, yes, God does it, and at the same time, we do it.

It is a work in which we cooperate with God in the sense that we apply His grace and we obey Him, and it is God who Himself is doing the work of transforming us and sanctifying us, and the means that He uses is our application of His grace and our pursuit of holiness.

So these two things go together. You cannot do it without Him, and He will not do it without you. You cannot do it without Him, and He will not do it without you. He has commanded us to obey. He has commanded us to work at it.

So these two things go together. We have to balance both of these. It's God's work and it's my work. Let me give you three passages of Scripture real quick. This is just before we get into Hebrews 12.

Three passages of Scripture where you hear the Apostle Paul explain this. Philippians 2, verses 12 -13. These are going to be familiar to you. You don't need to turn there. I'm going to read them. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, listen, this is your work, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Four, it is God who is at work in you both to do and to will for His good pleasure. You work out your own salvation. God is at work in you to do and to will for His good pleasure. Galatians 2. I've been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. But the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I have been crucified, Paul says. I'm dead.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So you ask Paul, who's living your Christian life for you, Paul? He would say, it's Christ. I've died. Christ lives in me. But the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God.

So who's doing the living? Paul or Christ?

It's both.

Paul says, I've died.

Yet I live.

Yet I don't live. Christ lives in me. He's the one doing the work. And yet, I'm exhausted, Paul would say. 1 Corinthians 15 .10. By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove in vain, but I labored more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God within me.

Paul's comparing himself there to the other apostles. He says, I've worked harder than all of the rest of those who saw the Lord before I did. I have labored. I have strived. I have worked. I have endeavored.

I have endured. I am exhausted, Paul would say, and yet it's not me, but it's the grace of God within me. And you have it here in Hebrews 12 .14. Pursue peace with all men and the sanctification or holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

In this context, we have seen that God is the one who is disciplining His children for their good, for their holiness. God is the one who is doing this so that we might share His holiness. Hebrews 12 .10.

He is doing this to produce in us the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12 .11. So God is the one who is doing the work. He is the one who is causing us to share in His holiness. He is the one who is preparing us for that.

And He is the one who is producing the peaceful fruit of righteousness in us through discipline. So who is doing the work in Hebrews 12? Who brings the discipline? God does. God is the one who is doing that work.

Right?

So what are we to do? Let go and let God? No, Hebrews 12 .14 Pursue peace with all men and the holiness or sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. So what is our response to that? God is doing the work.

I'm not the one who assigns my own discipline. I'm not the one who chooses what a disciplined life looks like or what difficulties and trials and tribulations, afflictions are going to come into my life.

I'm not the one who gets to choose that. You don't get to choose that for me or for you. So God does that work, and yet we are commanded to pursue holiness in the midst of that discipline. And that command to pursue holiness is the third of five imperatives that come in this list of commands in verses 12 through verse 17 of things that you and I are to do in the midst of and as a result of God's discipline.

We are to strengthen our weaknesses.

Verse 12.

We are to straighten our paths or our ways. Verse 13 We are to pursue peace and holiness. Verse 14 And the next two, we are to guard against bitterness. Verse 15 And verse 17 We are to know the danger of apostasy.

These are the five things that we are to do. Today we're looking at the pursuit of peace. God does this work through discipline so that you and I may share His holiness. And yet we do the work of pursuing passionately peace with all men and sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.

Notice in verse 14 that we have before us two things which are the objects of our pursuit. Peace with all men and sanctification or holiness. Peace with all men and sanctification or holiness. And I'm using those words synonymously and interchangeably.

So as I talk about holiness, pursuing sanctification or holiness, you can know that these two words are describing the same thing. Two different words for the same concept. Notice also that one of these is oriented toward my fellow man.

Pursue peace with all men. And one of them is oriented toward God. I am to pursue holiness without which no one will see God. So I have a manward focus, something I am to pursue in terms of my relationship with others and something I am to pursue in terms of my relationship with the Lord.

And these two things are not at odds with one another. They actually go together as you're going to see. Notice the command to pursue. That's the first word of the verse.

Verse 14.

Pursue peace with all men and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. The word translated pursue there is a word dioko. It means to run after, to chase, to pursue, to strive after. It's sometimes translated press forward.

It means to put to flight or to hunt something. The word is used 45 times in the New Testament. And interestingly, the bulk of its usage, it is translated as persecute and not as pursue. Persecute. You could translate it as persecute peace with all men.

And when I say persecute, I mean the exact kind of persecution that you envision when I say the word persecute. To chase after something and try and lay hold of it. To seize it. It is used by Paul, in fact, to describe his own act of persecuting the church.

Acts 22, verse 4 I persecuted this way to death, binding and putting to death both men and women and putting them into prisons. Paul says in Romans 12, verse 14 Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse.

Same word. 2 Timothy 3, verse 12 All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. It's the same word. Pursued. Chase. Put to flight. It's used by Jesus in Matthew 5,.

Verse 44.

I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Who pursue you and chase you. Now the author, when he says persecute peace, he doesn't mean look for peace and when you find it, go and attack it and kill it.

That's the opposite of actually what he means. He's not describing what we're to do to peace in terms of putting it to death or ending it, but he is describing the focus and determination and intentionality with which we are to pursue peace with all men.

And holiness.

Without which no one will see the Lord. It is sometimes translated as press on. For instance, this word is used three times in the book of Philippians. Philippians 3, verse 12. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3, verse 14. I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. The third time it's used in Philippians, it's actually translated persecutor, as to zeal a persecutor.

Of the church.

Philippians 3, verse 6. So Paul uses, interestingly in Philippians, he uses this word pursue three times, once to describe persecuting Christians and twice to describe pursuing something else. So he says, there was a time when I pursued Christians to lay hold of them and to seize them, and now I am pursuing Christ and His righteousness and His prize.

See, Paul went from pursuing one thing to pursuing something else. It's also translated as it is here, as pursuit, or to pursue. 1 Corinthians 14, 1. I'll just give you a couple other examples of its usage.

Pursue love. In 1 Timothy 6, verse 11. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. This word describes our chase. Like a hunter chases its prey. It describes us hunting something, going after something, running it down, pursuing it.

To chase holiness and peace like a persecutor chases after someone. If you want some idea of what this looks like, then think in terms of the persecutors.

Of the church.

Think in terms of Saul of Tarsus himself, before he was the Apostle Paul. He describes his own persecution of Christians. So how did Paul go about that as a persecutor? What characterized him? Well, Paul went and he got letters from the chief priests to persecute Christians.

He went from city to city and from house to house persecuting them. He was zealous in his pursuit, consumed with passion. He had a plan and a purpose and a goal. He was intentional about it. When Paul wasn't going house to house, he was thinking about going house to house.

He was anything but unintentional and approached it in any way, except for just an occasional or sort of a come as you may approach to persecution. He was very passionate about it. You would never hear.

Saul of Tarsus.

Say something like, I blocked out next Tuesday to persecute some Christians. Not this Tuesday, but Tuesday the next. Not this coming Tuesday, but a week. I've got a lot of things going on. I have a lot of people in my life, well, it wouldn't be grandchildren, but my friends want me to come over.

I have a lot of dinner appointments, but I do have some time in my schedule in a couple weeks' time to go and persecute Christians. You'd never hear him say that. And it was anything but accidental or unintentional, his persecution of Christians.

You would never hear Saul of Tarsus say, I went down to the marketplace to buy some shawarma ingredients and kind of got caught up in the crowd and one thing led to another, and next thing I know I'm sitting there holding a bunch of coats while they stone Stephen.

I just kind of got myself caught up in the emotion of the moment. No, he was passionate, intentional, deliberate, and principled in his pursuit of Christians. That is how you and I are to be in our pursuit of peace.

With all men.

And holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Pursuing in this sense is something that occupies your vision, your focus, your affections,.

Your heart,.

Your desires, your goals, your plans, your thinking. All of it is geared toward executing that pursuit like a hunter chases its prey, like a persecutor chases his victims, almost like a runner running his race for the prize.

And we come full circle back to the beginning of chapter 12. Run with endurance the race that is set before you. What does that look like? It looks like the pursuit.

Of holiness.

And this verb is in the present tense which means it describes an ongoing present pursuit to peace and sanctification. It's not something that is occasional. It's not something that we stumble into. It's not something that we find time for if we're not doing anything else.

It is something that must occupy our attention in an ongoing and deliberate sense. Pursue. What are we to pursue? Peace with all men.

And holiness.

Let's look first at peace. Now this seems like a bit of an odd command in the context, doesn't it? I think about this. The author has talked about those who have persecuted them back in chapter 10. He gives the list of heroes of the faith in chapter 11.

Gets into chapter 12. Talks about running a race. And then the discipline that God brings into your life. And in the midst of all of this teaching on discipline which you're well familiar with by now. You've been immersed in that for far too long as it is.

In the heels of all of that the author says pursue peace. That's kind of odd. What might you expect him to encourage us to pursue? You might expect him to say you should pursue righteousness.

After all,.

It is the peaceful fruit of righteousness which the Lord is producing in your life. So if God's going to produce that fruit, you should pursue righteousness. Now he's kind of saying the same thing when he talks about holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

It's a little bit of a different idea there. Or we might expect the author to say you should pursue intimacy with God in the midst of your discipline. Because you're going to feel as if heaven is closed and you're praying against a glass ceiling and heaven is not listening.

The Lord's ears are not attentive to you. You're going to feel at times like the psalmist who cries out and says,.

Lord, why will You.

Turn a deaf ear to my cry?

Why will You not hear me? Why will You not act?

Why will You not do something in the midst of this? That's how you're going to feel in the midst of discipline. So we might expect the author to say you should pursue intimacy with the Lord in the midst of discipline.

But he doesn't say that. We might expect him to say that we should pursue humility so that we might learn from discipline. If, after all, the Lord wants us to submit to His loving, fatherly hand in the discipline, then we might expect the author to encourage us to pursue humility so that we might learn everything in the midst of discipline that we should be learning.

Or we might expect the author to say, look, in the midst of affliction and suffering and pain, some of which is brought on you by an unbelieving and hostile world, they're persecuting you. You should pursue safety and security from your persecutors.

But he doesn't say that. Instead, he says peace, meaning the cessation of hostility or the absence of conflict and strife. And peace does go with righteousness. Hebrews 12, verse 11. The Lord is producing for us the peaceful fruits of righteousness.

So if God is producing something peaceful in our lives, namely the fruit of righteousness, then the peace should be something that we express. It should be something that we pursue. Peace should be something that we enjoy.

And so how do we do that? We do that by pursuing peace with all men. Pursue peace with all men. And in that way, we enjoy the peaceful fruits of righteousness. This peace that we have begins with a peace with God.

We are born at war with God. And this, by the way, is why men are at war with each other. Men are at war with each other because they are at war with God. But once a man is brought to peace with God, and all of the causes of hostility and enmity.

And strife.

Are put away with and dealt with in the cross and by Christ, then men can be at peace with one another. But you and I are born in a state of hostility and enmity with God in which we are darkened in our minds and in our hearts.

We have sinned against Him and heaped up a helping of His wrath that is unimaginable and unbearable that is our lot by virtue of all of our sins that we have committed against Him by sinning against a holy and benevolent and gracious God.

So we are at war with Him. But then in salvation, the great burden of our sin, all of the depth and the weight of that, is removed from us by the cross of Christ and His work and all of the righteousness of God's dear Son is imputed to us on the basis of faith and faith alone.

So that our sins are forgiven and taken out of the way and we are made righteous by God through faith. So Romans 5, verse 1 says, having been justified, that is, declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That peace that we have with God is something that is affected for us by virtue of the work that Christ has done on the cross. Through His death, His burial, and His resurrection, you and I have peace with God when we turn from our sin, repent, and we believe savingly upon Jesus Christ.

We are declared righteous, all of our sins are forgiven, and our sin, the weight of it, is taken out of the way. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 23 says,. Now may the God of peace, Himself, sanctify you. And may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 13, verse 20,.

Likewise,.

Refers to God as a God of peace. So because we have peace with God, we can be at peace with our fellow men. Once again, when the cause of hostility and animosity is removed, and the cause of strife is taken out of the way, which is namely sin, and all that that creates, when that is removed from us, then we can be at peace with one another, both those who are inside and outside the church.

Because in the death of Christ, men are reconciled to God. They are therefore reconciled to one another. So in the church, there is no room at all for ethnic hostility or ethnic division, or what the world calls racism.

I reject that term. It's ethnic hostility and ethnic animosity. So there's no room for that in the church. There's no room for a grievance culture, or resentment, or ethnic hostility, or division that is based upon superficial characteristics like the color of our skin, or our hairstyles, or the shape of our eyes, or anything else.

There's no room at all for that.

Why?

Because men have been brought together into one body. So now we are in one body with one Lord,.

One faith,.

One baptism, one cup, one communion, one sacrifice, one intercessor, one common home. We are one bride of Christ. And so all of the causes of ethnic hostility have been removed as God reconciles Jew and Gentile, all men, into that one body which is inside Jesus Christ.

When we are in Him, there is no more room for ethnic hostility. And those who are within Christianity who perpetuate that ethnic hostility, they deny the gospel, they destroy unity, and they do damage to the body of Christ.

Once sin has been atoned for and the justice of God has been satisfied, then you and I can be at peace with all men. Why is that? Because there are those who are unbelievers who will sin against us. And I can look at that unbeliever who has sinned against me and say, either that unbeliever at some point in his life is going to come to saving faith in Christ, in which case, all of his sins, including his sins against me, will be paid for and atoned for and taken out of the way and removed, so I can have no hostility against him, or that unbeliever is going to die in his unbelief and is going to perish everlastingly, and the wrath of God is going to be poured out on his head, in which case, all of his sins, including his sins against me, will be paid for under eternal wrath.

Either way, the justice of God is going to be satisfied concerning his sins against me. And so if that is the case, then on what basis do I hold a grudge, or on what basis do I refuse to be reconciled with somebody who is even an unbeliever?

In the case of those who are believers, the person who sins against me who is a believer, I can say to myself, that person is a believer, and so that sin that he sinned against me has been taken out of the way, it is paid for on the cross, and because it is paid for on the cross, God's righteousness is satisfied, his wrath is satisfied concerning that sin against me.

And God himself will not require any further payment from that person than what he has already paid for in the death of Christ, because that sin now is fully paid for, so on what basis do I refuse to be reconciled with that person who sinned against me?

Since God holds no further penalty over that person's head, how can I hold a penalty over that person's head? Is my sense of justice more scrupulous than God's? Am I smarter than God? More righteous than God?