Be Still And Know

Hebrews 13:3 Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies. I am so grateful that when I was at university I was encouraged to visit the local prison once a week. We visited the young offenders’ wing and so I was meeting people of my own age, which was such a valuable experience. I had never met prisoners before and so I assumed that they would be completely different from me. They weren’t. They were intelligent, interesting and amusing and it was fascinating to hear the story of their lives. Prisons, in the days of the early Church, would have been completely different from anything that I encountered. The Romans normally stripped prisoners naked and flogged them prior to their imprisonment. Their wounds would not have received medical attention and the prisoners were expected to sit in painful leg or wrist chains. Their filthy clothing was not replaced even in winter. Prisons were often underground and would h

Hebrews 13:2 Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realising it! In Genesis 18 there is a remarkable account of hospitality when Abraham generously welcomed three mysterious visitors. It was the hottest part of the day and as soon as he saw them, Abraham ran to welcome them. He then encouraged them to rest in the shade of an oak tree while he brought water for them and then he went back to his tent to ask Sarah to prepare bread for them. Abraham had no idea who the visitors were but it soon became clear that God himself had sent them, as they informed the couple of the miraculous news that they, old as they were, would have a son. They had welcomed angels without knowing it. In the early Church, Christian travellers faced many challenges. Inns were notoriously filthy and expensive and were well known for being centres of immorality. They also faced hostility from their many opponents. It was therefore essential that Christians were willi

Hebrews 12:28-29 Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshipping him with holy fear and awe. For our God is a devouring fire. It’s important that we never lose a sense of amazement that we are able to worship God at all. When Isaiah entered the temple after the death of King Uzziah (recorded in Isaiah 6) he was completely overwhelmed by the experience. As he saw the holiness of God, he recognised how unholy he was and how unholy his society was. When we worship God, whether quietly by ourselves or in a church service, we should never rush unthinkingly into his presence or think that it is a small matter that we are worshipping the God of creation. In our verses today the writer encourages his readers to worship God with holy fear and awe. Yes, God loves us more completely than we have ever been loved before, but he is also a devouring fire. He is absolutely holy and anything that is not holy is burned up in his presence. We can approach God with great

Hebrews 12:15 Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. Life can be incredibly hard, and many people experience terribly difficult and painful rejections and brokenness in their relationships. It isn’t difficult to understand why this can lead to bitterness, but the fact is that that is the worst possible response. The only person who is damaged by bitterness is the bitter person. It does nothing to get back at the person who has caused the wrong and is incapable of bringing resolution to the situation. Billy Graham wrote: “Bitterness is anger gone sour, an attitude of deep discontent that poisons our souls and destroys our peace.” In fact, it’s even worse than that because bitterness grows roots and so it keeps on destroying the people and relationships in its path. Bitterness can therefore be incredibly destructive in the life of a church. There is only one way to escape the hide

Hebrews 12:14 Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. The UK is blessed with a huge number of stately homes which have amazing gardens. As we revel in the beauty of the flowers, shrubs and trees it is absolutely right for us to give thanks to God for the miracle of creation. But the fact is that, normally out of sight, there are large teams of gardeners who have worked incredibly hard to plant, cultivate, weed and water the gardens. Those gardens are a partnership between God and the gardeners. Church life is exactly the same. Without God there would be no church, but he looks to us to work hard to enable the Church to flourish. Here he points to two areas of hard work that are our own responsibility: living at peace and living holy lives. Living at peace is constantly demanding. When you look at a peaceful family or organisation it will give the impression that it all happens with ease and inevitability. But we all know that

Hebrews 12:1-2 And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Life is not a sprint but a marathon, so we all need to learn how to ‘hang in there’ through thick and thin. Here, the writer to the Hebrews reminds his readers that this is what the life of faith is all about. We have to learn to endure, and he clearly has in mind that the Church to which he was writing was likely to experience considerable persecution and suffering. If they thought that living for Christ was going to be a leisurely walk in the park then they needed to change their thinking quickly. By itself that would be a rather bleak message. But the whole purpose of the letter was to bring encouragement. The writer knew that as we focus our attention on Jesus we will gain all the inspiration and strength that we need for the road ahead. He urges his readers to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus. His language is very specific and makes i

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. Over the years I have played lots of different sports with a great deal of enthusiasm and, truth to tell, not much success. However, I have had a number of friends and acquaintances who have been enormously successful in their chosen sport and they have all deeply impressed me. My main reflection is that they were all incredibly disciplined. Their diets were carefully designed and observed, and they gave a huge amount of time to ensuring that they were constantly practising and improving. They had a determination to give their absolute best. In our verse today the writer pictures Christians as athletes who are running a race infinitely more important than any sport, and makes the obvious point that we need to get rid of anything that slows us down. You clearly wouldn’t enter an elite race wearing heavy clothe

Hebrews 11:31 It was by faith that Rahab the prostitute was not destroyed with the people in her city who refused to obey God. For she had given a friendly welcome to the spies. In this chapter the writer to the Hebrews introduces us to a number of Old Testament heroes of the faith. It isn’t anything like a complete list. Hundreds of important characters receive no mention at all. And so it is fascinating that he chose to shine the spotlight on the prostitute, Rahab. We might have expected him to skip over her in favour of people with a more respectable line of work. But no, Rahab is commended because of the hospitality that she gave to the Israelite spies when they went to explore the Promised Land. In fact, she went further. She was also willing to lie to the King of Jericho’s messengers when they went looking for the spies. What impressed the writer was that Rahab was not swept along by the disobedience of the other residents of Jericho. She was willing to put herself in danger in order to show her comm

Hebrews 11:17-18 It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, even though God had told him, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.” This is a really tough passage. The idea of God apparently asking a parent to kill their child is hard enough. But it is infinitely more difficult when you consider that, on this occasion, God was asking Abraham to murder the son who was going to be the start of the great and mighty nation he had promised. It’s all very perplexing. But we are invited to focus our attention on Abraham, the man of faith, because he was willing to do whatever God called him to do, knowing that it would all work out wonderfully. The writer observes that Abraham had worked out that if Isaac had actually been killed then God would have been able to raise him from the dead so that his plans could be fulfilled (v19). He was absolutely convinced that God

Hebrews 11:12 And so a whole nation came from this one man who was as good as dead—a nation with so many people that, like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore, there is no way to count them. The writer to the Hebrews described Abraham as being “as good as dead”. That’s not flattering, but he was describing a 99-year-old man who was married to Sarah – a woman decades past child-bearing years. The whole situation looked hopeless. But God had promised that Sarah would have a baby from whom a mighty nation would be born. In human terms this was laughable nonsense. But God was at work, and so something which was humanly impossible was exactly what happened. Isaac was born and the nation came into being with descendants as uncountable as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore. We are continually tempted to domesticate God. We try to make him fit into the world that we understand and make him like us. Long ago Voltaire, the French philosopher, expressed this powerfully when he s

Hebrews 11:8 It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going. At the age of 75, Abraham headed out from his home in Haran without having a clue where he was going! What an incredible moment. People, in my experience, just don’t do things like that. Usually, we have a clear idea where we are heading – and a whole lot of planning happens first too. But Abraham was called by God so off he went. We have to conclude that Abraham was absolutely confident in God. In human terms he was taking the most enormous risk, but in spiritual terms he was clearly completely convinced that he was doing the right thing. In our risk averse culture, you can imagine people lining up endless very sensible reasons why Abraham should play it safe and stay at home. But his confidence in God was all that he needed to step out into the unknown. I have spent a huge number of hours in recent years working

Hebrews 11:7 It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. The account of Noah building an ark and saving his family together with vast numbers of birds and animals is a story of enormous courage. The world had never seen a flood like this before, so the idea of Noah building a vast boat would have seemed absurd to all those around him. And the idea of packing the boat with smelly wildlife would have appeared even more ludicrous and challenging. But Noah did these amazing things for one reason: he was a man of faith. In this chapter the writer to the Hebrews unpacks what it means to live by faith, and Noah offers us an inspiring example. Most of us spend much of our lives conforming. We fit in with society and the people around us and just get on with life. I’m not criticising that approach, but it makes me wonder how we would respond if God asked us to do something that everyone else would conside

Hebrews 11:1 Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Many people think of faith as being a rather weak, sentimental way of thinking and are inclined to say that they would rather trust the facts. Some philosophers have compared faith with taking a leap in the dark. Personally, I would never encourage anyone to take a leap in the dark. That sounds extremely dangerous and is only likely to result in disaster. I firmly believe that God calls us all on a journey of faith and that amazing adventure is a leap in the light. First of all, God reveals himself to us through creation. Just by opening our eyes to the amazing world around us we see constant evidence of how majestic and powerful God is. Looking at creation doesn’t force us to believe in God, but it is a powerful indicator of how great he is. God has also given us the 66 books of the Bible to show us how he has worked in the lives of men and women through thousands of years. Within it, we learn that God

Hebrews 10:36 Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised. There is a wonderful prayer which runs: “O God, grant me the courage to change what I can, the patience to endure what I cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference.” There are many things we are powerless to change, and God wants to give us the patience to live with them. That’s far more easily said than done because, as we all know, patience is extremely hard work. We would all like to see an instant removal of the problems and difficulties of life, and the news that we need to live with them is the last thing we want to hear. But the writer to the Hebrews knew they needed to learn the language of patience. We cannot be sure exactly what challenges they were facing, although we know that they faced recurring waves of persecution and were living in a society that was fundamentally opposed to their Christian values. John Chrysostom, one of the great le

Hebrews 10:24-25 Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. The New Testament has no understanding of a lone Christian. Time and again we are reminded that we have responsibilities for one another, and here the writer uses very striking language. The Greek verb used literally means that we should try to provoke one another to do acts of love and good works. That is to say, we should look for imaginative ways of stimulating one another to live for God. It won’t just happen. We need to love one another so much that we will take responsibility for encouraging one another to live out the Christian life. That encouragement will only take place if we meet together, and so he stresses the importance of not neglecting this. When the Christians had gone through a time of suffering they had spent much time together and their fellowship

Hebrews 9:27-28 And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. The quotation, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes” is attributed to many different people but especially Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain. However, it is such an obvious observation that it actually dates back long before them. The simple truth is that death is a fact of life. Unless the Lord returns first, we will all die. But our death stands in marked contrast to Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. When he died he brought to an end the elaborate sacrificial system that was established in the Old Testament Law. The whole notion of sacrifices is very unfamiliar to us these days, but God established it because of the seriousness of sin and the need to find a way of making things right. The offering of sacrifices was a way of life for the Jews; every single day animals were slaughtered as an integral part of t

Hebrews 6:18-19 We who have fled to God for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. I suspect that if you spoke with most people about the future they would be full of fears and uncertainties. We live with the continual threat of international terrorism and the wildfires, floods and hurricanes that batter our world remind us of the appalling challenge of climate change. Wherever you look, there are monumental problems to face in our own society and throughout the world, and I think that most people would assume that there is no hope. Indeed, they would conclude that anyone who speaks the language of hope has chosen to ignore the facts. The writer to the Hebrews, however, was full of hope. He was confident as he looked to the future because he knew his God so well. He knew that God was a place of refuge amid the storms of life, and that he provided an anchor that could be entirely relied upon. He never claim

Hebrews 6:1 So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. If you saw a group of learned professors of mathematics earnestly talking about the fact that two and two make four, you might think it rather strange. You would imagine that they would have moved on to more complicated matters. That is not to say that the fact that two and two make four is unimportant. Far from it. Every day of their working life depends on it. But there comes a day when you need to move on, and that’s precisely what the writer is saying in our verse today. He wasn’t saying that the basic teachings about Christ were in any way unimportant. Indeed, everything depends on those truths. But he was eager that his readers should grow up in their faith, applying the key principles of the Christian faith to every aspect of their life and society. So, how can we go on to become mature in our understanding of the Christian faith? If we were talking

Hebrews 5:11 There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. Ouch! The writer of Hebrews didn’t pull his punches. He was frustrated with the spiritual dullness of his readers and let them know it. He had hoped that they would have developed much more in their faith so that they could, by this stage, have become teachers but clearly that isn’t the case. They were still needing to drink milk because they hadn’t progressed on to solid food. One of the big mistakes that people make is to think that when you have become a Christian that’s it. You have received the amazing gift of forgiveness and God’s promise of eternal salvation, and you can now sit back and enjoy them. There is nowhere in the New Testament that would support that view! New birth in Christ leads to a new life in which we need to be constantly growing and maturing. Sadly, all too often Christians get stuck. They learn the basics and leave

Hebrews 5:8-9 Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. In this way, God qualified him as a perfect High Priest, and he became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey him. The high priest was the most important person in the Jewish faith. He traced his family line back to Aaron, the brother of Moses, and his life and ministry are described in huge detail in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). When he went into the temple he had to wear specific clothing. In common with all priests, he had to wear priestly undergarments, tunic, sash and turban but in addition he wore a sleeveless blue robe, a richly embroidered apron, a breastplate with twelve gems representing the tribes and on his turban there was a golden plate inscribed with the words “Holiness unto Yahweh”. He would have nothing on his feet but had to have a ceremonial bath before going into the temple. Just once a year, on the Day of Atonement, he was permitted to go into the ho