uuu To the Hebrews 12:14-29 [NLTse]
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. 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. 16 Make sure that no one is immoral or godless like Esau, who traded his birthright as the firstborn son for a single meal. 17 You know that afterward, when he wanted his father’s uuublessing, he was rejected. It was too late for repentance, even though he begged with bitter tears.
18 You have not come to a physical mountain, to a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind, as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai. 19 For they heard an awesome trumpet blast and a voice so terrible that they begged God to stop speaking. 20 They staggered back under God’s command: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” 21 Moses uuuhimself was so frightened at the sight that he said, “I am terrified and trembling.”
22 No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. 23 You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in Heaven. You have come to God Himself, Who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in Heaven who have now been made perfect. 24 uuuYou have come to Jesus, the One Who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel.
25 Be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the One Who is speaking. For if the people of Israel did not escape when they refused to listen to Moses, the earthly messenger, we will certainly not escape if we reject the One Who speaks to us from Heaven! 26 When God spoke uuufrom Mount Sinai His voice shook the Earth, but now He makes another promise: “Once again I will shake not only the Earth but the heavens also.” 27 This means that all of creation will be shaken and removed, so that only unshakable things will remain.
28 Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping Him with holy fear and awe. 29 For our God is a devouring fire.
If a careless friend breaks a lamp in my home, I will forgive him. Maybe he will apologize and tell me he’s sorry and offer to replace it, or maybe he’ll tell me it wasn’t his fault and that we shouldn’t have placed the lamp where we did. But either way, I’ll forgive him: I will tell him I forgive him, or perhaps just say, “It’s alright,” and that will be the end of the matter. For him. Because although we have dealt with the penalty – that is, I’ve freed him from any penalty – the damage remains, the lamp is still broken. Who will go shop for another? Who will purchase a replacement? I will. I have forgiven him, and so I will pay the penalty for his carelessness.
When someone has wronged you (sometimes we’ll say they’ve “sinned against you”) it means they owe you, they are indebted to you. uuuForgiveness is to absorb the cost of the debt. You pay the price yourself and you refuse to take the price out of the person who wronged you in any way.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving I talked with you about forgiveness: Because the Lord has forgiven us our sins, how He calls us and enables us to put behind us and let go of all the wrongs done us by others, if we will. Several of you asked if I would talk about forgiveness some more.
In our reading from Hebrews today, uuuthe Holy Spirit tells us, “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.” (12:15) According to the Mayo Clinic, bitterness is holding on to anger, resentment, and thoughts of revenge after someone you care about hurts you. And the American Psychiatric Association is debating whether or not to include bitterness in its upcoming edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Bitterness is produced by our refusal to forgive. It is not always seen, but as Hebrews describes, uuubitterness it is often hidden, “underground” like a root. And it is dangerous, producing poisonous fruit.
Bitterness produces poisonous fruit in the unforgiver because it keeps him or her trapped in their pain, and chained to the one who caused it. This may sound dramatic, but we’ve all lived it: I remember this guy I used to work with when I was in the building business. He ran the warehouse where we stored our windows and doors and trim material. A nice-enough guy, but he was cocky and full of himself, and because I was also so cocky and full of myself at that time, we used to butt heads all the time. On my way home from work I would replay conversations he and I had had that day, planning what I was going to say the next time so I could really put him in his place. Every time I’d see him I’d stiffen and put a tough-guy look on my face, and then go out of my way not to look at him at all. My memos to him were always curt and short so he’d know how little I thought of him. I remember he was playing shortstop for the other team during a company softball game, and I worked so hard to drill one right at him and take off his head! And I did! uuuBut he caught it…
Our bitterness allows the pain and the person who inflicted it to twist and distort our attitudes and behavior forever, until we forgive. All the strange and different things we say and ways we behave that we ordinarily would not show how much power our unforgiveness gives them over us.
uuuOf course, bitterness poisons the relationships of the unforgiver, too. Hebrews says, bitterness “corrupts many”: As we tell those around us how wronged we’ve been, and try to tear down the person who’s so hurtfully torn us… And it poisons our relationship uuuwith God.
This bitter root of unforgiveness in us poisons all of our fruit, it affects every aspect of our lives. If we have a good, tasty root, the fruit of our lives – our relationships, our ministry, our work, our demeanor – will reflect that goodness and “tastiness”. If we have a bitter, poisonous root, we’ll see that in broken or dysfunctional relationships, too. And we’ll see it in unfruitful ministry, and conflicts at work, and the angry lines on our faces will be more prominent than the happy and content lines.
It’s not difficult to know what kind of root we have inside ourselves. Each of us probably knows the truth of that right here and now. But if you’re not sure you can ask your wife or husband, or you can ask your children or parents, or ask your co-workers or those friends whom you know you can trust to give you an honest answer…
And if you find that you’ve got a bitter root, then what? And if you realize that it’s not just that you have bitterness towards this person or that person, but that you are a bitter person, in general, then what? What can you do about that? How do you change something that is so fundamental to you? (I mean, that’s what a root is, after all, right? Our very foundation!)
When Moses was leading the Israelites through desert-places on the way to Mt. Sinai to meet with the Lord they came upon an oasis where there was water. Now this wasn’t just any oasis, for Moses was travelling with more than 600,000 people. It was huge! But when they went to drink and water their herds, even in their thirst the water was too bitter to drink. And those thousands of Israelites thought they were going to die, and watch their herds and children die. And maybe you’re aware of this bitter root in you, and you think this is the way you are, maybe the way you’ve always been! And that’s the way you’re going to die: A bitter, resentful, angry old man; a bitter, resentful, angry old woman.
Except that God showed Moses a stick (though it may have been a branch or a log or even a trunk or the entire tree) and when Moses threw that wood into the bitter waters, the bitter waters became sweet. And I tell you today that the Lord has wood to throw on your bitterness, to make your bitter root sweet. And I’m talking about the blood-stained cross of Jesus Christ.
You don’t have to work to get to the cross. You don’t have to be good enough or prove yourself worthy. You just have to let Him, to ask Him and let Him throw the cross where Jesus died – where sin died – into the bitter root of your life.
Maybe you’re thinking that you’re too bitter, that the wrongs done to you and the grudges you hold are too old, too big, too strong. But I tell you that when Moses through the wood into those bitter waters that more than 600,000 Israelites drank their fill of the waters-made-sweet, and their flocks and herds drank their fill of the waters-made-sweet. Your root is not too deep. The cross has not lost its power.
If you would give your bitterness to Jesus Christ today, would you stand where you are, please? If you would surrender your unforgiveness and resentment, to let the cross of Christ fall upon it, would you stand, please? Please do not be self-conscious. Please do not miss this opportunity God is giving us to publicly come to Him: What we do in the public places, He does in the secret places. (See Matthew 10:32-33.)