Wrestle Until You Find Your Rest in God

In one paragraph

Pastor Mark opened Hebrews 12:3-11 by admitting this is a hard passage, one he wrestled with personally before he had been through much real pain, and one that requires sitting with until you find rest in God rather than running past it. The passage opens with a call to consider Jesus, who endured hostility from sinners, so that we will not grow weary and lose heart. The first-century readers were...

Read together

1. Colossians 1:16 quoted at the opening to introduce worship, 'for by him all things were created, both the heavens and the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, rulers, authorities, all things have been created through him and for him'
2. Psalm 92:1 quoted and sung as the congregation centered before the sermon, 'it is good to praise you Lord and make music to your name, oh most high'
3. Hebrews 12:3-11 the main passage for the sermon, read in full and expounded throughout
4. Hebrews 11:35-38 referenced as the 'cloud of witnesses' passage describing the faithful who were sawn in half, beaten, mocked and scourged
5. Hebrews 12:1-2 referenced as the 'fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith' passage the preacher had ended on the previous two Sundays
6. Proverbs 3:5-6 cited as being in the same passage as the Proverbs 3 discipline quote, 'trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path'
7. Proverbs 3:11-12 identified as the source of the Psalm 3 quote the preacher attributes to the discipline passage; he refers to it as Psalm 3 but also calls it Proverbs 3, noting 'my son, do not reject this one, for whom the Lord loves he reproves, even as a father corrects the son in whom he loves'
8. Hebrews 10:32-35 referenced to show the first-century context of persecution, 'remember the former days when after you were enlightened you endured a great conflict of sufferings, partly by being made a public spectacle'
9. 1 Peter 5:6 quoted as Peter saying 'humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God so that he may exalt you at the proper time'
10. 2 Corinthians 7:10 quoted to contrast godly sorrow with worldly sorrow, 'godly sorrow produces a repentance without regret leading to salvation, sorrow of the world produces only death'
11. John 20:31 paraphrased from the end of the Gospel of John, 'these things have been written so that you may believe and believing have life in his name'
12. Romans 2:4 referenced briefly, 'the kindness of God is what leads to repentance'

Talk about it

1. Pastor Nathan mentioned that going through real hardship changed the way he read Hebrews, and that before that he had been in what he called a greenhouse. How has your own experience of pain or difficulty shaped the way you read or trust scripture?
2. The passage in Hebrews twelve draws a direct connection between the hostility the first-century believers were facing from sinners and the discipline of God. How do you react to the idea that both of those things can be true at the same time?
3. Pastor Nathan read a video statement from a pastor being held by Boko Haram, who said he believed that God had made his captors act in such a way, and that he refused to hold offense against them. What does it do to you to hear someone respond to that kind of suffering that way?
4. Second Corinthians seven ten draws a line between godly sorrow, which produces repentance without regret, and worldly sorrow, which produces only death. Can you point to a time in your own life when you recognized the difference between those two kinds of sorrow?
5. Pastor Nathan closed by asking the congregation to keep wrestling with this passage until they find their rest in God. What is the hardest part of this passage for you to wrestle with right now, and what would it look like to find rest in it?