I want to read a motoring magazine type article on the 1999 Porsche 911 Carrera 4.
"Go ahead. Try it." My driving instructor was eager to send me down the slalom in the 1999 Porsche 911 Carrera 4.
Intrigued, I punched the gas pedal and started dodging orange cones set out on the pavement. A few seconds later, I had swished around them all, amazed at the stability and grip of this new Porsche. Second, third and fourth runs in the slalom confirmed this was no aberration. The car behaved impeccably. As I’d start to swing wide, there seemed to be a quick, sudden tire grip at just the right corner, helping to get me in the right direction.
What was that? I wondered. It was all PSM. P-S-M. PSM is Porsche Stability Management system, and the 1999 4-wheel-drive 911 Carrera is the first Porsche to get it.
I notice that many of you seem disinterested.
It is like you are saying this doesn’t relate to my life!!
What though if I told you that outside of this church was a brand new Porcshe 911 Carrera with your name on it’s ownership papers??
What if I handed you the keys??
Then you would read the article with great interest. The instructions about how to pick up your new possesion would also be followed most carefully.
This nmornings reading from Hebrews begins with the word Therefore.
And the Therefore here is really about your inheritance. It refers back to chapter two and pervading that passage is the thought of the great salvation you have in Jesus Christ. If you can grasp this inheritance then chapter three will make rivititing reading. If not - well it might sound like the Porshe Carrera 911.
Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling - This is written to those who have inherited a heavenly calling - it is written to those who know what their inheritance is in Christ and because they know they are going to sit up and take notice.
What the letter is saying is to fix your thoughts on Jesus - if your destination is heaven - then keep your focus on Jesus Christ not on the things of this world - Because He is writing to the Hebrews he goes on to point out that Jesus is greater than Moses. Why does he do that?
Because the Hebrews inclination was drifting from the New Testament about Jesus back to the old and the centuries old focus on Moses.
Moses he says is worth less honour than Jesus - Moses is part of the house of God - but Jesus as the builder of the house is logically worth more honour - No contest!!
As a result of all Christ has offered believers, Paul - who I believe wrote Hebrews - encourages his readers to fix their thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. One of the greatest things you can do is to fix your thoughts on Jesus Christ. How much time do you think the average believer spends thinking about Jesus?? Thinking about Jesus transforms peoples lives - it has been the greates source of hope in twenty centuries of world history since his resurrection.
How do you fix your thoughts on Jesus??? There are many thoughts about Jesus today but I would like to suggest that the best thing anyone can do is to invest their thoughts in and around the four gospels and the books that act as a magnifying glass to these great books inspired and gifted by the Holy Spirit of God. RC Sproull says - There are so many portraits of jesus in the galleries of this world that it seems hopeless to clarify the confussion they have wrought in peoples minds about who Christ is. So many conflicting images of him are put forward that some people have despaired of achieving an accurate picture of his true identity.
We need Christ. We need a real Christ. A Christ born of empty speculation or created to squeeze into the philosopher’s pattern simply won’ do. A recycled Christ, a Christ of compromise can redeem no one. A christ watered down, stripped of power, debased of glory, reduced to a symbol or made impotent by scholary surgery is not Christ but Antichrist.
Powerful stuff.!!!
A few weeks ago we reminded ourselves of the words of Hebrews chapter 12 verse 3 "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."
To fix our thoughts on Jesus will encourage us to hold onto our salvation.
When we fix our thoughts on Jesus we reflect on the most amazing birth that the world has ever seen - we think about a child who is treasured by God and grows up to be a truly amazing man. We see him revealing God through miracles - acts of power and with incredible teaching that has been treasured ever since. We observe him rebuking the influential and powerful and siding with the broken - sinful and oppressed - we watch in horror as he touches the leper and gasp as he tips over the tables in the temple.
We feel the hollowness of the disciples as the face a raging sea that is about to require their lives - we sit in pale faced awe as the sea calms to a glassey mirror in which our foolish doubts and fears are reflected - as Jesus moves towards Jerusalem through the last supper our sense of foreboding increases until the horror of the Easter passion is lived out before our lives - we admire the courage of Jesus as he hangs in pain, for us and share the grief of the followers as they sit like spiritual orphans without their leaders. We celebrate with the disciples as they discover the resurrection and stare in amazement at the scar marked body - marked for eternity for our sins. As we stand on the hill outside Jerusalem lifting our eyes to heaven with the other followers scanning the sky for the last glance the last benevolent smile our considering is interupted by two men dressed in white. "Men of Galilee," they said, "Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."
Fix your thoughts on Jesus -
Tom Marshall writes When I was younger we used to call a message on the cross as applied to the Christian life "a challenging address". That meant that it was uncomfortable to listen to and you forgot it as quickly as possible afterwards! Somehow we find the Cross a very threatening subject. The Cross for Jesus? Yes, that is wonderful and we are so grateful that He went through with it. But a Coross for us? That is something quite different. But what Hebrews chapter 3 encourages us to do is not to catch a glimpse and run away but to fix our thoughts on Jesus.
During world war two the Allied planes were coming back to England after flying over enemy territory only to find that an English fog had moved across the airfields and they had no way of landing. Many lost there way and died in the process. This deeply disturbed the British Prime Minister Winston churchill who instructed his Scientists to fix the problem. They protested and told him that they had already experimented and run many trials but it was impossible to remove fog. Churchill, hating the loss of life - insisted that the fog problem be solved. He wouldn’t take no for an answer so he simply issued a three sentence instruction that basically said - Fix it!!!.
After many many trials in July 1943 in the midst of a terrible fog the machine for dispersing fog was switched on - after about seven minutes the fog was dispersed over the airport - turn it off and the fog returned - turn it on and it dispersed. The machine used all the power of a small power station - but it worked!!! It was calculated shortly after the war that tens of thousands of Allied Airmans lives were saved by this device.
You see an airoplane needs it’s airfield - But a fog will conceal it.
A christian needs Jesus but the fog of the secular world will conceal it if we don’t put vigorous effort into resisting it. You can’t land unless you have a fix on the airfield. Christians inherit their salvation by getting a "fix" on Jesus. But the rolling fog wants to conceal him!!!!
A Christian needs Jesus but the fog of confusing signals given out by this world will conceal Jesus and many fine people are losing their way and are lost because they lose sight of the authour and perfecter of their faith. Salvation hasn’t changed - the landing strip is still there what happens when we take our eyes of Jesus is our ability to see our way to God.
We do well to fix our eyes on Jesus.Hebrews chapter 12 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Fixing our eyes will do that.
Hebrews chapter 3 goes on and suggests three other things we can do to that will encourage us in our faith. Verse 6 we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast. Always be brave. Hold onto your courage. How do you do that? Courage is a gift of the Spirit of God - 2 Timothy chapter 1 and verse 7 says - God has not given you a spirit of fear but one of love power and a sound mind. The indwelling work of the Spirit in you life will make you brave for God. If you are experiencing fear - understand that it is not from God. I an not saying that caution is wrong but overriding fear is never from God. We need to hold onto hope.
Cheer each other on!!!13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Christians need each other. Sunday is important - not just being here and worshipping god but also encouraging each other. I got a letter this week from a fellow Christian that was thanking me for encouraging him - I don’t even know how I did it!! But he did and what an encouragement his letter is to me.
Exercise faith 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
The opposite of unbelief is faith. Faith is so much easier to practise if we fix our eyes upon Jesus. During an earthquake some years ago, the inhabitants of a small village were generally very much alarmed, but they were at the same time surprised at the calmness and apparent joy of an old woman whom they all knew. At length one of them, addressing the old woman, said, "Mother, are you not afraid?"
"No," said the woman, "I rejoice to know that I have a God who can shake the world."read an amusing story about the first Duke of Wellington. An inventor was trying to interest him in a bulletproof waistcoat he had made. It was absolutely marvelous and could save the great man’s life if somebody tried to assassinate him. The Iron Duke asked the man to put it on, and he examined it carefully, and then, to give it a test, he sent for a rifleman.
Faith - Jesus describes the power of faith in John chapter 14 verse 2 -
12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
HEB 3:1 fix your thoughts on Jesus,.
Verse 6 we are his house, if we hold on to our courage and the hope of which we boast.
13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
Therefore:
Fix your thoughts on Jesus
Always be couragous - Be brave!!!!!!!!
Cheer each other on!!!13 But encourage one another daily,
Exercise faith 19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.
jgullick@xtra.co.nz
