Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Hebrews 12:1-13
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  August 14, 2022

What do you think of when you hear the word, pioneers? University of Wisconsin–Platteville? Names like Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett or Buffalo Bill or Lewis and Clark? But what about the nameless, faceless millions who walked across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains on the Oregon Trail? Searching for a better life, they sold their possessions, bought covered wagons and headed west with the promise of fertile farmland, bountiful game, and gold. It’s estimated that from 1845 to 1870, close to a million people walked that trail. Their toughness and courage, sacrifice and constant confrontation with danger and death seems like a million years ago, rather than a little more than 150. 

We admire those early pioneers. We like to read about them, watch shows and movies about them, play games about them–who doesn’t remember playing the “Oregon Trail” on the old Apple II e–but that’s as close as most of us want to get. We’d much rather cross the country in our air-conditioned cars or airplanes and enjoy the convenience of indoor plumbing. It’s pretty clear that pioneer spirit has been lost to most of America. And the same is unfortunately true of American Christianity, including us. We talk in respectful, even reverent terms about Martin Luther and the reformers who were willing to die for their faith. We sing about evil taking our life, “goods, fame, child, and wife.” We admire the dedicated Christians of the past who were willing to be persecuted and tortured for their faith in Jesus and their hope of heaven. But we do it from a distance. That kind of dedication, that kind of sacrifice seems like a million years ago and a million miles away. 

But if you believe in Jesus and heaven, the Bible clearly says, “You are a pioneer.” As strangers and aliens in this world, we are people who are just passing through, on the pathway to a far better life.. That’s what the writer to the Hebrews reminds us of today. The division and strife in our world caused by the Hard Truths of the Bible remind us that this is not our final resting place, that heaven is our home. You might say that we believers are today Pioneers on the Path to Heaven. 

Those early pioneers who traveled on the Oregon Trail learned very quickly about what it meant to travel light. Many of them initially brought their entire households with them on the trail. However, they soon learned this wasn’t feasible. It’s said that the Oregon Trail was littered with priceless family heirlooms, expensive musical instruments, and prized family possessions. Those pioneers learned they had to keep only the essentials and throw out whatever would keep them from their final goal. As Pioneers on the Path to Heaven, we also need to travel light. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us get rid of every burden and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and let us run with patient endurance the race that is laid out for us.”

Our English word martyr comes from the word for witnesses. Christians today are surrounded by a great cloud of martyrs who were willing to give up everything that would keep them from heaven. This great cloud of martyrs is the list of people the writer chronicled in chapter 11, the great hero of faith chapter. You can’t properly understand the writer’s encouragement here in chapter 12 without the context of chapter 11. Martyrs like Abel, whose devotion to God’s command and his first-fruit sacrifice cost him his life; Noah who endured ridicule and mockery because of his devotion to God’s Word; Moses, who gave up the treasures of Egypt to be part of God’s people; Abraham, who was willing to give up his son, Isaac; Joseph, who gave up the pleasures of sin rather than give up on God’s Word. They were all living by faith when they died. They were all looking forward to a better country and a better life. They were all willing to get rid of everything that would keep them from getting there.

We all promised to do the same on the day of our confirmation. We promised to give up everything, even our lives, if it would keep us from God’s Word and from heaven. The reality is that it’s unlikely ever to come to that. And Satan knows that. And so he attacks us differently. Our challenge is not so much our willingness to lay down our lives for Christ, but rather to live our lives for him. And this lesson uses some pretty interesting pictures to describe this challenge. It says that we should get rid of every burden that would keep us from Jesus and heaven. Our English word, “oncology” comes from the word he uses for burden. Oncology is the study of cancerous tumors. Tumors are deadly killers because they are often small and undetectable until they are discovered by an x-ray or a bone scan or some other medical procedure. In the same way, it’s often not the “big” sins, the public sins like physically committing murder or cheating on your spouse that kill faith. Those sins are easy to recognize, easy to point out. But rather, it’s the little tumors that kill spiritual life and take us off the road to heaven. Sins like greed, materialism, despising the means of grace, pornography that are so extremely dangerous.

So how do we avoid this fate? God provides for us! He encourages us to get rid of the burdens and the sin that so easily entangles us by daily examining ourselves, by daily feeling sorrow over our sins, by daily repenting of them. He gives us the power to do this as we remember our baptisms where Jesus washed us clean, gave us his righteousness, created that new man in us to live for him and righteousness and purity. Daily we must “get rid of every burden and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and let us run with patient endurance the race that is laid out for us.” But how do we know where to go?

The pioneers solved that problem by hiring a wagon leader. He was usually an experienced mountain man who had already traveled the trail west. He knew the way. He knew the pitfalls and the mountain passes. He knew the safe places to camp. Friends, we also have someone who has already run this race, who’s already gone on this trail. But he’s better than any mountain man. Our wagon leader is Jesus! “Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who is the author of our faith and the one who brings it to its goal. In view of the joy set before him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of God’s throne. Carefully consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinful people, so that you do not grow weary and lose heart.” 

Jesus knows the way to heaven. He saw you and me and the whole world set before him and it brought him joy. It brought him joy knowing what he was accomplishing. And so he endured the cross with the weight of our sins. And he paid for those sins with his very blood. And then he gave us the gift of that salvation he earned. He is the author of our faith. He is the one who brings our faith to its goal by leading us to heaven. He uses his means of grace, Word and Sacrament to create faith and to strengthen faith. And now he sits at the right hand of God’s throne guiding and directing all things for our eternal good. He knows how to protect us from the devil’s schemes. He knows what it’s like to endure hostility. He knows exactly what we are going through. Which is why the writer urges us: “Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus…Carefully consider him.” Don’t take your eyes off of Jesus, because the path to heaven is perilous for pioneers.

That path for the pioneers on the Oregon Trail was certainly perilous. They had to endure many hardships to reach that better country, that better life. Disease, attacks, storms all brought hardship to those people. Many lost loved ones along the way. And the same is true for us as pioneers on the path to heaven. Jesus tells us that we must endure many hardships to enter the kingdom of God. Anyone who says that life will get easier and you’ll be more successful the more you follow Jesus is lying! Jesus himself said, “In this world you will have trouble.” No, instead of looking for happiness and success, the writer encourages us to be patient and to trust. “Have you also forgotten the encouragement that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard the Lord’s discipline lightly, and do not become weary of his correction. For the Lord disciplines the one whom he loves, and he corrects every son he accepts. Endure suffering as discipline. God is dealing with you as sons. Is there a son whose father does not discipline him? If you are not disciplined (and all of us have received it), then you are illegitimate children and not sons. In addition, we have earthly fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them. Should we not submit even more to the Father of the spirits and live? They disciplined us for a little while, according to what seemed best to them, but God disciplines us for our good, so that we may have a share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant when it is happening, but painful, yet later it yields a peaceful harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it. Therefore strengthen your weak hands and feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather healed.” 

Jesus never promised a rose garden. He did promise that God will never punish us for our sins. Jesus has already taken that punishment. He did promise that he will make all the hardships work for our spiritual and eternal good. And yet it’s true. “No discipline seems pleasant when it is happening, but painful.” But that discipline is necessary. It helps us become disciples. It teaches us. And despite what many might say, discipline shows God’s love for us! It shows that he cares. “Carefully consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinful people, so that you do not grow weary and lose heart.” If anyone had the right to complain, it was Jesus. He was sinless, yet moved by his love for you and me, for the joy set before him, he came to earth to save us, to save the world. But the world rejected him. He was hated, mocked, spit at. Yet, the Lamb of God went uncomplaining forth. Think about Jesus when you’re tempted to complain, when you’re seeking peace and only finding division. Think about Jesus, but not just his example, but how he suffered for you. Carefully considering all Jesus has done for us is more than enough motivation to endure whatever the world can dish out. 

Before the pioneers crossed the Rocky Mountains, they stopped and scrawled their names on a big rock in Eastern Wyoming. If they died along the way, they hoped someone would remember who they were and what they did. God promises more than that for pioneers on the path to heaven. Our names are not written on the path, they’re written in the Book of Life because of Jesus. God will remember and reward all the suffering we endure for Jesus. With that confidence we travel light and get rid of every sin that would ensnare us, every burden that would weigh us down, We keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and his forgiving love. We patiently endure the hardships along the way, trusting that God will make them work for the good of bringing us down the path to the promised land of heaven. What joys await us there! AMEN.