God powerfully provides wisdom for his people and this wisdom is revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ who is the only supreme and sufficient savior.

Since Jesus Christ has given the once for all sacrifice of His own life, God’s faithful followers no longer offer up animal sacrifices, but rather they offer up the New Covenant sacrifices of praise and acts of love, all the while praying for and obeying the leaders God has placed over them for the good of their souls.

The Gospel of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ, who is unchanging, is the bedrock of our faith today as it was for faithful Gospel preachers before us, and it is that Gospel of grace that will protect us from false teaching, nourish our souls throughout life and strengthen us to share in the reproach that Jesus Christ endured when He died outside the gate as the atoning sacrifice for sin.

Christians offer God acceptable worship by showing brotherly and sisterly love (showing hospitality, remembering those who are persecuted, honoring marriage) and refusing all false loves (sexual immorality, adultery, love of money), resting in God’s faithful care and protection.

Since the New Covenant is God’s full and final revelation, we need to heed the voice from Heaven and offer God acceptable worship, convinced that God’s eternal Kingdom is the only thing that will not be shaken when the entire created order is overthrown at the Lord’s return in glory.

The writer of Hebrews continues to highlight the vast superiority of the New Covenant by contrasting the terrors of Mount Sinai with the glorious wonders of Mount Zion, the heavenly city of God in which we see angels without number, redeemed humans of all ages, God the Judge, the faithful of past ages and Jesus, the mediator of the New Covenant in His blood.

Christians must pursue peace and holiness (which marks all who are headed for Heaven), making sure that none of the Christian community fails to obtain God’s grace, that there is no defiling “root of bitterness” and that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who despised his birthright.

Having reminded those who were faltering in the race of faith of the heroes of the faith, the perfect race of Jesus and the loving purpose of God’s discipline, the writer of Hebrews now exhorts them and us to find fresh strength in the Lord to run the remainder of the race toward the finish line, always holding to the straight path of the Gospel.

Christians need to be subject to God’s discipline, looking beyond the short term pain, seeing it as a mark of His Fatherly love and as the most direct means to lead His children to share His holiness and enjoy the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

Christians must run the race of faith with endurance, shedding every hindrance, spurred on by the faith of those in ages past, but especially by the faultless race run by Jesus Christ, who endured more than we will ever have to face in order to win everlasting joy for us.