According to the Scriptures, the grit, determination and finishing joy of the marathon runner are metaphorical of what we Christians, both ancient and modern, are called to in this life. The spiritual life is a long-distance run [v. 1-3]. Though we will "hit the wall" many times, we are called to "tough it out," realizing that the hardships we endure are disciplines that enable us to share in God's holiness [vv. 4-11]. The writer's transcending desire is that his flock, and indeed the Church universal, will finish strong. So throughout this passage, he expands the metaphor.
The telltale signs of a runner hitting the wall are drooping arms, flopping hands, and wobbling knees that reduce the runner's stride to a mincing gait. These signs were proverbial in Biblical culture for mental and spiritual slowdown. Isaiah encouraged his despairing, stumbling people by saying, "Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, 'Be strong, do not fear; your God will come'" [35:3, 4]. So here the writer/pastor, like an effective coach, exhorts his flock, "Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees" [v. 12]. The command to "strengthen" is derived from the same word that we translate as orthopedic in English. The sense is, "make upright or straight" -- or in modern coaching terminology, "Straighten up! Get those hands and feet up! Suck it up!" Of course he was not promoting a depend solely on yourself, bootstrap Christian life. Yet Christians must will to tough it out by God's grace. Life for the believer is full of repeated hardships that come as divine discipline. And we must have the same determination that is common to the marathoner.
Toughing it out is essential, but there is still more to the idea because this toughness is not meant to be a solo endeavor. In the next verse, he calls his people to corporate toughness in helping one another to run well. The point being that every consideration should be made to help everyone finish the race. The bloodied, blistered Boston Marathoners teaming up to help each other, limping along arm-in-arm, is a vivid metaphor of this idea. But the church should include not only the weak helping the weak, but also the strong assisting the weak in a duty of mutual help. Hebrews is full of this idea of helping each other make it: "But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness" [3:13]. "Therefore, since the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it" [4:1]. "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another" [10:25]. I am sure the real joy of running a marathon is just finishing -- and I am even more sure that the real joy of the race set before us will be in the finishing. But I also believe there is a double joy -- and that is finishing together! As we run the race, we must exorcise the wretched curse of American individualism that so hinders the church. Yes, we do have to be "tough" and we do have to "gut it out" by the grace of God. But we also have to do this together. The strong among us must hold up the dangling hands and wobbling knees of the weak with our prayers and acts of mercy. We have to run tough but we have to run together.
As we run, we are encouraged on to a dual pursuit -- peace and holiness: "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord" [v. 14]. Experience shows us that though we may have peace with God, we do not always have peace with everyone else. First of all, commitment to Christ incurs the enmity of the world. "It the world hates you," said Jesus, "keep in mind that it hated me first" [John 15:18]. Thus, if we follow Christ, conflict should be expected and is almost inevitable. However, it is both unexpected and disheartening when it is encountered within the church. Conflict in the church brings glory to Satan and disgraces our God. In fact, few things are more destructive to the body of Christ and bring greater impedance to our great race than conflict in the church. Moreover, it is the most common reason so many runners never finish. So as we run the run we must pursue peace with "all men" -- both Christians and non-believers alike. The word "make every effort" or "pursue" is an uniquely aggressive word. We must chase after peace! The Scriptures are replete with admonitions to this effect: "make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace" [Ephesians 4:3]; "to make every effort to do what leads to peace" [Romans 14:19]; "if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone" [Romans 12:18]; and most famously by our Lord Himself with His grand dominical beatitude, "blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God" [Matthew 5:9]. Those who pursue peace will to forgive and will to forget and will to be kind and will to be thoughtful and will to help others and will to pray for their enemies!
The writer has linked the pursuit of peace with the pursuit of holiness [purity of soul] because he sees the logical association between them. It is likely significant that Jesus Himself also made the same association between peace and purity by joining them in successive beatitudes. "Blessed are the pure in heart" is followed by "Blessed are the peacemakers" [Matthew 5:8, 9]. Character and peace are woven together as a single garment of the soul. Ultimately, it will be holy people that finish the race, for it is they who "will see God" [Matthew 5:8] at His glorious return or in the glory that come with death.
Next the writer warns of three things to guard our hearts and lives against. The first is gracelessness, "See to it that no one misses the grace of God" [v. 15] with grace being the divine attitude of benevolence that God has toward His children. The image best describing this could be that of an overflowing pitcher in God's hand tilted to pour blessing upon us. The Apostle James concurred with this when he declared, "But He gives more grace" [James 4:6] -- literally, "great grace." Thus we can confidently know that there is always more grace for the believer. Earlier the writer of Hebrews urged us, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need" [4:16]. The unchanging truth and take home message is that we can have no need that outstrips His grace and we never will! Even if we fall into deep sin, greater grace is available, as Paul wrote, "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more" [Romans 5:20]. "For daily need there is daily grace; for sudden need there is sudden grace; for overwhelming need there is overwhelming grace," wrote John Blanchard.
Because of this, what a tragedy gracelessness is -- and hence the warning, "See to it that no one misses the grace of God" or literally "falls short of the grace of God" -- which according to R. Kent Hughes the idea as being that of "falling behind, not keeping pace with the movement of divine grace which meets and stirs the progress of the Christian."
How does this state of gracelessness come to afflict a child of grace? First and primarily through prayerlessness and lack of confession of sin. Unconfessed sin, in effect, places a hand against the tilted pitcher with a tragic power that omnipotence refuses to overcome. Secondly, one often misses the grace of God by a self-imposed famine from His Word. For millennia God has watered the lives of His people with His Word. Those who do not read and meditate on it are self-condemned to a state of spiritual anorexia. Thirdly, gracelessness occurs when one absents himself from the fellowship of the church, Christ's Body. The movement of divine grace through His Body is meant to be a corporate experience. Paul explained this important truth when he said, it is "together with all the saints" that we "grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ" and, indeed, how we go on to "be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" [Ephesians 3: 17-19]. Our capacity to understand God's Word and to experience His grace is vitally linked to our participation in church "with all the saints." It is in rich community then that we experience grace upon grace.
Lastly, the writer calls the church to steel itself against idolatry and apostasy if it is to finish strong, warning the believers to beware "that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many" [v. 15]. The phrase depicting the root's apostatizing growth is freighted with insight as it describes a hidden seed that takes root and grows slowly, so that only time will reveal it for what it is. Virtually every church has such bitter roots, and it is the height of arrogance to imagine otherwise. So the call here is for vigilance but not a witch-hunt. The Lord specifically warned against such a response because such actions would tear out real wheat with the weeds [see Matthew 13:24-30]. Nevertheless, we must be alert. If we are to run well, the price is vigilance, especially in the good times.
The next verse relates the two appetites that most often torpedo our races -- the sexual appetite and the physical appetite: "See to it that no one is sexually immoral, or godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son" [v. 16]. Here the writer asserts in the clearest of terms that Esau was sexually immoral, calling him a pornos, from which we get the word pornography. Interestingly, the Old Testament does not say that he was a fornicator unless it is implied in his marrying the two Canaanites daughters of Heth. Hughes, however, asserts that rabbinical tradition paints Esau as a man completely controlled by his libido. Thus he serves as the archetype of the twenty-first century man with controlled by his sensual urges which made God quite unreal to him -- as lust always does. This goes hand in hand with the text's second assertion that he was "godless," bebelos, a man with no regard for God, whose focus was only on physical pleasures. Esau was completely earthbound. All his thoughts were on what he could touch, taste or suck. His was a world of instant gratification and thus he was void of spiritual values. In other words, Godless!
God's message to all of us who are in the race is clear ... sexual and physical appetites, given free rein, will ruin our race. Sure, we can repent of any sin, but Esau-like sins will leave deficiencies that can never be regained.
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