The Christian Counter-Workout Text: Hebrews 12:12-13
Introduction: The Severe Mercy of the Heavenly Father
We live in a therapeutic age, an age that has mistaken comfort for godliness and ease for blessing. The modern evangelical project, in many quarters, is to convince a watching world that God is, above all things, nice. He is a divine therapist, a celestial guidance counselor, whose primary job is to affirm our choices and soothe our anxieties. But the author of Hebrews will have none of it. He has just spent eleven verses explaining that the trials, persecutions, and hardships we face are not evidence of God's absence, but rather the very proof of His fatherly love. They are divine discipline. God is treating us as sons, not as bastards.
This is a truth that cuts directly across the grain of our soft, sentimental culture. We think love means shielding people from all difficulty. God knows that true love means training sons for glory, and that training is rigorous. It involves sweat, and tears, and the straining of spiritual muscles. God is not running a cosmic daycare center; He is raising an army of kings and priests. And so, when we are in the midst of this training, when our lungs are burning and our muscles are aching, we are tempted to faint. We are tempted to quit. We are tempted to think that something has gone terribly wrong.
The author of Hebrews looks at a church that is panting, winded, and sore from the workout, and he does not offer them a pillow. He does not tell them to take a break. He barks at them like a divine drill sergeant. He says, in effect, "This is what you signed up for. This pain is proof that you are legitimate sons. Now, get up. Get back in formation. This is no time for sloppy sentiment. This is a time for strength."
This passage is therefore intensely practical. It is the "what now?" that follows the profound theology of divine discipline. Because God is treating you as a son, because this hardship is for your good, therefore, you have a job to do. And not just you as an individual, but you as a corporate body. These commands are in the plural. This is a command to the church. The Christian life is not a solo triathlon; it is a forced march with your brothers in arms. And when one of them stumbles, you don't walk around him. You pick him up.
The Text
Therefore, STRENGTHEN THE HANDS THAT ARE WEAK AND THE KNEES THAT ARE FEEBLE, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
(Hebrews 12:12-13 LSB)
A Corporate Command (v. 12)
The first command is a direct quotation from the prophet Isaiah, and it is a call to vigorous, corporate action.
"Therefore, STRENGTHEN THE HANDS THAT ARE WEAK AND THE KNEES THAT ARE FEEBLE," (Hebrews 12:12)
The word "therefore" links everything that follows to the preceding argument about discipline. Because God is a loving Father who chastens His sons for their good, you are to respond in a particular way. The response is not passive resignation. It is active obedience. You are to get up and get to work.
The imagery is drawn from Isaiah 35, a glorious chapter about the restoration of Zion. The prophet says, "Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, 'Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you'" (Is. 35:3-4). The context is the coming of the Lord to save His people from exile. The author of Hebrews reapplies this to the church. You are in a kind of exile, you are running a hard race, and you are tempted to give up. The remedy is not to look inward at your own exhaustion, but to look outward to your brothers and upward to your coming King.
Notice the command is plural. You all are to strengthen the hands. This is not primarily a call to individual self-improvement, though that is certainly involved. This is a command to the church as a body. When you look around the congregation on a Sunday morning, you are looking at your duty. You see a brother whose hands are hanging down, whose spiritual grip is failing. He's losing his hold on his Bible, on his prayers, on his family. His hands are weak. You see a sister whose knees are feeble. She is buckling under the weight of discouragement, temptation, or sorrow. She is about to collapse. What is your job? Your job is to strengthen them.
How do you do this? The same way it was done in the original context: with words. You speak the truth of God to them. You say, "Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come." You remind them of the gospel. You remind them that this discipline is a sign of sonship, not rejection. You pray with them. You bear their burdens. You don't just say, "I'll pray for you," and then walk away. You get your shoulder under their burden with them. This is the "one another" life of the church in action. This is what it means to be members of one body. When one part is weak, the other parts must lend their strength. A refusal to do this is a refusal to be the church.
The Path of Practical Holiness (v. 13a)
The second command shifts the metaphor from the body to the path, but the principle is the same: corporate responsibility for mutual sanctification.
"and make straight paths for your feet," (Hebrews 12:13a)
Again, this is plural. "Y'all make straight paths." This is a community project. The church is to be a place where the path of righteousness is clear, well-marked, and free of unnecessary obstacles. This is a call for practical, clear-headed holiness. It means taking the glorious doctrines of our faith and beating them out into discernible pathways for living.
What does a crooked path look like? A crooked path is a church culture of compromise. It's a place where sin is tolerated and excused. It's where worldliness is winked at. It's where gossip is a recreational sport. It's where doctrinal clarity is sacrificed for a mushy, sentimental unity. A crooked path is created by hypocrisy, where the leaders say one thing and do another. These things are stumbling blocks. They are rocks and roots in the path that will trip up the saints, especially the weak ones.
Making straight paths means we must be serious about church discipline. It means we must be clear in our preaching and teaching. It means we must cultivate a culture of open confession and repentance, not one of hiding and pretending. It means our worship must be ordered by the Word of God, not by the fads of the world. It means our elders must govern with wisdom and courage, clearing the path of false teaching and moral confusion. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to walk in obedience and as difficult as possible to wander off into sin. We are to be a community that makes holiness the path of least resistance.
The Goal: Healing, Not Injury (v. 13b)
The verse concludes by giving the reason for these commands, and it reveals the tender heart of our Father. The goal of all this strengthening and path-straightening is restorative, not punitive.
"so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed." (Hebrews 12:13b)
Within the church, there are always those who are "lame." These are the spiritually weak, the immature, the struggling, the wounded. They are limping along in the race. The great danger for them is that a crooked path will cause them to stumble, and their existing weakness, their lameness, will turn into a catastrophic injury, a dislocation. The Greek word here, ektrepo, means to be turned aside, wrenched, or dislocated. It carries the idea of apostasy, of being turned completely out of the way.
This is a terrifying warning. A church that is lazy, that does not strengthen the weak, that allows the path of discipleship to become overgrown with the weeds of worldliness, is a church that is actively contributing to the damnation of its weaker members. This is spiritual malpractice of the highest order. When a lame sheep stumbles because of our clutter in the path, its blood is on our hands.
But the goal is not simply to avoid injury. The goal is positive: "but rather be healed." The church is meant to be a hospital for sinners, a place of spiritual therapy and rehabilitation. When a lame man comes into a community that is walking on straight paths, where the weak are strengthened, he finds a context for his own healing. He sees what righteousness looks like in practice. He is encouraged by the strength of others. He is held accountable in love. He is nourished by the clear preaching of the Word and the right administration of the Sacraments. In this environment, his weak faith is made strong. His lame walk becomes a steady stride. He is healed.
This is the beautiful purpose of God's discipline. He chastens us, which makes our hands hang down and our knees grow feeble. Then He commands our brothers to strengthen us and to clear the path before us, so that the very weakness He revealed in us through discipline might be the occasion for our healing and strengthening within the body. The trial that threatened to destroy us becomes the means of our salvation, all through the ministry of the church.
Conclusion: Get to Work
So the application is straightforward. First, if your hands are weak and your knees are feeble, do not despise the chastening of the Lord. Recognize it as the grip of your Father's love. Do not faint. This is part of the process. God is making you into a true son, fit for glory.
Second, look around you. This command is your business. Who in this body has drooping hands? Who has buckling knees? Your task this week is not navel-gazing. Your task is to go to them, to speak a word of truth, to offer a hand of help, to get your shoulder under their load. Stop thinking of church as a place you come to consume religious goods and services. It is a workshop, a gymnasium, a hospital, and you are on the staff.
And third, all of us together, led by the elders, must take up the work of making straight paths. We must ask ourselves: where are the stumbling blocks in our community? What compromises have we made? What lack of clarity are we tolerating? What laziness has crept in? We must be ruthless with our own sin and compassionate toward the lame. We must make this church a place where it is easy to be holy and hard to be worldly, so that when God brings us his wounded sons and daughters, they find here not a place of further injury, but a place of profound and lasting healing.