From The Pulpit Of. Brotherly Love. No. 27 Hebrews 13:1-8 April 6, 2014

Transcription

1 From The Pulpit Of Brotherly Love No. 27 Hebrews 13:1-8 April 6, 2014 Series: Hebrews Ryan Christie Text Keep on loving each other as brothers. 2 Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. 3 Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. 4 Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." 6 So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" 7 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Introduction In today s text we re coming to the final stuff of the book of Hebrews. A lot of letters in the New Testament have a similar final section that usually includes some sort of exhortations. It s important for us to keep in mind that these exhortations don t just come out of nowhere. It s not as if the author is done with his main points, the stuff he really cares about, and then he wants to just add Oh yeah, also: Be a good person! Don t forget to do better! That sounds silly but I think that s how a lot of us view these parts of the Bible. It s easy to feel like these are just moralistic commands that are detached from the rest of the teaching. I think most people could read these things and agree that they are generally good things that we should aspire to, treating others well, honoring marriage and so on. But why should we do these things? Are these just arbitrary morals tagged onto the end of a sermon? If not, where do they come from? The thing we have to see is that these exhortations are not a stand-alone thing but they are thoroughly grounded in the Gospel message. This text shows us what an overflow of worship looks like that comes from the work of God in our lives. We can see that in its connection to the end of chapter 12 that we studied last week. There we saw that there will be a time when the created of things of this world are going to be shaken down and the only thing that is going to remain is the eternal kingdom of God. The created things of this world, the vain things that we wrongly put our hope in, the kingdoms and the power and the money that the world seeks after are all going to be washed away. Nothing of this world will remain, except that which cannot be shaken. Verse 28 tells us that we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. It is indestructible, it s impenetrable, and it s everlasting. For those who have put their faith in the work of Jesus this kingdom is yours. This sermon is printed and distributed as part of the ongoing ministry of Immanuel Baptist Church 2014 Casey Ryan Christie

2 And we see in verse 28 that those who have been changed by this Gospel will be moved to a life of worship. It says: Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. And then immediately in 13:1 he says: Keep on loving each other as brothers and carries on with all these imperatives that center on how are relationships with others should look like. What is the author doing here? He is showing us what acceptable worship looks like. He s saying that when you begin to realize that you are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, through the work of Christ that is immovable then this is how your life is going to look. This is the outcome. True worship is so much more than just singing songs on Sunday mornings. It s so much more than just doing a Bible study or morning devotionals. Those things are great ways that we worship God and they are necessary but here we can see that real worship goes beyond all of that and encompasses our entire life. It affects our decisions. It defines how we treat our spouses and our neighbors and how we look at money. It s all encompassing. It is a response that culminates in a lifestyle change. So when we look at our text today, we can see that these aren t just moralistic commands to do better. These are instructions for worship for those who have been radically changed by the teaching of this book. So the main thing that we ll see today is that the work of the Gospel produces a life of worship that is defined by love for one another. Let s pray that God will work that Gospel into our hearts and that as we think through these imperatives that what he has done for us will be the thing that drives us. Let s pray Brotherly Love So today we ll answer the question: What does a life lived in worship of God really look like? And we see in verse 1 that it is all about brotherly love. When God has worked in your life and shown you all that Jesus has done for you and shown you the promises that are laid out here in Hebrews and in the rest of the Bible, the result is a life of worship lived out in brotherly love. What we re talking about here is a lifestyle of selfless, others-oriented living. It means releasing your grip on your time and money. It means opening your home. It means putting others first and giving of yourself. It ultimately means trusting God for his goodness to us and putting our faith fully in him. And to be honest I don t know a thing about it. I am not good at this. I don t know about you but when it comes down to sacrificing something of myself I find it so difficult to lay down my life for others. But I know that this type of living is supposed to be the mode of operation for all Christian community. It is all over the Bible. Jesus laid it out very clearly in John. He said: A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. In Philippians Paul, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others (Phil. 2:3-4). There are so many texts like this in the New Testament. Read through the book of 1 John sometime this week. So much of it is just about loving your brothers and sisters in Christ. It is the defining thing for Christians, that they are to love one another. 2

3 But why? What is the motivation? In all of these passages it is spelled out very clearly that our love for one another is enabled by the love that Christ has already displayed for us. Jesus said: Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. John says: We love because he first loved us. The love of Christians for each other is an overflow of worship that comes from the work of the Gospel in our lives and it is definitive of who we are. But how is that to look? This brotherly love that we re talking about today is not an ethereal idea of love. It is not mushy gushy love based on our feelings about one another. It is love that is grounded firmly in the finished work of Christ and that has very practical, tangible effects here and now in our community. And the rest of this passage unpacks what that brotherly can and should look like in our community. It touches on our home life and how we handle our money and ultimately it all connects to how Christians live together as a community. The author of Hebrews gives us five different ways to do that here. Showing Hospitality The first way he shows us to live out brotherly love is: Do not forget to entertain strangers What we re dealing with here is the idea of hospitality. The ESV puts it as Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. What does this mean? Well first off, let s understand that this is primarily referring to the interaction of Christians with other Christians. There is definitely a place for showing love to those who aren t Christians but what our author is primarily concerned with throughout this passage is how those who call themselves followers of Christ treat each other. And here he calls us to be hospitable, to open up our homes to those in need and particularly strangers in this place. It s clear in Scripture that this was a big deal in the first century. We see Jesus and Paul and the other apostles in Scripture going from house to house with the expectation that they will be well met by believers and that they would have a place to stay and a meal to eat. There is this sense in the New Testament that the possessions of believers were not just theirs but were for the betterment of others. We see this with the early church in the book of Acts who held all things in common. But why is this? It s because when someone latches on to the idea that everything that they have is a gift from God, that their whole being has been redeemed and their life is a gift, then they no longer have any reason to be selfish with their time and their possessions. Your home is no longer your home but it becomes a tool that God can use to bless others. Your time is no longer something you have to protect but it is something you can give away freely. You can open your home to Christians in need or to Christians passing through. And this doesn t have to be a daunting task. The duty of being hospitable to other Christians carries with it a huge blessing. Christians can expect that in these ordinary, mundane times, God will play a significant role. The relationship between host and guest will carry with it blessings because it is not just one human with another. It s something far greater because it is two people who have recognized their sinful states and have both come to Jesus with nothing in their hands. They are both part of the same redeemed body and when they come together to share a meal it is a totally different thing. God is in their midst and they can expect that their time will be so much more blessed. Have you guys ever experienced this? Have you sat down with other believers, even people you didn t know beforehand and walked away refreshed? Often it s the stories of how God is working in someone else s life that will inspire us. God uses other believers who have 3

4 gone through completely different circumstances, yet who share that deeper common bond that all Christians have together, to work in our lives. It s inspiring; it s refreshing. When we go to host a Christian who is not part of our normal circle of fellow believers we can expect God to be working in that time. We can expect that God will bless us through them. The word that is used here for hospitality means that there is actually a delight in the relationship between the guest and the host and that there can be this mutual exchange of gifts that bring refreshment to one another. 1 So there can be great delight in being hospitable to strangers because we are all of the same body and God is among us. The truth is that you never know exactly what you re gonna get when you host a stranger because God is ready to do big things in those times. This is why the author mentions that some have even entertained angels without knowing it. This may sound really weird to us at first and may remind some of us of the awesome Newsboys song from the late 90 s (which by the way, I think, has nothing to do with this idea of hospitality). But our author is alluding to the fact that in the Old Testament there are a couple of times when people have a surprise guest who ends up being an angel of God. Genesis tells us that Abraham had some unexpected guests who he later found out were angels. And this wasn t some arbitrary hat trick that God pulled for Abraham. These angels came with good news for Abraham through them God told him that he was going to have a son even at his really old age. The author of Hebrews puts this in here not to make us necessarily expect that we may or may not be entertaining angels at any given point, though I don t doubt that God could bless us in that way, but because he wants us to expect that God will bless us in the entertaining of strangers because big things have happened at times in doing this. This is a gift of God to us and he wants to be among us in those times, giving us blessings that may go beyond our imagination, times that go beyond the ordinary. Remembering those who are in Prison and Mistreated The second admonition here gets into an area that we don t easily connect with. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. What we re dealing with here is the idea of solidarity among Christians. In the first century and throughout Church history tons of Christians have been put in prison and treated very severely for their faith in Christ and it s happening in many places in the world today. Most of us don t personally know any fellow Christians who are in prison or who are being persecuted for their faith but that doesn t mean it s something we can neglect. The reality is that our faith is not accepted in a number of countries and there are brothers and sisters there who are being mistreated. This passage tells us to remember them as if we ourselves were suffering. In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul says that God has so designed the body that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored every part rejoices with it. There is a unity among the body of believers to where if one part is feeling pain, we should feel that pain with them and we should cry out to God for them. We have all felt bodily pain and so we can know in part what it feels like for others to be suffering and so we are told to remember them. But what does that practically look like for us? I think for us here it means that first off we have to learn about our brothers and sisters around the world who are suffering and that secondly we 4

5 pray for them. There are a number of good resources now for learning about persecuted Christians and countries around the world. Voice of the Martyrs is a great tool. There are lots of news updates on the their website that tell you about real people around the world who are dealing with real persecution and imprisonment. No Christian is alone in their trials. As one body we are united and for those of us who are here in a place with little persecution, there is a great need for us to be learning about and praying for our brothers and sisters who are suffering. But this doesn t have to be something that is only for those in other parts of the world. Many of us know Christians who are suffering here. Some are struggling with families or spouses who don t accept their faith. I know of people with Muslim backgrounds who struggle with this but I also know Caucasian people who were born and raised in the South who s families can t accept that they ve converted to Christianity and it makes their life very difficult. We have to be praying for these people. The bigger point is that Christianity is not an individualistic religion. It can t be. It is a fully interdependent faith where each believer is a member of something bigger. The body of Christ is united under Jesus and each member is working together for the benefit of one another. And in fact, by loving our brothers and sisters through both hospitality and remembering those who are in prison and mistreated, we are actually loving and worshipping Jesus himself. We see this in Matthew 25. The setting is the judgment when this world comes to an end and Jesus is seated on his heavenly throne. And there he says that the King will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. Jesus tells us that those brothers and sisters that you cared for who were suffering and in prison and who you invited in and gave them something to drink I was there by loving them you were loving me! When we care for those who are mistreated and when we host those in need we are by extension of the body of Christ actually loving and worshipping Jesus himself. This is spectacular! This should change the way we do everything! That brother or sister in need now becomes a blessing to us because through them we are worshipping and interacting with Jesus himself! Hospitality can in no way be seen as a burden. Thinking about and praying for our persecuted brothers can t be a mundane task any longer because in that Jesus says that we are feeding him, we are clothing him, we are taking care of him. That changes everything! And it changes how we live here at IBC as well. Do you know what s going on in the lives of the people around you? Are we thoroughly involved in each other s lives to know when one of us is suffering? And to do that we need to continue meeting together. As it said earlier in Hebrews: Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day draw near. Let s continue to be involved in each other s lives so that we can encourage one another. Marriage and Money 5

6 Our author s third exhortation is about marriage and when we get to this verse we might ask what this has to do with brotherly love and the community of God s redeemed people. How does marriage fit into that? I want to first stress again that this exhortation is for the community of believers. I m sure the author would want these sexual ethics to be applied to the whole world but this is not applied to everyone in the world but rather here his focus is on what the lives of redeemed people should look like. And we see here that the redeemed community of God is to hold marriage in very high regard. In the original this word honor is really emphasized and it means that it is of exceptional value and to be highly prized. Contrary to culture, marriage within the Christian community is supposed to be uplifted and even protected by all. This doesn t mean that all should be married, it rather means that the bounds of marriage should be honored and protected by all. Whereas we are called to care for one another, marital infidelity is the complete opposite of brotherly love. It isn t caring for anyone else. It is only a self-focused love of self. It is an action that cares for no one but you. And this verse is not just for those who are married. This verse talks about two types of people that will be judged: the adulterer and the sexually immoral. The adulterer refers to people who are married and who then go and sleep with someone else and the sexually immoral person here refers to anyone who is having sex outside of marriage. So we have both the married and the unmarried being addressed here. And the problem for both is the exact same at its core. It is saying that me and my personal gratification are more important than my love for anyone else. For both it is a pure expression of selfishness with no regard for the other. But the Christian community is to function completely differently than that. On top of that sexual immorality is a rejection of the presence and the goodness of God. 2 To cheat on your spouse or to have sex outside of marriage as a Christian is to not trust in God s goodness to you. It s to say that God cannot provide you with the fulfillment and joy that you desire within the institutions that he has set up. We have all said this to God in one way or another by trying to find our joy in some source other than him. We re saying to God that your presence and your goodness to me are not enough and I need to look somewhere else. Our tendency as humans is to reject God and go to all sorts of other things for fulfillment. And we try to squeeze as much pleasure as we can out of the things of this world but they often leave us dry and so we go on to the next thing. What we should be doing, and what this text is saying, is that we go to God and we experience his love and grace and we are fulfilled in that and moved to worship. And in that we can go to our spouse or to the others in our church and world and we can love them more fully. And instead of trying to use them for our own pleasure, we re able to love them and to work for their good. We are then able to endure a difficult marriage because it is honoring to God and for the betterment of our spouse. We re able then to find joy in our singleness because God is there, without having to look for the next guy or girl to make you happy. For those who have experienced God, you know that there is a fullness there that is unmatched by the pleasures of sex or anything else in this world but we often, so often, doubt that. We get anxious and we don t trust that God is going to see us through our singleness or through a tough spot in marriage. Is he going to be there? Will he actually fulfill me? Yes. He is there and he is good and he is faithful and he will see us through to the end. 6

7 The next point our author makes is about money and at first it may seem disconnected from what we re talking about with marriage but it is actually the exact same heart issue that is going on. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have. To pursue an income to provide for your family or to bless others is a completely different thing from having a life that is enraptured with the love of money. Money can be a great thing. We all need it. We have to buy food if we want to eat; we have bills to pay; we have things we want to be able to do in life and there is nothing wrong with that and there is nothing wrong with money in general. In fact, money can be used to bless others in amazing ways. It can be a great tool for the hospitality that we talked about earlier. It is the love of money that is an entirely different thing. Just like to love sex above loving your spouse or others or God is completely selfish, so it is to love money. If you love money, then you re not loving others. Materialism is the enemy of brotherly love. Why is that? It is again because you are self focused. If you love money then you are willing to push others down and out of the way to get to the real thing that you love. If you love money and not others, then you are going to choose material security over generosity to others. And just like it was in regards to sex, you can begin to objectify people so that they become a means to your financial gain, a stepping-stone for your gratification. If money becomes the thing that you set your heart on, then it can t be focused on the betterment of others. Brotherly love is pushed down and out of the way. But instead of loving money God calls us to be content with what we have. This doesn t mean that we don t care about money. Money matters a lot and it can be used in great ways. It also doesn t mean that we can choose to be irresponsible with it. How we use our money is a serious reflection of how we care for others and the ways God has worked in our lives. To be content with what we have rather means that we have a trust in God and his promises. This radically shapes how we view our money and how we hold onto it. We so often look to money as we do to all sorts of things in this world to make us happy and to fulfill us. We think that if we get more money we will be happier, more fulfilled, more respected. Money can become the thing that we live for because we think it is the thing that will bring us the happiness and joy that we long for. But just like everything else in the world it will leave us wanting. We will never find contentment in money itself. We will only find that true contentment in God. So how can we be content with what we have instead of pursuing money as a god? We can be content with what we have because God has said: Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. Our contentment is grounded in God s presence in our lives and his promises for our future. We can be content because we know that God is with us and that he is for our good. His promise is that he is with us and that promise is eternal. It far outweighs the temporary comforts of money. How many of us have watched the money in our bank accounts wax and wane? Money appears to be flowing in, business is doing well, maybe things are really growing for you, but there is always another expense. There are always unexpected expenses. There s always another thing to pay for. There are no guarantees for our financial futures. But God promises that he will never forsake us. With God there is an absolute guarantee for our future and it s good and it s sure. In Christ we have a kingdom that is unshakeable. It is eternal and it is far better than the things of this world. Now that is something that we can put our hope 7

8 in. With that we can say confidently along with the psalmist: The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? What can man do to me? There is nothing that can shake the rock solid foundation of those who follow Christ. Don t put your heart into money. Put your heart into the treasure that neither moth nor rust can destroy. Then if you don t have lots of money, know that God will provide for you and that he himself is the greatest provision of all. And if you have lots of money, don t hold onto it as your salvation. Use it to bless your brothers and sisters. Let the Gospel move you to give freely, knowing that your hope is not in your money but is in the unchanging goodness and presence of God in your life and that blessing others with God s gifts to you will bring you greater blessing than you could have imagined. Looking to the Past When we re trying to live out this life of brotherly love as our response of worship to God for all that he has done in our lives sometimes it can be really difficult. It s easy for us to become so focused on ourselves or to forget the work God has done in our lives. It s so easy for us to become myopic and think that we are the only ones with the issues that we have. You might think that your marriage has struggles that no one else is dealing with, things that couldn t possibly be overcome, or maybe the way you or your family struggles through your finances feels so weighty to you that you forget what it s all for. Or maybe you re single and that feels like the weight of the world to you; or life is lonely right now. In the midst of struggles it s so easy for us to lose sight of the truth of our faith and the hope of our future. I think that s why our author says in verse 7 to remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. This verse is talking about the people who taught them the faith and who are probably dead at this point. These are people who have gone through the serious struggles of this life and yet held on firmly to the teachings of Jesus and finished their life in faith. He is calling his audience to look at their lives, to see the things they struggled with and consider how they handled things. What did their faith look like? What was the outcome of their life? Now our church is obviously a fairly young church. I don t think we ve seen any generations finish out their lives here. But I m sure for some of you there are people in your life who you have seen finish out a life of faith or who are close to it. This calling is to look to them. How d they do it? For all of us, there are tons of Christian throughout history that are available to us. There are biographies available that show us real people who were just like us and who went through the same kinds of struggles we have are going through. Their lives can stand as a witness to God s grace and can be a huge encouragement to us. Bethany recently listened to the biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who as many of you know was a theologian and pastor during World War II and whose life ended as a martyr. I got to listen to a few sections of the book while she had it on in the house and it is just crazy what hearing about the life of a Christian from the past can do to you. It shows you so much about yourself and really wakes you up. It can show you how faithful God is in our lives, especially when you see someone s life from beginning to end. You begin to see that God is there. He is in every aspect of your life and he will be faithful to see you through to the end. It helps you to realize that God will never forsake us. And you can see clearly that they persevered through their lives not because they were awesome people but because they continued to put their faith in Jesus 8

9 and not in the things of this world. They believed in that hope through to the end. Their lives can be so inspirational for us. But we know that as great as some of the saints of the past were that they all had faults. Part of the joy of reading them is that we realize that even the greatest of Christians were still sinners like us. We can relate to them in their struggles and see that their lives had major ups and major downs. But our focus is not on their faith alone. The key is that the object of their faith was unwavering. Though great teachers come and go and generations change, the Gospel message remains the same. Verse 8 tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. The message about Jesus continues on from generation to generation and is the solid foundation for all that we do. This statement is a testimony to the unshakable, unwavering, eternality of the Gospel. Jesus Christ, unlike anything else in the whole world, is the one solid foundation that is unchanging. We put our hope into so many things and we re let down by them. Nothing in this world is lasting. Nothing is sure. There will come a time when all will be shaken down and the truths of the Gospel are the only thing that will be left. Christ came and lived a sinless life and died a death in the place of others to atone for our sins. He was raised from the dead and exalted to a throne of glory and now he is seated at the right hand of God the father and he intercedes on behalf of those who put their faith in him. And he will return someday to gather up all who have put their faith in him in order to bring them into eternal glory. This Gospel message is the unchanging message that has shaped the lives of Christians throughout history. We can look back at believers of the past and imitate their faith because regardless of how sinful they were their faith was in something unchangeable. We have been given this unshakeable kingdom. It is yours in Christ. And this promise that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever is the thing that will drive how we live today. We can only live out these calls to brotherly love for the Christian community with the hope that Christ came and died for us, that he intercedes for us today, and that our future is absolutely secure with him. In that we can put the needs of our brothers and sisters above our own. So let s be reminded of what he s done for us as we celebrate the Lord s Table. Lord s Table Benediction In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God has so loved us, let us also go and love one another. (adapted from 1 John 4:10-11) This sermon was addressed originally to the people at Immanuel Baptist Church, Chicago, Illinois, by Pastoral Apprentice Ryan Christie on Sunday morning, April 6, It is not meant to be a polished essay, but was written to be delivered orally. The mission of Immanuel is to be a multiplying community that enjoys and proclaims the Good News of Christ in the great city of Chicago. End notes: 1 Lane, Lane,