Welcome to our program. Now,
today I'm going to be preaching from Hebrews 13, the last verses
of this wonderful, wonderful epistle that speaks of the glory
and majesty of Christ, how superior and how much higher He is, Christ
Himself, in His finished work as mediator. And the title of
the message today is, Sacrifices Unto God. Sacrifices Unto God. The Apostle Paul, in Romans chapter
12, verse 1, writes this. He says, I beseech you, therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies,
your whole person, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which
is your reasonable service. So Paul was saying there is that
believers, those who are saved by the grace of God, ought to
be so aware of their debt of love to the God who bought them
through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that we give our whole
entire persons, everything that we are, not just our physical
bodies, but our hearts, everything that we are, in service to God,
out of love, motivated by love. He said, I beseech you by the
mercies of God. We're not to serve God out of
fear of punishment. seeking to remove his wrath.
We're not to serve God as mercenaries, trying to see what we can gain
and earn out of God. That's a legal, self-righteous
motive. But we're to serve God because
He's been merciful to us. He saved us by His mercy, unconditionally,
freely, the Scripture says, by His grace. And then Paul went
on to write in that same passage, Romans 12, 2, He says, and be
not conformed to the world. Now, the world there is anything
that opposes the gospel and salvation by God's grace in Christ. Anything
that opposes God's word, that world system of philosophy, economics,
politics, religion, anything that opposes Christ, we're not
to be conformed to that. Believers aren't. He says, but
be you transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." In
other words, in not being conformed to the world, but in being transformed,
changed by the renewing of our minds, that is, the mind that
has been enlightened to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,
we become living proofs of what is acceptable and good and honoring
according to the will of God. Now, in the book of Hebrews,
chapter 13, we have some similar language. The same lesson is
being taught in some specifics here. And he begins in verse
14 by setting the stage this way. He shows the believer's
relationship to the world. And he says this in verse 14,
and it sets the groundwork for what I call sacrifices unto God. He says, for here, that is, on
this earth, in this world, we, we who believe the gospel, we
who know Christ, we who are saved by His grace and regenerated
by His Spirit, we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. In this world, believers, believers
have no eternal, continual dwelling place. We seek one to come. We seek the second coming of
Christ. We seek to be with our Lord in heaven. And that's the
continuing city. Believers are in the world. We're
living in the world today. We have to do the things that
we need to do to get along as far as the necessities of life. We have to work. We have to do
these things. But we're not of the world. We're
not in fellowship with the world. We don't think like the world.
Our allegiance is not to the world. The Apostle Paul said
something like that in Galatians chapter 6 and verse 14 when he
was establishing the believer's banner, the believer's motto,
the believer's watchword. He said this, he said, God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross of Christ. That means God
forbid that I should have any confidence or rejoicing in assurance
of my salvation, except in what Christ, the Lord of glory, finished
and earned for me on the cross of Calvary, when he shed his
blood for my sins and established a righteousness that enables
God to be just and justifier." In other words, my salvation
is based on and finished in the completed work of Christ, not
what I do for him, but what he did for me, and that's what I'm
going to glory in. Now, after that, in Galatians
6, 14, he says this. He says, by whom, that is, by
Christ, the world is crucified unto me. I look upon the world
as being cursed, being dead, being wicked. And he says, and
I unto the world. That's the way the world looks
at me. So he's saying that his salvation,
by the grace of God in Christ, His allegiance to Christ has
changed his whole relationship with the world. It changes how
the world looks at him, and it changes how he looks at the world.
And that's what Paul's writing here in Hebrews 13, 14. We have
no continuing city here. We don't look upon this world
as our permanent abiding place. This world is not the end of
it all. It's not our goal. We have no love for it, no allegiance
to it. But we seek one to come. Now
that one to come, That city to come is the heavenly Jerusalem,
the city of the living God that he mentioned back up in chapter
12. It is to be with Christ. That's our permanent dwelling
place. Christ is our dwelling place. And that's our goal. We
love Him. Our allegiance is to Him and
not to the world. Now, based upon this, in the
next verse, in verse 15, he says, therefore, Based upon this, let
us offer sacrifices unto God. Now, what are the sacrifices
that believers are to offer unto God? Now, in verse 15, the first
one he mentions here is the sacrifice of praise. The sacrifice of praise,
and I love how this verse starts. This is the way it is in the
original text. You know the New Testament was
originally written in Greek, and Greek word order is a little
different from our English word order. Maybe some of you remember
when you were in school and learning grammar, it was always subject
and verb and predicate, subject and predicate, subject, verb,
and object, and all of that. Well, in Greek, when they wrote
down the words, the most important word usually appeared first,
the most important point that they wanted to make. I mean,
this is the one they really wanted to impress upon your minds, and
it came first. Now, sometimes the translators,
when they translated it into the English Bible, they changed
it themselves, but here they didn't. It's the same word order,
and it says in verse 15, by him. Therefore, let us offer the sacrifice
of praise to God continually." And that by Him establishes the
foundation of our obedience, the foundation of our sacrifice,
establishes who our sacrifice is, it establishes the foundation
and motivation for all acceptable obedience to God. It's Christ
by Him. We're to offer sacrifices unto
God by Him. And what that means is this.
It means we're to offer the sacrifices of obedience. Here it's praise.
Praising God. Praising Him in every way that
I can see in the Word. Praising Him in my life. In obedience
and thanksgiving and gratitude. Praising Him in my words, preaching
His gospel. Speaking those things which are
honoring to Him. praising Him in my thoughts and
in my heart, in my relationship to others, praising God in that
way, by seeking the best for all my brethren, by Him. And Christ is the motivation.
In other words, whatever we're commanded to do here, we're commanded
to do it because Christ has already saved us from our sins. We're
not commanded to do it in order to be saved, But we're to do
it by Him, by the mercies of God, as Paul wrote in Romans
12.1. We're to seek to serve God and
praise Him because Christ loves us unconditionally and He keeps
us. He says that we're His sheep
and He said He laid down His life for the sheep. That's His
people now. That's not all without exception. But it's all for whom
He lived and all for whom He died and all for whom He arose
again. It's all who shall be saved. It's all who come to a
saving knowledge of Christ by the power of the Spirit in the
preaching of the gospel. They've been given eyes to see
and ears to hear and hearts to understand and receive Him and
love Him. So it's by Him. You see, Christ is our foundation
and motivation. But look at it again. This is
the sacrifice of praise. He says, By Him, therefore, let
us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually. In other
words, there's no time in a believer's life that he should stop continually. This is to be a way of life now. It's not just to be a pastime.
It's not just something that I do when I go to church, as
they say, on Sunday or even on Wednesday. This is 24-7, as the
guy said. There's no break from this. We
don't need a break from this because this is not labor that
burdens us down. This is part of that easy yoke. You know, when Christ said, come
unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give
you rest. He said, for my yoke is easy. My burden is light.
John said that his commandments are not grievous. You see, we
don't need a break from this. Like when you go out and work
five days a week, 40, some of you probably do work 80 hours
a week, you need rest from that labor. But this is not a labor
we need rest from. We can offer it continually because
it's a labor of love. And we find rest here in Christ
by Him. And he says, that is the fruit
of our lips giving thanks to his name. Now, it's the fruit
of our lips. He's speaking of praise with our lips here. That
doesn't discount the heart, you know. Our lips should speak what
is truly in our hearts concerning our hope in Christ and our love
for Christ. You know, Christ spoke of the
hypocrites who said, this people draw nigh unto me with their
mouth and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far
from me. What he's saying here is our hearts should express
the truth, our lips should express the true feeling that comes from
our heart. A true love for Christ. Giving thanks, confessing his
name, literally. Giving thanks, oh thank you Lord.
And listen, thanksgiving is more than just, it's not just looking
up in the sky and saying thank you Lord, it's we express our
love and our gratitude, our thanks with our obedience. Out of love. Again, not in order to attain
or maintain salvation, but because we're already saved by the grace
of God. Now, in verse 16, here's the next sacrifice. And incidentally,
when you take that in the context of Hebrews 13, what he's saying
here is this. We don't offer the sacrifice
of animals like they did in the Old Covenant. That's over with.
We don't bring a lamb. and cut his throat and shed literal
blood, because that's over with. We continually, from our hearts
and in our doctrine and in our lives, bring forth the blood
of the Lamb of God, the blood of Christ. We plead Him. Now
verse 16, here's the next sacrifice. It's the sacrifice of love and
goodness. He says in verse 16, but to do
good and to communicate, forget not. For with such sacrifices
God is well pleased." That is, to do good to all men, to do
good in the sight of the Lord. Now, my friend, we who are in
Christ, we who know Him, we're still sinners saved by grace.
And anything that we do is still not good enough to have any merit
in it. Even the best prayer that we've
ever prayed, the best deed that we've ever done must be covered
in the blood of Christ. in order to be acceptable. But
you see, that which we do in His name, for His glory, and
motivated by love, is acceptable, not because it's meritorious
from us, but because it praises Him. It honors Him. In fact,
the Bible says it is His work in us. His work in us. They that come to the light,
John said in John 3.21, They recognize that their deeds are
wrought in God. They're the work of God. We're
trophies of his grace. We're not doing good or seeking
to do good in order to earn points or to gain merit. We're doing
it to praise him. It's a testimony of his grace
in us by the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says, to do good and to
communicate. That word communicate means to
share. He says, don't forget to do this. God is well pleased
because we're in Christ and these are testimonies to his power
and goodness, not our own. And then here's the next sacrifice.
It's the sacrifice of obedience to God's word. Now he says in
verse 17, obey them that have the rule over you and submit
yourselves. Now, you remember back over in
another verse here in chapter 13, he spoke of that. He said,
remember them that have the rule over you. What he's speaking
of here is pastors and teachers who guide you in the Word of
God. They don't rule over you as tyrants, like in a government,
and it's not a forced submission. But they rule over you in this
sense. Now, Christ is the ruler. He's the head of the church.
He's the Lord of glory. He's the great shepherd. But
these pastors and teachers who preach the word of God, who preach
the gospel, who tell the truth about God and about themselves
as sinners and about Christ who saves us from our sins, who preach
the word of God, the whole counsel of God and guide men and lead
men and seek to guide men to Christ, These pastors and teachers,
they are spiritual guides, and they guide you in the Word. And
he says, submit yourself to them, because what you're doing there
is you're submitting yourself to the Word of God. And here
he says it. He says, for they watch for your
souls. They're concerned for your soul. They're concerned
for your salvation. As they that must give an account,
those ministers who must give an account, that they may do
it with joy, In other words, submit to the word of God as
they preach it, not to their word as men. You know, there
are so many people who are more concerned with who the preacher
is than they are what the preacher is preaching. And that's wrong. My friend, it doesn't matter
who I am. It doesn't matter how big of
a group I preach to. It doesn't matter how long I've
been around. If I speak not according to this word, don't listen to
me. You only listen to me as I preach
from this Word, this book here. And you know, when we talk about
the Word, the Bible says Christ is the living Word. The Word
was made flesh and dwelt among us. And then we have the written
Word, the Scriptures. And the written Word mainly speaks
of the living Word, speaks of Christ. In other words, when
a man preaches this Word here, this Bible, he should be leading
you to Christ. motivating you by grace. And
then there's the preached word, the uttered word. Now, the preached
word that I'm giving you now should be based upon the written
word, which speaks of the living word. Put them all together. And that's how they watch for
your souls, as they who must give an account, and submit to
their word as the word of God. Not just because it's their word,
that they may do it with joy. Joy. And not with grief. Oh,
a true man of God who preaches the gospel, it is so grievous
when people disregard the Word of God. Not that he's perfect
in and of himself. We're all sinners. But when we
preach this Word, we ought to have this in mind. I'm going
to believe and live by that Word preached, beginning with the
gospel. And he says, for that is unprofitable
for you. In other words, to grieve them
in this by not submitting to God's Word is unprofitable to
you. Now, here's the next sacrifice
unto God, and it's the sacrifice of prayer. Verses 18 and 19.
Paul says, Pray for us. For we trust we have a good conscience
in all things, willing to live honestly. But I beseech you,
the rather, to do this, that I may be restored to you the
sooner." One of the great sacrifices that we give unto God is prayer. Now, prayer is one of the most
misunderstood things, I believe, in today's religion. A lot of
people, they talk about looking to the man upstairs, you know,
or something like that, or just talking to Jesus and things like
that. Now, listen to me. First of all, prayer is worship.
When you pray to God, realize you're praying to the God of
this universe, the holy God of this universe. It's worship.
And secondly, prayer is an act of faith in Christ. The Bible
tells us that when we pray, we pray confidently, giving our
petitions unto God, because we have a high priest, a great high
priest, who was passed through into the heavens, and who's already
done the work for us. You see, the ground of prayer
is Christ and Him crucified. We have a high priest who intercedes
for us in our prayers. And then next, prayer is to be
submitted to the will of God. There are many things we know
that God wills because He's revealed them in His book. But there are
many things in Providence that we don't know if it's God's will
or not. Now, preachers will tell you
they might know, but listen to me. Don't listen to them. There
are many areas, you know, if I get sick, I pray God heal me.
I don't know if it's God's will to do so or not, but I know this,
whatever is God's will in that matter, it's good, and it's right,
and it'll be good for me. So I pray, Lord, thy will be
done. Listen to me, prayer doesn't
change things. God is sovereign. He declares
the end from the beginning. But God has ordained means to
accomplish His purposes, and prayer is one of them. So we
offer the sacrifice of praise unto God when we worship Him
through Christ in prayer. And that's what Paul's saying
here. Pray for us. Pray for his ministers. He says, we trust
we have a good conscience. Our conscience is clear because
we desire to be honest and to live honestly. But I beg you,
rather do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner, that
I may come to you. And then in verse 20, we see
Paul's prayer for his brethren. Paul says, you pray for me, but
he also says, I pray for you. He says in verse 20, and I want
you to look at this. This is a prayer of praise and
worship. This is like a little sermon
right here in two verses. Listen to what he says. He says,
now the God of peace that brought again from the dead, our Lord
Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood
of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good
work, to do his will, working in you, or doing in you that
which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to
whom be glory forever and ever. Amen." That's like a body of
divinity right there. It's like a statement of theology.
It's the gospel right there. It's like a summary of the whole
scriptures. And you think about it, he says, the God of peace.
What does he mean by that? He means the God who is reconciled
to his people, and his people are reconciled to him. You see,
by nature we're sinners, born in Adam condemned, under the
wrath of God in Adam. And then when we're born, we
have Adam's fallen nature, and in our wicked minds we're alienated
from God by wicked works. We've declared war on God, whether
we know it or not. And then one day when the Spirit,
by a preacher, shows us the gospel message and brings us the gospel
of peace and the good tidings of peace, we find out that through
Christ Jesus, and his substitutionary work on the cross, he established
peace between God and sinners by his blood. It's peace by his
blood on the cross. God, whose holy law and justice
demanded our death, has been satisfied as Christ shed his
blood for our sins. And now God is at peace. He's
both a just God and a Savior. Righteousness is established
and God is at peace. And then the Holy Spirit brings
us as one man said, to lay down our shotguns and fall at the
feet of Christ. And he says he brought again
the Lord Jesus from the dead. You see, Christ was raised from
the dead for our justification. He's the great shepherd of the
sheep. He saves us from our sins. He guides us. He disciplines
us. He feeds us. He cares for us.
And it's all through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
The everlasting covenant of grace set up before time. when God
purposed to save a people through his Son, and where his Son agreed
voluntarily to be our substitute and redeemer by the shedding
of his blood. That's satisfaction to his law
and justice. And Paul prays that that same
God who saved you make you perfect in every good work to do his
will, make you complete. That's what he's saying here. You who are in Christ, you are
perfect in Christ. But He says, I want you to be
made complete in every good work to do His will. Now listen to
this, as He works in you, that which is well-pleasing in His
sight. If it's well-pleasing in His sight, He's the one who
worked it in you. And He did it through Jesus Christ.
For we are accepted in the Beloved. Not in ourselves, but in the
Beloved. And it's to Him be glory forever
and ever. Amen. What a closing. Well, he
has some closing remarks here. Verse 22, he says, I beseech
you, brethren, suffer the word of exhortation, for I have written
a letter unto you in few words. What he means by that is just
please listen to what I've written. Submit to it. Obey it. Allow
it to be part of your heart. And he said, I've written this
in few words. He says in verse 23, know ye that our brother
Timothy is set at liberty with whom if he comes shortly, I will
see you. Timothy was a young man whom Paul instructed in the
ministry and who was a helper to Paul and whom Paul sent out
different places. Timothy had been in bonds, but
he's been set at liberty, Paul said, and trust that he'll shortly
come to you. And then he says in verse 24,
Salute all them that have the rule over you." Again, that's
the pastors and the teachers that preach the gospel, preach
the word of God, and lead sinners to Christ. And all the saints,
they of Italy salute you. That's from Italy, from Rome.
And then he closes with this, Grace be with you all. Amen. Grace. Paul closes all
of his epistles. in just about the same way. You
may use a few different words in some places, but it's all
of grace. And that's what salvation is
all about. It's all of grace, not of works. Salvation, all
of grace, not of works. And even faith, which is the
fruit and effect of Christ's work, the grace of God, is not
of works, lest any man should boast. The Bible says, in Ephesians
2 and verse 10, that we are His workmanship. created in Christ
Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them.