Welcome to our program. Now,
today I'm going to be preaching from Hebrews chapter 13, and
the title of the message is Established in Grace, or Established with
Grace. I took that title from the book
of Hebrews chapter 13, verse 9, where the apostle writes,
For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace. Now, of course, that's the whole
issue of the New Testament, the whole issue of the Bible, the
Old Testament, too. That grace is the way that God
saves sinners. And at the beginning of chapter
13, this is the last chapter of this epistle that Paul wrote
to Hebrew believers, that the Holy Spirit wrote using Paul. And he begins with several commands,
several exhortations. Now, an exhortation is an encouragement
to obedience by way of command. motivated by the grace of God.
In other words, the commandment is not given to sinners as a
way to seek salvation by their obedience. It's a commandment
given to redeem sinners, justified sinners, children of God, saved
by the grace of God, in a way to express their gratitude and
love to God. And it's love that motivates
the obedience of God's children. Paul said that in 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. He said, for the love of Christ
constrains me. What is it that motivates a child
of God to fight sin and to live an obedient life? It's grace,
and that's why the heart needs to be established with grace.
Legal motives, self-righteous motives, proud motives, mercenary
motives are wicked and evil in the sight of God. So look at
the various commandments that he gives here in Hebrews 13. First of all, he starts off in
verse 1. He says, let brotherly love continue. And notice he says brotherly
love. Now, believers are to love all men. The Bible says, love
God perfectly and love your neighbor as yourself. And the Bible makes
it clear that our neighbor refers to our fellow man, lost and saved. But here the apostle is speaking
of brotherly love. This is love between those who
are in the family of God, save sinners. And all brotherly love
begins with God's love for us in Christ and our love for Him. The Bible, this is the basis
and the motivation for all brotherly love. It's love in the family.
You know, you can say, well, I love all men without exception.
None of us love all men without exception like we ought to. But
there's a special love that exists between you and your earthly
family. Well, here, this brotherly love
in the church, in the family of God, the company of the redeemed,
is a special love. It's a love that only comes from
God. It's a love that we do not have by nature. It's a love that
comes from Christ. It's called the love of God shed
abroad in our hearts by the Spirit. It's love that respects first
and foremost the honor of God's glory. It's love that seeks the
best for its objects, and it's love in the truth. You see, a
false preacher, for example, now let me give you this example.
A false preacher who preaches a false gospel, whether he knows
it or not, and most of them don't know that. In fact, they're all
deceived. He is not expressing godly love when he preaches that
false gospel, because he may think he is, but love from God
is love in the truth. And the Bible says this, herein
is love, not that we love God. You see, God's love towards us
is not conditioned on our love to Him, for in our unredeemed
state, in our lost state, in our unregenerate state, we have
no love for God. All we love is self and extensions
of ourselves. But herein is love, 1 John 4,
10, herein is love, not that we love God, but that he loved
us and gave his Son to be the propitiation, the sin-atoning
sacrifice, the redeeming substitute, the reconciliation for our sins. So this is brotherly love. And
then in verse 2 he speaks of this love expressed in hospitality. He says, be not forgetful to
entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels
unawares. What he's talking about here
is believers helping other believers who are traveling through like
strangers in hospitality, being hospitable and kind, and providing
for the needs and helping those who are brothers in Christ. He's
talking about religious fellowship here. And he shows the example
in the Old Testament of those who entertained angels unaware.
Most commentators think that he's referring back to the time
when the three angels came to Abraham when he was in his tent,
before they went to Sodom. And Abraham provided food and
lodging for them, and Abraham was unaware that he was entertaining
two angels, and one of those angels was the angel of the covenant,
the Lord Jesus Christ himself. A pre-incarnate visitation of
the Lord. So he's telling brothers here
to help each other. Now again, we're to help all
without exception, but especially those who are of the household
of faith. And then in verse 3, he speaks of love expressed in
empathy. He says in verse 3, remember
them that are in bonds as bound with them, and them which suffer
adversity as being yourselves also in the body. This is love
of brethren expressed in empathy. You know, there's a difference
between sympathy and empathy. I'll give you an example that
you might see on the news. You might see people suffering.
We've seen that here late in the disasters, the hurricanes
and earthquakes that have hit this world. And we look at those
people and we sympathize with them. We truly do from the heart.
That's not just fake. I mean, I do sympathize with
them. But let me ask you this. If you were to turn on the news
program one day, and you looked there and you saw a car wreck,
and you found out it was your son, or your daughter, or your
wife, or your husband, or some close relation to you in that
car wreck, you would not only sympathize, you would empathize. You would hurt. Oh, you would
enter into that pain and that sorrow like you've never had
before. And that's the kind of love that he's commanding here.
Those that are bound, those who are in jail, what he's talking
about, for the gospel's sake. You know, Paul was in jail in
Rome. Others, Peter, he was thrown
in jail. And many of these were bound,
they were being arrested because of their testimony of Christ.
And Paul says, you remember them, pray for them, love them as if
it were you who were in jail for your testimony. And those
who are suffering, adversity, sickness, trials, tribulations,
persecution, as if it were you yourself who was suffering, like
you were inside their body, feeling the same pain that they felt.
Paul wrote of that in 1 Corinthians when he spoke of the church as
the body of Christ. And he said, when one member
suffers, we all suffer. When one member rejoices, we
all rejoice. But this is love expressed in
empathy. And then in verse 4 he mentions
marriage. He says, marriage is honorable
in all, that is in all men and women, marriage between one man
and one woman now. That's what he's talking about.
He's not talking about what the world today calls marriage or
civil unions or some such nonsense. He's talking about what is biblical
marriage? It's one man, one woman, leaving
their parents, cleaving to one another, and becoming one flesh.
Now, that's biblical marriage, and anything less than that is
not marriage. Anything less than that is an
abomination to God, and I'm going to show you why. He says marriage
is honorable in all. And the bed, the marriage bed,
that's sexual relations between a man and woman who are married.
He says that's undefiled, there's nothing wrong with that. Now
fornication and adultery are evil, forbidden by God. But the
marriage bed is undefiled, it's honorable. And he says, but whoremongers
and adulterers God will judge. Now, why does he mention marriage
here? We can speculate to that. Most
commentators say that it's probably because there were certain ones
who began to rise up claiming to believe in Christ and who
were preaching that believers would be holier if they stayed
single, if they stayed celibate, as if an unmarried celibate life
was holier or more acceptable to God than being married. And
Paul says, that's not so. You know, we have that today,
like in the Catholic Church, you know, they take a vow of
celibacy and they can't be married. And they think that somehow is
holier. And that's not so. Paul says the marriage is honorable. Why is marriage honorable? Well,
number one, it was instituted by God. It was God who made the
woman out of man and gave the woman to the man as a helpmate.
Married together. Secondly, our Lord honored marriage. It was at the marriage feast
of Cana that Christ performed his first miracle. So he recognized
marriage, and he honored it. And then here's one thing that
I think caps it off. The Holy Spirit, in the book
of Ephesians, chapter 5, inspired the Apostle Paul to choose marriage
as a symbol of Christ's union with his church. Christ is the
husband. The church is the wife. He's
the bridegroom. We're the bride. And he married
us. He redeemed us with his precious
blood. He takes all the responsibility for our salvation. You see, that's
what marriage is. A husband, the head of the home,
takes the wife unto himself, and he becomes responsible for
all of her deaths. He becomes responsible for her
well-being. And that's the way Christ is
with the church. He took his church into himself. He loved
us with an eternal love. He took us into his bosom. He became responsible for our
debt. We owed a debt to God's law and
justice because of our sins we could not pay. But Christ, in
being our husband, has taken us unto himself and paid our
debt. He's the head of the body. He's
the head of the church. He's the head of the home. And
he's become responsible for our provision, for our well-being,
and our eternal salvation. Now isn't that precious? And
isn't that comforting? What assurance I can have knowing
that Christ is the husband of the church of whom I'm a member
of that body. And so Paul used marriage that
way. Sexual love between a husband
and wife is honorable, holy, ordained of God. But he says
God will judge and deal with those who are promiscuous and
unchaste, adulterers, fornicators, all those who disregard God's
ordained way in this area. The next act of love that he
commands here in exhortation is contentment. I want to say
a word about contentment. He says in verse 5, he says,
let your conversation be without covetousness. Now, conversation
there means more than just your talk or your speech. It includes
that. But it means how you walk, how
you conduct yourself. It means your attitude, how you
think, how you deal with things. It's your character and your
conduct, which includes your speech. And he says, let your
conversation be without covetousness. What is covetousness? Well, here
it's an unlawful, wicked desire that puts men in the desire of
greed. In other words, they're so upset
and discontent with what they have that they're miserable,
their priorities are out of whack, and they would seek to fulfill
their lust by greed, by envy, in any other way. It's a sinful
desire for things. It takes sinners away from Christ.
It takes them away from the church. It takes them away from everything
that is good and honoring to God. And he says, you who know
Christ, you let your conversation be without that. Now, we all
have that in us. We still have the flesh in us
and we have to fight against it. But he says, now, how do
you fight this covetousness? Here's the key. Verse five, be
content with such things as you have. Be content. God has provided
for your needs. He says, for he hath said, I
will never leave thee nor forsake thee. First of all, you know,
this contentment, all Christian contentment, begins with our
contentment in Christ, in salvation. Do you realize that if you know
Christ, if you're in Him and resting in Him, God has given
you all that He requires and all that you need? For in Christ
I have all wisdom, He is my wisdom. In Christ I have all righteousness,
for He is my righteousness. In Christ I have all holiness,
for He is my holiness. In Christ I have all redemption,
for He paid the debt in full, and I don't owe a thing to God's
law and justice. What I owe to God is a debt of
love, which I'll never be able to repay. I'll spend eternity
praising Him. And so this contentment begins
with being content in Christ. And that's the basis and the
motivation for all Christian contentment. The Bible says godliness
with contentment is great gain. It's gain because it honors Christ.
It's not gain because we earn our way into God's favor by it.
It's gain because it honors him and it fulfills our desire to
glorify him and honor him. So he says, be content with what
you have, verse 6, so that we may boldly say, We may confidently
say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall
do unto me. What man does to me, what man
gives me or takes away from me, doesn't matter. The Lord is my
helper. That's the issue. The Lord is
my, he's my provider. Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. I said the other night in preaching
the message, you know, people talk about murmuring and complaining.
We see that in the Hebrew children in the wilderness. What is murmuring
and complaining? It's unbelief. You know, if somebody
were asking me, what is the cure for murmuring and complaining?
I'd say Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall
not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He restores my soul. Read Psalm
23. You see, that's contentment. And it begins with Christ. In
verse 7, he mentions supporting ministers, supporting pastors
and ministers who feed the church of God with the word of God.
He says in verse 7, remember them which have the rule over
you. Now that word rule doesn't mean
they're tyrants. It doesn't mean they're CEOs
of the corporation. It means they're your guides
and your servants. Those who preach the word of
God. Those who preach Christ, those who preach the gospel and
open up God's book here and preach from God's book, they're ministers. They're servants of the church.
They are guides. And they have the rule in this
sense. Now, Christ is the ruler. He's the head of the church.
He's the great shepherd. But these men who pastor, who
teach, they are under-shepherds. And here's the key. Now, he says,
remember them. That means that you to support
them, pray for them, and side with them against the world.
He says, remember them which have the rule over you, and look
here. Now, who are they that you're to remember? Those who
have spoken unto you the word of God. Now, there are many people
who come saying they're preachers, they're pastors, they're prophets
or whatever. But here's your key. Now, don't
look at who they are. Don't look at their mannerisms.
Don't look at how their personality is or how they're dressed. Listen
to what they say and check them out according to the word of
God. Isaiah said in Isaiah 820, to the law and to the testimony,
if they speak not according to this word, there's no light in
them. The Bible says in 1 John chapter
4 that you're not to believe every spirit, everyone who claims
to be sent of God, believe not every spirit, but test them,
test them by the Word of God. Are they preaching that which
glorifies God, that which exalts Christ, that which puts the sinner
in the dust where he belongs and leaves him with no hope of
salvation? but through Christ, His blood
and His righteousness. Do they tell the truth about
God, who God is, that He's sovereign, that He's holy, that He's merciful
and gracious? Do they tell the truth about
sinners, that we're depraved and wretched through and through,
that by nature we have no righteousness and by practice we can't produce
one? And do they tell the truth about Christ, who He is, the
God-man mediator, God the Son, sent from heaven, who became
incarnate, took into union with His divinity a human nature without
sin, the one mediator between God and men, and who He is and
what He did, that He saved His people from their sins, that
He paid the debt in full, that He shed His blood as payment,
that He established an everlasting righteousness of infinite value
whereby God could be just and justify. Do they tell the truth? And this is the key. He says,
they speak to you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering
the end of their conversation. Follow what they say, because
it's faith if it leads you to Christ. These pastors and teachers
and elders here, these guides here are trying to lead sinners
to Christ, not to themselves. Not to a denomination, not just
trying to get them into their church built, but leave them
to Christ. And this is what he says in verse
8. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever. Now, there's
the foundation of the whole thing. If they preach Christ and Him
crucified, then you follow them. If they preach man's works, man's
efforts, if they exalt the flesh, don't listen to them. Jesus Christ,
the Lord of glory, The Savior of sinners. He's the same yesterday. He's the same one that Abel came
to. He's the same today. He's the same one I'm preaching
to you today. He's the same one that'll be
preached tomorrow if he doesn't come again after I'm gone. He'll
come again, but if it's the end of the future after I'm gone,
there'll be another preacher raised up who'll preach Christ.
And he never changes. The gospel message is the same
message yesterday, today, and forever. And therefore, he says
in verse 9, therefore, be not carried about with diverse and
strange doctrines. Don't be tossed to and fro with
different doctrines and doctrines that are foreign to Christ, foreign
to God's Word, foreign to the gospel. For it is a good thing
that the heart be established with grace. Oh, it's a good thing
that the heart, the inner man, the mind, the affections, the
will, in our heart of hearts, that we be firmly and immovably
established with grace, salvation, accomplished by Christ, the certain
assurance of it in Him, not with meats." Now, the word meats there
refers to the Old Covenant and its ceremonies and its offerings. And he says, your heart can't
be established in an assurance of salvation by your keeping
those commandments, but it ought to be established with grace,
not what you do for God, but what he did for you in Christ.
And these meats have not profited them that have been occupied
therein. He says in verse 10, he says, we have an altar whereof
they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. Now, my
friend, what is our altar? The altar in the Old Testament
set the sacrifice apart, and it was acceptable to God. What
is our altar? It's not at the front of the
church building. Our altar is Christ. Christ sets us apart. Christ set himself apart. It
was his deity, it was his humanity, his sinless humanity, offered
upon the altar of his deity that gave his sacrifice. efficacy
and power to do what he set out to do. And those who hang on
to that Old Testament law, those who are still hanging on to their
works, those who are still hanging on to the service of the tabernacle
under the Old Covenant, they have forfeited their right to
come to this altar. Now, here's what he's simply
saying here. If you come to God for salvation and receive salvation,
it is either Christ alone or nothing at all. Don't come to
God pleading Christ plus your works. Don't come to God pleading
Christ plus the tabernacle and your service in it. Don't come
to God pleading Christ plus anything. It's Christ alone. Christ is
my all in all. He's everything I need. He's
everything God requires of me. As I said, he's my wisdom, righteousness,
holiness, and redemption. That no flesh should glory in
his presence. And those Jews who want to hang
on to the old covenant law of Moses, they want to serve the
tabernacle. They don't have any right, no
entitlement, to come to this altar. In other words, they're
rejecting Christ. Paul said that in Galatians 5,
if you be circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. Don't
bring Christ plus your circumcision. Don't bring Christ plus your
baptism. It's Christ alone. He says in verse 11, he goes
to the Old Testament to show in type. For the bodies of those
beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high
priest for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore, verse 12,
Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood
suffered without the gates. Back in the Old Covenant when
they would sacrifice the animal, the leftovers, the bodies of
those beasts, was taken outside the camp, outside the camp of
Israel, and they were burned without the camp, outside, because
they were unclean. Well, Christ, in order to save
his people from their sins with his own blood and sanctify them,
he was outside the camp of human religion, accepted religion,
social religion. The Pharisees reject him. The
Sadducees rejected him. The Roman government rejected
him. The Jewish kings and noblemen rejected him. The world rejected
him. He suffered without the gate.
They took him outside of their holy city, Jerusalem, because
they counted him unworthy to be there. And they crucified
him. We crucified him on Mount Calvary as a malefactor, a criminal,
the only one who never did sin, who had no sin. But he did that
to redeem his people, to sanctify them. So he says in verse 13,
let us, we who have gone to him, we who trust him, we who are
washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness, we whom
the Holy Spirit has given us life and established our hearts
with grace, let us go forth therefore unto him. Go unto Christ. without
the camp. In other words, outside the accepted
human religion of the day, the majority religion. Go to Christ. Leave everything behind and go
to Christ, bearing his reproach. His reproach, the hatred of the
world. The world hated Christ. He told
his disciples in John 15, he said, marvel not if the world
hates you. for it hated me before it hated
you, and the servant's not greater than his master." He said, they'll
throw you out of the synagogue for preaching this gospel of
grace. They love their works, they want you to exalt the flesh,
but when you preach salvation totally by grace, from beginning
all the way to its completion in glory, he said, they'll throw
you out of church. They don't want to hear that,
and you'll bear his reproach. But that's the mark of one who's
established with grace.