Father, we're glad that you've
given us this day. Father, we're thankful that as stressful as
the world is, Lord, we can truly find rest in the gospel. Help
to encourage us to encourage each other to look to the cross,
Lord, to help us guard our minds and hearts and tongues and attitudes
and thoughts and feelings and everything again. be subject
to the gospel, be subject to the cross of Christ, be subject
to your grace in our lives. And so Lord, as we continue in
this letter to the Hebrews tonight, Father, help us to see the reality
of whose we are. And to see what purpose we have
here in this world. Because you've created us for
your glory. You have made us a people of your own possession.
And you have sacrificed your son that your forgiveness would
be sure. and You have given us His righteousness
that our holiness is absolute. And so we thank You for setting
us apart for You. And we pray these things in the
name of Christ. Amen. Let's go to Hebrews 13. We're
not long from this letter, but there's some practical things
that we want to look at and talk about. In the sense that we get the
apostolic writing, we need to realize that there's sometimes
an overemphasis on certain things when we need to emphasize the
text as it emphasizes whatever it's speaking of. So sometimes
we'll go to a letter, like I read the entire New Testament every
day, minus the gospels, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So not the
gospels, but all the letters. an axe, minus axe. All right,
there we go. But all the letters, I've read
them every day, and it doesn't take that long to read them all.
And it's just been a blessing for me this week to saturate
my mind with the instruction of the apostles, to saturate
my mind with the teaching of Christ, with the doctrine of
Christ. And I'll be talking about the doctrine of Christ, finishing
last Sunday's message this coming Lord's Day, and helping us to
see that It's important that we first read the Bible and eat
the word of God. And secondly, that we pay attention
to not just the things that we like, but we also pay attention
to the things that we don't particularly care for. And sometimes that
is the pragmatism or the practical application or the instruction
given to us by the Lord through the apostles teaching. And so,
for example, Hebrews 13 is just that. Though the gospel is certainly
here and implied and referred to and alluded to and everything
else, it has been taught exclusively And clearly, over and over again
for 12 chapters, there is a therefore here, and these therefores are
important for our joy. We need to pay attention to that.
We shouldn't listen to these things and say, well, you know
what, I'm loving the way I need to love, so, you know, I'm just
going to give up. Well, of course we're not loving the way we need
to love. That's why Christ's love for us is effectual to our
righteousness. We get credit for His perfect
love. We get credit for His perfect humanity. We get credit. We get
to count Christ's absolute holiness as our own. So we then are set
apart as He is set apart. We are holy as He is holy, which
is the decree of God from the beginning. So in this brotherly
love continuing, we see some instruction that we've gone through
over the last few weeks. We've looked at contentment. We've seen all sorts of different
things that we should be thinking of. But tonight I want to focus
again, going from verse five down through the end, and we'll
see how far we get tonight. But I want you to ask the question,
what in the world is your purpose? What is your purpose? See, I
could easily take this particular topic and I could run into a
self-help seminar. I could become a motivational
speaker. I could even give you a spiritual, you know, calling,
make you think that God has got you doing something, gonna call
you to do something great and magnificent. But ultimately the
purpose of the believer is to give glory to God for His grace,
is to expose God's glory, to expose Him for who He is by praising
and thanking Him for His grace. And this in and of itself, by
itself, is the single ingredient of the assurance of our salvation,
His grace, and is the single ingredient to our joy. It is the single ingredient to
our contentment. Yet it is the one thing that
we fight the hardest with is living our lives in the simplicity
of the grace of God rather than wanting to be more or have more
or do more or have a better status or have a better station and
so many people who say that they're believers they feed the garbage
into the culture and they feed the garbage into themselves and
then we feed the garbage into each other and the only thing
that can come out of that which garbage has been put into is
garbage. And beloved the life that we have is garbage except
that we are alive in Christ which is everything. So whether we
do, whatever we do, whatever we make, whatever we attain,
if the Lord wills it is for His purposes and most importantly
it is for the purposes of the assembly of the saints. Did you
know that your career is so that you can be effective in your
ministry for the body of Christ? That your gifts and talents are
so that you can serve one another who are in the family of faith
in covenant together? That your wealth or lack thereof
is an opportunity for you to give? So you see how backward
our world is? You see how upside down even
the church is? As I prayed this week, I realized
just how improperly I pray so often. and how I try to lie to
myself and I'll know that I'm lying to myself and so then I
tell God I'm lying to myself. and then I tell God to forgive
me for that and then to establish in my heart a purity so that
I may know that I can't hide from Him. Have you ever tried
to hide from God what you really were thinking and you don't want
to say it in your mind or even with your mouth but you think
if I don't say it I'll placate to God and I'll say what needs
to be said? You ask for things in the right,
Lord give me this that I might do this, knowing full well you
just want what you're asking for. And as we get into the book
of James, having listened to it and read it three times this
week, it's interesting to see just how silly we are. A lot
of times we feel like we don't know our purpose in life, and
so we feel like we must go and be something more, and then we'll
lie to ourselves and say, if I could just do this or accomplish
this or go here, then I could serve the Lord in this way. That's
a lie. It's a joke. We are serving the
Lord where we are and where we are is where God has called us
to be. Otherwise we wouldn't be here.
Otherwise we would not have what God has given us. And our joy
is always waning because we are spending more time worrying about
self rather than brotherly affection. We're spending more time worrying
about what we can do for ours and our own, me, myself, and
I, even for the sake of, quote, for the Lord, instead of concerning
ourselves with how we are to be established for the sake of
someone else. And that's why Paul has these
things here. That's why Paul talks about letting marriage
be held in high honor, because it's all I picture the gospel,
it's all, the church in and of itself, you realize the church
in and of itself, we are the eternal relationships that shall
never cease. We should be content. For God
will never leave us, never, never, never, never, never leave us
nor forsake us. So we can say the Lord is my
helper, I will not fear, what can man do to me? I want to think
about that for a second. What can man do to me? Now, in
the immediate context of this writing, there was a lot that
men could do to the people who received the letter. They could
take away their money. They could take away their property.
They could take away their freedoms. They could take away their families.
They could take away their lives. For the very sake of Christ,
this was happening to these people. But not all of them, just some
of them. It was highly probable that they would lose some of
those things by being found and being partakers in the faith. Yet, there was also some other
things that man could do to them. Man could ridicule them. Man
could ostracize them. Man could belittle them. Other
people have done a very good job of what, in my day, growing
up as a child, especially in the early 80s, you heard, don't
give in to peer pressure. And you see these little videos
of these really over-the-top caricatures of drug dealers and
bad people. Come on, little Johnny, steal
the chewing gum. You know, when does that happen?
Here, little Johnny, take this cocaine. Hey, little Johnny,
you know, drive off the cliff. I mean, silly stuff. That's not
peer pressure. That's not the way it works.
Most people are so self-confident that when somebody says, hey,
I dare you, eh, unless you're a southerner, then you'd love
the dare. But that's not peer pressure. Peer pressure is this
unspoken expectation. Peer pressure, what man can do
to us is often unspoken. It's the fear of what they are
thinking or what they are saying that we don't know. It's the
fear of the fact that we don't fit in with others. And beloved,
I think that's the benign reality. And it is benign in comparison
to what these first century Christians were experiencing. But that is
what we're going through today. We fear what others may think
of us. Well, if I don't do this, and
if I don't have this, and if I don't do this that's expected
of me, then what will people say? If I don't become this,
or if I don't serve this way, or if I don't engage with this
attitude, what are people gonna say? Who cares what people say? Now, surely we don't need to
encourage each other to not bathe and brush our teeth, but is bathing
and brushing teeth ultimate? Is it terminal? Is it glory? No. What is ultimate? Christ. Christ is everything. Christ
is everything. What is life about? For us, beloved,
it is about Christ, His name, His glory, His purposes. But
even in the answer to that, so many times in our culture, men,
and I say humanity, men, women, other people have inadvertently
done something to us. They've incited fear inside of
our hearts and minds to think that if we are to be giving glory
to God, that we must look a certain way, live a certain way, and
there is some instruction on how we should live. Let's take
that for what it is. We're not saying that you can
just, que sera sera, carpe diem, no. There's a musical reference
and then a philosophical reference, so there we go. No, it's not
that. We know, but there are some who
press that issue. There are some things that you
must be. There are some things that you must accomplish. There
are some things that you must become in order to give glory
to God. Beloved, we give glory to God
by the very fact that air is in our lungs and the Spirit of
God is within us. The question is, is our joy full
in the midst of it? And let's be honest, how much
of the day is joyful? And if it is, it's really just
temporary excitement, temporary entertainment, temporary freedom.
Oh, I love that song, that's really good. I really enjoyed
that conversation. Wow, that was a wonderful movie. Hmm, I
love that hamburger. I mean, when is our joy throughout
our day truly centered in the cornerstone? And that's why this is written. Paul understood the suffering
that was required of him that I think greater than any man
other than the God-man has ever experienced in this life. What
being found in Christ, not his decision to be in Christ. It
was not Paul's choice. It was God's loving choice. Paul suffered. This Sunday, I'll
go into Philippians a little bit as I segue into the rest
of my message from last week. And we will see that Paul counted
all his suffering as glory. He says the same thing to the
Corinthians. That the light momentary affliction prepared him for an
eternal weight of glory beyond comparison. How? Because we look
at that which is eternal. So you want to know your purpose
in this life as a believer? That God is glorified in your
salvation through his monergistic, sovereign, free, and divine gospel. And then? Our only other job
is to rest by His power in the promise therein, and then live
intimately with others. So beloved, in that way, do you
realize that the teaching of Paul to the Hebrews, if you are
not in covenant with the church body, you can't even apply chapter
13 to your lives. For some of us, it is not our
choice. But for many, it is just what
they do. Other things are more important.
Beloved man can do nothing to us. Humanity, others around us
cannot accuse us before God. The enemy cannot accuse us before
God. They cannot do anything. They could take our lives, but
they cannot take eternal life. And so when we think about these
things, and then we see verse seven, look at verse seven, remember
your leaders. Remember over in chapter six,
where Paul says, therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine
of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation
of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God and instruction
about washing, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of
the dead and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.
There's some teaching going on there. There's some teaching
and some instruction that this apostle, shepherd, elder is giving. And we see it over and over again
in the writing of the apostles. We see the New Testament instruction.
And then we see that the oversight of the body of Christ and its
covenant assembly is given to the elders, to those who are
called to teach, to give their lives up for the sake of oversight. to surrender their desires and
their dreams. You see how weird it is in our
culture when somebody says, yeah, I've been called to the ministry,
and there's so many pictures and images that come into your
mind. Oh, you're going to be a missionary? You're going to
be an evangelist? You're going to be an apologist? You're going
to be a preacher or a pastor or a teacher? What's your calling? are calling us to give praise
to the glorious grace of God and are calling us to be committed
in a covenant relationship to the praise of His glorious grace
together with others as we are taught and as we learn and as
we teach others and as we engage in every aspect of life for the
sake of the glory of God. James says that if we lack wisdom
we need only ask And when we ask, and then we
do that that is opposite of what we have been shown, we are like
a leaf tossed in the sea. We're called double-minded. And then James says, in his first
introduction of his letter, we should expect to receive nothing
from God. Yet we pray. See how sometimes
we pray wrongly? Remember I talked about that.
We pray wrongly because we're not doing the simple things for
the sake of the gospel, for the sake of unity that we've been
called to do and expect God to rearrange life and change the
cosmos and reevaluate and recreate the molecules of our day so that
we can be where we want to be rather than being restfully in
his hands with his people. And the leaders of our culture
are being accused by others and being pressed in this peer pressure
of ministry to be something that the Bible doesn't tell them that
they should be. And to do something that the
Bible doesn't tell them that they should do. What does the
scripture teach us about the leaders of the church? The overseer
under shepherds. They are to speak the word of
God. They are to teach the church
the word of God. And as they learn and teach and
learn and teach and grow and mature, they are to stay a half
a step ahead of everybody else in the process, which is sometimes
like a 30 seconds, not 30 years. So that as God teaches us, the
elders, we are an example right before you to rest in the sufficiency
of the gospel. To be disciplined to be in the
scripture. to look away from the temptations
of the world, to not be shaken by what we think men can do to
us, to not listen to the devil through the lips of well-meaning
individuals who are looking out for our quote, best interests,
but to listen to the scriptures through which we find Christ,
who is our wisdom, who is our righteousness, who is our sanctification. So the question now is what are
we supposed to do? Where is our purpose? Our purpose
is found in the simplicity of being part of the body of Christ
to the praise of his glorious grace. Remember your leaders. Remember your elders. The ones
that spoke to you the word of God. Think about, watch and consider
the outcome of their way of life. What is the outcome of the way
of life of an elder to which you should look? Should it be the model of cultural
perfectionism? No. It should be the model of
resting faith. How is resting faith displayed?
Through great trial, through stress, through tribulation,
through fear, and through failure. We're not looking for a specific
style and demeanor. We're looking, although those
things are also required of elders, as we see, but we're looking
for one who believes and rests in what they teach. We're looking
for one who, when they say to you, rest, when they say to you,
do not seek the world, when they say to you, hope in Christ alone,
when they say to you, walk away, it's because they too have shown
you that they've had those same struggles. I've come to learn in over two
decades now of ministry that the more candid I am about
my real humanity, the more effective my teaching is. Because I don't
have to put on airs. I don't have to pretend like
I'm not struggling with my prayer life. I don't have to pretend
like I don't deal with anger, or fear, or hopelessness, or
worry, or doubt. But we find the answers to these
things in the scripture. So we're to imitate those who
teach us who are growing also by the grace of God, that it's
not just as we see Jesus, who is the founder and the perfecter
of our faith, who has gone before us through the holy places through
which we have access to God the Father. We look to them and we
look to those prior to Him who have been the pillars of the
faith. We look to Abram and Abraham and Moses and others. who believed
by the grace of God and were carried through great trial and
great failure and great doubt and great fear triumphantly in
the hand of God by grace. And so we look to Christ and
then we look to one another and by all means we should be able
to look to our spiritual teachers who are also walking through
the same flames and the same deserts and the same valleys.
and find that the mountaintops are not what the world offers,
but the mountaintop is the centerpiece of hope, who is Jesus Christ. Beloved, this is so counterintuitive
to our world. It's counterintuitive to our
world in every aspect of life. Some people would just, they'd
just rather not read this. They'd rather not hear these
things. And the next question that usually comes to me when
I have conversations like this with myself, or with others is,
yeah, but, you know, the yeah buts really drive me crazy. Hypotheticals
drive me crazy and rebuttals drive me crazy when we are talking
about the gospel. But yet, there are sometimes
there, aren't there? And so the yabbats are also opportunities
for us to engage and talk and we don't put them out of our
mouths if they're truly in our hearts. If we're truly looking
to seek the truth, it's not that we can't ask or say or wonder
or ponder, but we must rest in the sufficiency of the gospel
and listen to the power. We've already gone through it.
Verse eight, Jesus Christ is the same. Yesterday, today, and
forever. You know what's not gonna be
the same? You and me. You know, it's not going to be
the same, the world in which we live, the weather, the finances, the
value of the dollar, our health, our focus, our minds, our bodies. None of this is going to be the
same, but Christ is the same. So if we want to maintain a sense
of purpose that establishes and transcends all that could ever
be, then we need to remember, we need to remember that it's
all about Christ. That Christ, as we've seen throughout
this entire letter, is the fullness of all that God is. The radiance of the glory of
God, the exact imprint of His nature, who upholds the universe
by the word of His power. If Christ upholds the universe
by His will, can He not uphold our lives? Can He not walk us
through the shadow of doubt and stress and fear of men? Can He
not walk us through? Now, yeah, we could parse out
a few things with this text in verse 8. You know, Jesus Christ
is the same yesterday. He's eternally the God. He's
the God of creation. We could talk about Him being
the same today. He is the God who is Savior.
He is Messiah. He is the Christ. That's redundant. It's the same word. And He is
the same forever. We are looking to the day of
glory when the kingdom of heaven will be revealed and fulfilled,
ultimately and terminally, forevermore. And of course these things are
true, but I think there is a simple and subtle pragmatism to this
gospel truth here. It's that we don't have to worry
about all the wisdom of the world. And verse 9 gives us that instruction.
Do not be led away. See, Christ is the same. He never
changes. The doctrines of Christ never
change. The teaching of Christ never
changes. The people of Christ will never
change in their relationship with Him. We will never see any
of the elect be snatched away. But what will change is our perception. What will change is the temptation.
What will change is how we interact together in the world. So the
Word of God does not change, for the Living Word is Christ.
And His words are forevermore. And so when the leaders of the
church, when the spiritual teachers, the servants of the church who
teach, they teach the same Christ who never changes. They teach
the same instruction. They teach the same gospel. And
it never should change. Because when it does, it leads
us away. Now this ultimately is dealing
with doctrine, strange teachings. But what's the command? Do not
be led away by diverse teachings and strange teachings. Do not
apostate. Well, remember your leaders who
taught you the word of God. Look at them, follow them, and
remember Christ is the same. He never changes. I find that
often that fickleness is probably one of my biggest triggers. And
I can't say really what it triggers, but it triggers frustration ultimately. And frustration for me always
ends in hopelessness. There might be some anger, some
bitterness, some personal self-pity, but it always ends in hopelessness. Not for myself, but for those
who are fickle. Because if God has called and
then God has not called, then who's the liar? Us or God? If one day we see Christ and
the next day we don't, who's the liar? It's not God. But we don't measure our lives
and our decisions based on our emotional state and our happiness. We need to be making wise decisions
through the collective counsel of the body. We need to be making
wise decisions through prayer. We need to be making wise decisions
through the instruction of the word. And most of all, we need
to be making wise decisions through the centerpiece of our soul,
who is our wisdom, and his name is Jesus. If we make a decision
outside of that, we are disobeying God. Thankfully, it will not
end in our condemnation. But beloved, I've been lost in
the desert with no cell phone service and no GPS. It is not
a happy time. And by the mercy of God, we ended
up back on Earth. Let us hold fast to the same
Christ and not be led astray. Let us hold fast and not be moved
off of our rock. For it is good for the heart
to be strengthened by grace. Now, right here at the end of
this, there's a particular context in which Paul is teaching, and
that is people who think that certain ceremonial things and
specifically ceremonial foods give them more spiritual oomph.
For example, like even the Lord's table, representative of a time
of intimacy with the Lord in his 11, and then a remembrance,
a memorial for us to experience together the reminder of Christ's
body and bloodshed. Yet, there's nothing spiritual
or supernatural about that practice. There's nothing spiritual or
supernatural about a particular type of praying, particular type
of clothing, particular type of Bible, particular language. So we don't need to be consumed
by these things. Our heart should be strengthened
by grace. Our soul should be strengthened
by grace. Our head should be strengthened
by grace. Our body should be strengthened by grace. Not spirituality. Not worldliness, for sure. In
the context here, we don't need to worry about all the spiritual
sense in which the Jews practiced their religion. For it was a
shadow done over and finished. It's finished. Why would we play
shadow puppets when the truth stood before us in Christ? And then Paul elaborates on all
this with Semitic language and expressions that the hearers
would understand very clearly. Let's hear it and then we'll
talk about it as we have time in the next few minutes. He says,
do not be led astray, verse 9, by diverse and strange teachings. For it is good for the heart
to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited
those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those
who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those
animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high
priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.
So, verse 12, the point of all this, Jesus also suffered outside
the gate in order to sanctify, to set apart, to make holy the
people through his own blood. Now verse 13, he says, therefore
let us go outside the camp to him. And let us bear the reproach
that he endured. For here, here, and I'll pick
up some of these other verses next week, but this one for sure
is going to be our closing thought. For here we have no lasting city,
but we seek the city that is to come. We seek the city that is to come.
He's just explaining again what he said in the comparison between
Sinai and Zion, between the law and life and grace, between death
and eternity. And beloved, when we live our
lives apart from this, apart from this discipline, apart from
this hope, apart from this joy, we indeed are neglecting to share
Christ. Keep reading. Through Him, verse
15, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise, not
a sacrifice of animals, not a sacrifice of life, not a sacrifice of things,
not a sacrifice of practices, but of praise to God. That is,
what does that mean? That is the fruit of lips that
acknowledge His name. And then do not neglect to do
good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing
to God. And obey your leaders and submit
to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those
who will give and account. Let them do this with joy and
not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. So
you see this instruction. We are not here to progress in this
world. We are here to progress in grace.
We are here to rest in our eternal home. So without one another,
without constant gospel teaching and reminding and intimacy, we
will all just, whether it's doctrinal craziness or worldly craziness
or temptation craziness or just depression or despair, we will
fall away to a pothole and wonder how we got there. So beloved, while we are able,
let us take full, let's just take full advantage of all that
God has given us together. That Christ has given his life
so that we are his righteousness and that his body together as
a people are to simply find their purpose in him. Let this life
be worthy of all praise. to the name of Christ through
which we live. Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for the
truth of the gospel. Lord, I pray for this teaching. I pray for my own heart and mind
to be truly set free from just being inundated by the fodder
of this world, the fodder of my own thoughts. Father, I pray
for my brothers and sisters who are here with us tonight, those
who are watching, those who we'll see later in the week. Father,
I pray that we all would come to a place of true unity. We have that in the gospel. Help
us to have that in our lives. Help us to have true intimacy.
in the gospel, in our lives. Help us to care for one another,
not be busybodies, but be encouragers, to offer wisdom, to be there
to hold each other up in the times of despair and to labor
for one another in fasting and praying when we know that someone
among us is hurting, weary, or weeping. And Father, when one
rejoices, let us all rejoice. It is strange to our humanity
to find joy in the midst of sorrow and praises in the midst of weeping. But Lord, that's what your word
shows us. Because we are not of the world and the world and
everything in it is passing away for your namesake. And the only
thing that will remain are all of those who are in Christ. Let
these relationships be true because of him. For He has given His
life for His people. Let us live our lives for one
another and thus for you. And we pray this in His name,
in the name of Jesus. Amen. Thank you, church.