Hebrews 13:1-14 - Second To Last Remarks On Living

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We are in our second to last episode of 2024.

And it's been a wild, amazing, great ride with you all. And I'm looking forward today to studying Hebrews 13, verses 1 through 14.

And as we've been walking through this book and seeing the encouragement from an author to a group of Hebrews, that they've really gone through it. They've been put through the fire of testing and persecution and abandonment and scorn and ridicule.

And even as we read in chapter 10, sometimes like having their possessions taken from them by other people because of their faith in Jesus.

These people who have gone through so much here at the end of the book, the author just wants to remind them of a few important things that they need to remember.

Most all the way through, he's been encouraging them about how great Jesus is and how they need to look to him, draw an encouragement from the Old Testament saints for their own lives.

But now here in the verses that we're going to look at today, we're going to see a few more specific things that the author wants us to focus on. Chapter 13, verse number 1. Let brotherly love continue.

This is that phileo, that phylos. It is the family love. He says, right now, tensions are high.

There's a lot of persecution. It can be really easy for you to start arguing and bickering and not having an actionable love from you to other people.

And he says, I want to encourage you, let that love, that family love that you guys have because you are siblings in Christ, let that continue.

Don't let anything, not persecution, not struggles, not abandonment, like don't let anything interrupt that love that we have for one another. Why? Because of what Jesus told us, or what Jesus told the disciples there during that Last Supper.

He says, by this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. So let us continue in that love. Verse number two.

Don't neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this, some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it. Here, this was a huge value in the early church and in the ancient Near East. It's something that we don't tend to value as much anymore.

Do you regularly invite people over your house, over to your house, or do you invite people to have meals with them, or even if it's something simple like having, you know, we got a ton of Dunkin Donuts around here.

Do you invite people out for coffee or donuts?

Do you show hospitality through spending time with others outside of the assembly, the gathering of your local church, and outside of, you know, maybe, you know, a Wednesday night Bible study or something?

Do you intentionally meet with other Christians? Why would we do it? Well, frankly, this is something that God expressly wants us to do.

It's something that He commands us to do.

It's something that in 1st Timothy 3, God through the Apostle Paul told Timothy that if you are going to put someone as an overseer, an elder, a pastor at a church, they need to be those that would have other people over.

Or at the very least, they would need to be those that show hospitality, that they spend time with others.

And it's not something that as we think today about like, you know, our rugged individualism as Americans, we don't often think, okay, do I have a spiritual responsibility to spend time with fellow believers and with unbelievers in my home?

And scripture is very clear that we do. We, as you look through the books of the New Testament in particular, this is like a recurring value.

There's a great book written by Rosaria Butterfield, and she's coming kind of from a different denominational background, so she's got some interesting views that don't relate to hospitality. But she has a book, The Gospel Comes with a House Key.

The Gospel Comes with a House Key.

That talks about the virtue of hospitality and how sharing meals and time and coffee and drinks with other people, how it can exemplify the gospel and allow us to share the gospel in dramatic, impactful ways that we would not be able to do otherwise.

I'd put it this way. Sometimes we can focus on like big events. Like, you know, this week we're doing a trunk or treat outreach.

We're not just, you know, dressing up or something for the fun of it. Like, we're doing it so that I can get gospel invites and tracks into the hands of people in our community today.

But I promise that anyone that I have over to my house or anyone that I share a meal with, I am going to be able to make a bigger, greater, deeper impact in that one person than if I, you know, hand out gospel invites to, you know, 50, 70, 100 people

during a trunk or treat. The actual physical time that I spend talking and interacting and loving and caring and praying for other people is so much more valuable.

You know, we did some block parties this past summer, and glad that we were able to do that. Glad we were able to share the gospel. We don't, we haven't necessarily seen any, like, big church growth.

People aren't just pouring into our church after that time.

But I can tell you, for those that do know our church people and those that have shared meals with them, sometimes it's been family members that have been invited, that they have started coming to our church.

I can think of one dear gal, she's not necessarily like the oldest Christian in our church. She's a little bit newer to faith. But through her interactions with her family members, she's been able to bring people to church all year long.

And I want to encourage you, like, show hospitality. This is one of the things that God encourages us to do. And he says, by doing this, some people have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it.

They're referencing Abraham. And certainly, I don't know what all of the implications of that would be for us, but certainly, as we follow and obey God, sometimes we receive spiritual blessings as a result. And I'm thankful for that.

Verse number three, remember those in prison as though you were in prison with them and the mistreated as though you yourselves were suffering bodily. So here there's two admonitions. Number one, some people have been imprisoned for Christ.

Remember them, care for them, think about them, pray for them.

If you're able to, you know, like people did with Paul, visit them or support them or give them some money or give them a letter or give them something to read, do that as if you were in prison.

Here is the specific New Testament epistle application of what Jesus says in Matthew 25. So sometimes people have taken the like, hey, you know, give water or clothes or visit in prison.

They have taken that to mean, okay, the way Jesus is talking about this is about everyone, everywhere at all times.

That's not the specific thing that Jesus was saying in Matthew 25, though certainly water and food and clothing and visiting people in prison is a good thing to do.

The specific thing he was talking about was his brothers and sisters, those that follow him, that have undergone persecution, that we would remember them and we love and care for them.

One way that you can specifically do this today, one organization that I know of is the Voice of the Martyrs. And I forget what their website is.

Voice of the Martyrs is the name and you could visit their website and they've got amazing stories and ways in which you can help those that are undergoing persecution to continue in their walk with the Lord and that they wouldn't feel as though they

were alone, but that we can partner with them. Certainly here in America, we are afforded amazing freedoms that no one today is in prison because of being a Christian, but around the world, that is not true.

And so let's be faithful to remember those in prison. And he says, and remember the mistreated or tortured as though you yourselves were suffering bodily.

This is we ought to care for those that are hurting, those that are sick, those that are going through tough times.

The specific application here, those that have been beat up, those that have been tortured and bloodied and taken advantage of for Jesus. Like let's care for these individuals as well.

Verse number four, marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers. This is the second time that the authors mentioned this.

So it appears as though there was some specific sin problem that was happening right there in that band of Hebrews and marriage is to be honored.

It's not something that's kind of like take it or leave it as far as, oh, well, I could just like live with a person. I could just be intimate with a person. And I don't really have to get married.

No, no, no. Marriage is to be honored by everyone. And certainly that comes to the fidelity of marriage that we would never be those that advocate for other people to to step outside of the bounds of marriage.

And yeah, I talked a bit about that yesterday and referenced it in First Thessalonians 4 as well. So that'll suffice for right now. Verse five, keep your life free from the love of money.

Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you. Therefore, we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid.

What can man do to me? He says, don't think that if you just had some more money, that your life would be better off. He says, God is what you need.

And if God gives you more money, wonderful. But if God has you right now in kind of the season where you're in need and you're just asking God like, hey God, give me today my daily bread. I just need to get through today.

He says, we can be thankful that God is with us and God has not left us. God has not abandoned us. He is still helping us even if we are barely getting by because every good thing that we have comes from Him.

So let's not pursue wickedness. Let's not just do whatever for money. Let us have a love for the Lord and not a love of money.

Verse number seven, remember your leaders who have spoken God's word to you. As you carefully observe the outcome of their lives, imitate their faith.

He says, for the people that are teaching you the word of God, this would be your pastors, your elders, your overseers, again, the old word bishops, these people in your church, as you observe their lives, as you see, okay, well, this isn't a

sexually immoral person. This isn't a covetous person who's just always trying to like financially fleece other people. As you see, this person isn't a like perpetually angry, a perpetually angry person.

This is someone that they're pursuing Jesus, and they're encouraging me to pursue Jesus. He says, remember, think about, consider, follow, have a care for.

Like just as we are called to remember those in prison, remember those who are being tortured for Christ, we remember our spiritual leaders. And we say, okay, well, that's where I want to go with my life.

I don't want my life to look like these that have abandoned the faith. I want it to look like these ones who have given everything for Jesus. And I love their, as you carefully observe the outcome of their lives, imitate their faith.

For spiritual leaders, they are not just there to preach a sermon on a Sunday. My job is not just, hey, talk some times on Sunday.

My God-given role as a pastor is that I would live a life that if everyone, if everyone at Tabernacle acted, spoke, loved, evangelizes, gave, like I do, the goal would be that it would be a more Christ-like church as a result of other people

imitating my faith. And certainly that's a scary thought, but it's one that, frankly, I've given my life to have that be a reality.

I will one million percent fall and fail and trip up and forget and sin and not be perfect, but my goal ought to be, okay, the outcome of my life is going to be that I follow Jesus and I've led other people to do the same. That's my prayer.

That's my goal. I want to encourage you, whether you're here at Tabernacle or elsewhere, imitate the faith of your spiritual leaders.

If you say, I can't imitate their faith, like these are wicked, evil people, then you should one hundred percent be going to a church where you can imitate the faith of your spiritual leaders. It's not an option, by the way.

Like this is a command from God's word. You can either imitate the faith of your spiritual leaders or you can be in disobedience to God's word. And that's a big, that's a heavy statement.

But it's what the word of God says. And certainly we ought to obey and follow that. How can we do that?

How can we go through all of this? Verse number eight, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Though we might have pastors that come into our lives for a time, maybe they might pass, maybe they might retire, maybe God might move them on to a different ministry, maybe they might be those that are not godly and they fall away.

We can, even when people come and go or retire or die or God moves them on, we can know that Jesus is that one that is the same yesterday and today and forever. And so we imitate those whose faith looks like following and loving Jesus.

Verse number nine, don't be led astray by various kinds of strange teachings for it is good for the heart to be established by grace and not by food regulations since those who observe them have not benefited.

We have an altar from which those who worship at the Tabernacle do not have a right to eat. We've got a better food. We have a better food than the priests in the Tabernacle, in the temple.

Verse number 11, For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the most holy place by the high priest as a sin offering are burned outside the camp. Okay, he's now kind of, he's drawing a couple of different thoughts together.

So I'm going to explain what's going on here. So here there's these people that have these food regulations. This is, Paul dealt with it a whole ton in his letters to churches.

This is the, don't touch, don't taste, don't handle these things, don't eat meat, don't eat the non-kosher foods.

All of these food regulations and stuff that were being attempted by some of the Judaizers, by those who wanted Jesus and Judaism for people, those that wanted Jesus' work on the cross, plus all of these Old Testament things in order to be truly

saved or to maintain salvation. These people were saying, hey, here's all of like the food things that you have to follow if you're going to be a real God follower. And he says, don't listen to them. He says, you are established by grace.

You are not established by doing, not doing, wearing, not wearing, going to this place, not going to this place, eating this type of food, not eating this type of food, drinking this type of drink, not drinking this type of drink.

He says, that's not what it's about anymore. Like those were shadow things. What actually matters now is Christ and your heart and your obedience to what God has said in his word.

I've talked about that often with kind of the old covenant, new covenant distinctions.

Sometimes people get bogged down into, frankly, just into the Old Testament style of things where they're really worried about physical items having some sort of spiritual power.

And frankly, it just somewhat stems from not having enough of a New Testament emphasis on realizing, okay, my biggest danger is not if someone like accidentally leaves a, you know, a Buddha idol, a Buddha statue on my property and, oh, no, like the

demons are going to get in or something, or, you know, any one of a hundred different things. That's not where Satan is attacking. That's not a danger to the New Covenant Christian.

What is, is allowing Satan into our attitudes and our words and our actions and our mindsets towards other believers and towards the world around us that we're, you know, the opposite of all of the things mentioned in Galatians 5 verses 22 and 23

with the fruit of the Spirit. And instead, we are exemplifying all of the sins mentioned in Galatians chapter 5 and verses, I think it's like 19 to 21.

I'm going to turn over there real quick just so I can kind of read like, hey, these are the kinds of things for the New Testament believer. These are the things that we avoid. This is what the actual substance is.

He says, first, sexual immorality. He says, this is how Satan tricks you through intimacy outside of or in addition to your marriage. He says, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, that is, worshipping false gods.

And you can't, by the way, you can't accidentally worship an idol, just so we're super clear on that. You have to intentionally give worship, give honor, give time and treasure to an idol.

He says, sorcery, that is, especially as we look at the Old Testament, this is a like occultic necromancy, trying to communicate with the dead.

Something much like a palm reading or Ouija board or something like that today would be way more in line with what scripture says is sorcery.

It's not really the kind of medieval thought of like, okay, well, if I make this particular stew, then that's sorcery. That's not how the Bible talks about it. He says, idolatry, sorcery, hatred.

If you hate, that is what Satan wants for your life. Strife, that is arguments at odds with one another. And certainly there can be disagreements that don't turn into arguments.

And kind of how you gauge that is, are you demeaning the other person? Are you insulting them? Are you giving them motives that they would say no?

Like, that's not why I'm doing what I'm doing. That's how you kind of know when there is this strife. He says, jealousy.

When you wish that you had what someone else has, things like that, outbursts of anger, your volume is an indication of whether or not you're walking in the spirit or not. Selfish ambitions, even your motivations behind what you're doing.

Dissentions, that is, people that like, well, here it says, dissentions, factions. Those that divide themselves off from others and say, well, you know, I'm not in that crowd of people because of this.

That that is a ungodly way to think about oneself. That we say, I'm not like them. I'm of Apollos.

I'm of Paul. I'm of Cephas, to borrow the phrases from Colossians, or, sorry, 1 Corinthians, chapter 1. He says, envy and drunkenness, carousing and anything similar.

Those are the things that we ought to avoid in our life, which you noticed with all of those. Those are like inner things. Those are things that come out of us.

He doesn't say, avoid a steak or a steak that has been offered in the temple of... I've forgotten every single Greek and Roman goddess. Maybe Persephone, is that one?

He doesn't say, avoid these physical things. He's saying, avoid these things that come out of your mouth, that are inward motivations, that affect how you treat others with the body that God has given you.

He says, these are the things that you need to avoid. Okay. So now, back to Hebrews, and I promise this is the end of this particular portion.

So he says, people want you to like focus on the physical food things, and they say, this is what's important. This is what gives you a relationship with God, is by, you know, eating kosher or by avoiding all meat.

And he says, that's not the point, guys. Like, if you want to talk about food, we have an important food that is representative of our relationship with God. It's the bread that we eat in the Lord's Supper.

He says, we have a food that they have no right to eat of that offer in the Tabernacle.

Here is why, at our church and in our Statement of Faith that we share with 46,000 other Baptist churches, in the US., this is why we don't practice what's called open communion. We don't just say like, hey, everybody, just enjoy the Lord's Supper.

As in this verse, some people do not have a right to eat of the Lord's Supper. And who would that be? It would be those that do not believe in Jesus.

And in our Statement of Faith, we say those that are members, those that are active parts of gospel preaching local churches.

That if someone is not an involved part of their local church, whether that's maybe formal membership or if frankly, if they do all the things that a member would do in coming and worshiping, giving, serving, singing, praying, you know,

fellowshipping, all of those things, that's the most important part. Not necessarily the name on a list, though. I don't have time to go into all of that.

The important thing is those that are part of a local church, that those are the ones that we encourage to participate because they are those who, number one, by the blood of Jesus, have access ultimately to that marriage supper of the Lamb.

And those that are actively a part of a church, obeying what God has said about not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, but those that are actively loving and being a part of the body of Christ and obeying the one and others in scripture

within their local context and praying for one another, helping one another, giving to one another, all of those types of things. Those are the people that are not taking, partaking in an unworthy manner as 1 Corinthians 11 talks about.

Way more could be said about that, but time would absolutely fail me. So that's what he's saying. He's saying, you guys want to talk about food stuff?

We've got a type of food, the Lord's Supper, that even the priests in the temple, the holiest ones in all of the Jewish religion, they can't partake in it because they do not believe in Christ.

And then he talks about the fact that Jesus says, the body of the animals that were sacrificed in Leviticus, they were taken outside of the camp and burned.

He says, so Jesus, when he was crucified, he was taken outside of the camp, and so we're following him there, bearing his disgrace. Verse 13 says, for we do not have an enduring city here, instead we seek the one to come.

He says, we're not focusing on this earth, on the physical things here now, we're focused on the spiritual. We're not focused on your kosher laws anymore.

Instead, we're focusing on our permanent sacrifice, Jesus and the Lord's Supper, and we are pursuing heavenly goals, not physical earthly things anymore. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode.

A little bit longer one, but all of the various things that are brought up have certainly been valuable for me to remember and to think about and to go, okay, well, what am I following here? What am I not following here?

How can I obey and love the Lord in this way? Thank you for tuning in. Have a wonderful day.

Our very, very last episode is tomorrow. Be sure to tune in.