Hebrews 13:15-25 - Obeying Your Spiritual Leaders And Tabernacle Talk Takes A Hiatus

Well, it is the end of an era, and this is the very last episode of Tabernacle Talk for a few months.

While I go on a Tabernacle Talk sabbatical, and I have so loved going through these 13 and two-fifths books of scripture with you, that two-fifths is two of the five books of Psalms.

And I wanted to end this particular time in God's Word, actually in the same translation that I started off with on the very first episode. I went all the way back and I looked.

I had my little humble lamb, a single column NASB 2020 Bible, a New American Standard Bible, the 2020 edition.

And that Bible is actually at my house because I, with all the pretty pictures and everything in it, I normally tend to keep that one at home. But I've got a little like $15 Bible from Holman, which is our Southern Baptist Publishing Wing.

And they have a little personal size single column Bible and figured I'd give some of you who were with us back in the Book of Acts a little bit of a throwback.

And remember the fact that I love single column Bibles and that it just looks right to me as I'm reading through scripture. Today we are finishing the Book of Hebrews. And I want to do this right as I start off.

Would ask that you would be in prayer for me as I finish up some of my things for my schoolwork and my class and stuff. A evangelism and apologetics class as I finish that up over the next about month or so that you would be in prayer for me.

And then as I seek to just kind of live some of that out in my own life and lead people to Jesus and see God just do a work here and would encourage you in that. Next year, I'm looking at doing a few books of the Bible.

I'm not, Lord willing, I'm not going to do that 13 and two-fifths again.

It's quite an amount, but now that I've got kind of that backlog of great resources to be able to point people to if they want to know about Zephaniah or Obadiah or 2 John or the Book of Leviticus or Hebrews, all of that that they've got now.

I want to go through Book 3 of Psalms. I want to go through Isaiah. I want to go through probably, probably 2nd Corinthians I'll go through.

And then, and then likely Ephesians, maybe Galatians, we'll find out. But those are the four books that I am planning on doing next year.

And so, I'd say, you know, if you watch this on YouTube or on Facebook, you'll see the videos when they pop back up again. And if you listen via podcast, I'm actually going to do something for some of you that are doing the audio thing.

I have a good backlog of podcast episodes that I recorded on Strength For The Day and on Bible Babels back when I was in Washington State.

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Apple Podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strength-for-the-day-a-devotional-bible-podcast/id1547987576

And so I'm going to upload some of those. There'll be a little intro thing so that you know, like, hey, this is for Tabernacle Talk and this is like a legacy episode from me. And that'll walk through Colossians and Philemon.

It'll walk through Titus and Habakkuk, First Kings and a good bit of Joshua as well. And I feel like there might be a few other episodes in there as well. So I'm going to I'm going to just upload those and that'll be on the audio side of things.

And you can listen to that on our church website, TBC essex.com, and just scroll down on the home page and it's right there for you. Or if you listen on like Spotify or Spotify podcasts or Apple podcasts, that's there for you.

So you can find it in those locations. But we're going to end in Hebrews chapter 13 today. Thank you for bearing with me through that little bit of an intro.

We are in verse number 15 today for these people.

Going through hard times, wanting to pursue Jesus, being uncertain about following those that have abandoned Christ for Judaism or just into assimilation with kind of the Roman and Greek culture around them.

For people that have heard over and over and over again from the author about how important Jesus is and how his sacrifice is the one that lasts and how we ought to follow him and realize he was persecuted, he was crucified and so I can follow him

through death into life everlasting as the old hymn, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus says. Here is what the author ends the book with. Through him then, let's continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is, the fruit of lips praising his name.

And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they may do this with joy, not groaning for that would be unhelpful for you.

Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things. And I urge you all the more to do this, so that I may be restored to you more quickly.

Now may the God of Peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, that is, Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his

sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. But I urge you, brothers and sisters, listen patiently to this word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly.

Know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom, if he comes soon, I will see you. Greet all of your leaders and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you.

Grace be with you all. Man, my very last message that I preached at my church in Washington state was from this passage. I've linked it in the show notes called Go With The Flow.

The main thought of the sermon was, God is at work in your life, and so go with what he has given you, what he has equipped you with. Go with the flow of what Christ has done in and through you. Don't fight against him.

Instead, go with what he has for your life. And so, would encourage you to listen to that.

And it was definitely an emotional time for me, even as I thought about leaving a place with people and coworkers and spiritual leaders that I had served and served alongside for half a decade.

And certainly not an easy message to give in that respect, but what a joy just to think that God has given us so many amazing things. And so we can live out our lives in worship and obedience and joy through what he's brought. Okay, verse number 15.

Let's walk through the passage. I'll attempt to be briefer. You guys have heard me say that before, and every time I do, it's like, okay, 24 minutes later.

So I will try and be briefer this time if you want full expositions. And the sermon's right there for you. He says, let's continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of lips praising His name.

That word praising there, almost everywhere else that it's used in the New Testament, it's translated as confess. So like if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, it's praising, it's confessing His name.

There is no real confession of Jesus without a praise of Jesus. That this sacrifice that we offer, that we are in a sense, we are priests in, you know, under priests to Christ's great high priesthood.

One of the ways we worship God is by declaring Jesus to those around us. And he says, let's continually offer up this sacrifice of praise to God. Let's consistently call Him our Lord.

Let us confess His name. Let's praise Him. And let's do that, certainly, one way that we could think about it would be in song.

That as I highlighted many times in Psalms, we're commanded to sing to the Lord, to praise Him. And it can sometimes be a sacrifice of praise. It can be something that can be difficult.

It might be a song that we don't like as much. We don't like the instrumentation or we don't like the music style. And we wish it was an older song or a newer song.

But in whatever way the praise is, let's sacrifice that praise to God. To say, God, I give up my personal preferences so that you can be exalted. God, I give up my comfort zone to confess you to those around me.

I give up maybe just isolating to myself so that I can share the Gospel with a neighbor or with someone sitting by me or with someone that I meet. I'm going to invite them to my church. I'm going to tell them about Jesus.

I'm going to share it with my family member even if they don't want to hear it. I'm going to continually offer this sacrifice of praise, confessing Jesus.

Verse number 16, and do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices, God is pleased. Here there's doing good. This is something, honestly, in America, some people do really well.

I know some people like myself. It's something that I need to work more and harder on of what am I doing to benefit and to bless other people. For some of you, that might be that you're able to like financially benefit other people.

They're that sharing, blessing others through giving. It's kind of a James 2.

If you see someone that is hungry and cold and destitute and naked and you're like, hey, may God warm you and fill you, but you don't give them anything that they need, like that doesn't do them any good.

Like let's actively be a part in trying to do good for others. One way at our church that we've done that for several decades is a portion of our giving every single month goes to a, the title of it's Eastern Interfaith Outreach.

And that's many churches in our area that all work together to help equip this like outreach center to be able to give people food and clothing and to help with those types of things. And so that's one way in which we can do good to others.

We can certainly also do good to others in our words.

And speaking kindly to others and blessing them and telling them that you're praying for them and encouraging them and helping motivate them in their Christian life and spending time with them and sharing meals with them.

Those would all be ways that we can do good to and with and for others. And then they're sharing for with such sacrifices, God is pleased. Certainly, it is a sacrifice when we give to the Lord financially.

When we give to the local church. And that is a great, wonderful sacrifice that I personally do. And I encourage other people to do as well.

That's the pattern that's laid out for us in the Old Testament. And God speaks so much of our generosity and involvement in the work of God.

And really, in a lot of ways in the New Testament, it's mainly centered on helping to equip those that would equip others. So most of the time when the New Testament talks about giving, it's talking about giving to your spiritual leaders.

So Paul in 1st Corinthians, in 1st Timothy, and there's a smattering of other places as well.

When he talks about giving to the local church, he's like, hey, these people that are pouring out their life, sharing the gospel with you, like make sure that they don't have to get like the outside jobs.

One of the things that Paul would often do is when he came into town, he was working, if you will, when he was church planting, he was doing so as a tent maker and he was doing so with support from other churches, not where he was currently

ministering. But then once he had planted the church and then he had spiritual leaders that were leading the church, then he told the churches, okay, you need to support them in their gospel work.

You need to make it so that they're not having to do what I have voluntarily done. So that's how the New Testament mainly talks about it. But certainly as we think about, like, as far as I'm aware, many of us are in America today.

I've seen on Spotify, some of you are listening from all around the world. And that's amazing. And I love that.

I hope to hear from you at some point. But as we are in America, we also have the opportunity to have, like, physical buildings and to buy things like tracks or gospel invites, or to be able to buy, you know, I think of even my recording equipment.

Technically, this came out of my money, not the church's, but different ways in which, like, we can record things and make the gospel ready and available for other people.

All of that are things that we can do that help in the gospel effort that are more than just like, okay, well, let's make it so that Pastor Bryon can be, you know, full time in sharing the gospel and teaching God's word and praying and preparing

sermons. We can do even more than that through our giving to the local church. So that's one type of sacrifice.

But another type of sacrifice that we can give is to bless other people, to bless those that are in need, to bless those that are hungry, to bless those that don't have clothing or those that have suffered, you know, from a hurricane, things like

that, even as we think about North Carolina and Florida and different places like that recently. That we can partner in helping out other people through our giving.

And that's a sacrifice to God as well, not just giving to the local church, but giving to needs is a sacrifice that it says God is pleased with. And what a wonderful thing.

Like in the Old Testament, there were like super strict parameters on the specific types of sacrifices and what would be acceptable and not be acceptable to God.

But here, when we do good to others and when we sacrifice and give for others, that's a sacrifice that God is pleased with every time. And what a joy that that is.

Verse 17, Obey Your Leaders and Submit To Them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. This is not something that people in America enjoy.

They would say, think about what your leaders said and decide whether or not you want to listen to them. But that's not what the Bible says. It says obey your leaders and submit to them.

This flies in the face of our rugged individualism, that we would want to say, well no, I think this, or I want to do this, and so it doesn't matter what my pastor says. It doesn't matter what my elders say. It doesn't matter what this deacon said.

I just want to do me, and it doesn't matter what my spiritual leaders say. It says obey them, submit to them, because they watch over your souls.

I know in my life I have benefited time and time and time again from listening to what Tate Thronson told me in Casseroke, Colorado.

I have received blessing from the Lord for listening to what I was instructed by Dennis Fountain through him preaching the Word of God and through me going, OK, yeah, that's true.

Or when he said like, hey, as a church, Moses Lake, we're going to participate in this event. We're going to do this outreach. We're going to do this with our with our small groups or with our Sunday schools or with whatever it was.

As I followed my spiritual leaders, I've seen God bless time and time and time and time again. I have never as far as I'm aware, I have never once regretted following my spiritual leaders.

Now certainly, if they are saying something immoral, if they're encouraging you to do something immoral, if they are encouraging you to go against God's Word, that's not the type of thing that's being said.

Even as we think about yesterday's episode, as we observe the outcome of their faith, what is what they're saying look like in action. But I want to encourage you. And again, I'm just looking at my own face reflection in the camera.

I'm not saying this to anyone specific. If you're at Tabernacle, I promise you, I am never going to ask you to do something in like a power trip kind of way.

I am never going to encourage you to do something just because like I'm bored and I just really want to like lead our church in some direction. And I just like hope it works.

I promise you, if ever I am saying, let's do this as a church, it is because I emphatically believe that the Word of God says it and so we must do it and let's obey and let's follow God.

And if you're not here at Tabernacle, if you're in some other place, obey and submit to your spiritual leaders and you will find great joy in it.

Because then when those spiritual leaders, as they give an account to God, as they say, here's what I did in my oversight, in my leading, in my pastoring of this local church, here's what happened.

If they're able to say, like they followed and they submitted and they obeyed, and so we followed you together. Because I said, here's what the Bible says, let's do it, let's obey, let's submit, and we did that together.

Man, there is happiness and joy in giving an account of that. Versus, God, I told them what you said in your word and they didn't listen. I said, here's what God's word says.

And they said, well, that doesn't really apply to me. That doesn't really apply here. I think I know better.

Man, that brings a sadness and a sorrow as we give account because we go, God, like I pointed them the right direction, but they did not want to come along.

And so I want to encourage you as the author here is telling these Hebrews, obey and submit to your spiritual leaders so that they can give an account to God with joy and not with sadness because that would be unhelpful for you.

Verse 18, then he gives the admonition, hey, for your spiritual leaders, pray for us for we are sure that we have a good conscience, that we're walking right with the Lord, but we want to continue in that.

So pray for us, he says, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things. We want to do what's right by God and others in every circumstance. And that's my prayer request too.

Please pray for that for me, for people that are spiritual leaders. They need your prayer because they're not just fighting against like, you know, if you're working in perhaps, you know, a secular job.

I can think of my father-in-law working in like cabinet making and woodworking and all of that. That he is, you know, trying to work with a fluctuating economy.

He's trying to work with people, you know, being good at their jobs or bad at their jobs and hiring people, not hiring people. And he's trying to work through all of those things.

For spiritual leaders, they're working through like Satan himself fighting against the Bride of Christ. And certainly, Satan fights against us in our everyday life. And that's not something that's like, oh, only pastors deal with that.

That's absolutely not true. But for those that are attempting to lead in a local church, they face unique spiritual opposition that naturally comes up because all of us are still in the flesh.

We still have that sin nature that we dig up, that we say, hey, wouldn't it be great if I was angry about this, or if I had unforgiveness, or if I had bitterness, or if I had some pride here? All of us are prone to bringing that up.

And so that gums up the works as well, as well as we have a lost and dying world that doesn't value what God values. And so all of those things, the world and the flesh and the devil, all of that is marshaled against the local church.

And so as we're trying to live honorably and right in our world, we covet your prayers as spiritual leaders, because Lord knows that we are in desperate need of it.

Verse number 19, and I urge you all, the more to do this so that I may be restored to you more quickly. Here this person in Italy, he says, keep on praying for us and hopefully we'll be out and seeing you guys soon.

Then verse 20, this benediction, may the God of peace, the God that to these persecuted believers, he was the one that would bring resolution and peace into their lives.

May the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, that is Jesus our Lord, this God who can resurrect and raise from the dead so that death itself, murder and persecution and

martyrdom is not the end. But as Jesus rose, we will one day rise. He says, the one who has done all of this, he will equip you in every good thing to do his will. God, how can I do all of this?

Only through God equipping you and giving you what you need.

Through his word, through his spirit, through your spiritual leaders, through your spiritual family members, your brothers and sisters in the Lord, he will equip you for every good thing that you need to do in your life.

He says, working in us, that which is pleasing in his sight. God is at work in you. Allow him to be at work in you.

Don't rebel against him. Don't have pride. Instead say, God, whatever you want from my life, I am going to give it to you.

He says, to whom, to Jesus Christ, be the glory forever and ever. Amen. And then I love verse 22.

I urge you, brothers and sisters, listen patiently to this word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. This is like our 22nd episode in the Book of Hebrews.

You know, some of you that maybe are more used to like 20-minute sermons or something like that might go, oh man, well, 13 chapters of Hebrews, that doesn't seem very brief.

But certainly we ought to have a patience when we're interacting with the word of God because there is nothing more important than that. And so let's pay attention to it. And I love that ending phrase, grace be with you all.

God's grace, His empowerment, His sustaining, His forgiveness, His kindness, all of it makes us able to go forward in our life. And it is what we need. And it's what we can rejoice and love and live in because God has lavished His grace on us.

Well, thank you. And it's been a wonderful, it's been a wonderful nine, might be just over a smidge over nine, nine and a half months traveling through scripture with you on Tabernacle Talk.

I look forward to the four books or so that we're going to be in in 2025. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and His peace, the peace of the Prince of Peace and our God of Peace be with you.

I love the admonition in Romans Chapter 16, where Paul tells the believers there, the God of Peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. We await our King who is coming again.

Let us live for Him, let us love Him and let us follow what He has for us, even today as we walk through our lives. Thank you all and see you in just a couple of months.