"How to Live as God's People"
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As we now begin to look at chapter 13 of Hebrews everything here focuses is centered around our relationships with one another as believers and our relationship with others in our community. In other words, there are many times where you may have wondered how am I to live as a Christian? So, our message today is really a Message on Christian Ethics. These ethics help show the true gospel of who Jesus is and what He has done to a lost and dying world. It also encourages others to continue to believe and follow Christ and bring glory to God. The author of Hebrews is going to lay out for us several commands and most of these commands that we are going to look at today are supported by rationales for obeying. In fact, the author gives us some real life examples of this to help us get the point.
So, how are we to live as God’s people? 3 Things we need to Remember.
1. Remember the Relationships God puts before us should come with care!
1 Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.
-Remember to care for other Believers. The first command here insists the practice of brotherly love. We are told, “Let brotherly love continue.” Love is one of the most basic Christian virtues but the word for love here is not (agape) but the more family oriented term (philadelphia) which is brotherly love. This type of love emphasizes the the members of the church have a special responsibility to each other.
10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more,
The word brotherly should stick out to us here. There are many folks today who have raised the question who is my brother? Your brother is anyone who is in Christ. In fact, this word speaks to the relationship that Christians have with one another. So while many of us have a physical family member that is an actual brother such as my wonderful brother Michael I also have many other brothers in Christ. Our faith in Christ makes us a family and because we are family we come together and help each other out. We encourage each other when we get down or face difficult days, there will be times when we cry with one another. We will also laugh with each other in the good days. Sometimes just being there for one another is a profound comfort.
-Remember to care for Strangers. Church, brotherly love should and must reach out beyond our walls here. The second command given out is, “Do not neglect.” We are not to forget to show hospitality to strangers, because some of the strangers were angels. We see this actually happened to Abraham in Genesis 18 and 19. Three travelers came to Abraham and turned out to be two angels and the Lord himself.
The point in all of this is that we never know who we are visiting with, so our actions should be motivated by love and care. Hospitality is an important Christian gift but it is one that is often overlooked and neglected. We are called to show hospitality to everyone, even to strangers.
-Remember to care for those who are Persecuted. The third command here is to remember those who are in prison. We read in the New Testament and down through church history of those who suffered, were mistreated, persecuted and even martyred for the sake of Christ. The reference here that the author is talking about is probably to the sort of persecution that we heard about in chapter 10.
32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.
The command here is not only telling us to remember or to sympathize with those prisoners who have been mistreated, but to actively go and be with such victims. Why is this so important? By going to prisons we can actively encourage our suffering brothers and sisters. We can pray for them and share with them God’s Word. In 2 Timothy 1:16-18, Paul was refreshed by Onesiphorus who came to him and sought him out while he was in chains. All of this is pointing us to remember, pray and to go so that we might encourage those faithful saints who are being persecuted.
2. Remember that when it comes to our physical needs we are to submit and trust God.
4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. 5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we can confidently say,
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear;
what can man do to me?”
Here in these verses we see two important issues when it comes to physical needs (one is sexual and the other is financial) and in both of these areas we see that as believers we must submit and trust the Lord.
-First Let’s Remember the Marriage Covenant. During the time of the early church the family relationship of the people of God was being threatened. Sexual misbehavior was happening then just like it is today. The author of Hebrews wants us to see the importance of honor and purity within the marriage covenant.
Sexual misconduct and promiscuity, in ancient society as well as ours today, may be allowed and even accepted or treated as no big deal. Live however you want is what the secular law has said, but as Christians we are to live under a higher authority.
Our text here tells us that marriage should be held in honor among all. The all here demonstrates that as Christ’s people we look visibly different in the world because we will be seen as people who value marriage since God is the one who designed it and created it. Marriage has been designed for a man and woman and for their to be purity within this relationship and for that relationship to last a lifetime. The marriage bed is to be kept undefiled, don’t mess around, don’t have sex outside of marriage. Why is this such a big deal, because we see the consequences of what happens if we don’t honor this command.
It is clear here that the author of Hebrews has sexual defilement in mind because of what he says next: because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers. Every form of sex outside of marriage subverts and dishonors marriage. Any form of sex outside the marriage covenant, including adultery, is a sin against God and is therefore deserving of His judgment. So, we must take this seriously and remember the marriage covenant.
-The other physical need is financial needs.Remember to be content with what God has given you. We live in a society today and operate within an economy of covetousness. It is so easy in our day and age with social media to see what everyone else is getting, going, and has. As a result of this it is hard to live free from a love of money, that can give us what we want.
Verse 5 here is not saying that money is the problem, but it instead warns us that the love of money is the issue at hand. When we begin to love money and crave it what we are saying in return is that I am not happy or content with what the Lord has given to me. Hebrews here is giving us a spiritual principle to live by.
The second half of verse 5 and then verse 6 tells us why we can be content with what we have. The source of our contentment is not in what we have or even what in others have, it’s that we serve God who takes care of us. He knows exactly what we need and exactly how to take care of us. In fact, we serve a God who will never leave us nor forsake us. This is a promise from the Lord himself and what a wonderful promise it truly is.
Therefore we can confidently say today verse 6, “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear, what can man do to me?” If you are a believer today we should have confidence in God’s abiding character.
We can lose everything we have, and it will be ok so long as we continue to endure in our faith with Christ. Now that is a lot easier said than done, but the truth is that everything can be taken and will be taken one day. So, we have everything we need in Christ, and we can be content because we serve God who cares for us.
3. Remember your leaders and rest in the unchanging nature of Christ.
7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
-Remember your Leaders. Here in verse 7 we see that the author exhorts his people to remember their leaders, and even more specifically he want them to remember those who spoke the truth of the living word of God. This refers to those faithful leaders in the church who taught them the gospel message, the good news about Jesus. Jesus came and gave his life so that we could have life today.
The author here encourages his readers to honor, respect, and greet their leaders, but why a call to remember them? Maybe these leaders had been martyred for their faith, maybe they were being persecuted at the time this letter was written. So, this call to remember is a call to look back and to consider the outcome of their leaders and their way of life and to imitate their faith.
Paul does this with Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3 he encourages Timothy to imitate his conduct, his way of life, his faith, patience, love and sufferings.
Being a church leader is not easy, because we are held to a higher standard and will someday give an account to God for how we led the church. This is why leaders must teach God’s Word and be faithful to it and also practice it by the way we conduct ourselves daily throughout this life. We are called to imitate godliness and faithfulness, because this is what we so desperately need in our world today.
-The last thing that I want us to Remember is this. Remember the unchanging nature of Christ. God’s Word shows us that the nature of Christ is unchanging. Verse 8 tells us here that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. In the Old Testament we here something very similar about God.
6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.
The author of Hebrews is stating this to reassure his readers that even though the founding leaders or fathers may have died, that Jesus and His words remain the same. They will always remain as a secure foundation of our faith.
Though our outward circumstances are always changing, we do not have to worry today about Christ changing. Leaders come and go, government systems rise and fall but the Lord Jesus Christ remains the same and is faithful to His children. So, today we can rest assured that God is ruling and reigning on His throne and He is in control of all of this world.
Today we need to lean unto Christ and the power of His Word and not be led astray by anything contrary to the unchanging Christian message.
Conclusion: God has called us as believers to live for him by faith. Faith opens our eyes to see how Christ cares about us and how he cares for the down and out. Faith opens our eyes to see how we should care for our own brothers and sisters and those strangers we don’t even know. Faith opens our eyes and our hearts and even our homes. Faith opens our eyes to see the wonderful treasure of the marriage covenant as God defines it and defends it. Faith allows us to see through the fleeting pleasures of the allure and glamor of more stuff and more money and to focus on the one who will never leave us or forsake us. Here is how the apostle Paul said we are to walk as we journey through this life.
7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.
18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
(Pray and Lead into Communion)