By Dr. Sinclair B. Ferguson
Text: Hebrews 13:1-19
Preached: July 14, 2013
OPENING PRAYER:
Our Heavenly Father, we praise you for the promise of your presence with us. For the knowledge that you hear our praises, and your heart is delighted in the joy and worship of your children. We thank you for the benediction of the gift of the Holy Spirit, to work in our hearts, and to bring us closer to our Lord Jesus. Thank you, that he lives and breathes to glorify Him in our midst. We thank you this morning for the ministry of our Lord Jesus, who went about doing good and teaching the people. And now in the power of his Spirit continues to teach his people through His Word, and to do us good. Do us, as a congregation, much good in this hour we pray. And as families, as individuals, as we seek to love and serve you -- do much good in our souls. And through us, much good for the city and for the world in which we live. So come, Lord, come and teach us. We are your servants. And we are listening. Hear us we pray, in Jesus name. Amen.
Please be seated.
SCRIPTURE READING: Hebrews 13:1-19:
Now, we have been studying together these Sunday mornings this year in the letter to the Hebrews. We've come at last to the final chapter -- to chapter 13. And we're going to read there the first 19 verses. Hebrews chapter 13, and verses one through 19, on page 1009, in the pew Bible. And it will be helpful for you I think, and for me, if you have your Bible open this morning. For our children who may have their children's Bible, the reading is on page 1504. Let us hear God's word.
Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. 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." So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what man do to me?"
Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away 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 Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.
SERMON:
Well after this morning, we have only verses 20 through 25 of this wonderful epistle to the Hebrews remaining to us. And I think I could understand if you felt as we read this passage, that there seems to be something fairly haphazard about its contents. There are by my count in chapter 13 of Hebrews, about 20 separate exhortations, encouragements, commands. And they rush at us in a huge flurry. Sometimes I think whimsically about the way in which New Testament letters end. That either the writer was running out of writing material, which was a huge concern, because writing materials were fabulously expensive in antiquity, or perhaps, and more likely, the mailman was coming. Or the friend who was going to take the letter to the boat. And the boat that was leaving to cross the Mediterranean to some other part of what we think of as Europe. And so we have this amazing flurry of commands that are absolutely unparalleled in any of the previous 12 chapters. And the other thing that might disappoint us is that it all seems to be relatively mundane. It's about common or garden things. About how you treat the leaders in your church. How you think about those who have gone before. What happens in your home life. The way in which your church displays its real character.
And yet, to me, at least there is something unusually appropriate about the fact that in the providence of God, and certainly not by my original planning, we should be coming to this passage as a congregation just at this particular time. Actually, this is virtually the only place in this letter, where the author anonymous to us, but apparently well known to those who received his letter, has anything to say about himself. When in verses 18 and 19, he asks for prayer, and says to them, that he hopes that he will soon, and sooner in response to their prayers, be restored to them. Makes you ask, restored from where? Restored from what? Is he sick, or traveling, or perhaps, as others to whom he refers is he in prison for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ? Whichever of those was true of him, or if none of those was true of him, it underscores for us that these last words that he pens in this flurry are the words of their minister giving them counsel when he is absent from them. And as I say, it strikes me that for all the apparent haphazardness and mundane character of what he says here, he has a great message. Apart from anything else that saves me thinking about what should I say to the congregation on a penultimate Sunday. You don't need to stop and think. It's here for you in the Scriptures. And he has a word for all of us here in verses five and six. He will never leave us. He will never forsake us. The Lord is our helper, whatever. The Lord is our helper and we therefore have absolutely nothing to fear.
But actually, his counsel is far from haphazard. And it's very far from being mundane. It is counsel that lies on his heart that he sees as absolutely essential to the life of the congregation. And I dare say he would add to the life of any Christian congregation. And it seems to me that he leads us in these verses through three stages of his concluding counsel.
The first section, which begins obviously in verse one, and goes through verse six, is counsel about our relationships to our fellow Christians. More particularly our relationships in our church to one another. And he says, you notice in chapter 13 verse one, their brotherly love is to continue. There may be only two things in common between the city of Philadelphia and the city of Columbia. They both end in the letters ia. But this is one area of life, where a church in Columbia needs to become a Philadelphia. A city of love of the brothers. And it's very striking, I think, that in the context of the variety of love language words that the author could use about life in the church fellowship, the word he chooses, is a family word. Love of the brothers. Love of the siblings. There underscores for us, it seems to me, that this anonymous author, along with the other authors of the New Testament taking their cue from the Lord Jesus, understands, that the fundamental way to think about the church is not, although the church has often thought this way, is not, that the Church is the Body of Christ. It's true, it's right for us to think about the church as the body of Christ. But as those of you who have been in the Inquirer's class over the last several years, will have heard me say there, there is only one writer in the New Testament who ever really makes anything of the church being the body of Christ. And we can conclude from that, that the central way of thinking about the church in general, and a particular church in particular, is not only to think of ourselves as a body with members, true though that is, but as a family where we love our relatives in Christ. Where a congregation becomes a place where there are spiritual fathers and mothers, and sons and daughters, and cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and great grand children, because the atmosphere that prevails is the atmosphere of the love of the brothers, of which he speaks here.
If someone were to ask me, although I don't know if anyone ever has asked me, what would be your great goal in going to be minister of a Christian church? I would answer very simply, that I would pray and labor in the hope that that Christian church would become conscious that the most important thing about it was not its programs, not its ministers, not its elders, not its property, but that it was the family of the living God where Christ the elder brother was present. And where they've pervasively influenced our relationships with each other, because all our eyes were fixed on the Lord Jesus Christ. The sense that of Christ has died for us and accepted us into His family and given us His Spirit to indwell us, the only conceivably appropriate response we could make to one another would be to let brotherly love continue. And in the midst of all the programs that churches invent in our day to seek to reach a dysfunctional and broken world, this actually is God's program.
I remember when the Mel Gibson movie about the death of Jesus came out? One noted leader in the United States said this was the greatest evangelistic tool God has given us since the days of the apostles. And my immediate instinct was to say, has he never been to church? Does he not know what a church is? Does he not realize that it's what the church is? That is the Lord's chief instrument, in bringing men and women and boys and girls to a saving knowledge of himself. And how true that is in our world. Where in your street and all likelihood there is more than one dysfunctional family or parents wondering what does it mean to be family or children who are legally in a family but have no idea what real family life is supposed to be? And those of you have heard Dr. Thomas's testimony, remember his words, they should have burned into your mind. That he had become a believer as a young student and stepping into a living Christian church, it dawned on him that this was the family. This is how things were meant to be. Where brotherly love fits. It sounds so simple, but it's so gloriously supernatural. Where brotherly love continues.
And yet, then you notice he does something interesting because his words are not disconnected. He's not thinking randomly, like little explosions of exhortations going on in his mind. He understands that where there is real brotherly love continuing it never stops internally. And so love of the brothers becomes love for the strangers. He urges them to practice hospitality. To show love of strangers to strangers. And he adds this little note, presumably thinking about Abraham. He says, because some people have discovered that the stranger might be an angel. I do sometimes wonder. I see someone coming into the congregation and, I see I don't know you. I don't think I've ever seen you before. You look a little different. You look different from the rest of us. I wonder if you're an angel. I wonder if God has sent you here to give a report on whether brotherly love continues at First Presbyterian Church and extends to those who are strangers. Remember Jesus' words, if you love those who are like you, well, he says, The pagans do that. It's loving the strangers. Reaching out. Embracing. Think of the number of strangers there are in the city of Columbia that need to be embraced by the very atmosphere of a church family where Christ reigns and rules.
And then he says it doesn't stop there. Love for the brothers extends to love for strangers. And love for strangers extends to love for prisoners. He means this quite literally. Some of the believers were in prison as many believers today are in prison. Actually, we've got a clear scriptural command to be concerned about those who are in prison for the Lord Jesus Christ. And we need to take such a command seriously. It's very interesting, isn't it? He moves from loving those who come inside, to loving those who are inside, as we say. And those who are marginalized, to whom he refers. Love for the brothers will always be expressed in love for the marginalized, either because they also are my brothers in Christ, or with the longing that they would by God's grace become my brothers and sisters in Christ.
So it begins with the church family. He moves to the stranger. He moves to those who have been marginalized and then it comes back again nearer home, doesn't he? And I think these words also are profoundly connected to this whole idea of how the love for the brothers is pervasive in every aspect of our lives. Because he comes full circle and he says, and this will be true in your own home and family too. You see what drives him is the understanding that the Christian believer wants to fold his family life into his or her church family life. And wants to fold his or her church family life into his or her own family life. And so he says, there's going to be integrity in this love. We're not going to be, as Spurgeon once said, a saint when we meet in the deacons meetings and a devil when we go home to our wives. No. He says, and this was a sexually immoral world, as our world has fast been becoming. And he says, true love will make sure that home life and marriage are kept absolutely pure. That there is a relationship within the home that is a "no go area" for any other mortal.
And then do you see what he adds. And again, this all seems so disjointed and haphazard. But it's so obvious why he says these things. Not only does he encourage us, so that the marriage bed will be undefiled and marriage held in honor, as we have been hearing so wonderfully already this very Lord's day morning, we're to keep our lives free from the love of money and be content with what we have. What's the connection between these two things? You know, the connection. Every time you've seen the list of the top X reasons marriages break down, you always see these two: sexual immorality and squabbles over finance. And he's saying here is, here's what makes the christian family in the christian fellowship so dramatically different. The utter devotion of a husband and wife and them as parents to one another. And a home, listen to this, a home in which even the children know that however little money there is, money is not the most important thing in this family life. Learning to be content.
Actually, this is a word for those of you who want to get married or are planning to be married. Here are the two questions you need to be thinking about and asking, Is this someone who will commit themselves with me to the next 50 years of sexual purity? That's a long time. That could be a lot of temptation. And the other thing is this: Is this somebody who will be content to have little, and also content if they have much. You see, if they have much and they aren't content, they're certainly not going to learn to be content by having little. And if they're not content with little, they will never be content with much. And they will become the spouse from hell, or you'll become the spouse from hell to them. And you see what he's doing. He says this is, this is how the love that the gospel floods our hearts with. Permeates every dimension of our lives. And in a way it's all so simple isn't it? You don't need to be a rocket scientist. I didn't learn these words by going to theological seminary, "Let brotherly love continue." It's the key that opens the floodgates of grace in the life of the church.
So our relationships with one another. But then he moves on to our relationships more specifically in the context of the congregation. And it might seem difficult to untangle these verses from seven to 17. Except, I think he throws in a clue that helps us to grasp the core of what he's saying. I wonder if you've ever thought about this, that suddenly out of the blue in verse eight, he says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever." I mean, where did that come from? I thought you were talking about our relationships with each other. And then you're going on to all this stuff about the altar and how we are to live. Suddenly, you just throw in Hebrews 13 verse eight, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever." Well, today I want you to notice that he gives us a clue to help us put things into little boxes that he's saying. Yesterday, the past. Today, the present. Forever, the future.
What about yesterday? Well, you'll notice what he says here, verse seven, "Remember your leaders." Now he's speaking about those who lead them in the past. Because he goes on to say, "Remember your leaders, those who" past tense "spoke to you, the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith." It's almost as though he's saying, and this sometimes happens, doesn't it? When, when a loved one especially a loved one who has ministered in the life of the church, when a loved one goes to glory, sometimes one of the comforts is we, we see them in the round for the first time in our lives. We may have been close to them, but there are things we didn't know about them. And now we, now we see what a grand design the Lord had woven into their lives. And he's saying things are changing, you know. But make sure you remember your leaders in the past. Focus your eyes on the fruitfulness of their lives and their long faithfulness and imitate their faith. You know, it's a terrible thing, if we speak about our past leaders in a pejorative way, with nothing but criticism. So you see: remember them, imitate their faith, thank God for them. But also, he notes, we are grateful for the past, but actually we are living in the present.
So what's the word in the present? Well, the word in the present, you'll see this in verses 10 through 16. Actually, he says, in verse nine, don't be led astray by false teachers. He's thinking about the influences to which they're exposed, of false teaching. Actually, they appear frequently, in the New Testament. It's far easier today to be a false teacher than it was in those days. Be a false teacher on the radio. You can be a false teacher on television. You can be a false teacher in books. You can be a false teacher on your blog. You can be a false teacher in 1000 ways. And if you're a, if you're a crazy false teacher, there is such abundance in our country, that you may well find a crazy millionaire who will finance your false teaching. And he says, "You need to be on your guard." You have been led, you have been taught faithfully by those leaders who are now gone, but you need to be on your guard against false teachers. And there's the trick, he wouldn't need to say that if he thought there was no danger. You know, we think that don't we, we would go through the Christian life, saying, well I'm not in any danger of false teachers. How do you know? Because none of them is going to come up to you and say, by the way, let me just be honest about this, I am a false teacher. And he wouldn't need to warn them unless he thought they could be very naive about false teachers. They don't come with horns. My dear friends, the fact of the matter is, in our subculture, they come with big Bibles in their hands.
I almost stopped the car the other day. I was listening to Chuck Swindoll. Or I was listening to Chuck Swindoll . But only heard part of a message in the middle of which, most of you know who Chuck Swindoll is, hugely respected individual. in American evangelicalism. Just suddenly in the middle of his message. "That some of you", listen to this. "Some of you are going to far too many Bible studies." Well, is Chuck Swindoll among the Philistines? I thought, am I glad somebody of note has had the courage to say that. Why? Because you can do yourself a lot of damage by going to too many Bible studies. One is, you're going to run out of time to apply God's word. The other is, it's highly likely that you're not digging into God's word for yourself if you need to go to so many Bible studies. And the other thing is this. You just need to come to church to get the Bible studies. I wonder if you're in danger. And this was his concern. This was why he had laid out the gospel in such depth and been so concerned that they needed to go back to the A, B, C's. It's actually a very simple question. It's what's the, what's the line of responsibility for the person who is teaching me the Bible? And what's the framework of reference? For the person who's teaching me the Bible? Is it historic Christianity, expressed in its great confessions. If you're Anglican, the 39 articles. If you're reformed, then the Heidelberg Catechism. If you're Presbyterian, then the Westminster Confession. If your Congregationalists the Savoy Declaration. If you're Baptists, then the 1689 London Confession. Or is it just whatever my Bible study teacher is made up themselves? How do you know that they're not false teachers? It's not quite as obvious as you think, is it? It's not quite so clear. Well, what's the answer? Well, he's given them 12 chapters of an answer. As though to say, be baptized in this. Understand this, and you will be safe. He's hugely concerned about it. Because the people who are most prone to false teachers are the people who are most zealous. Sometimes are lead into what, do you remember what Francis Schaeffer used to call "super spirituality" that's not anchored in the worship of God's people -- the study of God's Word. So that you learn to feed yourself with the scriptures.
Now, what's, what's the great concern here? Well, the reason, you notice, he goes on immediately to speak about Christ and His sacrifice on the cross? That's a question. You sit, and sit and watch the television preacher -- maybe male or female. And ask yourself this question. Is it super abundantly clear that this person is determined to know nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified? Or is he or she largely talking about ourselves, and how we can have a good time now? The single clearest indication that someone neither understands nor, if they understand, will not teach the gospel is that they will go all round the houses rather than focus attention on Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Everything else is palatable to me. This is the thing that really tells where I am.
Because you see, he immediately goes on to make application of this. He says, don't stray far from the cross of Christ, and don't stray far from living a sacrificial life. Now, here's a question. When did you last even see a book that had sacrifice in its title? If you've seen one recently, it's probably been about some military hero, and not about ordinary Christians. So he's saying these two things always go together. These must be at the center: Christ and Him crucified, and a summons to us to take up the cross and live sacrificially for Jesus Christ. Sacrificially giving ourselves in service to one another sacrificially giving ourselves for the world. Don't you think such a church would be a different kind of church? A brotherhood, where we carried the cross. Looked to the crucified Christ. Called on men and women to come and join us. And that's what he's looking for, isn't it? In the present.
And then he just adds this little word in verse 17, because there's a new set of leaders coming along. And he says in verse 17, obey your leaders and submit to them. Now, I know that's, that's not culturally sensitive. But the church, as we often say, is not a republic. It's not a democracy. It's a kingdom. Christ exercises his authority. Leads his church through His servants. And so he says, "Obey them and submit to them, because they're watching over your souls." They're the most, they're the most important people in the world outside of your own family circle. They're watching for your spiritual welfare. And they're going to have to give an account, every single one of our elders will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And one of the words that will be dropped from the throne of heaven, will be, now let's turn and talk about First Presbyterian Church where you were an elder. And then you see he wants, he wants these leaders to be able to do this with joy, and not with groaning. But to be a joy to our elders, to be a joy to our leaders, this is his concern. Because it's a new bunch coming.
I don't think we understand just how, how actually true that is. Even in our own church. Here we are 200 years old. Established. Love the church. People pressing 100 and people just pressing out of the womb, it seems all of the time. It's, it's glorious, but it's changing. I did a little statistical survey in the last seven years, this church, just take a deep breath, this church has changed by 1500 people. I mean, when you take in those who have thankfully gone to glory, and the few who have been upset and gone somewhere else in town, and the some who have gone perhaps for a job and those who have come 1500 people, that's an amazing change. And as I sat at the elders table the other week and looked around the table, I I noticed something had happened before my eyes without me seeing it. But the men who used to sit at the far end had been pressed up to the top end by the newer elders who were coming in at the bottom end. And as we look back and are thankful for our elders and leaders, ministers we've had in the past, "the times they are a changing." Dylan got one thing right. Didn't he? "The times they are a changing." That's why it's so important for us all to have this, disposition. I want to make their task a joy, because they want to watch over my soul for my spiritual blessing.
And then just in the last few words, he's a, he's a modest character this author of Hebrews. Isn't he? You know, he just hides himself in his letter. But then thirdly, in verse 18, he teaches us something about our relationships to those who are outside of our church serving the Lord. And he says, "Pray for me. For we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner." Now what's, what's the key here? Well, it his desire. He wants them to pray with him that this desire will be fulfilled. That he'll, he'll act honorably. Now, Southern Carolinian gentleman act honorably. Why? Because the gospel taught them to act honorably. That's why. You go back and you read their stories. It was the gospel that made them the men they were. And that's what he means here. He doesn't just mean be a decent citizen. He means live in such a way, whatever the circumstances, as to have a single eye for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and for the blessings of the Church of Jesus Christ. And it doesn't matter who you are or what you do or where you come from. You live that way. And people want to know what makes you tick.
I've a friend who is a distinguished law professor. He was on a, an international commission about space law. And it was meeting, no lawyers jokes, please. It was meeting in a lavish chateau in France, I think. And for the reception, he came down the stairway. A man came over to him. Somebody he didn't know. And said, Excuse me, do you go to such and such a church. Mentioned the name of the church? And my friend said, "Yes, I do. How did you know?" He said, I could tell from the way you walked down the stairs. Don't ask me to explain. Isn't that what we long for? Somewhere out there in Colombia? Somebody would watch you and come over to you and say, excuse me, I don't know you. But by any chance would you be a member of First Presbyterian Church in Colombia? And you said, well, well, yes, actually, I am. How did you know? Oh, well, there are two reasons. I could see you had a single eye for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. I could just sense it. And actually, to tell you the truth. I know one of your ministers. And I know that would be the passion of your ministers. That it would be true in your life. Well, that's not outside the bounds of possibility if Jesus Christ is among his people. And surely if one thing is true of us, it is that Jesus Christ is among this people. Let's pray together.
CLOSING PRAYER:
Our Heavenly Father, for your goodness and mercy to us we praise you. For this church, we thank you. We long to be more and more of what you have called us to be. And we pray that surely into the future it will be so. And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
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