The Book of Hebrews: Week 10

When Gina and I moved to Pittsburgh, we became a

really really close nit three, you know, just Gena, Caitlyn,

and I. No family around, and so Caitlyn naturally just

everywhere we went, she went, and so it was the

three of us, the three amigos, everywhere, and so naturally,

whenever she was gonna go to preschool for the first time,

Gena and I were very concerned and we thought, you

know what, she's been with us so much. The first time,

we just say, away with you, you know, she's gonna

freak out. If any of you have ever been up

here and seeing some kids get dropped off for their

first day of preschool, it's like a catastrophe, you know,

and they're like, take your kid back. But we're like, man,

she's probably gonna freak out. So we prepared ourselves emotionally,

and we're walking into the Crossroads preschool. We get about

seven to ten steps away from the preschool preschool door.

Were prepared for this, and they open up the preschool

door and Caitlin just took off, running as fast as

she can, didn't even look back. Gene and I looked

at each other, We're devastated that she's not devastated, and

so we needed some therapy after that. But a lot

of you know what I'm talking about, you're either going

to experience something like that. Are you already have some

of you remember dropping your kid off at college. You

spend weeks getting ready, you know, multiple trips to Walmart

trying to find those bed sheets for a bedsize that

doesn't really exist anywhere else, laundry, detergent, enough snacks to

survive a nuclear war.

You load the vehicle up, get there. It's August, it's

it's hot.

Dad's of course, you know your child's room is on

the third floor, and you're.

Sweating carrying all this up.

Your exhausted, but the car is running and it's time

to say goodbye, and all of a sudden you remember

everything you want to tell them. Make sure you call

us each night when you get home. Don't forget to

lock your door. Lock your door. It's not safe around here. Okay. Oh,

by the way, when you go to the doctor's office

and they ask you who your primary provider is, it's

not your mom. Okay. Go to class like every day,

like go to class, you know, choose your friends carefully,

by the way, you can't live on pizza. And lastly,

remember who you are. And the kid is sitting there

like I know this, You've been saying this for months,

but the parents are just in this mixed emotion type moment.

The car is running, the goodbye's coming, so everything comes

pouring out.

Hebrew's thirteen feels like that, Okay for twelve, Chapter one

main argument, Jesus is greater, greater than the former prophets,

greater than Abraham, greater than Moses, He's greater than the

sacrificial system. Jesus is greater than everything else. And it's

almost like the Hebrew writer looks at one last page

and goes, I gotta tell them everything else I'm meant

to tell them in this one page. And it really

does feel like that. But we're going to see how

the Holy Spirit meant for all of that to come together.

So let's look together at Exodus.

Excuse me, Hebrews Chapter thirteen and verse one.

Let's look at this.

It says, first of all, keep on keep on loving

one another as what as brothers and sisters do not

forget to show hospitality to who strain for by doing so,

some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.

Continue to remember those in prison as if you were

together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated,

as if you yourself were suffering.

And then all of a sudden there's a sharp turn.

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed

kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer.

And all the sexually immoral.

And then he goes on again to say, keep your

lives free from the love of money, and be.

Content with what you have. At first, again it sounds

like the writers all over the place, like, hey, don't

forget love one another. Hey, also welcome.

To strangers, and remember the prisoners, and honor the marriage bed,

and don't forget you know, don't fall in love with

your money. But when we look at it, what do

all these things have in common. They're what life looks

like when Jesus really is greater than anything else in

our life. See, Hebrews is not telling us what only

what to believe about Jesus. It is telling us what

belief in Jesus should do to us. So it's not

just talking theology and saying, hey, once you follow Christ,

there's there'd be some big time changes. See if Jesus

is truly greater in your life.

All of our relationships should look different.

Our homes should look different, our marriages should look different.

The way we spend money should look different. The way

we face fears should look different.

The way we treat suffering people that should look different

as well. And here's the big idea today. Okay, you ready,

followers of Jesus, we live differently. Hear that if you

were a follower of Christ, we do live differently, and

not We're not strange just for the sake of be

a strange or we're not arrogant or isolated from a world. No, no, no,

we live differently because Christ has changed some things about us.

He's changed first of all, what we love, who we

belong to, and what we actually put our trust in.

We live differently. Now. Notice, first of all, I'm wanna

go through these really quickly.

Knows how practical they are to our life situation.

It says, keep on.

Loving one another as what brothers and sisters. He's talking

about the church here, and he's saying that, hey, listen,

you you're not just the crowd that's been.

Brought together today to sing some songs.

No, your family. God has put us together. Okay, you

belong to these people, And in order to do this

life together, we're gonna have to learn how to love

each other. We're gonna have to forgive each other when

someone hurts us.

We're gonna have to show mercy to those who irritate us.

You know who I'm talking about, those they might be

sitting next to you right now. We have to show

mercy to.

Those irritate us, extend grace.

To each other. There's an old story about a preacher

who was new to the congregation. One Sunday morning, he said,

how many of you have a hard time forgiving your enemies?

And everyone raised their hand, as have this one really

old lady ninety three years old. She didn't raise her hand,

and he thought to himself, Oh good, she's really going

to give some wise advice here for the rest of

the congregation. So he looked at her and he says,

would you mind telling us how you can live a

life with the ability to forgive all of your enemies?

And she says, sure, it's very simple. I've just outlived

every single one of them.

Well, that's one way for you not to have any

problems with any other.

Hue just outlive them, not the way Jesus taught us.

See Jesus calls us and on only do life together,

but to love each other deeply. Now he goes from

just us to widening in the circle. Look how he

widens the circle. It says, do not forget to show

hospitality to who strangers. Now, this word hospitality, it carries

the idea of loving someone who's not in your friend group,

maybe not in your family or your church. Okay, see today,

if you pick up any book on hospitality, it's gonna

basically say, here's what the ushers do, here's what the

greeterers do, here's what the people to connect desks they do.

And maybe here's what some parking lot helpers do. And

that's all good. Our people actually do a phenomenal job.

But Biblical hospitalities talking about something so much bigger.

Okay, see hospitality in the Bible.

It meant making room in your life for us. See

back in the day, when a stranger would come to town,

immediately they faced a dilemma. They came to town, there wasn't

a hotel, chains and it'd go, okay, where's it Hilton, No,

And it could be dangerous and you didn't want to

go to the local pub or the end. You don't

know what type of people you're gonna run across.

So travers actually depended on.

The kindness of strangers to bring them in their home,

to feed them, to shelter them, and to even protect them.

See biblical hospitality, it was actually an act of courageous love. See,

you were opening your house, you were opening your life.

You were making room for someone who probably could.

Ever repay you.

You might not even see them again, and you might

be asking yourself, well, how is this courageous wall?

Think about this, if you were going to walk out

today you.

See someone who's new, how easy is it to walk

up to somebody and say, Hi, I am such and such.

Would you like to go to launch today and to

know our family? How many of you would be shaken

like uh do you eat? You know? Like That's why

it's courageous. Biblical hospitality shows courageous love. It's looking at

those on the outside and making room for them in

your life.

And it does make us uncomfortable. But followers of Jesus

hear me this.

Followers of Jesus, they make room for people who are

not yet known to us.

Let me take something. Every time a guest enters into

our church, we don't point into where the room is.

We notice them. Okay, we welcome them, We learn their name,

we help them feel they belong, We invite them how

to launch, We get to know them. Church. Listen to me.

Listen to me. Listen to me. I need you to

understand something. Every single person and that the Lord brings

into our church, every single guest. Here's what God is doing.

God is in trusting that guest to us. He's saying, here, here,

here's my here's my child who who who just moved

to city and don't know anybody. Or or maybe here's

my child who's finally asking questions about the faith. Or

or here's my child who's lonely or depressed or going

through divorce or their life they just lost their job.

But here's my child, and my child needs the love

of this community. When God brings someone in, he's entrusting

this person to us. It matters. Biblical hospitality takes courageous love.

And let me tell you something.

Don't underestimate what God can do through an open door,

a simple welcome. And here's the thing. I don't think

we understand this our simple act of kindness where we

bring someone into our circle, we bring someone into our

friend group, we bring someone into our life. You don't understand.

For you, that might just be a simple thing.

It might just be, hey, I'd love for you to

come to our house for the barbecue.

Oh yeah, hey, I We'll love for you to come

to our small group thing. And that might just be

a simple thing for you. But to them, it's a

holy moment.

That God is using to invite them into the family.

We take hospitality seriously around here because God has entrusted us.

So we love our brothers and sisters, we love the strangers.

And then he continues to widen the circle. Here it says,

remember those in prison, as if you were together with him. Now,

I don't know if you've noticed this, but we don't

have a prison in our neighborhood. So how do we

live this text out? Do we get a group together

tomorrow and go knock on some prison.

Doors, like, hey, can we hang out some prisoners?

That's not really reality? Okay, So in our context, in

our little area here, how do we stay faithful to

this passage? I think we could say faithful to this

passage by making a decision not to love people from

a safe emotional distance. When you see someone going through

a trial, when you see someone that is hurting, okay,

we engage.

We move toward them.

See the Texas saying like, when you look at these people,

you know you could be in a situation because in

this situation where he talks about prison, they were actually

thrown in prison because of their faith.

And so the Texas, you know, think about like what

if that was you?

And so that's something we do when we see people

with trials, we see people hurting, we're to think, what

if that's me? What if that was my child? Well

if that was my family, what does God want me

to do? We engage by the way, that kind of

love stood out in the early Church. In the third century,

the city of Alexandria came under this incredible plague and

as an epidemic. Here's what people did back then, y're

in epidemics. They would flee the city, especially if you

had means, you would go out to the countryside because

the countryside was where it was safe. The disease kind

of you know, you weren't in close contact with each other. Well,

everyone flees the city, and we have all these people

dropping dead and dying. They're sick, there's no one to

take care of them. The Christians actually got together and said,

somebody's got to do something about this. The Christians stayed

behind in the city of Alexandria, and they loved them

the people. Matter of fact, the Bishop Dionysus of Alexandria

said this. He said, believers visited the sick, fearlessly serving

them in christ. Now, how can somebody do something like this? Well,

when you're it's in a future city, and you believe

in eternity, you believe that God is truly your savior,

then you could do things that are courageous that sound

crazy in the moment, because you're putting your full trust

and God see you guys. Whenever we help a family

find food, we're not just solving a problem around here.

Oh, we're loving our neighbor.

Whenever we help an immigrant work through their citizenship or

work through some their status, what are we doing. We're

making room for a stranger to join our family. When

we help someone get a job through passport to employment,

by the way, we are literally changing their whole life circumstance.

When someone walks into celebrate recovery.

We see them as brothers and sisters who are in

the same need for grace that we are in. And

when we hang out with our Latino and our Arabic

brothers and sisters, we're reminded that our culture is just

a small part of the whole kingdom. That God's kingdom

is fabulous, is diverse, and it's wonderful. See, hospitality truly

truly matters. Now, why would we do these things? Why

because Jesus said, we're a family. He's brought us together.

You were here for a purpose. God brought you into

his family for a purpose, and He's called us to

love each other as a family. Now, all of a sudden,

Hebrews makes a sharp turn and they just start talking

about sex. So we're gonna talk about sex for a moment. Okay,

sex and money and the writer. It might seem like

it's a little disjointed, but the writer's really showing.

Us how the gospel it really does reach.

Into our most personal parts of our life. Our culture

and the culture back then said Hey, it's my body,

I can do whatever I want with it.

It's my money, I can spend money on whatever I

want or keep as much as I want.

But Jesus actually teaches us something different. Jesus teaches us

that my body belongs to him.

I'm to use my body to bring him glory and

honor my money. No, it's not some fortures to protect me.

No, no, no, My money is to be used to

bring glory to God. See note this. The world uses

people and loves money. Followers of Jesus, we love people

and we use money for the glory of God. We

live differently. Imagine if you're living in first century Rome

and you're in one of those cluttered neighborhoods where the

houses are on top of each other, and all of

a sudden, there's this family next door to you, and

you notice that the multiple generations there. The husband doesn't

go out and committed all tree, doesn't go out sleep

with the prostitutes. The sons are not out sleeping with

the young girls in town. You notice that they honor

their bodies. The daughters are not out late at night

doing whatever. And then you know what they do with

their money, because whenever people are needing, they share their money,

they share their food. Or if there's a child who's

been abandoned they actually bring the child into their household.

That would have blown your mind in the first century

room because the world was a rough, nasty place back then.

But the Christians who have been changed by Jesus, they

live differently. Tim Keller says this. He says, the pagan

society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body.

So what does that mean? In turn, the early Christians

were stingy with their body and promiscuous with their money

their faith. Because of their faith, their relationship in Christ,

they made different choices and they lived differently. Before I

came to Christ, let me tell you something. Sex was

on my mind twenty four son. Gina and I started

going out in eighth grade and we had a sexual relationship.

Sex was the foundation of our relationship all the way

through high school. And when Gina wasn't around, when I

thought I could get away with it, I'm gonna watch pornography.

And when pornography is not around, Gina's not around any

woman that looks good, I was gonna lust after. That's

the way my brain worked when it came to money.

I love money, I love what money brought. And I

remember thinking that man when I was sixteen, I got

to save up enough money to buy a Mustang G convertible,

and I did. By the time I was seventeen, I

had a black on black Mustang GT convertible. I worked hard.

Not only did I work hard and save my money,

but when I needed more money, I was still from people.

I was still from my friends, I was still from

family members. I was still from people I didn't even

know because I wanted it. Right before I came to Christ,

I even sold some drugs, and so I wanted this

money because money got me things, and things in my

head brought status. But after Christ grabbed the hold of me,

after Christ changed the affections of my heart, after Christ

transformed me, I remember the things just change. Gena and

I became abstinent, and we dedicated our bodies to Lord,

and it was such an awesome thing to watch. Gina

become a holy vessel unto the Lord, redeemed and made new.

I stopped feeding all those habits of watching pornography, and

I turned my mind to Christ instead of my mind

wondering all the time and lusting. And by the way,

this purity was not a one time decision, It was

a daily battle, a daily giving up to the Lord.

When it came to money. Now, this was the thing

that was surprising to me, was all of a sudden

when it came to money, I didn't care. Money just

didn't matter to me. And I remember the as soon

as I came to Christ I gathered all of my

money together and I had, you know, a lot of

money from being a waiter, some drug sellings.

I had a lot of money.

I pulled all together in this big stack in my

bedroom and then I took out ten percent and it

was mostly once because I was a waiter. And I

remember going to church at first week with a fat

stack and like dropping in offering plate, like build an addition,

you know.

And I just loved giving money to the Lord.

I loved it. And when I went off to Bible College,

we weren't allowed to work it for because we had

you weren't allowed to have your vehicle there at this

Bible College. And so I went to the chairman of

the board and I said, hey, I love the tithe,

but I'm not going to have a job. So what

do I do about tithing and giving to the church.

And he simply said, well, if you don't have a job,

you don't have anything to give. I said, okay, all right,

that makes sense. Well, I just love giving so much

that throughout the school year I would go to my

savings account and I would cut a check or I

would take money out and still give it as an

offering to the Lord. And I still remember having this

conversation with my mom because at this time our bank

accounts were linked, and she said, honey, you're not making

any money. You don't have a job. You're going to

be completely out of money if you don't stop giving

to the church. And she would just try to protect me,

but I didn't care, because, you know what, I reasoned

into my mind that if God was real, that he

would take care of every single need. Thirty years later,

there is not one need in my life that God

has not come through, for He is faithful.

And here's the thing.

When you become transformed by Christ, you live different. Life

of Christ is different. And so we ask this question

as we close out the Book of Hebrews, why do

we live differently?

The first six verses.

Say here's what life looks like if you're following Christ.

But then these last few verses tell us how to

live life like that what's the change we make. Well,

let's look at this together, and it's going to feel

like another sharp turn. So let's again look. This is

the high priest carries the blood of animals into the

most holy place as a sin offering.

That's quite a turn, right from love your neighbors.

All right, here we go.

But the bodies are burned.

Outside the camp. Pay attention to that outside the camp.

And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to

make the people.

Holy through his own blood.

So therefore, let us talking about you and I then

go to him where outside the camp?

And what do we bear? We bear the disgrace that he.

Bore for here we do not have an endurance city,

but we were looking forward to the city that is

to come.

So what's the first reason. What's that first.

Change we make when we make a decision. We choose

to go to Jesus outside of the camp. Now, now

to understand this line of thinking, to go outside of

the camp, you have to understand it, and you have

to go all the way back to the day of Atonement. Okay,

the day of Atonement was that one day of the

year where the high priest they would sacrificed a bull

and a goat, and they would take its blood into

the Holy of Holies, and when they went inside, they.

Would sprinkle the blood everywhere, and this blood would atone.

For the high priest, priest family, and the whole nation. Well,

then there's a question, what do we do with this

dead goat, this dead bull that represents the sins of

the nation. Leviticus tells us, says, this the bull and

the goat for the sin offerings, whose blood was brought

into the most holy place to make a tolment, must

be what taken.

Outside the camp.

So these bodies that represented sin had to go outside

the city, had to go outside of the community, and.

Had to go to the top outside of the camp.

Okay, away from the center of worship and the holy

people of God. And throughout Leviticus there's three different times

then it talks about taking something outside the camp.

Let's look at these, okay, three things. When it's outside

of the camp.

Levica sixteen twenty seven, spread the blood, the remains of

the sin offering must.

Be taken outside the camp. We go to Leviticus thirteen.

Guess what else is taken outside the camp? Those who

had a defiling disease. They were kicked out of the community.

They were banished, and they had to go outside of

the camp into isolation. Leviticus twenty four says that those

who were condemned for committing serious heinous crimes were to

be taken outside the camp where they would face judgment,

probably death. Outside of the camp, that's where the sin

offering was burned. Outside of the camp was where those

who had defiling diseases had to go live, separated.

From the community.

Outside of the camp was where those who needed to

face judgment would go. It represented separation, rejection, disgrace, and loss.

So Hebrews tells Us that Jesus, on our behalf, went

outside of the city. He went out side of the camp,

and he was treated like that sin offering that they

just wanted to burn up. He was treated like the

diseased person that needed to be thrown out. He faced

judgment like the criminal. And Hebrews says, this is where

Jesus went. And by the way, Jesus, and again he

wasn't crucified in a respected place like Jerusalem. The religious

leaders what did they do? They rejected him, The crowd

mocked him, rome treated him like a criminal.

He was stripped, beaten, publicly shamed.

Now, don't miss the gospel in this whole picture. Okay,

why did Jesus go outside of the camp. He went

outside so that you and I could be brought inside.

He carried our shame so that we could receive his righteousness.

Jesus was reject so that you could be welcomed.

Okay, Jesus did not merely offer just another sacrifice. Jesus

became the final sacrifice. For twelve chapters, Jesus is greater,

Jesus is greater, Jesus greater, Jesus greater. And then it

tells us once and for all, Jesus offered himself up

for all of our sins. In order to do so,

he went outside the camp. So, now here's the whole

application for the whole book of Hebrews. Knowing all these

things that we've learned over the first twelve and a

half chapters, it then tells us what to do. It says,

let us then go to him outside the camp. Now knows,

it doesn't just say go outside, It says go to him.

Jesus is at the center of this command. Jesus, see

we go because Jesus is there. We choose his approval

over a crowd's approval. We choose his way over the

world's way. We choose a costly love over a comfortable,

distancing d ser Bonhoffer, who is one of the only

pastors to stand up against the Nazi regime. Eventually he

was murdered and killed. He said this about those who

are intimate followers of Christ. He says, when Christ calls

a man, he bids him come and die. Now, for

most of us in this room, that does not obviously,

almost for every single one of us, that.

Does not mean physical death.

But it does mean dying to your need to be

admired by people, dying to your need to control everything,

dying to that need for comfort to be.

The highest good in your life.

Sometimes, okay, bearing the disgrace of Christ means you're gonna

look like a fool because you forgave somebody. Sometimes it

means that people are gonna think that you're narrow for

remaining sexually faithful. Sometimes people are gonna think you're naive

by letting certain people into your life.

And sometimes people are gonna question your.

Priorities when you give your money and your time away

see Hebrews very fascinating. I love this, I love this,

I love this, I love us. Hebrews uses the same

Greek word for disgrace here in chapter thirteen as it

does and eleven. Let's look at us has let us?

Then okay, go to him outside the camp, bearing what

the disgrace he bore? Where else did we see this?

A couple of weeks ago by faith Moses, when he

had grown up eccused me known as the son of

Pharaoh's daughter.

He chose to be mistreated.

Along with the people of God, rather than enjoy the

fleeting pleasures of sin. And then here it is, Oh,

I love this, I love this, I love us. He

regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater

value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking

ahead to reward. Moses could have had titles, wealth, herem, palaces,

I mean, you name it. He could have had it.

He gave it all up, and he went outside the

camp before the before there was even a camp. Why

because he looked forward to that future city, that future home. Now,

listen up, Christians, why do we live differently? It's because

we want to be wherever Jesus is so church. Hear me,

hear me when I say this. Okay, we are gonna

go where Jesus goes. We are gonna love who Jesus loves.

We're gonna welcome who Jesus welcomes. We're gonna make room

for who the world overlooks. We're gonna stand beside people

who are hurting. Okay. We're gonna serve even when no

one else applause.

We're gonna give even when nothing comes back, okay. And

we're gonna keep all loving people even when it becomes difficult.

And we're not gonna write off anyone that Jesus died for.

And we're gonna choose obedience over the world's approval.

Okay, We're gonna choose the Cross over comfort.

We're gonna choose the kingdom over our convenience. Comfort is

not gonna keep us from Jesus. Okay, Criticism is not

gonna keep us away from Jesus. We as a church

would rather be rejected with Jesus than accepted without him.

Because wherever Jesus is church, that's where we belong.

Will you go outside, will you go outside of the camp,

Will you suffer disgrace with Christ.

Will you live differently? You can only do that if

you make this last decision today that you know that

this world is not your home. Says for here we

do not have an endurance city, but we have a city,

a city to come. And it talks about Abraham and

says he was looking forward to his city and foundations,

whose architect and builder is God. Moses was able to

go to Egypt because he was looking ahead towards his reward.

Jesus went to the cross for the joy set before him. C. S.

Lewis says this, and I'm going to close with this.

The Christians who did most for the present world were

just those who thought most of the next. We started

this message out today of a parent sending a child away,

pouring out a list of reminders. But here's the beautiful difference.

When the parent finally drives away, the child stays behind.

But Hebrews thirteen says this, that our Father does not

send us out alone. For it says in Hebrews thirteen,

never will I leave you, Never will I forsake you.