Sermon Notes – Hebrews 13

Why do you do what you do?

“You went to work”   (or not)

“You stopped at a stop sign” (or not)

“You said a kind word to a co-worker.”  (or not)

Part of the answer is “we do things based on a set of beliefs.”

We do what makes sense to us.

There are things we think are true and these shape our actions.

But…we can all think of a time, probably very recently when we acted in ways that did not align with our sincerely held beliefs.

Perhaps you believe, strongly, that you should love your family and using certain words are an important part of this…then you used words that were not loving with them.

So, does this mean you don’t actually believe you should love your family or is something else in play here?

Of course, to be unkind to your family is wrong, sinful…so is the solution to aligning beliefs and actions… to repent more, try harder, pray more?

Those are good things…but like the old adage says…we need to learn to work smarter not just harder.

Not smarter rather than harder…smarter and harder is often required.

What would working smarter look like?

We have talked a lot the past two years about: beliefs/values/behavior

I want to pause to make sure we understand, in practical ways…the implications for this.

Today and next Sunday, we are in the “practical” section of Hebrews (chapter 13)…and we launch into James in two weeks, the NT book of practical Wisdom.

People tend to love James…because they think he sort of skips all the heart parts and just goes straight to the doing part.

They love it because, it just doesn’t take as much effort to grapple with…or so they think…we will see.

To end Hebrews and begin James…let’s try to grapple with “belief, values, behaviors”…a full on approach to who we are as humans.

After all, Jesus said, To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength…sums up what God wants for us.

What does that indicate?: mind=belief, strength=actions, heart=values…and and love others…do all this in an interpersonal context.

If you believe something, like Ps 90:12  “Teach us to number our days aright that we might gain a heart of wisdom” translates in principle to…

“What matters most at the end, matters most know”

Translates in practice to…you should let go of the small stuff…be kind, be content, be grateful, don’t be so petty…all that.

Then…you go out today and act in petty, discontent, and ungrateful ways…are you a hypocrite?

I’ve had people tell me after a moving experience in a funeral service…contemplating life and death and eternity…”I was resolved to forgive and love others…but it didn’t last”

Did your actions give lie to your supposed belief?  Do you really not believe Ps 90:12 is true…maybe you don’t believe you are going to die…or loving people isn’t important?

I suppose it could mean you don’t really believe.

You would have to answer that for yourself…for me, I sometimes act in ways that do not align with my sincerely held beliefs.

It is not a sign of hypocrisy (which would be falsely claiming to have mastered something)  but a sign of inadequate training…or inattention…or passivity…or whatever.

We train for godliness to deal with the “reflexes” of life in a human body…for instance our minds reside in our brains, they are not the same thing…sometimes we have wired our brains in unhelpful ways…through our choices or what has been done to us.

We have chemical responses to threat…real or imagined (someone gives what we think to be criticism and we have a chemical flood in our blood)…these are hard to overcome at times.

We have developed patterns of thought and speech and actions.

We sometimes call training for godliness…Spiritual disciplines…prayer, scripture memory, reflection, community, taking thoughts captive, gratitude…all kinds of proactive choices that help us become people whose behavior more and more align with our beliefs…with the truth.

These things are not (or shouldn’t be) about earning, or impressing, or duty…they are about becoming who we want to be.…transformed people.

We sometimes have good theology but bad anthropology…we don’t pay attention to how God has made us as these physical/spiritual/relational hybrids.

Spiritual disciplines, training for godliness is about training our “hearts” to learn to love what is valuable…it is becoming someone on the inside…not just having ideas in our heads, or gluing actions onto our outsides.

But ideas in our heads and actions in our lives…do shape us in our hearts…so it’s all tied together.

Let me give you a scenario…perhaps your alarm goes off and you get up and go to work…

…all kinds of beliefs are behind this behavior. (I believe I should pay my bills, I believe having money to eat is good)

So, you have trained yourself to drag your body out of bed (a good thing).

Then in your drowsy state…you suddenly remember you are off today and you have planned to do something you truly love to do…suddenly there is no “dragging yourself”…you jump up, ready to go.

What is in play here?  You had some beliefs, and a behavior (you got up)…but now, getting up is about something you love and it has shaped you somewhere in “here.”

And it impacts you “out here”…jump up, not just drag yourself out.

Now dragging yourself out of bed is s good thing.

But my point is…the more we shape our hearts to love…the less the good choices are “dragging ourselves”

We need good beliefs, good choices, and we want a heart that aligns with both.

When I was young my dad dragged my church…I did not value it at all.

When I turned 18, I dragged myself to church…but habit without conviction…I still did not value it…other than the value of checking a box.

At age 19, God encountered me in a life changing way…in the course of a single summer, I came to love church.

Sometimes our hearts can change very quickly…often it takes time.

Since then…I believe life in community is God’s will, I have shown up for community in my choices…and I have loved the church in my heart…and each of those has impacted the other.

Training for godliness involves understanding truth (beliefs), making good choices (behavior), but not being content to just “drag” ourselves through life…although when necessary, we must do that.

We want to shape our hearts (values)…so that more and more we are learning to love what is true, good, lovely…as Paul wrote in Philippians.

We are becoming different.

But that heart part is the slippery part…we more easily grasp…head and hands, belief and behavior.

“Learn this” “Do that”

But then there is that “become like Christ” …more slippery than “know this stuff” and “do that stuff”…it is “become this person”

We cannot fail to pay attention to our “affections”…or our hearts…the real engine of our lives.

I sometimes put this up in an image as if it is linear…beliefs shape values shape behavior.

Or like a cycyle…

***But it actually more like a network…all parts impacting the others all the time.

Sometimes…Christians will “give up”  they will fail to endure…as the writer of Hebrews has continually challenged us…

–because they can’t make sense out of their…beliefs/values/behavior not aligning.

“I believe the gospel, I love God and believe that what matters most at the end matters most now.”

So…what next?

“I go to church and group, I read the Bible, I try to have accountability and make good choices…I try to be kind to my family.”

And?

“And I still struggle with sexual sin.  I am still easily angered. I’m unkind to my spouse.”

I…you fill in the space here.”

So we conclude that maybe the problem is I need more “information”…maybe need more “in depth” bible study?

Okay…let me give a deep dive into Eph. 5:25…see if the problem with loving your spouse is a lack of information.

“Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.”

Okay…what that means in the original Greek is “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.”

-You don’t need any more depth of insight to comprehend its meaning…the problem is application.

-By all means grow in the knowledge of Scripture…but that’s one part of things.

Okay, then my actions are the problem…I need to try harder…do more:

-No doubt for most of us, we could try harder…and so in Hebrews we find lots of “Let us”…followed by specific choices to be made.

Same as James…there are lots of “to dos” in James.

-But it’s hard, if not impossible to endure “dragging ourselves” through actions over the long haul…if our hearts are not changing.

And…if our hearts aren’t changing…Jesus, would ask…what is the point?

Barry Mcquire, had a hit song in the 60’s called “Eve of Destruction”…this 60’s rocker, later became a Christian and wrote a called “What good would it do.”

The chorus goes like this…”What good it would do, to change my way of living, if everything inside me stayed the same.  What good would do to give you what I’m giving…if giving didn’t take away the pain.”

In my heart…the place where I am learning to love certain things and people…and God

-I am being shaped by beliefs and behaviors…but I must pay attention to what is happening there.

Who am I becoming…Jesus said the good man brings good out of the good stored up in him.

This is about us becoming a different kind of person…not just doing and believing things…although again, it’s all tied together.

I’m not making this more complex than it is…it is complex…but it is how things work in the real world.

I believe that God’s will for my life is to prioritize my family.  It is a strongly held belief.

I have acted, inconsistently over the years in regard to this belief.

I am not a hypocrite…I do have this belief, I do love my family…but I don’t pretend I am perfect in living out this belief.

But as over the years I have nurtured my confidence in what God has said (deeply invested in truth)…head…believed Scripture.

And as I have made choices to act with love towards my family…whether I feel like it or not…and when I have repented of the many times when I have failed to show love…obey Scripture

My heart, has more and more come to treasure my family…it’s become who I am.

Which has in turn cemented my beliefs, and made loving choices easier(not easy, but easier…which has made me treasure my family more…you get the point.

There is just no way around this cycle (or network) of transformation…it shows up over and over in Scripture…we have seen it in the NT letters, each one of them.

So today…after a summer of “Believe this truth” and “wrap you heart around these values” in Hebrews…we land on a single chapter of “do this.”

Now, clearly there have been plenty of things to “do”…lots of “let us” along the way.

These have been external, internal, and interpersonal to do.

But even as the letter closes with a sort “do this” list…this list is infused with heart attitudes and truth realities that empower our actions.

13        Keep on loving each other as brothers. ² Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. ³ Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

Keep on loving each other as family…is given to us as an exhortation precisely because it is hard to do…or to keep doing.

Over time…we can anger, annoy, offend, confuse, bore, misunderstand…each other.

This is the norm for humans…so we must choose to “keep on loving each other”.

But “I can’t help how I feel, I don’t feel love them. “

First…you absolutely can (over time) help how you feel.

We think “feelings” are out of our control…in the moment, yes…over time…no.

All adults with normal brain functioning…train ourselves for our emotional responses…we have and we can.

Paul Comegys…In our first year together…when I saw him, my heart rate went up (as I looked for a place to hide from him), I felt something like “disgust”, I’m ashamed to say.

But, then for thirty years…he was my dear friend…my emotional response to seeing him at the Y or on my doorstep…became pure joy…I felt delight.

How do you go from feeling disgust to feeling delight…did it just happen to me?

No, I believed God’s truth about Paul, I invested my life in Paul…and him in me…and my heart changed…my emotional response changed.

So yes, you can change your feelings over time.

People even do this in regards to “feelings about food” or snakes or bugs…they can change their reflexes.

*You say, “Not me, I will always gag on peas…I feel disgusted thinking about them right now.”…okay I’m not going to dispute you…but we can make choices in regards to even our emotions and auto-reflexes.

Second…love cannot be defined down to mere feelings and reflexes.

So…In view of all the amazing stuff that has been said about Christ…the writer says, keep on loving each other as members of a single family.

Then, two practical applications: Demonstrating that love ultimately shows up in actions.

-Be hospitable

-Remember those who are suffering

In context, many Christians were being chased around the Roman empire because of persecution…some being thrown in jail.

There were some local “inns” but they were notorious places of sexual immorality.

So…this was more than just…”have people over for dinner” (though that would be a very good place to begin)…it is tied to seeing yourself as part of the larger body (family of Christ)

Some were displaced, others had been thrown into prison…they were to put themselves out there…to love and empathize with them.

What’s up with this potentially hosting angels…the writer again uses Old Testament history to illustrate his point.

Abraham and his nephew Lot both hosted the same two angels…not knowing they were angels, at least initially.

Why use this rather strange reminder?

They would have all known the story…and the writer is casting vision for seeing “greater things in the ordinary choices.”

Jesus goes one up on this…when he said “Whatever you did to the least, you did to me.”

So, taking care of each other in community…is experiencing Christ in your midst.

So… for God is expressed in love for others…in practical ways.

Again…this is not behavior divorced from heart change…this is about connecting life choices with beliefs and values.

Often the choices God commands will be out of sync with the prevailing culture as will our beliefs and values are…for example…look at the next paragraph in this passage.

⁴ Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. ⁵ Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,  “Never will I leave you;  never will I forsake you.” ⁶ So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

We rightly grieve the loss of commitment to marriage and sexuality as God has designed it

Especially as we see the terrible human cost of this loss…it is destroying lives.

But throughout history…there have been times and places where things were better and things were worse in this regard.

We live in a “worse”down cycle.

But so were the people reading this letter in the first century.

Marriage was not held in high esteem, immorality was widely acceptable and common in the Roman empire.

In addition, they loved money every bit as much as many Americans do today.

Money is power…the ability to control life, fulfill our wants and needs.

Money is security.

So, look at beliefs, values, behavior in this passage:

Behavior: Do what needs to be done to honor marriage, stay faithful.  Do what needs to be done to not love money and live with discontent.

Values/Heart:  Become content.

-Contentment will empower sexual purity.

-Contentment will keep you from loving money.

-Contentment will help your marriage

-Contentment will help your relationship with God thrive

All this grounded on a belief…

Belief: God will never leave me or forsake me.  I believe he is faithful.

-So this is what I will do…and this is who I want to become.

-A person who IS content…and does what contentment does…loves their spouse, doesn’t fall in love with money.

Let’s go on…because next we see that we can be confident that our choices to express faith in faithfulness…will pay off.

⁷ Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. ⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

In chapter 11 he turned their minds towards some historical figures whose faith was expressed in faithfulness…they were not all great people…but in various ways served as examples.

Now he turns their minds towards leaders they knew personally, who presumably had died…or more likely, been killed.

They are to consider the outcome of their lives (faithfulness) and use them as models for their own lives of faith.

Look at how what they believed, valued, did…lead to certain kinds of “outcomes”

In verse 8…we have this great statement of faith fact (a belief)…Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Because we know this is a fact (Jesus doesn’t change) we can expect the same outcomes in our lives that all those who have come before us experienced.

So look at Hebrews 11 and look at leaders you have known…look at their faith expressed in faithfullness…look at the outcomes of that kind of life…they were not perfect, neither are you…but look at the outcomes.

Now…know this…Times change…conditions change…technology changes…Jesus does not.

Consider the outcomes of the lives of the faithful…you can fully expect the same outcome for your life…why?

Jesus doesn’t change.

And then since Jesus doesn’t change…neither does the truth of the gospel.

So…it follows than…that we must not be caught up in strange teachings…hold the course.

⁹ Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them.

Already, at this early stage in Church history there were all kinds of strange teachings.

Strange doesn’t just mean weird…but outside the already accepted orthodoxy…the truth handed down from Jesus.

The sheer volume of “strange teachings” can be overwhelming…especially in the internet age.

Be careful that you don’t become cynical and fail to have your heart strengthened by grace…that you stop believing that you can know the truth…there is true truth to be known.

Cynicism can come as we say “Nobody agrees on anything.  Who can I trust.  There are too many views/denominations…I can’t have confidence in truth.”

That’s just not true…the command here to not be carried away by diverse strange teachings indicates that there is a single body of truth that was the accepted standard.

Accepted by the people who had been with Jesus in person and knew exactly what he taught...our confidence in Scripture comes directly through our confidence in Jesus as Lord.

There is diversity in the Church on non-essentials…but there is unity in the Church (The church that takes the Bible and Christ seriously) on essentials.

You have to believe that you can know truth…Because God in his mercy has made it known.

How will you maintain the confidence and endurance neccesary to live the truth if you don’t believe it is possible to know it?

Pilate, in his conversation with Jesus, after the Lord indicated that it was possible to know truth by listening to him.

Replied, “What is truth?”

We cannot be like that…hardened cynics…resigned to being able to know what is true and valuable and worth giving our lives too.

Truth is accessible to us, because God in his mercy has made it so.

Let’s go on…this next paragraph is very Old “Testamenty”…but there is a very distinct practical application.

¹⁰ We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.¹¹ The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. ¹² And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.

The writer is contrasting the OT altar with the NT one(cross)

In the OT sacrificial systems…animal blood was put on the altar as a sin offering…the bodies of the dead animals were taken out of the city to be burned…these carcasses were unclean.

But in the New Covenant…Jesus, the final sacrifice suffered outside the city gates to make us holy through his own blood.

The cross was the altar…he was the Holy of Holies…the access point between us and God.

What does this mean practically?

Jesus, carried his cross to a place called Golgotha, outside the walls of Jerusalem.

His body was also buried outside the city gates.

The cross and a dead body of a man killed by the empire…it was all seen to be unclean, unholy, disgraceful.

But…in reality, his disgrace has made us clean, his death makes us holy.

Holy is a word that means “set apart”.

It looked like Jesus was cast outside the walls, like so many dead animals.

However, he went there…on his own accord…he suffered shame in order to make the way for us to experience glory.

He was not cast away…he was set apart…he is the holy one.

Now…the application part.

¹³ Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. ¹⁴ For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

In Christ, God has made us holy…he has set us apart for his purposes.

We are to live with this mentality (heart) of being willing to live outside the camp…bearing the disgrace he bore…for his honor and the good of others

This is not our city…ours is yet to come.

Let me unpack this by starting with a quote from the book, “Strange New World.”

“The era when Christians could disagree with the broader convictions of the secular world and yet still find themselves respected as decent members of society at large is coming to an end, if indeed it has not ended already.”

The only way some, maybe many…will be “okay” with you…is if you abandon Christ…if you keep compromising in order to keep up with culture’s steady retreat from truth.

“No, but I’m going to just compromise enough to find a middle ground…touchpoints.”

It’s probably not going to happen.

The response to this is not to become ungodly and unchristlike in our responses.

Not to run people off…to blame our own hard heads and belligerence on “suffering for Christ”

We are to become more gentle, more kind, more loving, look for opportunities to build relationships.

But in all of that we must be willing, in our hearts,  to bear his disgrace.

By all means, run for office, vote, run businesses that prosper, teach, train…be the best possible citizens of this city, state, country.

The first century Christians were the best citizens of Rome…but that did not stop them from being persecuted.

In our hearts…we cannot expect to be applauded and celebrated…and we cannot be dismayed when we are treated, as Christ was…as objects of disgrace.

We shouldn’t bring it on ourselves…but we shouldn’t run from it either.

In 2001 PBS had a frontline episode entitled “The Merchants of Cool.”

It was a telling commentary on how what is “cool” is shaped by the “merchants of cool.”

These are the leaders in business and advertising …who shape cool to sell stuff…mostly to younger generations with their discretionary buying power.

So, these people…use a variety of methods to make certain things cool…then younger people adopt those things and believe they have shaped it.

One young lady in an interview on the film said about her choice “Everyone is doing it, its how we express our individuality.”

The irony of that statement was lost on her.

The church, must not take an adversarial approach to the current culture.

It also cannot adopt a non-engagement approach…we cannot check out.

We are to be “in and not of” the world.

But we cannot chase the world around us as it chases its own tail…we cannot chase current cool…in order to somehow make the gospel more palatable.

The Gospel will always be a stumbling block…the Greek word for “scandal”.

If someone becomes discontent with the emptiness of the world apart from God…they don’t want a church trying to keep up with the world…they want a church that is living in the world but it not addicted to it.

Living in this city, but citizens of a better one.

Let’s wrap up, we will finish chapter 13 next week.

CONCLUSION

¹³ Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. ¹⁴ For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

I love Wichita…it is my home…I love America, it is my country…but it is not permanent.

I believe I live best as a citizen in this city and nation as I remember where my permanent residence is.

Since I believe this…I must be willing to be thought of as uncool, a fool, a disgrace even.

I feel the pull of cool…I want to be in, respected, accepted…we all do.

CS Lewis wrote of the intense pull to be in the “inner ring”…of whatever circles we want to run in…we are to resist this pull in our minds and lives.

We are to become people…for whom more and more…this looks like the emptiness that it is.

So, there is a very distinct belief that we hold…the gospel is true, eternal life is real.

There is a very distinct set of actions we are to practice…things in line with the gospel realities…we will not compromise the truth.

And then there is the heart that drives all this…we are becoming like Christ…as Christ is changing us inside out.