Tana City Church Preaching
Kim Midgley | Hebrews 13v1-19 - How to live your faith
Heavenly Father, as we look at Your Word for a little bit of time, I pray that You would bring change in our lives that lasts forever. We're going to spend 30 or 40 minutes and discuss or listen to some of Your Word go, but we don't want it to be 30 or 40 minutes. We want it to be impactful in changing the way we think and the way we live for Your glory. Amen. Two weeks ago when I shared, I finished the end of chapter 12, it finished like this. "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God, accept to be with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." That's how the end of chapter 12 is written, it's like we have been seeing that God is a God who disciplines those who follow Him, and he not only disciplines us, but he also shakes the world, the stuff around us, and he's doing it in order to remove the stuff that isn't important. By important, I mean, there's stuff in life that we put up with because we have to, like money. But there's no money in eternity, in heaven, the streets are paved with gold. And stuff is like, that's where you walk on, if there was dirt, there's no dirt in heaven, but it's like that's the paving stones of heaven are gold. There's no currency in heaven, there's no need for money. So we have all sorts of things on earth that sometimes take on huge significance and importance in our lives, disproportionate to what God wants. And that's the problem, like money could have become disproportionately important to you. You're stressing over it, you're worrying about it, you're obsessing about it, and then God comes and he shakes things so that you can discover what truly matters, what's really important. And that's what growth is, when you mature from thinking something is so amazing, and then later you realize that's not really so amazing, there's a far greater reality I should have focused on. And people do this all the time in the world, they idolise things, they idolise people, they idolise sex, they idolise money, they idolise status, they idolise themselves when it comes to how they put themselves forward on social media, wanting approval and likes and celebrating people for being influencers for what? And God comes and he consumes it, our God is a consuming fire. The problem is if you've built your house on the sand, if you've built your house on the wrong set of values, when the storm comes or when Jesus sends the storm, that stuff crumbles and washes away. If God is shaking things that can be shaken, and he is a consuming fire burning up, that which has no value in eternity, what then should we invest in? That's the obvious next question is, if I shouldn't be holding onto the stuff of earth, what really matters? How do I really build my life? Another way we could talk about Hebrews is it's about persevering by faith. So much of this book is talking about persevering by faith. So much of Hebrews is forward looking, it's looking towards what's yet to come, the promises that God's given us, the promises of eternal life in Christ and a new heaven and a new earth that there's a new Jerusalem, there's a new temple, there's a new covenant, these are all the things that are in a sense coming towards these Jewish believers who have up until that moment in their lives been deeply embedded in Judaism, in the Hebrew culture, in the temple, in the law, in the ceremonies and the sacrifices in the shedding of blood. And so now they've been given all kinds of ideas and promises whose fulfillment they have yet to see. And that's why when we looked at Hebrews 11, it said none of these inherited what was promised and even we, those early church believers had not yet inherited what's promised. So this is a huge eschatological or forward looking in terms, thrust to the book of Hebrews. So it considers who Jesus is and what He's done and sets forth a guaranteed future for the true saint and says to the true saint your future lies ahead of you. You know what, I read recently just the other day, that vision is the driving force for change. In other words, no change comes about without vision. I guess that doesn't really apply to aging because you know, you just get old sometimes. There is change taking place with no vision, but they mean in terms of like how people grow and transform, you actually see something ahead of you and say I want to become more like that. I want to live more like that. And so vision drives change and what the writers about to set forward is some of the ideas that believers should be investing in if they want to get to the future that God has prepared for them. So this is a guaranteed future for the saints, but it's also a direction that you should aim your life in. So as a kind of conclusion, the writer sets forth what we are to do in response to the fact that God is shaking what can be shaken and replacing what needs to be replaced and moving beyond the old covenant into the new covenant. Not just for a day or a week or a month, but for the rest of our time on earth. For the rest of our time on earth, that's what the writers about to set forth. It's far more significant than a few self-help points. What we're about to see is not just ways to improve yourself, rather this is what you are to do, no matter what condition you're in, no matter how long it takes until you see Jesus face to face. And this is what the writer says, "I'm going to give you seven things here, seven break the next 19 verses into seven sections." Firstly Hebrews 13 verse 1, "Let brotherly love continue," that's the verse, "let brotherly love continue." Now some people are dumb, and they need to be spoon fed, and so they think that is a masculine verse, meaning what about sisters? So the enough of you, because it's a bit dumb down, it says, "Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters." So I'm not mocking anyone here, but I'm just wanting to understand this is, "Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters." In other words, the whole community, all of us, men, women, children and pets, keep loving one another. The pets aren't invested in it quite the same way that people are. Let brotherly love continue. You can't live out that scripture in isolation. You can't live out that scripture away from the community of God. So that is why we shouldn't neglect the gathering together of the saints. That is why we shouldn't jump from church to church. Why shouldn't you jump from church to church? Because no one will actually love you, and then they won't be able to love you because you can't love something you don't know. That's why you love God more as you know him more. The more you know one another, the more you love one another, or the more you can irritate it by one another. It is part of it, part of learning to love, and so let brotherly love continue. It means stay together as the people of God grow together, overcome the offences together, take some hurts together, and experience life in community. If you want to know how to invest your life as a believer, don't just invest it into projects. Don't just invest it into ministries, invest it into the community of the people of God. So for me, when someone comes to this church and they start sitting in a chair and I've never met them and I see them from Sunday to Sunday, I'm thinking I hope we can have a conversation in the boma, I hope we can have some time at tea and coffee just to find out a bit more about who we are. Because that to me is fundamentally as important an expression of the life of the Kingdom of God as this sitting here in the preaching. And so our fellowship is one of the deeply held values because Hebrews 13 verse 1, let brotherly love continue. Until we get to know one another, we're not able to even live out that first. And once we know one another and we're living out that first, let brotherly love continue. We wrestle with one another in terms of you said this, I don't really agree with that. So I thought you were going to arrive at 11, but you arrived at 11.30 and I'm offended. Whatever, you deal with the practicalities of real relationships, but it's in the context of community. So that's the first main point, the writer says, let brotherly love continue, stick together. Secondly, not just inward focused people, but Hebrews 13 verse 2 says, "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels and away, unawares." So it's possible that if you show kindness to somebody who you've never even met, that that could be a supernatural heavenly scheme, something's happening, something's taking place. It's a test. It's like, do you realize that sometimes when you do good to somebody or you care for somebody that you never even met, you could be caring for Jesus himself. He could have come incognito like the king of Jordan did to his civil servants when he visited the post office. You know the king of Jordan did that once. He had a habit of upsetting his kind of secret service guys by going in a no robes, no designations as a normal member of the public. He would go and visit some ministry of the government like the postal service or some other ministry and he would just be there to see what other people experience. He would be there just to see how bad things really are. It's like I always say about the guys that lead a nation, they should actually drive on the same roads as the rest of the people so they feel the same potholes. You shouldn't really have too many privileges. That king of Jordan would humble himself and go and actually visit and then I guess he would also fire some people afterwards. You don't always know who you are dealing with. You don't always know that God cares about that person so much so that he says, it is much as you've done it to the least of these, my brethren, you've done it unto me. He takes it personally. So if you want to look at how you should live your life secondly, do good to others. Firstly, love one another. Secondly, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, but thereby some have entertained angels unawares. In Hebrews 13 verse 3 we see thirdly, remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them and those who are mistreated since you are also in the body, meaning you also suffer. The point of the body there is that your physical and physical lives can experience hardship and pain and suffering and so out of an empathetic position we should care for people who are vastly worse off than us. The people that are even in prison, we should, as though in prison with them, we should feel some kind of, I'm not going to just live life in my own bubble as if I can insulate myself from everything around me. Actually have to experience and empathize with those people who are going through something really, really tough. Easy for us to block our eyes to a prison because they actually put like a wall around it and you can't really see what's going on inside there. Now I once visited a prison here in the city and one of our church members was taking a bit of a break there and an imposed break. You don't know this but there are members of this church who have been to prison, we're not perfect people and I went to go and visit the member in the prison and I was like, that's very weird. It is so disorganized, it's just like people milling around everywhere and you don't know who's actually working there and who's incarcerated there because even the prisoners sometimes have cell phones and they're doing stuff and sometimes they get date passes and it's a weird stuff. My idea of a prison, my mind was blown, really, my mind was blown. And then I saw a documentary on YouTube that actually looked in graphic detail at the prison here and basically listed it as one of the biggest human rights violations on planet Earth. One of the biggest human rights violations on planet Earth, that is the prison right now, they interviewed a guy who was there at that time of the making of that video. He was in prison for 38 years because he didn't have a way to defend him and he still hasn't had a right defense to his accusations. He was simply scooped up after there was a murder or something and he was accused of the murder, put in jail and that's all he knows and you can see in the interview, the best judgment I can make, the guy was actually falsely arrested. So he's been 38 years of his life in prison and he's probably not guilty of the crime he's committed and he's probably still there. So as a believer, as a believer, if we read, remember those who are in prison, those who are in prison with them, I think we need to say, God help us to become more compassionate and more passionate about seeing justice and seeing healing in our nation, in our world. So that's the third thing. These are massive points that the writer is putting forward. Fourthly, let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bid be under filed for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. That's one verse, it's not a whole section dealing with marriage or relationships or husbands and wives, I think it's just one verse that the writer puts forward, let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bid be under filed for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Now remember, these are not life hacks. This is literally the practical way you should live your life. If you value, brotherly love, if you value hospitality towards strangers, if you value empathy for the weak, and if you value the marriage covenant, whether you're single or married, these are the ways that we should live until we go to see Jesus. So these are things that you say, without vision, your life is kind of going nowhere. But if you put this before you and say, God, I want to live this set of values. God, I want to carry this set of convictions in view of the fact that everything else is going to be shaken, in view of the fact that certain things are fixed and they won't change. So no matter how liberal people attack the institution of marriage, it will not change. God created that institution, let marriage be held in honor by all. So we say, God, no matter how the world wants to re whatever the word is, deconstruct and reconstruct the view of marriage and family, that's not going to change. I'm going to hold biblical marriage in honor. If you decide as a single person, that's what you want, it means that you actually put marriage as a value, even before you're in it, in the institution. It will rule over your life, it will direct your decisions, it will enable you to do what please is good, because you're saying now, I have a conviction, I have a vision, this is how things should be, this is how I'm going to live my life. First thing, hey these things are not simple are they, I mean in practice, it's simple to understand, it's extremely difficult to live out. Hebrews 13 verse 5, keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said to, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say it's in verse 6 that the Lord is my helper, I will not fear, what can man do to me? I'm sure there's a connection between verse 5 and 6, the love of money and the fear of man. The reason you need money is because you want to give yourself power amongst other humans. You want to be able to protect yourself from some kind of abuse that might happen to the poor. Some of the money can lead you into all kinds of self-preservation, self-worship and away from dependence on God, but actually what are we supposed to do, depend on God? I will never leave you nor forsake you, you can confidently say the Lord is my helper. So whether you earn a hundred thousand area a month or ten million area a month to God, money is the little thing, what he wants to know is are you leaning upon him, are you putting your hope in him, are you putting your trust in him, are you finding your security in him. That's a tough one for me at the moment because I'm in my early 50s and I'm starting to think what provisions have I made for when I'm 70 or 80 if God blesses me with many years. And I think how much of this do I have to now start fighting a financial battle, or have I missed about 30 years ago when I should have started a massive retirement funding. And you can get caught up in all this like how I should be providing for myself. And Hebrews says to us, keep your life free from love of money, be content with what you have, for he has said I will never leave you nor forsake you. God will never forsake me, no matter how unprepared I am for the future. God will never forsake me, no matter how little savings I have. God is with me, it is with far more, he is my helper, I will not fear, see there's the root often, money comes and says I can take away your fear and it doesn't, it never does. You have more money you still have fear, now you have the fear you had and the worry about the money you have, just gets worse. Sixthly, Hebrews 13 verse 7 to 9, 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, today, forever, do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, but it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. This is not about gluttony, this is about false teaching, this is about people who were running after the wrong kind of spirituality, people who wanted to go back to the ceremonial aspects of the Old Covenant and they were wanting to make an issue out of what was clean and not clean and what was to be eaten when in Bahu, and in the context of that the writers saying stay true to the gospel, stay in grace. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, so don't run after a new or novel teaching. There is truth that stays as the truth you must stand in and stand in it by grace, hence the remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God, they brought the truth, some of them the implication that verses, some of them have already been martin or died, so remembering them the way you remember someone that you can't see every day, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their face, nothing should change, you should stand firm in the grace of the gospel, do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, it's good for the heart to be strengthened by grace not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. Yeah, you can see a bit more of these thoughts as we read further in Hebrews 30, verse 10-13, we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat, that means we have something in the new covenant that those who serve in the old have no access to. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the heart priest is a sacrifice for son of a bird outside the camp, so when they made sacrifices under the old covenant they would have to take the unholy carcass of the animal and burn it outside the city, so Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood, so he was crucified outside of Jerusalem, now the point that's being made here by the right is quite significant, because he says therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the approach he endured, that's actually being described there is that some of those believers were wanting to go back to the old covenant and its ceremony and its holy kind of ritual and all that happened at the temple in the center of Jerusalem, the city that was the holy city on earth and the temple that was the holiest place and they were all there and in the right is this but even so the atonement took place, the burning of the offering actually the ashes were scattered outside the city and Jesus when he went and died for you he was outside of the city and he says that was reproachful, so you want respectability of religion but actually what you should do is go the way Jesus went, away from the temple, the old temple, away from the old Jerusalem, away from the respectability of this spirituality and go where Jesus was mocked and where he was rejected and where he died outside the camp, therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the approach he endured, why would it be a reproach because it would be easier for a Jewish Christian to fit in with the existing Jews if he carried on going to the temple but now that he stopped going to the temple he's feeling maybe I should go back because that's where the the ceremonies happened, that's where the religious stuff was happening, that's where all the other old covenant guys go the ones who are persecuting us, it would be so much easier if we just went back, this is always a challenge for a Christian, it's so much easier for you to just go fit in, fit in with everybody around you, fit in with your family, fit in with the traditions, fit in with that, no there's no reproach in that, but Jesus went outside of the city, he was rejected and he was crucified outside of the city, the issue with the old covenant is not that it was bad, but it's been superseded, but to this day people tried to find more spiritual alternatives to the offensive gospel of grace and they tried to bring people into something of a practice or a religious practice or a ceremonial or a traditional thing, even outside of the law and the old covenant Christians do this with their mysticism or their super spirituality where they've discovered even more than the other believers know about God, I don't know if you've seen some of that, I've seen it quite a lot in the more mystical the guys who go on this introspective journey of finding God and then they do think they do and then they get stuck, none of this works, that's why you can read this in Colossians 2 verse 16, I'm going to read some verses in Colossians 2 verse 16, therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath, these are a shadow of the things to come but the substance belongs to Christ, let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by a sensuous mind and not holding fast to the head, in other words not under Christ's authority from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with the growth that is from God, if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why as if you are still alive in the world do submit to regulations, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, that's referring to ceremonial stuff, referring to these things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings, these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body but there are no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh, it's a shocking indictment, all rights to the Colossians and he says those super spiritual guys are achieving nothing and you will achieve nothing if you try to reinvent ceremonies or reinvent customs and food practices and special holy places and special holy practices, it's not where the life is, the life is in Christ, the life is in being set free from the condemnation of your sins, the life is in being forgiven by his blood, so not looking for Jerusalem on earth, that's the point, but rather praising God everywhere, so we get to Hebrews 13, verse 14 and 15 which say for here we have no lasting city, not like the Jews who have Jerusalem, we are not like them, 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, through Christ let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name, so what kind of temple worship should you worship, none except Christ, he is our heavenly temple, where should you go with your praise, to praise God wherever you are through Christ, you are now like Jesus, the fulfillment of his words to the Samaritan woman who he said, she asked where do we worship at the mountain or in Jerusalem and he said no, that's going, the true worship is worship in spirit and truth which means you go to worship more tomorrow than you do even in this hour, here on Sunday this is not the church building, this is a school hall which is wonderful because it helps you not to think of the temple as a place, the temple is Jesus, there is a new city we are looking forward to and we worship Jesus and give him praise all week long and then just some concluding verses, do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices of pleasing to God, so is God looking for religion, no, James one verse 26 says if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridal his tongue but deceives his heart this person's religion is worthless, so you can't go to church on Sunday, consider yourself a religious person and then on Monday you lose control of your tongue and say something nasty to someone or gossip, see now your religion is false, it's being proved false, if anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridal his tongue but deceives his heart this person's religion is worthless, religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is thus to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world, that's how James puts it, it harkens back to Isaiah 58, many of you would know Isaiah 58, it's the people are fasting and the people are doing their religious activity with fervor and they are trying to twist God's arm by being good and zealous for the things of the earthly temple, so they are following their religion passionately and the Prophet says in Isaiah 58 verse 4 "behold you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with the wicked first, fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high" and I was going to listen to you, is such the fast that I choose a day for a person to humble himself, like my dad going to church on Easter, he was an Anglican but he wasn't born again, he didn't love Jesus, he just picked a day, took a day, Easter or Christmas and went to church, is such the fast that I chose a day for a person to humble himself, is it to bow down his head like a reed and to spread sex clothes and ashes under him, will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord, now it's God saying that's not it, those religious practices don't increase it, verse 6 "is not this the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke, is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house, when you see the naked to cover him and not to hide yourself from your own flesh, we hide ourselves from our own flesh very often, because this actually true religion means you care for the stranger, you care for the person who's in prison, and lastly, seventh be under authority, Hebrews 30 verse 17 says obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will give have to give an account, this is in the context of the church, the writers saying obey your leaders, submit to them they're keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account, let them do this with joy and not with groaning, some of you have made me groan, some of you I wish you had, what I've been by that is some who are in a sense submitted to this church's authority have blown it in various ways and we've had to walk a painful road of church discipline to bring healing, others of you don't even understand the process, you don't even know that you could bring your life to leaders in the church and actually say I need to walk together, I need to have your authority in my life, I need to be under this church government so that I can grow, and so that's why I say unfortunately some of you haven't even made me groan, and I just to put it into perspective that I'm not perfect, I'm not suggesting that by submitting to church authority you're submitting to a perfect team, Craig Ina, I know these guys, Craig's been sick this last week, he's far from perfect, if his faith was big he wouldn't have, I'm joking. You know if you're given the health, wealth and prosperity gospel you can't even confess that you get sick if you're a leader, you have to be perfect, no we're normal guys who get sick and we sin sometimes, but you know what Craig came to me the other day and he just goes to an area of his life where he's vulnerable, and I said to him yell, these are some of the things I would do in that context, or I have done in that context to try to be stronger, and I try to strengthen him, and he strengthens me, and there's another guy that I call, who's a pastor in another church, because I'm not just living at the top of a pyramid, I'm just part of the body of Christ, and so I call another guy and I say hey this is how I'm doing, I'm struggling, I'm feeling angry about everything again, pray for me, I don't know if I can keep ministering here, doing people good if I get better and jaded, so I need more of the grace of God to soften my heart and I cry out my vulnerability to someone else, that's really what this writer sees when he says obey your leaders and submit to them, for they're 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 designed to act honorably in all things, I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you sooner, that last part that I'm looking at today, that's the last verse that I'm looking at this morning, notice how personal it becomes, that even this guy writing to the Hebrew says pray for me and more earnestly that I may be restored to you sooner, so he wants to be in fellowship, he wants to be in relationship, he wants to be there with the people of God, it's personal and it's relational, even the idea of being submitted in a local church is so that you can flourish, it's so that you can be healed, it's so that you can be strengthened, and it's very personal, it's personal and relational, as is our relationship with Jesus, it's not religious, as is our belonging in the body of Christ and participating in the community, it's not ceremony, it's practical works, it's social care, it's empathy for the week, it's sharing with those in need, the bed come up, we're going to close this part of our meeting with some worship, so in these verses the writer puts forward a number of ways that you should live your whole life, I want to encourage you this morning to understand that as a Christian you have to go with Jesus outside of the norm, outside of the religious sphere, outside of the safety of that city on earth, you have to leave behind dependence on your money, idolizing the things the world idolizes, and you have to love a family who are very ordinary people and continue to love them with brotherly love, that's what these verses have shown us, that there is a way we should be living, it's not so easy, it's not really complicated either, we should set that vision before us and say God help us, help us to live in the body of Christ, help us to honor you with a clean conscience, don't you stand, I'm going to pray for us and we'll sing together. Heavenly Father we thank you for your word, we thank you for the book of Hebrews that's shown us, all that Jesus has done to secure for us a better eternity, a better kingdom, a better covenant, a better city, a better priesthood, a better priest, Jesus you are everything to us, you are our hope and our security, you're the motivating love that's in our hearts, you come and put that love there, and so God today, speak into our hearts Lord, to love one another, to love the strangers, to live the value system of your kingdom where marriage is honored, where justice is, is a meaningful, a meaningful pursuit Lord, we want to do these things for your glory, God. (gentle music) [MUSIC PLAYING]