Enduring In Love

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0:00Okay, so how many people here have ever been a waiter or a waitress? Raise your hand. Wow, that's more people than I realize. Keep them raised. I want to kind of take it in for a second. Okay, all right. So there's a common bit of wisdom that all of you, former or maybe current waiter and waitresses, can relate to, maybe be sympathetic to. It's called the waiter rule or the waitress rule. Um, essentially it means that the way you treat wait staff shows a lot about your character.

0:41In a sense, waiters and waitresses, you know, they're temporarily working for you, right? They're obligated to serve you, at least to a certain extent, right? And you can treat them however you want to. It's, there's no, there's nothing in it for you other than what's just in your character. Your, your date, your friend, your coworker, whoever is there with you in a restaurant, they might be nice to you, but to really know their character, watch how they treat the waitress or the waiter.

1:11Um, I've heard that sometimes people will take, um, companies will take, uh, interviewees out to, uh, lunch as part of the interview, just so they can see how the, how the potential hire will, you know, will treat the waitstaff. If you, young people, if you go out on dates, watch, watch the person that you're there on a date with. How do they treat the waitstaff? That's going to show a lot about their character. Um, how we treat other people matters.

1:41And it doesn't just reveal the character that's already inside of us, but it also indicates our spiritual health. How we treat people is an indicator of our spiritual health. When God brings us to him, he also brings us together to each other. So if we say we love God, but disregard one another, we are deceiving ourselves. Something is way off. And on the flip side, when we lean into the truth that God has not just brought us to him in Christ, but he's brought us to one another.

2:18When we lean into that, when we act as the new community that we are, we are blessed, we are enriched. It doesn't just reveal what's inside of us and how we're doing it. It also forms and shapes us. It makes us, it improves our spiritual lives. When God's people love each other as an act of worship, watch out because great things happen. Great things happen. And that's what today's passage is all about. We're wrapping up our sermon series in Hebrews called Toward an Enduring Faith.

2:52And today we're going to see that the love of Christ, the redeeming work of Christ compels us to practice love in the community of faith. Love that's selfless, love that looks like Jesus. So let's read. Let's go to the passage today and kneel before the word of God. Have him impact us as the word goes forth today. This is the word of God for you today. God knows you specifically, personally. He knows what you need to hear, how you need to be encouraged and exhorted.

3:30You can trust him. So let's lean into that together, church. This is Hebrews 13, one through six. 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.

4:09Keep 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 can man do to me?

4:30Pray with me. Lord Jesus, we are your humble people, so please give us what we need today. Feed us with your word. Change us by your word. Lord, draw us into your love. Help us to abide in your love. And help us to lift our eyes and see the needs around us, Lord. Shape us as people who continually move towards others in love and in service. Lord, help us do that as an act of worship, Lord. Increase our worship of you in everything in our lives. We pray this, Jesus, in your name.

5:07Enduring in love. We had enduring with discipline, enduring by grace, and this week, enduring in love. God's beloved people should care for others boldly and selflessly. The previous chapter of Hebrews, chapter 12, it ended with a call to thankfulness, a call to worship, because we stand before him by grace. And now we're in the last chapter. It's getting even more practical. It's getting very ground level. Lots of practical advice in this chapter.

5:40Chapter 13 is the epilogue. It's the wrap-up. The credits are about to roll on Hebrews. He's got a few parting things to say. It's filled, this chapter is filled with little staccato notes of instruction. Very short, very brief. One after the other. In this passage today, we have seven of them. And they all might seem a little disconnected, but we should understand all of them in light of the first one, verse one. So let's start with that verse. That's the heading for the whole passage.

6:12Verse one says, let brotherly love continue. So I studied Greek and Hebrew in seminary, and Hebrew was challenging. I really enjoyed studying Greek, though. In part because I realized I already knew some Greek. And in fact, you all know a lot more Greek than you even realize that you do. Philadelphia is known as the city of what? Brotherly love. Well, you know some Greek. Because it's not called that because of its reputation.

6:52It's called that because of what Philadelphia means. That's a Greek word. Philia means the love of friendship. Friendship love. And the word for siblings is adelphos. You put those together, philia and adelphos, and you get Philadelphia. Brotherly love. That's the word used here in verse one. Let Philadelphia continue. Now, outside the Bible, that verse, that word, that Greek word Philadelphia, it usually is meant literally. It's meant friendship among siblings.

7:27Sibling friendship. But in the New Testament, God breaks new ground with that word. He says people, his people, should relate to each other like this. Like they're related because they are related. He says people should relate to each other because they are related through him, by Christ. We are brothers and sisters to one another. Mothers and fathers, when there's a difference in age that calls for respecting elders. These are terms the New Testament uses for each other.

7:59Brothers and sisters. Mothers and fathers. This is a profound spiritual reality that we oftentimes miss in our highly individual societies. In a Western culture like this, where we're very individualistic, this just goes right over our heads. But this is really profound and deep. But it doesn't make it easy. Brothers and sisters know how to push each other's buttons. Right? I expected more head nods. Maybe it's because some of your siblings are sitting next to you.

8:36Brothers and sisters push each other's buttons because you know exactly which buttons to push. Brothers and sisters have a hard time being gracious with each other. Brothers and sisters, they sometimes don't see growth in each other. If you have a sibling, chances are, if you're an adult and you have a sibling, chances are, your sibling still sees you the way that you were when you were in high school or something like that. It's hard for them to recognize growth in you.

9:02But listen, at their best, siblings know each other deeply. And they protect each other fiercely. Not because they chose one another, but because God put them together. That's the only reason why they do it. God put me with you, and I'm going to protect you. I've got your back. At their best, I'm talking about. That deep knowledge of the other person, you know exactly how to protect the other person. Yeah, you know how to push their buttons. But when you're your best self, you know how to protect that person.

9:41You know how they're feeling. You can guard them. You can protect each other. Siblings feel the connection that God created, and so they act in each other's best interests. Again, best case scenario. And that best case scenario is what we're called to. God has brought us together as brothers and sisters.

10:07You know, being a part of a church is a little bit like being a part of a family, not only because of these spiritual realities, but because you didn't choose the people that you're sitting next to. God chose each other. God put us together. He's brought us together as brothers and sisters, and the blood of Christ, it creates a connection and a unity between us that is stronger and deeper and thicker than even blood relations, even our own DNA. That's the truth.

10:37But just like biological family, great relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ must be cultivated. They don't just happen because you recite the same creed. They don't just appear. They have to be cultivated and developed just like a biological sibling relationship. If that's going to be healthy, it's got to be cultivated. And that is the call here. That's the call of verse one. Let brotherly love continue. Cultivate it. Work at it. Keep going with it.

11:11The people that God has put in your life, the brothers and sisters in Christ, the people that receive this letter, they knew what to do. They just needed to keep going to not give up. We don't always need new instructions. Sometimes we come to the word and we don't get new instructions. We just need encouragement to keep going in the direction that we know we're supposed to. So that's our heading today, brotherly love. And under that heading are all the other instructions, and I'm going to put them into two categories for us.

11:47The first one is this, brotherly love that's practical. So Christians were sent out into all nations. These were traveling people. But traveling was tough. There was a system of roads in the Roman Empire, but the hard part was where to spend the night. Inns were notoriously bad. Filthy, immoral, dangerous. Take your worst hotel experience ever. And I want to hear some of those stories actually afterward. Whatever your worst hotel experience has been in your entire life, it would be a best-case scenario for a traveler in the Roman Empire.

12:28I promise you. There's letters from this era where somebody asks, tell me which inns in the Roman Empire have the least fleas. Not no fleas, just the least.

12:43All these traveling Christians, apostles, missionaries, teachers, messengers, where are they supposed to stay? They depended on brothers and sisters that they didn't know. That's why the passage says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. We think of hospitality as something we offer to people that we maybe want to get to know because we like them or people that we already know. Let me be hospitable to you because I like you. In the ancient world, hospitality was way different.

13:29It was a great virtue that you delighted in showing to strangers. It really was stranger friendship. And that's still true in some parts of the world. You should talk to John Douglas. The Douglas family is on vacation this week, but talk to them. John Douglas has got a really funny story about visiting Jordan, and he traveled there, and the person that he was going to stay with turns out was out of town, and he couldn't host them. So he was talking to just a stranger in a cafe or something.

14:01The stranger hears the story, and is like, oh, so you have no one to show you around the city? And John says, no, I don't. And he goes, and John's like, I guess I'm just going to find a hotel and just sit there. And the person goes, no, my friend, I will show you the city. And he shows him the city. And then he's like, well, I guess I better find a hotel now. No, my friend, you stay with me tonight. It went on and on and on. You just got to ask John about the story.

14:27But every point in which John was like, this is probably enough. I probably need to go my separate way and find my own way, find my own means tonight. The person says, no, my friend, I'm going to take care of that. That's what the passage is talking about. Stranger friendship. It's that kind of posture that the Hebrews are called to. And so are we. But it's risky for these people, right? The knock on the door could be a Roman centurion coming to take more of your property, more of your money.

15:00Maybe you yourself off to prison. But he's saying, keep answering that door. And then he reminds them, some have entertained angels unawares. This is a reference probably to Genesis 18. A story that everyone who got this letter would have known well. Abraham was at his tent. Sarah was there and three strangers approached. And he and Sarah kick into hospitality mode. They get all the best stuff out. They prepare this grand meal, tons and tons of food for these three strangers.

15:42And as the meal progresses, Abraham realizes that this is a divinely appointed encounter with angels, one of whom was probably the Lord himself. And Abraham is blessed because he took the risk to invite them in. Though he was a stranger in a strange land, he brought in strangers and he showed them radical hospitality. So this passage isn't telling us that, hey, be on the lookout for angels. You could get something cool. Try to discern if someone is an angel.

16:17It's not saying that. The point is saying hospitality is an honor. It's a blessing. See it as a blessing and an honor. It's an opportunity to serve someone that God has given you to meet their needs. Several years ago, Nikki and I were visiting friends that were in Rwanda temporarily. And our friends had made friends and some of their friends were Rwandan. And they invited us over to their house for dinner while we were there. We come to their house and it's a very simple house.

16:53It's a dirt floor house, cinder block walls. They've just added a second room onto it for this family, wife and husband, kids. They're very proud of the fact that they just added the second thing on, a house that would seem very, very small to any of us. And they invite us in. It's our friends and all their family. It's Nikki and I. It's a lot of people. It's a lot of food. We're gathered around this food. It's very sparsely furnished. And the husband of the family wants to say a prayer to start the meal.

17:24And he launches into this long prayer in Kenyurwandan, which is their language. And I can't understand a word of it, but I can just see that he is demonstrative in his prayer. He's praying. He's emotional. He's fervent. He's very into this prayer, right? He's excited. Nothing about it was angry. He just was so excited, praying and praying and praying. And then he finishes. And I turned to my friend who spoke Kenyurwandan, and I said, what was he praying?

18:00And my friend said, he was thanking God that they had the honor of hosting you. I was blown away. And I ate the meal differently than I walked in there. I had never seen anyone pray like that. He probably spent weeks and weeks of his pay to give us food for that night. And he wasn't grumpy about it. He was the complete opposite. He was so honored. He was praying to God fervently in language that I don't even understand about what an honor it was to host us.

18:37Just us. We're not special. We weren't special then, and we're still not. But he was so honored that we were there, that he could host us. That's what the Hebrews were called to. See hospitality like that as a God-given honor to bless someone, to meet their needs. And I have to say, I see this happening in our church.

19:03I see this hospitality here. Many of you have opened up your homes for newcomers, for fellowship, for Bible studies, for youth events, men's and women's events. You've done it for neighbors. You've done it for people you didn't know very well. You've done it without asking for anything in return. And sometimes you've helped somebody else be hospitable and brought things and helped and hosted. I see this happening here. And it's beautiful. You do it, I see, without asking for anything in return.

19:37And yet, God has given you something in return. The blessing of being like Him. In Romans 15, Paul says, Therefore, welcome one another, as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God. When you practice hospitality, you're being like God Himself. Welcoming others just like God welcomed you. The other practical bit of brotherly love here is, remember those who are in prison.

20:09Prisons in the Roman Empire were not like today's prisons. Today's prisons seem like resorts compared to ancient prisons. There was no guarantee of health, cleanliness, or even food. To be a prisoner and to be forgotten was to effectively have a death sentence. You were going to die if no one came to visit you, if no one remembered. The New Testament is full of people talking about being visited in prison. It shocked people in the Roman Empire to see how Christians cared for their prisoners.

20:44Bringing them food, coats in the winter, sometimes even reports of bribing guards so that they could go into the cell with them and stay with them in the cell. Prison ministry continues in the church today. You've heard about Angela and John serving with Kairos prison ministry. Our presbytery has a prison discipleship ministry. But thinking more broadly here for a second, there are people who are in a different sort of prison. They are unable to leave their home.

21:17They're unable to be a part of the fellowship because of illness or handicap or caregiving responsibilities. When our brothers and sisters are isolated from our fellowship, we're called to bring the fellowship to them. To visit those and remember them who are in prison. We must remember them. We must remember the isolated, the lonely, the outcasts. And we do it as though in prison with them. The great identity alignment of Christians, the solidarity that we can show through the spirit to weep with those who weep and suffer with those who suffer.

21:54We move towards those who are mistreated for any reason. Whether a brother or sister faces persecution or injustice or hardship, we remember and we move close. We have to fight and combat loneliness and isolation and keep hope alive and live in the truth that the Lord has brought us together. You also are in the body.

22:21And bear in mind, the people in this letter, just like you, they had their own hardships going on. It wasn't like they were sitting around, flipping through the TV, life was easy. Oh yeah, I should remember people who were in prison. These were people, the whole reason that he wrote the letter was to help them to keep going because they were under such hardship. They were struggling and suffering. But he tells them, still, I want you to care for other people.

22:53Even though you're going through hardship. And this reminds us of two things, church. First of all, when we help others who are hurting, we find unexpected medicine for our own wounds. When we help others who are hurting, we find unexpected medicine for our own wounds. This reciprocal grace is another example of the abundance of God's kingdom. You cannot out-give God.

23:22You can't out-give God. You're going to find something. You're going to find some way that the Lord gives to you and meets your needs when you help someone else. And the second thing is this. Your suffering, it doesn't exempt you from helping. It actually empowers you to help. God is a redeemer.

23:46God is a redeemer. And one of the ways that He redeems is He uses your hardship to prepare you to care for somebody else. With deeper compassion, with greater patience, because you've been through your own struggles. Even if it's a different type of struggle than somebody else, God has prepared you to care and minister to people who are going through their own hardship. Your suffering has made you more like Jesus. And I see this brotherly love at our church too.

24:20It's so encouraging to see you all caring for each other in suffering. To move towards the isolated. To move towards the heartbroken. You've drawn near with practical help and with your presence. I see you moving towards other people with compassion and empathy that only comes from the experience of having been through your own suffering. I see the brotherly love of visiting those who are in prison and those who are in hardship. You have looked like Jesus and let's keep at it.

24:54Let's let brotherly love continue and all the more as we see the day drawing near. Because God remembered us when we were in prison. When we were suffering hardship.

25:09Here's the second category for the last verses here. Brotherly love. We talked about brotherly love that's practical and now brotherly love that's pure. The author of Hebrews touches the third rail here. He addresses two of the most sensitive subjects that you can possibly touch. Sex and money. He's not afraid to go there. And so by the grace of God, neither am I.

25:39Let marriage be held in honor among all. Brothers and sisters, all means everyone. Not just those who are married or all who might get married. It is everyone. And being held in honor doesn't mean just thinking of it. Oh, yeah, that's admirable. That's respectable. Yeah, marriage is great. I love it. I also love ice cream. There's lots of things I love. It's not that.

26:09To be held in honor. This word means to greatly treasure it, to esteem it. To hold it up high, to call it precious. Jesus, everyone, the command is for everyone to value marriage. Everyone.

26:27The first reason is that marriage is a gift from God. It's given not just to married couples or just to his people, but to all people. It's a common good. Studies confirm what we already see and what we already know. Healthy marriages bless spouses. They bless children. And they bless communities. More healthy marriages lead to better health outcomes, lower violence, higher achievement. All of these things happen in a community that is filled with more and more healthy marriages.

26:59They're common good blessings. But we also value marriage because it points us to God's love for us. The Bible calls Jesus the groom and the church his bride. And our groom has gone to great lengths and great personal sacrifice to rescue his bride. To bring us in, to clothe us with righteousness and with good works and prepare us for the wedding day. We are betrothed. All of this biblical language is meant for us to help us see marriage as what it is.

27:38It's a depiction of our relationship with God. Because now, Christ and the church, we relate to each other with mutual delight and devotion. We simply put, church, we hold marriage in honor because it proclaims the gospel.

27:58And at New Creation, I've seen us hold marriage in honor. You've celebrated each other's anniversaries, each other's victories. You've encouraged each other as you've worked to strengthen your marriages. Whether it's through counseling or personal examination or through hard conversations. It's good and it's valuable work. Building a healthy marriage is not easy, but it is worth it. Let's keep at it. Let's hold marriage in high esteem in this church.

28:32Not just our own marriages or the marriages in our house, but all of our marriages. No matter what stage of life we're in, whether we are married or single, whether we want to be married or not, let's all of us hold marriage in high honor.

28:50Author Richard Phillips writes this, one of the greatest witnesses in our age will be Christian couples who faithfully meet the struggles of marriage with the grace and power of God. I do believe that's true. We are very counter-cultural when we get married and work hard to stay married and stay married with a mutually delightful marriage. But to hold marriage in honor requires us also to let the marriage bed be undefiled. In the Roman Empire at this time, married men could be promiscuous with no consequences, no disapproval.

29:34Society had no judgment for them. In our time, people are trying to allow everyone to do this, not just men. We're moving in the wrong direction. Sexual defilement is easier than ever. It's one click away with the devices that all of us are either in our pockets or our purses. It's so close.

30:06Sexual sin has a wide scope of collateral damage. Even more so when it's done by a married person. To misuse sexuality is to defy God, to gratify self, and to harm other people. I will. To misuse sexuality is to defy God, gratify self, and harm others. This is why the passage says God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. We have to continually fight this temptation. And again, I know that many of you are. There are conversations happening.

30:49A battle is on in this church against sexual sin and lust. Keep fighting. Keep fighting. And if you're struggling with this and you need help and you're all alone, please talk to someone. Talk to me or somebody else. You don't have to fight alone. It's better to fight it with somebody else. You will have more success fighting it with somebody else at your side.

31:18Now the other act of brotherly love that's pure is in verse 5. Keep your life free from love of money. This ties in with brotherly love because greed always comes at the expense of other people. Greed is what leads to exploitative treatment of workers, devious business practices, and it leads to withholding generosity from other people and from overlooking needs. Love of money is self-centeredness. What else could we call it? And it stands opposed to brotherly love.

31:51Everything here is threatened by love of money. So this is a call to be content with what we have. Contentment is elusive, isn't it? But it's worth going after. Contentment is pure worship. Christian contentment is pure worship. It is being pleased with whatever God brings to us, whatever He provides for us. It's relying on God. It's taking Him at His word. And contentment is also something I hear us talking about and praying for. May God help us as we continue to seek satisfaction in Him, in Him alone.

32:33For He has said, I will never leave you or forsake you. What an amazing promise it is. What an amazing promise to have the living God with us. He is not a distant God. He is not uninvolved, unloving, unfamiliar with us, checking in with us every now and then. He is the intimate, attentive, present Father, close to us, involved. Brothers and sisters, can we be content with having our Creator and our Shepherd always with us? Yes, we can. Yes, we can be content.

33:11If we can't be content with that, we'll never be content. And here again, as we do this, we resemble our Savior. All of these acts of brotherly love, they all point us back to Jesus, who did them all perfectly, including abstaining from the love of money. Though He was rich, He became poor for our sake. He was content with His Father's presence. He never had many possessions. And at the end of His life, He had none. None. And yet, He obeyed. And He did it so that all who trust in Him would have the greatest possession, life with Him in His kingdom.

33:56Of course, we can be content with what we have because we have Him. So we can confidently say, look, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? With the Lord at my side, what can man do to me? What can He do to me if I host a stranger and it doesn't go well or it's very costly or inconvenient?

34:23The Lord is my helper. He helps me visit people who are in prison, visit those who are mistreated and align with them. He helps me hold marriage in high honor and abstain from sexual sin. And He helps me free myself and rid myself from greed and materialism and the love of money. Church, let brotherly love continue. Love that's practical and love that's pure.