Enduring As Outsiders
Hebrews 13:7-17 ·August 24, 2025· Joel Passmore
Part of: Hebrews, Toward an Enduring Faith
As Pastor Joel Passmore nears the end of his sermon series "Toward an Enduring Faith" he teaches us to embrace the world's rejection and God's acceptance with a life devoted to Christ.
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God's good. And I got so excited in that first song that I broke a string. That's the first time that's happened, I think, at least in church. All right, so church, God is good. I can tell that you all came to praise the Lord today. He's good. He's great and greatly to be praised. We can't even have enough words. If we had 1,000 tongues, 1,000 years, we would never be able to exhaust the praise that he deserves. I want to start off today talking to you about somebody important in my life.
His name is Clint. He is the pastor of Grace Community Presbyterian up in Mechanicsville. It's a PCA church in our presbytery, and it's the church that Nikki and I were at a couple of churches ago. I've known Clint for over 20 years now. He's been my friend. He's my spiritual older brother, and my leader. I've seen him lead in lots of different situations with a lot of different tasks and people and settings, a lot of different needs at hand, things to do, surprises.
And what I've seen from Clint is that what he calls other people to do, he does himself. In fact, he's usually the first one doing it. Those of you, there's a few folks in the room who know him. You guys know that's true. He's usually the one doing it first. He asked me, one thing that we did together was he asked me to chaperone a young life camp for kids with special needs. It's called Capernaum. So he and his wife, Jen, had been leading this ministry in Hanover for a long time, and they had been doing this camp for families and kids with special needs.
And so he asked me to join them on it, and he had been involved for a while. He was a leader of this, and he probably could have avoided some of the work. He could have probably gotten like a special cabin assignment or something like that. But not only was he not avoiding the work of leading and chaperoning and caring for these kids, he was doing some of the hardest work without trying anyone to take over for him or for anyone to notice. He was just doing it.
He was lifting kids in and out of wheelchairs, helping with their needs at mealtime, in the cabin. He was doing it. But it wasn't a surprise to me that I saw him doing those things because I'd seen him do that before. He's not perfect. No leader is perfect. But he showed an example also of what it means to be a biblical leader because when he messed up, he would admit it. I heard him do it many, many times. He admitted when he didn't know what he was doing or when he was weak.
He admitted when he made a mistake, when he sinned against someone. I saw him own and repent of his sins multiple times. Clint has been, to me, a model of unpretentious ministry, of just going where Jesus leads, into service, into humility, into weakness, into repentance, things that the world calls foolish. He's not just someone who says, hey, Christian, go that direction. He's already going that direction. And he says, follow me as I follow Christ.
That's what he's done to me. Let's look to him. Let's look like him. Follow me as I follow Christ. That's what today's passage is about. It's about following where Jesus leads, to go where he leads and to look like him, to be willing to go where he is to look like him and how leaders point us in that direction. We're wrapping up our sermon series today in Hebrews, well, not today, next Sunday, two more weeks in Hebrews, the homestretch, our sermon series towards an enduring faith.
We've learned what it means to endure in Christ together. Let's turn to Hebrews 13, seven for the second to last sermon in Hebrews and see how the Lord teaches us about where we should go, about what it means to follow after Christ. And the role that leaders play in that. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pay attention to it with a ten of hearts. Let's receive it not as man's word about God, but God's word to men and women, ordinary people like us who are changed by the going forth of God's powerful word.
Let's hear it and respond to it today. Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.
For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the high, into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray with me.
Lord, would you manifest your glory before us, that we would see you as high and lifted up and worthy, not just of us worshiping here while we're gathered together, but worship and devotion of our whole lives, every part of it. Lord, show us what that means, call us to that, show us that it's better than what the world calls us to, better than what our hearts would call us to. Show us that it's better to be your people, to be your disciples, to follow after you, to go to you outside the camp.
Lord, be glorified among us and change us. Remind us of your steadfast love, for you never change. Jesus, we pray this in your name, amen. Okay, as enduring, enduring as outsiders, enduring as outsiders, embrace the world's rejection and God's acceptance with a life devoted to Christ. Embrace the world's rejection and God's acceptance with a life devoted to Christ. Here's how I want you to look at this passage today. This passage is like a painting hanging in an art gallery.
Now, if art enthusiasts and museum curators will tell you, these are the kind of things you learn when you go to VCU. You don't study art, but you're around people who do, so you learn things like this. I'm glad for that. Art enthusiasts, museum curators will tell you that the frame around the painting matters. Very rarely do you see a painting just by there, by itself, with no frame around it. A well-chosen frame won't compete with the painting.
A well-chosen frame will complement the painting that it surrounds. Its design, its style, it all serves to draw your eye toward the artist's work, enhancing its beauty and increasing your appreciation of it. The frame serves a purpose, to draw you towards the picture. Those of you who know more than me about art, I hope this is all true. If not, just nod your heads for me now. The frame wants to, you're supposed to draw your eyes towards the picture, supposed to enhance the beauty of the picture.
That's this passage, okay? There's a compelling painting right in the center, a beautiful picture, verses 10-16, which is all about our two-fold calling as God's people. But there is a frame around it, and that frame is about leadership. We're going to look at that frame first, the frame that the author has chosen, verses 7 and 17 are that frame. That frame is the relationship between leaders and people in the church. We're going to see how that enhances the picture that's in the center.
So let's start with the frame. Follow your leaders. We live in America where rugged individualism has reached peak form in world history. Resistance to authority is baked into our country. It's like the pan, you know, after you make lasagna or something, that you have a hard time cleaning that cheese that's baked on, you know? Resistance to authority is like that. It is hard to get off of there. It takes some scrubbing. This is part of our ethos.
Follow the leader is a game we played as kids, but as adults, no thank you. We will choose our leaders, and if we don't like them, we'll change them out at the next election.
We protect our autonomy, and we protect it fiercely. But it's not just because of our national culture. Nearly everyone in here. You don't have to be very old before you have an experience of hurt by an authority figure.
So along with those wounds comes mistrust, suspicion, isolation. The move to protect ourselves by pulling away, detaching ourselves from any authority. It, ironically, it makes us more vulnerable. We want to protect ourselves, but we end up susceptible to dangers that we didn't even see coming, that maybe somebody else would have seen coming and guarded us against. But we didn't see them because we're by ourselves.
On one side, we see how easy it is for authority to be abused. On the other side, we know that being by ourselves has its drawbacks, that we weren't meant to live that way. Well, what's the solution? What's the way forward? Well, God breaks in with his word, with the principles of his kingdom. And here's what God says about leadership in the kingdom of God. In God's kingdom, leaders and followers have mutual responsibility. In God's kingdom, leaders and followers have mutual responsibility.
Both 7 and 17, they contain pairs of instructions for leaders and for followers. So let's look at those two things. Verse 7, the leaders are to speak, and they speak the word of God.
This is not a small thing. The central message from church leaders is not their opinion. It's not their knowledge. It's not their stories. It must be the word of God. The central message, the message of power, the message that changes lives, that breaks strongholds, that brings people from darkness into light, is the word of God. Not men's opinions. It's the word of God. Nothing that a leader should say ought to contradict it, and everything they say ought to agree with it.
But, church leaders can't just talk. They must not just talk. That would make them hypocrites. A noisy gong, a clanging cymbal. Leaders in Christ's church are to act, to put the word into practice. They're to have a way of life that agrees with the very thing that they speak. There should be no daylight between what they speak and how they live. And if there is, they should repent of that and keep going.
Meanwhile, followers have their responsibilities. They're called to remember their leaders. And not just think of them fondly, but to consider the outcome of their way of life, to reflect carefully on the whole person, what they said, how they lived. And then the other command for the disciples is to imitate, specifically to imitate their faith, not their personality, not their mannerisms, not their attire, not their culture. None of those things are of great importance.
They are to imitate the important thing, and that is their faith. That is the thing they're to adopt into their own lives, is the leader's faith. Now, the leaders mentioned in verse 7, they are probably leaders that have passed away, based on the past tense verbs that are here, the phrasing of the outcome of their way of life. You get the sense that it's concluded. But though they were gone, their faith still speaks. The leaders are still leading the people, even though they've passed away.
The followers see the outcome of their life, who they built their life on, and how they did it. Those leaders were saying, follow me as I follow Christ.
Church, who are your past leaders? Who do you think of when you read this verse? Is it a youth group leader? A pastor? A Sunday school teacher? Or maybe someone with another role. Maybe someone in the church who had a very quiet role. A role that maybe few people noticed. But they spoke the word of God. And you heard it from them. You saw the way that they lived. Their outcome of their life. And they became a leader to you. Church, remember those leaders.
The ones that are past, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. But now let's skip down to verse 17. This is about present leaders. Here too we see that there is mutual responsibility. The leaders are keeping watch over your souls.
Jesus is the chief shepherd of his sheep. But in his wisdom, he is given under shepherds to care for souls. This is a weighty calling that leaders in the church often take very seriously. It's an act of service.
And so it's no surprise to read that they will have to give an account. Someday the chief shepherd will ask the under shepherds about the sheep that were in their care. Tell me, under shepherds, what you've done. Give me a report. I want an accounting for how these sheep did. If you're a church leader, this verse probably makes you tremble. Right, brother?
Remember this when I or your future elders or some other church leader asks you how you're doing spiritually or encourages more engagement in the church or exhorts you to go further in your discipleship or confronts you about persistent sin.
Remember this verse. We want to be gracious. We ought to be gracious. That's a must. But we must also be bold and be compelled by our calling and by the account that we're going to have to give for you.
Church, you know that I think of these verses often when I think of you personally, individually. The compelling thing is the call to care and then to have to look Jesus in the eye and talk about how we did what we did.
Followers, meanwhile, they have a responsibility in verse 17. The first one I'm going to bundle together, they have to obey and submit to their leaders. Okay, obedience and submission are hard. They're hard for hurt and suspicious people. I understand. They're hard for me.
But remember, a Christ-like leader is not there to control your life or to get you to serve them or some worldly ideology. They are there to care for your soul. To care for your spiritual well-being. Knowing this, I hope, makes the other command easier. Let them do this. Let them do it. Allow them to do what Christ has called them to do. Allow them to do what they have to report on. Surely you would, if a leader were to ask you to care for your yard, your house, your car, your pet, if they asked for that, you would say, no problem, I'm happy for you to do that.
Your spiritual health is far more important than any of those other things. God certainly thinks so, and that's why he's given leaders in the church to shepherd and to care, to nourish you. So let them do it. Let them do it. And of course, the manner of following matters. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning. Not all obedience brings joy. Parents know this. Children know this. There's a way to take out the trash that communicates to your parents just how little you think of them.
Let them do this with joy and not with groaning. I know, parents, I know that you want that in your households, right? If you believe that in your households, believe that in the church, right? It's a direct line. Let your leaders care for your souls with joy and not with groaning. Because if there is groaning, there is no advantage to you. There's no advantage to anyone. The only advantage that's found is when there is both joyful leading and cheerful following.
There's great advantage in that. And when leading and following goes awry, when there is some mistake that's made between those relationships, of course it needs to be talked about. Leaders are not blameless. Leaders need to be held account. They need to do it like Christ. Let's talk about that. Let's mend the conflict. Let's reconcile and let's keep going. Because God has given us leaders. All of us. We all follow someone.
Now that's the frame. That's the frame, okay? And we're going to look at the painting. Because verses 8-16 tell us that leaders and followers have the same essential two-fold calling, okay? Verses 8-16 Both leaders and followers are oriented in the same direction. There's a two-fold calling here. The first is this. Be an outsider with Jesus.
On some level, everyone wants to be accepted. Even people who like to embrace the role as outsider wants other outsiders to embrace them. Everyone wants to be accepted by someone. In the Roman Empire, there are many recognized religions. One of them was Judaism. You could choose another option from the buffet of options in the Roman Empire. You could worship one of many of the Roman gods. The pantheon of gods. Pick your god to worship. Pick the style of worship that suits you.
Pick from among these options and you would be accepted. Life would be easier for you because you are one of the respected, recognized religions. The people reading this letter weren't any of those. They were Christians. They followed this man that they called Messiah, Jesus. It was not a respectable religion. It was misunderstood. It was mocked. It was scorned. In the eyes of the world, the saving work of Jesus was scandalous. The author addresses this in verse 11.
The author is about to recognize the scandal and embrace it rather than try to soften it. On the Day of Atonement, the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled in the holy places. The sacrifice was offered. The blood was sprinkled inside the holy places. But then the body, the body of the animal was considered unclean, defiled. It was taken outside, way outside the camp where it was burned. That's how dirty it was. It was taken outside the camp to be burned.
Its blood was inside the temple in the Holy of Holies, but the body was taken outside. But verse 12, look at verse 12. It reminds us that Jesus' entire sacrifice happened outside the camp. All of it was outside the camp. None of it happened in a respectable place like the temple. He shed His blood outside the camp. He died outside the camp.
He died where murderers and thieves and Gentiles were executed. It was not a respectable death, and it was not a respectable place. His death reflected His life, which was predicted by the prophet Isaiah. He was despised and rejected by men. When He died, He was hung on a tree and became a curse for us. To the Jews, this was weak. This was immoral.
It was proof that this Jesus was a liar, a blasphemer. He claimed to be from God, but look at how He died. No one who came from God would die like that.
And to the Greeks, it was no better. The Greeks said Jesus' death made all of His talk about God foolish, His whole life worthless. Whatever philosophy He had, it didn't amount to anything, the Greeks said.
This shameful and scorned work of Christ is exactly what we are called to embrace. Don't try to make it respectable. Because it's not. Verse 13 says, Let us go to Him outside the camp. Align yourself with Christ and be an outsider with Him. Don't try to make yourself respectable to the world.
Going to Him outside the camp means disavowing, disowning any values that are opposed to the kingdom of God. Now, verse 9 says, It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. We read that and we're like, what is He talking about? The Hebrews reading this letter were being tugged back to their respectable religion. Back to Judaism. Back to the ceremonial meals and the diet they used to follow.
Back to all the works that they thought made themselves respectable, made themselves something in the Roman Empire. We were somebody when we were Jews. Now who are we?
The scandal of being a Christian was too much for them. Maybe we'll go back. But we have different things tugging at us, don't we? Different things than that. We're not concerned probably with ceremonial foods. The things tugging at us are all of the values that the world teaches us. This is how you get respectability in the world. That you believe that nothing should stand in the way of your desires. That you should go after them with everything you've got.
That achievement and advancement will fulfill you. That comfort and pleasure are the best goals that you have. He who dies with the most toys wins, says the bumper sticker. The prophet of our age.
Self-actualization through expression of whatever is inside you. That is the respectable way that the world teaches. That's how you're somebody. If you don't do that, you're just stupid. How could you be so dumb? God calls us, church, to reject all of that. To deny ourselves to go outside the camp to the Savior who was humble and meek and died as an outcast for us. And when we go to Him, we will be treated like Him.
We will bear the reproach He endured. When we disown the world's value system, we're going to be called foolish. We're going to be called backwards. How could you possibly not chase your dreams? Why do you live so simply? How could you say that some desires are sinful?
What are you, a Puritan? When we go outside the camp and we say that God is only known through Christ, that a relationship with Him, with God, only happens through Jesus, we're going to be called arrogant and narrow-minded. How could you possibly say that Jesus alone saves?
How could you be so bigoted when you go outside the camp and you doggedly pursue the kingdom of God, which looks upside down and backwards and wrong to this world, you're going to be called radical and crazy. And not the good kind of radical and crazy.
Why are you serving people that don't give anything back to you? Why would you forgive someone who hurt you? You must be an idiot. Why would you wait on God in hardship? Don't you know He's not there?
It's what the world is telling you. And I'm telling you that's a lie. Don't listen to it. Go outside the camp where Jesus is. Doggedly pursue the kingdom values. Wait on the Lord.
Forgive. Turn the other cheek. Give up everything you have if that's what God calls you to. Let the world deride you and call you crazy and stupid. It's better to be an outsider with Jesus than an insider with the world. It's better to be an outsider with Jesus than an insider with the world.
When the taunts and accusations of the world and your own heart, mind you, your own heart will also accuse you the part that has not been sanctified yet, the old self in you. When those things accuse us, remember this, when we go outside the camp, we are not leaving our home. We are going to the one who is taking us home. Look at verse 14. Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. The world accuses, the world derides, but it has nothing to give us.
Jesus gave Himself us. It's better to be an outsider with Him than an insider with the world because the world is passing away. That's the first part of the call. You ready for the second part? There's another part. Bring your sacrifice. Bring Him your sacrifice.
In the Roman Empire, one of the knock against Christians was that their worship didn't include sacrifices. All of the real religions had sacrifices. Didn't you know that? Christians. Judaism had their complex sacrificial system with thanks offerings and grain offerings and guilt offerings and first fruits offerings and of course the Day of Atonement offering. Meanwhile, the Roman cults had sacrifices to their gods, their temples, all over the dang place.
All over the place. Christians, where are your sacrifices? Your religion looks kind of empty. I don't really see anything going on. Where are the sacrifices? Are you even doing anything? How can this be real? How could there be anything supernatural happening if you're not bringing forward some carcass or some food or something? How could it be real? But here's what they missed.
The saving work of Jesus was sufficient. Unlike the Roman cults, His sacrifice was to the true and the living God. Their sacrifices were to no gods. False gods. Gods. And unlike the Jewish sacrificial system, His sacrifice was complete. All of those sacrifices that God had commanded, they were obsolete now. They were set aside. He suffered in order to sanctify the people through His own blood. They didn't have to be sanctified again. There was no further sacrifices to be offered.
There was no other Day of Atonement. That capital D Day of Atonement had already happened. All the sacrifices of the old system, they were all gone, but it didn't mean there was no sacrifice. There is a sacrifice. We do have one. Verse 15 tells us, Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice. First, this is worship to God. The fruit of lips that acknowledge His name of praising Him and calling Him our Lord in all circumstances. When people say, Are you really going to give your life for this God that you can't even see?
Our sacrifice is to acknowledge His name and to say, I am His and He is mine. The other sacrifice is in verse 16. Do not neglect to do good and share what you have.
We mentioned this a couple weeks ago. I won't go into great detail here, but the call we have is to love each other. As people reborn, new creations in Christ, we offer a sacrifice by loving and worshiping God and loving our neighbor as ourselves. Just as God's law said, the whole law is summed up in those two things. That's our sacrifice. We don't do it for acceptance. We do it because we are accepted. Christ has made the final sacrifice of sin, but we still bring a sacrifice of praise.
Now as we do that, I'm going to close here with two truths to remember as you bring forward your sacrifice. The first one is in verse 16. This is really good because God's good and He wants to tell you, okay, are you ready? Look at verse 16. Such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Let that wash over you. Sometimes Christians doubt that God is ever pleased with them. Oh, how that breaks my heart. The truth is is that in Christ God is easy to please. He is so easy to please.
Jesus told a parable comparing God to a master who says to the servant when he returns, well done, good and faithful servant. Listen, that is not reserved for some special category of super amazing Christians with some fantastically long resume of kingdom work. Every one of us can hear that. Can hear God say that to us. Every one of you. If you trust Him and then rely on God's Spirit to follow Him and obey Him in this life, then someday you will hear Him say to you, well done.
Well done, good and faithful servant. That's the truth. It's right here in Hebrews 13. Such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Church, do you believe it? It sounds difficult to believe, doesn't it? Such sacrifices are pleasing to God that an ordinary life of imperfect obedience can be pleasing to Him?
Do not doubt, but believe what a glorious assurance it is to know that He is pleased with our ordinary imperfect obedience. He is so pleased. Like a father who takes this crude drawing that a kindergartner has brought them of their family and their house and he puts it on the fridge and he's like, I'm so proud of this.
The world looks at it and says, that's not a great work of art, but the Father knows. The Father knows. Now here's the other one. The Savior you go to outside the camp is one that never changes. The world's values constantly change. The goalposts keep shifting, keep moving all the time. Definitions and standards shift all the time. What am I supposed to believe? What's right? What's wrong? Check in tomorrow because it's going to change. All the time it's moving.
There's no stability to be found in this world and the world knows it. The world knows that it's an emperor wearing no clothes. Right after I finished the draft of this sermon I was watching something and then an ad came on and it was from Xfinity and it was like, we know that this is an unstable world. It's the soothing voice, you know. In an unstable world you're looking for things that don't change and showing people trying to manage their life or whatever.
That's why we at Xfinity are offering you a five year price lock so that you don't have to think about your internet bill changing for five years. Church, that's the best the world has to offer.
That's all it can offer you. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Boy, that is just an overwhelming amount of truth that trumps that five year price lock guarantee. How ridiculous, right? We should listen to the world and we should laugh at it. No, you're not offering me any stability.
I belong to the one who is stable, who will never change. His promise is stable, his approval is stable. Yesterday he saved you, today he is with you, and forever he will keep you. Let us go to him outside the camp. Let's offer him the sacrifice of our praise. Let's offer him the sacrifice of our praise.