Showing Christian Love

Showing Christian Love

Hebrews 13:1-3

The writer is going to end the book with a lot of general commands. It’s almost as if he has so much to share but not enough time to share it all. He lists these commands without going into a lot of detail. They’re wonderful because they give us an idea of how the early church was expected to behave in the world and amongst themselves. Tonight, we will look at three of these commands.

The first command is found in verse 1.

“Let brotherly love continue.”

Let’s point out a few things:

This love already exists. “Let it continue”

It’s not manufactured by us. This love is the love of God poured in us when we were saved (Romans 5:5).

Love is always easiest in the beginning. Think of marriage. The first few years are called the honeymoon years for a reason.

The truth is oftentimes the longer we are around people the more difficult it is to continue to love them. This is especially true in church. We will not be able to continue loving people if the source of our love is ourselves. We need a supernatural empowering love. If you are saved, you can love people the way God commands.

This is brotherly love. It’s the type of love family has for one another. This is such an important thing fo r Christians to see. This is one reason why the church is so important. We are commanded to love our brothers and sisters in Christ as if they are family.

If you see a brother or sister somewhere, do you acknowledge them?

If a brother or sister is sick, do you visit them?

If a brother or sister offends you, do you forgive them?

This love requires effort on our part. “Let”

Love is a verb. It is active in our life. They way to fail in loving others is to:

Stop talking to them.

Stop seeing them.

Stop praying for them.

Stop forgiving them.

We struggle with loving our church family in the proper way for a few reasons:

We are spiritually immature (1 Cor. 3). They failed to love properly because they failed to grow in grace.

We are disobedient to the Word. 1 Peter 1:22 says:

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.

We are self-centered. Proverbs 30:15 says:

The leech has two daughters:

Give and Give.

We often would rather be loved than love. If you want to know how to have a healthy church this simple command will help. Love each other. Continue to love each other. Grow in your love for one another.

Let me quickly give you two important reasons brotherly love must continue:

It reveals to the lost world we belong to Jesus (John 13:35).

It reveals the validity of our profession (1 John 4:7-8).

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

v. 2 Here we have our second command:

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers”

A stranger is someone we do not know. Who might they be?

They might be a Christian who was traveling through the area. In those days there was not a hotel on the corner. It was dangerous and difficult to travel. When a fellow Christian passed through the church should be willing to show hospitality.

They may be unbelievers. Christians are called to love the lost as well as the saved.

There is more implied than merely greeting them with hello or farewell. The Christian is to show hospitality toward the stranger. In that culture it would have been:

Lodging

Food

Shelter/care for animals

Prayer/fellowship

In fact it would have often involved the opening up of the home. Times have changed and we are not as good at that as we once were. We are very “busy” and often have a host of reasons not to open our home up to those we know much less strangers.

Our home is too dirty.

We’re tired.

We don’t want them getting used to coming over.

One of the great ways to show Christian love to others is to treat them as you would those in your own home.

Feed them

Sit and conversate with them

Play games with them

Study the Scripture with them

Once we begin doing things like this we may discover we enjoy it more than we thought we would.

Illustration: College bible study (Lot’s of extra work for us)

This verse has an interesting part to it. It says that some have “entertained angels unaware”. This is probably a reference to Abraham and Lot in Genesis 18 & 19. They washed the feet of these angels and even fed them.

The point is God will at times send people our way to test us. Matthew 25 speaks of people who served others in the name of Jesus and are surprised to find out they did once they get to heaven.

Hospitality toward strangers reveals the love of God working in the life of a Christian.

1 John 3:17 says:

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

James 2:14-17 says:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good[a] is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Hospitality is also a biblical mark of a godly woman. 1 Timothy 5:10 describes a widow who qualifies for financial support from the church as:

having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work.

Hospitality is love in action. It’s more than words. It’s receiving others into our homes and treating them as family.

v. 3 Here we have our third command:

“Remember those who are in prison”

These are probably people in prison for their faith. It would be easy to forget these people because they were out of sight.

First let’s consider why some may want to forget such people:

Remembering them may frighten the church. It may remind them of how dangerous it is to be a Christian.

Remembering them may nag them. It may remind them of the obligation to help them.

What would remembering them look like?

Visit them

Pay their fine

Bring them necessities to live on

Help their families

Petition for their release

Write them

If we are not careful we will treat those in cages like animals. We will forget they have a soul. We will forget they are loved by God.

There are people in prison on their own accord. Their sinful behavior took them there. Those people have a mother, father, sister. At times they are ashamed to admit it because of the stigma attached. I know this because for many years I ministered in a maximum-security prison.

Let us not forget that throughout history there have been some great men of God in prison:

Joseph

Jeremiah

John the Baptist

Paul

Peter

Jesus

Notice how we are to remember them: “as though in prison with them”.

How does that work?

What do you trhink a person in prison thinks about everyday? They think about the fact that they are in prison.

Think about them daily. There are times we do acts of charity without being moved by a person’s predicament. We don’t think twice about them. We just go through a religious action.

We give

We show hospitality

But is our heart moved by the hurt of others?

Do we think “But for the grace of God there go I?”

He also tells us to remember those who are mistreated. There are people all over this world being mistreated for their faith in Christ. His over all point is the world treats Christians terrible, let’s treat one another well.

That’s the big point.

We are to do this because we also are “in the body”. What does that mean?

We are all limited because we are in a physical body. Being in a physical body means we all have the potential of physical suffering. What’s happening to them could be happening to us just as easily.

Especially when we think of suffering in general.

The person with cancer.

The person with chronic pain.

The person who is bed ridden.

That could be us and likely will be one day. In that day we will want people to:

Remember us

Visit us

Show us hospitality

Let’s summarize this:

We are to love those we go to church with.

We are to love those we have just met.

We are to love those in prison.

We are to love those who are suffering.