44) Give Praise, Do Good, and Share
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
Let us be thankful and grateful. From a heart that sees the work and saving grace of our Lord Jesus comes forth the fruit of thankfulness an attitude of gratefulness. His kingdom is come and it cannot be shaken. It will not be torn down. when all else passes away his kingdom, his people, his possession will remain.
This kingdom is not complete yet, he said it is a kingdom that we are receiving and will see in its fullness when we pass from this world physically. Those that are citizens of heaven will enter in the presence of God to worship in harmony with the angel chorus that sings Holy, Holy, Holy. is our Lord God almighty.
So we are to be thankful. Not a contrived begrudging thankful, but an overflowing of gratitude that the perfect son of God, Jesus the Messiah, would die for a wretch like myself. To be pardoned for my crime and to see him pay my penalty. So that I could be set free from sin’s grip on me.
To come to the savior and to experience the saving grace and mercy of God should be an overwhelming reality once the magnitude of our sin is understood, to turn in repentance, and to plead to God to be saved and to experience the peace of God.
This reality should lead a heart to ask, Lord what do you want from me? What is it you would have me to do? As the answer is to serve God acceptably and with reverence and awe.
This is the focus of the writer for most of Chapter 13. Service and worship to God have changed in their demonstration but not in motivation. Men from all times have worshiped and served God. But not all is pleasing to God.
14 Save me from the guilt of bloodshed, God— God of my salvation— and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. 15 Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 You do not want a sacrifice, or I would give it; you are not pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifice pleasing to God is a broken spirit. You will not despise a broken and humbled heart, God.
Acceptable worship has always been from the reverence and awe that comes from a broken spirit and a humble heart.
6 But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. 7 Therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
We live in a proud time with proud people. Does God’s church exhibit humility? Is it bathed in the grace of God. If it is you will find a community of believers that worship and serve God in thanksgiving with reverence and awe. You will find a place where broken people are drawn near to God as he draws near to them. You will find a place where people call out like David
12 Who perceives his unintentional sins? Cleanse me from my hidden faults. 13 Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins; do not let them rule me. Then I will be blameless and cleansed from blatant rebellion. 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
You will find a people that are miserable when they sin and desire to be holy, desire to grow more and more like Jesus the great shepherd. You will find a people exalted by God. Exalted not in the world’s standards. Not in a way that will make friends or win awards in this worlds.
You will find a people who are lifted from the depth of their lost souls and accounted as righteous because of their faith. Who will gather in his name as his people and will live out life together.
24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.
This church, this assembly of families will worship and serve God acceptably.
Hebrews 13 is a list of different ways that God’s people will serve God as an outpouring of their thankfulness.
He wrote that:
God’s people will continue to show brotherly love, that affection and care will be developed among the people. These are not strangers that gather once a week to separately worship while standing next to someone or come to listen as an individual to a sermon from a man on stage. Love will grow between the family of believers as brothers and sisters do.
God’s people will be people of hospitality. There with be care and concern for strangers.
God’s people will have sympathy for the brothers and sisters that have been removed from the fellowship and are mistreated. Specifically for those in prison but extending out to any believer that cannot come to the gathering of the saints.
God’s people will be people that honor marriage. The institution that God established in the garden, and one he uses as a picture of the relationship between Jesus and His church.
God’s people will have a contentment with what they have whether it is much or little. The reason behind the contentment is not based in the will of man but on the recognition that he will never leave us and that he is our helper and provider.
God’s people will remember the leaders that have come before as examples to follow based on the fruit of their faith.
God’s people will not be lead astray by the strange teachings of man.
These are attributes, acts and attitudes that are found in the body of believers, the church.
The heart of worship never changed but the actions have. The sacrifices of animals, grain, drink and others have been made obsolete. After thousands of years of worship through the sacrifices and offerings through the Levitical Priests. They must have asked. What do we do now? Are they all gone?
So the author has taught that yes there are still sacrifices but they are of a spiritual nature now and they look like this and he brings into the conversation a reference to the old covenant sacrifices. This is where we pick up today. Turn with me to Hebrews 13 verse 10.
10 We have an altar from which those who worship at the tabernacle do not have a right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the most holy place by the high priest as a sin offering are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore, Jesus also suffered outside the gate, so that he might sanctify the people by his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing his disgrace. 14 For we do not have an enduring city here; instead, we seek the one to come. 15 Therefore, through him let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. 16 Don’t neglect to do what is good and to share, for God is pleased with such sacrifices.
We Have an Altar
We Have an Altar
This section seems to be completely out of place. After the first 9 verses about behaviors that are to be seen in the body of believers, he seems to take a left turn and jump completely to a new topic and he speaks of an altar.
10 We have an altar from which those who worship at the tabernacle do not have a right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the most holy place by the high priest as a sin offering are burned outside the camp.
An altar is a place that sacrifices and offerings were given to a God. We see them throughout scripture in many ways and in many places.
We see that Noah built an alter after the flood receded.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of every kind of clean animal and every kind of clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
Abram set on up after the promise of the Lord was given to him.
7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring, I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.
He also built one with Isaac as he went to obey God’s command to sacrifice his son.
9 When they arrived at the place that God had told him about, Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” He replied, “Here I am.” 12 Then he said, “Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from me.”
God commanded Jacob to build one.
1 God said to Jacob, “Get up! Go to Bethel and settle there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.”
We see Moses built them
15 And Moses built an altar and named it, “The Lord Is My Banner.”
Then we see the altar that most think about when we are reading scripture.
1 “You are to construct the altar of acacia wood. The altar must be square, 7½ feet long, and 7½ feet wide; it must be 4½ feet high. 2 Make horns for it on its four corners; the horns are to be of one piece. Overlay it with bronze.
This is the altar of burnt offering. it and the altar of incense would have still been in use in their day. The idea of a place for Israelites to bring sacrifices and offerings was a very essential part of the religion of the Jewish people.
The people would take their offerings and sacrifices to the temple and they would give them to the Levitical priests to perform the sacrifices. The author states
10 We have an altar from which those who worship at the tabernacle do not have a right to eat.
Those who worship at the tabernacle is a reference to the Levitical priests of the Mosaic Covenant.
13 Don’t you know that those who perform the temple services eat the food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the offerings of the altar?
Most translations state those that serve in the tabernacle or tent. The priests had the right to eat certain portions of the sacrifices. Here he says that these do not have a right to eat at.
There is much speculation on the specifics of the altar. Is this a metaphor that can only be taken to a certain point. Is there a new altar? Is he referring to the group as Jews talking about their current altar.
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
It is the same Greek word used here for service that is used for worship in verse 10. As he develops this idea of spiritual sacrifices and spiritual service to God in the new covenant it is likely he is painting this image of a spiritual altar as well.
The Holy altars of the old covenant have become obsolete as their need has been removed.
1 Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. 2 Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, purified once and for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. 5 Therefore, as he was coming into the world, he said: You did not desire sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me. 6 You did not delight in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings. 7 Then I said, “See— it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, God.” 8 After he says above, You did not desire or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings (which are offered according to the law), 9 he then says, See, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. 10 By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time. 11 Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. 12 But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. 13 He is now waiting until his enemies are made his footstool. 14 For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified. 15 The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says: 16 This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, the Lord says, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds, 17 and I will never again remember their sins and their lawless acts. 18 Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
There is no more offering. The sanctuary has been opened.
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus—20 he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)—21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. 23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, 25 not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.
Jesus as the priest performing the sacrifice and the lamb of God being sacrificed he also become the place in which our spiritual service and worship are presented to God. Not a sin offerings but as thanksgiving offerings that are pleasing to God.
Jesus still sits as a high priest and mediator of his people.
15 Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance, because a death has taken place for redemption from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
He calls their minds to a new altar away from the old and uses the shadows and types of the old testament to develop this idea as he continues with.
11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the most holy place by the high priest as a sin offering are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore, Jesus also suffered outside the gate, so that he might sanctify the people by his own blood.
The sin offering on the day atonement was not burned or eaten like the other offerings..
27 The bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought into the most holy place to make atonement, must be brought outside the camp and their hide, flesh, and waste burned.
As these were presented on the day of atonement they were not to be eaten but to be taken out side of the city to be completely consumed by fire.
He says therefore, not like wise, or similar, but therefore, because this was the command of God for the atoning sacrifice for the nation of Isreal, therefore Jesus
12 Therefore, Jesus also suffered outside the gate, so that he might sanctify the people by his own blood.
Jesus has to suffer outside of the gate. It was God’s providence that he was taken out of the city to be the sin offering as the reality of the shadow of the past. He suffered outside of the gate so that he might sanctify the people.
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
12 But the law is not based on faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by them. 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. 14 The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith.
He became the curse for us, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. We are now called to go out.
Let Us Go Out
Let Us Go Out
13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing his disgrace. 14 For we do not have an enduring city here; instead, we seek the one to come.
The believer is to follow Christ where he went. And when you do you will find yourself at odds with the world and the people of the world. You will find persecution and insult and disgrace. Isaiah foretold this:
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; he was despised, and we didn’t value him.
Peter taught that we will are to be considered blessed when we bear his disgrace.
14 If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
We are to see Jesus and follow him and in doing so we will not grow weary even though the trials and tribulations will come. The insults and loss in this world will hurt but it will not overcome the reward that has been given.
2 keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won’t grow weary and give up.
Once again we are called to see this world as temporary. We are called to be separate from this world. to be Holy as he is holy. To be set apart. And you do not stay where you are for that to happen. We positionaly holy before the God by the life that Jesus lived an imputed to us. We are saved by grace through the free gift of God but we are not perfect as human beings. We still have a nature of sin along with the holy spirit that dwells in us.
14 For we do not have an enduring city here; instead, we seek the one to come.
And so while we live in this world God’s people his children are to grow and be sanctified as they live in this life. God is using the good and the bad in our lives to make us more like the Son. To abide in him, to have his Joy to be made as one with him and the other brothers and sisters.
Jesus spoke these things about this world.
1 Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. 3 This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent—Jesus Christ. 4 I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed. 6 “I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, 8 because I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me. 9 “I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they are yours. 10 Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled. 13 Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. 14 I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth. 20 “I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. 21 May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. 22 I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. 24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation. 25 Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. 26 I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.”
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Because of this we are called never cease to offer up sacrifices of praise to God and good works toward each other.
Let Us Never Cease
Let Us Never Cease
15 Therefore, through him let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. 16 Don’t neglect to do what is good and to share, for God is pleased with such sacrifices.
Here is our therefore, because we seek the city to come, in light of that truth, We are to honor God with our lips and do good and to share. This is what pleases God.
Our mouths and the words that come out are extremely revealing to the state of the heart.
45 A good person produces good out of the good stored up in his heart. An evil person produces evil out of the evil stored up in his heart, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.
If you were to write out the narrative of your day. Somebody were to write a play using your words as the main script and then actors were to come and play you for an audience. What would your reaction be?
What would your words reveal about your heart. Would they be words of encouragement are discouragement? Of joy or sadness? Proud or Humble? critical, cynical, degrading, hurtful, or kind, gentle, loving? Would they be wise or foolish?
Would they be praise of God with thanksgiving in reverence and awe.
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe,
Would they sound like the psalmists?
4 Then I will come to the altar of God, to God, my greatest joy. I will praise you with the lyre, God, my God.
14 Offer a thanksgiving sacrifice to God, and pay your vows to the Most High.
23 Whoever offers a thanksgiving sacrifice honors me, and whoever orders his conduct, I will show him the salvation of God.”
How often are we to lift these up. Continually. seemingly without interruption.
15 Therefore, through him let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.
Because we are grateful we continually offer up praise and our praise is accompanied by our care for the brethern.
16 Don’t neglect to do what is good and to share, for God is pleased with such sacrifices.
Jesus tell this parable.
Goat and Sheep
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 “ ‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or without clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick, or in prison, and visit you?’ 40 “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 41 “Then he will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels! 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger and you didn’t take me in; I was naked and you didn’t clothe me, sick and in prison and you didn’t take care of me.’ 44 “Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or without clothes, or sick, or in prison, and not help you?’ 45 “Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Conclusion
Conclusion
Our words and our actions align under the magnitude of grace and mercy that we have recieved. Our words and our behaviors will be the testament of our heart. The pharisees had what they believed were the right words and the right actions but Jesus continued to condemn both. They washed up really nice on the outside but were empty tombs on the inside. Whitewashed walls.
Let us not be convinced that we are better than we really are. Let us not forget that all that we are and all of our hope rests in the completed work of Jesus on the cross
Let us rejoice in the hard work of the spirit that challenges us to grow to be convicted of our sins. To repent to those we have wronged and to be reconciled to each other. Let us be the church. The eternal kingdom the bride of christ, the children of God and a holy priesthood.
4 As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by God—5 you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Let us be the priesthood that lives as God has shown in his word.
7 Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousand streams of oil? Should I give my firstborn for my transgression, the offspring of my body for my own sin? 8 Mankind, he has told each of you what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you: to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Communion
Warning
Children, Lost, Sin
19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.
27 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Prayer
Song
Closing
Blessing/Benediction
20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
