The Gospel Plus Nothing

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Hebrews 13:7-16

7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 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. 10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. 12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Pray
Every couple of years we pick leaders. Mayors to Congressman, school board members to the president. The campaign slogans are usually something like, “We know what you want and we are going to give it to you.” “We want to lower your taxes” or “We want to give you stuff”. Most of the time in a campaign, and maybe it is the achilles heal of democracy, the people vote for what they want. That is the very slogan of democracy, “for the people, by the people”. It is the best system that we have come up with as humans, but it can get very self-serving. That is why it is deadly to any campaign that talks about looking into social programs in order to cut spending and service the debt, even though that is the biggest drain on our national economy. Nobody wants their’s taken away. In fact, we vote for more stuff that we can get. Both political sides want to blow out the spending. They do it because they want to appease the masses. They want to keep their seats of power. That is the system and I understand it, but is it best for the overall health of the country?
Is it best for a church to look the other way when sin enters the church? “Oh marriage is just a piece of paper.” “Oh, love is love and it can be with any consenting adults.” “Oh sex outside of marriage isn’t that big of a deal.” “Oh pornography is just something that young people dabble in, it’s a part of growing up.” Wink wink, nudge nudge.
It would be easy to grow a church and not call out sin. It would be easy to fill the pews and preach easy messages and say, “We are all sinners, God will forgive you, just live your life the way that makes you happy. Remember we have grace…”
On the flip side, as a pastor it would be easy to call out sin and teach the bible and not live it. We find this in lots of different areas of life. I had a marketing professor in college that was teaching a class on sales and he had never sold a thing in his life. I sat under a lot of teaching once I got in sales from company members who had never knocked a door, who had never had to drum up clients and who had never had a door slammed in their face. There are politicians that make laws that they have no intention of following. It is easy to preach something and not believe it or follow it. “Rules for thee, but not for me.”
Last week we went through, what I think is the start of the life application portion of Hebrews. We talked about the first 12 chapters and the author told us what the Scripture said and what it meant and now he is telling us how to apply it to our lives.
He started chapter 13 with “let brotherly love continue” and he went about telling us how having Jesus in our lives should move us to live. He started externally with loving your neighbor and then strangers and those persecuted. Then he moved on to how we should reflect Jesus internally with holding marriage in honor, don’t be sexually immoral or adulterous and don’t love money, but be content.
All these things would be easy for someone to say and not do, but the author points out the lives of the leaders. These leaders are not like the leaders that they had followed under Judaism. These leaders led by example. They wanted to teach the truth, not just what everyone wanted. They did not put laws on the people that were a heavy burden, but these church leaders shared the light burden of Jesus, so they were able to say hard things in love to the believers, because the author knows that this audience knew these men and how they lived.

7 Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life

Who were these leaders? This is a church in Jerusalem, so their past leaders could be referring to Peter, James, the brother of John, James, the brother of Jesus, and possibly Stephen. We see these men changed by the Gospel. We see Peter visibly different from the scared man running from the people accusing him of following Jesus at the trial of our Lord, denying Him three times, to a man on fire. In Acts 2, he preaches condemnation on those that crucified the Lord, calling these men, with the power to have Peter murdered, to repentance.
James, the brother of Jesus, comes to faith and believes that the brother he grew up with is God. James, the brother of John, was one of the inner three with Jesus. He had recieved the Spirit at Pentecost just like the rest and was holding true to message of the cross. Then we have Stephen, one of the early deacons, radically changed by the grace of Jesus Christ. These Hebrews had a memory of those men. They knew who they were. They saw them pour their lives out for the Gospel.
Those leaders lived their lives and gave their lives for the Gospel. The author of Hebrews is telling them to remember how these men lived their lives and then he says,

and imitate their faith.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” That is dying to the world, dying to self and ultimately, if necessary, the laying down of your life.
When the author is telling this church to remember their leaders, he is telling them to remember that they followed Christ to their death. Stephen was martyred first by stoning, the account is in Acts 7. In Acts 12, we see that James, the brother of John is killed by the sword by King Agrippa. James, the brother of Jesus is stoned to death around 62AD and Peter was martyred around 64AD.
I think it is fair to say that the book of Hebrews was written after the death or at least the imprisonment of Peter, because all their leaders had been either killed or captured and they needed guidance. Think about what that would be like. You have been taught the Gospel by these Godly men and they have all been taken away. The walls are closing in on you and the authorities are threatening things against you. Remember, these letters are responses to letters that were written as cries for help.
The author is saying, “Keep going.” “Keep sin out of your midst, do for others what God has done for you. Share your resources, don’t love the things of this world. Be holy as God is holy.” Even though, they felt like the walls were closing in on them and that all was lost, the author reminds them of something that we also need a reminder of.

8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

The message that saved you out of your old life and empowered you with the Spirit, is the same message that we take through this time. He is God. He is the image of the invisible God. His teachings are eternal. His teachings were the fulfillment of the law. Following the example of His life is how we live the law perfectly. “Remember”, the preacher screams, “Jesus is the goal. He is the prize.”
This idea to quit and go back to what is comfortable because things are hard is to walk away from the faith all together. It is like I said at the beginning, the easy thing, the one that appeases the masses is not always the good or right thing.
For a time, there will be people who are wicked that prosper. There are non-believers in the world doing better than you. There are people in cults doing better than you. There are probably Satanist doing better than you in this world, but we are not living for this life but for a better one to come. We don’t need to seek our “best life now”, we need to be seeking what is best for our souls and when we do that we find that being content with what the Lord has given us is our best life now.
We need the Holy Spirit and Godly teachers to help us see strange teaching for what it is. The author to the Hebrews warns them….

9 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings,

This strange teaching was probably Jesus plus works of the law. Jesus plus dietary restrictions. Jesus plus not having the gentiles in the family. Jesus plus anything is not the Gospel.
While I am on this, if there is a word before the Gospel, it is not the Gospel. If it is Prosperity Gospel, it is not the Gospel. If it is the Social Justice Gospel, it is not the Gospel. If it is the Poverty Gospel, it is not the Gospel. The Gospel needs no qualifiers or adjectives, the Gospel stands alone as the only way to save the souls of sinners. The Gospel is the only hope for the world.
You were lost, but Jesus left the 99 to save you. You were blind but now you see and the only way that happens is your heart being turned to God and away from sin through the love and mercy of Jesus Christ and His giving of Himself for you as a free gift.
This Christian life, if you choose to live in it, is not always easy as this church of Hebrews knows well, but the trials can be good as it builds perseverance. That is what the author tells us..

for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them.

It is not always a good move to give into the easy way. It is hard to live by grace. It isn’t how any of our human experience works except one. When we enter into friendships or relationships with people, before we get too close, we test the person. We show them that we are trustworthy, we see if they are trustworthy. We see if we have things in common. We hang out a few times and see if we are compatible. A relationship is an earned position. You have to earn the trust of the other person before you get into a deep and meaningful relationship.
People view God this way. They say things like, “I want to clean myself up before I go to church.” They want to do something to earn the trust or affection of God. They say things like, “He will love me if I read my bible every day.” “If I don’t read my bible then He will punish me.”
What people fail to realize is that we are to come to God in the one human experience that requires no work and it is the hardest thing for us to grasp, but it is coming to Him as a child to a parent. In our intellectual assents and grown-up brains, we feel like we have to earn this favor from God, but grace is a gift that can’t be earned. The love of God can’t be earned and we can’t turn to the old ways where we believe that “if we are just a good-enough person” God will accept us. We can’t be good enough, we can’t do enough, we can’t give enough, we have to take Jesus at His word and accept that He was telling the truth when He said, “It is finished.”
The American church desperately needs to be strengthened by grace. We need to learn what that means. Grace is getting something that you do not deserve. Children haven’t earned anything, in fact, they just cost you. They cost you time and resources and heartache, but the love from the parent to the child drives you to do it. We must understand in our constant striving culture that EVERYTHING we have is given to us by God. There is nothing that we get that does not come from Him. That is where true peace comes from. Believing that all you have to do is what is in front of you and God takes care of the rest.
If you have a job, work the job as if working unto the Lord. If you are a stay at home mother, raise those kids as if they are on loan from God. If you are retired, everyday wake up with the intention to draw closer to the Lord. If you do that and leave all the other variables of your life to Him, you are being strengthened by grace.
The author warns us that we are not strengthened by foods, “which have not benefited those devoted to them.
These are the works that the Jews desperately clung to trying to earn their righteousness by their works. There is no strength your works. When Peter preaches in Acts 2, do you think that he got up there with his own power? Do you think that all those that came to Christ after his sermon came because he was awesome at oratory? No, he felt the urge from the Spirit to speak and so he opened his mouth and the Spirit brought the words through him.
God provides for us as a Father to a child. Our works are filthy rags if we are trying to build our own staircase to God.

10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.

In the Temple, the priest were allowed to eat of the animals that were sacrificed. Those are no longer needed because we have a better offer. Their “food” is not the kind that cleanses. We take in Christ. He is our food. His sacrifice is the one that cleanses us from sin and he offered it once and for all.
The author goes on to stress this point…

11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.

The blood of the animal was accepted but the carcass which represents uncleaness was taken outside and burned. That is actually the foreshadow of what all of us deserve. The sinful and fallen humanity deserves life outside the camp of God,

12 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

When Jesus is crucified, the Romans took Him outside the city walls of Jerusalem and killed Him. He took the place that we deserve. He took our unrighteousness on His shoulders so that He could “sanctify the people through his own blood.”
We don’t need a new Gospel. We don’t need to add to the great work of Jesus. The blood of Christ is the great equalizer. You can’t live a perfect life, you can’t die as a perfect sacrifice, you can’t atone for your sins. No one can do that. Not anyone in here, not the pope, not your favorite preacher. Christ is exalted above all and His great love triumphs over all people and their fruitless works.

13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. 15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

This is being strengthened by grace. We follow His example out of love for the Father. Being obedient, we offer our lives and we share in his reproach. People will mock you and belittle you and in some parts of the world and times in history, people will try to kill you, but we remain strong in the race because we know that the keys to eternity and hope are in the saving work of Jesus.
We seek a city that is to come. We are looking at the finish of the race being an eternal homestead where we enjoy God forever. We look back at the cross to look forward to the future. There is no earning of that salvation, there is only praise. Our sacrifice is praise and acknowledging him with our lips and our lives.
Can you believe what God has done? I am reminded of Mephibosheth. He is King Saul’s grandson. Saul was the first king of Israel and his son was Jonathan. God took the throne from Saul and gave it to David. Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle and all of Saul’s family is killed except one. Mephibosheth should have been killed, but he was hidden from the killing squad and when King David became King he asked if anyone was alive from Saul’s family and one of his people said, Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son. King David calls Mephibosheth, who had been crippled since he was a child, to come and sit at his table. Mephibosheth had nothing he could give the king. His legs didn’t even work right. He had no family to add value to the King and he had no wealth, but David said that Mephibosheth can eat at his table always and he restored to him all the land of his father. Mephibosheth, kneeling at the feet of David, confused says,

“What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?”

The answer was out of the Kings kindness. Do you see that God has done the same thing for you? You have brought nothing to the table, you are crippled with sin and yet God calls you son or daughter if you believe in the promises of Jesus out of His mercy and kindness. Because of God’s great love we…

16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

It is easier to keep all that you make and hoard all your blessings if you think that you earned it all. It is easy for you to be self-righteous if you believe that you have come to the saving faith of Jesus on your own. It is an easier religion if you just have a few boxes to check throughout your week that you are able to do, but it is far better if you know the truth about what you believe.
We don’t need people to appease us. We need the truth of the Gospel.
It is far better to empty yourself following the example of Christ that is laid out in Philippians 2:5-8
Philippians 2:5–8 ESV
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
All we have comes from Him. Knowing that we can freely give knowing that He provides. We don’t need to preach anything but this. It won’t be popular, we may never grow past this number of people, but those that hear it will hear the real message of the Gospel. Those that receive this message will be transformed by the renewing of their minds through the Spirit. Those that take on this Gospel have a hope for a future city where we get to spend eternity with God.
Don’t be drawn to new things or old things that take your eyes off of the grace of Christ. Do the hard work of resting in Him and trusting Him with your future because it is the only one that saves.
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