Let Brotherly Love Continue
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We’ve been walking through Hebrews together the last few weeks, looking at what faith is and what it looks like to persevere in the life of faith. And today we’re looking at some ways to respond to the good news of Jesus in the gospel. For those who have been saved through trusting in Jesus’ actions for us on the Cross, we’re no longer under the Old Testament Law. As we saw last week, we’re under a new covenant that isn’t meant to terrify us into submission but calls us as children of God to walk in the life of faith and worship of Jesus, the messiah. And so, if our new life is not under the law, there’s a question that we need to ask. If our new life is not under the Law, what are we doing when we do good things? We aren’t obeying the law as law, but we obey the law as a tutor. Our new identity isn’t under the Law, but under grace through faith. That doesn’t make us lawless. People under grace don’t have worse actions in their daily life than those under the Law. We don’t see someone walking down the street yelling at little kids and kicking dogs and think, they must really be under grace. No, people under grace are recognized by the same good things that people under the law do.
So, the question that we’re faced with is: what makes people under grace do good things, when they do good things? And the answer is that people under grace have a changed heart. When you receive Christ’s gift of love for you it changes your heart. When you recognize that he went so far as to die so that you could be saved from death and hell and live with him, that means something. In a world of scams and posturing and people taking advantage of others with a smile on their face, Jesus proved his love for us on the Cross and that real, proven love changes hearts. And changed hearts respond with new lives.
Our passages in the Book of Hebrews and Luke’s gospel give us things to aim our changed hearts at. We might not know where to get started with this life under grace or what the goal of a changed life looks like. And we see aspects of these things in our passages today. In Hebrews, it begins with: Let brotherly love continue.
Let brotherly love continue. How do we connect Jesus’ love for us and the grace we’ve received to our real lives? Let brotherly love continue. Have you treated a fellow believer like a brother or sister recently? Have you sat down with someone and asked them how they are doing over coffee, setting aside time to hear the real answer? Have you offered help to someone lately or shared a wholesome joke or built up someone’s wellbeing lately? Life under grace with a changed heart will let brotherly love continue. That theme plays out in the verses that follow and in our Gospel reading. I’ve shared my crazy idea with a few people here, that I would love, before I die, to show hospitality to strangers by following Jesus’ parable about the banquet literally. Wouldn’t it be a joy to throw a banquet in a banquet hall for the homeless and others struggling financially? To use china and silverware and serve prime rib and asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes and chocolate mousse and wine like we might when we invite friends over for dinner on a special occasion? To show not just kindness but friendship to people who are struggling? In that moment the banquet with Jesus in Revelation would break in to our ordinary world in its challenges and struggles. And so would our new life, our eternal life in the new heavens and the new earth. And that’s part of what makes us do good things while we’re under a covenant of grace. Yes, we have a changed heart. We also have our new eternal life breaking in to the here and now. So what else does that look like? Verse 3:
3 Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.
It’s funny to have to say this, but Christians should care about other people. Empathy is totally out the window in this world strung out on social media and politics. But Scripture calls us to use our imaginations. And think about what it might be like for another person in a less fortunate position than ourselves. Almost like Jesus did, or something. If you had to go to prison, what would you want it to be like there? Would you hope that someone remembered you existed? Would you hope that they would visit you and treat you like a person and pray with you and encourage you? We have totally lost our ability to imagine ourselves in someone else’s position. If you are under grace, you should be showing grace to others.
4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.
Marriage is not a joke. It is living out God’s vision in Genesis 2 for humans not being alone. One man and one woman share an exclusive private life together and from that children are born and have their place to not be alone in the world. And then those children when they’re grown up meet someone, marry, and create a new place of safety and love. To treat this like a joke, or to betray it is a disgusting and cruel opposition to God’s vision for humans not being alone. And for those who find themselves living outside of a nuclear family, the church needs to be a family, a place of belonging where we let brotherly love continue.
5 Keep 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.” 6 So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
The love of money puts blinders on us so that we can’t see anything else. The provision of God becomes something that’s not good enough. Money becomes our safety, rather than God. It makes an alternate vision of the good life that is just an illusion. Instead of the kingdom of God breaking into the here and now, a love of money pushes the kingdom of God off and tries to hold it at bay in the future. The love of money hopes, with Led Zeppelin, to make “Jesus my dying cough.” To have none of the presence of Jesus now and only what is needed at the very last moment of our life. That cheapening of grace is not a strategy. Unlike Jesus, the love of money will eventually let us down, or it will totally waste our life looking at shiny things instead of going out and living as the full humans God created us to be. Lovers of money live in constant fear that they will lose it, but lovers of God find real and ultimate safety and security in him. Money can turn into a distraction and wastes your life. Don’t be fooled by it, but as someone under grace, we confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”
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.
This is why we pray for the faithfulness of our pastors. First, that they would actually commend scripture, preaching the Word. But then that their lives would reflect what they find there. Pastors are just people. We need your prayers. Whatever faithfulness you find in their way of life should be a goal for your own holiness. We are given several things to aim our changed hearts at in our passage today and the life of faith evident in pastors is one of them. Lord have mercy. Finally we remember in verse 8 that
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
What to do with this statement of faith seemingly thrown in out of nowhere? One commentator helpfully tells us that even though leaders are not perfect and some fall hard and some were pretending to be Christians, that when the faithfulness of Christian leaders falls short, Jesus Christ never has and never will. We may have bittersweet, or even just bitter memories of past church experiences, but man’s unfaithfulness only serves to contrast with the enduring faithfulness of Jesus. This makes sense for this letter to a congregation that was considering walking away from the faith. They may have had a bad experience with a leader, but that doesn’t mean that Jesus’s faithfulness changed. As we fix our changed hearts under grace on fixed points that God has provided for us to navigate our faith, Jesus is our North Star. His righteousness doesn’t fade. His love for you isn’t diminished. His leadership is above reproach. “He sees your beginning from the end and he calls you from there.” So in this season of growth, point your heart to Jesus and let the grace that he showed you guide your way of life in these last days. And Let brotherly continue in our hearts always.
