Four Loves in the Unshakeable Kingdom

Hebrews 13:1–6 “Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. 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.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?””

Other Passages: John 13:34–35; 1 John 3:11, 3:23, 4:11-12; Heb 6:9-10; Heb 2:11; 1 Peter 5:8-9

Words to listen for: Brother, Stranger, Spouse, Money

Introduction

Tonight we come to the final chapter of Hebrews, and specifically to the opening verses of Hebrews 13. After eleven chapters of majestic teaching about the supremacy of Christ, His once-for-all sacrifice, the new covenant, and the unshakable kingdom that is coming, the author now turns to very practical, down-to-earth instructions for how we are to live as citizens of that kingdom while we still walk on shaken ground.

In verses 1–6 the writer gives us four different kinds of love—four ways love is to characterize the people who belong to Jesus in this present age. These are not optional add-ons to the Christian life; they are essential expressions of the reality that we have been brought into an unshakeable kingdom that will endure when everything else is removed.

The four loves we will consider tonight are:

Brotherly love (philadelphia) — the affectionate, family-like love that should mark every relationship among believers

Love of strangers (philoxenia) — hospitality that opens the door to people we do not yet know 

Marital love — the honoring and protecting of the one-flesh union between husband and wife

The love we must refuse — the love of money (aphilargyria), a misplaced affection that threatens to steal our trust away from God

Notice that the passage begins and ends with love. It opens with the command to make sure brotherly love continues, and it closes by warning us against letting our lives be controlled by love of money. In between we find love for the stranger, love for the persecuted, and love that guards the marriage covenant.

Why does the author gather all these loves together here? Because in the great shaking that God is bringing (Hebrews 12:26–27), everything that can be shaken will be removed, but the things that cannot be shaken will remain. And among those enduring realities is love—love that flows from the love of Christ for us, love that marks us as His disciples, love that will last when every other foundation crumbles.

As we walk through these verses tonight, our prayer is that the Holy Spirit would stir us afresh to live out these four loves in a world that desperately needs to see what the people of an unshakeable kingdom actually look like.

I. Love Your Brother (phil•adelphia)

Hebrews 13:1 “Let brotherly love continue.”

You may not have realized it but all of you here living in Pennsylvania know at least one Greek word already. It’s the other major city besides Pittsburgh: Philadelphia. Yup, Philadelphia is a straight up, unadulterated word in Greek which means “phil - love adelphia - brothers” or “brotherly love.”

Verse one says, “Let brotherly love continue.” It’s a command. But “let” sounds quite weak to our English ears because in this case we are running into a situation in which English does not fully correspond to Greek expression. In Greek you can have a 3rd person imperative. An imperative in English is a command. Obey. In English we don’t have to put a personal pronoun in connection with the command. But in Greek it would either be “you/you all obey” or “he/they obey.” When you add the third person pronoun in English it just doesn’t sound like a command anymore, it sounds like a statement of fact. But in Greek it’s very clear that this a command, but in the third person. So one way that many translators translate it is by saying “let.” Unfortunately that still sounds a little limp and passive if you don’t know what’s really going on in the text.

So when you see this “let brotherly love continue” you ought to understand that the author of Hebrews is not saying “please allow this to happen” he’s saying “make sure brotherly love continues.” “Ensure philadelphia remains.”

The word translated “continue” here is the same word used in verse 27 of chapter 12. Hebrews 12:27 “…in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.” Here’s a clue to us of the way the author is viewing chapter 12 and 13 as connected.

In the midst of things that will be shaken away, there are enduring realities of God’s kingdom that will remain, and must remain. One of those realities is brotherly love. Remember that Jesus repeatedly said that deep affection for each other would be a distinguishing mark of his disciples. John 13:34–35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.””

We also find it mentioned in 1 John all over the place: 1 John 3:11 “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” 1 John 3:23 “And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” 1 John 4:11–12 “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

I think you get the point. Love between Christians is foundational to their Christian identity and it is directly connected to our relationship with God. This term “philadelphia” is used broadly in Greek writings to refer to love between literal brothers, but the New Testament writers distinctively refer to and call for this “philadelphia,” brotherly affection, to happen between those who are Christians but not otherwise closely related. It is distinctly Christian to think of people who are very different in many ways as siblings and love them accordingly.

And in the book of Hebrews we have seen this reality connected to its source: Christians not only brothers of one another but of Christ himself. The wonder of Christ’s redemptive work is that he has come down to be our permanent brother. As Hebrews 2:11 says “he is not ashamed to call them brothers,” Christ does not treat us with stereotypical sibling rivalry, jealousy, bitterness, or distain. He has every right to treat us as lesser, the sibling you try to pretend doesn’t exist when in good company. Instead he treats as his brothers and sisters of whom he is not ashamed.

This should translate into our own attitude towards our fellow Christians. The early Christian church was known (and misunderstood) for their close affection for one another even by the pagan world around them:

“In the second century, Lucian of Samosata writes disdainfully about the Christians that “their first lawgiver persuaded them that they are all brothers of one another after they have transgressed once for all by denying the Greek gods and by worshipping that crucified sophist himself [Jesus] and living under his laws. Therefore they despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property, receiving such doctrines traditionally without any definite evidence” (The Passing of Peregrinus 13).”

The pagan Greeks looking on at the Christians thought they were crazy for worshipping Jesus and calling each other brother and sister.

While I think that the congregation here at Grace OPC demonstrates this well, I don’t think this kind of love comes naturally. It comes supernaturally and so the author of Hebrews, who, in Heb 6:9-10 assured his readers of his confidence in their brotherly love, feels the need to command them to ensure brotherly love continues in chapter 13. So I think we need this reminder as well.

The next love we see in our passage is love of stranger:

II. Love the Stranger (philo•xenia)

Hebrews 13:2 “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

Now, with the phrase “hospitality to strangers” you can see where I might have gotten the idea of loving strangers. But not every translation includes the word “strangers.” This is because the word “stranger” isn’t exactly there in Greek. What I mean is that the phrase in Greek is very compact it is basically three words “Don’t forget hospitality.” But this word translated hospitality is very interesting. It’s a Greek combo word: a combination of “philo - love and xenia - stranger.” You may have heard the word xeno-phobia thrown around. That comes from the Greek word for stranger and fear. xeno-phobic means fear of strangers. Philo-xenia means love of strangers. So the Greek word for hospitality is literally stranger-love.

The ESV translation of “show hospitality to strangers” gives us the meaning clearly, but in Greek this would be a little bit redundant. Because the word “hospitality” in Greek means loving strangers. There isn’t any other kind of hospitality except hospitality to strangers.

We sometimes think of hospitality as something that close friends give to one another, but in the Greek we’re reminded that the heart of this idea is a willingness to bring people in who we’re not already particularly close to.

Now, this doesn’t mean that in order to obey this biblical command we have to invite every stranger off the street to our dinner table or put them up in our guest room. We’re not prohibited from knowing something about the danger that might be posed and take certain precautions. But in our haste to qualify this command with considerations of safety, we should not dismiss it altogether.

Consider the next part of the verse: “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Clearly the author is envisioning true strangers whom the hosts did not even know previously. The two notable examples in biblical history come from Genesis in which Abraham and then Lot showed hospitality to two angels while remaining apparently oblivious to their supernatural identity.

In many cultures around the world as in the Old Testament times, hospitality to strangers is a is consider a basic virtue. My brother visited Honduras a number of years ago and was struck by their hospitality. Despite the impoverished living conditions of dirt huts with dirt floors and sometimes struggling to get enough to eat, every house kept a thermos of hot milk ready to serve a cup to any impromptu guest that showed up. There was no consideration of which party could better afford it, it was simply considered basic curtesy. I’ve had similar experiences in Uganda when I’ve visited there. As I’m sure many of you who have traveled abroad have found various other cultures to be very hospitable as well.

Calli and I have experienced first hand the kind hospitality of Grace OPC since we first came and visited in June 2024 and stayed with a family we’d never met before, were given a tour around Pittsburgh by someone we’d never met, and hosted for a pool party at the house of more people we had never met. The congregation here continues to show wonderful love of strangers and in the process turns them into friends.

Hospitality is also a powerful tool for evangelism. While America as a nation has a history of generosity towards immigrants (despite the current issues of illegal immigration), we are not often as hospitable on a personal level. Our culture is increasingly isolated and insular. It is becoming more and more rare to know those people that live close to you to have them in your home and to be in theirs. This creates an incredible opportunity for the body of Christ to stand out as counter-cultural by showing stranger-love to those around us, because in these days the bar has been set incredibly low.

In a previous church I was a part of they did mini series on something called “The Art of Neighboring” which has resources and ideas on how to engage your neighbors in order to love them especially sharing the life-transforming news of the gospel. It was all about learning to be counter-cultural by going out of our way to actually engage our literal neighbors and get to know them.

In verse 3 (Hebrews 13:3) brother-love and stranger-love come together: “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.”

This verse is always very convicting to me because I’m only rarely this sympathetic towards believers who are persecuted. For the original audience this would have probably been a call to not distance themselves from those that might cause them embarrassment or endanger them. For us today, it means being aware and praying for those who are both strangers to us and yet our brothers and sisters in Christ. I’m thankful that at Grace we regularly list persecuted Christians in our sheet for prayer meeting.

But in this age of information and desensitization we can easily become, or remain, blissfully ignorant of the plight of God’s people across the world. This can lead to a distorted view of our own situation in history as Christians. We can begin to think of persecution as an abnormal reality for Christians. This can sap our Christian witness generally and attack our courage in evangelism. If you think that persecution isn’t normal you’ll be more likely to quit as soon as sharing the gospel is painful or awkward. You’ll be more likely to try to blend in and hide your faith from your neighbors and co-workers.

The Apostle Peter reminded tells us that remembering the situation of persecuted brothers and sisters is an essential element of fighting the devil. 1 Peter 5:8–9 “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.”

From Peter we see that we need to remember our persecuted brothers and sisters not only for their sake in prayer, but also for our own sake. Satan will try to make you feel sorry for yourself and like what’s happening in your life is totally unique, nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. You’re more likely to fall to Satan’s attack when you lose sight of what your brothers and sisters around the world are suffering for the gospel right now.

We’re called to remember those who are in prison as though we are bound with them. We ought to pray for them to be delivered—loving them as we love ourselves—and also pray for their endurance through the suffering so that they keep the faith. When you’re regularly doing this you’ll find it expands your prayer life and strengthens your own faith to endure your own trials.

The third love in our passage is:

III. Love Your Spouse

Look at Hebrews 13:4 “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”

In this case the Greek text doesn’t offer us any special angle on the word love, but the concept of marital love is clearly present. I think this conceptual link is why we have this exhortation on the heels of verses 1-3.

I find it apropos for this exhortation to honor marriage to come in the context of these exhortations to love. The Greek word for “held in honor” means literally to value greatly. This exhortation ensures that there is no confusion in the context of love.

Our culture today is very confused about the nature and proper expression of love. Many distortions of intimate desires have come to be called love when they should be called debauchery. Sadly this was not much different in the Roman world of the first century. Today healthy boundaries within the concept of love are transgressed and even erased, in the name of love. But Hebrews 13:4 stands in stark opposition to this Satanic movement. To love brothers and strangers means to value and preserve the marriage bond as set apart and precious.

Husbands and wives love their children well by preserving intimate affection between each other. It is good for children to know that daddy loves mommy more than anyone else, and mommy loves daddy more than anyone else. This provides security for the children since the family unit is held together through marriage.

But it is important for those outside the family to respect, and honor the exclusive relationship between a husband and wife. This means that friends don’t let friends come between spouses to pull them away from each other. It also means that spouses love each other and others by preserving their unique union with each other. This means not only guarding deeds and words, but also eyes and thoughts which might stray. Husbands and wives must continually ask themselves, am I prizing and thus protecting my marriage in what I think, say, and do?

This comes command comes with stern reminder of the consequences of the alternative. It can be easy to forget or try to ignore the consequences of sexual immorality. In the moment it often carries its own promise of pleasure which can crowd out thoughts of consequences. But the Bible is clear, the consequences are consequential. Judgment falls upon those who fail to treat the marriage bed with honor and respect.

We’ll come back to this verse next week and consider it more deeply, but this evening we’ll move on to consider the fourth love:

IV. Don’t Love Money (a•phil•argyria)

Hebrews 13:5-6 “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.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?””

The fourth love in our passage is a love that we should not have. The whole phrase “Keep your life free from love of money,” is two words in the Greek. One word conveys life or lifestyle and the other word says “keep it free from the love of money.” The word is ἀφιλάργυρος. It has three parts “a - not, phil - love, arguros - silver/money.” The author seems to be deliberately tying this back to the idea of love in the previous verses because he does not use the normal word for greed. Instead he uses this compound word describing the love of money.

As you can see it is hard to translate this single Greek word concisely, but the idea is clear. Our lives must not be characterized by a love of money.

Now, when I was growing up I used to think, why would anyone ever want to love money? It seems silly to tell people not to love money because the number of people that cartoonishly adore money simply for money’s sake are quite small. Picture Donald Duck leaping up and diving into piles of gold. Who does that? But as I got older and started to make money and need money for various things I soon began to understand what a pervasive temptation this is.

Most people do not love money in and of itself. What they love about money is the power, opportunities, friendships, comfort, and security that money can provide. Money is the most natural substitute for God in our lives. We use money to function because we do not individually have the time, skills, or energy to create everything we need to sustain ourselves. Thus we offer our time, effort, and energy in one area which compensates us with money which we then exchange for those things we need. There’s nothing wrong with this system. The Bible assumes the foundational reality of private ownership of property. Otherwise there would be nothing wrong with stealing, it couldn’t even be called stealing. Money is not inherently evil, but it is tempting.

Money’s ability to provide things in this life can quickly capture our heart. Trusting and loving money is a form of trusting and loving yourself. You start to enjoy the feeling of self-sufficiency. If you have enough money it feels like you can do anything you want. You can love money if you have a lot of it, but you can be equally infatuated with money when you don’t have much.

The temptation can be very strong to say, if I just had a little bit more money then life would be okay. If I only had as much as that other person I wouldn’t be so stressed or miserable. It’s not wrong to ask for a raise or recognize your worth as an employee, necessarily. But beware that even these legitimate and even good things can be done out of covetous or proud heart.

The heart of the problem is that money has a peculiar way of supplanting God in our hearts and lives. Money is the means that God uses to provide for us according to the normal order of things. (God did feed Elijah directly by ravens, but that was an unusual event.) But our sinful myopic hearts have a tendency to fail to keep the ultimate source in view. We lose sight of God and think that money is our real source of comfort, security, happiness, and even meaning, instead of seeing it as coming from God who is our real source of comfort, security, happiness, and meaning.

The antidote to the love of money is being content and this is fought on the field of our hearts with God’s promise, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” When our hearts get captured with a desire for money we begin to doubt God’s provision for us.

Sometimes this is because we’re not totally sure that the standard of living we want matches up with what God wants for us. So we begin to doubt that God will make all of our finances flowing at the level we would like. We become afraid and start acting out of fear. We don’t think we can trust God to keep our standard of living exactly where we want it, so we don’t think we can trust him at all.

But this is not true. This is where we need faith and we need to come back to remember that God is not out to get us, but he is out to make us like Jesus so that we can enjoy heaven forever. So he’s willing to put some financial hardship in our lives if that’s what it takes. But he will never leave us, he will always give us what we truly need, even if it is not always exactly everything we want.

I’ve quoted the ancient church preacher John Chrysostom in the past and about this verse he says, “For as, when He is our enemy, it is no gain, though all men should be our friends, so when He is our friend, though all men together war against us, there is no harm” (Homilies on Hebrews 33.5). When God is with you, when he is your helper you are secure, you cannot be shaken and there is nothing to fear.

As we conclude, we see the message of Hebrews 13:1–6 is: in a world that is being, and will e profoundly shaken, love remains.

Everything else may be stripped away—comforts, status, possessions, even the visible structures we once leaned upon—but love, the love that flows from the unshakable kingdom, endures. And it endures because it is first the love of Christ poured out into our hearts.

The author has placed before us four loves that must mark us as citizens of this coming kingdom:

A continuing brotherly love (philadelphia) that refuses to grow cold, treating every believer as true family because Christ Himself is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.  

A courageous love of strangers (philoxenia) that opens doors, extends tables, and remembers the imprisoned and mistreated as though their chains were our own. 

A fierce, protective love of marriage that honors the covenant, guards the marriage bed, and stands as a living testimony against every distortion of love the world celebrates. 

And finally, the resolute refusal to let love of money take root, choosing instead the far richer security of the promise: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 

These are not optional decorations on the Christian life. They are the enduring things—the realities that will remain when every other foundation is removed (Heb 12:27). They are the visible evidence that we belong to a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

And when your heart grows weary, when the shaking feels overwhelming, when fear whispers that you will be left alone—lift your eyes to the One who spoke the promise that anchors everything:

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

That is the deepest love of all—the deep, deep love of Jesus. Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free. An ocean that rolls over us, under us, around us, carrying us home.

Let that love be the source from which all our other loves flow. Let it be the mark that distinguishes us in a shaken world. And let it be the song that rises from our lips as we wait for the day when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord—to the glory of God the Father.

Until that day, may we live as those who truly belong to the Unshakeable Kingdom—loving one another deeply, because love never ends.