Hebrews 13:4-9

How do we worship, walk, work and witness better in 2026? We run the race. We look to Jesus. We cherish the refinement of our lives. We guard the content of our character. We chose the hill of adoration. We worship with reverent, awe-filled, un-delayed gratitude.

Our sojourn through life becomes a sacrifice of praise and an offering of worship. I feel like Hebrews 13 is hard living because there isn’t a whole lot of wiggle room for conditional obedience in this chapter. And I feel like last week was the easy part. Do life with the people in this room unlike any other Christian friendship that you have. Become a hospitality expert. Compassionately care and serve the universal body of Christ.

Today, we have three relational offerings that focus on the “four walls” relationships of our lives, but the emphasis is on the person you see in the mirror.

The fourth relational offering - discipline yourself to honor and value your marriage (or future marriage)

Hebrews 13:4 ESV

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.

The health of your marriage or that fact that you are not married shouldn’t change how we honor and value marriage. Let’s take the first half of the verse.

Let marriage be held in high honor among all. In most non-Christian cultures throughout history, marriage has been disposable. It was a problem in the New Testament and it’s a problem in 2026. The first time we read ‘marriage’ in this verse, the writer is speaking about the marriage commitment. The marriage contract. The agreement that begins at engagement and ends at death. As believers, our posture toward marriage is high honor because being married is a privilege to be valued and considered precious.

What about divorce? I try to give a ton of grace toward people that have divorce in their past, because I know the devastation and destruction that divorce causes. For the same reasons, I have pretty strong convictions about divorce and remarriage. For instance, I know a guy who started dating after his second divorce. His youngest child was in 5th grade and he asked for my opinion about the situation. Without a hesitation, I told him, “You should not think about marriage for seven more years.” If you enter engagement with divorce as an option, you should get unengaged. You have not yet learned to hold marriage in high honor.

How does a person hold marriage in high honor? First, believe what God believes about marriage ~ one man, one woman, one lifetime together. Second, be married how God tells us to be married. Ephesians 5 gives unconditional statements about marriage.

Ephesians 5:22 - “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” This verse does not mean what many grew up being taught what this verse means. Historically, hyper-conversative Baptist churches have destroyed this verse. Submit does not mean surrender to your husband or any other husband. Submit does not mean your husband is your boss. You are not his boss, either. A husband-wife partnership is supposed to be the strongest partnership on the planet. When a wive holds marriage in high honor, submit means that you lean into your husband’s leadership in the family partnership.

Ephesians 5:25–27 “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” If we edit Paul’s sentence down to the beginning and the end, which is what most people remember, we read this. “Husband, love your wives, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Sacrifice. Edify. Encourage. Serve. When a husband hold marriage in high honor, there is a precious and valued love that creates a craving for his wife to lean in to the amazing partnership that both of you want.

Genesis 3 messed up God’s design pretty significantly and we can dig into these verses on Wednesday night.

Let the marriage bed be undefiled. Your version might replace ‘sexually immoral’ with fornicator or whoremonger. This time, sexually immoral is a better translation because it is impossible to be married and be a fornicator. Sexual sin while you are married is adultery not fornication. The strong discipline of keeping the marriage bed undefiled certainly avoids physical sexual sins, but it also avoids emotional and mental sexual sins.

1 Corinthians 7 is another great passage on marriage. 1 Corinthians 7:4 says, “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” A husband-wife partnership is supposed to be the strongest partnership on the planet.

If you are not married, your responsibility is to obey God’s Word and glorify him by remaining undefiled and faultless before you are married.

The fifth relational offering - determine the Lord’s provision sufficiently satisfies

Hebrews 13:5–6 ESV

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?”

I heard somebody say this week, “When you get high or drunk, you declare that God waking you up this morning wasn’t good enough. You think you need more than he gave you.”

There a heart conditions that suggests God’s provision isn’t enough. In fact, verses 1-3 will be difficult to live if you aren’t satisfied with the Lord’s provision. It is impossible to embrace a greedy lifestyle that chases another dollar and practice generosity at the same time. Responsible stewardship is different than being greedy. Greediness brings a discontentment and a dissatisfaction with your stuff. Greediness forces a person to crave something they don’t have and may never attain. I don’t think a person chase greediness and chase Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. You cannot sojourn those roads at the same time.

For the believer who might be struggling with contentment, the writer simply reminds us that the Lord will never leave us or forsake us. He will never loosen his grip from our hand. He will never abandon our life. If you are a believer, the Lord’s presence is always with us. Equally comforting, the Lord’s help is always with us. We can remain confident in those truths. We can be assured the Lord’s presence and help is more powerful than our reasons to be fearful or skeptical of humans and their systems to manipulate and deceit.

The sixth relational offering - devote yourself to spiritual authority that faithfully and biblically speaks into your life

Hebrews 13:7–9 ESV

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.

Bible teachers, preaching content, and human opinion about the Bible has never been more available than what it is right now. Some of it is solid theology and some is not. Friends, it is my job as your pastor and my duty as your brother in Christ, to say this to you. BE CAREFUL what you feed your soul with! There is “Bible teaching” all over the internet that is leading people away from being an offering of praise and worshipping the Lord with reverent, awe-filled, un-delayed gratitude. Jesus warned the disicples in Matthew 7:15, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Paul told the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:29–30, “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.”

Satan does a great job of inserting small nuggets of truth and twisting them that so we believe something not in the Bible. Know who you are following. Spiritual authority that faithfully and biblically speaks into your life calls out your garbage and celebrates your growth. Sometimes in the same conversation.

Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever. The truth of God’s Word that every person in Hebrews 11 lived by is the same truth of God’s Word that we are invited to live by.