Faith's Diet & Exercise, Part ONE (Heb 13:9-14)

PRAY

Are we healthy?

Healthy living is kind of a major focus in our broader culture today.

Are you healthy? Are you battling sickness? Are you too lazy to care?

How much more should we be concerned about our spiritual health!

Healthy Faith (13:7-9)

In your spiritual life, are you healthy? Are you taking action to battle sickness (flesh fighting against the Spirit)? Are you allowing yourself to remain ignorant? Are you too lazy to care?

As we closed last week, we recapped like this:

A healthy faith is a proven faith.

Hebrews 13:7 ESV

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

A healthy faith remains focused on its foundation: simply Jesus.

Hebrews 13:8 ESV

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

A healthy faith has an undivided allegiance to Christ that guards against varied and foreign unbiblical teaching.

Hebrews 13:9 ESV

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.

Today we turn to…

Hebrews 13:10–16 ESV

We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. 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. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

A healthy faith is strengthened and evidenced by a healthy diet and exercise.

Our food is grace, and our exercise is to praise God with our lips and to show kindness and to share what God provides.

As we’re going through this text in Hebrews, we need to be asking ourselves:

How do we eat grace? And how do we present ourselves as living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1)?

I’ve divided this segment of thought in the text into these two main sections with various sub-points, all arising from the text. - Hearts strengthened by grace, and sacrifices pleasing to God. That’s the diet and exercise of healthy faith.

HEARTS STRENGTHENED BY GRACE (9b)

Where do you get replenished with more of God’s grace? (the favor he has shown us out of the abundance of his goodness through the merit of Christ)

not by ‘religion’ food (Heb. 9:10) and popular fad, but by going to the source of what is good - that’s where we are established/confirmed, increased in inner strength

Where do we get replenished with more of God’s grace?

The means of God’s grace (and the basics of the Christian life). To grow in loving God and one another: Pray. Read. Share. Serve. Witness. (all of which you are encouraged and expected to do in community with other believers)

Is grace enough? “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” (Jerry Bridges)

Is grace enough? (If you don’t comprehend your dependence, you won’t be feasting on grace.)

2 Corinthians 12:9a ESV

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

and v. 8 here: Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever.

[transition] The true food of the Christian faith is found in his grace, which we learn is not from a physical altar or religious system, but rather is Jesus himself, outside the “camp.” (so first our author has said where it is that we receive strength and health (from grace), and now further explains the foods that don’t have spiritual benefit for our health and how those devoted to them and their “system” and a given “place” are missing the boat)

We Have an Altar that Sanctifies (10-12)

Although verses 10-12 are foreign to our modern context, they essentially contrast two ways of worshipping God… through a system at a tabernacle, vs… drawing near to God in worship through a person... anywhere, all the time

What altar? - The sacrifice of Christ.

The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Letter to the Hebrews B. Instructions for the Congregation, 13:7–19

The high priesthood, sacrifices, and sanctuary of the Old Testament find their antitype and fulfilment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Here also, altar is a cultic term used in a shorthand and figurative way for the many dimensions of Christ’s death. His sacrifice is the source of both the saving and sustaining grace by which our hearts are strengthened.

But some (who are participating in the community of faith) apparently run the risk of being dragged back into the system of Judaism and to focus on the temple and special meals and so forth.

Hebrews 13:10 ESV

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

For some offerings, the offerer would further identify themselves with the altar and sacrifice by eating some of it.

But verses 11-12 emphasize a comparison regarding the Day of Atonement (in which case things were handled differently):

Hebrews 13:11–12 ESV

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

The bodies of animals offered on the Day of Atonement were not eaten but burned “outside the camp.” (see Lev. 4:21 & 16:27) Jesus, who was the ultimate atoning sacrifice, was similarly crucified outside the gates of Jerusalem (John 19:17). - John MacArthur

But those who keep themselves stuck in the system, who go on seeking for merit in their works, rather than resting on grace... that means they can’t eat from the altar, v.10 (have no share in Christ’s sacrifice)

By contrast, those who receive him by God’s grace only on Christ’s merit and none of their own, his sacrifice makes the people holy!

Because we are made holy through him and not the “system,”

We Go to Him Outside the Camp (13)

Hebrews 13:13 ESV

Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

It was a hard but necessary thing to do to leave the security of staying within the established system of Judaism and the approval from man that that would bring. But that’s why they had to go to Jesus outside the camp, where he IS! He’s bigger and better than the system. The system was actually meant to be the schoolmaster (Gal. 3:24) to lead these people (and us) TO Christ. Instead, they made the law their master. Not so with those who know they’re saved solely by grace.

Now we don’t really run the risk of falling back into Judaism. But we could perhaps be throne off by teaching that emphasizes works as a basis for salvation. - Don’t think that any works you do give any merit to your position before God. Our works are an outworking of grace. Mercy and kindness and sharing... flow out of what God has done. It’s all from him. There really is a difference.

We could be dragged into a religious camp that wants to care more about clothing and a specific singing style and which Bible translation is legit than to focus on what is actually biblical, what is actually sacred rather than thinking our preferences are biblical and sacred. [I have a friend who admits that he used to teach God’s word in an imbalanced way to try to prove a point that rock music (basically anything with a heavy beat) was from the devil and not from God. (I’m thinking to myself, I have no idea what scriptures you’d use to do that. But of course, I haven’t tried.) - Look, whether or not we think some music and environment is more conducive to corporate singing and to careful reflection, that doesn’t make the other music sinful. Anyway, this rabbit trail has a point:]

We get sidetracked with our pet preferences bc we can too easily lose focus on that which is actually central - Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

Our understanding of grace can be healthy and balanced bc God’s word is healthy and balanced bc God is healthy and balanced. - Does it sound like God (the way he reveals himself in the Bible) to say, “Yep, every man-made way to get to me is the same? Just pick one, you’re good.” Or to say, “Yep, absolutely. Once you’re ‘saved’ you can just live like you want bc grace covers all your messy lives.” No, Our understanding of grace can be healthy and balanced bc God’s word is healthy and balanced bc God is healthy and balanced.

Now of course grace also leads to spiritual transformation. The gospel changes us so that we value Christ as better and we willingly go out to where his is and bear his reproach.

A word about the reproach of being united with Christ and his people: Even though we make every effort to make Christ’s Bride attractive, we know that for the cause of Christ we may be marginalized and ostracized because of our faith, bc we won’t be pressured to conform to the norms of the society around us.

But it is tough… going to him outside the camp and bearing his reproach. - How do we keep our heads on straight to aim for being strengthened by grace so that we are willing to bear his reproach? “For”

We Seek the City that is to Come (14)

Hebrews 13:14 ESV

For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

(Our motivation and ability to follow Christ in suffering outside the camp is grounded in the fact that we are not earthbound but heaven-bound) - A healthy faith doesn’t find its security in the things of this earth, not even the known and established religious systems, but is sustained by the hope grace gives.

If you keep thinking of this world as your home, as if it is the destination you seek, then there will be no end to your striving and strife in this life. We’re pilgrims, like Abraham:

Hebrews 11:8–10 ESV

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

[SKIP TO CONCLUSION]

[Part Two - next time]

SACRIFICES PLEASING TO GOD (15-16)

Praising God

Showing Kindness and Sharing What We Have

[Conclusion]

Malnourished souls? Atrophied faith?

Is that God’s intention for believers, or does God intend to bring you into his kingdom, his covenant community of faith, and then nourish and strengthen you? [bad husband, bad father] Jesus is better. (Don’t run from his gracious pursuit.) God is better. (Don’t hide from his loving chastening.)

God has something better for us, but we have to make decisions to tap into it.

We need a healthy diet and exercise. - Now this is SUCH a broad and sweeping coverage of the Christian life, that I guarantee that you CAN and SHOULD find and make application to your life.

Are you investing yourself in the means of grace that God has for strengthening your soul?

God has something better for us, but we need to stay focused.

How do we do that? How will we run with endurance the race set before us?

Hebrews 12:2 ESV

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Now as we transition to our baptism celebration for today…

These two young ladies getting baptized, and all those of you recently baptized, are making (have made) a public declaration of your devotion to Christ and are asking us to hold you accountable to healthy Christian living. That’s our job, to do and be that for each other.

BAPTISM