Sermon Tone Analysis

Good Morning!

I hope all of you had a great week.

I had a great week with God and I’m excited to get to share some of that with you today.

As we get kicked off this morning, I want to share with you something that God spoke about this week that was really good for me and I think it will be for you as well.

I shared with you guys last week that in the midst of all the crazy of the previous week, I messed up and it really hit me hard.

I lashed out at someone in anger and not only was it wrong, but I was a horrible example of a Christ-follower.

I’ll be honest with you, it’s been a long time since I have felt that bad about something.

It took me a few days to get over it and the shame still lingered a few days after that.

I understood at the moment that I asked for forgiveness, both to the person and to God, that I was forgiven, but I still had to deal with the effects of my sin.

The next week, for life group we were reading chapter twenty-one in Gentle and Lowly and the author said this.

“When you sin, do a thorough job of repenting.

Re-hate sin all over again.”

I can assure you, I did a thorough job of repenting, but it was that second sentence that got me.

It occurred to me that I don’t hate all my sin the way I hated my anger that day.

I’m sharing this experience with you this morning because it was a fresh perspective for me on my sin.

I think all people have a tendency to categorize sin and find justification for ones that we deem insignificant.

The question I have been asking myself is, why don’t I have all sin like I did that one?

I’ve been asking God this week to change how I feel about sin and to rid me of the tendency to justify some sin and abhor others.

I share this with you this morning because the author has been writing the church to try and keep them from sin by turning away from their faith.

I think that getting us to a place where we hate our sin is what God has been trying to do in His people all this time.

God wants us to feel the same way about sin as He does.

Last week we compared the experiences of God on Mt.

Sinai versus Mt.

Zion.

On Mt.

Sinai, God revealed himself and caused everyone to fear him.

His purpose was to give the law and let Israel have his perspective on his holiness and their unrighteousness.

He gave the law so that they would know for certain what was sin and what was not.

On the contrary, Jesus brought about a different Mountain top experience.

Rather than fear, he brought joy because he has taken care of our sin.

He has poured out his righteousness on us.

Because of what Jesus has done, we get to decide how we are going to approach God.

We can approach him having dealt with our sin on our own or we can approach him having let Jesus deal with our sin.

If we have tried to do it ourselves, we must approach with fear because we will be judged and found wanting.

However, if we let Jesus take care of our sin problem, we can approach God with joy and confidence!

I ended last week with the challenge that we cannot hide the best part of ourselves from the people in our lives.

The best part of us is the part that is being conformed into Jesus’ likeness as we obey what he says.

Today, as we begin the last chapter of Hebrews, we are going to see the author give a similar challenge to the churches.

We are going to see him exhort the church to live the way Jesus lived.

In living like Jesus, we get to experience Kingdom life on Earth.

Let’s read verses 1-6 and then we will look at five distinct ways that he is encouraging the church.

1. Continue Loving One Another

Don’t be fooled by this seemingly simple challenge.

Let’s look at a couple of cross-references to see what is involved in this challenge to continue brotherly love.

You may recall Glen teaching or mentioning this passage in the past.

Consider what it means to “take the lead in honoring one another.”

As Christ-followers, we are to love, not in response to how we are loved by others, but to take the lead in love.

We set the bar of what it means to love by loving the way Jesus did.

Spoiler alert, we are going to spend quite a bit of time talking about that after this series.

To use myself as an example of what not to do, when I lost my temper a few weeks ago, I did not love as Jesus did.

I met anger with anger, when Jesus teaches that we are to meet anger with love.

There is a tendency in our culture to respond in the same tone or tendency as someone else.

Paul is telling us in Romans that we are to be the ones that set that tone but to set it by loving one another in a way that honors the person and God.

Peter expresses a similar challenge.

Not only are we to love to the degree that Jesus did, but we are to do it constantly.

There are no days off when it comes to obeying Jesus’ command to love one another.

Jesus’ whole life revolved around abiding in the father and his father had him focused on revealing His nature to the world.

Jesus did this by loving everyone he came into contact with.

It may frighten you to think that we are called to love to the level that Jesus did, but it is only frightening if we are considering doing it in our own power.

Because we know God, we love.

It is through our abiding relationship that we are used by God to love the world in the same way He used Jesus as He abided in the Father.

It is the power of God on display, not us.

2. Show Hospitality

This is a lot bigger than just being a good host when you have someone in your home.

Hospitality is about taking care of people and it is the natural response to loving someone.

As you know, Big Luke was in town two weeks ago and he was staying in a hotel while he was here.

Before you give me a hard time on this point of showing hospitality, we don’t have a guest room and I offered our coach, but he preferred a hotel.

My point is, that while he was here, we did what comes naturally to people here in the south.

We fed him.

Just about every night he was here we cooked a huge meal and he came over and ate until he was full as a tick and then we were able to send him back to his room with leftovers for lunch the next day.

I’m not sharing this to pat myself on my back, I’m sharing this because it was a natural response to him being in town.

How many of you, when you go home to your parents' house, are treated to a home-cooked meal?

Parents do that kind of thing because they love their children.

When we are abiding, our natural response to those that are in need is going to be to help them.

Look at this story from Abraham’s life.

Upon seeing these three men, who were apparently wandering in the wilderness (Abraham live as a Nomad and followed the best places for his flocks to graze), Abraham welcomed them into the shade of his tent and took care of their needs.

It was a good call on his part because they were the ones that told Sarah that she would have a son.

Again, taking care of others is the response, not of obligation, but of a person who loves God.

When we are loving others and caring for them, it is bigger than just meeting their needs.

All people are image-bearers of God and loved by him and when we care for those that God cares for, we are loving God as well.

3. Have Sympathy For Those In Trouble

This is very similar to point number two about caring for one another.

But, prison, in the time of Roman occupation was quite different than it is today.

Even the basic needs, of food and water, were not provided for prisoners.

This call to care for those in prison was a call to keep them alive.

It is quite possible, based on some things that I read this week, that the author of Hebrews was in jail when he was writing this.

It was also possible that many of the church members had been or were in prison at the time of this writing.

This exhortation wasn’t just a one-off because the author had a soft spot for prisoners.

The threat of imprisonment was a normal part of being a follower of Jesus at this time.

The author is encouraging the church to not forget their brothers and sisters that were being persecuted and calling them to act boldly in the face of that persecution.

Caring for those in need is where the rubber hits the road.

It is the point in which we have to decide if we really believe the things we say we believe and will follow Christ in caring for those that are in great need.

Throughout our lives, we are going to have opportunities to help others who are not able to help themselves.

If we are not abiding daily we will either ignore the opportunity or flat out miss seeing it because our focus isn’t on walking with God.

We will talk about this more in the future, but one of the things that was distinctive about Jesus is that he seemed to see what other people did not.

He saw those that were in need that others ignored.

If we are to love like Jesus, we need to begin to not only see what He sees but to be driven by love into action.

4. Maintain Purity

I am going to keep this brief and vague because of the little ears.

Honoring our spouses and our relationship with them is of utmost importance.