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(upbeat music) - Welcome to Hebrews chapter 13, the last chapter of the book of
Hebrews, day one, and our look at the last week in our book of Hebrews. We're
going to be looking at verses one to four today, and in fact, I'd like to start by
reading those verses. Keep on loving each other as brothers.

Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing, some people have
entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison, as if you were
their fellow prisoners, and those who were mistreated, as if you yourselves were
suffering. Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure,
for God will judge the adulterer and all sexually immoral.

Here we have in chapter 13, the writer of Hebrews talking about the practical
ways you and I are to live as followers of Jesus. Now, some people have actually
thought, well, maybe this doesn't belong in the book of Hebrews. There's been
discussion about that in church history, because all of a sudden, he begins to
talk about the practical.

But of course it belongs. The theological always leads to the practical in our
lives. What we're reading this week in Hebrews 13 grows out of everything else
in Hebrews.

These directions for life grow out of everything else we've been told. This is
not just a few applications tacked on at the end. These are the life altering
actions that grow out of the truth throughout Hebrews.

Because Jesus is better, because Jesus is your high priest, because Jesus sits
at God's right hand, this is how you should live. And we're going to look at these
next few days at a list, just a simple list of the ways you and I are to live as
followers of Jesus. And the challenge in these verses is not so much explaining
them.

They're pretty easy to understand. It's doing them. It's where and how and who
should I act, in what ways should I act so that I am following Jesus Christ?

In what areas? Well, chapter 13, verse one is the first one of them. First of
all, you love each other.

Love each other as family. That's what it means to know that Jesus is on his
throne. That's what it means to know that I'm following Jesus.

You love each other as family. The church is a family. And our love for the
world shows the world around us what Jesus' love is like.

That's how important it is. So we love each other out of the ways that Jesus
loves us. Because Jesus gave himself for us, we're to give ourselves for one
another.

Anything less is less than the kind of love that Jesus wants in our lives.
Because Jesus forgave us, we're to forgive one another. Because, and you can go
on and on and on, because Jesus puts up with us, and our sins and our struggles
and our frailties, we're to put up with each other.

Because Jesus is present with us, we're to be present for one another. This idea
somehow that Jesus takes care of all the needs and we don't have anything to do
with each other's needs is totally foreign to the New Testament. We're to love
each other as family.

Now that's easy to understand, but now it's the practice of doing it. How do I
do it? How do I love people that I struggle with?

How do I love people that I'm having a hard time with? Who do you need to love
today? Who do you need to pray for today?

Who do you need to serve today? Who do you need to be with today? As family.

Love each other as family. That's the first action. Second action is this.

Show hospitality to strangers. So we don't just treat believers in a good way,
we also show hospitality to strangers. Now in their day, talks about
entertaining strangers here.

In their day, it was often, often a habit to invite strangers into your home and
give them a place to stay and a meal. And then when you went to another town,
people would do that for you. They didn't have the system of hotels and motels
and things like that that we have.

In their day, there was this example of, by entertaining a stranger, you might
entertain an angel. In their day, they would remember back to the days of
Abraham where we need welcome those three men, those three strangers you might
remember in the book of Genesis and found that they were angels. They were there
representing God.

You never know. You never know who you're serving. How about in our day?

What does it mean? Well, it's a good thing to take people in if you can or to
give people a meal if you can. But let's just start here.

You want to be hospitable to strangers? Just be nice to people. Be nice to the
strangers that you meet as you walk through your day.

The people that are around you on the freeway as you're driving, be nice to
them. That's being hospitable. The people that serve you in a store or serve you
in a restaurant, be nice to them.

Smile at them. Don't look at them as somebody who's just there to meet your
needs. You're there to meet their needs.

You're a light of the world. You're a follower of Jesus Christ. It may sound
very small, but it's incredibly powerful how much you can change the culture
around you and how much you can change a person's day just by being nice to
them.

Start there. Show hospitality to strangers. Love each other as family.

A third thing we're told to do in these verses we just read is to remember.
Remember those who are in prison. Remember those who are being mistreated.

Remember those who are easy to forget. They're going through things that you're
not going through. They're not right in front of you, and so you forget about
them.

Now, we're to care for all who are in prison, but these verses take the
particular tone of those who are suffering persecution for their faith in
prison, being mistreated for their faith because they're followers of Jesus. And
for many of us in this world, those are easy people to forget because we live in
countries where we're not facing that kind of persecution. Now, you may say I'm
facing a measure of persecution, but it's not the kind that's faced in some
countries of the world where their lives are threatened, where they are thrown
in prison regularly and kept in prison for long periods of time.

And I would say for myself, it's easy to forget. It's easy to forget. And the
Bible tells us here, remember those believers around the world who are suffering
for their faith right now, who are in prison for their faith right now.

Pray for them. Reach out to them. Do everything you can for them.

That's one of the things we're to do because we're followers of Jesus, because
of who Jesus is. And then we are to, the Bible says in verse four, honor
marriage. We're to honor marriage.

The word honor here means to value it. So how do you value marriage? Whether
you're married or not, you can value marriage.

These verses are reminding us that one of the things we do as followers of Jesus
is we honor marriage. Because when you honor marriage, you honor God. Marriage
is God's idea.

It does us great good as individuals. It even does our society great good when
we honor marriage. Why is marriage held in such high honor?

Because God highly honors marriage. Because God values marriage. Now, there is
lots of arguing about marriage in our society today.

I deeply believe that believers should stand for what is right when it comes to
a man and a woman being married, even as God said in the book of Genesis and
Jesus affirmed in the Sermon on the Mount. But I also deeply believe that the
beginning point of any discussion, any argument about marriage has to be us
valuing our own marriages. Us valuing the marriages that are all around us.

That's where the strength is built. It's not built in our words. The strength is
built in our example, what we value.

So value marriage like God does. Now, why does God value marriage, by the way?
Let me just give you four quick reasons in the Bible.

You might just remember these in your mind. This is why we should honor
marriage. Because God values marriage.

How does marriage value who God is? Well, number one, marriage values God's
creation. The Bible says that in creation, God made man and he made woman.

And he said, they're going to be married to each other. They're going to, man and
woman, they're going to represent something wonderful that I want to do. The two
shall become one.

Now, in that valuing of God's creation is also our sexuality. I like what George
Guthrie said about this in his commentary on Hebrews. He said, "Our sexuality is
a power, "both beautifully dynamic and horrifically damaging "in its relational
potential.

" And that's true both in relationship to people and to God. That's the truth.
Because our sexuality is so powerful.

There's a beauty in it, but there's also a potential horror in it. Marriage
values God's creation, the beauty in what God has done. And in that, it also
values a second thing.

It values our differences. It values our differences as men and women. God has
made us to be so very different.

Have you noticed that? If you haven't noticed that, you're not looking. I'm not
just talking about physically different.

We think differently. We talk differently. I'm not saying every man and every
woman is just as different as every other man and every woman.

I know there are differences between us, but there are differences between the
genders that start from birth in even the way that we're wired in our brains and
that continue into the realities of the way that we live this life. And the
Bible says that God made man and woman in his image, in his image. It doesn't
say he made man in his image or just woman in his image, man and woman.

That tells me that it takes both men and women to represent fully who God's
image is in this world. Now, I'm not saying that God has not represented very
clearly to us and told to us to be a father. So we have a male image of God in
that.

But to take that to mean that somehow women don't also fill in what it means for
the image of God to be happening is to miss what the book of Genesis is all
about. We don't have enough time to go into this, but just remember, marriage
values our differences. It values God's creation.

Marriage values our children. By becoming married, committing our lives to one
another, we're valuing those children that we're raising in that marriage. And
then there's a fourth thing that marriage values.

It values, the book of Ephesians tells us, Jesus' love. Ephesians tells us that
marriage is a picture of the love that Jesus has for the church. There's a great
mystery in this, Paul says in Ephesians.

It's this picture of the love that Jesus has for the church. So in our marriage,
we are somehow picturing the love of Christ for his body. And that is a mystery
to me, but it's a wonderful mystery.

And that's just a quick look at some reasons that you and I should honor
marriage. The Bible says, stay away from sexual immorality. It's going to ruin your
life.

Value marriage, that's God's plan. Now, God's plan is not to ruin your life.
From the very beginning, marriage was put into place because God saw that Adam
was lonely.

And God had a plan to fulfill that loneliness. Even in perfect relationship with
God in the Garden of Eden, Adam was lonely. He needed something else.

And Eve, if she had been there alone, would have been lonely. She would have
needed something else. God has made us to need each other.

God has made us to live in this loving relationship with each other. So, as we
pray today, I want to pray about all of these things we've talked about, these
specific actions that you and I can take, because we know that Jesus is on his
throne. We know that we want to follow him.

Would you pray with me? Our Father, help us to love the brothers and sisters
that are around us. Give us the strength today to be kind to the strangers that
we meet.

Lord, give into our hearts a remembrance of those who are suffering in prison,
and especially those who are suffering because of persecution for their faith.
And Lord, help us to honor marriage, something you've made, your idea for your
glory. Lord, help us to think like you think.

And as we think like you think, our prayer is that we would do what you would do
in certain circumstances. We'd have the kind of word. We'd have the kind of
smile.

We'd have the kind of action. We'd have the kind of prayer that represents who
you are in that situation. We ask for this, something we could never do on our
own.

We ask for this to happen in our lives in Jesus' name. Amen. Tomorrow, we're
going to talk together about the power of contentment.