Well, tonight we're taking in Hebrews chapter 13 and verses one to six, title being this, An Unselfish Life. An Unselfish Life. With chapter 12 having finished, our considerations there, verses 25 to 29, which we completed last week, that actually ends the main body of this letter. The main argument of the writer has now come to its conclusion, and he's shown, hasn't he, with relentless logic, the supremacy and the sufficiency, all sufficiency, of our Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. The high priest we need, the prophet that we need, he and he alone is the one that we must put our trust in. And so from that, he then draws some conclusions in chapter 13, a variety of conclusions, some of them shorter than others, but moral duties, spiritual, religious duties, things that we ought to do, ought to be, behavior that we should be showing, believers should be showing, and our relations within churches, towards pastors, or wherever else it might be. And then it finishes, in the end we didn't read that far, but with personal news, and then with doxology beyond that. So these first six verses, which I've quite a variety, don't know things, but just holding them together there with a title, Unselfish Life. Unselfish Life, this is what it would look like. And the first heading is Loving People. Loving People. Let brotherly love continue. There we have it, don't we, in verse one. It gets illustrated in a moment by categories of people that we might love. people that we might not think to love, but whom we ought to love. But if we just start with love itself, let's brotherly love. We notice the qualification there. It's thinking about actually within the life of the fellowship, within the life of the church, brotherly love, let it continue. Don't let it stop. Don't let it be stalled, but let it continue. Let it carry on. Let it be like a kind of never ending stream in that way. Sure enough, it has rewards. There's love. That we prove faithful to friends, they often will prove faithful to us in return. It does have its rewards, but... That is not what is uppermost in our thinking. We love because that's what love's about. It's the best of things to do, the best of life to follow. We follow it in a sense, even though it may not have any immediate rewards here and now. So it's a little bit in the territory that we have this morning. But we are to starve ourselves of self-love, as if self-love is really true love at all. It's a denial of love. Love is centered on others. It goes out from ourselves and reaches out to others, wishes their best interests to be forwarded, wishes them to know that we love them, that we appreciate them. And of course, we show it in different contexts there, to husbands, to wives, children, or within the life of the church, how that is to be distributed. So it's away from ourselves and it's towards others. It's the opposite, isn't it, there of what we're thinking about this morning a bit and holding on to our own resources, no love. So there's no let go of those things. Reach out to others warmly and willingly and truthfully. Be unselfish in it and no malice, no hypocrisy, but to show it truly. And we learn of its importance by what happens when it's absent. So Revelation chapter 2 verses 4 to 5, and the church in Ephesus that the risen Christ had something to say, one of the seven churches in Asia that he addresses. And the fault that he finds there is that they are not loving. they've lost that. Let me read those verses, verses 4 and 5 of Revelation 2. Nevertheless our Lord says, I have this against you that you've left your first love. Remember therefore from where you've fallen, repent and do the first works or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. There's a warning that it's saying in fact there that If there is no love in the church, soon enough, there'll be no church. That it's absence, that the first love, those works that were being done at first, would include warmth within the life of the church and an outreach in that way to each other. And something had gone wrong in the church in Ephesus. It lost that. It had doctrine, all right, and it was good for that, but love had disappeared. And soon the church would disappear, because it's lampstand, that which is at the heart of it, that Christ looking at the churches, walking among the lampstands, they're meant to give light. When that ceases to be, if there's no love, then the light is diminishing. And the Lord threatens judgment, that they must repent, they must do again what they were doing at the first, else he will come to them in a way of judgment and take away the lampstand. there'd still be something called the church in Ephesus left behind. But it ceased to be a church. It's no longer functioning as a church. And so we can see that this is very, very important. Not gathering together, which was one of the features, actually, that things weren't right in these churches, in this church that the writer was writing to. They weren't gathering together. Something was going wrong. There was no willingness, no interest there. And that was a sign of decline. They weren't coming to have the Lord's Supper together. They've been told to remember to do that. Well, they weren't doing that. And that was a sign of decline. So we are to keep love. We are to let it continue. We are to be jealous for it to be fanned into flames. A few other verses surrounding that, 2 Peter 1 5-7. 2 Peter 1 5-7. says, but also this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. And that's not a kind of where you work up a ladder here. You begin somewhere there with faith and then virtues, your next sort of aim. You're kind of like in some game or other, you move on to the next stage. When you pass that stage, now you complete gradually up and then you get to love. But it's saying that this in its entirety is what we are to pursue and brotherly kindness, And love, well, the love is locked together, isn't it, with a brotherly kindness. That's there. 1 Thessalonians, and in chapter 4, in verses 9 to 10. And we read there, concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you, for yourselves are taught by God to love one another. And indeed, you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more. So the church is commended, actually, because it does have love, that the people there are looking out for each other and concerned for each other, praying for each other, helping each other. But he urges them, well, you are doing well, but do even better. Don't ever think that you've reached that point, nothing more to be done. Let it, therefore, continue. And as Revelation chapter two, the church there in Ephesus brought a warning, well, 1 John, and just a few verses from there, chapter two, verses nine to 11, showed that actually, no love for brethren, no love for Christians, some antipathy there, means no love for Christ, actually. Because Christ loves the church, and if we love Christ, we love the church too. So 1 John chapter two, and verses nine to 11. He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But he who hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes. That's what hate does, doesn't it? It blinds the eyes, it makes us confused in our thinking, we're not rational, we're irrational, we stumble around, we don't know where we are going. And such a person may say that they are in the light, they may claim that, but if they hate their brother, if there's hatred rather than love working, then actually they're in darkness, not in the light. They've denied the light because if they're in the light, they'd be loving their brother because that's what Christ does, loves the brethren. Or in chapter 3 of that same letter, and just verses 14 and 15, we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Very strong. That's how it is. That's how it's to work. And God looks for that love, that sense of belonging, fellowship together, of being the same kind of pilgrimage and encouraging each other. That's to be very much found there. What stops it? What stops it? Let brotherly love continue, be adding these various things to your virtues and to your self-control and godliness and so forth. What stops it happening? Well, what's happening in the writer to the Hebrews, this company of people that he's writing to? There's spiritual decline. That inasmuch as Christ, his value declines to us, and the gospel declines in its value, won't stand with others in its proclamation, you'll find that not so interesting. You're not one to be with other believers. In fact, you feel a bit uncomfortable that they are enthusiastic, perhaps, and you're not. They are zealous, and you're not, and you're feeling a bit uncomfortable with that because you've lost something. You've lost your love for Christ, your appreciation of his cross, the blood of Christ. It's not precious as once it had been. Of course, the thing we should do is repent. Or that we are maybe just taking up with the world, aren't we? That the world has become too important. Keep coming back to that theme at the moment, but it's a big theme, isn't it? It's just become too important, this world and getting good outcomes here. And so we don't value, don't value our spiritual progress, don't value spiritual joys and benefits. They're disappearing. And so where are you going to find those things? Life at the church. that that becomes less important. Hearing preaching, reading the Bible, studying for ourselves, looking to grow, that just isn't on the agenda, just isn't on our kind of wavelength. Unfortunately too, people's bad behaviour in church life can also make brotherly love cool. That's sometimes people do, don't they? Join churches, get badly hurt, never want to join another church again. Various people have let them down, disappointed them as they don't understand it, and they want no more to do with it. And find churches not to be helping them, but hindering them in their Christian lives. That's tragic. I fear at times it's actually true, but it's tragic. And that that can sometimes mean that brotherly love is held back. People don't trust anymore that they've seen what Christians do to each other. Now they can take offense, how they can be judgmental, how they can just hate people and whispering campaigns and backbiting and all these things just downright distasteful. I think, well, I really, really could stand apart from this. Thank you. And that again is sad. So loving people, well, we love people, don't we? And we follow that up in our Christian life together, pray for each other, pray for our spiritual progress, pray that love may abound and that there would be that togetherness and standing together. It's not as if there are hundreds of us in the first place to do the standing together. How much more valuable it is in a small church that brotherly love should continue. We notice that there are some other specifics where loving people, a kind of unselfish life, is to come to the fore. So there's two strangers. giving hospitality in that way. Do not forget to entertain strangers. This was a big feature of life in the early church, that they would be visiting prophets perhaps, visiting ministers, visiting apostles, and the other people too, who may not be known to the church so much, who would be commended to the church, and who were to be looked after when they came. So in that vein, third letter of John, that short letter, but where we read there, verses five to eight, the following. Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers who have borne witness of your love before the church. If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well. Because they went forth for his name's sake, taking nothing from the Gentiles, therefore ought to receive such that we may become fellow workers for the truth." There were visitors visiting, preachers or Christians on a journey, having to go from A to B and, well, Premier Inn, Travel Lodge, whatever, wasn't around then, and there weren't the places to stay, and so people in the church would provide hospitality for these people. And the Apostle John here is commending this, isn't it? That you've borne witness of your love before the church. You have entertained people. And he calls them, doesn't he, strangers. You won't have met them before. But they might come with letters of commendation already. Letters have gone ahead of commendation about these people and that they're worthy of that support and interest. end of Romans in chapter 16 and verses 1 to 2 there is an instance of this and the apostle writing here he says I commend you Phoebe our sister who's a servant of the church in centuria that you may receive her in the lord in a manner worthy of the saints and a sister would have a business she has need of for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also." Well, that's that commendation. He writes in advance that when she comes, they might not say, well, who are you? Why should we bother looking after you? But rather, ah, we know about you and you're here on a good work and we want to support you and show you Christian friendship and hospitality. And so that's the manner worthy of the saints and then offer the assistance that she might need We know, don't we, that in the final judgment, when the Lord's people Believers will be there too, but the Lord's people will stand before him. This is also a feature that we might think of entertaining angels, and we'll come to that in a moment, but Matthew chapter 25, verse 35, for instance, where it says, what the Lord will say, for I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. And the righteous wonder when was that, that we did that. And the king in verse 40 of Matthew 25 will answer and say to them, assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. You there were showing kindness towards people you didn't actually know that well, maybe, to strangers. But as they were brethren and Christians and therefore beloved of Christ, it was as though doing it unto him. Well, the writer talks, doesn't he, in Hebrews 13, that actually this giving of hospitality, there've been some remarkable instances where those who were being looked after were actually angels. That there's been a blessing beside in doing it, well beyond what Abraham maybe at first had thought when he, as we read in Genesis 18, saw these three visitors. and showed them hospitality, got people busy preparing the calf and his wife to make special cakes. And this was actually there, what we call a theophany, a pre-incarnation visit of the Lord Jesus, second person of the Trinity, to the earth. He was one of the three and the two others were angels. The angels actually went on then to Sodom, and Lot entertained them. So he, maybe at first, didn't quite realize that they were angelic beings, but he quickly cottoned on to that fact when they blinded the people that were there wanting to know, well, Lot's visitors, these angels, carnally, and the angels struck them blind. I think Lot had their full attention after that. So they're a remarkable couple of instances of people who showed hospitality to people they didn't know, and they ended up actually showing hospitality to angels. They were unwittingly entertaining angels. So he commends to us there. Look out for people we don't actually know that well, maybe. Christians who we don't know much about, but who maybe we've had a good report about them. Christians overseas, we're taking up our harvest gift, aren't we, there for Joseph. Well, for many of you, you've never met him. I've had the privilege, I should say, of meeting him last year, and his wife, and some members of his church, and very much commend him to you for a man worthy of our support. And we hear how unwell he is, don't we? But then in verse three, another category, prisoners. Remember them. And at this point, you might imagine the people he's writing to have got their freedom. But he says, remember those who don't, that are in chains. And you think of yourself as being chained with them. You think of yourself being there with them, by an act of imagination, if you like. You think to yourself, what's it like? Because you're in the body too. You would feel it, deprived of food, deprived of liberty to move around. So remember them, don't forget them. Because it's easy, isn't it? Just to think parochial, just be thinking about our own district, our own country. He says, think of others, and there are plenty of countries, aren't there, that we could remember in that way, where there's persecution, and we're reminded of them, not to forget them. Well, moving on, an unselfish life. Well, our second heading, love, not lust. See lots of kind of short applications that he's bringing out, which should flow from the fact if Jesus Christ is central and supreme, then there will be these implications. Here, of course, it's taking us to the seventh commandment. We love Christ, we love his commandments, and we will do them. And verse four is very much in support of marriage, traditional marriage. Well, that's becoming something that's a rarity, isn't it just? I heard that Wikipedia are now censoring supportive things about traditional marriage. Well, that's now being regarded as not appropriate to say that, that you support one man, one woman. that what happens in a bed is of importance and the right people are in that bed doing the right things, if you will. And that is now falling foul of large companies and organizations. Actually, some of the founders of Wikipedia have actually dissented and said they're not happy with this, that this is not being neutral. This is actually taking up a political position, they would describe it as being, but that's as it is. And we know too, don't we, that just recently the Christian Institute warned us that some of the thinking that's in gay conversion type therapy, or just to actually say to homosexual people that repent, turn away from these affections, whether that could be regarded as hate speech and could be regarded actually as criminal. So here we have actually what God's Word says, marriage is honourable, it's to be held in high esteem and the bed is to be regarded undefiled, keep away fornication, keep away adultery, because God will judge these things, fornication, marital sex, adultery, extramarital sex. And it is the destructive effects of lust here, lust rather than love, lawless affections, which overstep the boundaries, the biblical boundaries of where those things are to be expressed in the marital bed in that way. and it promises God will judge. God will judge. He will bring confusion and unhappiness and disease and guilt and depression and a host of other things if these things are disobeyed. And, I'd have to say it too, and we think of our own government, but he'll judge governments that deny this, that make divorce easier or reward cohabitation or approve of same-sex marriage. What can tremble, can't want, when it looks at the governments of the world, who, not all of them, but many of them, are singing from the same song sheet when it comes to same-sex marriage. And we might wonder, when we suddenly get a pandemic that is a worldwide implication, whether that has something to say to governments and nations that have disobeyed God in this. Just a thought. Well, finally, do not covet. Third heading. That's next up, isn't it? Let your conduct be without covetousness. So it's the commandments. It's applying the commandments in here. It's the 10th commandment, Exodus 20, verse 17. And the writer is saying, well, no, don't always be looking at other people and what they have. Don't be eaten up with that. Don't be thinking that that's your be-all and your end-all. That's idolatry. Because if you're following that, you're not following God. Can't have both, can't have God and mammon. And the warning then is given here, which is a warning often given in scripture. and rather that we are to be content with such things as you have. Content with such things as you have or you'll know and I know. The whole advertising industry out there is designed to do the very opposite of that. It's designed to make you very unhappy with what you have and that you'll only be happy if you have this other thing, have what your neighbor has or something like that well there's plenty in scripture to warn us that no we should be content with what we have John the Baptist preaching and on occasion there Luke chapter 3 and verse 14 what does he got to say when the soldiers say to him what shall we do so he said to them do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely and be content with your wages I guess many of them grumbled about their wages and felt they should have more, and perhaps didn't want to hear this, be content with your wages. And warnings given to the pursuits of wealth, famous ones of course, such as in First Timothy chapter six and verses six to eight. Let me just quickly turn to that. First Timothy chapter six and verses six to eight. Now godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. Same there, isn't it? Be content, what you have, don't let it be. eaten up into covetousness. And then he goes on to talk about the misery, those who desire to be rich falling into temptation and a snare. And the apostle Paul himself testifies to a contentment that he found even when he didn't have very much. Philippians 4 verses 12 and 13. And he says, I know how to be abased and I know how to abound everywhere and in all things. I have learned both to be full and to be hungry Both to abound and to suffer need, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And that's an interesting thought, isn't it? That's not having very much. Well, he can be content with that or when more things are there, and he's reflecting here on the kind gift that's come from the church in Philippi, but he can do all things. He can manage in all these situations through Christ who strengthens him. And that's really where the writer here leaves us, doesn't he? That having placed that before us, he then really says, well, the Lord is your portion. He will look after you. So don't fret and don't be taken up with what you're going to eat, what you're going to drink, what you're going to wear, because the Lord has said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say we're strengthened in that, you see, just as Christ strengthened Paul in prison. So we say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what can man do to me. people that were perhaps losing their property, perhaps risking, if they stood up for the Lord, that their property would be taken from them. Well, he's saying, well, make your Lord your helper. You trust in him. You take away fear of possessions and being taken up with them or fear of losing them and declare actually that the Lord is your helper. You're not going to be afraid. You're not going to be so intimidated or so distrustful of God's care that you can't imagine that he'll be able to look after you. Let man do what he will. He'll try and do his worst. But trust in the Lord. Let him be your strength. Let him be your shield. Let him provide for you. You might have to work. You might have to use your brain a bit in finding resources. It doesn't leave us just to sit and wait for something just to drop into our lap from heaven, no sure. But believe if you're praying. Believe that if you're asking, you're seeking his help, that you are declaring and believing that he's not going to forsake me and that I can rely upon him as my helper. Well, then keep your eyes and your ears open. There may well be some wonderful surprises, some resources, some help that will come and that will prove the fact that don't cover it. Don't need to just be ever preoccupied about the world and its things. God can be with his people. And, of course, covetousness is the opposite of an unselfish life. It sucks away love, certainly love for God, and just makes us focus on love for ourselves, the very opposite of what true love should be. So we finish there, and these first six verses of Hebrews chapter 13, these directives, these moral imperatives, which as we've seen, draw upon the commandments in really many ways, very straightforward in what they teach, or maybe straightforward in how it's expressed, but we know only too well to do it. We've got to overcome internal resistance and lovelessness that's just still there as a dead weight in our sinful nature. May God indeed be our strength, may he be our helper. What we fear, what can man do to us? Amen.