Alright, so as we come back today to Hebrews, we do, as Ben said earlier, enter the 13th chapter. And that is an accomplishment, I guess. And we've been in this letter for a long, long time. I pray it's been a profitable journey for you. It has been for me. It's a great letter and a letter that does a lot and makes us think about a lot. It's a letter of typology. We've talked about that endlessly. a typology that points to something. It says all those shadows of the Old Testament were pointing to a substance that would be found in Christ. The Old Covenant pointing to the New Covenant in Christ and the glories that we would find in that covenant. And we've talked many times about the background of this letter and the purpose of this letter, but we realized as we journeyed through the 11th chapter that it was talking about the importance of faith, the centrality of faith, that if we are going to be a people who live in a way that pleases God, it must be done by faith. That's explicitly said in that chapter. We realize that we must have faith for our justification, right? We are saved by grace through faith, but also then we are called to live lives of faith and of faithfulness, empowered by the Spirit of God. And so we see that what the author is telling this audience is this, you know, this is nothing new. All the people of God have faced challenges and difficulties and they endured them by faith. And so when you encounter difficulties, don't be surprised. Don't be shocked. We would say to us today, if you encounter difficulties because of your faith, persecution because of your faith, you shouldn't be surprised by it. If anything, the lack of persecution that at times we face might be surprising. And it might say something about the church as a force in society, not as powerful as maybe it ought to be. And so we need to think about these things and wrestle with them. But what we can say is this. They need to endure by faith as we need to endure by faith and recognize that God is with us. God is using us for His glory in good times or what seems to us to be in good times and in bad times. That all of it is for His glory. And so that brings us to the 12th chapter. And the 12th chapter was largely on an athletic motif. You'll remember this, right, of running the race and of enduring through the race and of realizing that this is just part of the Christian life. In fact, there's a couple of points we said in the 12th chapter, if we wanted to summarize it, that we need to remember. And that is our Christian run should be taken seriously. You know, for those who know that the Olympics are going on right now, nobody's competing there who hasn't trained hard. That's just the reality. If you're going to win whatever event you'd be in, you've trained for a long time. So the idea is we must take it seriously, and we should then live out our life with endurance. That's one of the main points of that chapter, endurance, but also hope. The Christian has hope set before him as our Lord had hope set before him. He endured the cross. We can endure the run we're given because of the hope that is set before us. Second of all, we should expect hardship. That's kind of a main point of this letter. These Christians should not be surprised they fall on difficult times. That's part and parcel with being one of God's servants. And we could point to many places that the Bible argues this, but he makes the point practically. If you're going to be an athlete, do you think your training is going to be easy? If it means something to be a Marine, the crucible's not going to be a joke, right? Or anybody could come through that challenge. Or they would say, we don't even need boot camp anymore. We're just going to put you out in the middle of an operation or whatever with no training. Obviously, you need the training. You need to go through that difficulty to prepare you for the mission. And in the same way as Christians, we go through difficult times. Our Father allows us to go through difficult times. Now that's something the health and wealth teachers will not tell you. The Lord God who created all things can immediately, anytime He wants, remove us from any difficulty. We all know that. This is the very thing that the Hebrew boys say when they're threatened with the fiery furnace. Our God can deliver us. We know that He can. He is God. But even if he chooses not to, we will not worship your image. My friends, we recognize that sometimes God lets us in those fires for our good. Now, it doesn't seem at the time like it's for our good. We've got to be honest about that. And if it was up to us, we would often say, let's just eject these difficulties and not deal with them. But as Peter tells us in his first epistle, God is putting us in the crucible, right? to take that silver and melt it down and raise the impurities to the top and scrape them away. And that's what the fiery furnace does. It strengthens our faith. It makes us realize that all these things that the world cherishes are not all that important in the end. But our relationship with our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ, our Savior, His Son, our Lord, is everything. Everything. And so these trials help us to realize that. Third, there's a very practical reminder in this. In the Greek world, you ran for Sparta, or you ran for Athens, or you ran for Corinth, you ran for your city. We don't run for a kingdom, an earthly city. We run for the heavenly city. We run for the heavenly Jerusalem. We run for this unshakable kingdom that we talked about the last time we were in this text. And the fact that it's an unshakable kingdom is important. That it cannot be shaken. That there is no end to this kingdom that we are a part of, that we run for, and we represent by God's grace. He has made us ambassadors of this kingdom. And that is no small thing. And so run like an ambassador. Run like someone who well represents the kingdom for which you run. And run, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians, as if to receive the prize. And so my friends, in thinking about this, we need to ask ourselves, well how do we do that? What are some practical ways we run as those representing the kingdom of God? And our author will give us some practical things that the Hebrew Christians who received this letter needed to hear and needed to think about, and we do too. We do too. And I want to say, I've often preached this text, I think three or four times through the years, on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. I think we did that last year. And we talked about verse 3 in particular and persecution and remembering our brothers around the world and sisters around the world who are suffering for the cause of Christ and that we should remember them and we should be committed to them and so forth. Today we're going to look at that in the context of the entire passage here, verses 1 through 3, because it's really drawing upon the idea of love, brotherly love. And so I want us to look at it. So I'm going to read the text again. Again, chapter 13, verses 1-3. Amen. I want us to look at each of those verses as points today. First of all, a call to love. Second of all, a command to hospitality. And third, a charge to remember. Beginning first with this call to love, immediately we see that there is a call upon these believers to continue in brotherly love. Now, if you know something of the Greek terms for love, and it's often been talked about being four main terms for love in the Greek language, this is referencing Philadelphia. And maybe if you didn't know that the Greek word Philadelphia would mean brotherly love, you may have heard of Philadelphia the city as being the city of brotherly love. And that's where that came from. That's how it got its name. And so again, we recognize there is a love that's being spoken about here that brothers, familial brothers typically have for one another. You know, you think about having a brother that you love, you enjoy spending time with. Maybe that brother lives far away and when they're able to come into town, it's a blessing to spend time with them. And sometimes in our busy modern world, you may live in the same town with your brothers and not get to see them that often. And so whenever you can get together, it's just a blessed time. Well, the idea of Philadelphia, it's a love that is like that love, a brotherly love, but it's applied to people who are not literally earthly or biological brothers. This is a love that is shared between people as those who love each other like brothers. I think when you think about David and Jonathan, this is the exact image. They loved each other so closely as friends and as brothers. And we see it here. Maybe you've got friends like that that are literally closer than a brother to you. They are just great friends and it feels like they're a brother to you. Well, that's the imagery here. That's the imagery here. Now, this term is synonymous with Christians for two reasons. First of all, in the early church, they called each other brother. That's something that we tend to still do today. We'll talk about whomever, right? Brother you or sister you. And again, we recognize here that we're saying that there is something real to this, that it isn't just a polite term to say, hey, we kind of are friends. Because I don't always call my friends outside of church brother, right? I don't think to do that. I just call them by their name. I say, hey, how you doing? You know, or whatever. But in church, there's a different relationship. We recognize that. We talk about being a family. That should be real. And that use of the term brother and sister in some way demonstrates that. Demonstrates that we have a relationship that goes beyond just normal relationships, but there is a relationship in Christ that makes us truly brothers and sisters. And so that's the first reason. It's been used by the church. But the second reason that it's so synonymous with Christianity is because in the early days of the church, Those outside the church recognized that it wasn't just a term used. They noticed something unique about the way Christians related to one another that is unlike anything else in the world. I've talked about this before. In the Roman world, there were classes and there were masters and servants and slaves and all these sorts of things. And yet in the early church where there would be a master and a slave, they would come to the table and kneel beside each other or sit beside each other. There was no rank at that table. And the Roman world said, this is crazy. How is it inside this church these distinctions disappear? We'd go one step further. You take the letter to Philemon and Paul says, right, that those distinctions should disappear anyway. You know, you lost a slave, receive back a brother. think it goes beyond the church, the way we live out our lives, but that isn't my key point here. The key point I'm trying to make is this, that there was something different about the way Christians treated each other. I'm going to come back to that in just a little bit later in the sermon, but you'll remember I've said many times in Hebrews that Christians would be walking maybe to market or to their work and they would see another believer harassed. And you know, it's one of those moments where you're like, I can just keep walking and just act like I don't see it, and I won't be harassed maybe, and I can get through here and get where I need to go. But those early Christians would go and stand right next to their brothers. They'd say, if you're going to persecute him, persecute me too. I stand with him. I stand with him. The world saw that. That was such a strange testimony to the world. Why would you put yourself in harm's way for this person? He's not related to you. And they would say, that's where you're wrong. This is surely my brother in Jesus Christ. And so my friends, as we see this, we recognize that this was an example or a testimony given to the world of an exemplary love. And so it shouldn't surprise us that this was a hallmark of being a Christian. Because Jesus told us to love one another as he has loved us. And the God we serve, who has redeemed us, is a God who is so loving himself that we can say, John can say, that God is love. And so it shouldn't surprise us that this became a marker of the early church. Jesus himself said, this is how they'll know you're my disciples, that you love one another as I have loved you. And so, my friends, we see this over and over again. Now, we could find this encapsulated throughout the scriptures. As the New Testament summarizes, and the Old Testament does as well, what is the summation of the law of God? It's to love God with all our strength, right, all our heart, all our soul, to love God with everything we have and to love our neighbor as ourselves. That's the summation of the law. How can you stand guiltless before the law? Love God completely and love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. And none of us have ever done that. None of us can do that. Praise God, Christ did. Christ did. And we want to confess that. But what we want to recognize here, again, this is even the summation, if you will, of what's encapsulated in the two tablets of the law, the Ten Commandments. Love God and love your neighbor. This is the moral law of Almighty God. Love God and love your neighbor. And so we see how important this is. Now, when you think about this, though, the problem we've talked about all along in covenant theology and so forth is the law gives you no empowerment to obey that. Think about this. As a fallen human being, the law says here's what you need to do, but you have no ability to do it. It would almost be like, to use a sporting analogy, you know, you need to throw the football 300 yards. And you're like, no one's ever thrown a football 300 yards. It's not possible. And it's true. It's not possible. So there's no way to do it. Well, the law holds out something that for men fallen in Adam is impossible. Love God perfectly. Love your fellow man perfectly. And we stand before the law guilty because we don't do it. And many of Jesus's parables, we're going to walk through them, point to this point. that we're not capable of loving each other perfectly as fallen sinners. And praise God as you think about for a moment the glories of the New Covenant. Part of the New Covenant says this, what makes the New Covenant better than the Old Covenant is what God requires God provides. That's the glories of the grace of the New Covenant. We need perfect love of God and perfect love of man. I don't have that. I know I don't have that. Because even under the law, the perfect standard of the law would be my thoughts and contemplation should be solely upon God on this Lord's day. It's not going to be. I can just tell you now it's not going to be. But praise God what we recognize is the law's demand for perfection in terms of love of God and love of man is never to be fulfilled by me anyway. It's fulfilled by my Savior, Jesus Christ, who came perfectly loving God, being God, and gave his life for sinners. No greater love hath any man than this, and to lay down his life for his friends. Jesus Christ fulfilled all of that for me. So what I'm trying to say here, and I want to make this very clear just for a moment, we cannot accomplish that on our own. We must stand in the righteousness of another. That's why it's called grace. If you could do it yourself, you didn't need Jesus. This is the very point Paul's making in Galatians 2.21. We didn't need Him. If I can just work a little harder, be a little more loving. But the truth is I have, as a natural man, fallen affections. They're not holy affections. And so we recognize here that what we need is what only Christ could do. That He could come and die in my place, perfectly fulfill the law, take my sin upon Himself, rise victorious over the grave, and be my perfect and faithful high priest. It's kind of the message of Hebrews all throughout this letter. That's what Christ did. He did what you couldn't do. He bore what you couldn't bear. He kept a standard you could never keep. And by placing your faith in Him and being united to Him by that faith, you stand in Him before God. So God doesn't look at me and say, Rick, I'm going to go back and notice that on, you know, August the 11th, 2024, you got to thinking about something you shouldn't have been thinking about on that Lord's Day, and that's a violation of the commandment, and you're done. Now, if I stand in my own righteousness, that's absolutely true, and God would be right to strike me down for breaking His law. But the reality is I will not stand in that day in my own righteousness. And I am thankful for that. I'll stand in Christ's perfect law-keeping and righteousness. I will stand in Him. Now in seeing that and thinking about that, that doesn't dismiss chapter 13. I want to say that. This is not a works formula by which you can make yourself holy before God. But as a reminder, being justified by faith and standing in Christ righteously before God, God still calls for us to live in a way that is fitting for His ambassadors. If I get called from Washington, don't suspect this is ever going to happen, and they say, we would like you, Rick, pal, to be an ambassador for the United States, I'm probably going to say I didn't earn that, right? That's just an honor that you're given. There's lots of people that might have better credentials for doing that. I stand in it by grace. But just because I got that graciously given to me as an office does not mean I get to act however I want. It's understood that as the recipient of this gracious office, it is fitting, it is proper that I live in a way that represents well the nation, or in this case, the kingdom that I represent. And so again, we're not talking about earning something, we're talking about living rightly or fittingly before our king. And so what does he say? He says, let brotherly love continue. Seems like they've been showing brotherly love in the community of the people of God. Continue to do so. Don't stop doing so. It must be there's a danger that they will stop doing so. Now if we were to walk through this whole letter, I think we could construct exactly what it is. As persecution has come and certain people have made the list, I'm kind of separating from those people. You may think very much of what happened in World War II where people were maybe going against the Nazis in France or something like that, resistance. And as a name would get known, everybody would get away from that person. They didn't want to be connected to them because you might be the next one rounded up. The reality is, as you're thinking about this just for a moment, as Christians are being put into jail, being questioned, being harassed, it would be very easy to walk right on by and say, I don't know him. If he calls out, Rick, help, I go, I don't know you. That's not brotherly love. Brotherly love is you don't even have to ask. I see you in trouble, I rush to your side and stand with you. So I think there's a danger that we can construct from the situation that is happening here of why there's such a danger to not continuing in brotherly love. And this love is important. It's a love that is not even really our own. You know, we think oftentimes about how loving we are or whatever, but we need to realize what the Bible says, right? All of our love is really a gift from God. The love that is actually the love that we're called to live out here was given to us at our justification. It's the very point Paul's making in Romans 5, 5, for the love of God has been poured out or shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who's been given to us. When the Holy Spirit is given to us, divine love enters us. We are living out a life empowered by the Holy Spirit in which we live in some measure the love of God. Now that is something that is a blessing and something that we want to recognize that is said to be here for Christians, for those who have faith in God, those who are regenerated by the power of God. They have this, this love of God that's been shed abroad in their hearts. And over and over again we're told this, aren't we, in one way or another. We often say, we love God because He first loved us. Well, actually John says, we love because He first loved us. If you go to the actual Greek, we love because He first loved us. In other words, our love is in response to the divine love that's been given to us. He loves us and then gives us this love that Paul's talking about in Romans 5, 5, and from that flows all the loves that we're asked to give. These commandments that we are given here, because it is the word of God, therefore it is a command to the people of God, let brotherly love continue. Live out that life in the community of the people of God in love. Love one another. Love one another. And what a blessing it is when you see that love. When you come into the house of the Lord to worship together and there's not divisions, there's not sides. You just come in and love one another and worship together and fellowship together. That is a blessing. And we ought to be thankful for it. But I want to say that this author is kind of coming to this very much like, I think, the Galatian letter. You were running so well. Who tripped you up? What went wrong? You were showing brotherly love. You were standing fast for God. There was all sorts of things that were happening and now it's all melting away. What has happened? What has happened? So there's a call here to be thoughtful, to be introspective of what's gone wrong. Where did you trip up? And I think the answer is not that far from the Galatian answer. What does Paul say about the Galatians? He says, have you begun by grace and you think you'll finish the race with works? What's happening here? God graciously saved us under the new covenant but we'll go back to the old covenant to live our lives under Moses. It's not all that far off. And the author says you can't do that. it doesn't work that way. The New Covenant does not point to the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant pointed to the New Covenant and to your need of it. That is the testimony of the Old Covenant. Your need of Christ and Him crucified. Now if we've seen that, then we say, okay, there's a general call to brotherly love. That's a good thing. We need to love one another. That needs to be real. It needs to be a commitment to one another and a love for one another. But he goes beyond that, doesn't he, here, our author, inspired by the Spirit. He says, do not forget to entertain strangers. Do not forget to entertain strangers. Now, it's kind of an interesting thing here because we might say for a moment, does the Lord mean open our homes to just anyone? Does he mean here there's some dangerous guy in front of my yard that's got a machete and I'm supposed to just say, hey, come on in, buddy. Come on in. It isn't obviously the context of this passage, right? The context of this passage is very important. And this word in the Greek, philoxenia, actually means to treat someone who is different, not a brother, like a brother. Well, the context of this whole letter on who our brothers is, is the church, right? Yes, do well to all, but especially the household of God. In other words, it's referring here specifically to your Christian brothers who aren't your actual brothers. Like, they're not related to them, and they're not necessarily in your church community, but these are brothers who are well-attested to, people who've been vouched for. Entertain them. Welcome them in. Show them hospitality. Now it isn't hard to figure out here the context. The context is likely that again in this distancing from the community, distancing from each other, there are missionaries and evangelists and Christians traveling through and people are like, I don't want them in my house. It's just the temperature's too hot right now, you know. Maybe somebody else can give them a place. But you've always put these brothers up when they've come, you know, that have come from Corinth or wherever. You've always opened your home to them. I just can't right now. I can't right now. Again, these aren't dangerous strangers. These are Christian brothers who are from outside your local church community. But they are part of the church. I remember a day in church where you'd have singing groups come in, and you'd have evangelists come in, and preachers come in, and somebody in the church would put them up in their home, right? They didn't stay in hotels. Now, you say, but they could, and oftentimes we do put people up in hotels now or whatever, but so what is the reason here for this? Why is it so important in this day? And I think for the picture of this, it'd be better to put them in our homes now. It saves money for the church. It invites Christian fellowship into our homes and that sort of thing. It's better to do that. But it was super important in this day. And you may remember we talked about Rahab not too long ago and how the inns were often brothels. There's just no other way to put it. They were often brothels. And that's true throughout the ancient world. They were places of ill repute. And can you imagine the traveling preacher gets thrown into that den of wickedness? That's not good for him, like we could already say. There's temptations that he shouldn't be near, that he should separate from. But on top of that, think of the damage to his reputation. And I went out of my way in the Rahab sermon to say there is no evidence that the spies went into that location to take advantage of the offerings of the house. But you feel like you have to say that. You have to defend their character because we know that they went into a brothel. In the same way, why would you make your brothers have to defend their character in that way? Well, we didn't do anything. Why not just put them up in your home? If you love them like a brother, make a place for them. Invite them in. Maybe they just need a meal. Feed them. If you've got a spare bedroom and this is somebody you don't fear at all, it's not them you fear, you understand. You fear the authorities or you fear some outside force that's going to come after you because you put them up in your home. If it's your brother, your literal brother, your father, are you gonna say, sorry, sorry dad, can't give you a room this time, it's getting a little dangerous out there. I'm gonna say, that's my dad, he's staying here at my house. And that's just the way it is. So I think there's a reminder here for fellowship and for being a community and taking care of one another and loving one another. that were to do were to show hospitality, and this is a command within the church. It would be nice that if someone in this congregation had a house fire, and they needed somewhere to stay, and you've got a couple of rooms, you say, hey, come stay at my house for a few days. That's the kind of fellowship and love, Philadelphia, that the church was noted for. Now, in addition to that, there's an additional reason given to us in the text. That's just an interesting reminder. For by so doing, some have unwittingly entertained angels. You know, it's interesting that the author's saying, you're not even really sure who you're inviting in. I mean, you know it's somebody vouched for by Paul or Timothy or whomever. but you might be entertaining angels. We remember the example of Abraham who had the three visitors at the trees at Marm, and he invites them in and a meal is made for them. And it turns out, to the best we can understand, this is two angels and a theophany, right? The Lord present at the tent of Abraham, and he welcomed them in as visitors. And I'm sure when he realized who these visitors were, he was glad he did. Imagine that we're on the side of that formula, when I was hungry, you didn't feed me. When I needed somewhere to stay, you didn't give it to me. So I think this author's reminding us that we do have a duty to one another as believers in Christ to help one another where we can and to love one another. And then even beyond that, there's another charge here that we've covered in times past many times. I wanna cover it again because it's here and it's important. He says, remember the prisoners as if chained with them, those who are mistreated since you yourselves are in the body also. You know, there's a reality here in this community, right, of not only being kind of shunned or being persecuted, but apparently some people imprisoned, arrested, because they wouldn't stop preaching. They wouldn't stop standing on the gospel or whatever it was, like in Acts when they're told, you're no longer to preach this name, Jesus. What do you do? Well some of them said what the apostles said. Is it right that we obey you rather than God? No, we think we'll just continue. We'll throw you in jail. Then I'll continue to preach in jail. Just like Paul did. Just like all the others that we see modeled for us in the scriptures. That didn't dampen their mood at all or their ability at all. They just preached in the jail cell. They preached to whomever was in there and they trusted God's providence that there's some people in here he wants me to preach to. And so praise God, I'm gonna do that. And maybe I'll take some time to write some epistles too. That's probably a little different for us, but we can at least witness and preach. And so again, we recognize they saw this a little bit differently, but the people in this letter are beginning to say, I've got to kind of distance myself from those brothers because I'll be next. And you know, I've got a family to feed and I've got important responsibilities. I just can't go to jail. I mean, certainly they understand that. And our author says, no, brothers, remember those men and women. Remember them as if you yourself are in the cell chained with them. Remember them. Do not forget them. Those who are mistreated. My friends, all around this world today, and this has been the point we've looked at this text on International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, there are brothers and sisters all over this world imprisoned, being persecuted under incredible persecutions, and even killed for their faith in Jesus Christ. This is a reminder not to forget it. But what does it mean for us in a local context? We're not in the moment, as far as I can tell, going to jail for our faith. Maybe one day we will. When that happens, how will we stand? Will we act like we don't know? You know, like, oh, I didn't know that brother was in jail. I didn't know that. I really can't go. Will we be there visiting saying, hey, I ought to be in here with you? What was it Bonhoeffer asked when somebody asked him why he was in jail? He said, brother, why are you not? Why are you not in jail? My friends, as you think about these things, there are questions that need to be asked. How will we deal with this? What will we do if we recognize that we have brothers in jail? What will be our response? Well, I can tell you what the early church did. Far from leaving them, abandoning them, or forgetting them, they were ever with them. Ever with them. There was a Greek writer, Lucian, who wrote a play that's mocking Christians. It's actually like a clever little, you know, ironic play in which there is a man who's not a Christian. He learns that Christians can make a lot of money traveling from home to home. You know, they take them in and they give them money if they say they need money. This became such a problem that the early church began to have rules that you take in a traveling Christian, but you do not give them money. That was one of the things that began to happen because they realized there were so many of these things happening. But one of the interesting, that's in the Didache, by the way, but one of the interesting things As you look at this is, this author says, in the play I should say, this guy eventually gets arrested because the authorities think he's a Christian. He's done such a good job at being a con man that the authorities arrest him. And then the play kind of makes fun of the Christians for continuing to visit him. And at one point even robbing the guards to let them stay with him at night and to fellowship with him in the jail cells. Now they're mocking us. I think this author would say, well done, well done. So my friends, what I want you to think about in this is these things are important to realize that we are called to something important. It's one of the reasons that we talk about things like membership, right? Having a relationship together, because again, we are a people who are united by faith in Christ and together in this community of believers. I want to quote one final thing here. It says here at the very end of the text that we are not to, if you want to think of it this way, excise them or cut them out as if they're not a part of the body because we're all a part of the body. And I think the point that it's getting at here is you can't just conveniently push to the periphery certain parts of the body that you think temporarily aren't important. That's not how it works. In fact, what does Paul say in 1 Corinthians? He says that one member of the body suffers, they all suffer together. If we have brothers and sisters that are in jail, the first question is, I'm not sure why I'm not in there with him. But the reality is, I'm at least going to do what Hebrews 13.3 says here and treat myself or think as if I'm there with him and identify with him and realize that if God doesn't have me in there for a reason right now, it's for a reason. It's in God's providence. Maybe I'll be there soon enough. But you can't take part of the body and cut it off and act as if it doesn't matter. You know, you think about it for a moment. If we're having a workday here and I fall and mangle my left arm and you're like, oh my gosh, it's hanging off. Are you okay? And I'm like, oh, it's fine. It's just my arm. It doesn't make any sense, right? It's part of the body. It's part of the body. And in the same way, we recognize that every one of our community is part of the body of Christ in this context and that they are all precious and important. And so important is the body that we should count every part of it precious. Jesus said, if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it's better to lose your single member, your eye, than for your whole body to be thrown in hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off, throw it away. For it's better to lose one of your members than the whole body go to hell. I want you to think for a moment the entire imagery of that. The drastic step of saying, I need to cut something out of my life so that I don't go to hell, is based on the idea that your eye is precious to you. You wouldn't want to lose it. That your arm or hand is precious to you. You wouldn't want to lose it. And so, I think we can say that what he's saying here is, these brothers and sisters that are imprisoned are precious to us. And we shouldn't just cast them off as if they are unimportant. And so my friends, as you think about this, there's a lot to think about about love and how we live out the love that God has given us by the power of the Holy Spirit. But I want to read what our confession says in chapter 14. Actually, I have the wrong side, chapter 13 of sanctification. And it's just talking about the love of God as it is given to us and as it grows, it says this. they who are united to Christ, effectually called and regenerated, having a new heart and a new spirit created in them by virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, are also further sanctified. What he's talking about there, what the confession is talking about is this. We are justified by God's grace. It'll never be based on our works. And our works will never be perfect in this world. He was saying that. Are we becoming more and more sanctified? Yes, by God's grace. But it is a lifelong journey. And one day, praise God, we'll enter that world of love that Jonathan Edwards talked about. Until then, then we're being sanctified by the Spirit to love one another more and better and to love our God more and better by His grace. So my friends, that's the challenge I want to leave you with today. Love one another and love our Lord.