Good morning. We are going to be in the middle of Hebrews 13, getting close to the end of this glorious epistle. Hebrews 13, starting in verse 7. This section of this chapter begins and ends with an exhortation as to how we are to view and act towards the elders in our congregation. The majority of this epistle sets forth our great high priest, who is the only mediator between man and God, and the only higher authority for each local expression of his body. And within that local assembly of saints, the leaders are those men called and confirmed to serve as elders. And how we act reflects our attitudes toward God. The ways of the world As we'll see in this short passage, the ways of the world have no place amongst us here in this assembly of saints. So, with those introductory remarks in mind, let's look at the first three verses, 7 through 9. Hebrews 13, verse 7, Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines, for it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. Now, one way that we are to learn the ways of Yahweh is to remember those who have served the Lord and taught his word to us. And that's what it says here, remember those who have spoken the word of God to you. Now, most commentators believe that this is referring to those people that have died and are no longer with the people that are listening to this letter because of the past tense. That may or may not be the case. But the outcome of their lives, the outcome of their conduct, is one thing we're supposed to consider that lends to that perspective. Now, it says here, whose faith you should follow. This is a subtle reminder. that not all who fill the position of elder are called and not all who occupy the position should be followed. You've got to examine their conduct. Recall from 1 Timothy chapter 3 that elders are called to be an example to us. That's the same thing we see here. Consider the outcome of their conduct, or as other translations say, carefully consider the outcome of their lives. Do not follow men whose lives do not adorn the Lord Jesus. The phrase, those who rule over you, is a little bit misleading as it can easily be taken in the way of military rule, which is my way or the highway. And there's a better way, I think, to describe it, which says those, most English versions rather, and even the majority text translation says leaders, those leaders amongst you. And I think this conveys a better idea to describe those who serve as an example. Because Paul told the Corinthians, imitate me just as I imitate Christ. So he's not saying, I am the rule. He's saying, as I follow the Lord faithfully, follow me. That's how our elders should serve us and that's how we should respond to them. And this is how elders serve, not ruling over God's people, but serving God's people. Jesus reminded his disciples, You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so amongst you. But whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. That's Matthew 20, 25-26. The ways of the world, the rulers of the Gentiles, They exercise authority, and you'll hear from a lot of political leaders, that's their goal in life. They want to exercise authority over people. The one who wants to be great among you, let him be your servant. Peter, who had learned humility the hard way, added this, The elders who are among you I exhort, I, who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers not by compulsion, but willingly, not for dishonest gain, but eagerly, nor as being lords over those entrusted to you but being examples to the flock. That's 1 Peter 5, 1-4. This is the consistent witness of scripture. People who call themselves bishops and pastors and whatever other title, reverends and apostles that you see running around the world, often times you see people that accumulate titles or those who want to exercise rule over God's people and that is not the way of the Lord. Now our text has this short declaration right in the middle of it. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It's inserted here as if to remind us that there is this one unchangeable, immortal, eternal God-man who is the example that we are to follow. He is the high priest He is unchangeable in how He serves us and how He has served us and how He intercedes for us. And so, for those who are elders and for the rest of us who aren't elders, this is our example. Like Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Him. All who claim Christ ought to follow Christ in the way that He taught as a servant to others. When he took off his outer robe and he washed the feet of the disciples before the Lord's Supper, he wasn't given an example of washing feet. He was giving an example of humbling yourself and doing menial things, serving others that were positionally lower than you. I mean, can you think about In the Roman world, it was the lowest slave that was to wash feet. In the new covenant that Jesus was introducing, here is the king of kings stooping down, humiliated beyond imagination just to put on flesh, but then again humiliating himself to imitate, act the role of the lowliest servant. And as he would say in Matthew 20, those who would be great must be a servant. That's what he was emulating for us. It's not just an observation here that he is God. It's who he was when he came as the God-man and what he did for us. This was Jesus' statement and Peter's both. And Jesus added, whoever decides to be first among you, let him be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. And then Peter says, when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away. This is the promise from God that if we have been redeemed by him and dwelt by his spirit, then humility ought to be a byword of how our conduct is expressed. And the promise from God is whatever this crown of glory means, it's something that the world cannot give us and the world cannot appreciate, yet it is the one who is the servant to us all, who gave himself as a ransom for us, who will give that to us. Now that is amazing. We should be thankful to God for the men that God has put before us. You've got your favorite teachers and preachers that have gone. You've got your favorite men today, and you ought to be thankful to God that he's holding them up and using them. He is the faithful one. He is the unchangeable one. We must bear in mind who's responsible for them. 1 Timothy 1.17, now unto the king eternal, immortal, invisible. The king that Israel wasn't satisfied with because he is invisible. He must be the one who occupies our hearts. Like we were just saying, we adore him. He is invisible, eternal, immortal to God who alone is wise. To God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen. So let us always calibrate our thankfulness to God for the men that we love with devotion and thankfulness to God himself. Because every good gift, every good gift is from God. And the last verse in this short paragraph that we just read, tells us why we should gladly follow godly men as they follow Christ, so that we won't be led astray from the truth by strange teachings. This brings to mind what Paul wrote in the Ephesians. God gave gifts to the people of God that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men, and the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting." That's Ephesians 4.14. All these false apostles that were in Paul's day, false teachers in our day, they're not really concerned that you grow up into the full stature of the image of Christ. That's what Paul's desire was here in Ephesians 4. But they, by Deceitful plotting and cunning craftiness will seek to lead people astray so that they look good, just like the super apostles in Paul's day. They wanted to be well thought of and highly regarded by men, regardless of the false teaching they put before men. That has not changed. That has no place amongst us in this local body of Christ. Our passage tells us that. It is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. When the woman at the well, in John 4, when Jesus was with her, and they went into town to get food, and they came back and he said, I've eaten basically. And they said, what? Who brought you food? And he said, my food is to do the will of him who sent me. His body needed nourishment, but his deeper need of nourishment was to be obedient to his father. And far more than food for the body, food for the soul is what will endure. And this is why he went on to tell us, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, what you will drink. See, our hearts are not established by fine dining, but by the grace of God. And as we serve one another with whatever gifts we have, whatever gifts the Lord has given us, he will establish and strengthen our hearts and souls. See, those who worry about whatever they eat, the Epicureans among us, those who focus their lives on satisfying their fleshly desires have not profited their souls. Paul also warned about such people. He said, for many walk of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame, who set their minds on earthly things." That's Philippians 3, 18 and 19. Contrast the description of these people with what the author of Hebrews desires for us. He wants our hearts to be established by grace. These enemies of the cross, they are consumed with what they're going to eat. They are consumed with things of the earth, the ways of the world, no place inside the body of Christ. And Paul went on to say in Philippians 3, Our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself. This, brothers and sisters, is what establishes our hearts. The grace of God and the knowledge, the deep-seated trust in Him that He is going to do all that He's promised. And when He comes back, He's able to subdue all things to Himself and He's going to transform our lowly bodies. into something like what He inhabits. That is something that you can be satisfied with deep down in your soul. The Lord will do this. Now let's move on to verses 10 through 15. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the camp. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Therefore, by him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. Now, verse 10 alludes to the Mosaic covenant provision, which prohibited the Levitical priest, those who serve the tabernacle, from eating from the altar. You will not find one place where they were permitted to eat food which had been sacrificed on the altar. Other offerings, such as the grain offering, provided food for them, but it hadn't been placed on the offering before it was given to them. The food, the animals whose blood was used, was off limits. From Leviticus 16, the bull for the sin offering, which is what our text in Hebrews just mentioned, the offering for sin. The bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the high place, shall be carried outside the camp and they shall burn it in the fire, their skins, their flesh, and their offal or dung. Outside the camp was a place for refuse, was a place for garbage. It's where the lepers were forced to live. It's where the good people in that covenant community didn't go unless they were on duty. We learn in chapter 8 of this epistle that the Levitical religion was intended to serve, and one of the many things that was intended to do was serve as an example, as a shadow of the better things to come. And in our text here, it talks about the blood of bulls and goats was sacrificed on the altar, but the carcasses were carried outside the camp to be slaughtered. And our text says in like manner, Christ was carried outside the camp and slaughtered. The Lamb of God, who was our great high priest, who was the same yesterday and today and forever, was crucified outside the city gate, beyond the place of civilization in that community, so that we would be sanctified. And this sanctification is, as I've mentioned in previous messages, aligned with our justification. You have this positional sanctification that happens when you come to faith and we are engaged now in what is called ongoing or progressive sanctification. Both of which have to mark the life of a Christian. By His blood, He did this. His cross serves as the altar that He was sacrificed on. He was put to death as the bulls were on the altar of old, but with a much better result. Without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness. And as another hymn that we sing, and I think we sang it last night, what he did in this sacrifice of himself is he gave us his robes for my robes. He took upon himself our robes of sin. and he gave us his robes of righteousness. That makes us justified and acceptable in the beloved. Those who serve the tabernacle, those who appeal to the law, those who practice dietary laws for righteousness cannot eat at the altar upon which Christ was slain. They feed on the beggarly elements of the world that do not profit, and they are not allowed to feed on Christ. Colossians 2, 20 and 22 says this. The believer has an altar that those who serve the law have no right to eat from. That's what our text says. The old and new covenants are mutually exclusive. You cannot stand on Mount Zion while standing on Mount Sinai. You cannot serve the law for righteousness and be made righteous by the work of Christ. One commentator sees this as a refutation of the papist view that the body of Christ is eaten during their mass. That's not what goes on because the body of Christ was never eaten just like the body of those bulls and goats slain for sin were never eaten. And in the Old Covenant, nothing was eaten coming off the altar. In this passage, there is the argument against eating. They have no right to eat from this altar. Simply the offering made on the altar being accepted by God, not eaten by anybody. That's what's portrayed here. In the Bible, the Lord's disciples sat at a table, not at an altar, to eat the Lord's Supper. They didn't eat the Lord's body, they ate the Lord's Supper. The altar is for sacrifice, the table is for bodily nourishment and for thanksgiving, and confusing the two leads to all kinds of stumbling blocks and errors. So, we are bid to go to Him outside the camp. And it's used that phrase several times in Hebrews. And for the original audience, the camp represented the Levitical system and tabernacle. We don't deal with that. So what does that mean for us today? I think outside the camp for us is separation from works of the law and the world. not separation like some monks do, where they isolate themselves from everybody, but in regards to where our focus and our deep desires lie. We're told to bear his disgrace. When you go outside of the camp in the Hebrew community, you are entering a place of disgrace and uncleanness. And when we remove ourselves from the camp to gather here and to worship God in spirit and in truth, we are seen as weird, bizarre, shameful, stupid, dull people. We bear the disgrace of Christ in the world, and that is our charge in life. We proclaim, how do you bear the disgrace of Christ? Just like Paul did when he was on Mars Hill in the Aragopolis, you proclaim the crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ. These are the two things that are essential to the believer to know and to hold dear and that the world will mock and that cannot be a place where we retreat. You remember when in Acts 17, When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, we will hear you again on this matter. And that's a reminder to us that while we may be mocked, there will be some who will want to hear more about the glories of Christ. And that's why His message, his gospel must be what we communicate to the world regardless of what we think people are going to say back to us. Our being outside the camp is also attached to where our enduring city is. It is not here. It is not part nor based on this world. When Jesus was stood up on trial, he said, my kingdom is not of this world. His kingdom is outside the camp of this world. And there will come a day, Revelation 21 and 22 talks about this heavenly Jerusalem. It's going to come down on the new earth. And it's going to be His kingdom on this earth when it's resurrected to be fit for the glorified saints. It's the city that Abraham was seeking. And because the Lord Jesus has done all of this, He has made us a people for His name, He will make all things new when He comes again. We can, through Him, offer praise and thanksgiving to God. It doesn't matter what your circumstances are. If you are in Christ, you have the capability and you ought to have the desire to praise Him and to give thanks to Him for being one of His children. Now let's get to the last two verses, 16 and 17. Do not forget to do good and to share, for with many such sacrifices God is well pleased. Obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out over your souls as those who must give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you." Beyond praising and thanking God for His amazing kindness shown us, we are also told to do good and share. And isn't this what your mother told you when you were a baby, when you were a little kid, you know, you got siblings and everything is mine, mine, mine. Well, you're supposed to share with other people. You're supposed to do good for other people. How does God define these actions? When Christ suffered for us and made us joint heirs with him, He did good for us, and He shared with us that which is good, not the bad He endured. See, He suffered the wrath of God for us, and He's made it to where we are joint heirs with Him. We share in, like I read from that passage in 1 Peter 5, partakers with Him of the glories of God in some way. And He has done good for us, and He has shared with us stuff that the world cannot bring to us. Likewise, we have an abundance in scripture about what it means to do good and share. 1 Timothy 6, 17, and 18, command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, and willing to share. And in James 2, 15 and 16 we read, If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, Depart in peace, be warmed and filled, but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Warm words do not warm the body. Empty platitudes do not fill the belly. Do-good and sharing shows up with blankets and food. And this is why, I'll go back to it again, you see in the judgment scene in Matthew 25 where The saints of God were commended for visiting those in prison. That visiting in prison also accumulates with it the idea of bringing food and blankets to those people because the prison keepers did not provide food and blankets to the prisoners back in that day. Doing good and sharing shows up with blankets and food. In addition to doing good for people in need, we are to offer the sacrifices of praise to God that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. Praise is called a sacrifice because it costs something. To praise God will cost you yourself. No one can praise God who praises himself. Our natural inclination is to pat ourselves on the back and put this impression before people that I'm pretty good, pretty likable, and pretty capable. You should really pay attention to me. You can't have that attitude and praise God. To praise God is to remove yourself from the possibility of praise. We so appreciate the praise of men, and we are so willing to pat ourselves on the back, but to praise God requires the sacrifice of self-praise. And with sacrifice and thanksgiving, with thanksgiving and praise rather, the object of both is not the offerer. It's not the one giving the thanks, giving the praise. The object is the one to whom you praise, the one to whom you give thanks. It is to God. The sacrifice of praise from a thankful heart is the sacrifice of self so that God alone will receive all the glory. And then the last thing we see in our passage is how to obey this instruction. Obey and submit to those who have the rule over you. Obey and submit to the leaders God has set in our assembly. This idea of submission here reflects humility on our part. It's a common theme on how the saints should live, is it not? Humility. Peter sketches this out. Likewise, you younger people submit yourself to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another and be clothed with humility. For God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. First Peter 5 verse 5. And Paul provided this insight, We urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. Be at peace amongst yourself. That's 1 Thessalonians 5, 12 and 13. Submission to one another doesn't mean we'll never have disagreements, but it does mean we don't have to be and we should not be disagreeable. Proper submission fosters peace amongst us. And who amongst us doesn't want peace? We want peace in our hearts that God gives, but we also want peace with our fellow man, our fellow brother and sister in Christ. And that cannot come with personal agendas and self-will. It has to be walking in humility. And our passage concludes with a sobering revelation. The elders that serve the people of God Keep watch over our souls as those who must give an account to God." Have you thought about that? For this reason, no man should rush into this service, and no man should serve who does not care for those that he teaches. John Brown of Haddington was an 18th century Scottish minister. He provided this counsel to a young man who was seeking to serve as an elder. He said, quote, I know the vanity of your heart and that you will feel mortified, that your congregation is very small in comparison with those of your brothers around you. But assure yourself on the word of an old man that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ at his judgment seat, you will think that you have had quite enough. It is a sobering, sobering responsibility to give an account to God for the souls that he has entrusted to you. And I wonder about men who gather thousands around their pulpits, do they have any sense of the weight of their charge from God? How can a man keep watch over hundreds of souls and give an account for how he cared for them? Anyone who has men who actually know and care for them should willingly submit to them in the Lord. Our desire should be to make their service a joy. And yes, elders have to guard themselves from envy. And yes, all of us need to guard ourselves from pride. Pride is the antithesis of humility. And humility is God's will for us. And so, the end of all things is near. And if our behavior within the local assembly of saints causes division and strife, this makes the work of the elders grief. rather than joy because they watch over our souls and we bicker and backbite and argue and get angry and harbor bitterness in our hearts. That grieves Kyle. And our charge before God is to make his service a joy. And brothers and sisters, day by day, we have to mind our attitude as we engage with one another. And as we come to God, are we thankful to God for the man that he's placed here? Are we thankful to God for the others that serve in whatever way God has gifted us? And not be provoked to envy or to backbiting or to badgering one another. And see, we can harbor bitterness and men may not see it, and we may be good at masking it, but our Father sees all. And so we have to be humble. And if we make Kyle's service a joy, and if he can go before God with thanksgiving over what he sees amongst us, that will profit our souls. Because if we make his job grievous, that does not profit us, is what our text says. So, to wrap up. These things are preserved for us in the Word of God. They should cause us to live differently from those whose home is the world. If you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the ways of the world They will not cease to try to draw you aside, but they should not have a place on the, if I can use the phrase, throne of your heart. God must always be the one who occupies that. Jesus was taken outside the camp to be sacrificed and we are called to go to him outside the camp. We have no eternal city here inside the camp of the world. And as the disciples of Jesus went back into the city, back into the camp to carry on their lives of witness for the Lord, see, they didn't live outside the camp the whole time. After Jesus died, he commissioned them, go to Jerusalem and go to the ends of the earth. And you go to the camp of the world, you live your life as a good citizen, proclaiming the gospel and the glories of Jesus Christ to everybody in the world. The one who gave himself for us, we are to do good for all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. He has done good for us, and our response is to do good to all people, but especially to those amongst the household of faith. And I'll say this one more time, pride gets in the way of sharing with others. Pride can keep us, can keep somebody in need from asking for help. Pride can puff up the one giving, and humility is not compatible with pride. Pride can keep us from properly submitting to our leaders and pride can make a leader very hard to submit to. If we want our hearts to be established by grace, humility is our friend. And this is why we are to humble ourselves before Almighty God and He will lift us up. Both James and Peter have pressed this point, and it's the same that Micah summed up near the end of his letter. He said, He has shown you, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. On the other hand, walk humbly with your God, that's what He requires of you. On the other hand, what He does tell us in the book of Proverbs is that pride goes before a fall. So the narrow path is humility before God and man. Now, there are men who profess Christ but use their growing reputation to move from one congregation to another larger one. They see the office of elder as a profession which ought to have more benefits and more responsibility and more money as you go along. Such men are to be not followed. Men who have served the body of Christ without regard to the spotlight faithfully shepherding God's people, caring for them, speaking the word of God to us. Their faith follow. That's the instruction from God. Thank God for them. Pray for them. Submit to them. And I will say this, in our text it says, the reference to elders, those who have rule, those who rule. In both places in this text, the reference to elders is plural. Those and them, those who rule over us. Too many congregations have the eye that one man should lead and something he should rule with unquestioned authority. The Bible shows us that in the multitude of counselors there is safety. Ideally, there should be a plurality of elders who rule by consensus. That's biblical leadership. Everything inside the body of Christ is upside down from what's in the camp of the world. If you want to be great, you must be a servant. You don't exalt yourself, you humble yourself. It's not natural the way we're called to live. If it was natural, the world could live that away. People can't live this away without the Spirit of God enabling them. Jesus came to Capernaum and he was in the house, he asked them, his disciples, What was it you disputed amongst yourself on the road? He didn't know, but he wants them to say it. But they kept silent, for on the road they had disputed amongst themselves about who would be greatest. And he sat down and he called the twelve and he said to them, if anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all. That's Mark 9, 33-35. Man's ambition is contrary to God's will for His children. We must guard ourselves that we do not get drawn aside by all of the clamoring, cunning deceitfulness of men that want to teach us the wrong things. We must pay attention to what we have heard lest we drift away. Seek God, seek His kingdom for His glory, and He will provide you with what you need. That's Jesus' message in the Sermon on the Mount, is it not? Have faith in God. He's on His throne. Have faith in God. He watches over His own. He cannot fail. He must prevail. Have faith in God. Have faith in God. We sing that. Do those lyrics find a home in your heart? He is the one who will do all things to make sure that we do not fall away. He has given us what we need to walk in obedience to all that he has said. So the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man are, as Spurgeon said, they are friends. They don't have to be reconciled to one another. God will do his part regardless of whether we do our part. Yet, if we do not do our part, we will answer to him for that. So our responsibility is just as certain for us that it is God's will for us as God's decree is certain for him. He wants us to be obedient children. to walk in humility and to do good to all, especially those among the household of faith. There is none other than Christ who can enable us to do this. He's the one that we need to look to. Let's pray.