We left off at verse six, so we'll pick up again at verse seven now and read through verse 19. This is what should be the penultimate sermon in our journey through Hebrews. Lord willing, we'll finish it next week. If you'd like to use the Pew Bible, you can find that on page 1009. The text is Hebrews chapter 13, beginning at verse seven. If you're able, let's stand for this reading of God's holy word. Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp." So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Obey your leaders and submit to them. for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner. As for the reading of God's holy word, you can be seated. Well, as temporal creatures, of course, we live in time, we operate in time, and we think in terms of time, past, present, and future. And it is somewhat of an impossibility for us really even to think outside of those boundaries, those parameters, to think outside of what time is. Believing and non-believing philosophers have made attempts to explain it. Augustine, the great church father, even does this in the latter part of his confessions. We're not going to go into that this morning to try to explain the concept of time and what it is, but simply state the obvious. We live in time, that our God is eternal. He is outside of time. He's not confined to it but created it and yet he operates within time condescending to us and therefore we are to understand his acts, his mighty works in time. We are to consider time and our time in light of who he is and all that he has done and especially all that he's done in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ which truly changes time for us as he inaugurates the new creation by his resurrection from the dead. As we consider time, as we consider past, present, and future, we're reminded of who our Lord is. As verse eight tells us just this, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Surely this speaks to the everlasting, eternal existence of our Lord, the eternal Son of God. He is yesterday, but He is today and forever. It also speaks to His ministry, the enduring character of all that we've heard so far, that He is, as those sacrifices and ceremonies of the Old Covenant were to come to an end, the Lord's bringing them to an end. That what endures, what continues is the ministry of Christ, our great high priest. It also is a reminder of what he's brought us to, a kingdom that is unshakable, that is everlasting. But as those who are subjects of that kingdom, in that kingdom, even though that kingdom is unshakable, even though that kingdom is everlasting, yet We serve and we worship and we live as unto the Lord still very much with finite limitations in time and space. And we consider and serve in light of that, in light of what has been, in light of what is, and in light of what is to come. Now, last week, as we opened this chapter, we saw in the first six verses that there were, in light of all that's been said so far, that these rapid fire exhortations that come to us to tell us of our responsibility that are thrust upon us here, those six verses really spoke to what we considered them in light of our personal and domestic lives. At the same time, that's not divorced from our corporate identity as the church. The very first verse that told us to let brotherly love continue reminds us that we have brothers and sisters, that we are a part of the family of God and we have responsibilities toward one another. But even as we went into the personal and domestic lives, for instance, in verse four, that the marriage bed is to be held in honor and not defiled. and how we are personally to keep our lives free individually from the love of money and to be content. We come now beginning at verse 7 to what is not just connotations of our corporate identity but explicitly speaking to our identity as the church. So we saw exhortations for life last week. This week we see exhortations for the church. Because here these matters do speak to the corporate context. These are matters of structure, doctrine, worship in the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Structure, we were told to remember our leaders and to obey and submit to them. Doctrine, we were told to avoid strange alien teachings. Matters of worship, we're told here that we are to offer sacrifices of praise to God. and that we are to pray for one another especially for our leaders as well. So we come to consider these exhortations in light of our corporate identity as God's people and these are for us in the present and they were for the original audience given to them in the present. But even as they are given to them in the present, these are things that they are to do now. They're to do so as they press on towards the future and at the same time as they remember the past. And so in verse seven, he tells them, remember, you're to look back. In verse number 13, he says, therefore, let us go. That is something they are to do going forward. And yet these are things they're to do now. Past, present and future. All of this remembering that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. We are to consider our past, present and future in light of Him. And so what we're going to find here is that the life of the church is to be marked by a constancy or a continuing even as she looks to the past and presses on towards the future. That is to say there are things that we are to maintain, we're to hold fast to, we're to continue in while we look to the past and as we press toward the future. And we'll consider it in two ways. We'll consider the past and then the future. We'll see remembering the past in verses 7 to 12. We'll see pressing on towards the future in verses 13 to 19. But even as we think of these, the past and the future, all the time we are to be maintaining this idea of the present. That in the present we're to remember the past. In the present we're to press towards the future. And all because Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So let's look in the first sense then at remembering the past. Remembering the past, we'll see this in verses 7 to 12. The first exhortation in this section that he gives them is there in verse 7. He says to remember, remember your leaders. Now, these are leaders from their past. These are those through whom apparently they came to faith. They spoke the word of God to them. You might remember that God's speech was one of the themes that we encountered earlier on in the book when he told them that today if you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts. But as long as it is called today, hear the voice, the speech of God. It was these leaders who brought to them that speech, that voice of God through the word the gospel proclaimed. They're to remember, of course, the content of that message. He's been telling them all along about the content of the message, proclaiming to them, setting before them Christ, his person and his work. But not only are they to remember the content or the matter of the message, they're also to remember the manner of the messengers themselves. As he says, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. So they're not only to remember the message, although that is of primary importance, they remember the messengers as well. These were faithful men. So consider their lives, consider the outcome of their faith, imitate it. They not only preached, proclaimed, but they lived it. Theirs was an experiential knowledge, not just merely an intellectual ascent to these truths of who Christ is and what he had come to do. He's telling them here this is a well-trodden, reliable path. They're to continue in it. Now, I realize that although this was true for the Hebrews, it may not be true of you. The one or the ones through whom you came to embrace the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ through, may not, you may not be able to consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate it because they did not remain faithful. Perhaps they turned away, perhaps they apostatized. I hope it's not the case, of course, but it certainly may be. There are a few things that are more destructive to God's people, to the life of the church, than when a leader, one who has brought the word of Christ and was to be a mouthpiece for Christ, is one who is had a fall. And though individual ministers of the gospel or leaders in the church may turn away, yet the Lord has provided through the centuries those who are faithful, those we can look to, those we can consider their way of life and imitate their faith. There were many faithful messengers throughout the centuries. If the Lord has provided that we may do this very thing, even if we can't do it immediately in our personal experience. But as it was so far as it was for the Hebrew Christians here, they could. As far as they were concerned, the ones that they had heard the gospel from were faithful messengers, faithful in doctrine, faithful in life. These were those, no their names weren't mentioned in chapter 11 in that great roll call of faith but they had in a sense joined with that great cloud of witnesses because they were those they could look to but they were those also they could look through because they pointed them to Christ, that one who rises above the cloud who himself is the author and finisher of our faith and now in verse 8, The author moves to speak directly of him. He moves from the messengers to the message, to the ones who proclaim, to the one whom they proclaimed. As he says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. So they're moving forward. We've seen this in their In the beginning of chapter 12, remember it was the race they were called to run and to endure, to lay aside every besetting sin and every weight that weighs them down. And as they move towards forever, they're to look to Christ, to look beyond the messengers to him. They're to hold fast in the present as he's continually exhorted them to do and they're also to look to the past as they remember again those who brought them the message of the gospel. In every age the church is tempted to not look to Jesus, to look to other possible potential saviors, to look to other places, to be tempted to be drawn away and abandon her Lord. And of course we know the recipients in this letter were no less. susceptible to that temptation. We've seen those warnings about drifting away, about neglect, about falling away from the living God. Yet our author has told them he was confident of better things for them and they would maintain and yet they were exhorted to maintain, to hold fast to these things. But in verse 9 he reminds them again. of how important this is to persevere where he says, do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings. So here was a particular temptation for them. Diverse, strange or alien teachings that would lead them away from Christ. They're told to hold fast, not to be led away. The term led away means it's the idea of a river, a flowing river that can carry you downstream. No, they're to maintain, they're to be anchored, continue in what they had heard and known of Christ. Now these verses are, in particular verse nine, is really a bit difficult to entangle. It's hard to know exactly what is he speaking of here? What does he mean by these strange teachings? What are they? What does he mean by the foods here? Who is promoting these things? It is hard to say but in the context it seems likely that this is a reference to the ceremonial laws of Judaism, the diet laws or maybe even a Judaizing tendency to bring in along with Christ to add. impose this upon the church, dietary restrictions. It's hard to know exactly for sure what he's referring to but what is more important is where he leads them to in verse 10. He's told them not to be led away by these things and he says in verse 10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. Again the context, the tent, the idea of the tabernacle or temple again seems to point to some Judaizing tendency or some temptation to those dietary laws. But what does he do? He says don't be led away by those things but remember the altar from which we eat. And of course what he's doing here is bringing them back to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's saying that the altar from which we eat, he's spoken of in verse 9 of those foods, he says that they truly haven't benefited those devoted to them. We're to be fed, to be strengthened in our hearts by grace and the way that we feast is from this altar. We do have an altar from which to eat and those who serve the tent or the tabernacle, the temple ceremonies and priesthood and that structure, those sacrifices, they have no right to eat here. In other words, the place from which we are eating, the altar from which we eat and are blessed is not to be found in Judaism. You can't find it in the temple. You can imagine perhaps Christians were ridiculed because what God do you worship that you don't offer sacrifices to? And again, as it seems, these are Hebrew Christians being tempted to turn back to those ceremonies. This is all they'd ever known. This was the tradition of their fathers. This was something that was very tangible. They could see and smell and You know, if you've been around animals very often, the types of animals that were offered for sacrifice, you know there are smells. I saw someone, a fellow minister, post a picture of some cows right in front of him the other day. And I commented and said, I can smell this picture. There were very tangible things that were associated with temple worship that were apparent to the senses. Maybe Christians were ridiculed because they didn't have any sacrifices. But the author is saying that those who continue in the old covenant priestly and sacrificial ceremonies, they're contained there. But we have an altar that we are feasting from that they have no right to eat. It is, as he goes on to say, it's outside that structure. It's outside the camp. And so he says in verse 11, the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. You can see what he's saying here. There are sacrifices, of course, that happen within the temple in Jerusalem. And they have no right to eat from our altar, which is outside of Jerusalem, which is outside the temple. That is where we are feasting. But that's important for us to remember because it is as though The whole structure was intended to say that there was a final sacrifice that would not be within that temple. And so in verse 11 he speaks of animals who were brought outside of the camp. Now you remember in the sacrificial offerings there were some offerings, peace offerings, Thanksgiving offerings that were eaten by the priests and some even eaten by the worshiper himself but not all of them. those, as the author says here, that were offered for sin and particularly, which seems here to be an allusion to the Day of Atonement. After those offerings were made, those carcasses were to be taken outside the camp and burned. The sacrifice for sin was taken outside the camp after it was offered. And he is comparing that to Christ. He's saying, so Christ also has suffered outside the gate. In other words, again, the sacrifice for sin, the once for all atonement is not to be found in the temple. It's what happened outside. Christ was expelled from Jerusalem. He was cast out and taken to Golgotha's Hill outside the camp. As though one in exile, but it's there that actually what was taking place was the final day of atonement. And you see those who continue within the old system of Judaism don't have a right to eat from this altar. This is the altar that we eat from. Not the ceremonies, the dietary restrictions found in that system. But what happened outside the camp is the place where we feast, the altar of Calvary, where we feast upon the bread of life and there our hearts are strengthened as verse 9 says, strengthened by grace. This is what nourishes the soul, the bread of life. So again, as we've seen all of these temptations to be led away from Christ, you see once again how the author is bringing them to show them the insufficiency of the ceremonial system of Judaism to bring them back to Christ. This church had her own particular temptations. The church in every age has its temptations. We have our own temptations of things that would lead us away from Christ. Here is the baseline, the primary test, really, to tell whether or not, as verse 9 says, they are diverse and strange teachings or whether they are true, to try the spirits. And the question is, where does the teacher, where does the teaching lead us? Does it lead us to Christ? Is it, as Paul says, Is the one teaching and is that doctrine, is it determining to know nothing among us but Christ and him crucified? Or is Christ merely a segue? Sort of the on ramp to get us to the true core of their teaching. That's the baseline test for us. The author, once again, has labored to set Christ before his hearers. And he's urging them once more in this conclusion to hold fast to what they've received. So the life of the church is to be marked by a constancy. It's a maintaining of these things. Don't be led away. Understand where we feast from as we feast upon Christ. But one of the ways to do this is by looking back. They look back to the messengers, the faithful messengers who brought to them the gospel, but even more so to the content, the Christ who is the warp and the wolf of the entire thing. And yet as they look to the past, the church is not to be stuck in the past. She presses on. And that's what we find now in verses 13 to 19. We've seen remembering the past. Now we see pressing toward the future. And here are these exhortations. There are a number of things they're told to do here. We'll organize them under four categories. First of all, to join Christ outside the camp or outside the gate. We see this in verses 13 to 14. We've seen, remember, just recently how Christ was rejected. He suffered reproach outside of Jerusalem. That's what we find in verse number 12, outside the gate. He did so in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Again, that final sacrifice for sin. But if you remember the theme that we've been seeing he is the author and finisher of our faith, he is the one who goes into the presence of God but with him he brings many sons to glory. And so it follows logically that if Jesus is outside the gate then as verse 13 says we are to go to where he is. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. He says in verse 14 here, we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. You can't help but to think of the city of Jerusalem in this language that he's used since chapter 11. Remember, Abraham was in the promised land. And yet, what did Abraham testify? that he was a stranger in an exile, an alien passing through. He was looking for a city that has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And then we read of that city that we have come to. Remember in chapter 12, in verse 22, it's not one that could be touched, but the heavenly Mount Zion. And now he tells them in verse 13 and verse 14, That they're to go outside the gate and it's a reference to the gates of Jerusalem because that's where Christ suffered. That they're to leave it because the city that they seek is not here. It's not the earthly Jerusalem. You see, what they were seeking was not to be found there once again. They're outside the camp. If Christ has been exiled, so have they in union with him. They have no home, no lasting city in the earthly Jerusalem. And yet they're not homeless, are they? They're pilgrims. They're headed somewhere. They've already come to that place in principle. You have come to Mount Zion, and yet they're to continue to finish the race. They are heading towards that city that is to come, the consummated Jerusalem, and the new heavens and new earth. They're journeying towards it, and as they press towards it, even though they may suffer loss, remember, they've experienced even the plundering of their property, yet they're to do so. Bearing the reproaches that Christ endured, being willing to suffer for his name sounds a lot like, again, what we heard in chapter 11 concerning Moses, the city that he left. He was refused to be the son of Pharaoh's daughter, perhaps even, as some suppose, next in line to be Pharaoh, king over Egypt. But he considered, the author says, even before Christ, he considered the reproaches of Christ of a greater value than all the treasures of Egypt. You're to do the same. you're to be leaving because actually to turn back to go to back within the gate within Jerusalem and to return to those ceremonies to return to that city would be like Moses turning away from suffering the reproach of the people of God, the reproaches of Christ to go after the treasures of Egypt. It's as though Jerusalem. has as much to do with what the Lord is doing through Christ as Egypt did. You're to leave to follow Christ to the new Jerusalem. Because Judaism, Israel is apostate. They've turned away from the living God. You can't go back. There's no salvation to be found there. It's only in Christ. And we may not be tempted to return to Jerusalem. There's a lot in the news this morning, coincidentally. We certainly pray, of course, with all the events that are going on. We may not be tempted, of course, to turn to the physical Jerusalem, to the temple, but we are certainly tempted with much, aren't we? To build a lasting city here. To think that this is it, that here our treasure is to be found. And the Lord is calling us to seek that which is to come as he says in verse 14. What's interesting about that city that is to come is that we can very much though enjoy it in the present. That it has come, it is coming and it is come. So they're to join Christ. But then the second thing here to note is the exhortation that we find in verses 15 and 16 as they press toward the future that they're to do this through sacrifice. Now this might seem strange to us because it seems as though he's just told us that the sacrifices have come to an end and that is true. All of those old covenant sacrifices are over with with that single final offering of Christ. But that does not mean that there are no new covenant sacrifices. He mentions two of them here. The first he says, through him then let us continually, that is through Christ, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. We offer praise to God and that is an offering, a sacrifice of thanksgiving. Did you think of worship in that way when you came this morning? You were offering a sacrifice to God. Paul says in Romans 12 that we offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to the Lord, like the burnt offering that ascends up to the Lord. We offer ourselves to him and we offer praises and thanksgivings to God. But there's another one that's mentioned here, too, and that is one that is also pleasing to God. Verse 16, do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to the Lord. Remember in verse 1, what was verse 1 about? Let brotherly love continue as we continue in brotherly love. We're not to neglect the sharing of what we have with one another. We can summarize these sacrifices as love to God and love to neighbor. One is to the Lord in praise and thanksgiving and one is giving in service. A third exhortation as we press toward the future is found in verse 17. We could summarize that with the term obey. That's what he says. Obey your leaders. Submit to them. Keep watch over your souls. They will have to give an account and so let them do this with joy, not with groaning. That would not be profitable. It would not be of any advantage to you. We've spoken much about who it is that's leading them on this on this path, the trail that he's blazed to the New Jerusalem. It's Christ, of course. But though Christ is leading, he hasn't left them without guides. Sort of like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress who finds guides along the way, evangelists who come to help him. The Lord has left guides in the church and here we find those guides as the church is told to obey these leaders. Church is not to be considered a democracy, it's not even a republic though there are representatives in its government. But we're to consider the church as the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ who is one true king but just like every kingdom has its official so the kingdom of Christ has its officers and these are those leaders spoken of here. In verse seven, he told them to remember the leaders in the past, those who spoke to them in God's word that we saw at the beginning. But now he reminds them of their current leaders. They're to obey them. Christ rules over his church by his word and spirit, but he's pleased to do so through the ministry of men. That's what the preface to our book of church order says. He rules, we'll see tonight, to the church in Philadelphia. He's the one who has the key of David. And yet he exercises the keys of the kingdom through the officers of the church. It's what we confess this morning in our confession of faith regarding church government and officers and the keys of the kingdom. So we're told to obey these leaders. Incidentally, we are reminded here of how important it is to be a part of a local church. Do you know there are commands in the New Testament? You cannot fulfill, you cannot obey them if you're not accountable to a local church. Here is one of them. Obey your leaders. If we're thinking about the church universal, the visible church universal, does that mean that we are subject to everyone, anyone, everyone and anyone who says that they are a leader in the church? Of course not. This church knew who their leaders were and on the flip side of that the leaders knew whom they were accountable for because they will give an account. A practical outworking of this, of course, is church membership. It's keeping a role so we know who's in and who's without. When Paul speaks of church discipline it says you're to put out those who are impenitent. There was an understanding of those who were within and those who weren't. Well, there's an implicit charge for the leaders here, of course, is they need to be good leaders. They need to care for souls. They need to live as the others did with a pattern of life that is worth imitating. All of those are implicitly here, but there is the explicit command for the congregation to remember their responsibility toward their leaders, towards those who are watching over their souls. Now, it is the authority of Christ, of course. It's a derived authority, but it is an authority nonetheless. There is an authority. It is the rule of Christ carried out through these leaders in the functions of the Word. There are executive and judicial functions of the Word. Executive functions in what the older writers would have called the ministry. The office of minister in the power of order that he exercises as Christ exercises the keys of the kingdom through him in the preaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments where he opens and shuts. He shuts all other doors but opens the door through the keys of the kingdom to proclaim the gospel of Christ. But there is among the elders a jurisdiction that they share together. That, too, is the ministry of the word in church discipline. To shut out those who are impenitent. But also to bring in and absolve from any censures that have been levied to those who are repenting of their sins. But all of this under the rule of Christ, by his word and spirit. And so submission to these leaders then in God's providence and his wisdom, which is so strange to us that he would use sinful men to do this, but it is actually submission to Christ. Because those offices in the church, they have no meaning apart from Christ. It's Christ who is the officer. He is the mediator. In his office as mediator, he is the true prophet, priest, and king in his church. And many of the officers that we use, the titles that we would use to speak of in the scriptures, both those that were extraordinary or that were temporary, as well as those that remain and are perpetual. such as apostle or prophet or evangelist or pastor or elder, deacon, whatever we find. Many of those are attributed to Christ himself. You see, it's from his office, it's from his eminence that those offices are derived and they have their meaning. They have no meaning apart from him. So the congregation is to make this a joy, not a burden for their leaders. The leaders ought to remember that their authority is not an intrusive meddling, neither is it to be domineering, but it's intended to be a help. They're to help them along the way as guides. They are to oversee, they will give an account for those souls, but the church is to help as well. It's like the elders could say, help us help you. by letting this be a joy, not serving with groaning because the congregation is hard hearted. And when this is complimentary, there is advantage. There is advantage. It is profit to the church and it is joy to those who minister. Well, then a final exhortation is to pray. We find this in verses 18 and 19. The author wants the church to pray for him and also for his associates. He says he wants to act honorably in all things. He's sure that he has a clear conscience, but then he asks for prayer, requests for prayer that he may be restored to them. This is one of the reasons why many have believed that Paul wrote this letter. The idea of being restored perhaps is being released from prison that currently has him at a distance. Whoever it is that wrote the letter here, we are reminded of the importance of prayer, how necessary it is. We pray according to the Lord's will. This is how the Lord accomplishes his providence in the life of his church. His purposes are fulfilled in the world in this way. It's sort of like tracks for a train engine to run on. Our prayers in God's wisdom and providence is the way that the train of his will is accomplished in the world. And so his people must pray and pray especially for leaders in the church. Pray for your leaders. He says, I urge you the more earnestly. I urge you this morning earnestly to pray for your leaders in this particular church. Elders sometimes will weigh heavy burdens. They cannot, for whatever reason, they can't quite articulate or perhaps they can't escape from or maybe they don't even know why there is the burden. But be encouraged, be exhorted to pray for them. I do want to commend you as a church at Ortega Presbyterian Church. I think you do this very thing. I think you make it. so that your elders, your leaders can serve with joy and not with groaning. And the Lord is to be praised for this. Hopefully, it is serving to your advantage and profit. So the life of the church is to be marked by constancy, even as she looks to the past and presses towards the future. She's to look to the past, she's to look back on those faithful servants of the Lord, to the message they proclaimed, of course, to the Christ of the message, but she's also to press forward. As she marches to Zion, she's to do so with offering these praises, these sacrificial praises to God and thanksgiving, serving one another, submitting themselves to those the Lord has put over them in his household, to do so with fervent prayer. believing God hears and answers the prayers of his people. She remembers the past, she presses on towards the future, but she does this in the present as she holds fast to Jesus Christ who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Let's pray. Father, we