Well, we return now to Hebrews after a break of two weeks, and we are finding ourselves in the middle of a section which actually begins before the text that we're taking today in verses 14 through 16, and it is more teaching on the ultimate supremacy of the new covenant over the old covenant. A theme which has been sounded throughout the book of Hebrews, and is sounding again before we come to the conclusion of this book. The old covenant, though given by God, and God had a gracious purpose for it, namely, to point people to Christ and to the fulfillment of the new covenant. But though it had a God-ordained purpose, that purpose was not to save. Nobody was saved by keeping the requirements of the old covenant, but rather men were saved by recognizing the instruction given by the symbols and types and words of the old covenant, pointing them to a promised future Messiah.
Which God would give in the appointed time, who Himself would take away sin of those who believed on Him, and so Old Testament saints believing the same promise of God that we believe, but in lesser detail, for they didn't have as many details as we do. But Old Testament saints who were saved were saved by trusting in Christ, who was future to them. And today we are saved by trusting Christ, who is past as far as His work upon the cross, to us today. And so it is important. The writer of Hebrews is saying in this text that the Hebrew Christians that he's writing to go on to Christ and cling to Christ and not turn away from Christ.
Don't go back to the old covenant. Though the old covenant had its place for your forefathers, it has no place for you or for anyone today.
Now that Christ has come, the old covenant pointed to Christ. Christ came. The old covenant fades away, and is replaced by Christ and the new covenant. And so we cannot please God in this day by old covenant worship practices. Rather, we must please God by new covenant worship practices, and some of those are set before us in our text for today.
And so, what do we have in verses fourteen through sixteen? We have number one, why we come to Christ, verse fourteen, and number two. How we worship Christ, verses 15 and 16. Why we come to Christ, verse 14 says, "For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come." Why do we come to Christ? And the underlying command that joins to our beginning text today in verse 14.
Is the one in verse thirteen? Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. And so, the underlying commandment is actually in verse thirteen. And what does it say?
It says we are to go forth to him. It's interesting in the Bible.
Sometimes the language is "come to Christ." Other times the language is "go to Christ." Is there a distinction there?
Well, only a small one, but a notable one. Come to Christ. Come apart and find welcome in Christ. Come apart from the world. Come apart.
From your present circumstances, come apart from everything else that you may have been relying on for salvation, and come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come to Christ, but sometimes go to Christ. Depart from where you are and go someplace else. Leave behind. That which you are involved in now, and go to something entirely new.
Go to the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, go forth to Him, outside the camp. We've already seen that the camp represents corrupted religion. When Christ was crucified, the Jews had completely corrupted the old covenant. Teachings and practices, and had misinterpreted what that was all about. It had become a corrupt religion, and therefore, Christ went outside the gate of Jerusalem to be crucified.
Now he didn't; he went there because they took him there. But all of that is symbolic. It's important for us to understand, and so we are go to go to Christ outside the camp, outside. The realm of corrupted religion, and outside the camp of the rejection of Christ, because that's all what is symbolized by his being expelled, as it were, from Jerusalem, and crucified outside the city. Where to go outside the camp, and finally, we are told we do this bearing his reproach, a reminder of the cost of discipleship.
There is a cost, because of the enmity of the fallen world against Christ. That enmity also falls upon those who are identified with Christ. Because of the unpopularity of offensive truth, unconverted people do not want to hear the truth. They don't want to hear the truth about many things, and they certainly don't want to hear the truth about their own. Depravity and utter sinfulness, and and incapability of saving themselves, and of having to to embrace Christ and Him alone for salvation, the world doesn't want to hear that Jesus is the only way to God.
That's very offensive. Organized Christianity doesn't want to hear many of the truths of the gospel and of the scriptures. And so, to come to Christ or to go to Christ, to embrace Christ truly, is to incur a reproach, and you need to understand that. You say, "Well, salvation is a free gift; all you got to do is believe." Yes, I'm not real. Real fond of that kind of language.
All you got to do is believe. I think a better way of putting it is: the only thing you can do is believe. You can't do anything else except believe. But understand that believing in Christ means to follow Christ. To follow Christ, there is a cost.
To follow Christ, we become disciples of Christ. To follow Christ, we incur the same reproach that Christ had.
Now, knowing that, are you going to believe in Him? Are you going to embrace Him? Are you going to follow Him? I trust that you shall. Go forth to Him.
And also, previous to this command in verse thirteen, we have reasons for this command. Jesus is the only way of salvation. Look at verse ten. For we have an altar which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. That's a compact way of saying: if you are trusting in a false way of salvation, you can't have the true way of salvation.
You can't have both.
So, which altar are you going to bow to? Which altar are you going to worship at? Is it going to be Christ alone, or is it going? Are you going to try to embrace Christ and the other things that come from your background, your tradition, from the approval of your friends, and whatever it may be? You can't have both.
We who are saved have an altar to eat of; that those who serve the old covenant altar have no place to eat. Jesus is the only way of salvation. Therefore, go to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. Jesus is the fulfillment of old covenant types and symbols. Verses eleven and twelve.
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 gate.
Now that, as you remember, is picking up just one of the Old Testament ceremonies, namely the one on the Day of Atonement, when the blood was applied to the Ark of the Covenant. As a covering for Israel's sins, but the animals from which that blood was taken were burned outside the camp, and that, as we've already seen, becomes a very powerful symbol. That's one of those types and symbols of the old covenant. This symbol, we wouldn't really know what that meant necessarily if we didn't have the New Testament scriptures to explain it. We have to have the New Testament scriptures to fully understand what the Old Testament is teaching.
But now that we know what that is—that that act, that ceremonial act of burning those animals outside the camp—was a symbol of Christ being crucified outside of Jerusalem. And so, with this symbolism in mind, we, as it were, go outside. We leave Jerusalem, go outside the gate, and we come to Him outside the camp.
So Jesus is the fulfillment of old covenant types and symbols.
So that's why we go to Him. We must go to Jesus for salvation. We must be willing to bear His reproach. In order to identify with him, he who is an offense to the world, and even an offense to corrupted religion. But in our text for today, having now reminded ourselves of some of the reasons in the previous context as to why we have this command, therefore, let us go to him, outside the gate.
But now we have additional reasons. And the additional reasons are found in verses 14 and 15, and the first one is because of the temporary nature of this present world. Verse 14: For here, in this world, we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. That's why I'm thankful for that. Quotation that was in our bulletin today from Charles Spurgeon.
It hits the nail on the head. Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.
Now we are born into this world. We live in this world. We are saved and left in the world until the time when the Lord calls us home. But if we have truly been saved, we come to realize that this world is empty. It is incapable of providing that which satisfies our inner longings, and it's going to disappear someday.
It's going to be destroyed. It's going to be gone. There's no permanency in this world. No security in this world. Either in the trappings of the world, apart from religion, or even in the ceremonies of false religion that does not conform to the Scriptures, there's nothing of value, nothing that's lasting in any of that.
The temporary nature of this present world tells us that there's no future here, and there's no security here.
So what do we do? We go to him, outside the camp, bearing his reproach. Why? Because in him we find a continuing city. The last part of that verse: we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.
As the songwriters said, this world is not my home. I'm just a passing through. My treasures, everything that's of any value, my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven's open door, and I can't feel at home in this world anymore.
Now, if we're honest, I think we have to say that sometimes we kind of like this present world. But we need to ask the Lord to teach us not to. It's not that we hate the people in the world. It's not that we rail against everything in the world, but we have to have our affections weaned away from the things we see, the things we experience, the. Fleeting and temporary pleasures that we enjoy in this world, we have to come to reckon them all of no value, and to seek permanent value, permanent pleasure, permanent satisfaction in the world which is to come.
We were rescued out of this world. Thank God that we weren't left in it. We are strangers and pilgrims here. It's hard for us to get our mind around that, but that is the truth. Let us embrace the truth and act accordingly.
We are seeking a home with Christ, a home that is to come. Turn back just a page to Hebrews chapter 11 and remember what Abraham tells us about this. Hebrews 11:8. By faith Abraham. Obeyed when he was called to go out to the place where he would receive an inheritance, and went out not knowing where he was going.
By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Yes, Abraham left his country and went to another country, promised to him, to his progeny by God. We call that the Promised Land. But again, that was all symbolic.
There's nothing permanent about that spot of geography in this world either. That was a symbol. That was a parable. To show us that we leave the things that we love and value in this world, and we seek a different city, one that has foundations whose builder and maker is God. In other words, heaven, the city to come.
We're told that Abraham, in the era of the Chaldees, probably lived in a beautiful ten-room mansion. That that was rather typical of the people of that day, had all of the luxuries and commodities that the world was able to provide, and he left all that behind to go to a land that he didn't even know where he was going until he got there, and when he got there, he lived in tents, quite a quite a step down from the way he had been living. But there's no Indication anywhere that Abraham resented that, felt sorry for himself because of that, wished he could go back to that. No, because he knew that he was following the Lord, and the Lord was going to fulfill His promises, and he knew that that relocation to Canaan. Was really just a symbol of his permanent relocation to the heavenly Jerusalem.
He understood that.
Now the question is: Do we? He indicated by the way he lived that he was not living for the things of this earth. He was living for that city which is to come, which he had never seen with his eyes any more than for many many years he hadn't seen Canaan, which was promised to him, and then he finally did, though he didn't possess it during his lifetime. But he knew. By faith that God was building something permanent, something better, something beautiful, something greater, and He lived that way.
We, like Abraham who wandered, are strangers and pilgrims here, but we're seeking a home to come, which is with Christ. And ultimately, that's it, isn't it?
Sometimes we wonder, what's heaven going to be like, and will it have this, and will it have that, and will we enjoy this, and will we enjoy that. Let it simply be said that we are joined to Christ by faith; we are placed in Him by, by the work of the Holy Spirit, in spiritual union with Christ. And yet we are separated from Him because He's in heaven and we're on earth. But what we're longing to do is to be with Him. That's the big prize, and everything else is going to be wonderful.
But it's secondary to that. Let's go forth to Him. Let's look forward to being with Christ, and just simply believe that all that He has promised will come to pass in greater. Fulfillment, more glorious reality than we could ever imagine. That city to come will abundantly meet all of our needs, all of our longings, all of our desires.
We do not see it now, but we do see it by faith. We see it the same way we see Jesus. We've never seen Jesus, but we believe in Him. We've never seen an angel, but we believe in them because the Bible tells us about them. We don't have to see heaven to believe in it because we believe the revelation of God, and so by faith we believe what God has revealed, and we.
Demonstrate that we believe it by acting like it. We live in accordance with what we believe. If you tell me you believe something, but you don't act in correspondence with that, then I can tell you you don't really believe it. You're just saying so, but you don't. Which means all of us have a little growing to do in regard to.
Our full, undivided faith in and commitment to the city which is to come. But we seek it by obedient faith, and we know that it will more than compensate for whatever sufferings, whatever trials, whatever sacrifices we make, in order to go out to Christ, to be joined to Him, to be identified with Him, to be viewed in Him by the heavenly Father, so that our Righteousness is Christ's righteousness, and our judgment was settled at the cross of Calvary. And that's what it means to go out to Him, and in doing that, we are satisfied, and we know that whatever the future holds, it is going to be so good that nothing that we paid, nothing that it cost us by way of sacrifice in this world. Is anything compared with the reward that we shall have? It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
It will be worth it all when we come into this heavenly kingdom.
So that's the first part of our text. It is why. We go to Christ, but now, verses 15 and 16, how do we worship Christ? 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. But do not forget to do good and to share.
For with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. It could be that some of the friends and relatives of the Hebrews who were professing faith in Christ were saying to them, "Well, you don't have any sacrifices. We're still following the old covenant. We've they weren't." That the temple was still standing; it hadn't been destroyed yet. Sacrifices were still being made by the priests in the temple.
We're worshiping God in the way that He delights in, because we have sacrifices to offer to God. Where are your sacrifices, New Covenant believers in Jesus Christ? Where are they? Here they are. Here they are.
By Him, let us continually offer. The sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. Do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. How do we worship Christ?
Well, we worship Him by offering to Him new covenant sacrifices, not the old covenant ones. And what are they?
Well, they break down into two categories in our text. We worship him with our lips, number one, and we worship him with our deeds, number two. We worship him with our lips. Salvation, the new birth, affects our speech. The fruit of our lips—what comes out of our lips—fruit is what grows out of the plant to which it is attached.
The words that come out of our mouth grow out of the inward thoughts and minds to which they are attached. Jesus said as much. He said, "By your words, you shall be justified, and by your words, you shall be condemned." The way you talk reveals the condition of your heart. And when we are saved, the fruit of our lips is very different from what it was before we were saved. The fruit of our lips, verbal communication, fruit that is pleasing, that is nourishing.
Salvation affects our speech. Salvation affects our worship. It's called here the sacrifice of praise. What does this mean? Articulated adoration.
If somebody hears tornado, let me know. Articulated adoration. Some people have the idea.
Well, I just worship God silently from my heart. That's where it begins, but that's not where it ends. And God is not fully pleased until it what is in your heart ushers forth in what you say, articulated adoration. It needs to be spoken. The fruit of our lips, sacrifices of praise.
Salvation affects our attitude, giving thanks to His name. If praise is articulated adoration, then thanksgiving is articulated gratitude. That the two are very closely joined—praise and thanksgiving—and yet they are two separate things. But it's hard to do one without the other, and we shouldn't try to do one without the other. We do both.
We honor God with our Articulated—that's a big word that means speaking—with the words that honor Him, that praise Him, that that ascribe to Him majesty and power and glory and honor. We say these things out loud with our lips, and we thank Him out loud with our lips. And salvation affects our attitude. When we're saved, we've got a new attitude about everything, a new attitude in life, and it's a it's a gratitude attitude. You've heard that, haven't you?
We have a new gratitude attitude, and Christians, those still affected by the remaining sin and therefore sometimes stumbling back into a complaining, critical spirit, need to recognize that as dishonoring to God. Get rid of that. Replace it with thanksgiving and praise, with gratitude to God. Salvation enables true worship. We do all of these things, as our text tells us, by Him.
Therefore, by Him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips. We do this by Him. What does that mean? In virtue of our union with Him, which is the only way that we're acceptable to God, people who have not surrendered to Christ can sing the same hymns with the same words that we use.
They can express words of thanks using the same words that we use, but God accepts none of it. I don't hear you until. You go out from the camp to embrace my son, and then when you are joined to him, all of your words of praise, all of your words of thanksgiving, are a sweet smelling savor to God Almighty. He's pleased. Salvation affects our habits.
We do this continually. Not just on Sunday morning, continually. If you were here for the Bible conference, and one of the nights you heard Jim Oreck say that he has a a song running through his mind almost all the time. He wakes up in the morning thinking thinking about a particular hymn, and he's running that through his mind. Does that throughout the day?
I'm sure many of you experience the same thing. That's the continual thanksgiving and praise. That is the fruit of true salvation in the lives of God's people. And so we worship God with our lips, and that's very important. But we also worship Him with our deeds.
Verse sixteen: Do not forget to do good. What's that? Good works. Do not forget to do good and to share. What's that?
Giving. For with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. Good works and giving. The word "giving" here is the Greek word koineia. It's a very rich word with a lot of different shades of meaning.
Sometimes it's translated fellowship, and sometimes it's translated partnership, and so forth and so on. But this is a good translation here: sharing. Do not forget to do good and to share, and it has the idea of sharing what you have, giving what you have to God and to others. The Bible is filled with instructions for how we should. Honor the Lord with our giving.
How we should be concerned about the advancement of Christ's kingdom, and we demonstrate that with our giving. How we should be concerned about the needs of others, particularly brothers and sisters in Christ, who have physical needs, and if we have the ability, we share some of what God has blessed us with to help meet those needs. This is the kind of sacrifices with which God is pleased. Don't bring an animal. Don't bring a lamb.
Don't kill an animal and offer its blood upon the altar. That's old covenant. That's gone. What do you do? Praise him.
Thank him. Do good deeds. Share generously with what God has given to you. And out of this text grow a lot. Of applications and lessons, let's see how many we can cover with the time that remains.
There's first of all clearly a lesson in giving. Our giving demonstrates gratitude to God. Our giving demonstrates that we understand the principle of stewardship, namely, that nothing we have belongs to us. It all belongs to God. It's loaned to us.
It's given to us temporarily, and we are to manage it for His glory. The principle of stewardship. Our giving demonstrates our love for the gospel, as we give for the advancement of the gospel. Our giving demonstrates our love for others, as we give to help meet the temporal needs of others. Our giving demonstrates our eternal perspective, that we really believe that nothing in this world will last.
But what we give to God lasts forever. Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal, and it'll all be gone someday. If you accumulate a whole lot, what'll happen? Your relatives will fight over it, and probably hurt themselves in the process. Or you can lay it up in heaven, and it lasts forever.
It'll it'll be waiting for you when you get there. Do you believe that your giving is a demonstration of whether you really believe in the city to come, in the temporary nature of the city in which we now dwell, the the world in which we now live, the world system, and the wonderful eternal nature of the city to come? If you really believe that, you're going to do what Jesus recommends. You're going to lay up treasure in heaven, where moth and rust. Can't corrupt, and where thieves can't break through and steal, for as Jesus said, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Maybe part of the problem we have in weaning our hearts away from this present world is that we've invested too much in this world. Lay up your treasures in heaven, and your heart will be there as well. Lay up your treasures on earth, and you're going to be pretty, pretty focused upon the things of this earth, which should be. Growing very dim. But secondly, let's look at some lessons about singing.
It's clear that singing is an important part of our worship, our sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips. Singing is one of the elements of worship that is commanded in the New Covenant. I reminded you of that in the. Opening of our service today, when I said we've come together to sing songs and hymns and spiritual songs, that of course comes from Ephesians chapter five and Colossians chapter three.
That's that's an element of worship that God has given to us. We are to sing. That's an important part of our worship, and when we do, God is well pleased. We open our lips and sing. We praise Him.
Praise Him. Jesus, our blessed Redeemer, but someone says, "Men don't sing. Saved men do." I'm thankful that when I look out over this congregation while we're singing, I very seldom see anyone who's not singing. And if I do see someone who's not singing, it's usually a man. Yeah.
And I have noticed in other churches that I've been in that sometimes maybe a third or more of all the men aren't singing. And the conclusion I draw is that probably a third or more of the men aren't converted. Yes, men do sing if they know the Lord. Yes, men do sing if they love Jesus. Yes, men do sing if they're grateful to God.
Yes, men do sing if they're obedient to His Word. Yes, men do sing if they want to please the Lord with the sacrifices with which He is well pleased. Lessons about singing. Lessons about verbal testimonies. We.
Give him the praise of our lips in our singing and other ways, and we also give him the sacrifice of the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. What is that?
Well, among other things, that is certainly giving verbal testimonies. It's not just enough to feel gratitude. It's it's important. To God, for us to speak our gratitude, to articulate our gratitude, to testify of God's goodness in our lives. Every year we have a praise service before Thanksgiving.
We put it on Tuesday night, so that the people who are preparing meals on Wednesday and having guests coming and so forth, will not be hindered by that. And we give opportunity for people to give verbal testimony at that time, and many of you do. But we should have such a glad and and plenteous response to that opportunity that we run out of time. In other words, there ought to be a whole lot more people that are looking for an opportunity to do what the Bible tells us to do here—to find times and places and ways where we can articulate a testimony of thanksgiving to God. And there are other ways to do that.
Wednesday night we have our prayer meetings, and somebody will say, "You know, you used to open up the floor for testimonies more often, and that doesn't happen as often now." That's true. We could do it more often. I suppose, but public prayer is an opportunity for that. When you pray, what are you doing? Praising God with your lips.
When you pray, what are you doing? Giving thanks to God with your lips. I long for the day when there'll be so many people jumping up to pray on Wednesday night that again we run out of time. An opportunity, an opportunity to offer to God the sacrifices with which He is pleased. An opportunity to praise Him with my lips.
An opportunity to thank Him publicly with my lips. Praise God for this opportunity. I want to do that. Give me an opportunity. A quick lesson about serving God.
We are to do good. There's lots of ways to do that, lots of places to do that, lots of times to do that. But I would recommend that every member of this church look for at least one task in the church that you can do. I know you can do things outside the church; I'm sure you do, but let's. Find a place of regular service, whatever it may be, suitable to our circumstances, our gifts, our needs.
Let's find a regular place of service in the church, and and that will that will encourage us to be serving God regularly. Not to let too many days go by when we don't at least do some good deeds for for Christ. That's a Sacrifice, with which God is well pleased. Lessons about faith. Faith, as we've seen, believes in that which is unseen, as revealed by God.
Faith sees the invisible and acts in the light of the truth that is seen, which brings me to our my final lesson. Lessons about salvation. Believing in Christ. Means being willing to be identified with Him. Believing in Christ means being willing to suffer with Him.
May God give us that faith. Shall we pray? Father, may Thy Word speak to every heart according to the needs. May our faith be enlarged. May our commitments be increased.
May our acceptable worship grow, as we endeavor to serve and please you in this world. Looking forward to that one which is to come, we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.
