A Christian Lifestyle (Part 2 of 2)

One of the things stressed by the author of the book of Hebrews is how important it is for us to show hospitality to strangers or to care for the needs of prisoners.

But many of us look at our lives and think, How do we fit that into everything else we've got going on? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg teaches us how to put the principles from Hebrews 13 into practice. Thankfulness What does it mean to be thankful and worship God acceptably?

Well, interestingly, J. B. Phillips paraphrases it in this way. Let us serve God with thankfulness in the ways which please him. What does it mean to live in the kind of thankfulness which pleases God?

Answer number one. Keep on loving each other as brothers. You see, unless there is an energizing force from outside of a man or a woman that diminishes our external preoccupations with socioeconomic class, with race, color, and all of those things—unless that power comes from outside of an individual to engender in its unifying principle a reality that is unknown elsewhere—then it's a chronicle of despair. Because men and women are essentially sinful. Who can change that? Only Jesus. Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that socioeconomic factors are irrelevant?

No. This is what it means, and I quote Sinclair Ferguson, Whenever we find ourselves attaching importance to possessions, background, schooling, or accent as the basis of fellowship, then we are out of step with the example of Christ, and such wrongful attitudes need to be dealt with at the foot of the cross. And here's the deal, loved ones. Churches are riddled with all of this stuff. We're full of it. Now, this is not to condemn us. This is to say, Okay, let's step up. What is it gonna mean? When you and I make up our minds to love each other as brothers and sisters, then all of these other things fall into the place where they're supposed to fall. But until we make up our minds to do so, you can have somebody stand up here till they're blue in the face.

It won't make one bit of difference. Because it is volitional. But as soon as we begin to do this, believe me, they will be beating down the doors to get in here. How in the world can you bring all those disparate people together? How is it that they all come together? And then when they come in, they say, Only Jesus.

Jesus changes the heart. It's not, you see, community at the basis of the lowest common denominator. It is a community that is based on the fact that we all come from the same womb.

And because we all come from the same womb, it doesn't mean we all equally like each other, because we fried out don't, and it doesn't mean that we're removed from personal preferences, and it doesn't mean that we want to go to breakfast with everybody that we ever see, but it does mean this—that we are committed to loving each other from the heart. Secondly, in the community of faith there needs to be the entertaining of strangers. Now, the key word here is strangers. Well, why would we have somebody we don't know over to the house? Because if we don't know them, maybe no one else knows them. And if no one else knows them, where are they? No names, no faces, no place. So who's gonna take the no name, no face, no place, if you don't? Or if I assume that you will, and you assume that I will, and neither of us does?

Now, just test yourself against it. How many strangers have you had over to your house lately? And I'm not talking about workmen. You see, the way in which this was manifested was on account of the fact that the people who moved from place to place did not have the opportunities that we have of accommodation. The inns that were available were extortionately priced, and they had low moral standards—not dissimilar to the present day. You can talk to any traveling businessman, he'll tell you, he paid too much, and he had the potential of having moral filth pollute his bedroom twenty-four hours of the time that he was there.

So it was extortionately priced and low moral standards. What do you think he would have enjoyed? Probably he would have enjoyed the companionship of another Christian. How would he ever meet another Christian? Well, he'd go to church. Well, what's church?

Well, people come together, they sit in rows. Do they talk to one another? Well, I don't know, maybe, maybe not. Well, if they did talk to one another and they found out he was a stranger, do you think anything would happen from there? Well, probably not. Why? Because our lives are too complicated to include strangers in it. We can hardly stand our own lives as it is without having some poor soul that came from Toledo get involved in this nonsense with us. We're looking at the afternoon wondering if we can make it. Why would you ever include a stranger in this?

That would discourage him. Somebody said to me, We drove three hours from Finley to see you. I said, Hey, nice to see you. I said, I bet no one invited you for lunch. She said, No, they didn't. I said, Well, tough. See you around. What am I gonna say?

I preached my heart out. They're strangers. Nobody turned to the person and said, Hey, are you a stranger?

You know, do I know you? And they could at least have gone to Bob Evans, for crying out loud. It would have been nice. But they couldn't do it, because their life's too complicated. So is mine.

I've been thinking about this week. Why were my mother and father able to have so many people in our home when I was a kid growing up? They come for lunch without planning. They come for dinner without planning.

They come, come, coming all the time. It's like Grand Central Station. How'd they do that? Because their lives were simple. They had one car. My mother didn't drive.

Stay home, make the meal. I said to myself, Well, why is it? Am I just not a nice person like my mother? She said, Well, that's true. I got that one right.

But Sue is equally nice as my mother, maybe a little better. So it can't be that. What is it? We have set up our stalls, most of us, so chaotically that we can't get involved with strangers. We can't even make time to get with the people we want to get with. So how in the world are we gonna get strangers in here? So where do strangers go in big, lonely metropolitan places?

They go to bars, exercise clubs, gyms, coffee shops, bookstores—anywhere you can hang around in the possibility of getting a conversation. When's the last time you read Third John? Okay, fine.

I appreciate your honesty. Turn to it for a moment, would you? Three John. If you start at Revelation and come back the way, you'll do better than starting at Genesis.

If you start at Genesis and you don't know where you're going, it'll be next Sunday before you get there. Three John. If love doesn't issue in a hospitable home, love has not begun to work. We surely must understand that Christian homes are vital factors in our generation for reaching non-Christians, for encouraging one another.

Dear Gaius, he says, my dear friend Gaius, what about Gaius? Look at verse 5. Dear friend, you're faithful in what you're doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you. They've told the church about your love—love in action, practice to strangers. You do well. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God.

It was for the sake of the name, namely the name of Christ, that they waned out, receiving no help from the pagans. We ought therefore to show hospitality to such men, so that we may work together for the truth. Gaius. An unfamiliar name doing the job. Now, the deal is that when we operate in this way, we will discover that the benefits we derive are greater than the exercise of hospitality that we give. He says there were people in the past who entertained angels, and they didn't even know about it. That's in Genesis 18, Abram and Sarah, and Judges 13, in relationship to a man called Manoah.

This is not a motivating factor. We can imagine our children saying, Can we have Mr. So-and-so over for lunch? I want to see if he's an angel. I'm forced to conclude that a lot of the people we had in our home were certainly not from the angelic department.

They might have been from another department when I was a kid growing up. So it's not that we're motivated by the desire of maybe waking up and finding an angel in the guest room. He says if you do this, you will derive a benefit that far exceeds the extension of your own resources. And after all, he said there were people in the past, and they entertained angels, and they didn't even know about it. Okay, loving his brothers, entertaining strangers. Thirdly, sympathizing with prisoners. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners. Christians, you see, in the first century were landing in prison. They were landing in prison on account of their faith. These folks could not attend the gatherings. Therefore, they could not be welcomed as strangers. Therefore, they could not experience hospitality. They were removed from all the routine benefits of everyday life.

And what are we to do with such? He says, well, since they cannot enjoy hospitality, they can experience our sympathy. So I want you, he says, to empathize with people in prison. In other words, think about the prisoner and say, now, what would I like if I was in prison? He said, if I was in prison, I think I'd like somebody to send me a card. Okay, send a card. If I was in prison, I'd like a visit.

I'm gonna find out if I can visit. But in other words, he says, get yourself under the burden of who these people are. Try and think yourself into their circumstances. Write notes of encouragement to them.

Do what you can for them. The prison ministry, which began in my previous church—began, I've told you before, by a lady who had read a good book, and as she read the book, she thought it would be good to give the book to someone. She was driving past the prison, which was a few miles from her home out in the country, and the thought struck her, Maybe I could give the book to a prisoner. She was far removed from prisoners.

She was a well-heeled lady, nice husband and family and everything. She didn't know a prisoner. She wouldn't know a prisoner if they ran in and stole something out of the refrigerator. She went home, put the idea out of her mind, came back to her again, couldn't get rid of it, went to the prison, asked to speak to the governor, said, You know, I have just this thought. I don't know if it's crazy, but I read this book, and I thought maybe I could give it to one of the prisoners. They could read it. The governor said, That's a fabulous idea.

Do you have any more books like this? Well, yes, she said. She said, Well, you go bring more books like this, and we'll start a library in here for these prisoners. So they started the library. And after a few months had passed, she went back again, and she said, You know, I've been telling people about the library here in the prison, and there's a few men, and they're willing to come up here on Friday evenings and going to do a Bible study.

We'll just read the Bible and read a few verses and talk about what it means. The governor said, Bring them up. They came up on a Friday evening, they started. Friday evening, I know, they were in Dungayville Prison.

Why? Because they got underneath the burden of what was happening to those folks. You see, if the church of Jesus Christ doesn't believe in human rights, if the church of Jesus Christ does not make a commitment to the challenging dimensions of our humanity, someone else will. Now, we are not to be motivated by the fact that we want to get there before someone else gets there.

We're supposed to be motivated by the fact that the Lord Jesus said, Inasmuch as you've done it under the lease of one of these, my brethren, you've done it under me. When did we ever see you in prison, Jesus? When did we ever see you in the hospital? You say, Well, you never saw me in prison or in the hospital, but you've seen others in prison and in the hospital, and when you looked in their eyes, you looked in my eyes, and I'll go get it done. What about the people who are prisoners in geriatric wards?

What about the prisoners in their own bodies, unable to comb their hair, unable to scratch their nose? Who's gonna go to them? You wanna go?

Go! You say, Well, I don't know how to start. Well, just like the ladies started, go make a telephone call.

Whatever God lays on your heart. See, you know what? I can't do much.

But I can put a few little booklets together. I can make a commitment to Ward 3. I know where Ward 3 is. I know where that nursing home is.

I saw it as I was driving in my car. I can drop down there. I don't need to go in with a gigantic, big, Thompson-chain reference Bible and start laying on the people, all this stuff. I just go in as a nice lady. I don't have to go now for the rest of my life, starting today.

I can just go on Fridays. And as God opens doors of opportunity as I speak into the lives of prisoners, I can tell them about the love of Jesus. You see, that's what Onesiphorus did, and he stood out from the crowd in 2 Timothy 1. May the LORD show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me, wasn't ashamed of my chains, and on the contrary, when he was in Rome he searched hard for me until he found me, as opposed to everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes, but, oh boy, oh boy, how thankful I am for Onesiphorus! Now, we may not experience the immediacy of this as in the first century or as in the cultural revolution in mainland China or as under the dreadful ravishings of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia, but believe me, when we gather around the throne of heaven, there will be countless numbers there who will testify to the dramatic impact of Jesus Christ as a result of the silent, committed testimony of people who were prepared to do ministry just like this.

Let me do one more. Purity in marriage. Purity in marriage.

The political prisoner may seem a long way from me, but this one touches right where I live my life. Marriage should be honored by all, he says. In other words, don't cop out of it. Don't embrace asceticism—hair, shirts, beds of nails, and monasteries—but on the other hand, don't allow permissiveness to invade your marriages.

It's not an open-ended contract. It's a covenant. He says, you understand that God has set it up in a certain way, and you must live in that way. This is a counterculture, folks. The statistics are horrible for the church on this subject.

Horrible! See, if I wasn't a Christian, and I had some of the people coming out of here laying the trip on me, you know? Oh, yeah, Jesus Christ, he changed your life, man. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's it. Say, well, like in what way? Well, like you don't go to hell. You say, well, that's good, but you're talking about changing your life.

In what way did it change your life? I mean, do any… I mean, is it only white people that go to your church? Or is it only black people that go to your church? I mean, is he broken through those barriers? Are there Asian people that go to your church?

I mean, does everybody go to your church have to make twenty-seven thousand dollars a year before they can come? How does he change? And has he been changing the statistics on divorce? Say, no, we're pretty well the same as the pagan world. Say, well, where's the change? Now, we can't squirm out of this. We can't sidle out of it.

We can't say that Jesus makes a change if there is no change. So what do we do? We do what the Bible says. The Bible says this is what you're to do, then this is what you're to do. We don't need a committee meeting on it.

We don't need to take a year and a half to discuss it. We just have to do it. And we've got to do it so that our children will see us do it, and then we've got to live it in front of our children so that they will do it in front of their children's children, and so that we're able to offer to our culture a radical alternative.

I don't have time to get into all of this just now, but even from the strangest places, we're hearing this—albeit for pragmatic reasons. But here's men's health. Monogamy. May not sound like much fun.

Certainly not in comparison to its alternative. Monogamy. Sounds an awful lot like monotony, doesn't it? Or monopoly.

Do I hear mahogany? Yet we dare not relate monogamy to tedium, an endless board game, or a great aunt's dining table. True happiness, the deep, sustaining contentment we seek, lies somewhere down monogamy road. These are the pagans writing. Say, you know what? That would have a great quote in that magazine. You're dead right. Look at what it says in here.

And let me tell you how it's achievable. The lyrics of pop songs, the movies that we embrace—I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed of the fact that I can be so excited about what William Wallace did in Braveheart that I'm prepared to tolerate the adultery that is part of his life. Everywhere you go, people say, Braveheart! There's the stuff!

There was that guy, wasn't there? Even all the Christians! Loved ones.

Now, let me say this to you as well—a little word of encouragement somewhere in here. Adultery is not the unforgivable sin. It's a terrible offense that afflicts emotional pain and scars. But no one should feel that his actions, her actions have placed them outside the love of God. We should be seeing far less divorce and far more reconciliation than we do within our Christian family.

Society continues to be ravished by divorce and lives in the shadows of dejection, desolation, and heartache of broken relationships. The Christian community should be alive and available to provide the love and acceptance that so many wounded people have been denied. We are called by Jesus to be conduits of his love and grace and care for those who have been wounded. That's from today's message from Alistair Begg on Truth for Life.

Please stay with us. Alistair will be right back to close with prayer. As we study together the book of Hebrews, it's important for us to remember that this is a letter that was written to Jewish believers during a period of intense persecution.

But when exactly was that? Most of us would struggle to pinpoint the dates of many of the events recorded in the Bible. That's why we want to recommend to you a book called God's Bible Timeline, the big book of biblical history. This is a captivating book filled with photographs and illustrations of key biblical events.

It presents all of these events in the horribleanting circumstances. We need to line ourselves up in the machinations of the Bible and the encircling of the notes. Se Oscar is the with photographs and illustrations of key biblical events. It presents all of these events in a sequential timeline beginning in Genesis, ending with the formation of the early church. The layout of the book features 18 unique timelines that trace biblical history from one era to the next so you can learn what happened during a specific period of time.

You'll find the book God's Bible Timeline to be a great help in your ongoing study of the Bible. You can request your copy today when you donate to support Truth for Life. Give online at truthforlife.org slash donate. Now let's join Alistair in prayer. Let's just take a moment to allow the Word of God to settle in our minds. It's challenge, it's exhortation, it's encouragement. Remember that God never exhorts us to activities that he does not provide the resources for us to be able to fulfill.

This is not a chronicle of despair. When he wants us to love one another in this way, it's because he provides the grace enabling us to do it. To start to genuinely be concerned for strangers, because he, the Lord Jesus, looked on people and saw them as sheep without a shepherd.

And he lives in our lives, and we learn to see through his eyes. When we think about entering in, empathetically, to the lives of those who are buffeted and bruised, imprisoned, we hear the voice of Christ, inasmuch as you've done it unto the least of one of these, you did it unto me. And when we think about marriage, with all of its challenges, with dark shadows, shafts of sunlight, thorn-strewn pathways, broken-down walls, torn hedges, immense joys, great anticipation, we ask, loving God, that you will make us different by your grace, that you will help us not to fail, that in failing you will help us not to quit, that in stepping up and heading on, that you will give to us all the grace that we require. That as we think about our nation, torn and scarred in these most practical areas of life—love and sex and what to do with the penal system, how to handle prisoners, what to do about this and that—oh God, we pray that you'll show us something of what this means as a church, in the development of ministry, in the giving of ourselves, in the discovery of whole new avenues that have never even crossed our minds, so that the world might know that Jesus is alive and may come to trust in him. We commit ourselves afresh, then, we pray that we might hear your voice and grant that your grace and your mercy and your peace from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit might rest upon and remain with each one of us today and forevermore. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Join us tomorrow as we find out why believers can actually consider it a privilege to be called a disgrace. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for nothing.