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NewCity Orlando Sermons
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NewCity Orlando Sermons
The Establishment Clause | Hebrews 13:7-16
Special Guest Preacher, the Rev Dr Irwyn Ince preaches from Hebrews 13:7-16. What does it mean to live a life of unwavering faith in Jesus Christ? How can we persevere through the trials and tribulations of our Christian journey? Pastor Irwyn highlights the critical message of Hebrews 13:8: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." He underscores how this powerful truth equips us to face the costs of discipleship with courage and perseverance. By looking to Jesus, we find the strength to hold fast to our confession of faith, no matter the challenges.
Pastor Irwyn explains how Jesus's sacrifice outside Jerusalem transforms our understanding of spiritual worship and everyday commitment to praise, good deeds, and sharing. He draws parallels to the Day of Atonement rituals, which encourages believers to bear the reproach of Christ and seek our lasting hope in the eternal city to come. He wraps up with reflections on living lives that continually glorify God, sustained by the steadfastness of Jesus.
Pastor Irwyn is the PCA's Mission to North America Coordinator. You can find out more about the work he does by visiting their website here.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damien. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:Eternal God, the grass withers and the flower fades, but your word will stand forever. Holy Spirit, help us to love and trust your word Through Jesus Christ. We pray Amen. Our scripture reading from today is Hebrews 13, 7 through 16. 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.
Speaker 1: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 to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Thanks be to God.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. Well, good morning, new City. It is a delight to be back with you this year in what is becoming an annual visit here in early September, when I am in town to preach or to preach well, to teach at Reform Seminary Orlando, and it is my privilege to share with you a message from the scripture that you just heard read. Thank you, brooke, for that. The title of the message that I want to share from this passage is the Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause, and what I want to get across to us this morning from this passage is that, by grace, jesus Christ establishes in our hearts the privilege to persevere in praise in every circumstance. By grace, jesus Christ establishes in our hearts the privilege to persevere in praise to God through every circumstance. I serve in local ministry at a church in our denomination, grace Mosaic in Washington DC, and a few years ago, during the height of the pandemic, our normal we couldn't do our normal retreat and teachings that we would do. So we did it virtually and we invited a good friend and brother of ours, dr Greg Thompson, to do some virtual teaching for us on a particular subject and he led a three-part lecture series for our church titled Love in the Streets, the Faith-Based Civil Rights Movement in the Contemporary Church, and the focus of his second then the contemporary church, and the focus of his second lecture was on the Reverend James Lawson. Reverend Lawson was an icon of the civil rights movement in this country. In fact, he just only passed away this summer, in June of this year, at 95 years old.
Speaker 2:Reverend Lawson is known for having provided the biblical and theological and ethical training for young people like John Lewis and Diane Nash and countless others that prepared them for the non-violent social action of the sit-in movement. By the time, in fact, reverend Lawson met Martin Luther King Jr, reverend Lawson had already spent 10 years researching, reading and studying New Testament, social ethics and pacifism, and what Reverend Lawson desired to accomplish in his training was to provide people he described with the formative foundations necessary to be people of love. One of the foundational principles that he laid out for his students was what he called a capacity for enduring suffering. He wanted them to have a deep understanding and training on developing a capacity, as people of love, for enduring suffering. There's no question that his training was effective. All we've got to do is look at the immense suffering those young men and women endured, while without retaliating, during those sit-ins. And so what Reverend Lawson clearly saw from the New Testament was that Jesus' love was demonstrated in his unjust suffering for the redemption of the world. The love of Jesus was put on display, is put on display for us in the pages of Scripture, in his unjust suffering for the redemption of the world, and that when Christians in particular suffer unjustly, what they do is bear witness to the world of their Redeemer's power. And that truth is evident in our passage this morning.
Speaker 2:At the end of the letter to the Hebrews, the writer, who I simply refer to as the pastor, is in rapid succession giving the people these practical and social exhortations, these commands about church life. We didn't read the first six verses of the chapter, but if we had, we would hear him say these things to them Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality. Remember those who are in prison. Remember those who are in prison. Let the marriage bed be held in honor. Keep your life free from the love of money. Be content with what you have. And he continues that pattern in our passage this morning.
Speaker 2:One of the messages that their pastor has been giving them throughout this letter is his desire for them to endure in their faith in Jesus, to persevere, even though they are finding out how costly it is to follow Jesus. And there is an establishment clause in the passage that drives this whole message of enduring in the Christian faith all the way to the end. It's verse number eight, the simple sentence Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. If anyone is going to keep the faith, if anyone is going to endure to the end, this reality must be established in your heart. He's been preparing them for this succinct statement throughout the letter.
Speaker 2:He began Hebrews in chapter 1 by declaring that Jesus Christ is the final word of God. He said back then in chapter 1 and verse number 2, in these last days God has spoken to us by his son. And then he quotes, in verses 10 to 12 of Hebrews, chapter 1, from Psalm number 102, verses 25 to 27. He says in that passage God the Father is speaking to God the Son and says you, lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the works of your hands. They will perish, but you remain. They will wear all. Wear out like a garment, like a robe. You will roll them up like a garment. They will be changed, but you are the same and your years will have no end.
Speaker 2:He has labored to establish in their hearts the unfailing reliability of Jesus Christ and now, at the end of his message, he gives it to them in this simple, profound establishment clause Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Why this clause need to be established in your and my heart? Four P words from this text help us answer that question. Four things One, the unfailing reliability of Jesus Christ enables perseverance. Two, the unfailing reliability of Jesus Christ gives us an unmatched privilege. Three, the unfailing reliability of Jesus Christ gives endurance through persecution. And four, lastly, the unfailing reliability of Jesus Christ leads us to praise. Perseverance, privilege, persecution and praise. First, the unfailing reliability of Jesus Christ enables perseverance.
Speaker 2:In this barrage of practical exhortations, he continues in verse 7, where he says remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. There are actually three charges he gives them in this one verse Remember, consider and imitate. Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you. He is pointing them to the past In verse 17, the verse that is immediately following our passage. He will call them to have confidence in their current leaders when he says to them 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. But here he says remember those leaders who spoke to you the word of God. Well, who are these leaders? He doesn't mention them by name, but the Hebrews would have known who he was talking about. These are the people that first brought the good news of Jesus Christ to these Christians news of Jesus Christ to these Christians. He's calling them to remember those who were so captivated by the gospel, god's good news of salvation in Jesus, that they came to you and they brought you this message. You're a Christian. This morning, I have this confidence that this is true of you, that when you reflect back on the story of your life of faith in Jesus Christ, when you recall your own testimony of faith, you are reminded of the power of God to take people out of darkness and bring them into his marvelous light. And it is also the case that you likely remember the person or the people that God used to share the good news of the gospel with you and you never forget it. It could have been a parent or a teacher or a pastor or a youth leader or any person. You never forget those people. And the pastor is saying to the Hebrews remember those people who led you to Christ.
Speaker 2:There were two things of note about these leaders. One the people who brought the gospel to these Hebrews were first generation Christians. They had received their message directly from Jesus himself. He's already mentioned these people in chapter 2, verse 3, when he said to them how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? The message was declared at first by the Lord, that's Jesus, and was attested to us by those who heard, that's, the leaders. The second thing to note about them is that they are dead. They spoke the word of God. They are no longer speaking it. Not only that, but he says consider the outcome of their way of life, that is, consider the sum total of their lives, consider their manner of life, even to the end. This is not some nostalgic reflection. Remember how sweet it was back in those days. Those were the good old days. No, remember those leaders who spoke the word of God to you and, as you remember, make careful consideration of their faithfulness to the Lord, even to the end, and imitate that faith. Do not grow weary in doing good, for in due season you will reap See.
Speaker 2:Perseverance is a crucial component of faith in Jesus Christ. From beginning to end, the clear application of the writer's teaching has been hold firm to your confession all the way to the end. And here again he reinforces their need to endure by pointing to their first teachers who persevered by faith all the way to the end of their lives. And immediately after that right we get this establishment clause. If we were following the word order of the Greek text, in verse number eight, here's how it would be translated. He writes Jesus Christ yesterday and today is the same, and forever.
Speaker 2:This verse is not an isolated thought. The same Jesus who spoke the word of God to your former leaders also enabled them to remain faithful to that word all the way through to the end of their lives. He's saying I can tell you to imitate their faith because I know that Jesus Christ is the same way today. He's still in the business of enabling his people to persevere in the faith. But he doesn't stop there. The reason I translated this in the word forever. In other words, this word is for us. Guess what? Jesus has not stopped enabling his people to persevere by faith. He hasn't stopped enabling his people to hold firmly to that same word and base our very lives on it, all the way to the end. It told them a few verses earlier when he said keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you or forsake you. Jesus Christ is the same forever. And this confession of verse number eight doesn't just make verse number seven more forceful, it also is a connection bridge to the next verse, verse number nine.
Speaker 2:Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it's good for the heart to be strengthened by grace and not by foods which have not benefited those who are devoted to them. These leaders, who spoke the word of God, were able to endure because they had Jesus Christ as their great high priest. Since Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever and into eternity, the Hebrews are also able to endure. He has not become less powerful, less loving, less helpful than he was for their teachers. Jesus is just as powerful and loving and present and helpful as he ever was, and helpful as he ever was. Therefore, he says it's good for the heart to be strengthened, to be established by the grace that is found in this unchanging Christ and his gospel message. The unfailing reliability of Jesus Christ gives us an unmatched privilege. It is a privilege, not a right right, to be a recipient of this grace, because Jesus doesn't change. His message doesn't change.
Speaker 2:The pastor says it's good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. What he is doing he's talking about they're being tempted to go back under the rules and the dietary restrictions of the old covenant faith that they practiced. They are facing persecution and ridicule for following Jesus. They are suffering and they're trying to get relief from their suffering by mixing the gospel of grace with regulations that will make it more acceptable to those who do not know Jesus. Trying to mix the gospel of grace with keeping rules and regulations as a way of being acceptable to God is a different religion. It is not the Christian faith. It becomes a works-based religion. That's not Christianity. He says. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings. It's not the gospel. These teachings cannot save you and they will not enable you to endure all the way to the end. He says your heart needs to be strengthened by grace. Indeed, those who gain their sense of godliness, their sense of good feeling, their sense of religious assurance or affirmation by their adherence to foods or dietary laws or certain rules, he says, you gain nothing.
Speaker 2:Apostle Paul put it this way in the book of Romans, chapter 14, verse 17. He says for the kingdom of God. Paul said the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Listen, this idea of having my heart established, having my heart strengthened by grace, that's the language of assurance. It is a calm assurance that my life is right. Listen, this is a desire that everybody has. Everybody wants to know that their life is right and in a good place. We have this desire because we are created in God's image.
Speaker 2:So many of us walk around with confidence that our lives are right. We might say something like you know, I'm a good person because I treat other people well, or my life is on track when I'm attending well to my physical health and well-being. My heart is strengthened with these, things are going well in my life. I think all of us have things that, when those things are on point, our hearts are tempted to say my life is good, my life is on point. Where does your sense of confidence come from that the life you're living is the one you're supposed to be living? And I'm not necessarily talking about what career choice you've made or the decisions you make about the places to go, the people you hang out with and what you spend your time doing. Those things, yes, are significant and we can't afford to ignore them. But I'm referring to your heart's confidence, that internal sense of assurance that the God of all creation is pleased with where my life is. God of all creation is pleased with where my life is.
Speaker 2:If that sense of assurance comes from anything other than the fact that you are trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your right, standing with God, then you are believing a lie. Those who gain their sense of godliness from following certain rules or regulations or ceremonies whether they made them up themselves or they got it from somebody else, gain absolutely nothing when it comes to God. They lose out. The human heart loves to make up our own reasons why we're doing all right in God's eyes. It's a lie. Don't be carried away by various and strange teachings.
Speaker 2:He unashamedly points to Christian privilege in verse 10,. Far from being a statement of arrogance, it's a clear explanation of why you and I should never dream of turning away from the gospel. He says in verse 10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. Those who serve the tent he's referring to are the priests within Judaism. You'll get a good dose of that in the Leviticus sermon series that Pastor Damien's going to give you over the next several months. He's saying to them why would you think of turning back to them? Don't you understand the unmatched privilege that you have in Jesus? You see the altar that the pastor is speaking of. He says that we have, for which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.
Speaker 2:The altar that he is speaking of here is the cross of Jesus Christ. The altar of the temple that the people are trying to turn back to was temporary, and it was temporary because it was particular. It was for Jewish people only. Even more, it was for the priests only. If you weren't a priest, you had no access to it. Gentiles had no access to it. So there was a need for another altar. There was a need for a better altar. That altar is the cross of Jesus Christ, which he said in chapter 10 was a new and living way that Christ has opened up through his body. The cross is the altar for the whole world. It's the place where the perfect sacrifice was made to redeem, to buy back, to reconcile people of all nationalities and backgrounds, and ethnicities and languages to God. Yet it's still exclusive.
Speaker 2:Those who serve the tent, he said, have no right to partake of this altar. That's because they're putting their assurance in temporal things that don't benefit instead of the Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever. The privilege doesn't belong to them because they're trusting in food. But if they transfer that trust to Christ and to his sacrifice, that privilege to partake from his altar can belong to them as well. That's why it's not arrogance, this privilege is anyone who comes to Christ by faith has the privilege to partake of this altar.
Speaker 2:See, what is likely is that these Jewish Christians were being criticized for avoiding the Jewish feasts, for not putting any spiritual stock in participating in these feasts. Remember, right before they came to Christ, these religious feasts and sacrifices meant everything to them spiritually. The criticism probably went something like this you know, y'all left us for this, y'all don't offer any sacrifices, you don't even have an altar. And their pastor says, oh, but we do have an altar, it's the cross. And he needs to remind them of this because of the persecution they're having to endure for being associated with Jesus. He's letting them know that Jesus' unfailing reliability gives endurance through persecution. And what we see in verses 11 to 14 is magnificent. It lets us know that those who have responded to the grace of God and Jesus Christ and turned to him should not expect should not expect listen to become popular by standing firm in the face what he says.
Speaker 2:He says 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 of the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside of 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 that he endured, for here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. These verses are magnificent because he's speaking in their, in their minds, of that significant day in the Jewish calendar, particularly Yom Kippur, the day of atonement burnt offerings were not only sacrifices but food for the priest. But the bull for the sin offering that was sacrificed to make atonement for the holy place. No part of it was to be used as a sacrificial meal for the priest. The blood was brought into the holy place and the body was taken outside of the camp and completely burned. And he says that ritual was a foreshadowing. It was a picture of Jesus.
Speaker 2:When you read your Bible listen I'm glad you're doing Leviticus, because you often have a hard time in Leviticus All these rules and regulations for sacrifices and offerings. Even so, it's not difficult to make the connection between those sacrifices and Jesus Christ. As the New Testament makes clear, he's the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. But what we see here is that it wasn't just the sacrifice of the sin offering itself that pointed to Jesus. The fact that the body was burned outside the camp was just as significant. Israel was in the wilderness. That land that was outside of the camp was unsanctified territory. It was unholy ground.
Speaker 2:Jesus' sacrifice took place outside of the gates of Jerusalem, on Calvary. This was earth shattering for these Hebrews to be told that, in order to make people holy, in order to sanctify them through his own blood, jesus suffered on unholy ground. The very ritual on the day of atonement pointed forward to its end. The burning of the bull's body outside of the camp pointed to the fact that, in order to deal with our sin, god was going to identify himself with the world in its unholiness. While we were unable to draw near to God because of our sin, god drew near to us in the person of his holy one who, on unholy ground, makes his holiness available to us in exchange for our sin that he bears, for which he atones on the cross.
Speaker 2:Truth, listen, the truth of these verses is not just about doctrinal precision. It means something for those who follow Jesus. Since he suffered outside the gate, let's go to him outside the camp to bear, to take on the reproach that he endured. Here's the thing this cross of Christ, which is the altar of grace and privilege, where we're reconciled to God and have peace with God, is located outside of the camp. The cross was too shameful to be located inside of the gates of Jerusalem. There's an unavoidable shame, an unavoidable reproach when it comes to belonging to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:The privilege listen, the privilege and the persecution are connected. The blood of bulls and goats that was offered outside of the camp could never take away sins, but Jesus sanctifies through his own blood. So neither the sacrifice of his body nor the offering of his blood took place in the camp. So his people, who are sanctified, bear his reproach outside of the camp. In fact we go to him there. It says we're not looking to be on the inside, so to speak up and close to the places of power and privilege and high society, if you may. They're not looking to be accepted and engage and to not build secure, impenetrable walls that protect us from being defiled by the world. Why? Because it's respectable inside of the camp. I get amens inside the camp, but I might not be with Jesus because he got up close and personal with sinners, never for one moment compromising God's holiness or truth. His eyes were merciful and gracious.
Speaker 2:Jesus bore reproach because his message was not comfortable or conformed to the acceptable teaching of his day. His people will therefore bear reproach because they carry the same message, yet they endure because, as he says, we understand that here we do not have any lasting or abiding city. Not Orlando, not Washington DC, where I live. They seek the city that is to come, the city with foundations whose designer and builder is God. Here's the flow of the points.
Speaker 2:I'll wrap this up with the last one on this establishment. Cause that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Look at the way the faithful messengers who brought to you Christ endured all the way to the end. Imitate their faith, because just like Jesus carried them through, he will carry you through. Have your heart assured by the grace that you've received and thus the amazing privilege that you have to partake of Christ. So embrace the temporary reproach that follows from having this right. Live now with your gaze fixed on the city of your citizenship.
Speaker 2:And then he ends the paragraph not with persecution, but with praise 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. The Hebrews stood out because they didn't have an altar and they didn't have sacrifices. He said in verse 10, well, we do have an altar, it's the cross. And now he says oh, and you also have sacrifices, but they have nothing to do with animals.
Speaker 2:Christian sacrifice is spiritual worship. Through Jesus Christ, we offer, he says, a sacrifice of praise, because Jesus Christ is the same. He always lives to make intercession for his people, so it is only through him that any acceptable sacrifice can be made. Anything other than a sacrifice of praise is rendered obsolete and worthless. The sacrifice of praise is the fruit of lips that confess his name, and so worshiping God through Jesus Christ is an everyday deal. Y'all. That goes beyond just what we do on Sunday morning at church.
Speaker 2:That point is driven home right in this passage. Let us continually offer sacrifice of praise to God. This worship is done with my lips, with my deed and with my possessions. Do not neglect, he says, to do good and share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Listen the entirety of our lives, what we say, what we do, what we have, what we say, what we do, what we have is to be a sacrifice of praise to God. The entirety of our lives is freely offered to God for his service. Freely offered, does this mean you go join a monastery? No, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:What it points to is this that all of life, work and play is religious. All of life is really about worship. The only question is who are we worshiping with our lives? Every day, you and I are worshiping someone or something, and it's only Jesus who turns our self-worship into our worship of the living God. Whatever you do Paul says Colossians 3, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord, jesus Christ, giving thanks to God, the Father, through him.
Speaker 2:Why? Because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. He is the one whose unfailing reliability enables us to persevere in the faith, giving us an unmatched privilege that we might endure, even through persecution and suffering, and lead lives of praise to God. Let's pray, lord, we bow, with hearts that are humbled by the privileges that we have in Christ, that you bless us to have our hearts strengthened by grace, the grace of God in Jesus Christ, and that you provide the strength, as your people, that we need to endure firmly all the way to the end of our lives. Lord, would you, by the power of your spirit, even this morning, be so at work in our hearts that we find ourselves this week continually offering a sacrifice of praise to you, living lives that demonstrate that you are our Lord, our King and our God, all to the praise of your glorious grace, and we ask it in your name Amen.