Steadfastness, Separation and Sacrifice
Hebrews 13:7-14
Now tonight we find ourselves studying again this wonderful thirteenth chapter. And we've entitled it the "Believers Behavior" or "Christian Ethics." What does God require out of Christians? And as we begin I'd like to introduce our study which is really part 3 of the study of Christian ethics which we began a couple of weeks ago, by just reflecting on a particular attitude that may have been in the mind of the writer as He penned this chapter. I've read several volumes that say that the 13 chapter may have been written by somebody else and just tacked on to the book of Hebrews, others say it was written at a later time, some say it was kind of an add on thing. My own particular view is that it is very, very important--it is intrinsic to the entire letter and it is anything but an add on, it is a climax. And there are several reason why I believe that and I've given you a couple of them in the past two weeks, let me give you another one tonight.
The Jews, as you well know, to whom this was written, lived their lives according to the law. Under the old covenant which they had all lived under, there were many, many rules. In fact, life was governed by rules. There were so many, many rules that it became very difficult not to break some of them just by virtue of the volume of them. They had made their way in life on the basis of obedience to standards; that was a way of life with them. The Old Testament itself is loaded with standards, it is loaded with ethical patterns, it is loaded with principles of conduct dealing with every kind of situation and every kind of relationship. So the Jews were very accustomed to living that kind of a life. They were very accustomed to living a life of legalism--a life that had to be moving along from principle to principle to principle, that's how it was conducted.
They had laws on diet, what they could eat. They even had laws on how they could cook it. They had laws on clothing, what they could wear. They had laws on the domestic issues of life, the home, the situations around the home. They had laws on economics, everything was pretty well cut and dried, even in terms of their economy, there was X amount of income that had to be given to the Lord at given times during each year and every third year, a part of what they owned. There were laws about relationships, whether they were relationships within the family or outside the family, laws about relationships with neighbors and with those in authority and so forth and so on. There were laws of morality, there were consequences even laid out for certain kind of moral kind of misconduct. There were laws of health, there were certain things that they could and could not do on the basis of health. And so they were very, very rigidly tied in to a system of rules, this is how they lived their lives, they knew nothing else.
They understood very little about any kind of libertinism or any kind of lawlessness, they were prescribed and circumscribed to legal patterns all their lives. And, in fact, from the very beginning this had been God's design, for God designed that they, by following these certain patterns, would be a very unique nation in the world. That anybody in the world would be able to tell a Jew by the diet, by the clothing, by the economy, by all of the features of his relationships to other people, by his attitude toward men and his attitude toward God. God wanted the Jews to stick out in society as a very unique people. He wanted them separate. He wanted them different. So that people might turn to them, see that they were different, see the positive features which they possessed and be drawn to the God that was their God who made it all possible.
And so really their uniqueness had to do with the witness. Their reaching the world was dependent upon the fact that the world looked at them and saw something in them that they desired. A kind of life that was different. God wanted a national witness, God needed a national witness and Israel was that witness. And so they lived by all these standards to show forth God. In fact, Isaiah 43:21 says, "This people have I formed for Myself, they will show forth My praise." In other words, I have set them aside so uniquely they will be a living witness of Me in the world.
In fact, in Exodus, I think it's chapter 19, the Bible calls the Jews a kingdom of priests. Now a priest's function was to take men to God, to take men to God. And that's exactly what Israel was to do. Men were to look at Israel see Israel's distinctiveness by virtue of the kind of conduct they maintained and come to them and say ‑ What is it that causes you to live like this? And then Israel would usher them to God. And so they were in the true sense a kingdom of priests. And the hook, really, that was to catch men and draw them to God was their unique identity as they followed certain ethical patterns, certain principles of conduct.
In Deuteronomy chapter 4, just to kind of set us thinking in Biblical terms, it says in chapter 4, well, we'll start at verse 5; "Behold I have taught you statutes and ordinances, or laws, even as the Lord my God commanded me that you should do so in the land to which you go to possess it." Now listen, "Keep therefore, and do them." In other words, God has given you laws to be maintained, to be kept, to be obeyed. "For this is your wisdom and your," watch, "and your understanding in the sight of the nations." You see, this is the thing that sets you apart as wise and understanding in the eyes of the nation. "Who shall hear all these statutes and say surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great that hath God as near unto them?" You see, the world is supposed to look at you and say ‑ Wow, those people have some standards; they have some principles that operate, that function. Is any people as near to God as they are? That's a dynamic witness. And then people who wanted to know God would come to them and be introduced to God. And so verse 9, he says, "Only take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life, teach them to thy sons and thy sons sons." Don't forget the rules, don't forget the principles, don't forget the statutes and the laws and the ordinances, you teach them to your children because generation after generation they will stand in the midst of the world as a witness to the living God. So laws to Israel were very, very important. Their very identity legally and legalistically was their witness in the world. And their conduct was based on these principles and was for the purpose of drawing men's attention ultimately to God.
Now it's interesting too, that they became so absorbed in legalism that they went way, way further than God ever intended. God gave them enough laws to maintain things and they just got real law happy and went bananas to put it in the vernacular and just started inventing laws hand over fist. And they came up with a whole series of laws than they passed on orally. In other words, they would just speak them from generation to generation. And this series of oral laws was known as the Mishnah. And you're perhaps familiar with that if you know anything about Jewish history. The word shānāh means to teach or to repeat orally. So, this was orally transmitted called the Mishnah. Finally, they felt they ought to write it all down and they wrote it all down and they called it the Talmud. And the Jewish Talmud is the codification of all the Jewish laws added to Scripture. And I mean it is massive. It is a monstrous thing. The word Talmud simply means teaching.
There are six parts to the Jewish Talmud, some of you may have seen one. But there are six parts to it. There is a section on agriculture, all the laws regarding what you can do and what you can't do in agriculture. There is a section on feasts. There is a section on women. There's a section on civil and ceremonial law, legal matters. There's a section on sacrifices. A section on unclean things and their purification. Now all of those sections are loaded with law after law after law for the conduct of the Jew.
During the time of Jesus Christ if you study the New Testament, you find that the Jews were meticulously concerned with obeying laws, weren't they? They got literally in knots when they saw Jesus' disciples not doing the things that were prescribed by the law. Or when Jesus did something that was not allowed in the law they had a terrible time handling that issue. Jesus said your only problem is you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. What He meant was you are all worried about the minutiae of the law and you're blasting to pieces all of the principles that God really wanted to communicate through the law. You kept the letter of the law and lost the message of it.
But nevertheless by the time you come to the group of Jews that's being written to in the book of Hebrews, they are legalists, believe me. They are legalists in the sense that no other nation in the history of the world has been legalists. They live by the law, they function by the law, they know nothing about liberty only about being attached to a system. They were not free spirits. They were not do‑your‑own thinkers. They were not libertines. They were staunch, absolute legalists. The only life they knew.
Now watch this, here comes the new covenant. Right? Here comes the new covenant and the first guy that really expounded on the new covenant was Paul. And Paul came along and said ‑ I want you to know that the new covenant is not law it's grace. And, of course, he blew the minds of the Jews with that. They knew no concept like that. They really should of known it because the Old Testament is full of God's grace. They were so locked into legalism that they thought this was some kind of horrifying heresy. And even when Jews became Christians they found it extremely difficult to let go of all of the rituals. And that's what fouled up the early church and Paul writes to that issue in Romans 14, because, you know, Gentiles would have Jewish Christians over for a little afternoon meal and they'd serve pork and the Jewish Christians couldn't handle that. And so it was becoming a real issue in the church because they still hadn't liberated from the concepts of the law.
But you know, as we study the New Testament we find that the new covenant releases them from all of the ceremonial features of the law, not the moral issues but the ceremonial ones. There is to be no more feasts, no more sacrifices, no more holy days, no more rituals, no more Temple, no more priests, no more offerings, that's all gone. All of those little minute legalistic standards are passed away. It's all grace. On the cross Jesus said ‑ It's finished. He did it all. And all you have to do is believe. Well, you know for a Jew to handle that is a very, very difficult problem, very difficult. The perfect work by the perfect high priest through a perfect covenant who offered a perfect sacrifice brings about perfect promises and perfect salvation and what do I do? You just believe. See, and the Jew says ‑ No. I can't handle that. That cross‑grains everything I've ever known. Don't we have to do something? I mean, are there any standards at all? I mean, I feel so comfortable if I had a few. Is law no longer the way? Aren't there any principles at all? Can I just exercise a free kind of liberty and do whatever I want? Well, the answer to the question is no. Because you become a Christian doesn't mean all of a sudden there aren't any rules any more. God has standards.
Now I believe, people, that if you slide into chapter 13 with that in your mind you have a good grip on what He's hitting at. He needs to close this book with some principles or He's going to leave some Jews really strung out trying to figure out what in the world their obligation to God really is, because they know that God hasn't changed and God expects certain things out of His children be they old covenant or new covenant. And so as you come to chapter 13 the Holy Spirit says a resounding "Yes" to their questions and says "Yes" there are standards. They do not save you they do not get you to God, they don't even make God like you better, He likes you totally. He loves you infinitely. But there are some standards that are very, very important.
And you can imagine a Jew saying ‑ Well, we're not the national witness anymore. We've been replaced by the church, guys, the pressures off, live it up. I mean, we don't need to stand out in the world anymore, we don't need to obey the statutes and commandments that the nations might look at us and say ‑ Look at that, they must be belonging to a God who is above all gods. My, we ought to turn to that God. No, we don't have to do that anymore, guys, it's all over. Israel is temporarily set aside, the church is it; we can just play it cool. The Holy Spirit says ‑ No. You're a part of the church, the church is made up of Jew and Gentile; the standards aren't lessened at all. The standards are there, God expects you to behave in such a fashion that men still see your good works and do what? Glorify your Father which is in heaven. That hasn't changed at all. So while Israel is no longer a witness nation, the whole body of the church, Jew and Gentile is God's witness. And so there are principles.
And so as you come to chapter 13 that's truly what He just delineates. He just goes right on down the chapter giving some very basic principles for Christian living. So we might have a testimony in the world.
Now we see three things in the chapter and we never can get to the last two, we will next week. We see ethics, the principles, example, the pattern we are to follow; energy, the power that makes it possible. We have the principles, we have an exemplary life we are to follow, and we have the energy to make them operate.
Now we've been talking about the principles, the ethics. And we see that in the first 19 verses the ethics of the Christian life are given. And really what happens here is that everything is kind of reduced to simple general concepts. And, first of all, let me just say this. There are three categories of Christian ethics. Number one in relation to others, we've covered that, right? And in relation to others He calls for two things, sustained love and sympathy--sustained love and sympathy. Love will just blanket the whole issue, won't it? And care for each other. Then second category beginning in verse 4 was in relation to ourselves. There are some very important standards in relation to ourselves. Number one was sexual purity, verse 4, "Marriage is honorable, let the bed be undefiled, fornicators, adulterers God will judge." I read where Paul said that when you sin with sex you sin against your own body. The second in relation to ourselves is satisfaction. Remember that from last Sunday night? Verses 5 and 6, "Lear to be without covetousness, learn to be content with such things as you have and know that the Lord's going to help and take care of your needs." So in relation to ourselves there has to be sexual purity and satisfaction.
Thirdly, and we'll pick it up at this point tonight, there is to be steadfastness. In relation to ourselves God desires that we be steadfast. Notice verse 9 and we'll read it, "Be not carr