Click here to download in pdf format.
Sermon Notes of Rev.Dr.I.J.W.Oakley (27-5-1979 Strandtown Baptist Church)
Additional Reading: Psalms 121-123
This chapter started with gratitude for God’s grace in salvation, to be demonstrated by concern for others, continence in personal living, and a life of contentment. Now the writer gives four more responsibilities. These are almost the main responsibilities of Church membership. Look in four directions: (a) leaders, (b) world, (c) God, (d) others.
Remember them who have spoken
unto you the word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their
conversation (Hebrews 13:7), i.e. remember your leaders, consider the
outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Obey them that have
the rule over you (Hebrews 13:17). Submit to their authority. They watch
for your souls, as they that must give account. Obey them so that their work
will be a joy and not a burden.
First of all, look back to past
leaders. Think of what they taught, and the example they set. Remember with
gratitude your first teachers, who first taught you about God and the Lord Jesus
Christ, simple hymns and prayers. One of the advantages of having Christian
background from early childhood – the mind is able to reach back over many
years. Our first teachers often come to mind. The reason we are able to
withstand some temptations and live in a certain way is because of our early
training. Certain things become unthinkable. From a young age we have learnt
loyalty to the house of God, teaching about Christian conduct, and the need to
know Christ, and be baptised and serve Him. Those early leaders may not have
been brilliant scholars, and we may not see everything in quite the way they did
– but what a foundation they laid. How it has stood us in good stead over the
years.
Thank God for our first
teachers. How often they despaired and thought of giving up in failure. Thank
God they did not. Some did not live to see what their work wrought. Did they die
feeling they had wasted their lives? Nice to think in heaven they know what good
they did. Alas they have died and long since been replaced.
But Jesus was never replaced. Jesus
Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Like a
great mountain in the midst of the sea, He stands ever the same as one
generation succeeds another. His pre-eminence is permanent. His leadership is
forever. Greatest expression of gratitude to those who have meant so much to us
is to be true to Him to whom they pointed us.
Meanwhile, as for our present leaders – we should be concerned and cooperate with them. In fact, we “obey them”. Not that they are dictators. But when they bring the word of God and teach out of the word of God – obey them. They have a heavy responsibility to discharge their duty. We should endeavour not to be a disappointment or discouragement. Greatest joy a leader can have is to see those whom he leads established in the Christian way. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth (3 John v.4). The greatest sorrow of a leader is to see those whom he leads getting further away from God. Those who are casual in Christian discipleship have no idea whatsoever what a heartbreak they are to their leaders.
Jesus suffered outside the city
gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his
reproach (Hebrews 13:13). We go outside camp, bearing the disgrace He
bore… we are looking for a city which is to come and not one here. Jesus was
banished from men, the reproach of a criminal was on Him. We also have to sever
ourselves from the life of the world. Go outside the world’s gate. Bear the
same reproach as Christ. Separation and isolation is the lot of the Christian as
well as Christ. Share the insults which He bore.
Not that we are not to play our part in the life of the world, serving fellow men, acting as salt, doing daily work well and faithfully. However, the world is society organised apart from God. Its standards and values are not God’s, and the spirit of the world is to be avoided, as are its corrupt practices.
What does it mean in
practice to go forth unto Him? We have to nourish our inner life of union with
Christ, refer all our acts to Him, and practice living in His presence. Does
that make us “so heavenly minded that we are no earthly use”? No! – men in
union with Christ act with more decision, energy and effect in all common deeds
of life. c.f. the Apostle Paul. John Wesley was one of the hardest workers the
world has ever seen (250,000miles on horseback, over 40,000 sermons) – he
lived habitually outside the camp. The more our lives are wrapped in Christ, the
more energetic we are in this world.
This world is not our home. We seek a city which is to come. This spurs us to be outside the camp with Him. It will be no sacrifice for us to come out of transient camp.
By Him therefore let us offer
the sacrifice of praise to God continually (Hebrews 13:15). Two sacrifices
here – Christ’s and ours. Through His sacrifice, we are to offer our
sacrifice. His sacrifice wipes away our sins. His work as our High Priest
guarantees our access to God. Through Him, as priests, we offer our sacrifice of
praise and do good to others – praise of lips and praise of life.
We often forget we are priests
– offering sacrifices of praise and our bodies. The text suggests that if
there is in us any deep and real and abiding sense of thankfulness for God’s
gift of Christ, it is impossible that tongues should cleave to roof of mouth and
we should be content to live in silence. Loving hearts must speak. But to do
good and to communicate, forget not (Hebrews 13:16). What would we think of
a husband who never felt the impulse to express his affection for his wife, or
the mother who never speaks words of tenderness to her infant? What of the
Christian who is never impelled to offer a sacrifice of praise for Christ?
We have to do this continually,
not just on Sundays. I
will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth
(Psalm 34:1). This is the very thing which we were made for. Man’s chief end
is to glorify God. Praise is His due, and we must not rob Him of it. It helps us
to live as Christians, delivers us from all self-centredness, and makes us a
means of usefulness.
In some monasteries and
nunneries there used to be a provision made that at every hour of the day, and
at every moment of every hour, there should be one kneeling figure before the
altar, repeating the Psalter. Therefore praise went up without interruption day
and night. A beautiful idea, but it fell down in practice. Yet a symbol of what
we should be – with heart occupied with Him, and voice of praise continually
raised to Him.
Then not only praise of lip, but
praise of life too – works as well as words. Do good to others and share what
we have. We glorify God when we minister to His people. Inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me (Matthew
25:40). God is delighted with such sacrifices – when He hears the note of
praise and sees the act of kindness – With such sacrifices God is well
pleased (Hebrews 13:16).
We are afraid sometimes of
thinking that there is, in the divine heart, anything like our delight in gifts
that mean love. So deeply aware of our own imperfection, we feel it is degrading
to Him to conceive of anything corresponding to our delight passing across it.
But the Bible is wiser than we are. It tells us that however stained and
imperfect our gifts, God will take them – through Christ – and is delighted
with them.
Many parents have treasures from their children, e.g. a paper with misshapen letters and uneven strokes of crayon. To someone else, it is a piece of paper that should be thrown in the fire. But it is treasured because of whose paper it was, and whose first attempt at writing it was. Given as an act of love. If we being evil know how to take good gifts from our children, how much more will your heavenly father accept stained sacrifices if they are through Christ.
In response to our leaders, we should have gratitude for
those in the past, and be obedient to those in the present. As regards the
world, we need to be detached as we build up union with Christ. God must receive
our sacrifice of praise, and to our fellow believers we must do good and share.
With such sacrifices God will be well pleased.
How do we do this? It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace (Hebrews 13:9). Refuge and shelter in God. Heart is fixed. Trusting in the Lord. Makes character steadfast, calm and beautiful. Find Christ. Get near to Him. Let His grace flow into your life.
