A Living Sacrifice Of Praise

Hebrews 13: 15-25

www.crbcrockdale.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Thank you for listening to the Sermon Audio Podcast for Crossroads Bible Church in Rockdale, Texas. Crossroads Bible Church is a Reformed Confessional Baptist Church that meets every Lord's Day at 10 a.m. for Bible study and 11 a.m. for corporate worship. For more information about our church and for directions, you can find us online at www.crbcrockdale.org. Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Good morning. Turn with me to the book of Hebrews. The last time I will say that, maybe not ever. Certainly for a while. We're going to be finishing the book of Hebrews this morning. Somewhat bittersweet, honestly. I'm happy to have been through it, but sad to finish, honestly. We will start in verse 15 and we'll go through the end and we'll read that in just a just a few minutes. I'll begin with the question. What is the highest aspiration of the Christian? Or what is the highest aspiration of really anyone who is not an explicit atheist? You might answer that question to say that it is to get to heaven or to stay saved. God bless our president, but he displayed this kind of thinking. This was a little while ago, when he said something like, and I'm paraphrasing, I'm just trying to do enough to get to heaven. This is the mindset of a lot of even Christians. Hebrews and the rest of the Bible, though, indicates that our aspirations should be more far-reaching. Not that heaven as a goal is not a valuable goal, and it is, but there is more to it than that. As we will see from our text this morning, the highest aspiration, perhaps, is a life pleasing to God, as it is transformed through sacrifice and praise. Richard Phillips in his commentary says this quote, justification is often called the hinge on which the door of the gospel turns. And that is certainly true. But it is a door that is meant to be opened, to give us entrance into the presence of God, that we may live with joy and awe as royal children in this world and offer our lives as sacrifices of praise for his service and his pleasure. And how do we do that? How do we fully glorify God and enjoy him, if not through lives of sacrifice and praise? Romans 12, 1 to 2. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable, perfect. So as redeemed people, this means that everything we do has been redeemed by Christ. Everything that we do has been brought under this broad heading or this mandate of sacrifice and praise to God. We've mentioned this many times, especially through that book Things of Earth by Rigney, but mowing the lawn and doing dishes and working and praying and going to church and drinking coffee, even. Praise the Lord. It is all part of the sacrifice and praise to God and must be directed to him, must be for him, and must be given in thanksgiving and praise. And this is true, honestly, whether you realize it or not, whether you are actively trying to do that or not. So it's not if your life is lived as sacrifice and praise. It's whether or not it's good, obedient, and active, or whether or not it's bad and disobedient, passive, or flippant. Probably better to say that whatever you do is sacrifice and praise to something. Just a matter of what is the object of that sacrifice and praise. Who is the object of that sacrifice and praise? That's why Paul says in Colossians 3, 17, and whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Do everything in word and deed. So what a better way is it to end this letter than this? For thirteen chapters now. The writer has been convincing and encouraging the reader not to turn back, not to drift away, to keep going in faith, to stay strong, to persevere, because Jesus is better. He's better than Moses and the prophets. He's better than the high priests. He's better than the sacrificial system that they represented. Christ is the founder of a better covenant that has been secured through a better sacrifice, through the shedding of a better blood, offering a better assurance for us, with a promise of a better kingdom, that we believe through the declaration of a better word. We lit the candle this morning with peace. And that candle reminds us that because Christ was born to us, because Christ was a man made flesh, and because Christ is better, we are truly at peace this morning. And now the writer concludes then to say, now finish the race and sacrifice and praise because of the peace that has been offered to us by Christ. So that's how we conclude then this great and marvelous epistle with grateful hearts filled with hope and peace. And let us live sacrifices. Let us live as living sacrifices of praise. So for the final time, then stand with me. We read. Starting in verse 15. 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. 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. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you sooner. Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see if he comes, if he comes soon. Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy, send you greetings. Grace be with you all. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. We're talking about living lives of sacrifice and praise to God. So our first heading is sacrifice through speech, starting in verse 15. Through him then let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. This quote has been attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, but it is debated as to whether or not he actually said it, and I'm sure I've used this before. The quote is preach the gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words. Have you heard this? We've also heard it said that the best method for evangelism is to live the gospel. Have you heard that? And I am of very strong belief that a life of sacrifice and praise to God, no offense to Saint Francis, requires the use of words. Lips that acknowledge his name. The commission was given to go and make disciples of all the nations, and that great commission requires lips that acknowledge his name, that speak his gospel, that teach everyone to obey all that he has commanded. A common response to that perhaps is, but I'm not a missionary. I don't go to the mission field. Perhaps you are not a foreign missionary, but a missionary you are. I'll give you a practical example. Many, I would say most in this room, I'm looking around, other than if you're above 20, have kids. Could you just teach your kids by example only? As soon as your kids can talk, you have to teach them to obey. You have to teach them to learn. And you do that with words. Why? Why do you use words to teach your children to obey and to grow and to learn? Why do you start at some point using words? I contend that's because you care so much about them. You love them and you want them to learn and to grow and be and to be safe and to be obedient. And that love and concern within you spills out of you in words. So that the one who doesn't love and doesn't care doesn't speak. Matthew 12, verse 34, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. I think we all need to hear this. But the one who is reluctant to speak the goodness of Christ and acknowledge him is perhaps one who has not been so filled to the brim with his goodness and his glory that you can't help but say something. And in that way, the best training for living a life of praise, the best training for living a life of evangelistic service, the best training for proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Christ is nothing more than an overfilling or an abundance of his glorious grace to the consumption of his word, his truth, his gospel. And that is the method of the epistles. This is the biblical model. Filled to the brim with the glory of God so that the reader is absolutely saturated with grace. And then we're told to go and live and preach and teach and train and share and rebuke and correct and encourage and praise. Those all require words. Lips that acknowledge his name. I know this is true because I've experienced it countless times in my own life, in many ways. But I'll give you an example. No one reads a good book and doesn't tell someone about it, do they? I haven't. When I'm reading a good book, like a really, really good one, I honestly rarely make it through a chapter without stopping to tell someone, so much so that I think Amanda and the kids get annoyed at me at times. I know they do. I know many of you have been listening to a sermon or a podcast, and you pause it halfway through just to go and send it to somebody and say, like, you gotta listen to that. I know y'all do that. Has anyone ever listened to an incredible sermon or read one of those life-changing kind of books and said, you know, I'll just try to live this one out and not say anything. Maybe you do want to live it out, and actually you probably should in many respects if it is a good book. But your inclination is always to say, I've got to tell someone about this. What comes out through our lips is always a reflection of the abundance of what goes in. Because the most powerful weapons we have are our words. For good or for evil. It is with our mouths that we curse him and others, and it is with our lips that we praise him and encourage and build up others. I don't have time this morning, but a side quest for you all this week. Go read James, specifically James chapter 3. So out of the abundance of our hearts that are overflowing with God's grace and mercy, we use our words to praise and to serve Him. We also see from this that a sacrificial life demands generosity and obedience. And these things always align with God's will. Verse 16 do not neglect to do what is good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. I'm not going to morph this into a tithing sermon, a promise. But I did hear a really good reminder, I think it was this week, it might have been last, on the essence of generous giving. This was from Wes Huff. Many of you might know him. He has a video where he talks about the Old Testament tithe. And he said something very striking there, and I'm paraphrasing him, but he said something like, at the core, the tithe, the Old Testament tithe, was an admission not that I was giving God 10% of my money, but that I was surrendering back to God 10% of what was already his. And considering that in light of that huff quote, our generosity to others, as the text says, do not neglect to do good and to share what you have. That generosity to others is not me or you giving to others a certain amount of our own resources, but rather a returning to God and service a life that is already his anyway. Not a sacrifice of yourself. I'll say that again. That is always pleasing to God. Always. For such sacrifices are pleasing to God. We've asked the question many times: how do I know the will of God in my life? How do I please God? I want to please God, but how do I do that? And how do I know his will for my life? Be strengthened by his grace, through his word, through his sacraments. Acknowledge and praise him with your lips, with your words, and be sacrificially generous. Those are always within the will of God, and those always please him. That's a fair place to start. Probably all you ever really need to know. Just do those things. We continue then with the text, verses 17. Obey your leaders and submit to them. The next aspect of this idea of sacrificial living or a life of sacrifice and praise is submission to our spiritual leaders. The best functioning churches and the best functioning communities are ones where there is good spiritual leadership, and where the people obey and submit to those leaders. For some reason, those two words, obey and submit, are curse words for the modern man and woman. And I'm not sure why, other than our cultural culture is sinful, and perhaps skeptical of leadership, and certainly skeptical of the leadership they are supposed to be submitting and obeying. The culture generally denigrates husbands, males in general. So the command for wives, for instance, to submit to their husbands is at best heard with a bit of an eye roll, and at worst with spits and curses. Why? Why do we obey and we submit? Second half of verse 17. For they are keeping watch over your souls. They are keeping watch over your souls. So we obey and we submit not because we are on some ego power trip. Although maybe that is the case at times, but rather submission is designed as a grace of God for protection. The sacrificial life submits to leaders because God has designed his church such that he puts men in place to watch over souls. Even more. This great benediction from 20 to 21 closes out the teaching of Hebrews in prayer. He concludes then with a benediction prayer. And there's really three things I want to point out with this idea of sacrificial living with respect to prayer. And that is first that we are to pray for one another. We're to pray for one another. Pray for one another here in this church, that we would be kept and encouraged. For those in our community who need Christ. How often do we pray that God would open doors of opportunity for us to share his gospel with those in our community who need to hear it? We are to pray for those who are holding the line, who are protecting, who are teaching, who are proclaiming the gospel. Please pray for strength, pray for protection, pray for keeping and equipping. You are to pray for your enemies. That they would be softened, they would be changed, they would be redeemed. The next thing our text says in verse 21 is that we are to pray for God's equipping. That may God equip you with everything good that you may do his will. We are to pray and surrender to the great and the wise equipper. We pray for what is needed daily to do the work that God has prepared for us, the good work that He has prepared for us. We are to pray to persevere, to obey, to honor, and to serve, to please, to praise Him. We need His equipping to do all of that. And when we pray for it, He will gladly give it. We pray for equipping. We pray for a life that reflects the glory of Jesus Christ, our Savior, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. We pray that by his equipping and according to his will we may be pleasing in his sight, that our words and our deeds would honor him, would please him, and would bring glory to our Savior Jesus Christ. So in that benediction, in that prayer, we again see praying for one another, praying for God's equipping, and praying that our lives please and reflect the glory of Christ. And that's the model of prayer. That we pray to honor God. We pray submission to His will, submission to the leaders that He has given us. We pray that He would equip us for our supply of the day's challenges and the day's good. We pray for others. We pray for mutual forgiveness and encouragement. We pray that God would be glorified both now and forever. That seems like that's a very familiar model of prayer, isn't it? If you're taking notes, Matthew 6, 9 to 13. You can read that, but you probably already have it memorized. And we'll finish this way. Verse 22 through the end. A sacrificial life is and always will be, as we have said many times, strengthened in grace. A sacrificial life is one that is continually strengthened in grace. And I want to point out as we close the means of grace by which we are strengthened, just as a refresher and a renewal here. The means of grace are God's word given in the word itself as we read it and study it, given through the teaching of it, given through the preaching of it, through the public reading of it, through the learning about it. The first means of grace is God's word. Secondly, we see God's grace given to us in the sacraments. Baptism, as we remember the death that we have died to sin and the new life that we are now raised up to live in Christ. There is grace for us there. There is grace in the Lord's Supper, which we partake of every week, remembering again Christ's sacrifice, his once-for-all atoning work, the proclamation that we trust in Him and His sacrifice and his forgiveness. There is grace there for us. We get grace in prayer. We are encouraged and built up in prayer. The fourth means of grace is the church. All saints going to glory. Verse 24 says, Greet all your leaders and all the saints. There is grace in the church. The church is a marvelous grace. The great cloud of witnesses that we have among us. And living, being a living sacrifice, then is tough, isn't it? But grace is freely given through those glorious means. And by those glorious means we have joy, thanksgiving. We have joy and thanksgiving here in Christian Fellowship. The saints of God. And this is much easier and much grander when we have one another to encourage, to share. Support your people, defend your people, exhort and encourage your people. What else do I say then to finish such a marvelous, wonderful work, other than how God Himself ended this letter through the author? The salvation that we have been blessed with, the forgiveness that has been given to us through Christ, the intercession by Christ that keeps us, the prayer, both from Christ and from one another, that encourages us, the Spirit and the power that equips us, all the saints that bear with us, the glory that is promised to us, the resurrection and the eternal life that is given to us, the lasting joy and peace that we know is ours, and we confess is ours. All of that comes packaged to us in one glorious verse that ends this glorious letter. Grace be with all of you. Amen. Thank you for grace. We thank you that you have given your grace, Lord, and and you show us your grace again, Lord, in this advent season, Lord, the grace that you showed us through the advent of your son, Lord, through the incarnation, through his active perfect obedience, Lord, through his submission through your will, through his suffering, through his death, his resurrection. We thank you for we thank you that you've given all of that to us in your word. We thank you for your sacraments, Lord. That you supply us grace. Thank you for prayer, Lord, that you have taught us how to pray, Lord. Continue to encourage us to pray, that in prayer we can have communication with you, Lord. And receive grace. We thank you for this church. As we bear with one another, Lord, as we encourage and correct, correct, strengthen one another. Would you continually strengthen us by your grace? Lord, in this season, may we remember again the hope, peace, joy that we have. Lord, in your son coming to earth, redeeming us. Thank you for Christ. It's in his name we pray. Amen.