SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 13.
SPEAKER_00: You guys ready?
SPEAKER_00: Got some coffee?
SPEAKER_00: It's good to see all your smiling faces again.
SPEAKER_00: If you're new with us, welcome.
SPEAKER_00: We've been going through the book of Hebrews and we've come to the last chapter out of this out of this letter.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_00: When you're going out of the uh door as a kid, remember your mom or your guardian saying to you, hey, don't forget your backpack, don't forget your coat, you got your shoes, you got your lunch.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's these final kind of instructions as you're going out the door.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what Hebrews chapter 13 is like.
SPEAKER_00: We've put together a robust theology around Jesus, how Jesus is so much better and worthy of our affection, and now how he leads us in our spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: He is our high priest that brings us near to God, and he is worth our affection, and how the life of faith works itself out.
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, last time we were together, we talked about the two mountains because this letter was written to a Jewish audience that was tempted to go back to Sinai figuratively.
SPEAKER_00: They were tempted to go back to the things that Moses offered in his ministry, which was good, but not the best, because Jesus has now come along as the better Moses.
SPEAKER_00: And we saw that this pastor who wrote Hebrews is just saying, listen, we've come to the heavenly Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And he depicts it with such beauty that it's like this party, this welcoming party, this beautiful setting of grace just being poured out.
SPEAKER_00: And so having said all those things in chapter 12, we now get to 13 where the pastors just kind of throw stuff, throw stuff at these guys, just these little commands about this is the life that overflows from a vibrant spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: The important thing for you to know as we go through this is that Jesus is this well.
SPEAKER_00: As I read through this and studied this, I felt deeply convicted about my own lack of obedience, the deficiencies in my life.
SPEAKER_00: You may, as we're reading through this, you may feel like, man, that's really kind of putting a finger on something that I'm not good at.
SPEAKER_00: And that's okay as long as you understand that these things overflow from a life of love.
SPEAKER_00: As you're doing what the rest of Hebrews says, where you're letting Jesus be your high priest, and you're walking by faith, and you're becoming more and more lit up and full of love, and the Holy Spirit has his way with you, these things overflow out of your life.
SPEAKER_00: But we're all on this journey of growing in our spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: So there's gonna be stuff that comes up over the next couple weeks that we look at where it's gonna be like, man, I really am not great at that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's okay, you're still loved.
SPEAKER_00: I'm still loved, right?
SPEAKER_00: And the way that God works with these things is that Jesus is our example, our vibrant example, and this is the vision of what we're called into.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna try to make a point with each, there's about five things we're gonna cover here in these first six verses, and and what I'm gonna try to do is show you look, look, Jesus has done this well, or this is rooted in who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And while you may feel like I'm not great at that, there needs to be this um sense of like, yes, I love Jesus all that much more this morning because he did that for me.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Let's um look at this text together.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'll read through it and then we're gonna break it down into small pieces.
SPEAKER_00: Let brotherly love continue.
SPEAKER_00: Don't neglect to show hospitality, for by doing this, some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it.
SPEAKER_00: Remember those in prison as though you were in prison with them, and the mistreated as though you yourselves were suffering bodily.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is to be honored by all in the marriage bed kept undefiled, because God will judge the sexually immoral and the adulterers.
SPEAKER_00: Keep your life free from the love of money.
SPEAKER_00: Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: What can man do to me?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask that you would speak to us through your word this morning, and that you would continue just to author in our life a life that reflects the Messiah, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That we would look like people that follow you.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, where where we are falling short of these commands this morning, would you author these qualities in us, this lifestyle in us?
SPEAKER_00: We pray that you would help us to see why we're we hesitate, why we resist some of the things that are said here.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to grow in these things.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You know, as I'm looking at this, um one of the tensions that I had in preparing this morning was that we have this verse four, and it talks about um sexuality, and I didn't think we were gonna have children's ministry this morning, so I was trying to figure out how to teach verse four with the kids in the room, but they're not in the room uh because the millers were willing to do children's ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna teach verse four really quickly, and then we'll come back to verse one because sometimes the kids um uh jump back in it.
SPEAKER_00: Um so just by way of introduction, these aren't un many of these ideas are unrelated.
SPEAKER_00: They're just ethical things of like this is the life of a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so this pastor is like the like the mom as the kid's going out the door, she's he's just writing saying, Hey, do this, do this, do this, do this.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And it's um, and so I'm not gonna try to find the cohesive, like unifying theme through these five commands.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna just kind of look at them um as good things that uh should be the case in our life.
SPEAKER_00: So he says in verse 4, marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, because God will judge the sexually immoral and the adulterers.
SPEAKER_00: So this pastor is calling these followers of Jesus towards marital fidelity.
SPEAKER_00: The the note I want to give you about this, because the Bible talks a great deal about a sexual ethic, but I love how he writes this.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that when he talks about God judging sexual immorality, it this is a substantiation.
SPEAKER_00: The way that this is written is written in a way where this is the supporting clause about honoring marriage.
SPEAKER_00: In Western Christianity, especially if you're I'm 41, I think, and um if you're my age, um you grew up, if you grew up in the church, you were around the purity culture in Joshua Harris's I Kiss Dating Goodbye, and there's this really strong loud message about purity, and girls were told to put on their ring and kind of shamed about the clothes that they may wear, and lust was kind of the fault of girls like not wearing you know dresses and looking like a Muslim or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: It was a bad cultural moment for Christianity, let's just say that.
SPEAKER_00: And we're still recovering from that bad moment.
SPEAKER_00: And there was this really heavy emphasis on like sex is like really bad, and then all of a sudden you get married and it's like really good.
SPEAKER_00: And you're kind of like as a teen, you're like, whoa, what happened?
SPEAKER_00: Like, how did it go from really bad to really good?
SPEAKER_00: And just with like this covenant thing, and and then there was this teaching where it's like, hey, if you just save yourself for marriage, then you're gonna have like the perfect best marriage ever.
SPEAKER_00: And we all saw that like Joshua Harris got married and then they got divorced, and he decided he didn't want to be a Christian anymore.
SPEAKER_00: It was like, whoa, that was kind of weird, right?
SPEAKER_00: So we've gone through this whole trajectory when it comes to purity culture and talking about sex in the church, and the Bible teaches really some clear stuff about sex, but it is a sub-ethic of marriage and family.
SPEAKER_00: When we open up the Bible, we see Genesis 1 and 2, and it talks about God creating man and woman.
SPEAKER_00: And God sees that the man is alone, he says, I'm gonna give you a suitable helper, a corresponding human, just like these animals have that you're naming.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you a corresponding human so that you have a companion to do life with, and that's the building block of family.
SPEAKER_00: So on Genesis, in Genesis 1 and 2, there is this commendation for family and marriage.
SPEAKER_00: And as the Bible unfolds, we get a sexual ethic to protect this value of family.
SPEAKER_00: And so here the writer says marriage is to be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept undefiled.
SPEAKER_00: And because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
SPEAKER_00: The reason why God is just when it comes to sexual immorality and adulterers is because marriage is to be honored.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is important.
SPEAKER_00: And um, so I don't know if you had the same experience with purity culture that I did, but as our own culture deals with sexuality, we've gone through um LGBT, and now we're really heavily into transgender.
SPEAKER_00: What does gender mean?
SPEAKER_00: So it's a vibrant, like, cultural discussion.
SPEAKER_00: For us as Christians, as we're thinking about our sexuality, the best thing I think that we can do is recognize that the conversation about our sexuality is around a healthy view of marriage, that God has designed marriage to be this beautiful thing, and sex fits within that.
SPEAKER_00: And what that does by having that view, I think what that does, it ought to do, is give us both pre-marriage and post-marriage this vision for like sex is this beautiful thing that God's created, not this yucky dirty thing that you need to avoid so that you don't like ruin your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the sexual ethic.
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's um look at verse one.
SPEAKER_00: Verse one is this short little verse.
SPEAKER_00: This this should be your Bible verse to memorize this week, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh let brotherly love continue.
SPEAKER_00: Can you say that?
SPEAKER_00: Good.
SPEAKER_00: Let brotherly love continue.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've got our memory verse for this week.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the word Philadelphia, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is that um idea literally of um Philos and Delphi.
SPEAKER_00: So we have love of brother.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you have siblings, maybe um uh you can pull from your relationship with your siblings and go, yeah, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
SPEAKER_00: But it's this general idea of like, with siblings, there is this bond where it's like, yeah, we may get on each other's nerves, but there's a loyalty, there's a comfortableness, right?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're most comfortable to let down our guard and have a bad attitude and say things probably we shouldn't say around the people that are closest to our siblings.
SPEAKER_00: And yet there's this love that bonds us together.
SPEAKER_00: And so the pastor says, look, you need to let brotherly love continue.
SPEAKER_00: This lines up with the theme of family that's gone all the way through this book.
SPEAKER_00: It was very heavily emphasized in chapter two, Hebrews chapter two, um, it talks about Jesus and him treating us as brothers.
SPEAKER_00: In verse uh it says, For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one father.
SPEAKER_00: That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, saying, I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, I will sing hymns to you in the congregation.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: This family theme has been pervasive.
SPEAKER_00: That's a part of this pastor coaching us in understanding the um the spirituality through Hebrews.
SPEAKER_00: It's to understand that you've been brought into a family where life just looks a little bit different, and we treat people just a little bit different because of what God has authored through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Paul wrote about this idea in 1 Thessalonians 4 9.
SPEAKER_00: He says, about brotherly love.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need me to write to you because you don't need me to write to you because you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.
SPEAKER_00: You're taught by God to love one another.
SPEAKER_00: This is a a New Testament theme.
SPEAKER_00: A few years ago, as I was um just kind of reflecting um on my own life and character, this was one of those things where like the Holy Spirit just put his finger on it.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes brotherly love for me is harder than just like sacrif self-sacrificial love.
SPEAKER_00: I love working in the compassion center.
SPEAKER_00: I love working with people that are down and out, that are hurting.
SPEAKER_00: But that idea of just that faithful brotherly love that you show maybe to friends, that you show to people that God just like divinely allows to be in your life, to me, it's like, oh man, that sometimes is hard.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you guys are interacting with me after church, and you'll see like I'm running around distracted because I'm such a goal-oriented person.
SPEAKER_00: You can pray for me that I would grow in this idea of just having brotherly love, the the peace in my life to just sit and spend time and and talk to a person without feeling rushed, without feeling like, man, let's go, let's let's move on to the next thing.
SPEAKER_00: There's this beautiful idea here that this pastor is commanding hey, grab your backpack on the way out the door and don't let brother let brotherly love continue.
SPEAKER_00: Keep being loving to one another.
SPEAKER_00: And and this is this is the idea.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus treated you and I like his brothers.
SPEAKER_00: We want to do what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: So, in spite of my deficiency, Jesus is the good example.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus like loved us well.
SPEAKER_00: He has been our good brother, he has let brotherly love continue.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: Like, if anybody had an excuse to go, like, I'm cutting you off, you I've had enough with you.
SPEAKER_00: Like, and how many people do that?
SPEAKER_00: Like, like we're we're in an interesting age with psychology and relationships, and there's a lot of con healthy conversation around boundaries and unhealthy family dynamics, right?
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of you come from unhealthy families or families where there's like brokenness or difficult things.
SPEAKER_00: And if anybody had an opportunity to say, like, I'm cutting you off, I'm never gonna be loving to you again, it would have been Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus is our good brother.
SPEAKER_00: He had boundaries, there's structure in which there's there's very clear rules in how we relate to God.
SPEAKER_00: He's just not like, sure, you can act and treat me however, but he is loving, his love towards us does not cease.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing, it says in Romans 8, that can separate us from the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear that?
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that can separate us from the love of God.
SPEAKER_00: We need to allow that concept to wash over us as we think about our relationships with one another.
SPEAKER_00: The easiest people to show brotherly love to are the people that we like.
SPEAKER_00: I know that's profound, right?
SPEAKER_00: That was like the pro that was the most profound moment of the sermon so far.
SPEAKER_00: Like, but the the reality of God's family is that God saves people that we don't like.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a problem.
SPEAKER_00: Well, at least it's a problem for me because I don't like them.
SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that God loves them and Jesus died for them, and then they end up in my church.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says this like, don't stop loving, like, keep the brotherly love going.
SPEAKER_00: The family of God is a um weird place, but again, this pastor who's writing this letter is just saying, hey, listen, this is different.
SPEAKER_00: Like when you follow Jesus, relationships look a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: They look a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This don't neglect to show hospitality.
SPEAKER_00: For by doing this, some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing.
SPEAKER_00: I wrote here in my notes that hospitality is generosity with your space, and it's costly.
SPEAKER_00: Again, hospitality is generosity with your space.
SPEAKER_00: God's graciously allowed you to have a space.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you rent a house, live with somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think everybody that I know in here pretty much has a space.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't pay for it, maybe you live with somebody else, but you have a space.
SPEAKER_00: And hospitality, the idea of hospitality is that you're willing to be generous with the space that God has given you.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing this is costly.
SPEAKER_00: This stinks.
SPEAKER_00: This is another one of those ones where it's like, come on, why'd you put this one in there, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because I like my space.
SPEAKER_00: Why is hospitality costly?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we like our own space.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's why it's our space, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's it's my space.
SPEAKER_00: The second second thing is that we like our privacy that comes with our space, right?
SPEAKER_00: Do you like your privacy?
SPEAKER_00: I like my privacy.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: We like our routine.
SPEAKER_00: Like we have a routine because we have a space.
SPEAKER_00: And so hospitality is inconvenient to our routine.
SPEAKER_00: And we like our security and our safety.
SPEAKER_00: And so this idea of hospitality is very costly.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know what kind of culture you come from, whether it's like culturally, hospitality is just like expected, so you've been well like prepared for it.
SPEAKER_00: Some other cultures it's like, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: I'll meet you any place, but not my space.
SPEAKER_00: I'll meet you anywhere in public, but don't come to my house.
SPEAKER_00: So you could be anywhere on that spectrum, but what we see consistently all throughout the New Testament is that Christians are generous with their space because they know that it's something that God has entrusted to them.
SPEAKER_00: It's something that God has entrusted to them.
SPEAKER_00: It takes faith, it takes faith to be generous with your space.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, I've come over to some of your houses, and I am so grateful for those of you that have welcomed me in.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a there's a risk.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, well, Pastor, I don't know if it's clean enough.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, give me a break.
SPEAKER_00: Of course it's gonna be clean enough.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's it's it's special to be able to be in your space.
SPEAKER_00: The interesting thing though about this verse is he says he gives a substantiation, right?
SPEAKER_00: He says, For by doing this, some have welcomed angels as guests without knowing it.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the interesting thing that that phrase tells us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, first of all, it's fascinating that you know, by being generous, you may end up being, you know, sh giving a space to an angel.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's kind of on the surface a little bit mind-blowing, and we'll come back to that.
SPEAKER_00: But besides that point, besides that crazy point, right?
SPEAKER_00: What does this imply?
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know whether it's a human or an angel, that means that the people who you're being hospitable to, you don't know that well, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's not just saying, hey, like, have your best friends over for dinner.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that this is hospitality to the degree at which you're like, is that an angel or is that just another human?
SPEAKER_00: We don't really know, but come on over.
SPEAKER_00: We'd like to have you over for dinner.
SPEAKER_00: That's the hospitality that he's talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard some fun stories.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I can't I was trying to remember it this morning um of my parents.
SPEAKER_00: Early on in their marriage, they were traveling, and uh they it wasn't a hospitality setting necessarily, but it was a um an interaction where they asked somebody for directions or they were totally lost.
SPEAKER_00: And somebody gave them uh directions, they turned around and the person was just gone.
SPEAKER_00: And it was on this trip, it was an overseas trip, it was this kind of miraculous thing of like, wow, was that an angel?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, maybe it was.
SPEAKER_00: The other a couple weeks ago, um, is this some of you how many of you are new to Baltimore, like in the last year?
SPEAKER_00: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this thing in Baltimore where people do this with their hand on the side of the road.
SPEAKER_00: When I first moved here, I thought they were selling drugs.
SPEAKER_00: It has nothing to do with drugs, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Just so you know.
SPEAKER_00: It's called hacking.
SPEAKER_00: It has this really interesting um background about trying to it's it's in the rest of the world, they stick up their thumb like this, called hitchhiking.
SPEAKER_00: In Baltimore, it's called hacking.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, am I am I tracking with those of you that have been around for a while?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And so it goes back to a racial discrimination thing with the taxi service, where um blacks were not allowed to participate in with taxis.
SPEAKER_00: And so as a sign of rebellion, blacks did this like their own like Uber before Uber was created.
SPEAKER_00: And this basically, when you're driving down the road, this means um if you pick me up, I'll give you some money.
SPEAKER_00: And um down the next stop.
SPEAKER_00: So um, but Baltimore doesn't have the reputation as the most safe city at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: So there's always this calculation like, am I gonna get shot if I pick this person up?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's at least how I calculate it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not as cynical as me, but that's how it works in my head.
SPEAKER_00: So the other day, I was driving down the street, and there was this guy that was hacking, and I pulled him up to a light, and I realized, you know what, I'm gonna drive down the street for a while.
SPEAKER_00: This guy probably needs to go down the street for a while.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so I said, Yeah, come on in, you know, just jump in my car.
SPEAKER_00: And and what what what I saw was that it wasn't just him, but he had a wife and a little girl with him.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden I feel like, okay, well, this is gonna be much more safe.
SPEAKER_00: So they hop into the car, and um, he's like, you know, hey, I'm I just we just want to go down to Taco Bell, which I knew is about a mile, and it was on the way, it was like a mile down the street.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, yeah, okay, come on.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, is$7 good?
SPEAKER_00: I was like, nah, man, I'm I'm going that way anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't need to pay me money to get down the street.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: And then he began to tell me the story that his wife had just been like walking down the street and found a hundred bucks on the street.
SPEAKER_00: And it was Friday night, and they were like, their their little six-year-old girl, they were gonna take her out to get like Taco Bell.
SPEAKER_00: And it was like a family trip, and they were like so excited about like their that they found a hundred bucks and they were going out for dinner, and it just lit up my night.
SPEAKER_00: I was like so excited, and they were so excited.
SPEAKER_00: They were so excited that they got this little treat.
SPEAKER_00: You could tell it like by how they were dressed and where they were at, that they probably didn't have like a hundred dollars all the time to go and do this, and it was just such a sweet moment.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what came to mind as I was looking at this text.
SPEAKER_00: We just talked about in chapter 11, the life of faith, right?
SPEAKER_00: Everything in our human nature, especially in Baltimore, is to be cynical, safety-oriented, to kind of protect your space, don't let people into your space, and just be super careful.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, for 2,000 years, Christians have been reading this text and other texts like it, and they've been willing to take risks at their own expense that they are willing, that they are willing to follow Jesus in his hospitality.
SPEAKER_00: There's this verse in Romans 12, 13 that says this share with the saints in their needs, pursue hospitality, run after hospitality.
SPEAKER_00: The core of the gospel is this.
SPEAKER_00: When you think about the message of the gospel, it is a hospitable person, God, welcoming us into a relationship with himself and giving us his family and an eternal future in his presence.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that mind-blowing?
SPEAKER_00: That God is a hospitable God.
SPEAKER_00: And if there was anybody who was should have protected their space and enjoyed their privacy, it would have been God.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: Like he had a good thing going without me being there.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he said, I want you, I'm sending my son into the world to die for you so that you can be in my space, so that you can be with me.
SPEAKER_00: That is just, it's mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_00: And to be honest with you, I'm not there yet.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be.
SPEAKER_00: I want to have more moments where it's like I encounter the presence of God because I'm willing to pick up somebody that's hacking on the side of the street.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord work by his spirit in our hearts more and more so that we're not holding on to our space, but we're willing to be generous with what space God has given us.
SPEAKER_00: Now, verse three says this: remember those in prison as though you were in prison with them, and the mistreated as though you yourselves were suffering bodily.
SPEAKER_00: As though, like, like in other words, we use this modern term, put yourself in their shoes.
SPEAKER_00: Put yourselves in their shoes.
SPEAKER_00: Is the idea that I'm willing to suffer with them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's here's a problem that we face, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how I don't I hopefully the Lord will just give me some continuity of thought on this, but one of the problems I think that we face is that we live um with exposure.
SPEAKER_00: We live with great exposure.
SPEAKER_00: I think Jose was trying to pick you up, Miss Yvonne, and he was calling me, but you're here now.
SPEAKER_00: You're okay, you're good.
SPEAKER_00: I just looked at my phone and I saw that.
SPEAKER_00: But it's okay, don't worry about it now.
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll take care of it after church.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, he says he says it's all good.
SPEAKER_00: Um anyway, we live through our phones, and Jose can text me whenever he wants, right?
SPEAKER_00: So, but this is the thing, this is the thing, is that we are exposed through our phones to the suffering of the entire world.
SPEAKER_00: And we are asked by the media to um care.
SPEAKER_00: And it's made either entertainment or then we have friends that live in other parts of the world, and we're asked to care.
SPEAKER_00: I I just we talked about this when there was the shooting at Uvaldi, uh, what was that almost 12 months ago, I think.
SPEAKER_00: We have these shootings, we have these mass tragedies that occur around the world, and because we get instantaneously news and videos, like there's something that popped up this morning about some big fire in where is it, in Rhodes, Greece, right?
SPEAKER_00: And all these people.
SPEAKER_00: And and basically what my phone was asking me to do was to care about these poor people evacuating from a fire.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, I can either care about them or I can write my sermon, you know.
SPEAKER_00: This is the the problem that we face is this fascinating like psychological issue, which is like who do we care about?
SPEAKER_00: And and I I would suggest to you that this is where the idea of embodiment comes in, where we're responsible for like where we're at and the people God's put into our life.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we um steward over our emotions of compassion and care and suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that humanly we have the capacity to care and put ourselves in the shoes of every single human that's suffering.
SPEAKER_00: I think that we, when this was written, it was pre-internet, right?
SPEAKER_00: We'd all agree with that.
SPEAKER_00: And this pastor knows of these people who right around them, they have some friends that are Christians who have been imprisoned for their faith.
SPEAKER_00: They have some neighbors that are um that are suffering, right?
SPEAKER_00: And this is the thing, is like if I go, and and it's nothing, I'm I'm I feel bad, and there is a concern that I have for these tourists that are in roads who are suffering because of a fire.
SPEAKER_00: I feel bad for them.
SPEAKER_00: But if I give myself to that and then tomorrow give my heart um to caring about someone else, one, I'll be in perpetual turmoil because there's always suffering going on.
SPEAKER_00: But it also may mean that I'm incapable, I'm so burnt out of caring that I'm actually not capable of caring for the people right immediately around me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I can't point to a verse, but it's it's I just think that there needs to be some thought for us in the 21st century with so with so much exposure to and so many different stories around us on what we actually in our own bodies and our finiteness can care about.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So this is a Christian quality.
SPEAKER_00: Like to care for those who are in prison, yes, we want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: To those who are mistreated, but that needs to be sharpened by the Holy Spirit in our own lives, where we go back to the Lord and say, okay, God, or is there anybody personally that I'm related to that is wrongfully imprisoned, who's in prison because they're following you, Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Or there is there anybody that's being mistreated that's close in close proximity to me to you, where I need to maybe put aside some of my own well-being and put myself into their shoes.
SPEAKER_00: As I have planted the church here over the last six years, I have often felt frustrated that local churches that are in the county, maybe just 20 minutes from here, seem so disengaged with the suffering and the pain in Baltimore City.
SPEAKER_00: It almost feels as if it is convenient for those churches to ignore what is happening in the city.
SPEAKER_00: And I wish there's every once in a while there is an outlier from that norm, like Trinity Life, that came and served with us in the Compassion Center last month, where 20 people who have they're doing well with their careers and they don't have any need, they they can do their life happily without coming and being a part of what's going on in this neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: And yet they gave up their entire day to come and serve food out of the compassion center and love the people that we as a church feel called to love here.
SPEAKER_00: I think that that's a good demonstration.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's what it looks like to do these this verse.
SPEAKER_00: We spent Tuesday night, like I was saying at the beginning of the service, we spent Tuesday night at the farm.
SPEAKER_00: And here's a guy, hedge fund broker, retired, takes the wealth, some of the wealth that he's made, buys a farm, catalyzes other farmers and young people that are interested in agriculture to at mass scale produce, produce produce so that it can be all given for free.
SPEAKER_00: Now it can't be charged for.
SPEAKER_00: All, like all this produce being sent into Baltimore City just so that people who are suffering and without food, nourishing food, healthy food, can get access to it.
SPEAKER_00: That's a practical example of putting yourself in the shoes of those that are suffering.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus' followers look like.
SPEAKER_00: And that is what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: He put himself, I mean, literally, Philippians chapter 2 says that Jesus took on flesh.
SPEAKER_00: He put himself in our shoes, he has suffered in our place.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, it says in Isaiah 53, 4 and 5, He Himself bore our sickness, he carried our pains, but we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted.
SPEAKER_00: But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities, punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the champion of this idea.
SPEAKER_00: And so the pastor is not asking of us anything that Jesus didn't already do, way beyond anything we could ever accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus joined us in our suffering and took on himself our deepest wounds.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked through verse four.
SPEAKER_00: We'll close with verses four and five.
SPEAKER_00: Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: What can man do to me?
SPEAKER_00: We're running out of time, and so I just want to just point out very briefly, this is one of my favorite verses, because the pastor knows his Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He's quoting a scripture that says, The Lord will never leave us or abandon us.
SPEAKER_00: But then in verse 6, he puts in a therefore.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see it right here?
SPEAKER_00: He takes this promise of God that God's going to be present and he applies it to our life, and he says, Therefore, we can say boldly, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see this?
SPEAKER_00: This is a a statement, a really bold statement, right?
SPEAKER_00: So this the Christians, he's saying, Look, you as Christians, you can say, I will not fear this week.
SPEAKER_00: I will not fear what man can do to me.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because God's promise to never leave me or forsake me.
SPEAKER_00: God's not looking for you to like pull up yourself by your bootstraps and make some great promise to him.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: What he wants from us, and what the pastor of Hebrews who wrote Hebrews has been saying is he wants from you and I a life that sincerely responds to what God promises.
SPEAKER_00: God says to you, He's not gonna leave you or forsake you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's nice.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if that's in a birthday card, it's like, oh, that makes me feel good, you know, on the coffee cup.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: No, not just not just to make you feel good, but it authors from your lips a very strong confession.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna, yeah, I know my bank account is right here, and I don't know how these things are gonna be afraid, but I'm not gonna be afraid because God has promised He's never gonna leave me or forsake me.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know that this thing is on the horizon.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's gonna happen at work, or I don't know what's gonna happen in this relationship, or I don't know what's gonna happen over here, but I don't have to be afraid because God has said he's never gonna leave me or forsake me.
SPEAKER_00: That is what it looks like to follow Jesus and to read the Bible that he read.
SPEAKER_00: To live a life like Jesus lived.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's this contentment that really, that's what he's commending here, is like live a life that's content where you're not entangled by the love of money.
SPEAKER_00: Live a life that's content.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to put in front of you the explanation of the parable of the sower.
SPEAKER_00: I've I've mentioned this as we've gone through Hebrews, but I want to put it in front of your your um your eyes and my eyes this morning because this writer, the pastor, is dealing with individuals who are facing the same temptations that those in Jesus' parable faced.
SPEAKER_00: So the parable of a sower is this agricultural picture of seed being scattered on different settings, and the seed is representative of the gospel message, and the different settings where the seed falls are the different people.
SPEAKER_00: And it's all a warning about the condition of the heart and where people are at.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus explains this parable.
SPEAKER_00: He says, listen, to the parable of the sower, when anyone hears the word about the kingdom and doesn't understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart.
SPEAKER_00: This is the one sown along the path.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's this idea that Satan can come and he can just rip off people.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: They don't fully understand the message of the kingdom, and Satan just snatches it away.
SPEAKER_00: The pastor is warned about that setting.
SPEAKER_00: He said in chapter 5, he's like, Man, I wish you were more mature so we could go on to some of the deeper stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 20, he says, and one is thrown on the rocky ground.
SPEAKER_00: This is the one who hears the word immediately, receives it with joy, but he has no root, and it's short-lived.
SPEAKER_00: When distress or persecution comes, because of the word, immediately he falls away.
SPEAKER_00: This that's a primary issue for these people who receive the letter written by this pastor.
SPEAKER_00: Persecution.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have depth, and so persecution is really causing them to fall away.
SPEAKER_00: But then Jesus talks about another group.
SPEAKER_00: Now the one sown among the thorns is the one who hears the word, but the worries of this age and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.
SPEAKER_00: But the one sown on the good ground is the one who hears and understands the word, who does produce fruit and yields, some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty times what was sown.
SPEAKER_00: The pastor has a vision for our spirituality that we're engaging the God who communicates and we're listening with a tender heart.
SPEAKER_00: We're letting roots develop so that as different things come up, temptations and suffering come up, we're rooted.
SPEAKER_00: We're rooted in we're being fruitful, not just surviving, not just weathering the storm, but we're actually bearing fruit 160 and 30 times.
SPEAKER_00: This pastor has made a lot, a big deal about who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is our great example of these last-minute exhortations as we're going out the door, figuratively speaking.
SPEAKER_00: My prayer is that the Holy Spirit would continue to take these things and kind of work them into our heart just like you're needing a batch of dell, right?
SPEAKER_00: This stuff's got to get worked in to our the warp and woof of our life.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's let's pray and ask the Lord to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for uh your word and the things that are encouraged here.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, we're so grateful for the way you've treated us as a brother.
SPEAKER_00: You've shown us hospitality that is just mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_00: You have been so kind to us, you've put yourself in our shoes and suffered on our behalf.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you take us, take our lives, would you please author from our lives a um a life that looks like Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Like Romans says, that we'd be shaped and conformed into the image of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We know that's why you you chose us, why you what you've predestined us for.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, have your way in us this week.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.