The sermon text this morning brings us back to the Book of Hebrews. Specifically, we're now in the final chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 13, where this this morning we're going to be studying the first six verses of Hebrews 13. Hear now, the word of the Lord, Hebrews 13:1-6. I'll be reading it out of the ESV.

13 Let brotherly love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. 4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. 5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we can confidently say,
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not fear;
what can man do to me?”
Hebrews 13:1-6, ESV

Well, earlier this week there was a rather odd, strange story in the news. You might have heard about it. About a man who was roughly my age, though I assure you it wasn't me, who disguised himself as an elderly woman, ventured into the famous art museum in Paris, called the Louvre, and proceeded to throw a piece of cake at Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa painting. Now, fortunately, the cake didn't harm that renowned work of art because there was a protective layer of bulletproof glass that was more than equipped to handle the projectile of cake and frosting that was thrown at it. After that foolish stunt, this man was swiftly arrested, an employee cleaned off the glass and all was well.

Curiously, this wasn't the first time that someone attempted a stunt aiming to damage or destroy that painting. In fact, the protective glass that now shields and protects the Mona Lisa was installed after two separate attacks in the 1950s. In 1956, the one person attacked the Mona Lisa with acid, and then shortly thereafter, somebody threw a rock at the painting, both of which eventually damaged the painting and eventually led the museum to install that protective layer of bulletproof glass, which is there to this day.

Now, whatever you think about the Mona Lisa as a work of art, whether you like it or not, when we jump into our text and we consider all of the imperatives or commands that are loaded into the six verses that we just read. Bear in mind that our author has just painted for us before this text a stunning theological portrait of his own.

If you recall, in the latter verses of Hebrews chapter 12, our author painted for us this landscape, this marvelous landscape painting with two mountains, Mount Sinai on the one hand, and Mount Zion on the other. He gave us vivid descriptions of these two mountains, and then he told us that through Christ, we have the remarkable privilege as the people of God, of being residents of the Heavenly Mount Zion. Together with believers both alive and deceased, gathered into the presence of the Lord with a host of innumerable angels and secured on this Mount Zion by the blood of Jesus Christ for all eternity. This is the forever heavenly home to which we've already come in Christ. A home that will stand when nothing else in the cosmos ever will at the end of the age. But after gazing upon this vivid and pristine theological portrait of Heavenly Zion that our author held out for us in Hebrews Chapter 12, he now brings us down to earth, as it were. He tells us that there are certain ways that we, as the people of God, are called to conduct ourselves as residents of Heavenly Zion on this Earth. From the heights of theological profoundness, he now drives us to the intensely practical implications of what it means to be residents of Zion as we live on this Earth.

As practical as these commands are, we also discover and we'll get into this a little bit more in a moment, that these are also weighty things we're called into do. They are heavy commands that are equal in weight, to the privileges of Zion that are already ours. As residents of Zion, as we'll see in a moment, we're given commands to live a thoughtful, a loving, a hospitable, a compassionate and a careful life. If we don't, it would be as if we're the ones who are hurling cake, stone and acid at this great theological portrait that our author just painted of where it is that we have come, that is heavenly Zion.

Now we see in our text that although the various commands that we're pressed to follow seem somewhat detached from each other. After all, what does marriage have to do with visiting the prisoner? Well, these are all examples of what our author calls in verse one brotherly love. If you remember back in Hebrews chapter 12, our author told us that that the Mount Zion, to which we have come, the heavenly home that we belong to in Christ Jesus, is a place that we have come to, but we're not alone on. Because it' here on Zion, our author told us earlier, that we come with the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven. That is, we come to this Zion together as a church. Now our author tells us in very practical terms, in chapter 13 verses one through six, how it is that we love these brothers and sisters in the church who are also here on Mount Zion with us.

So for all of the diverse commands that in our passage, commands that we're going to study each one in turn, the essence of what we are commanded to do in this passage couldn't be clearer. It's that we love each other. And that's our big idea this morning. That is, as residents of Zion love each other..

Well, how do we do that? Well, we're going to organize our study of this passage into three main parts, and we're going to see that we love each other by pursuing brotherly love, by guarding brotherly love, and then by being rooted in a greater love.
1. Purse Brotherly Love
2. Guard Brotherly Love
3. Be Rooted in a Greater Love

Purse Brotherly Love

So let's begin with our first point, pursue brotherly love. Now, the way this opening command to continue in brotherly love that we read in verse one is worded again, a command that orients all of the other diverse commands that we find, it's quite interesting. If you notice that verb translated continue in the passage. Well, that's the same verb that we encountered a few verses earlier in chapter 12, verse 27, where we learn that the only things that have eternal significance in this world are things that cannot be shaken. Those things that will remain. That word for remain and continue is the very same word. You see, our author is telling us now, when we come to chapter 13, verse one, that brotherly love in all of the ways that it's fleshed out in what follows is one of those things that has a binding and eternal significance. It's one of those things that belongs to Zion that will remain. So he calls us, as the people of God, as those who have already come to Zion to invest in that kind of brotherly love now.

So how do we do that? Well, in the first three verses, we're encouraged to pursue brotherly love in two specific outward kind of ways. The first of which is showing hospitality to strangers. Now, in the first century world in which this passage is being written and communicated, inns, that is hotels were often available to house people who were traveling from town to town. If you were a traveler in the ancient Roman world and you needed a place to stay, you could generally, depending on the town, check into an inn, much like you would today. Yet, inns in the ancient world, in this context also had a horrible reputation. They were almost always unsanitary, and in many cases, they were downright dangerous places to sleep overnight. So within this context, Christians actually developed a reputation among their unbelieving neighbors, in the first century world, for not directing the traveler to the nearest inn, but rather receiving the traveler, specifically other believers, other traveling Christians and missionaries into their homes. This is what our author encourages in verse two of our passage, namely, welcome other people into your homes as a way of meeting their needs and serving them show hospitality.

Now, the practice of welcoming people into our homes is something that all sorts of people regularly do in our world. Several years ago, I remember watching HGTV, Home and Garden Television, and specifically one of those house hunters shows where you follow a couple or a family for 30 minutes as they look at various homes to buy or rent. You get the privilege of hearing their every thought on every single detail related to paint colors and double vanities and all of that stuff. One thing I remember distinctly from that show is nearly everyone who is looking for a house or an apartment mentioned the importance of having an entertainment space in their home. Many also talked about having an extra bedroom, a guest bedroom, so that they could house people who were coming to visit. In other words, nearly everyone on the show gave at least lip service to the desire to welcome people into their home for some specific purpose. Yet, while it's impossible to know the hearts and the motivation of every participant on the show, I doubt whether that they had the same kind of hospitality in view that our author does in this text.

I read something a number of years ago. I can't quite remember who said it or where I read it, but it was noted that there is a critical difference that exists between what we call entertainment and hospitality. The way this distinction was framed, again, I can't quite remember who said it, I'm sure multiple people have said it goes something like this. Entertainment, when you entertain people, very often it's all about you, the host. It's about curating a specific experience for your guests in such a way that your guests are impressed with you and with what you have. Generally speaking, entertainment is about putting on a show in your home. But the goal of hospitality, well, that's fundamentally different. Because with hospitality it's not about you. With hospitality, it's not about what your home or your possessions say about you. It's not even about having a big home or a great many possessions. It's about how to serve those who enter into your home. It's about them. One author, Rosaria Butterfield, uses the term "counterfeit hospitality" to get at a similar dichotomy.

While the two entertainment and hospitality may look superficially similar in some respects, real hospitality and counterfeit hospitality, as Butterfield describes it, are driven by radically dissimilar goals. That distinction should, I think, lead all of us to ask what approach we tend to take when you invite guests into your home. Is it all or mostly about you? Or is about meeting the needs of others?

Now, bear in mind that as residents of Zion, we've already learned that our standing and our identity is already secure. That frees us not to care so much about our own egos. It frees us to truly love and serve our guests, who we welcome into our homes. If this is the nature of what hospitality is that we're called to pursue in our passage, notice that when it comes to the people of hospitality, that hospitality also embraces all kinds of people, according to our text. Again, our author encourages us to welcome the stranger into our home, which in context is probably a reference first to other Christians that you don't know well. It also applies to our unbelieving neighbors, too.

Now, perhaps this kind of hospitality, this vision of hospitality that our authors given to us, especially for the introverts among us, strikes us as risky or even downright exhausting. Yet the vision of hospitality held up by our author is also incredibly freeing because it doesn't require us to put on a show. Nor does it carry the same kind of exhaustion that holding on to our idols of image and status and comfort bring. So ask yourself what might be some of the ways that I could exercise this sort of hospitality? To bring in Peter's advice to bear on that question, how can I do that without grumbling in the process?

Are there people in the church that you don't know well who you could have in their home and break bread with? Are there neighbors that you could get to know better in your neighborhood? Kids, how can you serve your parents when you know you're having guests come over to your house? If you just don't have a home that you call your own right now, are there people in the church that you could partner with and with them in their homes, serve other people or ways that you could participate in the hospitality of the church in general in order to serve other people who come into our midst?

Practicing hospitality is a big part of what it means to be residents of Zion, but before our author encouraged us to pursue brotherly love in yet one more way, he actually motivates us in this command with this curious statement in the second half of verse two. Where he says that, "Some who have practiced this kind of hospitality have entertained angels unawares." Now, this is actually an allusion to something in the Old Testament. It's an allusion to something that happened in the book of Genesis, when Abraham, the patriarch, was surprised one day by three visitors in Genesis 18. Two of whom actually turned out to be angels, and one of whom was a was an appearance of the Lord himself. Now, Abraham, we learn in Genesis 18, he welcomed these three men when he saw them from afar into his tent. He gave them food; he gave them water to wash their feet with and pursued them with an eager attitude to love and serve them as his guests.

Now in Hebrews, our author leaves open the possibility that we might to serve angels with our hospitality without even knowing it. After all, on Zion, as we heard earlier, we come to innumerable angels. Our author told us that back in Hebrews chapter 12. But even if we never end up doing that, serving angels, understand that each flesh and blood image bearer, and especially those redeemed image bearers whom we serve, are better than angels.

Commentator Richard Phillips gets at this, too, when he writes, quote, "To meet an angel might be wonderful, but in the church are those whom angels are sent out to serve and who are to inherit salvation." And in the same vein, C.S. Lewis tells us, in the "Weight of Glory" about the privilege that it is as the people of God to serve those who have been redeemed in Christ. This is what Lewis writes in The Weight of Glory. He says, "The dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature, which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. There are no ordinary people you have never talked to a mere mortal. It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit. Immortal horrors or everlasting splendors." So we pursue brotherly love them by welcoming flesh and blood image bearers into our home, not in order to have them look upon us and be impressed with us, but rather to serve them and to meet their needs.

When we turn to verse three, we're also commanded to pursue brotherly love in another way, namely by remembering and sympathizing with prisoners and those who have been mistreated. Now, the world of the first century church in the context of the Roman Empire, it wouldn't have been unusual for Christians in that day to be mistreated for being Christians or even thrown into prison for being Christians. You know, living a life of faith in Christ, together with its many implications, was costly for many individuals in that world and remains costly today in many parts of our world. Rather than retreating to the enclave of safety, when you see your brother or sister suffering for being Christians, after all, if you're then identified as a Christian, you could be next. Our author calls his readers instead, including us, to identify with their brothers and sisters in their imprisonments and suffering.

In fact, earlier in Hebrews, back in chapter ten, our author already commended his readers for doing just that. In Hebrews 10:32-34. Our author called upon his readers to remember their former days when, quote, "After you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated for. You had compassion on those in prison and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one."

You see, our author called them back in Hebrews ten to remember how they once identified with those who suffered. They once actively sympathized with those of their own who were thrown into prison. Now, bear in mind that the prisons in the Roman world of the first century were nothing like those in the civilized world today. In the world of our author, prisons were dark and dirty. Prisoners were sometimes supplied to. Bit of bread and water, but more often than not, that was often withheld from them. They literally needed people from the outside world to come into the prison to give them bread and water and food to live by. Prisoners were also regularly subject to disease and even abuse.

Within these circumstances, history tells us that Christians acted in one ancient account records how Christians went out of their way to provide food for those who were in prison for being Christians. Some even bribed the prison guards in order so that they could enter the prison and stay overnight with their brothers to protect them from the many dangers that were lurking inside.

Now, we don't know exactly what it looked like when the original readers of Hebrews had compassion on those in prison, as chapter ten indicates they did. Whether it included any of those actions that we just talked about are not, our author appeals to them again here in Hebrews chapter 13 to pursue that same approach that they once had and continue in brotherly love. It's as if our author now says to his readers, don't let that former compassion or sympathy that you should, that you showed to the prisoner be only a distant memory. Rather continue to sympathize with those who are imprisoned. Continue to have compassion on those who are mistreated. Continue to put yourself in their shoes and imagine that it was your body that was suffering or imprisoned with them or in their place. Friends, the same is true of us today.

Now, keep in mind that the prisoners our author has a view are those who have been imprisoned specifically for being Christians. That is, the people that he has in view are those who have been in prison, not for just reasons, for committing a crime, but for following Christ. Now, of course, that's not to say that we shouldn't also have compassion on those we know who are in prison for just reasons. We should. There are prison ministries that seek to love and serve those in prison, not for being Christians, but for breaking just laws. We're still called, even in those circumstances, to have compassion on people in prison, recognizing that we're also capable of making serious mistakes in our own lives and then seek to minister to that population through things like prison ministries in as much as we have opportunity to do so. With that said, the primary application of this passage is to have compassion on those who are suffering and even imprisoned for being Christians.

So how do we do that today? How do we show compassion on those in prison when fortunately we don't find people in Omaha who are imprisoned for being Christians? Well, first thing, we should recognize that the people of God, the quote, "Assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven to which we belong in Christ", consists of believers from all over the world. As we hinted at a few moments ago, in many parts of the world today, believers are imprisoned for being Christians and some are even being executed for holding firm to their confession in Christ. Remembering those believers may not mean hopping on a plane to North Korea and jumping into jail with them, but it does mean that we regularly pray for believers all around the world in those contexts. And that we stay informed about the plight of believers in places where persecution against Christians rages.

Second, while we may not know believers who are at this moment imprisoned for their faith, I bet many of us know Christians who are mistreated in our world for being Christians. Maybe you know someone who's been cut off from their family or friends for holding firmly to a biblical sexual ethic or someone experiencing tension among family for just trying to live their lives as a faithful Christian. In those kinds of circumstances, how can you come alongside people like that and be their church family when their own family may not offer the warmest embrace?

The essence of what our author calls us to hear in verse three is what the Apostle Paul tells us in first Corinthians 12:26 to do when he writes, "If one member suffers all suffer together, if one member is honored, all rejoice together." Friends, we are one body, we are one church family. As a result, we are called to have compassion for fellow residents of Zion as they incur the various scars that they incur from this world. It's to be proactive, both through hospitality and through compassion, to pursue brotherly love in as many opportunities as are given to us.

Guard Brotherly Love

In addition to going out and pursuing brotherly love in these various ways, our author next turns and he tells us that we also have to guard brotherly love in two other ways. So this leads to the second point, where we're commanded to guard brotherly love.

When we turn to verses four through five, we notice that our author reminds us that while brotherly love extends outward to the stranger and the persecuted, it's also important that we remember brotherly love carefully guards those relationships that lie closer to home, too. Specifically the marriage relationship, and also our often fraught relationship with money too.

Now, while these two topics money and marriage might seem like strange inclusions in the wider context of brotherly love, after all, the refrain by and large from our world is that these two topics, money and marriage or money and sex, are topics that are nobody else's business, but the individual. Issues surrounding these two topics actually can and have shipwrecked the witness of the church throughout history. They can tear apart the loving bonds that the church is called to be held together by. So how we live in these two areas really does either hinder or strengthen the brotherly love that, our author encourages us as residents of Zion to pursue.

So looking at the text, the first thing our author mentions along these lines is marriage. He tells us in verse four, "Let marriage be held in honor by all." Then he tells us, "Let the marriage bed be undefiled." Now, a surface reading of these commands could make us think initially, somewhat narrowly, as if the only prohibition our author has in mind is the actual act of adultery. Just as the Seventh Commandment forbids adultery, you shall not commit adultery, so too our author repeats the essence of the Seventh Commandment in that we honor marriage by not defiling the marriage bed through adultery.

Well, of course that's true, it's also true that neither the Seventh Commandment nor these commands are as simple as avoiding the physical act of adultery and all will be well. In fact, the command to honor marriage includes a litany of issues. For instance, marriage is dishonored when it's redefined beyond the boundaries of one man and one woman. Marriage is dishonored when divorce is the selected route for any reason without calls. Marriage is dishonored when illicit forms of entertainment are pursued within the marriage bond. Marriage is dishonored when a couple lives as if they're married without exchanging marriage vows. And yes, marriage is dishonored when adultery takes place, too.

Now, just as in our world, so too many of the forms of dishonoring marriage that we just alluded to were also widespread in the first century Roman world as well. It's not as if the command to honor marriage by not defiling the marriage bed, as we read in our text, was somehow dramatically less crazy to ancient ears as it is to modern years. It was just as crazy to the unbelieving world in the days of our author as it is to many in our world today.

Yet, residents of Zion, regardless of the time and place in which we live in history, are urged to guard marriage. This issue is so important that by the end of our passage, our author repeats a warning that we find repeated elsewhere in the Scriptures, when he tells us for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. That is, God will judge both the one who is sexually immoral, who uses and abuses sex in a variety of ways, and also the one who breaks their marriage vows or the marriage vows of others through the physical act of adultery.

Now, of course, as we let this grave warning sink in, we also have to understand that all of us have violated the seventh commandment in one way or another, just like we violated every other commandment one through ten. The bad news of our passage, but news we must insist upon, nevertheless, is that those who never turn from their violations of the Seventh Commandment, those who remain steadfast in their pursuit of what our world would know as sexual freedom in any of its pernicious forms, are in fact the ones who are enslaved to sin and sadly, our passage tells us, will be judged accordingly.

Now, let me suggest that because issues of sexual immorality can often remain hidden, they can persist for long periods of time and be kept carefully concealed, even by those of us who claim to know and love Jesus Christ. Let me suggest that this warning should, on the one hand, be a wakeup call to repent and to enlist help from someone in the church who loves you if this is an issue for you today. For those of you who perhaps have some of these violations in your past, those of you who know and are ashamed by all of the various ways you have been sexually immoral or an adulterous, but you've repented and you continue to repent of sexual immorality that arises in your heart today. Well know, that in Christ Jesus, your record of sin is not held against you to condemn you. This isn't a warning that you're going to be judged because of your past. There's great assurance in this passage that we're going to get to later that for those who know and love the Lord Jesus Christ, we're going to fail in all of these ways that our author encourages us to pursue in this text, and yet the Lord loves us as His own. He secures us on Zion through the blood of Jesus Christ. If you are looking at Christ Jesus by faith, well, then you will have not come into condemnation, because your condemnation has been placed on Jesus Christ and Him alone.

With that said, the command to honor marriage is a command that stands for all of us, whether married or not. So what does it then look like, positively speaking, for us to honor marriage as our passage would have us do? Well, I suppose there's a lot that we could say about honoring at marriage. Let me just leave us with two thoughts on this. First, honoring marriage means that we think rightly about marriage. Honoring marriage means that we speak rightly about marriage, too. So first, think rightly about marriage. By that, I mean appreciate the beautiful essence that marriage, as it's defined by the Bible, really is.

Theologian Carl Truman, in an excellent book he published just last year called "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self". He accounts in that book for many of the belief systems that are now ingrained in the Western world that have led to such a degradation of marriage as God defines it that we see today. A big part of that degradation, according to Truman, it can be traced back to what he and others have called expressive individualism. Where in the search for meaning and identity in our world is no longer found by living in accord with the standards that God sets for our lives, but rather turning inward and entertaining every desire as a way to live our authentic self. These are the underpinnings; Truman argues that eventually the lead so many in our world to see marriage specifically and the biblical sexual ethic more broadly as antithetical to what it means to flourish.

Yet, as residents of Zion, we know better, because we see in marriage an institution that points to and reflects the union that Christ shares with his bride, the church. We see something beautiful that reflects a beautiful truth. And in honoring marriage in the church, far from holding up a repressive and outdated institution, which is what many of our unbelieving neighbors believe about it, we're actually presenting, in a sense, the gospel. So we honor marriage first and foremost by acknowledging what it really is, by thinking rightly according to the Scriptures about marriage. In doing so, rejecting the narratives out there in our world that would seek to cast a biblical view of marriage as something less than what the Bible proclaims marriage to be.

So we think rightly about marriage, but second, we're also called to speak rightly about it, too. If you're married, let me ask you this. How do you talk about your marriage, especially to the unmarried? Is it something that you honor with your words, or do you parrot the talking points of our world by speaking of it, even if only in jest as something you're now trapped in? If you're not married and I recognize that includes those of you who are older and younger with many stories to account for that. Do you speak about marriage? Neither with a bitter tinge in your words, nor with an idolatrous overestimation of it, but in a way that upholds and honors what God in His word, upholds and honors.

Now what are author has to say about marriage, it's quite challenging for us as residents of Zion in this world. He gives us a lot to think about and consider as we try to live out this command at our own context. What he commands us next, in the next verse, is just as challenging. Notice that when we turn to verse five, our author instructs us in yet one more way to guard brotherly love. Now he tells us this, he says, "Keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have." The Apostle Paul echoes the very same thought when he boldly proclaims in 1 Timothy 6:10, quote, "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil."

Now, the problem with money isn't that we have money. It's certainly not that some people have more money and other people have less money. Wealth itself is not a sin. The problem is when money and acquisition of wealth, whether you have a little or a lot of it, becomes the focal point and obsession of all of our pursuits. Because when that happens, we'll never have enough. A love for money is like drinking saltwater and thinking that it's going to quench your thirst when what it really does is make you thirst for more and more and eventually kills you. This is exactly what Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes 5:10, where he says, "He who loves money will not be satisfied with money nor he who loves wealth with his income. This also is vanity."

Friends, a love of money like that can turn us into a people who endlessly hoard resources for no other reason than the illusion of security. All the while keeping us ignorant and blinding to the better security, the ultimate security that's offered to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The frightening reality is that those things we might spend exorbitant amounts of energy hoarding do not belong to the things of Zion that will remain. Jesus gets at this very same idea in the so called Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke chapter 12. If you're unfamiliar with that parable, as the parable goes, Jesus tells a story that there was once a rich man whose land produced such a bounty that he had nowhere to store all of his grain that the land produced. So rather than selling his grain, he reasoned that he should tear down his barns and build bigger ones to store all of his newly amassed grain. His desire, though, wasn't to invest in his farming business, but rather to secure his future comforts. Yet, all the while, it seems remaining ignorant of matters of eternal significance. After deciding to build better barns, after deciding to chart this course of action, the man reasons in Luke 12:19, "I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, drink and be merry." Then in the next verse, God stops the man in his tracks and declares, "Fool this night Your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" Then the parable wraps up as Jesus concludes, quote, "So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God."

Again, it's not a sin to be wealthy and it's not a sin to be wise in your investments. A lot of good has been done in our world and for the church by those with wealth. But the issue is whether that wealth breeds an endless groping for more security, more wealth, and more comfort in this world. It's that kind of heart that will, in fact, never truly be satisfied. That kind of heart that will never be willing to give lavishly for brotherly love or for the gospel. It's that kind of heart that is often all too ignorant of the security that is found on Zion.

So instead of loving money and what money offers, our author encourages us in another direction. When he tells us to be content. To discover what the Apostle Paul calls in Philippians four "The Secret of Contentment." Then he writes in Philippians four, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content; I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need." So what about you? Have you learned that kind of contentment or do you find yourself drinking excessively from the broken systems of materialism? Always thirsty, but never quenched.

Just as the sexual ethic of our day promises satisfaction, but ultimately reveals itself to be devastatingly hallow. So to the approach to wealth and money in our world promises contentment. It promises satisfaction. Yet what it really does is breeds endless anxiety. Instead, residents of Zion, like you and I, are to recognize that we have been given all that we need by a God who loves us. In the final thoughts of our passage, our author reminds us of the one who roots and grounds the brotherly love that he would have us both pursue and guard as residents of Zion.

Be Rooted in a Greater Love

So to the third point, be rooted in a greater love. You know, one of the chief reasons I think that we might find things like sacrificial self, sacrificial hospitality or a biblical ethic of marriage so difficult or even reject those things outright is because we think, even if only functionally, that God could not possibly satisfy us or sustain us in what He commands us to do. After all these things that we just talked about are weighty. They're countercultural. Yet, though, our author just outlined a vision of brotherly love as weighty as the portrait of Zion, he ends with an equally weighty promise that even in this bold vision of brotherly love, he will be with his church along the way.

First in verse five, our author cites words that echo those that God spoke to Joshua. As Joshua prepares to take the reins from Moses after Moses death and embarks upon the conquest of the land of promise. In Joshua 1:5 the Lord said to Joshua, "Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you." Now those very words are applied to us. As residents of Zion, God calls us to walk in a way at odds with the values ingrained among many of our neighbors. But he's a God who will never leave us, even when we fail to uphold the values of Zion as consistently as we should.

If you recall, we were commended earlier to sympathize as well with those who suffer as if we were in their shoes. But the God who promises never to leave us nor forsake us has already done far more than he asks us to do. Because in Jesus Christ, he's already sympathized with us, in a body like ours, in every way except sin. Then went back to heaven from where he intercedes for us at present. Remember, Jesus's parting words to his disciples in Matthew 28, when he tells them, "I will be with you until the end of the age."

You see, we may forsake brotherly love on occasion. I promise you that a sinner is in this broken world, we will forsake brotherly love in imperfection and the ways that we're called to pursue in our passage. But the God who promises that He will never leave nor forsake us, well, he's already backed up his promise in the sinless savior of our Lord Jesus Christ. He'll stay with us and hold us fast on Zion, even when everything around us is shaken.

Then to close out our passage or author cites the word of the Lord from Psalm 118:6, when we read, "The Lord is my helper, I shall not fear. What can man do to me?" Friends, we need not fear how our approach to money and marriage may look in a world when this approach seems so odd and strange. We need not fear what a life of faithfulness could potentially cost us in this world. Because the same God who promises never to leave us gives us His Spirit that is the helper to equip and empower us in living out this kind of ethic. The fact that this all-consuming fire, the Lord, is our helper, is enough to put to rest even the most potent fears that we face in this world under the sun.

Again, the Lord calls us as residents of Zion to pursue brotherly love in a profoundly self-sacrificial way. He calls us to guard brotherly love and deeply countercultural ways. He also roots this approach to life in the promise that we are secured and beloved, held by a greater love along the way.

Application

Now, as we prepare to close and transition to the meal that nourishes us in this greater love, I want to leave us with something of a general challenge about how to approach texts like this in the Bible when we encounter them. You see throughout Hebrews, our author has taken us on quite a journey. He's taking us in some text to the depths of theological exposition, in discussing and discussing and elaborating upon who Christ is, where we've come in Christ, and the many implications of that. And I recognize that that that while some of us love that kind of theological exposition, others of us just simply want to know, what do I do with that? How do I apply that? And then when we come to texts like this where you can't get more practical, some of us who love that theological depth may wish for more theology, a less practical. Understand that wherever you're at, Hebrews is a challenge for all of us to appreciate the fullness of the counsel of God.

So for those of you who lean towards the practical, let your mind be stretched by the theological. But for those of you who lean towards the theological, don't overlook the hard work that Hebrews and this particular text calls us into. Appreciate the fullness of the counsel of God. Recognize that this carries the authority of God's Word in what God calls us to do. Let's all seek in our lives to walk accordingly, knowing that our identity is already secured on Zion. Pray with me.

Gracious Heavenly Father, we recognize that there are many difficult things in your word. There are things of great difficulty for us to understand just what you're saying and what you're getting at. Then there are other things of a different kind of difficulty where you call us into really difficult things that are so counterintuitive and countercultural in how the world approaches these same things. Lord, I pray that we would see that these things are good, that these things accord with righteousness, that these things are things that you, the authoritative God of all creation, calls us into. As such, Lord, I pray that we would take these things seriously, that we would seek to walk according to your vision for hospitality and for marriage and for money and for compassion. Help us be a people that take your word seriously and walk according to it, and then also rest upon your grace when we fail. Lord, we ask all of this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.