Higher Heritage

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Two weeks ago, we began looking at heritage. We've been in a series called A Higher Heritage near the end of Hebrews, chapters 12 and 13. And we've been talking about a heritage as a collection of essential things that are handed down. We looked at it several different ways, but this morning, I want to pose a question to you about your own heritage. So I kind of want to get your thinking caps going just a little bit, and I want you to think about your own heritage. What kinds of things come out of your family heritage? What kinds of things come out in your family heritage? Maybe you can think about it in terms of words. In other words, in your family heritage, what did people end up saying? Maybe what were some common sayings in your home, if you can repeat them in public? What kind of, thank you, at least one of your family's cousin. Okay, what kind of idioms did you lean on?

My mom was very fond of saying, you can't stop breathing on account of not breathing right. That's very pithy, very wise to me. It made a lot of sense to me when I was like 10. But I've never forgotten it. She always used to say it. That really helped form kind of my heritage. Maybe more than words or different than words, maybe you think about it in terms of actions. How did your family typically spend their time? Did they spend it alone or did they spend it together? What was kind of the mixture? What did your family end up accomplishing together or alone? I didn't, for example, I didn't grow up fishing or camping or hunting or hiking. I was not raised in the outdoors. My dad has no stomach for that. And so I was very surprised after I got married. And my wife's family, they love camping. My wife grew up camping all over Colorado. She grew up in a hunting family, so she would go outside and see like,

you know, dead deer hanging on the swing set, you know? It's true, it's a true story. So, what, sorry, that was kind of a grisly image for, you know, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, whatever time it is. What kind of actions, what kind of skills were associated with your heritage? because heritage does come out in words and in actions. Heritage has a reality that it creates. You can't really escape it, okay? We've been considering these same kinds of questions, not about just our family heritage, but what comes out in words and actions for those who follow Jesus? What is the collection of essential things being handed down that essentially make us Christians, make us followers of Jesus? What is that? So far we've looked at two things. At the beginning of Hebrews 12, verses one through 11, we talked about a life of disciplined endurance. So this is discipline. We talked about discipline being training plus correction

plus nurture. Has to be all three of those things. And that we must endure that discipline from the Lord by resisting sin. And that if we receive discipline from the Lord, that means that we're actual legitimate children of the Lord. Last week we talked about a life of reverent obedience, that the way that we live our lives should carry a sobriety to it. We speak with our Creator and He speaks with us, and that is a holy thing that's not to be taken lightly. It's something that we should, out of gratitude, then obey. We should listen. We should worship with awe-inspired hearts, right? These are discipline, endurance, and reverend, obedience, those are things that we as followers of Jesus are essential. They are things that, for example, if I say to my children, hey I follow Jesus, but then I don't really ever engage in any kind of endurance, any kind of discipline, then I'm really short-changing

them. I'm not, they're not seeing that essential part of following Jesus being displayed in my life. Okay, so I just want to kind of get your head around where we have been because we're gonna add to that list today. We're gonna talk about another part of heritage and to do that we're gonna be in Hebrews 13. Hebrews chapter 13 we're gonna start in verse 1. We're only covering six verses today so for those lunch plans that started like right at 1130 you're gonna make it. Okay, it's gonna be awesome. Alright, Hebrews 13 verse 1 says, let brotherly love continue. Okay, that verse serves as a header for the rest of the chapter, okay, for all of chapter 13. It serves as a header. We're only, like I said, we're only going to be covering the first six verses, but we're going to look at those in detail. And this is what we find in 13.1, let brotherly love continue.

It's an expansion on the previous chapters that we've already covered in Hebrews. So in Hebrews 11, we saw this great hall of faith. We saw all these great saints that were displayed for us to see they held on to what was invisible and they were commended for it. Hebrews 12, these great saints are cheering us on to embrace the discipline of the Lord and to endure through the pain and to keep God's holiness in our sights, to listen and obey. Okay. So in 11 and 12, we've got a great cloud of witnesses. They're all encouraging us. They're all saying, Hey, Hey, make it go. You know, keep resisting sin, keep God's holiness in view. Listen and obey.

And in this last chapter, it's essentially saying if we are going to listen and obey, it is going to have a profound effect on our words and our actions, particularly with each other. In Hebrews chapter 13 verses 1 through 6, it focuses in on what it is like, what your life looks like when you listen and obey and when you do that within a community, what that looks like. So we're getting pretty detailed, pretty practical today. So for those of you who love practicality, you're in heaven this morning. Okay. Another way to say this, and another way that kind of this talks about, part of the essential collection of things handed down in the faith is the church itself. It's the actual church, the family, not the building. This is not the church. We are the church. According to the Bible, we are the church. The building is not. And the way that we build relationships, the words that we use, the way that we gain trust,

the way that we work together, even how we organize our time, what we end up doing, how we connect with people, all of this is part of the essential collection of things that is handed down from generation to generation. And so in this way, what we really should kind of focus on in this morning is that the gospel doesn't just bring life to us. The gospel shapes that life, shapes our shared life as a church. In other words, the gospel isn't just something you believed one time like you took a pill and now you're a Christian. The gospel is something that has a continual effect on you as you grow, and in particular, where we're going to be looking at this morning, as you grow into a church together, okay? That's what we're going to be looking at. And the New Testament actually goes through great links to talk about our church, our A Church this way. Colossians 3:13 says, bear with one another.

And if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other as the Lord has forgiven you. Philippians 2:2, be of the same mind, have the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Ephesians 4, 2 says, walk with humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love. Even Hebrews itself in chapter 3, verse 6, it talks about how we are God's house, the church body, the people. We're like living stones, it says in 1 Peter, chapter 2, right? We together are God's house. The way our family relates to one another is part of the heritage that we are passing down. Right? It's the church itself. Hebrews 13:1 is yet another sign that's pointing to that fact that the Holy Spirit is flowing through us as a church to follow Jesus and how we treat one another. So the verses that follow show, in a sense, they show this evidence of brotherly love. They're saying, here's what brotherly love comes out as in word and in action.

Okay? So verses two and three says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Talk about that in a second. Verse three, remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them and those who are mistreated, since you are also in the body. Okay, this do not neglect part here says don't neglect to show hospitality to strangers. The intention of this verse is to say while you're already being hospitable, while you're already being hospitable, make sure that you include strangers. The default in the Christian life is a hospitable home. Okay, and it's saying, look, it reinforces this idea of hospitality, but it extends brotherly love past your spiritual family into the lives of strangers. So what it's saying is, as a believer, you should be hospitable already to your church family, but don't neglect to even extend that past your church family

to strangers. Okay, there's a problem though, because today, most people do not have an open door policy, okay? We are not living in like 1920s America, where everybody just had their back door unlocked all the time, and people were really sweet all the time. We lock our doors, right? We don't have an open door policy. And truly, it's tough to have people over for various reasons. Some of those can be bad. Some of those can be the result of selfishness or anxiety or mistrust. But really, the truth is, in our society today, it is not common to see strangers wandering around looking for a house to go into. If anybody saw that, they'd call the cops. We don't see it. You don't see like, hey, what are you doing? I'm just wondering, hoping somebody would invite me to their home. We're like, okay, have fun with that. So, if there's not strangers wandering around, if there's not like a hotline we can call

to open up our home to strangers, if it doesn't really function that way in our society, then what do we do? What do we do with this command? In verse 2, in chapter 13 of Hebrews, well, regardless of cultural norms, maybe it's just enough for us to say that our church shows love by being generous with their time. Our church shows love by being generous with their time. We as a church, with each other and with people kind of beyond the spiritual family, we prioritize being present with other people. And this blends into, bleeds into the next verse where it says, remember those who are in prison, remember those who are mistreated. Two things really are gonna help us see this kind of as it was written here, the remember, when it says remember those who are in prison at the beginning of verse three, that remember isn't just have a thought, okay? That's not what that remember means.

It means providing physical needs. In other words, don't forget they're in prison. Prisons in that day often deprived their prisoners of things like food and clothing. And so if nobody was coming to bring them food, if nobody was coming to check in on them, give them medicine if they needed it, making sure they had fresh clothes, if nobody was doing that for them, then they weren't getting that from the prison. That's the situation they were in, in first century here. Prisons were really terrible places to be and they needed people to physically, others outside the prison to physically provide for them. And when it says that, remember those who are mistreated, remember those who are imprisoned, the specific implication is that these are people that are imprisoned or mistreated for the gospel in the church. It doesn't mean we don't need to visit prisoners. It just means that in these verses, the idea is, and you can see it since you are also

in the body, the idea is these are people that are from the church that is receiving this letter, you know, this Hebrews letter, the church had people that were being imprisoned in their church. They had people who were being mistreated, and we saw that evidence in Hebrews chapter 10 and in other places that mistreatment was going on. The people were being falsely accused, they were having their possessions taken away, and they were being thrown in jail. Okay? And what this verse is telling them to do is to say, if you want brotherly love to continue, you are going to have to extend yourself to be a physical supply line for people that don't have what they need. That's what it's going to look like for you to let brotherly love continue. But again, we run into a similar problem today. Because today, prisons, you get three hots and a cot. I mean, you got cable TV in a prison.

I'm not saying it's a spa, but I'm saying nobody's hurting for the next meal. Okay. It's not like it was in the first century. Prisons operate differently. Additionally, I don't know of anybody, and I could be wrong. I don't know of anybody personally that is imprisoned for their faith, or especially somebody that's part of our body. Now, if I'm, if I'm overlooking somebody, please let me know. But I, I just haven't seen it, right? Like it's not here. So what do we do with this verse? What do we do? The principle here is that, and I already alluded to it, is that churches show love, we show love, brotherly love, by tending to physical needs. Because we don't currently have anybody in prison, but we do have people that are sick. We don't currently have people that are being, their goods are being plundered by the government of Burleson, okay, that's not happening.

But we do have people with needs that far exceed our own. And it's not just physical needs, but it does include physical needs. And so what do you see in these two verses? You see that there is a sacrifice of time that is happening. In other words, brotherly love works itself out in giving. It works itself out in generosity. And this can really push against our American sensitivities. Okay?

You can learn a lot about a heritage or about a culture by listening to what their proverbs say. So I brought you this morning some proverbs from other countries. Okay? All right? So I will give you one proverb and then I'll let you try to guess the country. Okay? It'll be like Jeopardy. You have like jeopardy, but you don't have to do it in the phrase of a question. This is a country that is known for pacifism and neutrality, and here's their saying. It says, when a stone leaves your hand, it belongs to the devil. That's their saying in the country. When a stone leaves your hand, it belongs to the devil. Any guesses? Switzerland. That's exactly right. Exactly right. So in Switzerland, they are fond of saying, hey, don't throw that stone. You don't know where it's going to go. You don't know what kind of evil it's going to cause. Don't throw the stone. And it's interesting because it's a country that's known for not engaging in war.

Another country known for social conformity, and they will say, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. There's some China guesses. actually Japan. I think it's still common to say in China, but that actually originated from the country of Japan. So even in Japan, which is way more westernized than China, even in that culture, there's a lot of social conformity. There's a lot of pressure to conform to family constraints, to social constraints, and so they say the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. What do we say in America? We say the squeaky wheel gets the oil. That's the exact opposite. You understand? So just by what's being said, you can still learn a lot. I'll give you one more and I won't tell you anything about it. So here's the saying, everything has an end, only the sausage has two. Yes! Germany! Everything has an end, only the sausage has two, which is very funny.

Yeah, it's very cool. Everything has an end, only the sausage has two. It's Germany. Man, what are they known for? Yeah, well, sausage, but also pragmatism, also kind of the simple elegance of things, right? They're not too poetic, right? Everything has an end. Sausage has two. So we understand that. In America, we have different things that we say. We say the early bird. Okay? And if we're talking with somebody and it's, we might say something like, the ball is in your court, right? In America, we celebrate competition and winning, even with our idioms, even with the sayings that go around. We prize meritocracies, right? The people that do the best jobs, should get paid the most, should have the most seniority, right? Like, we prize those things. competition, winning, this command to be generous with what we have with people that do not seemingly deserve it, strangers and prisoners and those who are mistreated, it pushes against

us getting ahead. It pushes against us being in competition with one another and winning against one another. It's cooperative, not competitive. And maybe on another level there is an unspoken understanding in our culture. And sometimes people say it out loud, a lot of times it's kind of understood in between two people and it says it's something like this. I won't infringe on your freedom, you don't infringe on mine, and we'll be just fine. I don't tell you what to do, you don't tell me what to do, and we'll get along like peas and carrots. Okay? This is a very kind of an American ideal and we all subscribe to that to some degree or another. And when we read these verses and we say that brotherly love means taking things that could allow us to get ahead. Money, opportunity, time, resources. We could use those things on ourselves. What scripture is saying, be generous with those things to people, not just

in your spiritual circle. Yes, definitely people in your spiritual family, people in your church, but even beyond that, that the hallmark of your church should be generosity with people that cannot scratch your back, so to speak. They can't help out in any way. The gospel motivates us to live differently. This isn't just a finger wag, right? This is an outflow of the gospel, Because in the gospel, we are given more than we deserve. The Lord God in heaven, our creator, is very generous with us. The gospel says, while we were yet sinners, Christ died. The gospel says we are given everything we need for life and godliness. That we give, in other words, we give because we are given to. We are generous because the Lord was first generous with us. that we sacrifice because Jesus sacrificed for us. Being a church is a sacrificial investment of time, money, relationships, opportunity.

It may require you to take off work earlier to deliver a meal to somebody who is sick. It might require you to rearrange your schedule to visit somebody in the hospital or just to visit somebody over coffee. It requires a sacrifice of how you prioritize everything else in your life. Yes, and amen. That is difficult. But when we really get a hold of this truth, it's not just a finger wag. It's not just a you should spend your time different. That's not what the gospel does because when we really get a hold of that, when we really get a hold of the truth, that in Jesus that we have been given way more than we deserve, then we find true joy in giving of ourselves to other people. We find true joy in being generous with what we have. And so I just invite you for a second right here, scrutinize how you invest your time. And maybe ask it this way. Outside of normal obligations, right?

Outside of those normal obligations of just like, I don't know, man, feeding your family, going to work, prepping, normal stuff like that. Outside of all that, who gets your time? Who gets your time? And then ask, how much do they get? I realize everybody's got busy weeks, we're all busy. We're Americans, we're busy. If the only time you see your church family is on a Sunday morning when you're here, you might need to rethink how you're spending that time. We don't all need to be in everybody's living rooms every night of the week. That's not what I'm asking for, right? But just like Daniel Oster was preaching a couple of weeks ago when he talked about Hebrews 10 and he's saying, listen, there's times whenever you're just going to show up on somebody's doorstep like I did with Riley. Here's the reality though. Here's the reality, the other side of that story.

I did show up and knock on the oaster's door and say like, hey, we're here. There were two things that Daniel Oster left out, not intentionally, but he left out of that story. One is I had a book to give him, okay? Now I could have given him that book at any old time, but I just thought, I'm gonna give him that book. I'm gonna just hand deliver it, just to hand deliver it, right? to kind of show appreciation and love for my brother. Additionally, Riley, who drove me there, needed driving hours because she's trying to get her license, okay? So a full hour of Bertilson and back, that is great driving, okay? That's some good experience at night, on the highway. Come on, man. All I'm saying is this. Yeah, I showed up on the Osage doorstep. But yeah, it worked out for me too, okay? I'm saying we all have obligations, things that we need to do. There's ways that we can creatively meet those obligations and include people with them,

or there's a way that we can just meet those obligations and they can just be cold and separated from the rest of our life and all of that. So look, if you've got a dog to walk, walk into somebody else's house and knock on their door. If you've got to deliver a meal, if you have to do something, take somebody with you. If you have to visit somebody in the hospital, see if somebody else can go with you and visit them with you. I know if I was in the hospital and just one of you came, I mean that's okay, but if two of you come, that's basically a party. My encouragement is, look, it's not something that you need to add on. You don't need to have another hospitality schedule in Google Calendar that's overlaid on top of the soccer schedule, that's overlaid on top of the volunteering at the things schedule that's layered on top of the other, the work schedule, the family schedule.

I'm not trying to add another schedule on that. I'm saying it's that schedule that you can find ways to be with other people. Just today, just this morning, like I planned it, but I didn't. I was talking to Trevor Harrington, and Trevor said, I'm wrestling on Tuesday. Do you want to come? I just thought, well, now I do. You're like, that you invited me. I definitely want to come now. And then I hear the Osters talking to each other, not including me in that conversation. And they were just saying to each other like, hey, Trevor's wrestling before Emma's game, Emma's basketball game. And that's at 6.30. And I just thought to myself, okay, like I might have that time to go to Trevor's wrestling match and to go to Emma's basketball game. And that's, I'm already on this side of town. Like I live 25 minutes from here, but I'm already on this side of town. Can I rearrange my day?

Can I get creative to be there for a wrestling match and a basketball game, right? Can I do that? The answer is yeah, I totally can do that. Yes. Is that going to make me have another conversation with my family about how I'm going to spend my time that week? Sure. Did my wife just find out about all those plans? Yes. She just did. She's wearing it so well. But it's just, it's organic. Does that make sense? Like it doesn't, we don't need to schedule that 15 weeks in advance for it to happen, right? There's just a way to run into each other's lives and it's good and it's normal. Our encouragement here is to let brotherly love continue by being generous with our time, to be generous with our physical presence. Like, so yeah, and I think Daniel preached it very well. Hebrews 10, 25, when it's talking about like, don't neglect meeting together. Yeah, Sunday morning, yes.

Our spiritual family physically gathers on a Sunday morning. Yes, don't miss this time. If you can be here, please be here. Yes, yes, yes, and amen. But that also includes just other normal times during the week and you're already busy doing stuff. Be busy with other people. It's a little easier than you think. That's only half. We've only gotten halfway through these verses. So I'm gonna keep going quickly, okay?

There's another way that brotherly love works itself out, not just in giving, not just the gospel motivating us to invest time in others. Verse 4 and 5 shows that there's another way to let it continue. It says, 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 the love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Okay, it is hard to notice in these verses, but in the original language, the tone changes significantly from verses two and three, where we're talking about giving, to verses four, five, and six, where we're talking about guarding, okay? So in these verses, you're talking about guarding. So in the first two, in the first two encouragements, I don't wanna get lost in the language stuff here,

but they're basic imperatives and they read much like they're printed there. So don't neglect hospitality, remember prisoners and those mistreated. It's pretty straightforward, right? So do these things. In these two things, it is much sharper in its delivery because it is simply an adjective and a noun. And it generates this really sharp rhythm if you're reading it in the original language. So basically, I mean, this isn't exactly what it does, but it basically says honor, marriage, not honor as an imperative, honor as an adjective. Sorry. So that's not a good example. Here would be the next one. Greed, resistant, your life, content, stuff. That's That's exactly how it's written, okay? I'm not even making it up. So it's saying, honorable marriage, greed resistant, your life, content stuff. The reason it's being so kind of staccatic, it's such a hard rhythm, is because unlike

the first two, which is almost an appeal to be generous, right, to overflow, to go on talk. This is much more like stand on the wall, guard other people's lives. Brotherly love works itself out in guarding just as much as it works itself out in giving. In other words, if we truly love one another, we're going to stop each other from ruining our marriages. Men in my life group, I take your sexual purity personally, and I hope you take mine personally. These aren't things that we need to be shy about. These aren't things that we need to be casual about. These are things that we need to stand on the wall and guard against on behalf of each other. In fact, I mean, really, not just to my life group, to all the church, my sexual purity should be a matter of your concern. Okay? Putting it mildly. My sexual purity, you should care a lot about that. And really, I should care a lot as your pastor

about your marriages, even your potential ones. I should care a lot about that. I do care a lot about that. But that should come out in words and actions, right? In other words, I'm not just saying, yeah, marriage is really important. But it really is to say, no, no. Your marriage, your sexual purity is important to me. The way that you are conducting yourself,

conducting your life, it's uncomfortable, I understand it's uncomfortable. Some of you were like, want to cover your kids' ears, don't just be okay. We're not gonna keep, we're not gonna go down that road any further. But we must not be shy about discussing issues related to marriage. We must not be shy discussing issues related to sexual purity. In verses 5 and 6, there's a little bit more guarding that goes on to protect each other from loving money. It is extremely surprising how often the Bible warns against loving money. So Jesus in Matthew 6, you can't serve God and wealth at the same time. Mark 10, it's difficult for a wealthy man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. First Timothy 3, church leaders, as it's listing adjectives or listing qualifications for being a church leader, not being greedy for dishonest gain is one of the things that leaders can't be.

Can't be greedy. You can't do it. You can't love money. And the 1 Timothy 6 10 is the classic reference. It says, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. It is difficult to overstate how much the love of money can redirect your life down a completely different path. Because when you are going to chase money thinking it's going to give you what you want, thinking there's some kind of salvation in it, it will only disappoint you and you will only ignore everything else but that in the pursuit of it.

It is, 1 Timothy 6, 10 says that people have wandered away from the faith because they are chasing money because they love it. And the reality is, I know what Scripture says, The scripture says you love money. What you really love when you love money is what it can afford you. What you love when you love money is the ability to call your own shots, to do whatever you wanna do with it, to build your own kind of life, to direct however you want things to go, you get to do it because you make the money. The love of money is not just loving green paper. The love of money is kind of a blown up version of the love of yourself. When it comes to guarding, whether it be sexual purity or the love of money, or guarding from the love of money, we want to avoid those painful discussions. We don't want to seem judgy or preachy. We don't want to seem holier than thou. Ooh, I remember the first time I was accused of being holier than thou.

That was not a fun moment of my life. I was in youth group. There was a girl that was two seats away from me and she was talking very loudly. the sermon was going on. And I just looked at her and I was like, shh, she was like, she just shot me the worst look and then told me later that I was being holier than now for telling her to be quiet in church. I'm sure I did think I was holier than her, but she was really mean for saying it. I don't like guarding as much as the next guy. Guarding, standing on somebody else's wall is uncomfortable, especially when they don't want you there, right? It feels like you're infringing upon them. But again, this is where the gospel comes in, right? The message of the gospel at its core is that you were saved from the worst of a life. Let me just say it differently. You You weren't just saved from the final punishment from sin.

You were. Glory. You were. We were in the gospel. Yes, we were saved from final punishment. But the gospel also saves you from futility. The gospel also saves you from a meaningless life. It saves you from facing life's biggest questions with no answer at all. It saves you from that. It supplies you with the things that you need to face the future so that when you worry about your kid's future, you're not just paralyzed. You're not just wondering what to do next. The gospel supplies you with an active hope. It saves you from a joyless drudgery. In adult Bible study, we were talking about joy this morning, right? Being thankful for these big things that, or even the little things that we receive that are good, right? The gospel saves you from a joyless life. It doesn't just save you from sin and the final penalty. Yes, it does, but it saves you from all these other things.

Because of the gospel, then, through the gospel, we can understand, we can have the courage to build into someone else's life that kind of guarding, that kind of care, knowing that that we are part of their salvation process. We're part of them looking more like Jesus. That in other words, what we're doing is for their good, even if they don't see it. Even if they're mad at you for the rest of their life. You can still hang your hat on the fact that you loved them in a moment that was difficult for them to be loved. I had a friend, a common friend with my friend sister-in-law, right? So her name is Kelly. And Kelly ran away from her husband, very young and kind of spoiled brat. So there you have it. That's why she ran away because she couldn't do whatever she wanted. So she ran off away from her husband. And like I said, common friend, we were all kind of the same friend group. But my sister-in-law, Jessica,

knew her very well. When Kelly left her husband, she began dating another person in that friend group, Derek. So Kelly began dating Derek and there's all this pressure now in the friend group to say, oh, that's so good. Really glad you guys found happiness. Or oh, hey, you know, really, really hope the best for you guys. But nobody, nobody in the friend group wanted to approach Kelly and Derek and say, what you're doing is wrong.

Kelly, you need to go back to your husband. And this wasn't an abuse situation. This wasn't an infidelity situation on his end. This wasn't anything. She had no reason to leave, basically. And my sister-in-law, God bless her, called her on the phone and said, Kelly, what you are doing is wrong. and you need to stop and you need to go back to your husband." And that phone call ended quickly and not well. It was not the best conversation that they've ever had, and they've been friends a while at that point. About nine months later, Kelly, through other circumstances, realizes she's doing something dumb. It took her about nine months to figure it out. She goes back to her husband. She repents. She feels bad, all of that. And when she did that, she called my sister-in-law, she called Jessica and said, I want you to know you were the only one to tell me what I needed to do.

You were the only one who stood up and said, what you're doing is wrong and you need to go back to your husband. And because you did that, it gave me the strength to go back to my husband. I just say that to encourage you, that's a true story. I say that to encourage you this way. What kind of church do we wanna be? Are we gonna be the kind of church that's just going to, hey, I won't bother you if you don't bother me and we're all gonna be okay if we just applaud each other when it's convenient? Or are we gonna put ourselves in specific relationships where they can say things to you that you don't like and you need to say things to them that you don't like? But it's because you're guarding. Are we going to be the kind of church that whenever somebody is sick, or when somebody is in need, or somebody just needs a listening ear, are we going to be the kind of church

that's going to sit down and invest that time and listen? Are we going to show up to somebody's house and we're going to hear about it? Are we going to visit them in the hospital? What kind of church are we going to be? We got that choice. You make that choice every day with how you spend your time. And I know, I know it might seem pretty insignificant, your calendar, right? But it's not. It's actually of extreme importance. It's actually the way that Hebrews 13, 1-6 describes you letting brotherly love continue. In the gospel, we can let it continue. In the gospel, we have been given and we have been guarded from everything that we need. We've been given more than we need, and we've been guarded from everything that's going to ultimately cause us despair and erode our souls. The gospel's done those things, and it encourages us to do those things with each other.

What kind of church are we going to be? Are we going to be a Hebrews 13 church? Or are we just going to be some plain old American church? Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for this warning. We prayed that you would help us to be the kind of church that you are calling us to be, to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, the gospel that gives us more than we deserve, the gospel that guards us from things that truly hurt us. Help us to love generously, to give and to guard. Give us the courage to do both. That's your name that we pray. Amen. As we sing this last song, I'm gonna be up here. And if you wanna make a decision for the Lord, yeah, you can stand up. If you would like to make a decision, I'm gonna be standing right here and I would love to talk with you and pray with you if you wanna do anything like that. So as we pray and sing, I pray that you would be in prayer

to see what the Lord is calling you to do. Oh soul are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see There's light for a look at the saviour Light more abundant and free And turn your eyes upon Jesus Looked for in his wonderful face And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of His glory and grace Through death into life, evermore Sing He passed and we followed Him there Over us in no more hath dominion More than conquerors we are And turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in his wonderful face, And the things of earth will reach the dip, In the light of his glory and grace. His word shall not fail you, He promised. Believe Him, now will be wed and go to a word that is done. His perfect salvation to tell. And turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in his wonderful face And the things of earth will grow strange, We do in the light of his glory and grace

And the things of earth will go strangely dear, In the light of His glory and grace. Second Peter 2, 3-4 says, His divine power has granted us, has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence by which He has granted to us in His precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Amen. Amen.