Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast. If you're seeking a closer relationship with
Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you. Thank you for joining us today.
You know, three weeks ago, whenever I was preparing the message, I practiced it and it took
70 minutes. But I had three weeks to shorten it. So praise the Lord. We're in Hebrews
chapter 13 this morning. We're going through the first seven verses. If you have your
love, let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby
some have entertained angels on a wares. Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with
them and those who are mistreated since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in
honor among all and let the marriage bed be under filed for God will judge the sexually
moral and adulterous. 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 so we can confidently say, the Lord is
my helper, I will not fear. What can may undo to me? Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you
the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Lord, we
thank you for this word this morning. We thank you that you've been preparing something. You've
been preparing our hearts for three cold weeks. So Lord, today as I teach this message, God, I pray
that your spirit would just let it do a work. This wouldn't be me talking, but this would just be
your spirit moving in our hearts this morning that you would teach us how to walk a life of faith
in you. So we just pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Let brotherly love continue, continue. Notice
he doesn't say start or begin, but he says continue. In our new nature as disciples to Jesus, he
teaches us, our good teacher Jesus teaches us this first principle which is the principle of love.
He teaches us how John 1513, greater love has no one than this that someone laid down his life
for his brother. He teaches us who and Matthew 543, not just those that are kind to you, but he
says to love your enemies. But this love, this principle, it is also what identifies us as disciples
of Jesus. Jesus said, they will know you are my disciples by your love for one another.
Whenever we are abiding in this love, and first John says that God abides in us, it is an
identification, a marker of whether or not we are actually abiding in the Lord. So he is not just
go and show love. He is saying, wake up today in the identity of the new nature that God gave you
through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Be who I made you to be. That is what the Lord is teaching
us through this. This first verse is the hinge for the rest of the seven verses, six verses.
It is where everything has to come from, an identity of a disciple of Jesus, which is to love
our brothers and sisters in Christ. So it all starts here in verse 1. Let brotherly love continue.
Did you know that you were given a new nature, a nature of the Spirit, a nature that is from the
Holy Spirit. That is what it tells us in 1 Corinthians. It says in 619, do you not know that your body
is a temple of the Holy Spirit? The God who created the universe dwelling in ordinary Christians
like you and like me. Not in a temple in Jerusalem, but right here in this room in us.
I'm not asking do you know that up here. I'm asking do you know that here in your hearts.
Did you wake up today walking in the identity that he gave you as a child of God, as an image bearer?
You see, when we actually start to walk in just this first verse, we get to take part in the greatest
redemption story of all time. Children of God displaying his image. You see, in the garden when
God created Adam and Eve, he said they were created in my image. And when they chose to disobey,
when they chose, I'm actually going to take it up, when they chose to walk away and sin and be
that God gave them, they were rejecting that image that they were given and they were turning
to a new image, the self-image. And boy, have we struggled with that image ever since? In today's
age, we are all about creating, building, branding our self-image. Who am I? And how can I love
myself better? But let me just say that a life of faith in Christ is a life with no self-image
problems because you choose not to have one at all, but rather to take hold of the image of God
again. You decide not to love yourself, but to obey what it says in Philippians,
and love others as more important than ourselves. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,
but in humility, count others more significant than yourself. That's Philippians 2-3.
This is why everything that we're about to read hinges here, because if we miss our identity
in Jesus as disciples, which he defined as loving each other, our brothers and Christ,
our sisters in Christ, loving the body that's right here in this room, then we can't obey
verses 2-6. It becomes impossible. And so then we get to verse 2, though. And we take hold of
that identity of disciples, of Jesus, of those that love. And then he says, do not neglect
to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels.
So we take the identity and then we turn it into action. We move outward with it.
I was listening to David Guzick. He has a study Bible. You can find it on Blue Letter Bible,
if you've ever heard of that. It's a good resource for understanding and knowing the word of God.
And David Guzick has a great commentary. And he gave a really good application. I shared it in the
car with my wife, actually, on the way here. If you don't know how to be hospitable to strangers,
just look around in this room, the chances are there's someone here that you don't know,
which makes them a stranger. You can take them out to lunch today and be hospitable.
And I don't know a lot of you. So if you want to take my family out to lunch today, then
just, this is the word of God, you know. That's not coming for me.
We were trying to figure out how do we get a free lunch today?
Thank you Lord.
All right.
Don't just take hold of who you are, but now do what you are called to do.
Another identity that God gives us in Scripture is his children. And whenever you're reading
through the Bible, you'll notice that there's lots, especially in the Old Testament, there's lots
of commandments for his children, for the adults. Let me be more clear. But when it comes
to kids, more specifically, children that are young, there's really only one commandment
ever given to them. Do you know what it is?
Obey. Obey. Well, if we're the children of God, then the commandment is the same for us.
Obey. And so take your identity, wake up tomorrow and say, I am a child of God and therefore
I'm going to obey. I'm a disciple of Jesus and therefore I'm going to love.
There was a story in Luke, the Gospel of Luke in chapter 10, a lawyer came up to Jesus
and lawyers and Pharisees and all the other Sadducees. And there's a lot of Cs back then.
He came up to Jesus and he's trying to entrap him and trick him and get him to mess up.
So that way they could prove he's not so great. He's not who he says he is or claims to be
the Son of God. And he comes to Jesus and he says, teacher, what is the greatest commandment?
And it's great because in Matthew, Jesus gives an answer to him, but in the Gospel of Luke,
he just turns it right on him. And I love it because this guy is a lawyer and a Jewish lawyer,
meaning he isn't studying the law of community but the law, the Torah, the law of the Lord, right?
And so he should know what the greatest commandment is. And so Jesus turns it on him.
It's like, well, what do you think it is? I mean, you're a lawyer for Pete's sake. You should know,
he didn't say it like that. He's a lot more gentle. And this is what the lawyer said.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your
mind, and your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus is like, well done, man, correct. Do this and you will
have life. And then it says that the man wanted to justify himself. And so he said, well, who's my neighbor?
That's how I always picture these guys talking. And this is where Jesus gives the story of this
Samaritan man, which many of you have probably already heard, but I'm just going to tell it to you
one more time. The Samaritan man is a story of this guy that is traveling to Jericho from Jerusalem
and he's met by robbers and they come to him and they beat him and they steal everything that he
has and they leave him bruised and beaten on the roadside. But then comes along a priest,
a man that knows the word of God, knows that we're called to love our neighbors. And so what does he do?
Well, he actually doesn't do what we might think. He turns and he scurries along and he avoids
the man on the side of the road. But then comes another religious man and the same thing.
Turns down walks past as quickly as he can. But then Jesus says, then came a Samaritan man
and Jesus defines him as a foreigner in the context of what we're reading right here.
And this man doesn't scurry by. He actually looks down and he goes over to the man and he cares
for him. He cleans his wounds. He puts him on his donkey. He takes him actually to the next town
and he puts him in an inn and he pays for him to be there and he takes care of him.
So much so that he actually gives the innkeeper money to care for him because he's got a job,
he's got things to sell. He's got things to do and he has to keep going. But he's going to come
back and he tells the innkeeper, spend whatever you need to care for him and I'll pay you back
when I return. And then Jesus finishing this story, turns to the lawyer and he says,
which of these three men do you think proved to be the neighbor to the man that was robbed?
And this is what he said, the one who showed him mercy and Jesus response,
you go and do likewise.
Let me just read verse two again, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers
or thereby some have entertained angels and wares.
Do not neglect. Why did he say do not neglect? Why didn't he just say show hospitality to
strangers? Because whoever wrote this and we don't necessarily know who wrote Hebrews,
but we know it was a human being that had a nature like you and me
that knew that it's easy to neglect people, especially people we don't know.
I don't know about you, but it, when I wake up in the spirit of the Lord in my right identity,
it's not a challenge to love my wife. It's not a challenge to love on my friends that love on me
when they're going through hard times. I'll gladly go and sit with them and be with them and
love on them, but there is just something that happens. Maybe you have an experience this,
I have a feeling we probably all have though this conversation that starts to happen in our brain
when we're walking on the street perhaps and we see that stranger dirty. I'm 25 feet away
and I can already smell a stink. And I don't know Lord, please, no. I don't want to go over there
and I'm not going to give him money because let's be honest, he is on something right now.
If I give him money, he's just going to get more on something and that's not the right choice.
Like I don't want to wreck his life even more and he looks young and strong and healthy
he could probably get a job and now I'm 25 feet away so it would just be embarrassing to turn around.
Does this happen to anybody else? Anybody else have this dialogue?
What were you like when Jesus showed you mercy? What did your life look like when Jesus showed you
hospitality? When Jesus came to you and said I have new life for you, I have redemption waiting
for you. I want to show you mercy. I want to dwell in you. You see all it would take is me to just
see that person, that stranger and go and just sit down for a moment and just say hey,
my name is Danny and I woke up today and I know who I am. I love by Jesus. I'm a child of God
and he is dwelling in me and he has restored me and he has renewed me and he has given me hope for
my future and I don't know if anybody's told you this but he wants to dwell on you too
and he wants to restore you and renew you and give you hope. A dollar will not change that person's
but that will change their eternity. Amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. But it's hard to do and so he says don't
neglect it because he knows we will. All right now it's going to be really challenging. He just kind
heightens it each verse. Verse 3, remember those who are in prison. Actually let me just
pause and go back really quick because that last part thereby some have entertained angels. I'm
not going to get into stories with that. There are stories in the Old Testament for example with
Abraham where these three guys came to him and strangers but he invited them in and he gave
them a meal and they ended up being angels and there's people in in your lifetime that have
probably had stories like this. Maybe you have a story like this but maybe you're like me and you
haven't had a story like that but God is so gracious in loving that he knows this is hard and so he
just puts a carrot out for us to chase. He gives us some motivation like hey if it's challenging
for you to show hospitality to strangers just think of it this way. You might be entertaining in
angel and do it. Okay now we'll do verse 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. Okay we take verse one we
take the identity as disciples of Jesus those that love our fellow Christian and then we put it
action and we choose not to neglect showing love and that word by the way for hospitality when
it translates from Hebrew it translates as love to strangers that's it but then he takes it a little
bit further and not just any stranger. I want you to show that love and take your identity of love
and give it to those in the most desperate need. Those behind bars those that have been mistreated
and there's really really simple easy lay up application to this if you want to do ministry Jim
could you stand so people could just see your face. I'm sorry I know but it's so important because
there's so much opportunity in this church to serve and Jim takes people and Isaiah they will
take you to a prison and you can actually minister to people behind bars and if you know Jerry Dover
you can go to Philly and you can minister to some people that have been mistreated. There's some
really easy application but there's other application there's spiritual application here too
because I don't know if you know this or not but we live in a filthy world full of sin
and people all around us are in prison in prison behind bars of sin that they can't get out of.
You see the only thing that unlocks spiritual prison doors is Jesus is the only key into that door
and we have him right here to offer to people through hospitality the love of strangers.
And so we're taking that hospitality not just to the stranger that will benefit my life
not just to the stranger that it makes me feel good to help them not just to the strangers in
this room but to the strangers that really are in need. Another way that we're talked about
as Christians we're talked about as disciples as his children but we're also described as being
in a body and Paul talks about this a lot of times and one of his letters he talks about
if you had a cut on your body let's say you have a cut on your leg what same person would not
tend to that cut what same person would not mend the wound and care for their body even if it's
in a peculiar place on your body that it really doesn't affect the functioning of your day-to-day
life who would not go and care for that part of the body well we are all in a body right now this
is the body of Christ and if there's somebody that is bleeding there's somebody that is hurting
and in need it would be foolish of us not to care for our own body you see your problems are
my problems and my problems are your problems because we're all in the same body of Christ
and there's people out there that are stuck and mistreated and need to feel loved
like have you ever have you ever just gone through something hard and
no needs are necessarily met in sense of supply comes but sometimes someone will just come and sit
with you and pray for you and just love on you and they don't give you anything no financial support
no whatever it is that your need is but they just pray for you and don't you just feel like wow
someone actually cares for me through this that is so uplifting
in one of the epistles of course though it says care for their needs also
remember don't neglect and remember
there are so many people that feel forgotten that need a love of Jesus and so he calls us to
remember them we can do that both in prayer and we can do that in action and if you want to be
even more like Christ doing both at the same time
and then we get to verse four is where it gets really uncomfortable
let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for God will judge
the sexually immoral and adulterous now i'm a young teacher so talking about sexual immorality is
still uncomfortable for me you know it's like oh this is so am i allowed to talk about this
but you know what i love at the first part of this let marriage be held in honor among all
all why do you say all why not let marriage be honored among the husband and wife of the marriage
but now he's saying oh the whole body of Christ the whole church here is the honor marriage
not just me and my wife but everybody whether you're married or unmarried
we're disciples we're children
we're a body and then Jesus gives us another one and Ephesians and he says that we're a bride
and Ephesians five i think you know this one husbands love your you can say it with me
wives submit to your husbands just as the church submits to Christ he gives us a new picture that
we are in a marriage right now if you've given your life to Jesus then you became the bride of
Christ and you are in the greatest marriage of all time and so he says honor that marriage
that means honor your relationship with God but also honor marriages here on earth because God
set up marriage to be a picture of the gospel he designed it to be a reflection of our relationship
with him and when we dishonor it we're dishonoring the gospel
and if you don't know what I mean by dishonor just read the second half of the earth it's
pretty clear but it starts with love and this is challenging isn't it like husbands
did you perfectly love your wives this week maybe the wives can answer that one
probably not I know I didn't why did you perfectly submit unto your husbands this week
probably right yeah
of course you did this is really hard it's hard to honor marriage but it's so important because
marriage is the pinnacle of the church this is just if you want to test then if you're married
and you want to see the church grow in spiritual maturity then start growing in spiritual maturity
in your marriage and you'll actually start to see the church around you grow with you
and if you don't believe me that's okay just try it take the next 35 years and put it to test
thanks Frank I practiced that one a lot
when we're walking in our identity and we know who we are
this this becomes just an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to honor our marriages
and another simple application I mean if you're not married and you're like well how do I do this
I mean one don't get in between anybody's marriage don't come flirt with my wife
I won't be flirting with your wife
but also don't do the thing that God designed for marriage outside of marriage
and again just refer to the second half of the verse if you don't know what I'm talking about
first five 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
I think we're gonna be a lot shorter than 70 minutes guys this is going pretty well
keep your life free from the love of money okay wait a minute he said verse 1 love verse 2 love
verse 3 love verse 4 love verse 5 don't love do not love money there's another verse
the scriptures that says you cannot have two masters you'll either hate the one and love the
other or love the one and hate the other and then this where it gets good it ends with therefore
you cannot love both God and money and money is it's something else isn't it
it's like one of the only things in here that is always attested to the opposite of the thing
that we're supposed to love like we're supposed to only love God and it's constantly being brought
up as the other thing that we find ourselves loving there's another time in the gospels where
Jesus is giving a parable it gives the parable the sower which you may have heard he talks about this
farmer he was actually called a sower but I don't know that means I'm just putting it in modern
day he's a farmer and he's out throwing seed and it says that he throws his seed on three
different types of soil the first soil is rocky soil and the seed goes into the ground and it grows
up but because it's rocky and there's not good strong firm foundation there the sun comes out
scorches it and it withers away and then he sews it on soil that is surrounded by weeds
and thorn bushes and this one takes hold of the ground and it gets probably a strong root
but it grows up and the thorns and the weeds choke it out and then finally he sews it
good soil and the good soil the seed goes in and it grows and it creates a beautiful harvest
and the disciples of Jesus like me are kind of like hearing this parable and they're like wow that's
a good story what in the world does it mean and so they turn to me like Jesus what does this mean
and lucky for them and us he actually tells them exactly what it means and he says the first soil
rocky soil is when we sow the seed of the gospel and it's recede with much joy but then hardship
comes and their faith withers away because they were a rocky foundation not a firm foundation
and then the soil that was or the weed and thorn soil is when the gospel is given and it's received
but this is what Jesus says and I want you to just focus on this part but the worries of this
and here it is and the deceitfulness of riches choke them out so why love love love love but don't
love money why do we have to keep ourselves from this because there is nothing that will choke out
faith in Jesus faster than a love of money because it is deceitful we go to it to comfort us
assuming that our identity can be found in it but every time we turn to it we're turning away from
the first identity that he gave us the image of the Lord and we're going to receive
comfort instead of going to our comforter I don't know like we're in a really prosperous country
I know it doesn't always feel that way but like go to Turkey and quickly you realize my wife and I
spent time in Indonesia and there's this beautiful lady that would come and watch our daughter
and she had no kitchen for how many years was it five years no kitchen she had just it's just
the houses there are just basically cement blocks with no roofs and I mean I don't even make a lot
of money but we were rich over there because we're American and we have great prosperity here even
if you're poor you're rich here compared to the rest of the world and we can be so caught up in
it and so disillusioned by it to think that we don't need God because our needs are met
all right half of that
what's the antidote how do we then keep ourselves free from loving money well he tells us
and this isn't easy to do but it is how you do it be content with what you have
I am far too young for this but any of you guys remember Sears catalogs
yeah I don't but we had when I was good they Amazon was already up and running and so we had
Amazon catalogs basically it's not really called that but trying to relate to you guys
um but there it's yeah it's a magazine and and we'd sit there as a kid and you probably
remember this you just flip through those pages and you look at all the things you want for Christmas
well here's the problem we're still doing it as grown adults aren't we
not through a Sears catalog or a Amazon magazine we do it on our phones all the time
we look at the better life that somebody has the expensive vacation the car the house
the job the income the relationship and it gets so easy to want and want and want
so you know what wanting what everyone else has is how we find ourselves discontent
was what we have so if you want to start being content we have to practice
not wanting Jesus actually said don't worry about anything I'll care for all your needs
that's really hard to live out I'm still trying to figure that one out but he said it
and when we understand this he highlights this verse right here I will never leave you
nor forsake you when we can understand that and bathe ourselves in that and wake up every single
day knowing that we have a God that will not leave us or forsake us then being content
becomes so easy because I don't need anything God's going to take care of me he's not ever
going to leave me you know he only forsake one person and that person died on the cross for you
and he's not forsaken anymore and he's never going to forsake you
and when we get to walk in this this is our identity guys this is the identity of Jesus Christ
that he offered to us new life and then we get to verse six which is really exciting because when
we start to walk all of this out and we understand that he's never going to leave us
we get to have confidence or a Chris said a couple weeks ago Godfidence confidence in the Lord
and so we can confidently say the Lord is my helper I will not fear what can man do to me
they can beat you and they can rob you but they can't take your eternity
now how do we do this we're going to wrap up with this last verse
time really flies when you're standing up here I'll tell you what it's dangerous
keep looking at that clock I like oh boy
remember your leaders those who spoke to you the Word of God consider the outcome of their way
of life and imitate their faith how do we wake up every day knowing and walking in this identity
of love because it's hard it really is a challenge well this is how we do it we remember we
consider and we imitate we look at people that have walked the life of faith ahead of us
and we actually slow down enough to consider what the outcome was and then we emulate that kind of
faith and I'm going to finish with a story and the worship team you can come forward
this is a story about a husband and wife Jim and Elizabeth Elliot you guys know them
they were incredible we had this room growing up it was our family room home school family of
eight kids and this family room it was the room that everything happened in school wrestling
blowing things up but also reading we had a library on the back wall and on the left side we had
all these encyclopedias which are you guys remember encyclopedias incredible a bunch of information
that you'll never need or use and then on the other side was all these biographies of people
that had given their life to Jesus and a walked out faith and one of those was the story of
the Elliot family is he Jim and four other missionary families had determined in their heart
we're going to go to South America there's a tribe there that have never received the gospel
and we're going to give them the gospel there are tribe known by war and hatred but Jim had this
vision from the Lord that someday they're going to be marked by peace and so with determination
and might they did this they went down and they made contact over it took years and months
but finally they made contact and Jim and four other missionaries took their little
piper plane and they landed on the river bank and they met with two Indians that came out
and they actually hung out with them for two days and they shared the gospel with them
and they gave them Bibles and then those two men went back to their village to get the leaders
and I'm reading this story as a little boy and it said that Jim as they started to come out of
which ran to them with a smile on his faith with joy and excitement to welcome them to show them
hospitality but it wasn't a welcoming party if you know this story those five missionaries were
murdered that day there's a movie called the end of the spears and that's exactly what happened
they died at the end of spears that day and now if you're reading verse seven and you're going
remember Jim Elliot and consider the outcome of his way of life and imitated faith I don't
know about that Danny I mean his outcome was bloody death on a river bank in South America I don't
want that outcome I don't know maybe you do but I don't really want that outcome in my life
but this is a story about a husband and a wife not just a husband you see Elizabeth Elliot
I was listening to a talk that she gave in the late 70s and she said that she was at the funeral
of her husband and Ephesians 5 came up and she knew in her heart to submit to her husband
she needed to finish what he started and over a series of two years she forgave these people
and she actually made contact with them and this time she was welcomed in to the tribe
and she shared the gospel with them and she baptized them and there were other missionaries that
came and they discipled them you know that tribe is marked by peace today and their gospel
barriers now in South America there's a picture that I have if yeah let's throw that up this is
Elizabeth Elliot giving a haircut to the man that murdered her husband after forgiving him
that's the outcome of Jim's life you see Jim understood what it meant to wake up in the identity
of Christ he understood there's a verse that'll finish with he understood John 1513 greater love
has no one than this that's suddenly down his life for his friends Jim woke up and he knew who he was
and he wasn't afraid to lay down his life one life for a whole group of people to have eternal life
so I pray that you know who you are in Christ and I pray that tomorrow you wake up in your new
nature and if you've never given your life to Jesus I just want to say my name's Danny and I woke
up today and I know who I am I'm loved by Jesus and he has restored me he has renewed me he has
Amen
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church as we praise God and discuss his word don't
forget to join us for worship live Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube
be blessed and have a great day