Our Values Shine in the Pleasing Vision

Last Sunday we saw in Hebrews 13 a vision for the pleasing life — that is, a life that pleases God as we believe and enjoy that Jesus is better.

It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that I realized how much Hebrews 13 maps onto the three ‘essentials’ we’ve long expressed as a church. We even put them on the glass doors at the front entrance: (1) we worship Jesus (verse 15), (2) we love one another (verses 1–2), and (3) we seek the good of the Cities (and beyond, verses 2–3).

I admit, Hebrews 13:1–17 was a lot to try to cover in one sermon. Two sections in particular were more than I could handle in one message. We ended briefly at the Table with verse 10, but if you like more on verses 9–13, I’d recommend John Piper’s 1997 sermon at our mother church, Bethlehem Baptist.

The other part I had to skip was verses 1–3. I mentioned “We love and serve others” as the third point, and just briefly summarized it like this:

Joy in Jesus does not lead to turning in on ourselves, to isolating ourselves, and neglecting the needs of others, or just sitting around endlessly by ourselves enjoying the glory of Christ. Rather, being pleased with his pleasantness leads to our wanting to please others with his pleasantness. Or, we might say, from our fullness of joy in Jesus, we do good for others, we share, we love.

We read verses 1–3 with verse 16, and moved on, and I said I’d say more in this article. So here again are those verses, followed by a few words especially for our church:

Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares [like Abraham in Genesis 18]. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. . . . Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

We have two “do not neglects” here, along with the mention of pleasing God. Verses 1–3 specify three kinds of others to love: (1) brothers and sisters in Christ, (2) strangers, and (3) those mistreated for Jesus’s sake. Or we might call them brotherly love, hospitality (love for strangers), and sympathy (care for persecuted Christians).

Love the Brothers

Don’t pass over verse 1 too quickly. This was a live issue for Hebrews’s audience, like it is for us at the end of 2023. “Let brotherly love continue.” Don’t stop loving each other. Don’t let it dry up. Don’t let it slowly fade. Don’t tire of it or give up on it. Don’t let love for fellow believers in our local church fall away from your life on this side of the pandemic with all our tools and tech for remoteness and isolation. Not just Sunday mornings, but Wednesday nights (community groups and life groups). Don’t fall out of the habit of being together with flesh-and-blood brothers and sisters in Christ and doing what we can to let brotherly love continue.

It was this brotherly love that Hebrews had in mind in chapter 10, verses 24–25, when he said,

let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

So, we keep meeting. We keep assembling. We keep showing up. Don’t neglect it. We build our lives around the very minimal structure of our shared life together, rather presuming to fit church life in around the maximal demands of our other commitments and preferences.

Love Strangers

But Jesus calls us to more than brotherly love. Remember that Jesus asked, Do not even unbelievers love those who love them? So Hebrews also mentions love for strangers, that is, hospitality.

Hospitality is not first an act of the hands (opening doors, extending a welcome, preparing food); it’s first an attitude of the heart. It’s love for people different than me, love for people unfamiliar to me, love for people uncomfortable to me. And this is basic Christianity — and very countercultural today. Even secular people love people just like them. But who loves strangers well?

I remember a children’s book I was read growing in 1980s called Never Talk to Strangers. I get why parents and grandparents read it to their kids. They didn’t want their children to go off and disappear with some stranger who had candy. Likely it was a well-intentioned, and maybe a good temporal measure for childhood.

But then you grow up, and perhaps become a Christian, and come to Hebrews 13:2. And we ask ourselves, Have I grown out of my childish heart that fears and avoids strangers? Is there anything in me now, because of Jesus, to actually grow into love for strangers? Loving familiar brothers can be hard enough, but strangers?

Humans do not naturally love strangers. We tend to be suspicious of or dislike people who seem “strange” to us. But Jesus puts new impulses in born-again hearts: not just a love for the brothers but for strangers too — for “other sheep” outside his fold, to be welcomed in. To take a risk and smile at a new face, and extend a hand of peace, and introduce yourself, and even open your home to bless “strangers,” not just comfortable friends and family.

Hospitality, whether toward unbelievers or fellow believers, has an evangelistic impulse in it. It has a world-missions impulse. It has a seek-the-good-of-the-Cities impulse. Yes, and this can include willingness to, and joy in, hosting community group as well.

Now, there is something “strange” to beware. Verse 9 also uses the word strange: do not be led away by “strange teachings.” In our sin, we are prone to get this precisely backwards: we avoid strange people and feel drawn to strange teachings. But Hebrews 13 would have us learn the opposite, because of Jesus: reject strange teachings and love strange people.

Love Christians Who Suffer

Perhaps even more uncomfortable than hospitality is sympathy for imprisoned and mistreated Christians. Talk about becoming globally minded Christians, rather than mere Americans. I know there are complexities here.

Do you personally know a Christian right now in prison for their faith? Or, do you personally know a Christian right now recently mistreated for their faith? Or, do you personally know a Christian recently mistreated online (or in person) and it’s not clear if it was actually for Jesus’s sake or because of their own sin or folly?

There are complexities in our sympathies. And yet the spirit and direction of the Christian soul toward others is clear: love for brothers and sisters in Christ, love for strangers, and love for those imprisoned and mistreated for Jesus — these loves help lift our eyes beyond our narrow American perspective and invite us to become more globally oriented Christians.

We still enjoy some stunning freedoms and religious luxuries in our city and nation. So, it’s hard to really apply verse 3 if your heart is not any bigger than the boundaries of our own nation. But the outward-oriented heart of verse 2, and the particular charge of verse 3, leads to look beyond the comforts of our own fellowship, and beyond our own nation, to develop a growing heart for the global advance of the gospel, with the imprisonments and plain mistreatments of Christians and missionaries it requires.

God, give us global vision, and hearts for our city and the nations.

With brotherly love, and joy,
Pastor David Mathis