WWUTT 1891 Imitate Their Faith (Hebrews 13:7-9)

Imitating the Faith of Church Leaders

The scripture says, remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you, and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. God gave you your pastor as an example to follow when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that we may press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe.

Hebrews 13:7-17 and the Call to Follow Mature Examples

Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in Hebrews chapter 13, looking to finish up our study of Hebrews this week. I'm going to begin reading in verse 7 through verse 17 out of the Legacy Standard Bible.

Hear the word of the Lord. Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you, and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited. We have an altar, from which those who serve the tabernacle have no authority to eat.

For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate.

So let us go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the one to come. Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.

And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they will do this with joy and not with groaning, for this would be unprofitable for you.

Now I'm probably not going to get all the way through verse 17 in my exposition today. In fact, the verse that I started with, verse 7, really fits better with verses 1 -6. Last week when I did the first reading of Hebrews 13, this would have been on Wednesday, I started by reading verses 1 -7, but in the exposition I only got as far as verse 6.

Verse 7, this instruction, remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you in considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith, probably goes with those staccato instructions that you have in verses 1 -7.

It fits in that category a little bit better. And in fact, verse 8 probably does too. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. The way that I've read this section today, there's bookends in verses 7 and 17 about following the example of those who have communicated the word of God to you.

That's an instruction that comes up twice here in Hebrews 13. So in this reading that I've done, I had it at the start and at the end, verse 7 and 17. 17 again is obey your leaders and submit to them for they keep watch over your souls.

I probably won't get that far today. We'll see how far we're able to get. But as far as like Hebrews 13 is structured, if you're jotting that down in your notes somewhere or something like that, I just wanted to mention that.

The way you would divide Hebrews 13 up, verse 7 would probably go better with verses 1 -6 rather than this section that we're reading here. But nonetheless, let's come back to verse 7 here. Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.

I see this meme floating around on social media every once in a while. And it's something like Jesus said, follow him, not follow other Christians or something to that degree. I think there's various versions of that.

But you'll see some kind of statement like that floating around. Don't follow people, follow Christ. But Jesus actually did give us human examples that we are to follow, who are supposed to point us to Christ.

Jesus is not some ambiguous figure that you are free to make up in your mind what kind of person he is and follow that example that you've built in your mind, however informed from the scriptures that might be.

Jesus gave us examples in the church that we are to imitate. So in Ephesians 4 .11, it says God gave the apostles and prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers to prepare the saints for the work of ministry.

Your pastor in your church is a gift from God, a real life human example of what mature Christianity is supposed to look like. And the Bible does instruct you to follow their example. Not just here. Peter says it in 1 Peter 5, when Paul says to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 11 .1, imitate me as I am of Christ.

He's very, very humble throughout that letter. So the call for them to imitate him is not because he's putting himself above them in any way. It's because they need an example to follow that they may know what it means to live as Christ because the Corinthians certainly weren't doing that.

So Paul presents himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ. The apostles were real life human examples, and we still read them today. Every time you open the New Testament, you're reading from the apostles whom Christ gave to be examples for us.

We can follow their example according to scripture. And then those who have learned from them who are real life examples of maturity around us today. We are to look to their example on how we are to live in mature Christian conduct.

And once again, these instructions that we have here in Hebrews 13, this is really the application of everything that we've read in the previous 12 chapters. What does it mean then to live out what we've just read?

Well, these are the instructions that we have in Hebrews 13. And one of those instructions, again, flowing from all of the doctrine that we've read in the previous 12 chapters, one of these instructions is to look to those who spoke to you the word of God and considering the result of their conduct, what do their lives look like as one who knows the word of God and lives it out, imitate their faith.

That is an instruction straight from scripture, folks. When you read the qualifications of a pastor in the Bible, so like 1 Timothy 3, 1 -7, or Titus 1, 5 -9, or Peter, mentioning that one again, 1 Peter 5, 1 -5, or 2 Timothy, there's also instructions there in chapter 2 as to what a servant of the Lord is supposed to look like.

Where you have those places described in scripture of what a pastor is supposed to be, you will notice that those qualifications are not all that extraordinary in the sense that any one of us should aspire to have those same characteristics said of us.

For example, let me read from Titus 1, we should all desire to be above reproach, right? Without blame in our conduct, living our lives in holiness in such a way that does not look like the rest of the world, but instead looks like something Christ-like.

We should all aspire that, you know, just as a requirement for a pastor is that he must be the husband of one wife, so we should desire only one spouse. And we should be in our conduct sexually, keeping sex only for marriage.

And we read that here in Hebrews 13, did we not? Let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. So we should all aspire to sexual purity. And if we are to be married, that we have only one spouse.

Those who have children, that we have faithful children who are not accused of dissipation or rebellion. The overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of dishonest gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, self-controlled, holding to the faithful word as taught.

All of those things are like, yeah, every Christian should be that. So the person who is the pastor or the minister in your church, he is an example of mature Christian conduct. And every one of us should then desire to imitate the faith of those who are entrusted with teaching the body of Christ, the word of God.

There is such an effort right now in American evangelicalism to cut down the importance of pastors and try to tear down the office entirely, or the importance of the office, or how much we might revere the office as being someone important.

There are even pastors in evangelicalism that are trying to tear down the office of pastor. It's just absolutely astonishing. J .D. Greer, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has even taken part in this.

Beth Moore has made comments that have been opposing hierarchy and patriarchy, which part of that whole thing of opposing patriarchy means pastors can't just be men. They must also be women. That's contrary to scripture.

But that's her push. That's what she wants, to tear down hierarchy and patriarchy. And J .D. Greer has gone right along with that. He has said to her, thank you, Beth. I'm hoping that we're entertaining a new era in which we will see the tearing down of all hierarchy and his gracious distribution of gifts to all of his children.

So yeah, the tearing down of hierarchy and then the distribution of spiritual gifts to all of his children, including men and women, according to J .D. Greer. Because, yeah, he believes even women can be pastors.

He has endorsed books by, quote unquote, women pastors. It's absolutely astonishing, this man. And yet he would say that hierarchy is something that is unbiblical. No, it's not. Hierarchy and patriarchy are systems that have been established by God.

First Corinthians 11 .3. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ. There's a hierarchy in marriage, Ephesians chapter 5.

Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church. And as I said before, there are instructions in scripture to submit to the overseer, the one who has been entrusted by God with overseeing the care of the flock of God, the people that are in the church.

That is a responsibility of the pastor. But there is so many efforts out there to try to make this role completely unimportant, or make the public perceive the office of pastor as being completely corrupt.

And so, therefore, it's an office to not be respected. And like I said, this happens from even within evangelicalism. There's other examples that I could give, but I think the example that I have in front of me would take too long to explain in order to set it up.

Anyway, you understand what I'm saying. And yet, what is the instruction from scripture? Remember your leaders. Think about those people and hold them in high regard. Those who have given their lives to the preaching and teaching of God's word, to exhortation, so that you might know how to apply it to your life and live according to these things.

What was the outcome of their way of life as they applied the scriptures to their lives and lived it out? Imitate their faith. Verse 8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Now, that is, of course, a statement that is often taken by itself.

And of course, it does stand by itself. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. But think of that statement in light of everything else that we've read here in Hebrews. These things that Christ has fulfilled, and we've read about him being the greater Moses, the greater David, the greater sacrifice, the greater mediator, on and on it goes.

Christ is the greater than, the greater word even. And as he has fulfilled all of these things, what he has done and what he has accomplished is permanent. There's not another system that's going to come about or another fulfillment of the law or another savior or another Christ.

There's Jesus. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. And even though there was an old covenant system, and now we are in the new covenant, it doesn't mean Jesus changed. This is part of his plan, that those things of the old covenant would be pointing to him who would come and fulfill it and institute the new covenant.

But he's always been the same. The God of justice in the Old Testament is the same God of justice in the New Testament. It's not two different justices. God is still just. He gave the law that we might recognize our sin and need for a savior, that we're completely incapable of keeping that law.

That in light of the law, the perfection of God, we can't keep it. We fall short of the glory of God and are in need of something to forgive us our sins and make us right with God again. And that is Jesus Christ who was given.

And Christ coming incarnate, who put on human flesh and dwelt among us, that wasn't the beginning of Christ. It was the beginning of Jesus Christ incarnate, but it was not the beginning of the Son of God.

He has always been eternally with the Father, is without change, is not less in power than the Father or anything of this nature. And like we read just a moment ago from 1 Corinthians 11 3, there's even a hierarchy in that sense for the time in which Christ is the God man in submission to the Father, because once again, the Father is the head of Christ.

But this doesn't mean Jesus has changed. He's the same. Yesterday and today and forever, the God on the left side of the book is the same as the God on the right side of the book. And we can depend on him.

And the assurance of our salvation is not in ourselves or even in our own ability to believe it is in Christ who is the same, who remains. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. And so all of these instructions that we've read in Hebrews all the way up to this point, it would be dependent upon Christ.

And notice that this statement about Christ being the same yesterday and today and forever comes right after. Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. And so the way that a Christian was supposed to live 2000 years ago is the way that a Christian is supposed to live even now. There's not a new system.

There's not a new way of doing things. Just because you're part of a different culture doesn't mean that the cultural distinctions change the instructions. Jesus Christ is the same. So those same principles, the same Christ likeness that we are to have in the way that we live our lives in obedience to the scriptures, in submission to the Lord, this is going to apply to all peoples at all times everywhere until Jesus returns for he is the same.

Today, just as he was yesterday, just as he's going to be forever. Now, we kind of shift, though, once we get to verse nine, verse eight is kind of a bridging verse in that way. It sums up what we've read in verses one through seven, and it kind of sits between then the instructions that are kind of come in verses nine through 12 or so.

But in these instructions, we have this do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings. Now, that's an instruction that could just sit by itself. It's any teaching is going to be contrary to what the preacher is laid out here in the book of Hebrews.

Don't be carried away by varied and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace. Understanding the grace of God that is proclaimed and testified to us through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's good to be strengthened by grace, the sound doctrine, the good words of Christ, the gospel that has been proclaimed to you and not the verse goes on to say not by foods through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.

There are many Jews, even at this particular time, when this sermon is being preached, many Jews were thinking that they were holier or purer because of certain foods that they ate. Now, that may have been in keeping with the Levitical laws, like in Leviticus 11 about foods that are clean and unclean.

It could have also been pharisaical or legalistic in that there were other laws that were added on top of this, but still the objective of the people being, hey, look how much holier I can be because I'm eating these foods and abstaining from those foods.

Romans 14 says we're not any purer if we eat or if we don't eat. Romans 14, 17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Jesus said in Mark 7, what goes into a person's body is not what defiles him, but what comes out of his heart, comes out of his heart, out of his mouth.

This is what will reveal whether he is pure or defiled, what comes out of the heart. And it's also said there in Mark 7 that he declared all foods clean. So there's no food that defiles us. Those who were holding to these commands regarding food, they were not even better off at the end of that.

They had nothing to show, no righteousness to show for that just because they were eating these foods and abstaining from those. It was no benefit to them. Verse 10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no authority to eat.

For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore, Jesus also that he might sanctify the people through his own blood suffered outside the gate.

So let us go out to him outside the camp bearing his reproach. I'm going to come back to that again tomorrow, and we'll consider those verses a little more deeply. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read here today.

And I pray that we understand our sanctification is not going to be in the foods that we eat or in certainly it's certainly not going to be in any strange teachings that we can be led astray by. But our purity is in Christ.

It is knowing Christ and him crucified. It is imitating Christ and praise the Lord. Christ has given certain people for us to imitate so that we may know what it means to live in Christ likeness. So let us consider those people who have devoted themselves to teaching the word of God and living it out and help us to imitate their faith that we may be devoted to good works as said in Ephesians 2 10, which God prepared for us that we may walk in them.

Help us to live holy and upright and godly lives in this present age before you. It's in Jesus name that we pray.

Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues. You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com.

Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's word when we understand the text.