The Fruit of Lips Confessing His Name

Hebrews 13 and the Call to Confess Christ

Once again, we will be studying out of the book of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews chapter 13, and before we look to the Word of God, let us pray together. Our gracious Heavenly Father, once again, as we open your Word, we would ask that you would be with us, that you would give us guidance, that you would give us understanding, Lord, that we might hear these exhortations, and hearing them, we might be obedient to them.

We pray in Christ's name. Well, for those of you who are visiting with us, we noted this morning that we have been studying in the book of Hebrews, coming up now for six years. Now, again, before any of you panic that it's going to be a very, very long evening, that we're not going to be able to get to anything, that is obviously only when I am speaking, and I do not speak every Sunday, so I only speak normally about once per month, and so six years, not too bad, but we are getting to the end of our study of this book of Hebrews, and we are in the 13th chapter.

This morning, we read through the 13th chapter, and we noted its context, and we noted the issues that are involved in what we're looking at in this text, and we are not going to read through all of it this evening, but I will read through the section that is immediately before our section this evening, and that is, this morning, we looked at verse 5 and following, So we can confidently say, So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

This will be the section that we will attempt to wrestle with and look at this evening. We began this morning looking at verse 8, a verse that I would imagine, if I were to ask us here this evening, how many of us have Hebrews 13 .8 memorized, I would imagine that a large number of us would say that we do, partly because it's fairly easy to memorize and partly because it's nice and short.

I am reminded of the Lawlards, my church history gene must be kicking in or something today. Some of you were rather repulsed by the example of the Desert Fathers this morning, and their demonstration of their spiritual control over their bodies.

So, I will try to avoid that, but the Lawlards were the followers of John Wycliffe after his death in England at the end of the 14th century. And Wycliffe had translated the Bible into the vulgar English, rather than limiting it to the Latin, so that the average person could have it.

And the followers of Wycliffe, Lawlard means a babbler, and so they were called babblers, they were looked down upon by the established church, and they would memorize a book of the Bible, because the Bible was illegal for them to own.

And so, they would memorize a book of the Bible, and when they came together, each person would give a passage from the book of the Bible that they had memorized. And so, I would love to meet people like 2 Chronicles and Psalms, because they would take the name of the book they had memorized.

So, can you imagine meeting the Psalter, or Isaiah? You know, those were people with big pulsing heads. I would have been like 3 John, or something like that. That would have been, hi, you're 3 John, yeah, yeah, I'm 3 John, okay, you know.

But that was how things were. And so, there are certain verses of the Bible that, you know, I bet everybody has John 11 .35 memorized, right? Jesus wept, yeah. If you don't have John 11 .35 in your memory verse cards, or something like that, you're missing out on an easy one there, okay?

It really is. I'd imagine Hebrews 13 .8 is, you see it, you know, unfortunately, you see it in the Christian bookstore, and all the little fluffy little things you put on the wall in the bathroom, you know, and stuff like that.

And we notice that most of the time, there is not a whole lot of interest taken in the context. And we noticed it was a little bit difficult to establish the context, but we saw that the linkage that this verse provides between what comes before, is that there we're told to look at our leaders, those who have already gone before us, and we are to examine the outcome of their lives and imitate their faith.

And the idea is that we can look to those who've come before us, and we have the promise that the one who was at work within them, the one who was worthy of their sacrifice, worthy of their dedication, worthy of their loyalty, has not weakened, has not changed, has not become less today than he was at that time.

And so when we have the promise, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever, the point is that when we look at previous generations of Christians, they were worshiping the same Lord. We have the same privilege.

He was not greater back then. He will not be greater in the future. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. But I also noted that there was a linkage to what comes afterwards, and that is verse 9.

Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. And so you will find this kind of exhortation very frequently at the end of many of the epistles.

You will find this in John. You will find it in Peter. You'll find it in Paul. Because from the very beginning, even while the apostles were with the church, there was this temptation, there was this willingness on the part of people to, well, as Paul put it, keep up for themselves teachers who would scratch their ears, who would give them what they wanted to hear.

Religion attracts some interesting people. And I think of the late Christopher Hitchens, who said, religion poisons everything. Now we know Christopher Hitchens hated God. But he was only partially incorrect.

It's false religion that poisons everything, which includes the very religion to which he was dedicated, his secular humanism, which he just couldn't see and couldn't recognize. But the reality is that there are some weird religious people in the world.

And if you come up with some new teaching, if you come up with some strange teaching, you probably can gather around yourself a group of people that find that to be something that they like. Very frequently their reasons for that are because, well, you know, those people in the established church, they were mean to me.

And they just wouldn't recognize my self-evident gifts in teaching and insight. Now, I'll have to confess, sometimes talking with our beloved Pastor Fry is a refreshing thing. You know, some of the things that Pastor Fry said to me when I first came here, coming from a megachurch so long ago now, what is that, a quarter of a century now?

That's sad to realize. But a quarter of a century we've been here now. And when I first started talking with him, you know, I'm not sure if I'm even aware of this. Maybe I'm saying something I shouldn't.

But my fellow elder can be a little bit blunt at times. And he's not the most politically correct person. I'm just, just in case you're wondering. I realize that he puts on somewhat of a facade, you know, for other people.

But I've just discovered that, you know, sometimes and he would talk to me about folks who've come into the church through the years. And, you know, they walked through the door on the first Sunday and they want to make sure everybody knows that not only are they here, but they're here to help.

And they have great gifts and they're here to help us. And we just need to put them in charge and give them a class to teach and they'll help us. And Pastor Fry's general established reaction to someone who comes in with that kind of an attitude is, the doors open that direction and don't let it hit you on the way out.

And I remember the first time he told me that and I was like, oh, OK, that's interesting. But you know what? There's great wisdom there. Because there are all sorts of diverse and strange teachings. And if there are all sorts of diverse and strange teachings, guess what?

There are all sorts of diverse and strange teachers too. And they're all over the place today in our land. I think it's one of the evidences of the judgment of God upon our land that you'll get the biggest audience if you bring strange and diverse teachings.

Because there are a lot of itching ears. And Christian contentment, we talked about that this morning, but Christian contentment in teaching and doctrine is a blessing of God upon the church and upon a nation.

And I would say that when you see so many who are willing to give ear to strange and diverse teachings, that is clear evidence that we live in a land that is under the judgment of God. And so even in the days of the apostles, people are like, oh, I'd like to go back to the early church.

Well, you actually read what's going on in the early church. There's a lot of weird stuff going on. There are a lot of false teachers even in that day. And so when it says, do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, we need to recognize even the apostles had to give these warnings.

Even the apostles, even in their day, saw those people who were trying to draw disciples away after themselves. And the reality is it has not been God's will to free the church of these individuals. Has there been times, have there been certain instances where there was a flourishing of orthodoxy?

Yes. Have those times almost inevitably been followed by periods of apostasy where people become accustomed to the faith, where they fall into the error of thinking the faith is passed down genealogically?

I mean, look at Europe today. Places where the gospel once burned so brightly and the names of great preachers, some of the greatest preachers of all time, are chiseled upon the stones of the walls. And yet the vast majority of the people living in those places walk by those names in utter ignorance of what those men preach and what they taught.

Not how Christianity is passed on. And so we need to recognize, not lose heart ourselves, but there seems to have been some specific background here. Now, there's a lot of in-depth background and discussion by scholars as to what's being referred to here.

For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. Now, if you want to go home and read some extensive commentary discussion about the Dead Sea Scrolls and about various of the early Jewish groups and possible Christian, semi-Christian groups and things like that, oh, there are pages and pages and pages.

And of course, no specific mention is made here of who exactly we're referring to. It's probably, if we're talking about a group that was possibly associated with the church or called itself Christian, there were groups like the Ebionites and people like that, that later history would identify.

But what is being said, basically, if you look at the entire section, is this. There's something about being devoted to certain food offerings that is opposite of the heart being strengthened by grace.

There is a reference here, the strengthening of the Christian heart by grace, not by foods, not by activities and certain kinds of religious ceremonies. And then you have, in verse 10, we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.

Now, we know what the background of that is, if we've been paying attention to the study of the book of Hebrews, because we've already seen the book of Hebrews focuses not upon the temple, but upon the tabernacle.

And remember that the writer takes the layout for the tabernacle and utilizes that as his shadows, heights and shadows, and talks about the priesthood and the holy place and utensils and all those things.

We've studied those things in years past now. And so, we know what's being referred to here. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. And so, those who, by their lineage and their priesthood, were to partake of the sacrifices.

Remember, we've looked at the sacrifices. We've just been reading through that section of the law that defined all these things. And some of those chapters were really tough, because, well, you'll take this part of the animal, and you take this shank and this amount of fat, and it's a little tough, but that's the section being referred to there, because in those sacrifices was the provision for the food sources for the priestly class, which wasn't given any land.

They couldn't go out and plant crops and do the things everybody else did. That was the way that they were to be sustained. And so, those who serve the tent says, we have an altar that they have no right to eat.

Now, this is where the scholars start speculating, were there certain, because we've got some references to these folks in the New Testament, were there priests, for example, who converted to Christianity, but then continued to have some type of special standing, because they were priests, and there's all sorts of questions about that.

But I think there's a more general point, because notice as it goes on, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.

Now, we've been reading this just recently on Sunday evenings, about how, you know, you offer the blood, but the bodies to be taken outside the camp, and I'm not talking about necessarily Jerusalem here, though that's going to be the eventual fulfillment, but they're brought outside the camp, and they're burned outside the camp.

So, once again, the author is drawing upon that Old Testament context, drawing upon where people are coming from, and then he makes this interesting application, which will allow us to go back and ask the question, what is this altar?

Which is sort of interesting in light of the Lord's Supper this evening. So, Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. And so, here the author is making a connection and saying, well, you'll notice the crucifixion does not take place inside Jerusalem.

It does not take place on the altar in Jerusalem. It doesn't take place in the temple. He goes outside the camp, goes outside the city, here outside the gate. So, Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

Notice just in passing, even though we're trying to sort of follow the flow here, again, the assertion that there is a purpose in Christ's death, and the purpose is specific, and the audience is specific in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

Not to make sanctification a possibility, not a mere theory, but it is something that Christ accomplishes. But he does so outside the gate. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

Now, it seems that what we have here is a word of warning that would have been especially understood by the Jewish audience of this book. The argument has already been completed. There's nothing to go back to.

But here, you have somewhat of an echo of that argument, now being used as an exhortation, saying, look, now that we recognize what Christ has done, we should be willing to not be a part of that temple, not a part of that Jewish way of life that people are calling you back to, because our Lord went out from the camp.

He suffered outside of the camp, and there still is to this day this attraction to liturgy, and to vestments, and what we call smells and bells. Smells and bells. You know, I deal a lot with Roman Catholicism, and I've dealt with a lot of people who have apostatized and abandoned the Gospel to go to Rome.

And so often you listen to them, you can turn on the radio station here in the Valley, and if you catch the Coming Home Network show, you listen to these people who talk about their conversion to Roman Catholicism, and it smells and bells over and over again.

The beauty of the liturgy, and the processions, and the stained glass windows, and there's something that human beings find about that kind of religiosity that is very attractive. And that existed in the temple.

I mean, think about how that temple looked good. I mean, there was gold, and you have the procession, you've got the high priest, and you've got the sacrifices, and the Law of Moses, and oh, look at these Christians.

They meet out in the woods, and they're just this little cult group, you know? So what the writer is saying is, Jesus left all of that, and He suffered and offered that sacrifice out on a Roman cross.

He went outside the camp, therefore let us go to Him outside the camp, and bear the reproach He endured. To be a Christian in that day, is to be reproached as a part of a small little cultic group. That was being done by the Jews.

Now it's being done by our entire society. You might say, oh yeah, for the Jews, yeah, they would have been coming down on them and saying you've abandoned all these things, but the reality is there's an application even for us.

There is a reproach that is now coming upon us for believing what Jesus taught. Well, let us go to Him outside the camp, and bear the reproach He endured. Is that not the least of our sins? That we can do?

Is that not our calling? Four, verse 14 says, we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Here's the, what was the, just a few chapters ago? Pilgrims. We're strangers and pilgrims in this world.

If we try to put down deep roots here, it'll be unnatural for us. Because we are not seeking that lasting city, whether it be the old Jerusalem, or for those who are tempted by Romanism, crossing the Tiber River, all the beautiful statues and stuff in the Vatican, which I didn't find to be very beautiful anyway.

We seek the city that is to come. We recognize that the kind of fixed, established religiosity with all of its pomp and circumstance is not what we are called to. But then, notice verse 15. Here you have, remember before, it says, we have an altar.

They aren't, they can't eat from this. Now, was that this? Well, this really isn't an altar. I know we sometimes use that terminology, but this is not an altar. There was one sacrifice, and we commemorate him, but we do not represent him.

So, what's being referred to? Well, notice verse 15. Through him, then let us, so, through him who went out, outside the gate, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. They no longer have a priesthood, where the offerings are limited to the children of Levi.

In fact, isn't it in God's providence, what we read this evening? From chapter 16. What's Korah, Dathom, and Abiram doing? They're rebelling against the Lord because they're priests. They're taking, what was the phrase, y 'all, you're taking too much upon yourself.

We don't have a priesthood. We are a priesthood. Every single one of us. We have one high priest. He abides continually, and we are in him, and therefore, through him, then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.

So, the altar being referred to before has nothing to do with the Lord's Supper. I wish I could make the connection. There would be some hermeneutics classes that would tell me, well, if you're having the Lord's Supper that night, then make the connection.

No, I can't, because for some reason, the writer to the Hebrews does not want to make that connection and wants to avoid that connection. Instead, when we go to Him outside the camp, then let us, through Him, continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.

As we go to Him who died, and as we die with Him, we are offering ourselves up in Him, offering our lives up, a sacrifice of praise, not a sacrifice of redemption. We're not adding to the sacrifice of Christ.

We're not adding to the sufferings of Christ. All that kind of stuff that Rome has come up with just completely misses the message of the book of Hebrews. But we are called to continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.

That is, what is this sacrifice of praise? The fruit of lips that acknowledge, confess His name. What was the great pressure being brought against these people? Deny the name. Deny Jesus. Deny that He is the Messiah.

Deny that He is the Set One of God. What is the continual offering up of a sacrifice of praise to God? The fruit of lips that acknowledge His name is pleasing to God. That is the result of what God has established in and through the sacrifice of Christ is that He has provided a way for us in Christ, in our confession of Him, He is praised by our steadfastness.

That's not a steadfastness we come up with on our own. I realize that. But He is at work within us. And when we confess His name, when we acknowledge His name, we say, yes, I am a follower of Christ. And yes, in every aspect of my life, I will submit to His Lordship.

I suggest to you that when you do that in the workplace, when you do that in the home, when you do that in the neighborhood, when you do that in the school, you are praised far more by that than by all the music and praise bands and waving of hands and emotions you can ever come up with.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I love singing. I love Christian music. It's all wonderful. It drives me nuts when people think, well, after the praise is done, then the preacher will come and preach the service.

No, that's just the beginning of worship. That's just the beginning of praise. And here we're told that if you want to offer up, continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, then you need to be acknowledging, confessing His name.

And that's not just the one-time thing. We normally think, well, yeah, I did that many, many years ago. No, that is an everyday thing. That is a, this is how I live my life thing. This is a constantly looking to my high priest, Jesus thing.

And what we really need to be asking ourselves, and what we have to be asking ourselves in this day and age, is how many ways is the world silencing my confession of Jesus Christ? Now, I will make a connection.

Hopefully, this will be a valid one. And that is, we know that in Lord's Supper, and I like to emphasize this when we have the Lord's Supper. I think it's important for us to remember this. We are active in proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes, right?

1 Corinthians chapter 11, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. Sadly, dare I say, I don't want to be a depressing person, but a majority of professing Christians in our land today, that if you basically barred them from partaking of the Lord's Supper, how bothered would they be by it?

How much would they care? If you made it illegal, a lot of people get upset because, well, now you're tromping on my rights. Okay, that issue aside, how much do we really care about the Lord's Supper and our participation in it?

As far as preparation, as far as really recognizing that we are obeying the Lord's command, that there's a reason for this. And when you partake, when you eat of that bread, you drink of that cup, do you really recognize that you are actively proclaiming the Lord's death until He comes?

What does that mean? Well, it is a public profession. You might say, well, yeah, but it's in the church. Yeah, it's in the church. What if somebody was watching? What if it was going to cost you this evening?

How much would you want to partake in the Lord's Supper? When we think about this, we are the ones. This is one of the ways in which we are acknowledging His name. We are professing His name. We are saying yes, that sacrificial self-giving by Christ in history, at that time, at that place, was God's intention and that was the means by which I have peace with Him and I will not deny Him and I will not put my hope in anything other than the way of salvation that He has provided.

And so, there is a connection. The connection is that as we continually offer a sacrifice of praise by acknowledging and confessing His name in all of life, this evening, we have the opportunity of doing so in a specific way that He commanded His church, He commanded His church to engage in, that is particularly important because it pictures in fulfillment all the way back to the time of the Passover, that God had a purpose then.

He has worked that purpose all the way through history. Now, in Christ, there is the fulfillment and you have the building of His church and here we are speaking a language that would not exist for a thousand years after the time of Christ on the other side of the planet and we're doing the same thing.

You see how that is a proclamation of the Lordship of Christ over all the world? It is a privilege. That is why we guard the table. That is why we ask that you be a Christian having professed faith in Jesus Christ, that you not be under the discipline of a local church.

That's why we are concerned about it. We're not like some churches where you just go, hey, anybody, you know, don't worry about it because the Bible teaches us that this is something that is important.

God takes it seriously and therefore, we should take it seriously as well. So, hopefully, you will see that to be a valid connection to our text this evening from Hebrews chapter 13. So, with that, let us pray together.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this exhortation and we would ask that you would press upon our hearts the great privilege that is ours to offer up at sacrifice of praise the fruit of lips that acknowledge your name.

That you are pleased when your people confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And we know that it is not just the uttering of those words, but it is the living and light of them that you have in mind. And so, teach us what it means to say Jesus Christ is Lord in every word that we speak.

Put a guard upon our mouths, this unruly tongue. We not wish to speak like the world, but wish to speak as you would have us to speak. So that our words are always a confession of the Lordship of Christ.

Our dress, our actions, all be a profession. And hence, be continual praise to you. And now, Lord, as we partake of the supper together, we would ask that you would gather with us, that you would truly press upon our hearts what we're doing.

We are making profession of the Lord's death until he comes. Lord, remind us of the great love that you showed for us. I'm Calvary's Cross. I pray in Christ's name, Amen.