Sermon Cloud

Go to Him and Bear His Reproach 2 Hebrews 13:13-14 Grace Fellowship Church 04/26/2009 Series 3 Sermon 79 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Introduction As Americans living in the first decade of the 21st century we have great privileges that most in our world and most that have ever lived have not known. We are by the world’s standards very well off. We live in air conditioned houses and drive air conditioned cars. We buy many of our clothes from department stores and we only grow our own food because we want to. After all it is readily available to us at the local grocery store. These are wonderful things that add a degree of security and comfort to our lives. And I am not saying that we should avoid these things. God has sovereignly placed us here in this time and has given us a greater challenge. The early church is often looked at with great admiration for its endurance under severe persecution. Their greatest task was to hold onto Christ as everything around them was often taken away. We do not have to go through that same endurance that they did at this moment. Ours is a different kind of endurance. No one has been threatened in here this week because of your faith. We have all had varying degrees of difficulty with life this week but none of us have been thrown into prison because of our testimonies. The reason for this is two fold. The Lord has allowed us and ordained that we live in this culture. I did not choose to be an American I was born here. My parents and grandparents were born here as well and probably further back than that. And even the relative that migrated here from another country did so in the providence of God and the same thing can be said of you. We were even assigned the date and time of our birth and the Lord has even numbered our days. So it is not our fault that we live in the place that we live, the time that we live, and in the culture that we find ourselves in. None of us are culture shapers. But neither was the early church. They lived in the culture in which the Lord placed them and they had a specific calling on their lives just as you and I have a specific calling on our lives. And that calling is what we saw last week. PNP What we looked at in our passage last week and what we will see in our passage this week are two cultural mandates for the Christian. Last week we saw that: 1. We are called to separate ourselves from the culture. That does not mean that we buy a thousand acres in Montana and go live in a commune. The reason is the Lord has called us to live in this world but not to be of this world. There is a separation that occurs or at least should occur in the life of the Christian. We do what the first part of verse 13 says and we “Go to Him outside the camp…” Him of course is the Lord Jesus Christ and outside the camp is where He was crucified. We take up our cross daily and we follow the Lord and not the ways of the culture in which we live. This is why the latest methodology in church growth that says you have to be as much like the culture as you can is so wrong. This is also not a call to be weird either. It is a call to holy living. It is a call to sacrificial living and shunning the parts of our culture that are sinful and in opposition to the will and ways of God revealed in Scripture. We are a people set apart for God’s own possession and because of that we do not live according to the prince and power of the air. This morning most of you are here at this church because you have seen the culture spilling over into the church. The multiplicity of programs and age graded classes that are influenced by culture rather than Scripture and you can no longer tolerate that. You have broken with the culture in that sense. Those of you that homeschool are doing this not because it is easy and fun and the kids love it but because we as parents have a biblical mandate to raise our children apart from the wicked influences of the culture and to evangelize and disciple them. All of us as Christians have made some breaks with the culture at large. There are things that the culture does that we do not do and there are things about the culture that I and you do not even need to know about. One emerging pastor encouraged a group of pastors to go to the places that young adults went to after dark and see what goes on. Really? Do I need to go pop the lid off the sewer cover down the street to find out if it really stinks? No. And I don’t need to go to the night spots to know there is debauchery. The call of verse 13 to “go to Him outside the camp” is not a call to salvation but rather a call to further sanctification and discipleship. We are called to leave the culture spiritually and cut emotional ties with it but still we live on planet earth and we live in a culture. If you have read Pilgrims Progress you know that Christian was called to leave the city of destruction and to go on a journey to the Celestial City. Likewise Lot was called out of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and so are we. Now an unwillingness to part with the culture to obey the command of verse 13 does show an unregenerate person. The Bible says that loving the world is opposite of loving God and if you love the world the love of God is not in you. So what happens when you part ways with the culture? What happens when you refuse to live according to the culture which has mandated a certain way of thinking and believing and behaving? We get our second point which is what I want us to pay particular attention to this morning. Here is our point for today. This is the second cultural mandate for the Christian. 2. We are called to endure whatever hardship comes our way because of this separation. Purpose My purpose this morning is to shake you out of the slumber that living in this culture will put you in. My purpose is to show you that you are not called to be an American but are called to radical Christianity that shakes the very foundations of this world and lives a life that no one apart from Christ is able to explain. RPNP Now let’s look at the second cultural mandate for the Christian. 2. We are called to endure whatever hardship comes our way because of this separation. Look at the rest of verse 13. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. What reproach did Christ endure? He was mocked. He was reviled. He was beaten. He was betrayed. He was spit upon. He was falsely accused. He was persecuted. And He was crucified. This is what the writer means by going outside the camp. To go outside the camp you put yourself at great risk. You now have left the security of the culture where to fit in is safety. You have now entered the Kingdom of God where discipleship lesson number one is that you are called as a Christian to suffer. Folks we have to have a correct theological understanding of what to expect in the Christian life. When you say to an American Christian that lesson number one of the Christian life is suffering they too quickly backpeddle because of all the error that we have been fed for far too long. Too many times Old Testament promises made by God are applied to the church without even the slightest consideration of what the New Testament says. Also if you read those promises in the Old Testament they were often made to individuals not to the church. Plus the promises made in the Old Covenant were conditional. If you keep all the statutes of the Lord then He will bless you but if you don’t He will cut you off. When the Old Testament is misread and misunderstood then you come up with doctrines of promises of great wealth and bodily health in response to our best effort at obedience. That is why the Pharisee at the Temple could pray to himself, “I thank you Lord that I am not like other men.” And today we have modern Pharisees who claim God’s blessings on their finances and their health because of their obedience to the Lord when the true blessings are being poured out on those who are bearing the reproach of Christ. In the New Testament the Lord has told us what true blessing in this life is. I want you to listen to Matthew 5:2-11 and see what the Lord said that true New Covenant blessings were all about. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Did you notice there is not one promise of material possession or bodily health in the Lord’s words? Do you want to know why the church today is so ineffective at evangelism? It’s not because we have not geared our services toward the culture. Most churches have been doing that for over a century now. The reason we are not effective at evangelism today is because the world no longer stands looking at us with mouth wide open wondering why we do what we do. There is no strangeness about the church. You see the lost world is not impressed with you when you can talk to them about the latest pop sensation or the latest movie or the latest best seller. The world is not impressed with you when you change your music to be what will attract them to the church. The world is not impressed with us when we talk and act and dress and live just like them. You see the message of the church has been wrong for so long in the United States that even the church people can’t see the problem. The American dream is to gain wealth and material possessions. It is to have a nice house and cars and other stuff. And the message of the church has basically been that if you have Christ in your heart then all that stuff God will give you because you are on His side and when you die the most comfortable death anyone could die you leave the comforts of this life to go to the comforts of Heaven. Do you know what the world sees and hears when Christians talk like this? What they see, hear and understand is that the Christian is simply using Jesus to get what they want. If you have Jesus then you can achieve the American dream. Just like the lost person who uses education or personal discipline or drive or determination to the world the Christian uses religion or Jesus to achieve their personal goals. And the world is not, has never been, and will never be impressed by this. When Jesus becomes a means to an end then when the end is reached who needs the means anymore? What do you do with it? You throw it away. Let me illustrate that. This week I put up a set of bunkbeds. In order to achieve my goal of putting these bunk beds together so they will safely hold my children I followed the instructions and used the tools that the manufacturer provided and recommended. When I finished the bunkbeds do you know what I did with the instructions? Did I take them down to a frame store and have them put in a frame so I could admire them from now on? Of course I didn’t. I threw them away. I have no need of those instructions anymore. And if Jesus Christ is a means to get something then once you have it you have no need of Him anymore. So if Jesus is just your means to get rich or have a good life now or have bodily health or just to get to heaven one day then when you reach your goal what use do you have of Jesus Christ? You have no use for Him. But this is not what the writer of Hebrews has been teaching us. The New Testament never presents the Lord Jesus as a means to an end. Rather the New Testament presents Jesus Christ as the end or the ultimate goal of the Christian life. He is also the means to that end as well but at the end we find Him. After all what is it that we seek from the Lord Jesus Christ? Salvation. Eternal life. What is salvation and eternal life? The Lord Jesus told us in John 17. Listen to verses 1-3 of the Lord Jesus’ high priestly prayer. 1 Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. 3 "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. The Lord in His High Priestly prayer was hearkening his listeners back to Jeremiah 36 and the writer of Hebrews picks up on these same verses when he introduces us to the New and better covenant that is in Christ in Hebrews 8. I want you to hear Hebrews 8:11. 11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. So the highest end of the Christian life is not in stuff. It’s not in material possessions. It’s not in good health. It’s not in living the American dream. It’s not in a righteous government. It’s not in a Christian society. It’s not in redeeming culture. It’s not even in evangelism. All of these things are passing away. All of these things can be gone in an instant. They can be stolen from you and most of them will be if they have not already been taken from you. So what is the highest goal of the Christian life? The highest end of the Christian life is to know God and the Lord Jesus whom the Father has sent. This is the testimony of Scripture. This is the testimony of the Apostle Paul who goes through his pedigree in Philippians 3 and then he puts a cap on that fleeting passing privilege by pointing out the goal of the Christian life and his life in verses 7-11 of Philippians 3. 7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Notice that the writer does not say to go to Jesus outside the camp so that you can have a bunch of stuff. The reason he does not say that is because all of the time going to Jesus outside the camp is a forsaking of stuff and the lures and enticements of this world for the true and lasting possession which is Christ. We are called to bear His reproach. The Lord called us to this Himself in Matthew 16:24-26. 24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 25 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. 26 "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? To take up your cross is to understand that you are going to die. To take up the cross is to come to Christ with the understanding that your life and all the comforts you can give yourself is no longer the priority. It is utter self denial. You must part ways with your old life. It’s not optional. The German pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer who was martyred in Germany during World War 2 wrote in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him, ‘Come and die!’” Paul told the Philippians in chapter 1 and verse 29 that not only had they been granted to believe in Christ but also they had been granted to suffer for His name’s sake. He told the Colossians that he was filling up in his body what was lacking in the affliction of Christ. Listen to Acts 14:19-23. 19 But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. 20 But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city. The next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe. 21 After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, 22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." 23 When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. The Lord Jesus told His disciples, “In this world you will have tribulations.” Listen to Matthew 10:16-33. 16 "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 "But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues; 18 and you will even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. 19 "But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say. 20 "For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. 21 "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. 22 "You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. 23 "But whenever they persecute you in one city, flee to the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes. 24 "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. 25 "It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul , how much more will they malign the members of his household! 26 "Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 27 "What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. 28 "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell . 29 "Are not two sparrows sold for a cent ? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 "So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. 32 "Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. 33 "But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. I want you to understand something very important this morning. Lesson number one in Christian discipleship is suffering. But the Lord who calls us to go to Him outside the camp and bear the reproach that He Himself bore does not call us to suffer just for suffering sake. There are reasons why we are called to endure reproach. The first reason is because the Lord is sanctifying us and molding us into the image of His Son. Romans 8:28-30 is an oft quoted passage but do you know what context the Apostle Paul wrote such comforting words? That is right. Suffering. The call to separation from the lost and passing away culture will invite the ridicule and the reproach of the world. Look at Hebrews 13:13 again with me. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. I want you to notice the word “reproach.” The word means insult, disgrace, and by implication it means this is done publicly. Notice the connection in verse 13. We are to bear the reproach that He (Christ) endured. So by writing these words the way the writer has given them to us he is showing us something very important. To bear the reproach of Christ is to identify yourself with Christ and the larger Christian community. Look back at Hebrews 10:32-34. 32 But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. 34 For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. By their lifestyle of separation from the culture the first century Christians brought the wrath of the lost world down upon them and then they went even further and publicly identified themselves as Christians thus bringing further persecution and reproach on themselves. But not all of them did so. To refuse to bear the reproach of Christ is to forfeit any claim to Christ and eternal life. There are those who would not hold fast and would shrink back in times of persecution and suffering. Look at Hebrews 10:39. 39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls. So do we have a living, breathing example of this that we can glean some help from? We do. Turn to Hebrews 11 and look at the example of Moses found in verses 23-26. 23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw that the child was beautiful, and they were not afraid of the king's edict. Parents, here is an example of a mother and father living in a depraved culture that was forced to break with the patterns of society and culture in order to be obedient to God. In that break with the culture they put their lives on the line. How was Moses able to do all the things that he did? First it was God who was working in his life and second he had a godly set of parents who taught him it was better to obey God and endure the wrath of man than it was to obey man and endure the wrath of God. They taught him by their actions that God was greater than Pharaoh and that even though we may by the providence and sovereignty of God be in a culture we do not have to be of a culture and can live a separated life right in the middle of that culture. Now look at verse 24. 24 By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, 25 choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. Did you catch that? He chose, act of his own will, a determined action, to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting yet very attractive pleasures of sin. If you have not already been there you will one day find yourself at a cross roads. On the right will be identification with Christ and with God’s people and mistreatment at the hands of a debauched and dying world. On the left will be all the enticements of this present world tailor made for you to enjoy. It is the regenerate heart that sees that sin although greatly enticing and pleasurable is a sinking pit that goes down to destruction. You see the mouse only sees the cheese. He does not notice the trap. But the true Christian not only sees the cheese he also knows there is a trap there and chooses the right path. The reason is because something has changed. It is a change in the way we see the world. It is a change in the way we see sin. It is a change in what we see as valuable and good. Look at verse 26. 26 He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. Evidence of a divine act of sovereign grace in the heart of a sinner is that we can now see that Christ is of the greatest value in the universe and nothing on this earth or the pleasures of sin or the greatest wealth that the United States can offer will ever be worth trading our inheritance for a mess of pottage. What will you choose? Adults, what will you choose? Young men and women what will you choose? Children, what will you choose? Will it be the fleeting pleasures of sin or the treasures this world can offer you? Or will you choose to go to Christ outside the camp and bear the reproach that He endured? Are you willing to stand strong in the face of cultural defiance of godliness and say that you will order your life according to the ways and the will of God in spite of what the world may do to you or take from you? The only way you will ever be able to do this is by an act of God’s grace and an understanding of what real value is. If the Lord Jesus Christ and knowing Him is not your highest goal in this life then you will fail at this and you will fail at life. If everything that you do is not bathed in the effort to know Christ and to treasure Him foremost in your life then you are motivated by the wrong things. So what is your personal motivation for doing the Christian things that you do? Is coming to church just a way to check off a spiritual list that you have accomplished and then you move on? Then you are coming for the wrong reason. Are you showing up here just so your children will have an example of coming to church? Then you are here for the wrong reason. What about reading the Bible and prayer? Why are you doing that? Many people do so just out of habit because they testify that it helps their day go better. Folks, that is the wrong reason. Everything that we do as Christians that mark us out as Christians are great things to do but if they are done for the wrong reasons then they are as useless and are now nothing more than a routine. So why do we do the things that we do? Why should we go to Christ outside the camp? Why should we willingly and happily bear the reproach that He endured? Why should we willingly and with great joy endure persecution and affliction and suffering as a Christian? Why should we not be like a debauched and passing away culture and invite the wrath of the world down on us? There are two reasons. The first one is what I have already mentioned. We do these things in order to know Christ. This is our highest goal as Christians. We come to church to know Christ. We read our Bibles to know Christ. We study the Scriptures to know Christ. We pray to know Christ. We suffer and are afflicted to know Christ. We homeschool our children not because we can do a better job than the schools or because we are merely protecting them from the world, we do this to know Christ more. Everything that we do in the Christian life should be to know Christ more. Christ has become for us the pearl of great price. He has become the treasure hidden in the field that is so valuable a man will sell all that he has to own it. And where our treasure is there will our hearts be also. That is the first reason the Christian will not only go to Christ outside the camp but the Christian will run to Christ there and willingly bear the reproach that he endured. Paul said in Philippians 3:10: 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; The second reason is verse 14. Look at the verse with me. For here (In this present world, inside the camp, in the culture that so many today are seeking to redeem) we (Christians) have no lasting city,(Its all going to perish. All of it. Everything in your bank account, the house that you live in, the clothes that you wear, the furniture you sit on, the cars that you drive, the neighbors that are lost, the job that you do. Its all going to come to nothing. Listen to Isaiah 51:6-8. 6 "Lift up your eyes to the sky, Then look to the earth beneath; For the sky will vanish like smoke, And the earth will wear out like a garment And its inhabitants will die in like manner; But My salvation will be forever, And My righteousness will not wane. 7 "Listen to Me, you who know righteousness, A people in whose heart is My law; Do not fear the reproach of man, Nor be dismayed at their revilings. 8 "For the moth will eat them like a garment, And the grub will eat them like wool. But My righteousness will be forever, And My salvation to all generations." Nothing here will last save for what we have invested in knowing Christ Jesus our Lord. So what is the second reason we can bear the reproach of Christ? Here, we have no lasting city. Look at the last part of verse 14. but we seek the city that is to come. The Greek word for seek is the word “epizaytao” and it means to seek out in earnest. What are you seeking? What are you diligently searching for? Is it pleasure or comfort? Is it material wealth? Is it the admiration and praise of others? Is it retirement? What are the desires of your heart? You see these questions divide and separate to the motivations of the heart. But this also separates three types of people. There is the one who is not a believer and who does not treasure Christ and is only seeking the benefits of the Christian life without the willingness to endure under hardship and difficulty and to bear Christ’s reproach. If that is you this morning then you must repent of this fake Christianity that is just a show. Because when persecution or affliction comes your way you will fall away into perdition. You must look to Christ and see Him as all wonderful and marvelous and as the greatest and highest possession. There is a second type of person and this is where I fear most of us are. We have forgotten over time or maybe have never been told that Christ is our highest and greatest possession. And we are to strive in everything that we do to know Him more and more and that this is the highest goal of the Christian life. In the words of Revelation we have lost our first love. There is no longer a spiritual fervency in us. We have grown cold to the things of God and they have become routine. Search your heart this morning. See if this is true and if it is repent and turn back to your first love. Read your Bible and pray to know Christ. Come to church and fellowship with the brethren to know Christ. Sing the words to the songs that we sing to know Christ. And to myself and those men who stand in this pulpit, preach to know Christ. Mothers, raise your children in the fear and admonition of the Lord so you and they will know Christ. Fathers, be a provider and protector and disciplinarian in your home not so people will recognize you for it but so you can know Christ. Do you get that? Has that been made clear? Because the third type of person is what we should be striving to be. That person is found in Hebrews 11:13-16. 13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. This is our goal in our two cultural mandates to go to Christ outside the camp and bear the reproach that He endured. May the Lord grant us the grace to see this through in our lives and may He give us eyes to see the beauty of Christ and His reproach. Let’s pray.