Hebrews 13:7-25

Well, as we are essentially now closing out this wonderful book of Hebrews and coming to the end of it here in the last couple of chapters, but as we kind of wind it down here, the writer of Hebrews has been bringing to us, you might say, some of the logical and obvious to me conclusions that we ought to have in our life if we are seriously even listening to what the letter has had to say. For the writer of Hebrews has very carefully, very intelligently, very effectively pointed out essentially that Jesus Christ is better than anything and anybody that has ever come along. And it was quite a task because to the Jews, when you would take people like Moses and Aaron, Joshua, you would look at the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices, all of which here the writer of Hebrews wants to say, Jesus Christ is better than them all.

He's better than Moses who brought you out of Egypt. He's better than Joshua who brought you out of the wilderness and into the promised land. He's better than the high priest who went in, the very holy of holies on your behalf before God for you.

He's better than any and all of the sacrifices that were ever offered for all the sins of the people throughout the Old Testament. He's better than the priesthood in his ability to minister. He's better than even the holy of holies itself.

And essentially the reason that the writer of Hebrews can so almost arrogantly say such a thing is because he simply says all of these things were foreshadows of Christ. They foretold him. Jesus is the fulfillment of all of these things.

Moses merely took people, you know, a couple of million people from one side of a river to another and out of bondage and into a certain amount of liberty, but not any great liberty for was this their own self-willed instead of the Pharaoh's will. But they were still captives in another form. Jesus Christ, on the other hand, he takes us from one end of eternity to the other out of hell and into heaven.

And there what Moses did was wonderful, but it doesn't touch what Jesus did. Joshua got them out of the wilderness and into the promised land, but still many battles and many struggles. But it was a picture of another river ultimately to cross in a sense of where eternally we find ourselves brought into God's home and his place of which Jesus does far more than Joshua did.

He will bring us to heaven to be with him fully and completely. As wonderful as it was to have Aaron, the high priest, go before God and to present you before God and to find that God indeed accepted you, nonetheless, you still stood on the outside. It was ceremonial.

It was symbolical of something. But at the same time, you were still on the outside and there was still something going on in the inside of the tabernacle in the Holy of Holies, but you didn't understand it. But when Christ takes over our hearts and he begins to live in it, he actually brings us into God's presence.

His Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that indeed we are children of God and of children and heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. This wonderful inheritance, all these things that these wonderful Old Testament saints did religiously to suggest God's presence and power, none of them actually did it until Christ fulfilled them and completing all of these things. Thus, Jesus Christ is better than anything and anybody that ever came.

Thus, when he gets to chapter 12, he begins to tell us and exhort us, therefore, we ought to be looking unto Jesus, the author and the finish of our faith. We ought to be ones that we now within our heart, we become one that obsessively and compulsively there we behold him. He takes over this tremendous new place within our life.

If ever there is anybody who ought to have the right to occupy the greatest place in the human heart that could possibly be given, it's the place that a man ought to give Christ. It's the place there that the one who has died for me, because of all that he has done for me, all that he does now for me, all that he will be doing for me, all that he's going to share with me forever and ever that he has yet to do. It is far beyond anything that anybody or anything will ever do for me.

Thus, he has the right to be my king, my Lord, the one that my soul loves with all of its heart. He ought to be the one that captives, not just somebody I thank, you know, that's a nice little thing you did for me along the road of life, but he is somebody there that when I begin to understand him and all that he has done, he ought to take a place in my heart that is so supreme, so royal, that I want to surrender everything to him. And not only in doing that, I want to be finding myself coming before him and laying aside every sin, all the weight, the Bible says, that so easily besets me, all the other things that grab my attention, the other things that at a time seem so important, that seem so wonderful, that seem so desirable or so attractive that I realize, wait a minute, there's no attraction like him.

There's no place like him. There's no competition for him if I really understand him. And anything that slows me down from knowing him, I ought to lose interest in it and want to have it just lay aside and to find myself looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith, with all of my heart, running the race that is set before me.

In this chapter here, in chapter 13, as we've gotten into it, the writer of Hebrews wants to tell us that if now he is truly indwelling, if he has that place, there's going to be some changes that will happen within my heart. I'll find myself with letting the brotherly love continue. There'll be something.

I'll want the love of God. Now that he's come into my life, he is supreme, he is king, he is lord, I want him to fully take over and reign and rule within my heart, because who he is, what he means to me, that now it ought to show itself in a brotherly love, not only a brotherly love within the body of Christ, but a love for strangers, the Bible says, then a love for those that find themselves incarcerated, a love for those that are ill-treated, that I begin to look at the rest of the world, and because the heart of Christ is taking over my heart, the things that are compulsions to him become compulsions within me. They begin to rule and reign within me, people that I don't know, I begin to love, that I've never thought about, I begin to care about, peoples and groups and where the suffering is to find out within my heart, God, how can I be used to touch them and affect them? These are the wonderful spiritual compulsions that we ought to have.

Now, tragically, initially, when we are growing through these things, it's oftentimes it's a sacrifice that we have to make. How sad it is that any of this should ever be thought of as a sacrifice. How many times it is that in my life as a Christian, I look and the Lord will convict me of something, you need to do this, you need to stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about somebody else, no, you know, but down to just some force or some guilt or some sort of an inner thing, all right, I feel bad and I confess it, but I really want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do that, and he said, forget that, do this.

And so, to me, initially, it's a sacrifice. I'm making this huge sacrifice for God somehow or another. I'm doing this wonderful sort of a thing and I'm giving up this darling little thing, whatever it is at the time, and to me, it's initially and so often it's a terrible, it's this big sacrifice.

And then, of course, once you do it, once you find yourself doing and responding to it, it's no longer, you wonder, why did I ever think of it as a sacrifice? This is far more wonderful than what I thought I was holding on to. This is greater, this is more fulfilling, this is more exciting. I find myself, after over 40 years of being a Christian, it's very, it makes me feel bad sometimes that so many things are still a sacrifice, that God has to present it to me and says, I'd like you to give up something.

Wait a minute, I'd give up, why? I want you to love somebody. I want you to have, oh, no, no, no. I don't like them.

Have you met them, Lord? Yes, I have, and I died for them. Why? I wouldn't do that. They're a waste or whatever it is and on how initially, though, when we begin to struggle, it's a sacrifice.

It's a trial. And then once we do it, to me, I think when I felt I, my degree was in business in college and I was in business for a time and I really thought I wanted to be a businessman, something terribly. I have no idea if I'd ever succeeded.

I'd probably gone bankrupt and God was merciful to me and the people I'd ruined along the way. I don't know, but it's something that I thought when I went off and felt God would call me in ministry. It was this noble sacrifice.

There's this thing that, well, I mean, people would look and say, what, you're not, you're going to, you're going to go to the ministry and say, yes. And off we went and sold everything we had and went off to England to Bible school and came back and then went to seminary and going through things and a lot of other people doing things. And yet here, why would you do this? I don't know.

I've just been really bad and I got to make it up to God. I don't know for sure. I'm just, but I just doing it and sometimes it seemed like a sacrifice.

Then one day I look around and I realize I can't believe that I get to do what I get to do. I can't believe that something that initially was, you know, I struggled over as if I gave up some wonderful world out there and realize that God looks, I'll be a father to you. I'll take care of you.

You don't, don't worry about what you won't have. Begin to realize what you do in me. And now I may find myself so thrilled, but initially so many things are a sacrifice.

Well, so he tells us though, that if I do them, learn to love the brethren, learn to love the stranger, learn there to find myself caring, you know, for those that are ill treated and incarcerated, it'll, what a blessing it is to our own heart and our own life ultimately though a sacrifice initially. Well, now he goes on and in this, as he pick it up here in verse seven, he says, remember those who, you know, who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow considering the outcome of their conduct. Now he does an interesting thing here in the sense that he turns to them and he, and he tells them, he says, I want you, he's going to be asking us to do something in a moment.

He's actually setting us up in this conversation here, these verses here for another sacrifice. But he says, I want you to remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow considering the outcome of their conduct. And most common, vital commentators look at this and believe that what the writer here specifically is talking about is that the early church, so many of the leaders, right from the apostles down to then so many others of the, you know, the church planters and the early church pastors and leaders, that they were ones that they exemplified a life of faith and of trust and dependence upon God that was so wonderful.

They lived out the life of faith in a great, in a wonderful way. But it was also something that when they lived out the life of Christ and the way they lived out the life of Christ, many of them suffered terrible persecution and many of them were martyred as were most all of the, we believe of the apostles themselves, all of these great and initial leaders that they had, they were ones there that he said, I want you to look at them and remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you. And he says, whose faith follow it.

He looks at them. He says, you know, all of these people that have stirred your heart and brought you to Christ in one way or another in the first place to the early church, and they could look back at so many of these early church leaders and they saw within them a quality of life that was astounding. They saw in them a liberty of fullness of power that was so dynamic that the many people, masses of people were coming to Christ in huge numbers because of their life and their testimony.

But then many of them were persecuted and martyred. And here he says, I want you to consider their considering the outcome of their conduct. The word conduct, or as you may have manner of life in your, in manner of life, it refers to two things, the way both they lived and died.

The outcome of their life, the outcome for many of their lives was death. The end result that happened is that they were martyred and yet there was something about them. It was something there.

He said, you look at those and to put up people, a bunch of people of which have died and been persecuted and suffered terrible losses. And yet at the same time, it was so powerful, obviously the way that they lived that here the writers of the New Testament are telling them, look at them. And one of the things that was so dynamic is that their lives, the way they lived drew many people to Christ.

They watch here, somebody that not only has something to live for, that they're willing to sacrifice anything and everything for, they've got something to die for and do it with joy. Hey, I don't think anybody is honestly ready to live until you're ready to die. I don't think we really have any reason to live until we have something so powerful within our heart that we have a reason to die for it.

Until there is something so compulsive that is so taken over us that we say, for this I will die. Now I have a reason to live. And that's what they had in the early church.

They looked at their early leaders and they were unbelievable to them. I think one of the tragic things sometimes here in our 20th century is that so many times we look at our leaders and we're confused by them and their life and their value and other things. And we look at them and many people today, you know, tragically we look at a lot of leaders and sometimes it's just people almost wrapped up in their own self and their own glory and their own achievements.

But it wasn't that way in the early church. When it was something, when the likes of Peter came to town and people even thought for a moment he might be somebody and started even to come to him and to give him any form of praise. He found himself, he'd rent his clothes in embarrassment and he says, what in the world are you doing that you for a moment would confuse me of being anything different than a man like you? He said, you worship God, not me.

I've just come to know him. He's transformed my life. Worship him, not me.

And here there was something, they had these leaders that they could look at and as soon as they would look to him, they were looked over to, they pointed immediately to Christ who had transformed their life and they could study the outcome of their life, their manner of life, their conduct. And the writer of Hebrews says, follow them. Whose faith? Follow it.

You know, and I think one of the most wonderful things that ever happens in any of our lives when something so stirs us. Many Christians, I don't think that they're ready to either live or die for Christ. They haven't seen him yet.

They haven't seen his power, his magnificence, something there to where something drives them where they say for this, I'll live for this, I'll die for this, I'll let him change anything in my life, alter whatever it is. I finally found the reason I live and breathe for it's in him that I live and breathe and have my movement. It's him that I find my very life and sustenance and existence and reason for which I exist.

It's all found in him and they were told to follow them. And then he goes on and he says, for Jesus Christ, he is the same yesterday, today and forever. What he did for the early leaders, what he, how the compulsions he put in their lives, the way they lived, the way they died, the way, the victory they knew, the valiant lives they lived.

It was all of Christ. It was him living his life in them and he's the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. And then he goes on here and in verse 10, you know, he tells us there, he says, for we have an altar and this is where it's a little confusing, but it wasn't for them.

And it's not hard to explain to us, I think to put in focus, but it is initially, he says, for we, verse 10, we have an altar from which those who serve in the tabernacle have no right to eat for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore, Jesus also that he might sanctify the people by his own blood suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.

Now he is going to give us here in these, these few verses here, three more sacrifices. If you want to call it that, three things there that a person that is a follower of Christ that looks there at what it is to be a Christian, that though that when following him initially, there are sacrifices. Initially there are things there that, oh, do I have to, and that we struggle with.

But once you do them, you look back like the rest of things and realize it wasn't a sacrifice. It was wonderful. Though at the time we believe it is.

Now what the first thing he asked of them essentially here, and I'll explain this, is he is in these verses, he wants to tell them, you know, I, you've got to learn as well, not only the sacrifice of what it is, you know, to love the stranger, not only there to what it is to serve and to minister to the ill treated and the prisoner, and also in the marriage and keeping your marriage bed pure and undefiled and having a wonderful love and married life. But now he goes on those, you know, and he says, after you've learned some of these sacrifices that seem to be sacrifices when you learn them, they're not, but he says, now here's another one. And it's an interesting illustration he gives there, but he's wanting to tell them, I want you to change some things in your life.

You see, when he says, we have an altar from which those who serve in the tabernacle have no right to eat. The bodies of those animals was brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin. They're burned outside the camp.

What he is referring to here. Now, of course, this is a Jewish book. You know, the book, as you've said many times, the writer of Hebrews is a Jewish writer writing to a group of Jewish believers who had grown up in the temple, grown up with the high priest, grown up with the sacrifices, grown up with all of these things going on within the temple all the time.

The cheapest thing of which was the Passover feast, a time of which every year the high priest took an animal and the blood of the animal was then, you know, shed and taken into the Holy of Holies. But that was for sin, for the sin offering. Now, a lot of other offerings, the priest actually could partake of it.

They could eat of the offering after it had been sacrificed. But of the sin offering, it was something there that they could never touch it. The blood was shed.

Then they took that animal outside the camp and they burned it up. It was never to be touched or consumed at all by the priest or anything. It was so it was represented something so corrupt, so sinful that it was ultimately the cost, the blood, the life of the Savior, the Messiah himself, of which this lamb here offered was merely a foreshadowing of the lamb of God.

Jesus Christ, who had come into the world to take the sins of the world upon himself. And so here, though, when this Passover offering happened, the high priest took this in and the people outside, they stood out there and they came in to be forgiven. They came in, God, we failed, we've sinned, we've hated, we've been enviated, there's strife, there's misery, there's adultery or fornication, there's lying, cheating, stealing.

Whatever it is that has happened in our hearts, our lives, our behavior, God, we know it's wrong. We want it forgiven. And there the high priest would go in with all of the people waiting outside, sacrifice the animal.

Then the animal was taken and burned outside. He was, what was, it was so corrupt what had caused the death and the sins of all the people on this was like, don't even touch it, let alone think of eating it. Just take it outside the camp and burn it up.

Be done with it. And here he tells us now, the writer of Hebrews tells us that if I'm really looking unto Jesus, if he's really taken over my life, he's really the King and Lord, he's all I want, he's the great obsession of my heart. I want to say, Lord, teach me to love, whether, you know, the brothers love, you know, the body of Christ, the strangers, the ill-treated in my married life, teach me these things.

And then I'm learning this. Now he goes on and he says, I've got some more sacrifices and to me the first one here is simply the sacrifice of separation from sin that he wants us to have, that there would be something, he's giving a very simple and practical thing, the readers at the time would understand this, to us we have to, as I said, draw the picture of it. But here is something, that they would take whatever it was that was sin that happened in their lives, now put on this animal, the animal died for it, it's taken outside, you know, the camp and burned up.

And the writer of Hebrews now tells us in verse 13, he says, therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp bearing his reproach. And here, I believe, what the writer of Hebrews is simply saying to them, anything that at one point you called sin, you looked and said, Lord, I'm convicted by this, this is wrong, Christ died for me for this, whether my bitterness, my anger, my hostility, my jealousy, my lust, my covetousness, my, my, whatever it is within my heart or my life, through which I ask that, forgive me, it ought to be something that we look at there that is so corrupt that we now want to see it, not only Christ died for it, but then outside the camp, it's taken and to be burned up, and it's to be something that is destroyed. And you know, as it says there in verse 12, it says, therefore, Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered outside the gate, just like in the Old Testament, the animal was taken, crucified, offered, sacrificed, and then burned up outside.

So Christ himself, he took our sins. He didn't die within the city gates of Jerusalem, they took him outside the city gates of Calvary mountain to Golgotha, and there he was sacrificed out there outside the camp. And now he tells us, he said, you go outside the camp and be with him.

He tells us there, he says, therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp bearing his reproach. He looks there and he said, would you start looking at anything within your heart in your life that you realize for this Christ died, for this, you know, that he gave up his life for me and everybody else may say it's fine and the whole world lives that way and thinks that way and talks that way and walks that way, but Lord, you died for it. And I want to walk away from it and I want to go out to camp and call it what you call it and be with you for it and remove myself, separate my life from it.

Now again, now this is something a lot of people, oh, you're legalism. This is, you're just trying to, now you're going to give us a whole bunch of rules and regulations of what we should or shouldn't do. No, I'm looking there at the heart and saying, if there are things within your heart that you realize wrong, some desire, some anger, some hostility, some bitterness, some pattern of your life there for which you realize Jesus Christ died for this.

Then he says, call it sin. I know it's a sacrifice. I know I'm talking a hard thing.

I would wait a minute. Everybody thinks this way. Everybody does this way.

He said, if you want the deepest relationship with the Lord, then you suffer reproach with Christ. Go outside the camp. Stand there with him.

Take a stand against that sin for which he died with him and find out liberating it is. Find out how wonderful it is when he set you free and you think, well, Lord, but I, I don't want to. It's a sacrifice.

But I'll tell you in the heart wants to exclusively be with Christ in any and every way so much so I'm willing to remove myself from anything that I know he doesn't like. You'll never suffer for it. It is initially you'll think like, oh, I'm giving up something.

I'm giving up something wonderful and the whole now you're convicting me of it, telling me it's bad. And, and we feel like it's a terrible sacrifice. Not realizing we're actually setting ourself up for something wonderful with him.

I remember a number of years ago, we were moving and a friend of ours in the moving business sent out one of his vans and some guys to help and to move us. And so we're out helping to load the moving van. And as they're doing it, one of the employees of the moving companies there and something that happened where I found out later, a real pretty girl evidently had walked by and this guy stood there in the moving van and made some comments.

Well, one of my boys heard it, told him that was wrong and you shouldn't do that. And he said, no, no, it's not wrong. You know, and, and, and he says, yes, it is.

It's adultery. You know, I said, no, no, I'm married. I don't do, you know, I, I'm just looking, you know, and something he says, yes, but he says it's wrong.

And, and because then I knew, found out of it because my son came to me and said, dad, where's in the Bible that Jesus said that if you look at a woman with lust after in your heart, you've committed adultery. So I told him, he went and got his Bible and I, and when I happened to come out into the van, here he is with his Bible open. He's reading it, this guy.

And as he's reading it, the guy there, he said, oh no, oh no, no, no. I mean, he's just so upset and I wonder what's going on. And he says, that can't be wrong.

And he looks at her and he says, you don't understand. This is one of my favorite pastimes. You know, this guy was just, all of a sudden convicted there as he's lusting after some woman walking by and, and realizing this could be wrong.

But you see, anytime that maybe for somebody to give up something and to call it wrong and to say, I'm going to cut it out of my life, it just means so sacrificial. I'm giving up something that's so wonderful to me, you know, or something, but you won't be giving up anything that won't be far more wonderful in the preservation, the strengthening of your own intimate relationships, whether with the Lord or with your own marriage. You know, when there's somebody there that looks and, and finds himself anything that Is it a sacrifice there to exclusively give yourself to somebody? Are you really, if you look there and say, I'm just going to give my heart to one person.

Is that a terrible sacrifice or is it not the very thing that magnifies the wonder and the beauty of, of that one relationship? Could you imagine getting married? I wonder how it'd been if I, if I had our marriage ceremony 37 years ago, I stood up and gave my vows, you know, rich, poor, better, worse sickness, health, whatever else, you know, and, uh, and then, and then I'm yours, you know, and then I turned there and I said, however, honey, I love you, but I still got a few girls I just love keeping contact with. They're really sweet. You'll get to know them.

You'll like them. And I'd like to hang out and call them until now and then we'll just, you know, I'll just be out with them. No big deal.

You know, I have a hunch that would have been a big deal. I got a hunch that it would, you would have said the whole wedding, we would have stood up and said, why did he just say, you know, and you, this is not an exclusive relationship you want. This is not where your whole heart is committed to this.

You'll ruin it. You'll destroy it. I mean, how that, but so often, how many things steal our heart away from God day by day? In what, how many times is it that you have a problem? You have a trial.

Jesus Christ loves you. He gave himself for you. And he says, let me help you.

Trust me. Seek me. Wait upon me.

So no, no, no. I got another friend who helps me with this anger, you know, or something. We solve the problems.

You're too kind. You're too patient. I know how to handle these things.

I'll, you know, and how would it be, I mean, if you just split, you know, and, and, and went off to resolve your own problems. Can you imagine? I couldn't imagine if this afternoon I get a phone call from Jean at the grocery store and she's, hi honey. I'm at the grocery store.

Oh, wonderful. And, uh, oh, she says it is wonderful. And she said, I'll tell you, it's the nicest thing.

I was just getting some stuff and I met this nicest man here. He's just the nicest guy. I can't believe it.

He's just wonderful. And he's very lonely. And he asked me for dinner and he was just so nice.

I don't think I'll be home for dinner. Okay. What? You know, as a matter of fact, don't wait up.

You know, I mean, I would think there would, there, there would be a little tension somehow or another. I don't know that I'd say, well, God bless you. You just have a wonderful time.

I can assure you that would not happen. And if, if such a conversation was to occur, but how often is it that's exactly what we do with the Lord. There is some way that we live.

We, you know, we, we just check out for great periods of time. Lord, I met somebody today. I'm just going to spend some time with them.

I'm going to resolve my problems with them. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that.

You know, I, we don't, we don't write, we don't call, we don't pray, but it happens. We just check out. I'll handle this problem.

I'll handle the problems at the office. I'll handle it. I've got another way of doing it than you.

And off we go and we check out, oh, but I'll be back. I love you. See you Sunday.

You know, or whatever. And off we go. And yet there, when we look in our heart and we, anything God that separates me from you, anything for which you died, any area there that I have lost dependence upon you, Lord, I want to separate myself from it.

I want to go out to camp and suffer whatever it seems to be the reproach at the time. But let me tell you, anybody that ever suffered reproach, it's like Moses, it tells us earlier in Hebrews. It says that Moses there, when he looked at Christ, he was willing to suffer the reproach of Christ, then to enjoy all the treasures and the pleasures of Egypt for a season.

Here the world was at his feet. And it says here, Moses, you can have us. Have Egypt.

You can have it all. All the treasures and all the pleasures. And he looked there and he said, I'd rather be alone and suffer the reproach of Christ.

It is greater riches than all of Egypt. And he went off into the loneliness of what appeared to the rest of the world that would sit back there with all of Egypt, all the, where's Moses? He's off alone with God. What a loser.

And yet Moses would look and say, loser, his reproach, it was greater than the riches of Egypt. But how is it? Why is it that initially it's a sacrifice? Isn't it sad and embarrassing? It is for me. After all these years, so many times the Lord says, Don, I want something.

Oh, no, no, no, no. Why? You wanted something last week. We quibbled for three days with it.

Now you're back for more. What is it about my nature that I struggle in and then I do some and then when I do it, it was the most blessed thing in the world. Isn't that true with you? You struggle with God.

It's a terrible sacrifice. All right, God, you want it. You can just have it.

You know, you got eternal life. I get no choices. You know, either I do business with you or go to hell.

Thanks. You know, or whatever else we think in our own crazy minds. And so we back off, make the big sacrifice, and then when we do it, it's wonderful.

Lord, why do you have to raise me where I argue and quibble over everything? And it's a big sacrifice when I do it. He then goes on. Not only is he said, I want if you could learn the blessed sacrifice of separation from sin, he also goes on there and he tells us on here over in verse 14, he says, For we have no for here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.

Therefore, by him, let us continue offering the offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. He says, you know, you if you want to really let Christ be magnified, not only to have no the sacrifice of separation in your life and giving it over him and suffering reproach of which you'll always be glad you did, but also learn the sacrifice of praise.

And it's amazing. Now, this, again, is another thing that seems so sacrificial when we do it. Praising God.

I mean, the one who died for us, created the world coming for us. And yet so often when when we praise him, it's a sacrifice. Oh, well, everything here is a mess.

But praise God, you know, for something. We're trying to look around for it, and it's a hard task. Isn't it crazy? You know, about us as human beings, you know, that here we have the writer, though, wanting to say, wait a minute, let's look around here.

Here in this world, you have no continuing dwelling place, no continuing habitation, no continuing home in this life. There is no continuing city, but you're seeking one to come in an amazing. We live in this life and whatever it is that you have, it doesn't continue.

It only deteriorates everything you've got right now that you've worked so hard to get. You also know you better keep working because the moment you stop, it's going to deteriorate. You've got to keep fixing it up, repairing it, painting it, you know, adding on to it, doing other things with it, trying to make it better and better, while at the whole time there is constantly it's falling apart, it's depreciating or it's something's happening with it.

And it requires this tremendous energy and an effort and thought and planning and to preserve something that already it says it won't last. It's not going to continue. It's here for a time and then it's gone.

And here we're so wrapped up in it. I know that, but we go right back and right out and spend all week long struggling with it, fixing it up, trying to make it better, even though it just sits there all the time falling apart and says, you pour all your energy into me and then at the end, I'm going to let you down. It won't work.

And here he looks there and he says, since then we have no continuing city. Why don't we seek the one to come? He looks here and he says, it seems to be such a sacrifice for somebody to take their eyes off of this world and off of all the effort that we put into it, constantly trying to maintain something, keep it up, keep it going. It has no eternal value at all.

It's going to completely fall apart at the end. And yet here at the other time there is this home in heaven outshines the sun for which is our eternal life at all to be founded. He says, why don't you invest a little in that place? Oh no, you want me to, you want me to help missions? I don't, that's what you want mission.

You want me to do that. You want me to think about another place and it's a huge sacrifice. You want me to sacrifice.

That's what it is. You want me to have less attention on this world around and you just want me to sacrifice and offer to you who you are and your, admire your glory and your majesty and all you mean to me. That's it isn't it God? And I said, why? And crazy as we are, it's a sacrifice.

Crazy as we are to do it. It's something there that it seems to be this sacrifice. But when you learn it, it's one of the most liberating again, sacrifices you'll ever have.

When there is something that you can look at this whole world around and say, hey, it's going to let me down. It isn't going to last. It isn't going to work, but I have a home in glory that outshines the sun.

And I've got a master in that heaven, in that home who is better than everything. David, I think one of his greatest strengths is he understood this. David was somebody you could literally take him and you could put him in the backside of a cave.

You could surround him with 3000 chosen men of Israel. You could put a bounty over his head where they all wanted him dead. He's hiding in the back of it.

Not a stitch of light in the whole place. Hopelessness is surrounding everybody else all around. And David there, when he watches his continuing city about to discontinue entirely, could sit down and write, the Lord is my light and my salvation.

Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? He's looking at it. Is this crazy that I'm afraid? Is this crazy that I, that I have these fears? How insane that I should be.

The Lord's my light. He says, when the wicked come against me to eat of my flesh, my enemies fell and I stumbled and fell. This is though an army man camp against me.

My heart shall not fear. The war should rise against me in this. Will I be confident? For one thing, if I desire to the Lord and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

He looked there and he says, the captivating thing, the one thing there is to realize, I have a, this isn't a continuing city, but I have one to come. David said, I'll be satisfied when I awake in that likeness. He could look at this whole world and it could come and it could go and it could be all around him, he didn't seem to care.

In the time of trouble, he said, he shall hide me in his pavilion and in the secret place of his tabernacle, he'll hide me. He shall be, he shall set me high upon a rock and now my head should be lifted up above my enemies all around me. Therefore, I will offer the sacrifices of joy in his tabernacle.

I will sing. Yes, I will sing praises of the Lord. He sat there and he said, you know, it is, it is not a continuing city.

It isn't going to last and it isn't going to take my energy. It isn't going to set my strength. Heaven is.

But when we think of it, it is tragically initially a sacrifice. Something there. Oh well.

Oh well. I'll just. There it is.

I'm not going to let it control me. I'm not going to let it, you know, you know, wrap my life all up in it. I'm going to give it up for heaven.

Hello. What? Are we not crazy? Are we not the most insane, stubborn children when it, when something like this is a sacrifice? But nonetheless, even to David and the rest of the world, that's the only comfort I get is that it is a sacrifice initially. But when we learn it, when something gets embedded within this, that we realize, Lord, heaven is why I exist and to praise you and to worship you and to realize, let it come, let it go.

I'll put in whatever time it is in the world. I've got some responsibilities. I'll fulfill them.

It says, occupy until he comes, so I'll mow the lawn and I'll, you know, pay the bills and I'll put in a new, you know, water heater when the thing leaks or whatever else. But it's not my life. That's my life.

This is not a continuing place. It's going to let me down forever and ever, but that is, will never let me down. Therefore, I will offer continually the sacrifice of praise to you that I have you, that you are so wonderful to me.

And then lastly, lastly here, another sacrifice seems to be so hard at the time. We struggle so much with it, you know, whether, again, the sacrifice there of separating, but as we separate, you know, we're free and we're happier. The sacrifice of praise, we struggle with it, but once we learn it, our life is better.

And then lastly, the sacrifice of submission. In verse 17, he says, obey those that rule over you and be submissive for they watch over your souls as those that must give an account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief.

For what would that would be unprofitable for you here now? God puts authority over our lives, all of us, and it comes essentially in about three different areas. One is a government that we love to criticize and everything else, and I am amongst them. But in Romans, you know, 13, 1, Paul writes and he says, he says, let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God and those who, which exist are established by God.

Here there's something that's so often recriticized, but I'll tell you, when you travel around this world, and you stop to realize one of the, you're going to get out, you know, at service here in one, you're going to get in a car and you're going to drive down and you're going to drive home at relative peace. There's lines down the side, the middle of the road that says you stay on this side and you stay on this side. And then there's lights and there's, and there's a whole system of laws set up there that when everybody just submits to them, it's a, it's a relative, it's a wonderful place to travel around in.

I mean, there's roads that are put out there that are maintained. There's lights, you know, in the streets that help us find it. There's signals that tell us to stop and go and help us all move around as best as you possibly kind of can.

It's pretty unique when you look at a lot of the rest of the planet where there are no laws. Almost. And people are in chaos.

You, you know, in other countries, boy, you, we were literally, when we were down in San Salvador, when we're driving down the road, they're taking us to the airport. And there, as we're coming down the road, there, this is done in San Salvador. There is a woman where all of a sudden cars are swerving and we have to swerve.

And there's a woman in the street laying there, bags all over. She'd been hit at least once, looked like it didn't know, couldn't tell if she was dead or alive. We kept on moving.

I said, we got to stop there. She's that woman. Yes.

And he said, we can't. I said, what do you mean we can't? We got to, you know, and he says, no, he says, you don't understand the laws here. The guy that's taking us, he says, if we stop, they will charge us with hitting her.

We will go to jail and have to pay for her funeral. That's how it works here. And whatever, or whatever medical thing she is, because of the fact that if we just simply all of a sudden, here's somebody that, hey, you saw it, you did it.

That's the way it works here. And he said, we can't. And here you sit there.

What kind of a government is that? What type of society is that? And we look at our, we see something here. It's just beyond our comprehension. Why? Because we got a system of laws and we are to obey the laws of the land and the person that does it, that doesn't fight and where the law is always tricking you and try or having to catch you and all this, and the person just lives by the law.

You know, then as he says there, he says, those who rule over you do it submissively. They watch over your souls. They give an account.

Let them do it with joy, not with grief. Why don't you just help the government do its job? Says you owe money, pay it. Well, we got to discuss, I mean, come on, everybody punches, you know, or whatever else.

No, you don't have to. Though you think you do, and you're so upset at it, just do it. And if the whole society could just live within that confines.

If you go to work, you got a master, we don't, you know, and the master says, I want you to be here at eight o'clock. We're always trying to be, how can I make him think I'm there at eight, but not really be there at eight? I know what I'll do. I'll get there at eight, clock in, but then all the stuff that I would be doing if I was still at home, I can now do it because I got the internet.

I got email. I got all the jokes that I wanted to mail out to people, you know, on this thing, and I can go sit there and have two screens going up and one of them, I can go back and forth and I can have my other time there at the office. And we're all upset because of the fact we have a master.

We have somebody who says, I want you to come to work and I want you to clock in. I want you to go to work when you go to work, novel idea. But anyway, it's something that we have, and we're mad at that.

It's not fair. And then I had an elder at one of my previous ministries, he was a vice president, one of the largest insurance companies in the nation, very well known. They had done a lot of surveys within their own anonymous surveys, you know, within all of their own executives in amongst their own executives and honest surveys that were anonymous.

They admitted that they cheated on their expense accounts. But the reason they gave her a cheating on it is because they figured that the company knew they cheated. And therefore, if they did, that was part of their compensation package that they wrote into the agreement when you hired us, you know, I'm going to lie to you.

And therefore, I and then they and it was OK to come and go and sneak in and out. And it was OK to take stuff from the office, because that's all part of my compensation, because everybody steals and everybody lies about it. And they actually the rationale for for not being submissive to the work, the job, and therefore, not the job.

They've got to have all these surveillance cameras. They got to have the ways that now they go into the main server to see, are they actually doing company business? Are they out on the Internet, you know, buying stuff on eBay? Are they what are they doing in all this stuff? Because they're causing their employers and their masters grief instead of making it a joy to work for them. And then it messes up your heart and your life and convicts you, he says, go to work.

Whatever your relationships are in life, he says, when you go to church, those that rule over you and this is all those that in and he says that the Bible says some do it just to. Can you imagine how different life would be if we could just make these sacrifices? If you could be how different would your life be, would mine be if every if the sacrifice is separation, if there was something today, if I just sat there and said, Lord, is this sin? Did you die for this? Yes. And that was just enough for me to say, therefore, I'm going outside the camp or I'll suffer whatever the sacrifices of separation and give it up.

If it was enough that you died for, I'll suffer the reproach of crisis, greater riches than anything I could have of keeping it. I don't want it. Could you imagine how different your life would be? Or maybe not you.

Let's say your mate. Let's say the people, you know, all of them were just people that just wanted to change their lives to please God any way they could. Could you imagine if they made the sacrifice of praise? If you could imagine there with your wife, your husband, you come home and hear the house is in trouble and you know, and there's this and that.

And instead of, hey, we got to go on and get a whole new something. There was something you walked in and there your husband, your wife said, oh, well, praise God. It's all falling apart anyway.

Let's get the cheapest way we can. You say, praise God. Where'd you come up with that idea, sugar? You know, I mean, on how, you know, if there was somebody there that just let's live for another world and I'd have to pour every bit of energy into this one and praise God that we have him taking us there.

And then in the process of it, let's just do right by each other. Let's obey the standards. Let's follow the word.

How wonderful life would be within your life, everyone's life, amen?