The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - Money, Debt, & Freedom From Financial Slavery

00:00:00 all right listen guys i get it many of you are unable to financially support this ministry

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00:00:40 All right. This morning, we're continuing with our series through the book of Hebrews. We're now in

00:00:43 the final chapter of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 13. Our text for today is a continuation of last

00:00:50 Lord's Day, which is Hebrews chapter 13, verses one through six. Hebrews chapter 13, verses one

00:00:57 through six. Would you join me in standing for the reading of God's word? I'll read our text for us

00:01:02 in its entirety. When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say this is the word of the Lord,

00:01:07 at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying thanks be to God.

00:01:12 One final time, our text for today is Hebrews chapter 13 verses one through six. The Bible

00:01:18 says this, let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,

00:01:25 for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

00:01:29 Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them

00:01:33 and those who are mistreated since you also are in the body.

00:01:38 Let marriage be held in honor among all

00:01:41 and let the marriage bed be undefiled 0.56

00:01:44 for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

00:01:49 Keep your life free from the love of money

00:01:52 and be content with what you have

00:01:54 for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say,

00:02:00 the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? This is the word of the Lord.

00:02:08 All right, please be seated. Let's go ahead and dive right back in. We're going to focus primarily

00:02:15 our attention on verses four, five, and six of our text. If you were with us last Lord's Day,

00:02:21 the focus was exclusively on verses 1, 2, and 3. But for those of you who were not with us last

00:02:29 week, I'm going to do my best to provide a brief recap. Verse 1, let brotherly love continue. The

00:02:36 primary point that I made from this verse is that what is specifically stated in terms of what

00:02:42 particular kind of love is a brotherly love, meaning a love for fellow believers in the Lord

00:02:50 Jesus Christ. The love that we are commanded to preserve in, to continue in, to guard and protect

00:02:58 and nourish, to sustain, is a love for the household of faith. This is likened to other

00:03:06 texts in the Bible, such as Galatians chapter 6 verse 9 through 10, where the apostle Paul says

00:03:12 that we should seek to do good to all people as we have opportunity, but especially the household

00:03:20 of faith. In other words, a way that you could interpret that is that the Christian has a moral

00:03:26 obligation under God to seek as much as he has opportunity to do good to all who have need.

00:03:35 However, the Christian in his resources and the church militant, meaning the church here on earth

00:03:43 in its corporate resources are finite. Christ is the head of the church and he as God is infinite.

00:03:52 But Christ's body here on earth is finite. The church comprised of human beings made in the

00:04:00 image of God and redeemed by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone we are finite creatures

00:04:07 our resources are finite and limited so we seek to do good to all but we will not be able to meet

00:04:16 all needs Jesus specifically said the poor you will always have with you the poor you will always

00:04:24 have with you. And I said last week that one of the primary reasons why we will always have the

00:04:31 poor with us in this life, on this earth, until the final return of Christ, is because we will

00:04:39 always have sin with us. You will always have the poor because in this world, until Christ's

00:04:46 glorious final physical return, we will always have sin. And poverty is linked to sin. Now that

00:04:55 does not mean that each individual person who is poor is poor because of their own individual sin.

00:05:02 But all poverty is linked to someone's sin. We could make the same argument actually in regards

00:05:10 to sickness. Remember when Jesus and the disciples, they pass a man who is born blind, and they ask

00:05:18 Jesus, whose sin made this man born blind, his or his parents? And Jesus responds by saying, neither,

00:05:26 but so that the glory of God might be revealed. But notice what Jesus does not say. He says,

00:05:31 neither this man's individual sin resulted in this man's individual physical ailment, nor his

00:05:38 parents' individual sin resulted in his physical ailment. But Jesus does not say, he does not say

00:05:44 that no one's sin made this man born blind. He simply says neither his or his parents. But the

00:05:53 reality is that Jesus does affirm, because Jesus affirms everything in the scripture, the reality

00:06:00 is this. All sickness ultimately is a result of someone's sin, if no one else's, namely Adam's.

00:06:09 This world only has sickness and disease and death because it is under the curse that came

00:06:16 about through sin. And so all sickness is a result of sin, at least in a general sense.

00:06:24 in a general sense. However, we might also find a both and, not either or, but in some cases,

00:06:31 sin is only, sickness is only rooted in sin in the general sense, but sometimes sickness can be found

00:06:39 to be the direct cause of sin in general and sin in particular, meaning that individual could have

00:06:47 their own individual particular sin that results in physical ailments like a lack of discipline

00:06:54 right somebody could have horrible eating habits somebody could have um choosing to

00:07:02 to give themselves towards uh harmful substances and drug use and all these things and in that

00:07:09 case we're not trying to beat the person up but it's not loving to pretend as though the person's

00:07:16 moral actions, the person's habits and rhythms and disciplines have no effect on their personal

00:07:23 health. Of course it does. Of course it does. In the same way that we would never tell a 17-year-old

00:07:33 girl who weighs, you know, 78 pounds, and she looks in the mirror, and every time she looks 0.90

00:07:40 in the mirror she says I'm a whale I'm so overweight I'm disgusting I'm ugly we would 0.90

00:07:46 never say it's loving to tell that anorexic girl who has a problem a mental problem dysphoria 0.97

00:07:54 she is not seeing clearly she is deceived there may be demonic spirits at work or it may just 0.56

00:08:01 simply be a mental deficiency or it could be the effect of of being brainwashed and influenced

00:08:09 by TikTok and Instagram and Hollywood

00:08:12 and all these different things,

00:08:14 multiple contributing factors.

00:08:15 But the point remains that what she sees

00:08:18 when she looks in the mirror is categorically false.

00:08:22 It is not true.

00:08:23 And it therefore is not loving for us to go and say,

00:08:26 I want to affirm your truth. 0.97

00:08:29 Hey, if your truth is that you're fat 0.98

00:08:32 as a 78 pound, 17 year old girl, 0.99

00:08:35 well, I mean, it would be unloving for me

00:08:38 to tell you that your truth isn't real.

00:08:41 So you know what, sweetheart? 1.00

00:08:43 You are fat. 1.00

00:08:44 You're the fattest girl I've ever seen. 1.00

00:08:47 Now apply that same logic to transgenderism. 1.00

00:08:51 Is that not exactly what we're told to do as loving?

00:08:55 That same 17-year-old girl, 0.95

00:08:58 let's now say she has a healthy weight,

00:09:00 but she says, I'm a boy.

00:09:03 Well, hey, if that's what you see,

00:09:06 if that's how you feel,

00:09:08 If that's your truth, then the most loving thing that I can do is affirm that reality.

00:09:13 No, the most loving thing that we can do is love someone in truth.

00:09:19 When the Bible says that we're called to speak the truth in love,

00:09:22 sadly, many evangelical Christians have taken truth and love

00:09:26 as though they were at odds with one another.

00:09:29 We've pitted them against one another.

00:09:31 Like truth and love are two options,

00:09:34 and that we're able to choose one at any given time.

00:09:37 like as though truth and love are two different tools used at different moments for different

00:09:44 ends, right? Truth is a hammer and love is a screwdriver. And it depends on what job we're

00:09:49 trying to accomplish. In some cases, we may need the hammer. In some cases, we may need the

00:09:54 screwdriver. That is not the way that the Bible describes the relationship between truth and love.

00:10:01 The truth is loving.

00:10:04 And love, if it is love, is always truthful.

00:10:09 The best way to think of these is apply it to the concept

00:10:12 or the doctrine of the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

00:10:15 The fruit of the Holy Spirit, again,

00:10:17 to go back to that analogy or illustration,

00:10:20 it's not a toolbox with nine different tools inside.

00:10:25 Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

00:10:28 faithfulness gentleness and self-control i'm building a house right now and at some moments

00:10:35 i may need the saw at other moments i need the screwdriver at other moments i need the hammer

00:10:40 i'm going to take out of my toolbox love for this leg of the race and truth for this leg of the race

00:10:46 and gentleness for it no the nine fruit of the spirit listed in galatians first and foremost it

00:10:53 is not an exhaustive list. These are simply some of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And that word

00:10:59 fruit should be understood as fruit, just like the fruit of our faith, as Connor said earlier,

00:11:05 is obedience. Fruit simply means evidence, the result of, the physical visible manifestations

00:11:14 of another ultimate reality. Fruit is the cause of the root or the effect, I should say, of the

00:11:24 root. So when the Bible speaks of the fruits of the Spirit, we're not saying that there are nine

00:11:29 fruit of the Spirit like a buffet and you choose one at a time or maybe two or three and you leave

00:11:35 the rest there and you come back for them later whenever they're needed. That's not what's being

00:11:39 described to use well to use fruit as the analogy of fruit right an apple banana pineapple oranges

00:11:47 if we're to think of it like that there are not nine fruit of the holy spirit meaning nine

00:11:53 different kinds of of of food fruits apples and oranges and lemons and whatever no it would be

00:12:00 nine different characteristics of of one piece of fruit like an apple is crunchy and sweet and

00:12:08 tart, and this, and nine different characteristics. The fruit of the Spirit is the characteristics

00:12:14 of the third person of the Holy Trinity, namely the Holy Spirit of God. That's the way that we're

00:12:20 meant to understand the fruit of the Spirit, which means what? It means that if you have the Holy

00:12:25 Spirit, which you do if you are in Christ, per 1 Corinthians chapter 6, your body is a temple of

00:12:32 the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have received from God you are not your own you were

00:12:38 bought with a price and if you have the Holy Spirit you do not have a portion of the Holy Spirit

00:12:45 because what the scripture also teaches in regards to theology proper and doctrine of God

00:12:52 as expressed in the scripture and historical confessions is that God is a most pure spirit

00:12:59 without body, parts, or passions. God is not composed of parts. God is a simple being in

00:13:09 philosophy, in philosophical terms. So I don't mean God is simple. God is the most complex being in the

00:13:16 world. But philosophically speaking, God is simple, meaning he's not divisible. You could have your

00:13:22 left arm amputated because you've somehow gotten a serious infection that would threaten your very

00:13:28 life and so it's actually in your best interest to lose your arm or to use kind of the words of

00:13:34 Jesus right better to enter heaven missing an eye than to go into hell with both your eyes

00:13:40 better to enter heaven missing a hand than to go into hell with both your hands well in the same

00:13:47 sense if you had your left arm amputated you would still be you if I lost one of my fingers

00:13:53 I would not cease to be Joel Webben. I would be Joel Webben with nine fingers now rather than

00:14:00 ten. But I would still be me. My identity is not dependent or contingent upon parts. But God,

00:14:09 as we speak of God, what we mean by divine simplicity in philosophical terms is not that

00:14:15 God is an infinite. In that sense, he's the most complex being in all the universe. But he is a

00:14:21 simple being, philosophically speaking, in terms that there is no part of God that could be removed

00:14:27 from God and him still be God. I'll say that again. There is no portion or part of God that

00:14:35 could be severed or divorced from God without God ceasing to be God. This is the doctrine of divine

00:14:42 simplicity. Now, everything I've said to this point, let me give one warning. Everything I've

00:14:47 said to this point I personally believe is as much as should be said the moment that you go

00:14:54 further with the doctrine of divine simplicity and you begin to contemplate and make assertions

00:15:00 about what was in the mind of God 15 minutes before he created the world now you're a Thomist

00:15:06 and Thomas Aquinas is simply a Catholic who baptized Aristotle who is a pagan who ultimately

00:15:17 at the end of the day, in my assessment, those who are really sweet on Thomas these days are

00:15:26 kind of harboring a progressively lower and lower view of the Bible. God speaks through natural

00:15:34 revelation, but it's important that we remember that he also wrote a book, and we're allowed to

00:15:40 use the book. We don't simply have to make, the only morally binding arguments that the Christian

00:15:46 can make and public theology do not exclusively come from nature we can argue from the bible

00:15:54 from the bible we can say nature itself tells you this as the apostle paul says in scripture

00:16:00 but then we can also say and the apostle paul tells you this inspired by the holy spirit

00:16:05 inscripturated and preserved for 2 000 years god wrote a book yes god created the world and he has

00:16:13 revealed himself, per Romans 1, by what he has made. But in these last days, he has revealed

00:16:20 himself by his Son. And all the teachings of Christ and the works of Christ, the ministry of

00:16:26 Christ, the message of Christ has been inscripturated for us, all that is sufficient for life and

00:16:32 godliness on the pages of the Bible. That, in a nutshell, is the distinction between a

00:16:39 presuppositional approach in the line of Van Til versus a Thomistic approach in the line of Thomas

00:16:48 Aquinas, which just means Catholic, which just means a Catholic who's commissioned to baptize

00:16:52 a pagan, namely Aristotle. However, all that being said, I still think we can affirm the doctrine of

00:16:59 divine simplicity, but with a careful full stop before we get off the speculative cliff. Okay,

00:17:05 all that being said if you have the holy spirit you have all the holy spirit you do not have half

00:17:13 of the spirit you do not have one ninth of the holy spirit going back to galatians and the fruit

00:17:20 of the spirit so these are not nine individual fruits meaning apples and oranges and seven other

00:17:27 fruits but rather nine characteristics or qualities of one object in this case namely

00:17:34 the object being he, the Holy Spirit himself. If you have the Holy Spirit, you have the qualities

00:17:43 and characteristics of the Holy Spirit. As this plays out practically in the ministry and life

00:17:50 of Jesus, in his earthly ministry 2,000 years ago, this would be one of the implications of what I'm

00:17:56 saying. Jesus, the scripture says, in his earthly ministry was full of the Holy Spirit, meaning

00:18:04 Jesus embodied and manifest and lived out the fullness of the Holy Spirit throughout his earthly

00:18:12 ministry every moment of every day of his earthly life. Meaning there was not a single moment that

00:18:21 Jesus was not operating in the full measure of the Holy Spirit at all times. And what that means

00:18:30 practically is that there was never a moment therefore that Jesus was not walking out in the

00:18:37 spirit perfect love joy peace patience kindness goodness gentleness faithfulness and self-control

00:18:48 Jesus was not in one moment of his ministry executing gentleness at the expense of love

00:18:56 and joy and peace and kindness.

00:18:59 So when Jesus fashions a whip

00:19:01 in John chapter two,

00:19:04 because zeal for his father's house

00:19:06 consumed him,

00:19:07 and the money changers 0.90

00:19:09 were ripping off the Gentiles. 0.99

00:19:11 It was like a Chuck E. Cheese, right? 1.00

00:19:14 You walk in and you have to

00:19:16 exchange currency, right? 1.00

00:19:18 Your Gentile pagan money 1.00

00:19:20 is no good here. 1.00

00:19:21 In part, there's a decent argument

00:19:23 because of images on the coins.

00:19:25 You've got to remove this. 0.51

00:19:26 you've got to transfer it for this Jewish currency so that you can now go from the money changers to 0.98

00:19:32 the booths and buy pigeons and buy goats and buy lambs to make the required sacrifices. But the 0.85

00:19:37 problem is the exchange rate. The money changers, what they were doing was ripping people off to

00:19:43 where their Gentile money was being massively diluted to only a little bit of Jewish money in 0.92

00:19:50 order to purchase these sacrifices. So essentially, a sacrifice was costing them, you know, three,

00:19:56 four, five times what it should. That's why the scripture says, Jesus says to them, you have made

00:20:02 my father's house. It should be a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of 0.96

00:20:07 thieves. Not just a circus, but thievery. Theft is what you're doing. And so how does he respond?

00:20:15 He fashions a whip, braids it out of cords, and begins to throw over their tables, release the

00:20:23 animals. And all of this, here's my point, is gentle. This is what gentleness looks like.

00:20:32 Gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Jesus is not putting gentleness back in the toolbox for a moment

00:20:40 so that he can bring out the hammer. No, this is gentleness, and it is love, and it is joy,

00:20:46 and it is peace and it is patience. It's all of it. Because the Holy Spirit is a person,

00:20:53 not a puzzle. And he cannot be dissected into parts because he is a most pure spirit without

00:21:01 body, parts, and passions. And that is a correct view of our doctrine of God, our theology proper,

00:21:09 the way that we understand the essence of God and the nature and character of God. And so all that

00:21:18 being said, the point is this, as we seek to exercise love and joy and peace in all the fruits

00:21:26 of the Spirit, and again, these nine fruits in Galatians not being an exhaustive list, but we

00:21:33 might also add things like truth things like generosity as we seek to exemplify all the

00:21:40 characteristics of the one holy spirit who shares the divine essence with the son and with the

00:21:46 father as we seek to do this there are still moments and times and i would argue they are

00:21:52 frequent and common in our sin-ridden world where we must tell people no no i'm sorry i can't help

00:22:02 you. I can't help you because my lower, this is one way you could say it, my lower no has already

00:22:13 been defined for me by my higher yes. Some of you have a hard time saying no, right? One of the ways,

00:22:22 you know, like death by a thousand cuts, right? That phrase, you know, just slowly, little by

00:22:28 little by little worn down one of the things that we experience often in the 21st century is

00:22:35 is death by limitless virtually limitless opportunity

00:22:39 all the time and i know that i'm not unique i have i'm sharing this because it's common to man

00:22:48 i know that this is the situation that you probably find yourself often in as well but all

00:22:54 the time i'll get requests sometimes they come in that humble tone of a request sometimes i get

00:23:00 demands but but either way whether it be a request or demand there's a million different things that

00:23:06 a million different people think that i should be doing with my life in any given moment and one of

00:23:13 the ways that i'm able it's it's almost overwhelming it is overwhelming to sift through every little

00:23:20 thing to define and determine, to discern what I should say yes to and what I should say no to.

00:23:27 There is an immense peace and freedom. This is the irony. There is a freedom, as G.K. Chesterton

00:23:34 once said, that comes within the bounds, right? That the fences actually provide a freedom from

00:23:44 slavery to limitless choices and opportunity. You've heard me use this illustration before.

00:23:50 the fish might say, I don't like being confined and bound and enslaved to this pond.

00:23:59 I want to be an autonomous fish. I want to have liberty. And so one day it swims as fast as it can

00:24:06 towards the bank and jumps out of the water at the last minute and frees itself from the pond

00:24:12 to die on the shore. The pond was not its prison. The pond was its proper context designed for the

00:24:22 fish to thrive in by God who determines our nature and our context, our purpose, our lives,

00:24:30 everything, everything. And one of the ways that you can kind of trim down the fat, as it were,

00:24:36 when it comes to daily practical life,

00:24:39 knowing what should I say no to,

00:24:41 what should I say yes to,

00:24:43 is by starting at the top.

00:24:45 You've probably heard the illustration.

00:24:47 I know that it's a bit of a cliche,

00:24:48 but it's true and it's helpful.

00:24:51 The illustration that if you're going to fill a bucket

00:24:53 and you've got rocks, pebbles, sand, and water,

00:24:59 well, what do you start with first?

00:25:02 You start with the rocks.

00:25:04 If you fill the bucket with water first,

00:25:06 there's no room for anything else. You do the rocks. Then you pour the pebbles, and they're

00:25:11 going to sprinkle down in between all the crevices and the cracks between the larger rocks. Then you

00:25:16 slowly pour the sand, which will fill all the spaces between the rocks and the pebbles. And

00:25:21 lastly, you pour the water. You start with the big things. The higher yes defines the lower no's.

00:25:28 And God has made this plain in his word. We know what are our priorities of loves.

00:25:35 St. Augustine talked about this, this same concept,

00:25:38 saying that what we need is a prioritization of proper affections.

00:25:43 We start with love for God, seeking His kingdom first,

00:25:47 and all these things will be added unto you.

00:25:50 Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,

00:25:53 with all your mind, and all your strength.

00:25:55 Then next we go to neighbor.

00:25:57 But which neighbor?

00:25:58 Because currently we have about 8 billion of them. 1.00

00:26:02 Well, we begin with our wives.

00:26:04 and our children and our parents. We see in the scripture that if a man does not care for his

00:26:14 family and even his extended family, his household immediate family and even extended family, 0.99

00:26:21 then he is denied the faith, the Bible says, and is worse than an unbeliever. So we prioritize 1.00

00:26:29 first our families loving the Lord then our wives our children our parents extended family

00:26:35 beyond that we move to the church and if there's anything left if we have opportunity as Galatians

00:26:43 6 9 through 10 says then we can do good to others also do good to all so long as you have

00:26:51 opportunity but especially that is prioritize the household of faith so let brotherly love

00:26:59 continue? The text does not say let universal love continue, not neighborly love. Everyone is your

00:27:07 neighbor according to the word of God, but not everyone is your brother or sister. In order for

00:27:13 someone to be your brother or sister in Christ, they have to have God as their father. They must

00:27:20 have a union with God, been adopted by God as his son, as his daughter, through faith in the Lord

00:27:28 Jesus Christ. So what we find in the first verse of our text is to prioritize to preserve brotherly

00:27:35 love, love for the household of faith. Now what we saw last week is that immediately, what I've

00:27:40 said thus far, it appears, if we're not careful, on the surface, it appears to be immediately

00:27:46 contradicted by the very next verse of our text, namely verse 2, which says, do not neglect to show

00:27:52 hospitality to brothers. No, strangers. Well Joel, that seems to throw a wrench in the gears of what

00:28:01 you're advocating. You're saying that we should prioritize brotherly love, and you're saying that

00:28:06 brotherly love is making an argument about the particular people that we should love, namely

00:28:12 brothers. See, there are others who, just for the record, to play the devil's advocate as it were

00:28:18 for a moment, there are others who would interpret that brotherly love phrase to say that it's a kind

00:28:24 of love rather than the who of love. It's the how of love. How we should love versus who we should

00:28:30 love. The manner of love versus the object of love. My argument is that it's referring to, I think,

00:28:36 in a lesser sense, in a secondary sense, we could include the manner in there, a tender brotherly

00:28:42 tenderness in love but i think first and foremost primarily what's what's being conveyed by the

00:28:48 phrase brotherly love is not the manner of our love or how we love but the object of our love

00:28:54 who we love namely brothers in christ now for those who would say no it's not saying that you

00:28:59 prioritize love for for the church over love for those who are not christians it's not saying that

00:29:05 and and the reason it's not saying that is because the very next verse says that we should show

00:29:09 hospitality to strangers. Well, I understand that argument, and it may seem to be logical on the

00:29:16 surface, but here's where I would object. And I advocate and suggest that you object as well.

00:29:22 The way that I would object is I would say that the strangers in reference here

00:29:27 is not referring to those who are estranged from Christ, namely unbelievers. It is not those who

00:29:35 are strangers to god but rather strangers to us that they actually are our brothers in christ

00:29:42 and the reason why we're called to not neglect to show hospitality to them is because they bear the

00:29:48 name of christ because they are our brothers in christ they are our sisters in christ they're not

00:29:54 strangers in the sense that we're christians and they're not they're strangers in the sense that

00:29:59 we're both Christians. Neither of us is a stranger to God, but we are strangers to one another in

00:30:05 the sense that they come from another place. They are strangers in the sense that they are foreigners 1.00

00:30:11 would be another word used in the scripture. Sojourners, foreigners, aliens, that they're 1.00

00:30:19 strangers in that sense. And I used this quote briefly last week, but let me define it a little 0.99

00:30:25 bit more. This is a quote by John Gill speaking about strangers and defining that term. Strangers

00:30:31 in what sense? He says this, strangers by whom are meant not unconverted men, not strangers to God

00:30:39 and Christ and the covenants of promise or saints who are pilgrims and strangers in this world,

00:30:46 but strangers insofar as of another country and are unknown.

00:30:53 And even though wicked men, they are not excluded.

00:30:58 Let me stop there.

00:31:00 They're strangers not to God. 0.89

00:31:03 They're not strangers in the sense that all Christians are, at least in part,

00:31:07 strangers in this life, in this world, pilgrims. 0.84

00:31:11 we're going to inherit the world but we are in this gospel age this church dispensation for lack

00:31:19 of a better phrase we are strangers pilgrims passing through but also conquering i believe

00:31:25 not just strangers like like abraham but strangers in a sense like joshua who was sent to a strange

00:31:34 land him and the people of israel were foreigners in the land of canaan but they were there to

00:31:39 conquer it, to conquer it. And I believe likewise we as Christians, the meek shall inherit the earth

00:31:45 per Matthew 5 and the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. So I believe that this world is being 1.00

00:31:50 restored and renewed by Christ Jesus through the battering ram of the church. But in this gospel

00:31:57 age, until Christ's final physical return, there is a sense in which this world, it is our ultimate

00:32:05 home the new heavens and the new earth once it is fully restored but as it stands now underneath

00:32:12 a sense of a demonic system of satan the principalities of this air this world in a

00:32:17 sense is a strange place to us we are pilgrims we are aliens but in that sense that's also not the

00:32:24 way that the word stranger is being used in hebrews 13 verse 2 of our text so it's not saying

00:32:30 hey we should exercise hospitality to those who are strangers to christ namely unbelievers no

00:32:37 and it's also not saying we should exercise uh hospitality to strangers in the sense that

00:32:42 this now would include believers but in the sense that all believers are strangers in this life

00:32:47 no it's saying exercise do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers meaning from another

00:32:54 country. To put it plainly, of another nationality. And John Gill goes further, and this is why it's

00:33:03 helpful. As a rule of thumb, I highly recommend the use of dead theologians. This is the beauty

00:33:10 and the benefit of dead men. Number one, dead men don't disappoint. Dead men will not come out next

00:33:18 week as being woke. They can't, praise God. So the nice thing about dead men is that they don't

00:33:24 have the opportunity to compromise anymore. And so we can look at the full body of work of a guy

00:33:30 who's dead and say, by God's grace, he's dead and he can't mess it up. So dead men are helpful in

00:33:37 that regard. They're also helpful because we don't, we all come to God's word with presuppositions.

00:33:45 and some of those are good and some of those are bad one good presupposition for the believer

00:33:50 is that the believer is we're not neutral no one is neutral we're not unbiased if you're in Christ

00:33:57 you have a bias you have a bent you have a presupposition and one of those presuppositions

00:34:03 is that Jesus is Lord by virtue of being a Christian if you're truly a Christian born again

00:34:09 you have the Holy Spirit within you illuminating the text of scripture one of your bents your

00:34:14 biases is that Jesus is actually Lord. That's a good presupposition. But we don't just have one

00:34:22 presupposition. When we're looking at the scripture, we have multiple lenses, right? So in the same way

00:34:28 that a lot of progressive Christians today, and I'll put air quotes around the term Christian, 0.98

00:34:34 some of them may be born again, and they're just simply in sin, and God's going to grant them 0.75

00:34:38 repentance eventually. And many of them who have deconstructed their faith, they're deconstructing

00:34:43 of faith that they actually never had. They're professing Christians, but they're actually not

00:34:47 born again, and they're going to hell unless God mercifully saves them. And they're just bearing 1.00

00:34:51 the name of Christ, but they're actually false teachers. And both are real categories. But in

00:34:56 that category of progressive Christians, some, they recognize this presuppositional reality.

00:35:02 And so they're saying, you know what, we need some new translations of the Bible. Because a lot of

00:35:08 these are old and they're outdated and and these older cultures and older men from older um older

00:35:15 views about society and about culture they're they're just they're missing some of the the

00:35:22 moral superiority that we have today in 2023 and so we need a team to to to re-translate from the

00:35:31 the Hebrew and Arabic and Greek manuscripts and on that team um who do you want right we need

00:35:38 people who are competent and qualified, right? So you need people who know Greek and Hebrew. No,

00:35:41 no, no, no. No. We need a lot of women, and we need people of color, and we probably want a

00:35:51 token sodomite, or two, to be able to break this down and give us the full piece of Scripture. 1.00

00:35:59 Because the Scripture, till now, for the most part, I mean, it's only been translated by men,

00:36:05 you know and and it well it was also mainly written by men and and so we're missing half

00:36:13 of the heart of god that would be the dialogue that would be the language that would be employed

00:36:19 by progressive christians today so dead theologians again are helpful in two regards one

00:36:28 they can't compromise because they're dead so they won't disappoint you number two

00:36:33 dead theologians aren't woke because no one in the history of the whole world was until 15 minutes

00:36:39 ago no one ever has been ever you get out of the last literally like the last 20 years and you're

00:36:49 good so dead theologians are helpful in that regard because they don't have their good

00:36:54 presuppositions bad presuppositions one bad presupposition is a progressive deconstructing

00:37:00 faith woke crt presupposition and that presupposition is a very new presupposition it is

00:37:08 the culminating fruit of secularism secular humanism which is a recent enemy certainly

00:37:15 secular humanism has been being cultivated and built and twined together and and and developed

00:37:22 over arguably three to 450 years, but the ultimate fruit that we're now seeing is a recent phenomenon.

00:37:33 So John Gill, all that to say, John Gill is helpful in this regard because he's not politically

00:37:39 correct. He's not politically correct. So let's see what a genuine, renowned Bible scholar has

00:37:49 to say about strangers and strangers being defined as national foreigners. Let's see what he has to

00:37:56 say about them. He says, but such as are of another country and are unknown, and even though wicked men,

00:38:04 they are not excluded. Let's stop there for a second. John Gill, just to break it down in case 1.00

00:38:10 you missed it, he straight up said that people from another nation with another nationality 0.92

00:38:15 are wicked. That's what he's saying. Is that true? Yes. And this is why. 0.64

00:38:29 Speaking about mankind in regards to morality, there is no nationality or ethnicity that is

00:38:38 innately morally superior or inferior to another. Not inherently. If we're speaking about

00:38:45 the moral fabric of human society, all cultures, nationalities, ethnicities are morally equal. 0.99

00:38:58 Not morally neutral, but morally equal in the sense that they're all depraved, 0.98

00:39:04 as the Bible teaches. So inherently, if we're talking about inherent to ethnicity, 0.99

00:39:12 inherent to skin pigment, inherent to nationality, geographic location, culture. If we're speaking

00:39:21 about that which is inherent to different people groups, there is nothing morally superior about

00:39:27 being an American. However, that being said, now that the disclaimer has been made,

00:39:35 cultures are not morally equal. And this is something we must understand as Christians.

00:39:43 That right there, it sounds like a small thing. 1.00

00:39:45 It sounds like the right thing to say.

00:39:46 Every culture is equal.

00:39:48 You know, there's just different emphases

00:39:50 and different this and different that, 0.87

00:39:51 but no culture is better than another, right?

00:39:54 That sounds like something we should say.

00:39:55 It sounds like a Christian, sensitive, loving thing to say.

00:39:58 That right there is the beginning fruits

00:40:00 of critical race theory.

00:40:03 That right there is the beginning fruits

00:40:05 of deconstruction, of politically correct language,

00:40:09 of wokeism. 0.57

00:40:11 Because the reality is that cultures are not morally equal. 0.96

00:40:14 And this is why. 0.99

00:40:16 A culture is morally superior to another culture on one condition. 0.65

00:40:22 If that culture has been shaped by the word of God. 0.94

00:40:26 If that culture has been shaped by the word of God.

00:40:30 And so what John Gill is saying, although wicked men,

00:40:34 and he's talking about strangers of other nationalities,

00:40:37 and therefore with other cultures,

00:40:39 He's saying you should exercise hospitality to those who are coming from somewhere else. 0.98

00:40:46 They're a foreigner to you. 0.99

00:40:47 They're a stranger to you. 1.00

00:40:49 And they're wicked. 1.00

00:40:51 They're coming from a wicked nationality, a wicked culture, a wicked background. 1.00

00:40:55 But welcome them. 1.00

00:40:56 Why? 0.93

00:40:57 Because they're coming to you in the same way that Ruth came with Naomi to Israel.

00:41:04 Your people shall be my people and your God shall be my God. 0.51

00:41:09 for the foreigner or the alien who says, I'm coming into Israel. I'm coming in to be a part

00:41:16 of the collective church of Christ because I see God as true. And I have faith in his son. I've

00:41:24 been adopted by the work of the Holy Spirit. I have faith in Jesus. You show hospitality to that

00:41:30 person, red, yellow, black, or white. They're precious in his sight because they're a Christian.

00:41:36 They're a Christian, but they are coming from a culture that has been wicked. 0.99

00:41:41 Why? 1.00

00:41:42 Because degrees of morality are inherently intertwined with skin pigment?

00:41:49 No.

00:41:50 But because some cultures in the providence of God over the last 2,000 years of church history

00:41:55 have been more or less shaped and influenced by Christendom.

00:42:01 That's what it is.

00:42:02 so for them in this case remember who is the apostle writing to he's writing to christians

00:42:07 but a particular kind hebrew christians and so he's saying let brotherly love continue

00:42:14 but it's almost like he's qualifying that statement so that they don't misunderstand

00:42:18 because they might think that what the apostle paul is saying i believe it's paul the apostle

00:42:23 is saying they might be tempted to think he's saying let brotherly love continue um meaning

00:42:28 persevere continue in our love for fellow jews but he qualifies the statement immediately in

00:42:34 verse two by saying do not neglect to show hospitality to people who are strangers not

00:42:39 unbelievers strangers to christ but strangers in the sense of those who are of a strange nationality

00:42:45 foreigners who are not jews so he's qualifying the statement in verse one let brotherly love

00:42:51 continue by saying and i don't mean brotherly love meaning brotherly love according to the flesh

00:42:56 brotherly love for fellow jews i mean brotherly love for those who've been adopted and are now

00:43:02 brothers in christ continuing your love for those who are in christ whether they're jewish or not

00:43:08 and if they're not jewish what he's saying is this according to john gill and i think gill's right

00:43:13 what he's saying is this if they're not jewish and they're coming from another background

00:43:17 another nationality a gentile culture they're coming from a unique degree of wickedness 0.95

00:43:24 but they've been saved by grace and they need to be discipled and taught and welcomed. 0.99

00:43:31 In the same way, to this day, here's the thing. People think that classical liberalism

00:43:37 is a valid option because we have taken for granted the work of Christendom in the West.

00:43:45 We are sitting on a mountain of a thousand years of Christian influence over Western cultures

00:43:52 going all the way back to king alfred in case law then espoused by by in europe for centuries

00:44:02 predominantly england and then adopted and revised i think better improved upon in america

00:44:10 by the founders just citation after citation of leviticus and deuteronomy

00:44:17 I do believe that George Washington was an evangelical Christian.

00:44:22 I'm not saying that about all the founders.

00:44:24 I understand that some were deist.

00:44:27 Some were Unitarian.

00:44:29 But even those who were not yet necessarily regenerate Christian in the true, ultimate, eternal sense,

00:44:36 even they were swimming in Christian culture, in Christian thought, in Christian law, in Christian practices, Christian culture.

00:44:46 and so what does that mean well we are now in the process of deconstructing as a nation

00:44:54 and as a culture we're in the process of trying to to ultimately uproot and destroy the christian

00:45:00 foundations of the west and you need to be aware of this you need to have discernment

00:45:04 when people say that they hate whiteness they mean they hate christ when they say they hate

00:45:10 men and patriarchy, they mean they hate Christ. When people say that they hate America, America 0.80

00:45:16 lasts, they hate Christ. That's what it is. And that's not to say that America is synonymous with

00:45:22 Jesus. But America is, as it currently stands, one of the last bastions of freedom in the world

00:45:28 because of Jesus. Because of Jesus and its founding. And we are quickly despising that

00:45:34 and throwing it away. But the reason why people hate America is not because of Americans. It's

00:45:41 because of Jesus. And the reason why people hate patriarchy and men who built the world

00:45:48 is because they hate Jesus. That is a Christian doctrine, biblical patriarchy.

00:45:54 And the reason why they hate white people is not because white people inherently have some kind of 0.93

00:45:59 superior claim on the teachings of Christ than people of another skin pigment. That is not my 0.90

00:46:04 point but in god's sovereignty i didn't decide this god in his sovereignty for whatever reason

00:46:12 has worked uniquely for the last millennia in western cultures which were not exclusively

00:46:19 but predominantly white you need to know that when the woke people say they hate whiteness

00:46:26 what they're saying is they hate Christianity. Whiteness, men, cisgendered, heterosexuality, 0.70

00:46:36 American, Westerner, colonizer, all these are different terms. But if you draw the spider web

00:46:42 together, they all intersect at the center. What they all have as a common denominator is Christian.

00:46:49 That's what it is. But it's easier to attack it on the angles than to come out and just say it,

00:46:56 we hate Jesus and we hate the Bible. Now, some are just saying, but some are still saying, well,

00:47:03 you know, it's not that I hate apples to go back to that illustration, but what I hate is I hate

00:47:09 round things about the size of a baseball that are a little bit of a glossy and, and they're red

00:47:14 and, and, you know, you can eat them and they have seeds on the inside and a little stem at the top

00:47:19 and they have like this tart, but sweet and crunchy taste and they grow on trees. Now, I'm not saying

00:47:24 i don't like apples right that's what progressives are doing no no you just you hate apples you hate

00:47:33 apples you literally just described apple and again that's not to say inherently speaking

00:47:40 there is inherently there is no moral superiority or inferiority based on culture but but insofar

00:47:49 is a culture, a nation is shaped, especially over the course of not merely decades, but centuries

00:47:56 by Christian thought, Christendom, the word of God, that culture does morally improve. So for

00:48:04 instance, you may have heard, as an example, you may have heard people say, you know what? I've

00:48:09 been to certain Latin countries or even certain countries in West Africa, you know, on a missionary

00:48:17 trip or whatever it might be. And in these contexts, you know, you set up a meeting and

00:48:21 say, we're going to meet right here at 4 p.m. and the person shows up an hour and 45 minutes late.

00:48:26 And that, you know, that's just their culture. No, that's objectively wrong. Cultures are not

00:48:32 neutral. It is morally wrong to disrespect someone's time and to make them wait for an

00:48:38 hour and 45 minutes. That's not just a neutral cultural distinction. That is moral. Westerners

00:48:46 that show up on time, it's not different, it's better. Yes, I'll say it again. It's not different, 0.55

00:48:52 it's better. And we don't need to give ourselves a self-lobotomy and pretend,

00:49:00 right, like the 17-year-old girl going back to that illustration who's 78 pounds looking in the

00:49:05 mirror and calling herself a whale. No, we don't have to do that. We don't have to give ourselves

00:49:09 to delusion. We can look at the West and say, okay, suspension bridges, skyscrapers,

00:49:18 you know, all these things. Yeah, it had something to do. It had something to do with showing up on

00:49:25 time, work ethic, the scientific method, which we're abandoning at a rapid pace. But what we

00:49:33 used to believe in, right, that things were observable, that we actually had science. Now we

00:49:37 have the science there's a radical difference between the two but these kinds of things these

00:49:42 are they're not white things they're christian things they're christian things right if you

00:49:49 believe that god made the world that is not a cosmic accident but that god made the world and

00:49:55 he made the world in such a way that there are rhythms and patterns built into the very fabric

00:49:59 of the creation that there is seed time and harvest as god said in a covenant to noah

00:50:05 never again will I flood the whole earth and he puts his bow in the sky the same bow by the way

00:50:11 that in revelation he's going to take back down when he comes for war but for now in mercy in

00:50:18 patience and long-suffering enduring evil that people might repent he's hung his bow up in the

00:50:24 sky as a sign of his covenant never again to flood the whole earth and he says as long as the earth

00:50:30 continues both seed time and harvest night and day summer and winter these things will continue

00:50:35 we sing it even in the traditional hymn of of be thou my vision

00:50:41 this is a covenant that god made it's not a cosmic accident it's it's a design by the creator and if

00:50:51 that's your worldview that you believe that the world was was made by someone they didn't come

00:50:56 into existence accidentally, but that someone designed it, and they designed it with logical

00:51:02 order and patterns, then what do you expect to see as you go out and explore and observe the world?

00:51:09 Patterns. The scientific method is a Christian method. It assumes that the world was made by God,

00:51:19 and that God baked into the very fabric of the world patterns that continue until the end of

00:51:25 a world. And that if we see something occur again and again and again, we can expect that it will

00:51:31 continue to occur. When an atheist has that expectation, the atheist has that expectation

00:51:36 inconsistently with their own worldview. Because for them, if they were to live in consistency

00:51:41 with their worldview, they wouldn't even put on shoes in the morning. They would have no basis

00:51:48 or confidence to believe that they squeezed their tube of toothpaste that something would come out.

00:51:54 they couldn't even brush their hair if they were being honest and consistent about their worldview

00:52:00 but the reason why people even atheists even unbelievers experience practical success in 0.99

00:52:08 this world is because they're liars they're hypocrites and they don't live consistently 0.98

00:52:14 with what they claim to believe they live inconsistently they live inconsistently 1.00

00:52:20 suppressing the truth and deeds of unrighteousness in regards to their ultimate worldview but on the

00:52:27 surface they behave as though the triune god is exactly who he claims to be everyone is living

00:52:34 like a christian in some regard because jesus is lord you don't make jesus lord he is lord

00:52:44 And if you expect to experience any kind of success in Jesus as Lord, his kingdom,

00:52:51 you have to live according, in some regard, according to the rules of the king.

00:52:58 And so everyone does, whether they admit it or not.

00:53:03 And so when John Gill says, these may be wicked men, 0.76

00:53:08 what he's talking about is these other cultures, this being 2,000 years ago, the book of Hebrews,

00:53:13 saying there's these other cultures you need to let brotherly love continue and that doesn't just

00:53:17 mean brotherly love for those who are brothers according to the flesh your kinsmen there is an

00:53:23 argument to be made for that as well romans 9 paul talks about his unique love for those according 0.90

00:53:28 to the flesh that he'd be willing to be cut off and go to hell if it meant that his fellow jew

00:53:33 might be saved those who were currently rejecting the gospel so there is an argument about kinsmanship

00:53:39 and love, a godly affection for those who are brothers according to the flesh. But in our text

00:53:45 today, Hebrews 13, verse 1 and 2, what's being referenced is a brotherly love in the spiritual

00:53:50 sense of what it means to be a brother. Those who are brothers in Christ, even if they're not

00:53:54 brothers according to the flesh. And that's the stranger that's being referenced in verse 2.

00:53:59 Stranger according to the flesh, another nationality, but brother according to the spirit,

00:54:03 sharing in adoption through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:54:08 And for the very sake, for the very reason that they're a brother in Christ,

00:54:12 treat them as a brother, even though according to the flesh, 0.98

00:54:15 they're a foreigner, a stranger. 0.99

00:54:17 And because they are, according to the flesh, a foreigner and a stranger 0.99

00:54:20 coming from a Gentile world, some Gentile country with a Gentile culture, 1.00

00:54:25 you can expect that they're going to have some bad habits 1.00

00:54:28 that are going to need to be broken.

00:54:29 because you as as Hebrew Christians have been steeped in the covenants you've been steeped 0.89

00:54:37 in the law of God you've been steeped in the teachings of the prophets for centuries and

00:54:43 even though you've rebelled against it many times and been hardened your father's hardened

00:54:46 in unbelief you've still been steeped in a Christian culture if that makes sense and that

00:54:53 principle the reason why I flesh it all out is to say that that principle continues even to this day

00:54:57 america is not synonymous with israel old testament national israel under the old covenant

00:55:05 that's not my argument america has not replaced israel the church has the church has but america

00:55:12 has not replaced israel but the concept is the same in the same way that a hebrew christian

00:55:18 2 000 years ago if welcoming a gentile christian might have to catch that gentile christian up to

00:55:25 speed a little bit because they're coming from a deficit. So to a Westerner Christian on the heels 0.92

00:55:31 of a thousand years of Christodom, just like the Jews at the time of Christ and the time of the 0.93

00:55:36 apostles writing 2,000 years ago, they were on not just a thousand, but arguably 1,500 years 0.62

00:55:42 of old covenant Christodom. And if they were welcoming in a Gentile for the first time, 0.77

00:55:48 that Gentile was going to have a learning curve in terms of the standard of morality 1.00

00:55:52 because they're coming from a pagan culture, 0.97

00:55:55 we too, on a thousand years heels of Christendom in the West,

00:55:59 if we're welcoming in somebody from another nation

00:56:02 that is predominantly still steeped in paganism

00:56:04 or a nation that is just now coming into the teachings of Christ,

00:56:09 then that person is going to have some things to learn.

00:56:12 Like when we say show up at 4 p.m., show up at 4 p.m.

00:56:16 because it's not morally neutral.

00:56:19 It's just disrespectful.

00:56:21 okay so there's verse two all right here we go let marriage let's skip to verse four five and six

00:56:27 let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for god will judge

00:56:34 the sexually immoral and adulterous again using john gill here he says this marriage is the union

00:56:41 of one man and one woman in wedlock whereby they become one flesh it is a joining together of male

00:56:47 and female in this relation and of two only and of such as are not within the degrees of blood

00:56:55 forbid by the law that is Leviticus 18 6 through 8 let me stop there for a moment

00:57:01 for those who want to unhitch from the old testament talking to Andy Stanley for a moment

00:57:10 for those who think it's a good idea to unhitch from the old testament here's the problem with

00:57:16 that. If you say, well, hey, you know what? We don't really need the Old Testament, at least

00:57:22 especially not the Old Testament law, because what we have in the New Testament is we have all 10

00:57:26 commandments minus the Sabbath, and we don't want to do that one anyways. You know, Chick-fil-A,

00:57:30 God bless them. But for everybody else, you know, we don't want to be Sabbatarian. The fourth 0.72

00:57:33 commandment seems like, it seems a little overkill. But the other nine out of the 10 commandments are

00:57:37 reiterated by the apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. So we've

00:57:42 got all the moral standards we need in the New Testament. Not really. Not for marriage. You might

00:57:50 be, what? What do you mean not for marriage? Of course the New Testament is sufficient for defining

00:57:56 the covenant of marriage. The New Testament multiple times, again and again, talks about

00:58:01 the dangers of sexual immorality. And the New Testament, it condemns homosexuality. It condemns

00:58:06 adultery. It condemns promiscuity. It condemns all these things. So we have enough in the New

00:58:13 Testament to define the covenant of marriage. According to the New Testament, without the

00:58:18 Old Testament, you could be faithful and not adulterous and not promiscuous and not homosexual 0.89

00:58:23 and marry your sister. So for those who say that the civil codes in the Old Testament have no

00:58:33 bearing on the Christian today I'd like to see you back it up with a little bit more incest 0.99

00:58:39 if you're going to be honest but if you're going to be a hypocrite and I know that you are 0.96

00:58:47 and the you being not you so much but the progressives who may listen to this online 0.98

00:58:51 if you're going to be a hypocrite then then just admit it and say yeah the old testament codes 0.53

00:58:59 not just the moral law of the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue in Exodus chapter 20, but even the 0.88

00:59:05 civil codes found in the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament that God gave to Israel,

00:59:12 there's a lot of wisdom there. And these things are still morally binding, at least in their

00:59:17 general equity, for Christians, and not just Christians, but for all people in all places,

00:59:23 even in the New Testament. It is unacceptable to marry your sister, even if you're not adulterous. 0.98

00:59:29 I'm going to marry my sister and only my sister. 0.66

00:59:32 Right? 1.00

00:59:33 Polygamy would be another example. 0.94

00:59:36 Okay, well, I'm not going to be homosexual. 0.81

00:59:39 I'm not going to be promiscuous. 0.53

00:59:40 No sexual activity before marriage.

00:59:42 And I'm not, you know, I'm not going to be adulterous.

00:59:46 Okay, but how many wives?

00:59:51 The Old Testament is helpful for that. 0.86

00:59:54 Talking about prescriptive civil codes,

00:59:56 not necessarily descriptive text in genesis the old testament is helpful for that

01:00:04 the new testament one of the only references that you have is is in regards to being an elder

01:00:11 he must be the man of but one wife and so from a reading of the new testament unhitched as andy

01:00:19 stanley would have us do from the old testament in that case what you could say is polygamy still

01:00:25 on the table, you just, if you go that route, you just can't be a pastor. Whereas we would say,

01:00:31 no, no, no, no, that's not God's design. And there's a reason why. Marrying outside of a

01:00:37 certain relation of bloodline is not God's design. And there's a reason why. These civil codes 1.00

01:00:44 actually still apply. They still apply. And so we need to consider not only the moral law of God,

01:00:52 meaning the Ten Commandments, reiterated in the New Testament, but we need to understand that

01:00:57 Jesus himself, if you want to have a biblical view of God's law in the New and the Old Testament

01:01:02 alike, take Jesus's view. It's always a safe bet. You want to have the right view? Have the view

01:01:08 that Jesus has. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, heaven and earth will pass away before one jot

01:01:13 or tittle. One dot or iota of the law passes away. Now the law of God continues. Some of it,

01:01:23 like the ceremonial laws of washings and animal sacrifices, some of these laws, even they,

01:01:31 in a sense, you could argue, have not passed away. But they have been finally and sufficiently

01:01:37 fulfilled by Christ to where if we continue in animal sacrifices, it actually is an offense to

01:01:44 God because it belittles the once and for all sacrifice that Jesus performed for us on the

01:01:50 cross. That's why we don't do that. But even in that case, Jesus says not one dot, right? Not the

01:01:56 crossing of an I, not the dotting of an I or the crossing of a T will pass away from the law. And

01:02:01 he doesn't say some of the law or this category of the law or this kind of law, but the law of

01:02:07 god all of it all of it it matters going back to john gill he goes on he says this and of such

01:02:15 are as fit for marriage this is honorable as it was instituted by god and has been honored with

01:02:23 the presence of christ and it is so in the ends of it being to procreate children multiply the earth

01:02:31 build up families, preserve a legitimate offspring, and prevent fornication and all

01:02:36 uncleanliness. And it is honorable in all things, in all respects, upon all accounts, in every way,

01:02:44 as the Arabic version renders it, or as the Ethiopic version, everywhere, it has been honorably

01:02:53 esteemed of all nations. That last part, let me break that down. What he's saying is this.

01:02:58 some have translated verse four of our four of our texts to say this let marriage be held in

01:03:03 honor among all some have translated it to say marriage is marriage should be esteemed and the

01:03:11 marriage bed should be kept undefiled because even other pagan nations honor marriage all

01:03:18 marriage is universally honored so you could read it as as a as a prescription a commandment

01:03:25 everyone should honor marriage or you could read it as an argument from nature saying because

01:03:31 everyone whether they're Christian or not does honor marriage honor marriage those are two ways

01:03:38 of reading this text I'm not completely convinced which one is correct but the point is this both 0.54

01:03:43 ways contain in it either way you go whether it's marriage is honored by all so keep honoring it or

01:03:49 marriage should be honored by all what's contained in both of those renderings is this

01:03:54 everyone should honor marriage. And this is just one more example that we find in the scripture

01:03:59 of a commandment that is not given exclusively to Christians, but that everybody else is off the 0.73

01:04:06 hook. Too often you'll hear evangelicals talk about the Ten Commandments, thou shalt not commit

01:04:11 adultery or whatever it may be, some kind of moral obligation under God according to his law,

01:04:17 and they pretend as though, they communicate it as though God's law is only relevant for

01:04:23 Christians. That is not the case. That is not what the Bible teaches. We find example after example

01:04:29 after example, and verse four of our text today would be one of those examples that the law of

01:04:35 God, his moral law, is binding on all people in all places and in all times. On all people in all

01:04:44 places and in all times whether you're Christian or not or whether it's AD 23 or whether it's 0.78

01:04:53 2023 whether it's China or Brazil or New Zealand or the Sudan it's irrelevant whether you're

01:05:04 Christian or whether you're a pagan the law of God is the standard not just for Christian people

01:05:11 but for all people. God, I'll say it like this. The theological premise is this. God, He gives

01:05:19 His law as the lawgiver on the basis not of being savior of some, but on the basis of being the

01:05:26 creator of all. I'll say it again. The basis for God having exclusive divine kingly rights for

01:05:36 giving his law as a supreme lawgiver comes from his position as being creator of all people,

01:05:44 not merely savior of some people. Jesus is Lord of everyone because God has made him Lord.

01:05:55 It's not as though, hey, you know what? Jesus is, you'll hear people say Jesus is savior of some.

01:06:00 And you know, you, you, he may be your savior, but you need to make him your Lord. That's actually

01:06:05 the reverse of the truth. Because what people are saying is, you know, there's a lot of people out

01:06:10 there now, Jesus isn't the savior of everyone. We're not universalists. So there are Christians

01:06:14 out there that really are saved. They really do have Jesus as savior. And that's already a subset

01:06:19 of humanity because there are those who don't have Jesus as savior. But then there's another

01:06:23 subset of the subset. So here's the bulk of humanity. And then some of humanity have Christ

01:06:28 as savior. And then some of those who have Christ as savior also have him as Lord. Because Jesus is

01:06:33 savior of some, but then some of the some choose to make him Lord. That is unbiblical. That's

01:06:40 incorrect. Jesus is Lord of every single human being. He is Lord of all. He is not merely reigning

01:06:48 in the 17th dimension, and he is not reigning only if you give him permission to privately reign

01:06:54 in the sweet little dark recesses of your privatized individual heart. No, Jesus is Lord

01:07:00 of all. Lord of every single person, whether they acknowledge it or not. He is Lord. You will either

01:07:06 love him or hate him, bless him or curse him, but he is Lord. And as Matthew Henry once said,

01:07:13 all knees will bow, every tongue confess. And what that means is that every knee will bow

01:07:17 either by grace or by force. The knee that will not bow will break. Because he who rules the world

01:07:26 with an iron scepter will lovingly shatter their kneecaps on that final day. They will submit to

01:07:33 his lordship. So Jesus is Lord of all. It's the basis of his lordship. It's the basis of God being

01:07:38 creator of all human beings, all creatures. On that basis, God gives his law. And therefore, the law of

01:07:45 God is binding not only on Christian people, but on all people in all places, in all times. Therefore,

01:07:52 keep marriage honorable in all places. Let marriage be held in honor among all. The Christian

01:08:01 has an obligation, and we have a required obligation under God to seek to it that we

01:08:08 manage our own households well, that we prioritize brotherly love, love for the household of faith,

01:08:14 faithful membership, and commitment and covenant in the local church, so loving our families,

01:08:19 loving our churches. But beyond that, Christians have a moral obligation to speak to kings and

01:08:26 kingdoms and to say things like this, let marriage be held in honor among all. The Christian has an

01:08:33 obligation, not just in the church, but in the civil sphere, in the public square, to say to Joe

01:08:41 Biden, to say to Caesar, it is not lawful for two men to be married. Just as John the Baptist did. 0.80

01:08:48 John the Baptist did not lose his head for his pastoral counseling in the private recesses of

01:08:55 the church roster. He lost his head because he spoke to the Caesar of his day who did not even

01:09:00 claim to be a Christian and said the law of God is binding on you too. It is not lawful for you 0.76

01:09:06 to have your brother's wife Herodias. And it's not that John the Baptist came to an untimely demise 0.94

01:09:16 because he overstepped his jurisdiction.

01:09:20 No, he did what was right.

01:09:22 And sometimes when we do what is right out of courage,

01:09:25 we pay the price.

01:09:26 Let marriage be held in honor among all.

01:09:30 The Christian has an obligation again and again and again

01:09:33 to present with courage and fidelity and clarity

01:09:36 God's standard for marriage.

01:09:38 This is what God says about marriage. 0.80

01:09:41 This is what God says about marriage. 0.95

01:09:43 One man, one woman, 0.97

01:09:45 not your sister 0.95

01:09:48 fidelity

01:09:51 not adultery

01:09:52 till death do us part

01:09:56 and

01:09:57 for the chief purpose

01:09:59 of creating more image bearers

01:10:02 to be fruitful

01:10:04 and multiply

01:10:05 marriage is not just about your happiness

01:10:08 marriage

01:10:10 is about your holiness

01:10:11 and to be fair

01:10:14 marriage is not just about your holiness. Marriage is about, well, it is about holiness, but it's

01:10:20 holiness defined by God. God gets to dictate the purposes of marriage. So not just the criteria

01:10:27 for marriage. God doesn't only reserve the rights to say, what is marriage? He reserves the rights

01:10:32 to say, why is marriage? So not only does God get to dictate and define and say marriage is between

01:10:40 one man and one woman till death do you part but God also is able to say that marriage is chiefly

01:10:47 for the purpose of procreation and I would go so far I'm going to say it I would go so far to say 0.96

01:10:53 that it is a sin it is a sin for two able-bodied persons I understand there are exceptions 0.96

01:11:00 where a woman is not able to conceive for whatever reason I understand my parents were not able to 0.98

01:11:07 conceive at first. Praise God and his sovereignty. He opened my mother's womb right after they

01:11:12 adopted me. And I'm really grateful. So I'm grateful for that temporary moment where my

01:11:17 mother couldn't conceive, where I wanted to have been a part of their family. And I would have been

01:11:21 raised in a context that was not God-fearing, very likely. So that happens. So I'm not talking

01:11:29 about the exception. I'm talking about the norm. In the case where you have two able-bodied people

01:11:34 in God's defined marriage of a man and a woman, 1.00

01:11:39 I believe it is a sin for people who are able to have kids 0.94

01:11:42 to determine amongst themselves autonomously

01:11:46 that they're not going to have kids.

01:11:49 I'm not saying that there's a number,

01:11:52 thou shalt have this many children.

01:11:54 I'm not saying that.

01:11:55 But I am saying that when two people who fear the Lord

01:11:58 marry each other, part of fearing God

01:12:01 and obeying His commandments is there is, I believe,

01:12:04 a godly, holy desire that we want to be fruitful and multiply. And we see marriage as a part of

01:12:11 that. You could say it like this. The great commission to go into all the world, making

01:12:17 disciples of nations, baptizing them in the name of the triune God and teaching them to obey

01:12:22 all of his commands. The great commission does not replace the cultural mandate. The great commission

01:12:29 of Matthew 28 is meant for the Christian to come alongside the Genesis 3 and Genesis 2

01:12:37 cultural mandate. One of the chief ways that you fulfill Christian, one of the chief ways you

01:12:44 fulfill the Great Commission is by fulfilling the cultural mandate. The best disciples you will ever

01:12:51 make by God's grace and through your faithfulness by the power of the Holy Spirit in your home,

01:12:57 One of the best disciples you will ever make

01:12:59 is your children.

01:13:01 You want to make disciples of all nations?

01:13:04 A great place to start is this nation.

01:13:08 And you want to see,

01:13:09 well, which people in this nation should I disciple?

01:13:11 The best place to start

01:13:13 is the one in the next room

01:13:14 crying in the middle of the night.

01:13:16 Not one.

01:13:17 Start there.

01:13:19 Making disciples of other nations 0.86

01:13:21 at the expense of making disciples in your home

01:13:23 is wicked in the sight of the Lord.

01:13:26 And prior evangelical generations,

01:13:29 it may not have been their intent,

01:13:31 but effectively that is part of what they've accomplished.

01:13:34 Global missions, but in the home,

01:13:38 their own children sacrificed on the altar of ministry.

01:13:42 Again, not saying it was malicious motives in the hearts

01:13:45 in terms of intents of past generations,

01:13:48 but that is effectively, not in all regards,

01:13:51 but in some regards, effectively,

01:13:52 that is one of the things that's been accomplished.

01:13:55 love starts at home.

01:13:58 And that goes all the way back

01:13:59 to the very beginning of our text.

01:14:01 Verse one, let brotherly love continue.

01:14:04 We define our lower nose

01:14:06 by first and foremost,

01:14:08 allowing God to define our higher yes.

01:14:10 Put the rocks in the bucket first,

01:14:12 then the pebbles,

01:14:13 then the sand,

01:14:14 then the water.

01:14:15 Start with your highest affections.

01:14:18 And as we work our way down

01:14:20 in order of priority of loves,

01:14:22 God makes things abundantly clear

01:14:24 in his providence. All right, I'm going to go really, really fast. Keep your life free from

01:14:32 the love of money and content with what you have. For he has said, I will never leave you or forsake

01:14:36 you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?

01:14:42 That's the final verses of our text, Hebrews 13, 5 and 6. In your notes, I've written this.

01:14:47 In Hebrews 13, 5, we're commanded to resist the love of money and to be content with what we have.

01:14:52 and there is an incentive, a motive provided immediately for obeying this commandment.

01:14:59 That motive is the unconditional love of Christ towards his elect. In other words, it is foolish. 0.99

01:15:06 This is how you could render verse 5. It is foolish to give our hearts, to give our love, 0.96

01:15:11 to give our affections to that which can so easily be lost, namely mammon. Rather, let your

01:15:19 heart be satisfied with what you cannot lose, that being Christ. And Christ, get this, Christ can never

01:15:28 be lost for a Christian, not because a Christian can't lose Christ, but because Christ won't lose

01:15:35 a Christian. I'll say that again. If it was up to the Christian to keep Christ, we would lose him. 0.60

01:15:41 but ultimately it is up to christ to keep the christian and therefore he has promised never to

01:15:49 lose us if you are in christ you possess him but far more encouraging is the biblical reality that

01:15:58 christ in the ultimate sense possesses you deuteronomy says that we are his treasured

01:16:05 possession. And the beauty of being Christ's possession is that Christ is the perfect

01:16:11 steward of that which he owns. Christ has never lost anything that he owns. Of all that the

01:16:19 Father gives to him, he has promised to keep them and raise them up on the last day, per John chapter

01:16:26 6. Christ is the perfect steward. Christ is not only a servant in God's house, as Moses was,

01:16:33 but he owns the house. He is the son, and all that the father has given to him, he keeps. The same

01:16:41 grace that saved you will be faithful to keep you, and to sanctify you, and to glorify you on the

01:16:49 final day. If you are in Christ, you will never be lost by Christ. You possess him, yes and amen,

01:16:58 but far more comforting he possesses you. It is not whether but which. Everyone is a slave.

01:17:07 The key of life is to be a slave to the best master. There is only one master. Everyone has

01:17:14 a master. Everyone is a slave. But there is only one master who says, my yoke is easy and my burden

01:17:22 is light. There is only one master who gives us his commandments, but in the very same breath

01:17:28 calls us servants and his friends. And that is the Lord and master, Jesus Christ. He owns

01:17:37 the slave. And oh, what a comforting thing it is to be owned by Jesus. Do not give your affection

01:17:46 to things that may be lost.

01:17:49 Money is not evil,

01:17:51 but the love of money

01:17:52 is the root of all kinds of evil.

01:17:55 Not the root of all evil,

01:17:56 but the root, it can be a cause,

01:17:58 a root cause of all different types of evil.

01:18:02 The love of money

01:18:03 is the root of all different kinds of evil.

01:18:06 And one of the ways,

01:18:07 the chief ways, according to our text,

01:18:09 verse 5, that we guard our hearts

01:18:12 from an idolatrous, greedy affection for money

01:18:16 is by feasting our hearts and minds on Jesus.

01:18:21 Because money will leave you and forsake you.

01:18:25 But Christ won't.

01:18:27 So better to be owned by Christ

01:18:29 than to be owned by money.

01:18:32 Do you see that it's, that's the paradigm.

01:18:34 That's the concept.

01:18:36 It's right there in verse five of our text.

01:18:38 In neither case is it talking about what you own.

01:18:41 Keep your hearts free of what?

01:18:42 The love of money.

01:18:44 So it's not talking about you owning money.

01:18:45 It's talking about money owning you.

01:18:48 And what's better?

01:18:50 What's the alternative so that you're not owned by money?

01:18:53 Be owned by someone else, namely Christ,

01:18:56 the better owner, the better master

01:18:58 who will never leave or forsake you.

01:19:00 The implication being money might.

01:19:03 So it's not talking about who you own.

01:19:05 It's talking about who owns you.

01:19:07 You can be owned by money or you can be owned by Jesus.

01:19:11 If you're owned by money, it's a cruel master.

01:19:13 And when you need it most, it may be nowhere to be found.

01:19:18 But if you're owned by Christ, he has promised never to leave us or forsake us.

01:19:22 That's verse 5.

01:19:24 Verse 6, finally.

01:19:26 It's worth noting that this commandment to be content, because it goes on,

01:19:30 be content, should not be interpreted as a blanket condemnation of all ambition.

01:19:37 That is the mantra, the popular sentiment of evangelical Christianity today.

01:19:43 is to be a spineless, ambition-less Christian that you don't really want anything. You're not

01:19:54 really striving for anything. You're not working towards anything. You're just constantly losing,

01:20:01 constantly surrendering. That is not what our text is saying. Look at verse six. So we can

01:20:06 confidently say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? Let's back up a

01:20:12 little bit. Sorry. Verse five, keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what

01:20:18 you have. Be content. There is a distinction and it's a fine line. It requires holiness and discernment,

01:20:27 but there is a distinction as fine as it might be a distinction between godly contentment

01:20:33 and righteous ambition. You can be content as the scripture would have you and be someone who has

01:20:41 righteous ambition. And you must be that person. Especially, this is for all Christians, but

01:20:48 especially the men in the room. The Christian man in the room, you must learn to be content in all

01:20:54 things, but never satisfied. Content in all things, but with ferocious ambition. Never stopping. 0.89

01:21:04 And there is one ambition, I believe, that we can, by necessary inference, by way of implication,

01:21:10 that we can gain from the text.

01:21:12 One of the things that's being said

01:21:13 in verse five and six of our text

01:21:14 is it's talking about money.

01:21:17 And it says, hey, don't love money.

01:21:19 Don't give your heart to money.

01:21:20 Don't let money rule you.

01:21:21 But be content and be ruled by Christ

01:21:24 who will never leave you or forsake you.

01:21:26 Be content.

01:21:28 But now compare that, for instance,

01:21:30 with some other text of scripture.

01:21:32 1 Corinthians 7, 17 through 24.

01:21:35 Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer

01:21:37 in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them.

01:21:40 Content in the sovereign allotment of God.

01:21:44 Like David said, the lines have fallen for me

01:21:46 in pleasant places.

01:21:47 God has determined my lot, I'll be content.

01:21:50 Just as God has called them.

01:21:52 This is the rule I laid down in all the churches.

01:21:54 Each person should remain in the situation

01:21:56 they were in when God called them.

01:21:59 Were you a slave when you were called?

01:22:01 Don't let it trouble you.

01:22:03 Right here, don't miss it.

01:22:05 Although if you can gain your freedom,

01:22:07 do so. If you can gain your freedom, avail yourself toward that end. That is an example

01:22:17 of a godly ambition. And notice in the wording of the text, it's not only something that is

01:22:22 permissible, but something that is commended. And I would go as so far to say commanded. You must

01:22:30 avail yourself to do so. If you are a slave, on one hand, be content. On the other, if there's

01:22:36 any chance of freedom, pursue it. Content, but also ambitious. Now, take that with Proverbs 22,

01:22:47 verse 7. The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender. I'll end with

01:22:54 this. Some of you are slaves, and I'm not talking to YouTube right now. I'm talking about Covenant

01:23:00 Bible Church. I'm talking to you, the sheep that God has appointed me as an under-shepherd, under

01:23:05 christ who's the chief shepherd to help guard and teach and love and nourish brothers and sisters

01:23:11 some of you are slaves according to the bible's definition of the borrower being slave to the

01:23:17 lender some of you have such financial debt that you are slaves and that is not an area where the

01:23:26 bible says be content that's an area where the bible commands you at all cost if it's at all

01:23:34 possible to avail yourself to gain your freedom your freedom and by doing so to position your

01:23:43 children and as proverb says a good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children position

01:23:50 yourself to gain your own freedom and to ensure the freedom of your children and to ensure the

01:23:56 freedom of your grandchildren. Do not be a slave. One of the ways to not be owned by money is to

01:24:06 guard your heart from greed and idolatrous love of money. But another way to ensure that you're

01:24:13 not owned by money is to not get in debt. The person in debt, we always think that the person

01:24:20 who loves money is the person who's rich. I have found in my pastoral experience that there are

01:24:25 more people without money who love money than people with money who love money. There are a

01:24:31 ton of people who don't have money, but they love it. They love it. They desperately want it. And

01:24:37 one of the reasons they want it, some of it is because they're not content in the Lord, in Christ

01:24:42 who promised never to leave them or forsake them. But some of it is because they so badly want money

01:24:46 because they're a slave. They're a debtor. And the borrower is slave to the lender. And as Ecclesiastes

01:24:52 says, which is God's infallible word, it literally says money is the answer to everything.

01:24:58 And that's Bible. And you got to do something with it.

01:25:03 Money is powerful. Wealth is a tool. And as Christians, we want to have wealth. We do.

01:25:12 We simply want to guard our hearts in the midst of having wealth from greed. We want to be content

01:25:19 with little, but we want to have righteous ambition, not for our own comforts and pleasures,

01:25:25 but for the glory of God and the good of his people, all the way back to verse one of our text,

01:25:30 letting brotherly love continue. If you want to love your brother, you know one way that you can

01:25:35 love your brother successfully and simply and practically? Be rich. If you are rich, you have

01:25:43 a more greater capacity, at least in that realm, in that arena, to love your brother. Because you

01:25:50 know what the Bible says about love? Love's not just ethereal. It's not just this spiritual

01:25:55 ethereal thing. The Bible defines it. James, Matthew 5, 6, 7, 1 John. Again and again in the

01:26:03 New Testament, love is defined. And one of the chief ways that love is defined is that it's

01:26:07 tangible. James literally says, it is not love to tell your brother, be warmed and clothed and

01:26:15 well-fed, but to not do anything tangibly, physically, for meeting his needs. One of the

01:26:22 ways that we love our brothers, that we do good to the household of faith, is that we meet their

01:26:29 tangible physical needs. And the person who has wealth is more better positioned to do that.

01:26:37 That doesn't mean that everyone's going to be rich.

01:26:42 That doesn't mean that there won't be disparities.

01:26:44 There will always be disparities. 0.81

01:26:46 God did not create us in an androgynous fashion. 0.88

01:26:51 We are not the same.

01:26:52 Just like the parable with the servants, three servants,

01:26:55 the master entrusts to one, one talent, one, two talents, one, five talents.

01:27:00 There are disparities.

01:27:01 We should be content with what we've been given,

01:27:03 but have a righteous ambition to multiply it.

01:27:06 That was the goal of the servants.

01:27:07 It wasn't just to protect what they had been given.

01:27:10 It was to multiply what they had been given.

01:27:13 For the glory of the master and the good of his house.

01:27:18 So keep yourself, your heart, free from the love of money.

01:27:22 Don't be owned by the love of money.

01:27:25 Don't be owned by what you have.

01:27:27 Be owned by Jesus and be content whether you abase or abound.

01:27:32 but if you're a slave practice contentment in that season of life that the lord has allowed

01:27:39 in his sovereignty but also if you can gain your freedom avail yourself to do so apply that to

01:27:47 proverbs 22 7 the lender the borrower is slave of the lender what that's essentially saying is this

01:27:53 if you're in debt you're a slave right now by grace seek to be content also simultaneously

01:28:02 the very same time with righteous ambition not vain but righteous ambition seek to get out of

01:28:11 debt so that you might be able to love according to the bible's definition of love which is not

01:28:18 only practical, but it's certainly not less than physical and practical, that you might love others,

01:28:24 starting with your family and also the household of faith, that you might be able to clothe people

01:28:29 and not clothe them with a poem that you wrote. No, I'm talking about a shirt that has to be bought.

01:28:40 Those kinds of things. That is a real element of Christianity. And we don't need to be so

01:28:46 spiritual and so ethereal that we have no principles, no biblical principles for understanding

01:28:55 the tangible physical world that God created and that he placed us in. As Christians, we're not all

01:29:01 going to be rich, but I do believe that we all, at least at minimum, should strive in financial terms

01:29:08 to be not rich, but at least free. I want our church to be a free church. And right now our

01:29:17 economy, because of foolish decisions, and many of these you made, and many of these you didn't 0.96

01:29:22 make. The government made some of these foolish decisions. Other people, maybe your parents made 0.99

01:29:27 some foolish decisions. Maybe your grandparents. There are other decisions, right? Whose man, 1.00

01:29:32 a sin made this man born blind? Whose sin is responsible for this man's sickness? Well,

01:29:37 the same question we can ask, whose sin is responsible for my current slavery if I'm

01:29:43 indebted? And maybe it's a civil magistrate, maybe it's a family line, or maybe it's my own

01:29:51 foolish decision and the credit cards that I took out, the debt that I racked up when I was in my

01:29:55 20s. Whatever it may be, sin is still at the root. And I do believe that by the grace of God, 0.92

01:30:01 that freedom is available from financial debt. I do believe that by the grace of God, as a

01:30:09 Christian strives to employ biblical principles in this life, following the law of God and working

01:30:14 hard, not everyone will be rich, but I do believe that we should all have a righteous ambition to be

01:30:20 financially free. And by being free, we position, we first and foremost, that's one of the most

01:30:26 loving practical loving things you can do for your children and future posterity is not pass

01:30:32 on to them financial debt and it also positions us better in practical tangible ways to love

01:30:38 not just in word but indeed the household of faith let's pray father we thank you for your

01:30:43 word bless it to your people for jesus sake amen thanks so much for listening but real quick

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The NXR Podcast - February 19, 2023

SUNDAY SERMON - Money, Debt, & Freedom From Financial Slavery

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Summary

Transcript