Living Honorably For Jesus (Part 2)

SIMPLY JESUS

LIVING HONORABLY FOR JESUS (Part 2)

HEBREWS 13:4-17

-A while back our Community Pastor Jae decided to treat the baptistery water…chemically like a swimming pool.

-He called a hot tub expert and they gave him some basic equipment and training on how to regulate the water.

-Now Jae is a genius when it comes to technical stuff, and he figured this out instantly. Me…not so much.

-Which is convenient because I really don’t want to do that job!

-But Jae explained it to me; you place your water sample into this container; you put a drop of chemical in & watch it turn color.

-You compare the color of the water against a chart to see if the color is off.

-And if it is, it tells you what to add to keep the water balanced.

-There are 3 different measurements that you take.

-The Chlorine level, the alkaline level, and the PH level.

-The idea is that you’re keeping everything in balance.

-Too much chlorine and our converts come out of the baptistery as platinum blonds!

-If the PH balance is off…the pump and the filter will get corroded.

-Not enough chemicals and the green gooey stuff starts to grow!

-It doesn’t seem hard...for Jae to do this…but it does require that take frequent readings to gauge the condition of the water.

-That brings us to the topic of our passage today:

-Last Sunday in Hebrews, and it ends with a collection of random

18 Pray for us, for our conscience is clear and we want to live honorably in everything we do.

-What know what it means to live honorably for Jesus?

-And how do we know we’re doing it?

-We could ask different people and get different answers to that.

-If living honorably for Jesus is our goal, we will need to take frequent readings to make sure that we our living w/clean consciences and being honorable in all that we do.

-But we are testing chlorine, alkaline, and PH.

-Our passage gives us several different areas that we can evaluate to get a sense of how we’re doing, at living honorably for Jesus.

4a Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage.

-BE FAITHFUL TO MARRIAGE. (VS 4)

-If we are going to live honorably for Jesus we must give honor to the institution of marriage.

-Christians are people who believe in marriage.

-We believe in making the commitment to be married.

-We also believe in staying married.

-We believe that two Christian people who are married should reflect Jesus in that marriage.

-You know what leads to a divorce between two Christians?

-When one or both people stops acting like Jesus!

-My friend Rob said something very wise in our life2life group this past year. He said, “If you want to know how my marriage is, look at my walk with Christ. If you want to know how my walk with Christ is, look at my marriage.”

-My friend Rob has discovered something many others haven’t

-Your spiritual life and your marriage are connected.

-If your marriage is in shambles there’s a good chance that your walk w/Christ is also in need of repair!

-You can’t have a healthy Christian marriage without healthy Xians

-That’s an easy reading we can take any time.

-Am I living honorably for Jesus? How’s my marriage.

4a Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. 4b God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery.

-STAY FREE FROM IMMORAL BEHAVIOR. (VS 4)

-Literally, this translates, “The marriage bed is to be undefiled.”

-A warning is given. God will judge people who R sexually immoral

-There are consequences for those who defile the marriage bed.

-It’s funny how timely God’s word can be.

-This past week many American Christians were fired up about the gay marriage controversy.

-And here we have back to verses which discuss the sanctity of marriage and the call to be free from sexual immorality.

-There are 3 competing voices in the discussion on gay marriage.

-There is God’s word on the matter. There is the US government’s word on the matter. And there are people’s opinions.

-Let me say respectfully, that we are not most concerned with what the U.S. government says about marriage.

-Their certificate is not what constitutes a marriage in God’s eyes.

-People in our culture have all kinds of opinions and arguments;

-We can, and should listen respectfully to what they say.

-But what we care about most, as followers of Jesus, is placing the highest value on God’s Word…which is the final word for us on all

matters. They don’t understand that and they don’t have to.

-Whatever the world wants to do…they can do…and they will.