Three or four summers ago we did a family vacation trip that included a stop at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. I suspect that many of you have been there and can picture this geyser that was named Old Faithful because like clockwork, every 67 minutes, there is a spectacular eruption of boiling sulfur water.
Well, actually, it used to be like clock work. Apparently there have been some changes under the surface and now old faithful is not quite as faithful or predictable as it once was.
Now the geyser USUALLY erupts every 67 minutes but sometimes it is between 45 and 110 minutes. The culprits-earthquakes and vandalism.
If even this great icon of faithfulness and constancy is failing what can you trust? Certainly not the stock market. Both the NASDAQ and the Dow closed lower Friday than when they opened Monday-the NASDAQ by 11%!
According to the preacher in Hebrews there is a source of stability and constancy that is unaffected by markets-unaffected by earthquakes-unaffected by the rise and fall of political systems-unaffected by crummy relationships we might have with each other. No matter what happens there is a place-a person of stability. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
Lose your job? "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
Lose your husband? "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
Lose your mind? "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
The preacher in Hebrews wants us to see that in spite of the deterioration-the atrophy around us-Jesus doesn’t change. He’s not going to let you-us down. Therefore, we ought to keep on trusting him.
That is, Jesus is the constant, consistent, completely sufficient source of our salvation. This is the key point this morning.
Now, of course, this all sounds kind of philosophical-until you start hitting pot holes in the road-at which point you start to get excited about this shock absorber of a verse from Hebrews 13:8. This verse-and even all of Hebrews-is trying to reassert the total sufficiency of Christ and his sacrifice.
I remember that in one of the churches I attended several years ago we had a Sunday night service which occasionally included a testimony time. It was similar to what we do most every Sunday morning in giving people a chance to share prayer requests and words of praise. Except in this church people tended to give their testimony-or to share a favorite Bible verse.
And there was one older man who would always stand and quote Hebrews 13:8. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Then he would sit down. It was tempting to think it was the only verse in the Bible that he knew or that he could remember.
Personally I suspect that it spoke to his heart more than any other-especially considering all the change that had taken place in his lifetime. He had gone from horse drawn buggies to planes-outhouses to luxury bathes-cat whisker crystal radios to color television with stereo.
The amount of change that some of you have experienced is mind boggling and some times it’s tempting to throw up your hands and scream-"Enough is enough. I want something that is the same-something that hasn’t changed." And perhaps this verse from Hebrews 13 speaks to that need.
But that wasn’t really where the early Christians being addressed in this letter were coming from. They were not having an issue with too much change. They wanted more change. Remember the context.
They were wanting to re-envision Christianity by drawing from the pool of ancient Jewish ritual, as well as that of contemporary Greek thinking. As I’ve said before they were trying to bring together what they considered to be the best of a bunch of religions in order to produce a super religion. But the preacher is arguing that doing this is like throwing a bunch of chemicals together and in doing so creating an unstable and dangerous environment. The only stable-and from a long term perspective truly valuable element-is Christ Jesus. So he’s trying to get them to abandon this propensity toward change and this constant impulse to dink around with the faith.
Now, I’d suggest that most of us are into change-sometimes change just for the sake of change. I mean, our culture has become such that change is seen as normative and even desirable. If we aren’t always changing and constantly influx we feel left out. In order to survive in the main flow of our culture you have to embrace change.
And frankly, I don’t really have a problem with that-within boundaries. I refuse to get a tatoo and I will not pierce my tongue. You can! However, that’s where I draw the line! But generally speaking, I’m wired in such a way that I think change is life’s great adventure. New places, new faces, new technology-it all captures my imagination like nothing else. Like so many of you I live and breath change.
Unfortunately, there is an unhealthy side to this kind of thinking, that is we become easily infatuated with new and novel. We see new and novel as more relevant than old and the same. We rush out to buy the newest books and movies and computers and gizmos. Which in itself isn’t bad. The problem comes when we try to apply this mind set to our core values, when we begin to think that something is more valuable because it is new-perhaps even in terms of religion.
But the preacher is saying good ole Jesus is the constant, consistent, completely sufficient source of our salvation. Therefore let’s drop our infatuation with new-fangled novelties-especially when if come to matters of faith.
Look at verse 9, "So do not be attracted by strange new ideas. Your spiritual strength comes from God’s special favor, not from ceremonial rules about food, which don’t help those who follow them."
The rules about food are probably in reference to Jewish kosher food practices and the reintroduction of idea that eating special foods somehow grants you special favor with God or reflects your special favor with him. But the preacher says, "No, it’s not in old food rules or in new fangled ideas about old food rules that you get it together with God. Whatever merit such things may have they are not the basis of your relationship with God. So don’t get hung up majoring in the minors. Don’t get swallowed by the cult of the contemporary and the novel. For you already have something far more stable, more effective, and more sufficient."
"Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever."
Furthermore, the preacher is saying, therefore, we need to go to the ultimate altar, the cross of Christ.
Look at verses 10-14 again. "We have an altar from which the priests in the Temple on earth have no right to eat. Under the system of Jewish laws, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, but the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp. So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates in order to make his people holy by shedding his own blood. So let us go out to him outside the camp and bear the disgrace he bore. For this world is not our home; we are looking forward to our city in heaven, which is yet to come."
In our trek through Hebrews, which we began on January 16th, we’ve seen quite a few references to the Jewish sacrificial system. As you recall, in that system, a sacrifice of a lamb or a goat was made on an altar as a means of symbolically washing away the sins of the people. And there were people in the early church who wanted to go back to doing some kinds of sacrifices.
But the Hebrews preacher says no more sacrifices are necessary for the ultimate sacrifice has already taken place on the cross of Christ.
This didn’t happen in the temple but outside the city itself, that is Jerusalem, not too far from where they would take the remains of the animals sacrificed in the temple-a dump-a squalid-horrid place-a place of disgrace. But it was that very sacrifice that made God’s people holy. So let’s not go running back to the temple, so to speak, let’s go back to the cross-the place of the great sacrifice! Let’s put our faith there rather than in the ceremonies of the temple and the bygone era.
But then the preacher adds, in verses 15-16, if you want to get into sacrifices there is something that you should be doing. "With Jesus’ help, let us continually offer our sacrifice of praise to God by proclaiming the glory of his name. Don’t forget to do good and to share what you have with those in need, for such sacrifices are very pleasing to God."
It should come as no surprise that following in the footsteps of the sacrificed Savior should involve sacrifices. We, too, join the sacrifice-except we’re not talking about lambs and goats but of praise and proclamation and sharing. We sacrifice our time, our energy, our focus, our concentration, our lives to bring to the Lord appropriate praise and proclamation.
We sing and speak of who God is and what he’s done and what he’s doing. We exalt him. We honor him.
THIS IS OUR HIGHEST PRIORITY-not going back to religious kindergarten to learn how to butcher lambs all over again. Grow up. Move up. It’s all about worship!
Then he adds, and while you’re singing "We bring the sacrifice of praise" make sure that you also remember to "do good, and to share what you have with those in need; for such sacrifices are very pleasing to God." (verse 16)
What makes God happy? Not some esoteric religious scheme that you’re concocting-but getting back to the basics-worship and sharing-these are the sacrifices that really count.
Then finally, we need to be obedient to our leaders.
Verse 17 says, "Obey your spiritual leaders and do what they say."
When I read this earlier this week I thought, wow, I could really work this angle.
We’re going to take up a special offering this morning because I want you guys to buy me a Mercedes sports ute. And I want all of our high school students to show up at our house every Saturday morning so you can do our yard work and clean our house. We’ll talk about the new house you all are going to build for me later on when I have time to go into the details.
This, of course, is not at all what the preacher is talking about; which is too bad for those of us in the business.
From what we read last week in verse 17 ("Remember your leaders who first taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and trust the Lord as they do.")-from this context we know that he is talking about following the example of the leaders who have poured out their lives on their behalf of the church.
Pick it up in the middle of verse 7, "Their work is to watch over your souls, and they know they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this joyfully and not with sorrow. That would certainly not be for your benefit."
Some of us carry the weight of the souls of others. It is a responsibility assigned by God-not that we can make you do what we want-or that we can push you around-or that we can make your choices for you.
But we are responsible for making sure that you get to hear God’s view point on things - teaching the word of God (to borrow again a phrase from verse 7).
Well this word is that Jesus is the constant, consistent, completely sufficient source of our salvation. Therefore, we need to join the great saints we read about in chapter 11 who’ve gone before us in trusting the Lord.
That’s it in a nutshell, the message of Hebrews. Oh, there are a few more verses here at the end of chapter 13-a prayer request, a benediction, some personal comments and greetings-all of which remind us that God’s word doesn’t come in a vacuum but in a real setting-(where Old Faithful isn’t always faithful) with real people-to real people-just like ourselves-just like YOU!
Copyright 2000 by Brad Boydston. All rights reserved. Permission granted for non-commercial use. Permission granted for SermonCentral.com use.
