Hebrews: Jesus Is Greater

An expression of brotherly love is remembering the prisoners and others who suffer for the gospel. An exposition of Hebrews 13:3.

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Hebrews chapter 13. And actually as we begin reading, we’re going to begin at chapter 12, verse 28, and read through chapter 13, verse 3. Twelve, verse 28:

28 Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe;

29 for our God is a consuming fire.

13:1 Let love of the brethren continue.

2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

3 Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body. (Heb. 12:28–13:3 NASB)

There are so many ways for us to express our love for the brethren. Loving those who are inside the family of God is for the believer the natural thing to do, since we share a common Savior, we share a common interest, we share a kingdom, we share an inheritance, we share the same Lord, we are in the same family, bought by the same blood, purchased by the same atonement, secured by the same resurrection, wooed by the same Holy Spirit, elected by the same Father. We share all of those blessings of salvation. And so to show love for those who are inside the family of God is a very natural thing for a Christian.

And if, as I argued a couple weeks ago, if that love for the brethren is not there, it indicates that something is fundamentally wrong. Just as in an earthly and natural family, when siblings hate one another, it is because of sin or alienation, something has gone wrong fundamentally somewhere along the line. And by the way, if you are in war with a sibling, a natural sibling, I would encourage you to get that sorted out, and maybe it has nothing at all to do with you and everything to do with somebody else, but that only goes to make my case that something has gone wrong somewhere that may need to be resolved and addressed.

The various “one anothers” in the New Testament are examples of how Christians are to love one another and show the brotherly love that is commanded in chapter 13, verse 1.

For instance—and there are more than this, but here’s just a sampling—we are commanded to be devoted to one another (Rom. 12:10), to honor one another (Rom. 12:10), to build up one another (Rom. 14:19), to accept one another (Rom. 15:7), to care for one another, (1 Cor. 12:25), to serve one another (Gal. 5:13), to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2), to be kind and compassionate to one another (Eph. 4:32), to submit to one another (Eph. 5:21), to bear with one another (Col. 3:13), to comfort one another 1 Thess. 4:18), to exhort one another (Heb. 3:13), to show hospitality to one another (1 Pet. 4:9), and to pray for one another (James 5:16). And it just occurred to me as I was reading that list that whoever was running the live stream, if they were trying to put the verses up on the screen, you had quite the challenge. Apologize for that.

Life together affords us all kinds of opportunities to love one another. And really that boils down to simply considering the interest of other people ahead of our own, to put other people first, which means that we would then honor them and build them up and accept them and care for them and serve them and bear their burdens and be kind to them and submit to them and love them and cherish them. And that type of activity of putting other people ahead of us and considering the interests of others before our own—that’s Philippians chapter 2—which is exactly what Jesus Christ did, that is something that can be done and lived out everywhere by every Christian. It is something that can be done when you are single, when you are married, when you are married before you have children, when you are married with children, when you are married after the children leave, when you are retired in the home, in the marketplace, at the jobsite, in the neighborhood. In literally every area of life, this type of sacrificial and others-centered love can be lived out. And of course it is most frequently and most easily lived out in the church body inside of the congregation.

And all of these are expressions of love. And love is what tops the list of our author’s concerns in Hebrews 13 as he begins the chapter by imploring us to “let love of the brethren continue” (v. 1), something that was already going on, and he says, “Let this continue amongst you.” And then he gives us some practical ways of showing that love, to remember the strangers (in v. 2) and to remember the prisoners (in v. 3). So there’s the general command in verse 1, we are to remember the brethren, then we are to remember the strangers, and then we are to remember the sufferers. And we have looked at the first two of those commands, verses 1 and 2, and yet here is another example in verse 3 of ways that Christians can demonstrate their love for one another. Verse 3 says, “Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.” And that is our text for this morning.

This reference here reminds us that being in prison for the faith was an ever-present reality for New Testament Christians. If you lived in the first century in and around Judea and the land of Israel or places where the gospel had spread to because of Paul’s missionary journeys, if you lived in any of those areas, then you likely knew someone who had been imprisoned at least for a time or was imprisoned for the sake of righteousness or for the sake of the faith. It was not uncommon in the first century. It is uncommon in our century, in our location. But it was not uncommon in the first century, and it certainly was not uncommon in every place where the gospel had manifested and been preached.

The New Testament is a collection of books that was forged in the midst of suffering and imprisonment. The New Testament is a collection of books that was forged in the midst of suffering. Suffering for the faith, suffering for the gospel is all the way through the New Testament. The predictions that this would happen are in the New Testament. The examples of people to whom it happened are in the New Testament. The warnings about suffering and the trials and temptations that we are prone to in the midst of suffering, that is described in the New Testament.

Five of Paul’s Epistles were written from prison cells. Four of them were written during his first imprisonment, which is recorded at the end of the book of Acts. That’s Colossians and Philippians and Philemon and Ephesians. And then Paul was released for a brief period of time where he visited the city of Ephesus and he sent Titus to the island of Crete to set in order some things that remained there. He wrote a couple other Epistles, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and eventually Paul was arrested a second time and put into prison, and this time not the rented quarters that you see at the end of the book of Acts where his friends were allowed to come freely in and out and he was allowed to teach them and proclaim the kingdom of God. But that second imprisonment was the type of imprisonment that is basically you’re thrown in a hole and you’re left to rot or die until you’re executed. And that was when he wrote the book of 2 Timothy. So our New Testament is forged in the midst of suffering and affliction and imprisonment.

It is our situation in America in the, we should say, the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries, and even now into the twenty-first century, that is a historic anomaly to what the church has experienced around the world in every other age for the last two millennia. We have enjoyed an anomaly. And the anomaly is that we have lived in a situation, in a circumstance, where the Christian faith has been allowed to flourish and to prosper, and we have lived off the benefit and the blessing of that. But I don’t know if you have noticed it or not, but that window, that environment, is very rapidly changing around us. We have enjoyed an anomaly that Christians for two thousand years have not because for most of church history, in most of the locations where the gospel has permeated, the church has existed inside of a hostile culture, and imprisonment for the cause of Christ and for the sake of righteousness was the reality, and those who lived freely are the anomaly. We have enjoyed it. And right now we are—I’m not trying to terrify anybody, but this is the reality—we are coasting on the fumes of what we have enjoyed for the last two centuries. Our society is right now. We’re coasting on the fumes of that. And that may or may not change. I don’t know. You don’t have to be a prophet to see that if the current trajectory is not stopped by something, a revival, a reformation, something, that we are headed in the very same path and the very same course as the rest of human history—that is, the ash heap of empires—and the reality that we will be facing something that our Christian brothers and sisters have faced for two thousand years.

It was certainly the situation for the Hebrew Christians that they knew people who were imprisoned. Thus the command in verse 3, “Remember the prisoners.” And I want you to know that the audience themselves, some of them had been imprisoned for their faith and that is alluded to or mentioned back in chapter 10. Turn back there if you will, just to chapter 10, verse 32. I want to show you three examples from this Epistle of how the early Hebrew Christians to whom this letter was written were very familiar with the kind of sufferings that we’re talking about. Hebrews 10:32:

32 But remember the former days, when, after being enlightened, you endured a great conflict of sufferings,

33 partly by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations, and partly by becoming sharers with those who were so treated.

34 For you showed sympathy to the prisoners and accepted joyfully the seizure of your property, knowing that you have for yourselves a better possession and a lasting one. (Heb. 10:32–34 NASB)

Notice that the author there says that they had become sharers with people who were so treated. They had joined in that affliction. They had done what Paul later said to Timothy that we read at the beginning, where he was not ashamed of the gospel and joined him in suffering for the sake of the gospel. There were a number in the Hebrew congregation who had done that very thing. You’ll notice the reference in verse 34, “You showed sympathy to the prisoners.” There were some among them who had not only had their property seized and suffered the reproach and the tribulations, the conflict of suffering, but had for the sake of the gospel been landed in prison. And the Hebrews had shown sympathy to them and accepted joyfully the seizure of their own property.

Now I want you to fast forward a little bit to Hebrews 13:23. I want you to notice there was another example of somebody that they knew well who had been in prison. Hebrews 13:23: “Take notice that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom, if he comes soon, I will see you.” Timothy himself had been released from prison. I find it interesting that in the chapter that we read earlier in the service, 2 Timothy 1, Paul tells Timothy, “Don’t be ashamed of my chains or me, the prisoner of the Lord, but join with me in suffering for the sake of the gospel.” It’s very possible that it was Timothy’s act of going to Paul as Paul requests of Timothy at the end of 2 Timothy 4 when he says, “When you come, bring my cloak, bring my books. Come to me before winter.” Why? Because Paul was sitting in a hole, and in that environment, if you didn’t have family or friends show up to provide clothing for you and sustenance for you, you sat there with nobody to visit with you. In that situation—it’s different than in our current context—in that situation, the only thing that the government provided for you was the hole to put you in, and after that it was up to somebody else to meet your needs. So at the end of 2 Timothy chapter 4, Paul says, “Bring my cloak, which I left at Troas. Bring my books, the parchments; I need those. Bring my coat and come to me before winter because everybody has departed, everybody has left me all alone. Only Luke is with me.” He was in dire straits. It’s very possible that Timothy’s arrival there in Rome to visit Paul and to fulfill the mission that Paul had given him landed Timothy in prison. And now Timothy was released (Heb. 13:23).

Notice the reference in verses 18 and 19; it’s possible that the author himself was imprisoned or at least is writing this from less than ideal circumstances. Verse 18: “Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a good conscience, desiring to conduct ourselves honorably in all things. And I urge you all the more to do this, so that I may be restored to you the sooner” (Heb. 13:18–19). Very possible that the author himself for some reason was imprisoned, in some way was imprisoned. It’s odd language to say “I will be restored to you.” It seems to suggest that he had been forcibly and against his own will taken away from them for some reason. Maybe persecution, maybe he himself was imprisoned when he wrote this.

There’s the reminder here to continue to remember those who are the prisoners. “Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body” (v. 3). Like brotherly love and like hospitality, this was already happening in the Hebrew congregation. We saw that back in chapter 10. You had participated in their sufferings, you had remembered and shown sympathy to the prisoners and those who had had their property seized. There had already been the expression of love on behalf of these Hebrew Christians toward those who had been imprisoned and ill-treated. And the author is not saying, look, you should start doing this. The author is saying to continue to do this, just like Hebrews 13:1: “Let love of the brethren continue.”

And in so doing, don’t neglect these two groups of brethren who are very often neglected. The stranger whom you don’t necessarily want to know and you may suspect that they’re a plant or a government agent or somebody who will turn on you. Don’t neglect them. And don’t neglect those who have already been imprisoned and ill-treated for the faith. Those, by the way, are the two easiest groups of people to neglect because they are out of sight and therefore they are out of mind. And remembering either one of them could be costly, it could be dangerous. So the author wants them to continue doing what they may be tempted to stop doing and that is to embrace those people who would cost them and be a danger to them. He wants them to continue doing this.

He says “Remember them,” which is similar—it’s sort of a positive side of the command we get in verse 2 when he says, “Do not neglect.” Remember that word neglect means to allow it to pass out of your mind, to forget, to lose sight of, to lose out of your mind. He says don’t do that; instead you should remember. So verse 2 is negative—don’t neglect this. And verse 3 is positive—remember this. It’s really the same idea stated two different ways. We could say, “Don’t neglect to show hospitality and don’t neglect the prisoners,” or we could say, “Remember to be hospitable and remember the prisoners.” It’s the same idea.

Paul spoke of himself in this way, by the way, when he asked others to remember him in his imprisonment. Colossians 4:18: “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. [Listen to this] Remember my imprisonment. Grace be with you.” That is such a short, simple, but loaded phrase. Remember my imprisonment. Now Paul doesn’t say, “Here are ten things that I want you to do as you remember my imprisonment.” He just simply says to the Colossians, “Don’t forget me. I’m in prison, and don’t forget that.” It’s almost as if the apostle could just simply remind them of his circumstances and the people in Colossae would know what to do with that, they would know exactly how to handle the apostle Paul.

So what does this look like to remember the prisoners? What does it look like? Does it simply mean that I put up on my mirror on my vanity in my bathroom, Prisoners? So every morning I wake up and think, oh yeah, that’s right, prisoners. Just remember that. Remember prisoners. Have I fulfilled my responsibility? What does it look like to remember the prisoners? Well, the New Testament gives us some examples. We could look at what was happening then and what others did for the apostle Paul and get some idea of what this would look like when the brethren expressed love for one another in remembering the prisoners. So here’s a couple of things that we see from Paul’s own life that others did for him. In the book of Philippians, the first is there was care and concern from the brethren, care and concern. A care and concern, not Karen concern. Care and concern, three words. Paul writes in Philippians 4:10, “But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity.” And later on in the same chapter Paul writes this:

14 Nevertheless, you have done well [listen to this] to share with me in my affliction.

15 You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone;

16 for even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once for my needs.

17 Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account.

18 But I have received everything in full and have an abundance; I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.

19 And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:14–19 NASB)

They had expressed their compassion, their solidarity with the apostle Paul. They had joined with him in his affliction. They had revived their care for him, their concern for him. And that manifested on their behalf in giving a gift to the apostle Paul to meet his needs. That’s a very tangible, real expression of how they showed their brotherly love.

Second is prayer. We see this in Ephesians 6. And by the way, I’m quoting here from Paul’s prison Epistles because it is writing to people from prison that we get some idea of what other people were doing for Paul when he was in prison. Ephesians 6:18:

18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,

19 and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel,

20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. (Eph. 6:18–20 NASB)

Now maybe in some situations prayer is all we can do. But it’s certainly something that we can do, to pray for those who are in prison.

I find it interesting that from prison Paul didn’t say, “Pray for my release.” In fact, when he asked them to pray for something specifically, Paul simply says, “Pray that I will be bold and that I will speak as I ought to speak so that the gospel may be proclaimed.” And then we find out in Philippians that the gospel had circulated amongst the entire praetorian guard because they had a soldier chained to Paul 24-7. And so they would come in and switch out the soldiers, and every time they brought a new soldier in, guess what Paul saw it as. For lack of a better term, a mark. “Here’s somebody I can share the gospel with.” And then those soldiers would leave Paul and go back into the praetorian guard, and news about him and about the gospel had spread throughout the entire praetorian guard. Paul’s concern was not that he would be out of the chains so much. Paul’s concern was not that he would have his needs met. Paul’s concern was just simply this: “Make me bold so that even in chains I will speak as I ought to speak.” That’s something that we can pray for the prisoners.

Third, visiting the prisoners. Matthew 25—these are the words of Jesus in verses 34–40:

34 Then the king will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;

36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’

37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?

38 And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?

39 When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’

40 The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’” (NASB)

See, that expression of brotherly love to those who are suffering is a service to Christ Himself. And He will reward that abundantly and graciously on the final day. And this is why, by the way, Christians in the early church visited each other in prison, because of this very command, this kind of command, knowing that they were serving Christ in doing that.

We see examples of that, people visiting those in prison. Paul’s companions visited him. He says at the end of 2 Timothy, which I already mentioned, that Luke was with him. He encouraged Timothy to come to him and to bring the parchments and his coat. He spent two years in Caesarea where he had visitors, and he spent two years in Rome where people came to visit him. So visiting prisoners in their imprisonment is certainly a very tangible way of showing brotherly love for them.

We have an example of that in Onesiphorus. 2 Timothy 1:16–18:

16 The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains;

17 but when he was in Rome, he eagerly searched for me and found me—

18 the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that day—and you know very well what services he rendered at Ephesus. (NASB)

Onesiphorus was not ashamed of Paul’s chains.

And then in that same chapter, the apostle tells Timothy—2 Timothy 1:8: “Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.” At that time, Paul was public enemy number one. He had been accused, if you follow the narrative through the Book of Acts, he had been accused at the end of the Book of Acts of sedition (stirring up cities), sectarianism, and illicit religion and sacrilege, defiling the Jewish temple. Those are the three charges that the Jewish leadership brought against Paul before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa, and we can presume that they brought those same charges to Nero when Paul finally landed in Rome and stood before him. Sedition, sectarianism, and sacrilege, that was what he was accused of.

And after he was released and he was finally put back in prison, this time it was not to have sort of a courteous presentation before Nero and to present his case there as he did during his first imprisonment. But that second time, instead, Paul was public enemy number one, and Christianity was on the cusp of becoming an illicit religion. And they were only, when 2 Timothy was written, they’re only a couple of years away from a government-sponsored, government-funded, government-orchestrated persecution of the Christian church. They were only a couple of years away from that. The slanders had already started regarding what Christians were doing and what they were guilty of, and it looked as if the dark storm clouds were gathering on the horizon and even over top of their heads. And Paul says, “Don’t be ashamed of me, but join with me in suffering.”

It would be dangerous to identify with the Christian community. It would certainly be dangerous and even at the risk of their own lives for anybody to identify with the apostle Paul. He was their most notable, notorious, and well-known ringleader. And to hook your wagon to him in any way would make you a target. And Onesiphorus got to Rome, and he eagerly searched out Paul so that he could visit Paul. And Paul says the Lord will remember him and the Lord will reward him on that day.

It’s not just the prisoners that we are to remember but also those who are ill-treated. Look at the second half of the verse—“Those who are ill-treated” (v. 3). Suffering in prison is not the only way that people suffer for the sake of the gospel, for the truth. And so compassion should not be restrained just to the prisoner. There are other ways that people suffer for the gospel. We’ve seen them back in Hebrews chapter 10. Reproaches and contempt, having your children taken away, suffering financial woes, losing your job, the seizure of your property, your physical destitution, occupational or reputational ruin, being banished from family and friends and from those who should care for you, being ostracized from society, being falsely accused, those are all ways that people are ill-treated and all ways that first-century Christians were ill-treated.

In fact, they are to view themselves as being lumped in with the heroes of faith because that other reference to “ill-treated” is actually back in Hebrews chapter 11. Do you remember when he is reciting through the virtues of the heroes of the faith, Paul—the author of Hebrews says . . . I’ve been talking about Paul; I’m not suggesting Paul wrote Hebrews. The author of Hebrews says in verse 35,

35 Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release [talking about prisoners], so that they might obtain a better resurrection;

36 and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment.

37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated [there’s our phrase: ill-treated]

38 (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. (Heb. 11:35–38 NASB)

They were ill-treated. And the reference here to ill-treated in chapter 13 should remind the readers of this Epistle that when they are ill-treated for the sake of the truth, they are in good company. They are with those like at the end of chapter 11 who were ill-treated. And the author says, “Those were men and women of whom this world is not worthy.” So if you have received ill treatment for the sake of the truth, count yourself in that number, among the men and women of whom this world is not worthy. And we are to remember them as well.

Now here’s a question that I should answer before we talk about the manner in which we do this and the motive with which we do it. This question here—who or what does the author have in mind? Is he talking about every prisoner in every prison who is imprisoned for every reason? Is he talking about them? In other words, do I have an obligation to be down—do you and I have an obligation to be down at the county jail visiting prisoners in the jail? Is that our obligation? Is that what this passage is talking about? I don’t think it is what this passage is talking about. This passage is specifically talking about how we treat brothers. “Let love of the brethren continue” (Heb. 13:1). Remember the strangers, remember the prisoners. What kind of prisoners? Brethren. What kind of strangers? Brethren.

Now, if you want to go to the jail and visit people, you have a captive audience there that you can share the gospel with. You can do that. That’s totally fine. Not opposed to any of that. But this passage is not a mandate that we visit people who are imprisoned for rape and murder and drug trafficking or any of the other things that people are imprisoned for. It is a mandate that we remember those who are in prison for the faith and those who are ill-treated for the faith.

There are two phrases that qualify or describe how it is that we are to do this, the first half of the verse and the second half of the verse, “as though in prison with them” and “since you yourselves also are in the body.” Those two phrases describe the manner in which we are to do this and the heart with which we are to do it. It describes something of the mindset that is behind remembering the prisoners and those who are ill-treated.

The first phrase, “as though in prison with them,” that describes the sympathy of heart that we have with our brothers. We are to, as it were, put our hearts in with them. We are to remember the prisoners in a manner that suggests that we are in prison with them, that we have some kind of solidarity with them, some kind of unity with them, some kind of shared interest with them, so that if they are in prison, there is a sense—there should be a sense—in which we feel the weight of that imprisonment, and we ought to remember them in such a way as if we are imprisoned with them. Show them the kind of compassion and care that you would want if you were in prison. That’s the idea. How would you think if you were in prison? What would you want people to pray for? How would you want people to support you? What would you want people to do for you and your family members? If you have a brother who is in prison and it is within your ability to do something to serve them in some way, remember them. Whatever the danger, whatever the cost, you remember them as if you were imprisoned with them. What would you want in that circumstance? As though you were suffering the same thing.

And he is alluding here to our union with those who suffer for the faith. If one member suffers, all members suffer with it. If one rejoices, all the members rejoice with it. There is a oneness in the body of Christ. And so if our brother or sister is in prison for the sake of righteousness or for the sake of the truth, we ought to remember them as if we were in prison with them because they are part of the same body and therefore we have a connection to them and thus a responsibility. We share a common life, common interests, a common destiny. We have a union in Christ that does and should knit our hearts together with them. And so when they are in prison, then our hearts go out to them and we begin to remember them in a way that we would want to be remembered if we were in their circumstances.

The second phrase, “since you yourselves also are in the body,” is not a reference to being in the body of Christ. That’s how Calvin treats it in his commentary. I disagree with that. I only know of one person who treats it that way. The reference is not to being in the body of Christ together. That’s already alluded to there with our union, the first half of the verse, but it seems to suggest the idea that we also have physical bodies and therefore we would know what that weakness, what that imprisonment would feel like. It is not difficult for us to imagine what being imprisoned for the faith or ill-treated for the faith would do to us if we received the same kind of treatment. And so since we are in the body as well, since we are in these vessels of flesh and blood, of weakness and limitation, what would that mean for us if we were in that circumstance? We could remember them in that way and show favor and kindness to those who are ill-treated, knowing that we share the same kinds of limitations. You’re in the body as well. And so as long as you are in your body, you are subject to this very same kind of treatment. Even though right now you may not be enduring this kind of treatment, the fact that you are in your body means that you are not immune from similar affliction. That kind of affliction, ill-treatment for the sake of the truth and persecution for the sake of the gospel and even imprisonment, can befall you just as easily as it has befallen anybody else who is so treated.

There is the temptation for us to think that in America we can always be immune from this because after all the Republican party will come to our rescue. Yeah, I hear you chuckling. That’s a good response. Because you ought to remember that half of the Republican party would throw you in prison tomorrow, all of you, if it would profit them. But the other half would tweet vicious things and say really harsh things on Twitter. You say, Jim, you sound like a Democrat. I’m not, because 100 percent of them would imprison you tomorrow if they could profit from it. Fifty percent of the Republicans would do it. There’s nobody coming to anybody’s rescue in that regard.

The Constitution is our Bill of Rights. The Constitution grants us these freedoms. These can never be infringed. That’s how we used to think twenty years ago. Growing up in the 1980s—best decade ever—that’s how we thought. We’re America. This is going to never happen here. We’re America. We have the Moral Majority on our side. The Constitution protects us from these things. Just keep in mind that nearly every elected official in this country, not all of them but nearly all of them, three years ago were willing to ruin your life and take everything that you cherish away because they were afraid of catching the flu. They will do it again in a heartbeat because one or two government bureaucrats told them that that was the best thing to do. Republicans, Democrats, leaders have not cared about the Constitution since . . . Well, what’s today? Since 1777, give or take. They haven’t cared about it since then. It means nothing to them.

That’s the point here. You have no guarantee that this will not happen to you. One year from now, we could know people in this congregation who are sitting in a prison for the sake of the truth. Six months from now, that could be the case. That’s the author’s point. You know the weaknesses that come with suffering. And as long as you are in the body, you are as prone and vulnerable and open to that happening to you as anybody else who has ever suffered. As long as we are in this life, on this side of the veil, as long as we are alive here, this could happen to us. Therefore, remember the prisoner and those who are ill-treated just as if you were imprisoned with them.

Now, by the way, just as a reminder, let me back up and say this. There is a thin veil that separates the freedom and the enjoyment and the comfort that we currently enjoy—there’s a very thin veil between that and going to prison for the faith, a very thin veil. And that veil was pierced a couple of times with James Coates and Tim Stephens, and they threatened to do it to John MacArthur and the elders of Grace Community Church and anybody else in California who did that. We saw people bumping up against that and testing the waters, as it were. That’s why I say to you, as long as you’re in the body, this can happen to you. It can happen to us.

Now currently, in our environment, as I alluded to a few moments ago, things are a little bit different than they were back then. I don’t know anybody in prison for the gospel right now, for the sake of the truth. Now it might be that my circles are very small. It’s very possible. I know of people in prison for the gospel, but I don’t know any. Certainly there’s nobody in our congregation who right now is sitting in the county jail suffering for the sake of the truth. If there were, there are a couple of sheriff’s deputies over here that I would be talking to, but that is not the case right now. I don’t know anybody who is in prison for the gospel. It’s very possible that none of you know personally, that most of you don’t know personally anybody who is in prison for the gospel. There’s nobody in our congregation. I don’t know of anybody in the county who is suffering in that way. But that could change. I am convinced that in the event that it did change, that the response of this body of believers would be very much akin to what we see in Hebrews 13. I think we would remember the prisoners.

Though it may be impossible or difficult for us to find people from our own circles who are in prison for the sake of the gospel, it is not difficult to find people who are ill-treated for the sake of the gospel. Now, I know plenty of these. I know plenty of pastors, because I have gotten their emails and I know some of them personally, who have been run out of their church for speaking the truth about sound doctrine, about Scripture, for expository teaching, who have been fired for not affirming the LGBTQ blah blah blah narrative and agenda, for standing on God’s standards regarding sexuality, human sexuality. We do know, and probably so many of you do know, Christians whose lives have been wrecked and ruined because the government thought that they could raise their kids better than they could, because they were teaching their kids biblical teaching regarding sexual ethics and homosexuality and marriage, etc. I do know of people, and I am not too far removed from them, who have had their children taken from them because they refused to transition their young child, and their spouse was against it or their grandparents were against their position. So we already know people who have been ill-treated for the sake of the truth.

I have some pastoral friends who have been fired, and in fact I heard on Friday from a friend of mine who shared with me that their pastor is currently—it’s not even in this state, so don’t worry about it—their pastor is currently being run out of his pastorate simply because he stands up and he just preaches through the Scriptures like I do each and every week. The church environment in America has become hostile to good men. That’s a fact. And to find an environment that is not hostile to good men and to sound doctrine is a very difficult task.

And even with all of that, we enjoy tremendous blessing, tremendous freedom, tremendous grace and joy. We don’t know a fraction of the suffering that has been endured elsewhere. And this in verse 3 is merely one way that we can love the brethren. We can begin to pray for those who are in prison, and we should certainly pray for those who are ill-treated. For pastors and faithful men that we know elsewhere who have been exiled from their jobs or kicked out of their families or lost their reputation for standing on the truth, we can pray for them and do what we can to support them. And we don’t overlook them because of the danger or the cost that might come to those who suffer for the faith. And instead, we press in and sympathize with them and do what we can to pray for them, to encourage them, to strengthen them, to visit them, to provide for them and their families if necessary. These are all the things that we can do, remembering that we are likewise weak and vulnerable creatures and the tables could be turned at any moment.

A year from now, you could be visiting me in prison. Now, if anybody here is going to go to prison, I’m fine with it being me and not anybody else, mainly because my kids and my grandkids are fine, and that’s fine, and my kids are raised. You guys will take care of my wife. But it might be that somebody else is in prison for speaking the truth. And maybe it’s not a year. Maybe it’s five years. Maybe it’s ten years. Maybe that’s the reality. You don’t know what it is. But we do know that if one of us suffers, all the members suffer with it. And therefore, the expression of brotherly love is to remember those who are ill-treated as if we were with them, knowing that we are not far from them.

1. What is hospitality?
2. Why is it important?
3. What do angels have to do with it?

Sermon Transcript

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So, what are the marks of kingdom citizens? Assuming that you have been given a kingdom which is unshakable and that kingdom is eternal and that your life is wrapped up in that kingdom and that you are a citizen of that, what is a kingdom citizen? And what does the life of a kingdom citizen look like? That is something that should concern us from the moment that we are transformed and redeemed and saved. How do kingdom citizens live in this world which is not our home? And we are not citizens of any earthly kingdom in any kind of eternal sense. We are temporary residents here. And that is the question; answering that question is the focus of Hebrews chapter 13, as the author now comes to this giant conclusion to all of the arguments that he has been making for twelve chapters. And you see the conclusion begin at chapter 12, verses 28–29, where he says, “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.”

That “therefore” at verse 28 is the ultimate therefore. He has told us that we are redeemed and that we are saved, that our sins have been taken away and atoned for, that Christ has died to cleanse our conscience and to clear our slate and to give us His righteousness. He has told us now that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and is currently interceding for us, from which position He has secured us everlastingly. And we have hope in this life and hope for the next all because of what Christ has done. And so therefore, the author says, having brought all of that argument now to a head at the end of chapter 12, therefore here is how we ought to live. Here is what we should do. Here is what should characterize us. Here is how we should behave. And that’s what chapter 13 is—a list of exhortations and commands and closing considerations by which the author is bringing to a focus now how it is that all of the truth in the first twelve chapters impacts our day-to-day lives. If all of that is true, if Christ has given Himself for you in your place and if you have received an unshakable kingdom, then here is what should be true of you. Here’s how you should live.

Verse 28, we should show gratitude. Verse 28, we should offer to God acceptable service with reverence and awe. Chapter 13, verse 1, we should love the brethren. And then chapter 13, verse 2 and on, it follows these other practical applications, things that kingdom citizens do.

And last week we looked at verse 1, the brotherly love commandment: “Let love of the brethren continue.” Just two major words in the Greek which basically just says that brotherly affection that characterizes family members, that love of the brethren, let that continue in the church, let that continue in your life. Then that command to show brotherly love which we saw last week is natural for the believer. The expression—the possession—of brotherly love is natural for the believer. It is something that is instinctive to the Christian. That idea of brotherly love now sort of overshadows, it hangs over the rest of these commandments in this opening paragraph of chapter 13.

Look at verse 2. These are all expressions, by the way, of brotherly love. Verse 2: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.” We should “remember the prisoners [verse 3], as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.” Both of those are expressions of brotherly love. Let brotherly love continue, let love of the strangers continue, and let love of prisoners continue.

Verse 4 is also an expression of an appropriate brotherly love. ”Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” It is an expression of brotherly love that we honor marriage and keep our marriage bed undefiled from fornication and adultery. That is an expression of proper love. Another expression of proper love is to be free from the love of money. Verse 5: “Being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”

So there is an improper love with which proper love is contrasted in verse 4. That is the love of, in an inappropriate way, of those who are not our spouse, or somebody of the opposite sex, or somebody else where that love is inappropriate. That’s verse 4. Then there is the contrast with another kind of inappropriate love. That is the love for money, the love for things, and an active discontentment.

Another expression of brotherly love is in verse 7. Follow the example of godly leaders. “Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.” So brotherly love is sort of the overarching command, the overarching principle. This brotherly affection, let it continue in the church. What does that look like? Here are some very practical applications of that, some very practical ways where that is worked out in body life.

Verse 2—this is our text for this morning: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.” That is our verse for this morning. That first kind of expression of brotherly love is the love of strangers, or showing hospitality to strangers.

And there are three questions that we’re going to answer this morning—three considerations—and here they are. Number one, what is hospitality? What is hospitality? Number two, why is it important? Of all the things that we could be commanded to exercise, why is hospitality important? And number three, what do angels have to do with it? That’s a good question. What do angels have to do with this? Like it would have been sufficient simply to say “exercise hospitality” and then to move on. But what in the world do angels have to do with exercising hospitality? You notice that at the end of verse 2: “For by this [that is, by the exercise or the showing of love for strangers—hospitality] some have entertained angels without knowing it [or “angels unaware” as some of the older translations say].”

Let’s begin with what is hospitality? Let me offer you a definition. It was important to define what brotherly love was or brotherly affection was last week in verse 1. There’s a form or a part of the word brotherly love that also appears in this verse, and it is the word for love because that’s what hospitality is. Hospitality is a form of love, and so the word that is used here that is translated hospitality is philoxenia. Philoxenia. And it’s actually a combination of two words. So just as brotherly love or affection, love for the brothers, is one word that is a combination of two other words, phileo, meaning love or a kind of love that is a kind affection, not an erotic love and not that kind of agape love, but a brotherly affection, and then adelphos, which is “brotherly”—love of the brethren. They crammed those two words together to get brotherly love—philadelphia. It’s the same word that we get our city name from. Well, this likewise is two words kind of combined into one. Phileo—again, the word love. We are to have phileo delphia, which is love of the brethren, and we are to have a phileo xenia, which is a love for strangers.

And the word xenia is the word that is translated in the New Testament as “lodging place” or “guest room.” It comes from the word xenos, which means “stranger” or “foreigner.” We’re familiar with that word because we have some of our English words that come from that, like xenophobia, which is the fear of strangers, the fear of foreigners, the fear of those who are not like us. So a philoxenia is a love for strangers or a love for foreigners or for others. And so the author is commending to us a kind affection, a warm regard, a friendly love for strangers. A form of the word for stranger—xenos is the word for stranger—xenia, that Greek word in the New Testament, is sometimes used as a lodging place or a room. For instance in Philemon chapter—well, Philemon has one chapter—Philemon, verse 22, where Paul says to Philemon, “At the same time also prepare me a lodging [a xenia—prepare me a room], for I hope that through your prayers I will be given to you.” So the idea of philoxenia is the love of a lodging place. It’s the combination of the idea of preparing somebody a lodging for strangers or foreigners, and then the affection that is attached to that.

You could own a hotel and have no love whatsoever and sell out your rooms to complete strangers each and every night and never exercise hospitality, even though you might have hospitality services. But that’s not hospitality. Hospitality is having a kind or warm affection for strangers to the point where you are willing to open up your home, open up your table, and to provide means or sustenance to other people who are not part of your home. They might be strangers, they might be foreigners, and they may even be people within the body of Christ. So the NASB translation, “show hospitality to strangers,” is somewhat redundant because the word hospitality—it would have been sufficient to just simply say “show hospitality.” But to show hospitality to strangers is to say show the love of strangers to strangers. What he’s describing here is the kind of love that is willing to open up your home and to prepare lodging, to prepare a room, or to give somebody room and board.

If we translate it just “show hospitality,” you and I might be tempted to think that what the author has in mind here is simply being kind to the people that we like, the people that are like us, the people that we really enjoy hanging around with. And this command would include that, but this command is much broader than that. This command has to do with doing that for strangers.

Now you say, Jim, my stranger danger warning is going up here. There’s got to be some consideration. You’re certainly not talking about just running and grabbing a random homeless person off the street and bringing them into my house to lodge with my family, are you? Not entirely. There are some considerations which I’ll get to later on. But I want you to understand that this word is not just talking about opening up our table to the people that we like to hang out with, our close friends. That is a form of hospitality, but hospitality is in no way limited to that. This word was used to receive others into your home and to provide food and lodging. It is to open your home and your heart to others. You can see how this is a form of brotherly love.

And I think that the author has in mind here a love to brothers who are strangers. It’s not just that we open our homes in hospitality to people who are believers. It certainly includes that, but it also goes beyond that. It is more than that. And notice that this was an expected practice, which is why the author says, “Don’t neglect to do this.” In other words, it was going on and he is encouraging them to not forget. That’s really the word that is translated “neglect.” It means to forget it or to lose sight of it or to simply let it pass out of your mind, to not recall to do it. It was the word used for something that is forgotten or lost to your remembrance. So, really, this is a command to remember to do something. In other words, it is the expectation that believers will open their homes to other people, strangers and people that they know well, Christians and non-Christians, and that when that is going on and this is happening within the home—within the believer’s home—that you and I will not get to the point where we start forgetting to do this because of whatever considerations come into our lives from outside of this. Don’t neglect it. Remember this.

In fact, this list of commands is a list of commands to remember different things. We are to remember to let brotherly love continue. We are to remember to show hospitality to strangers (verse 2). We are to remember the prisoners (verse 3). We are to remember our marriage vows (verse 4). We are to remember that the Lord Himself has said, I will never leave you nor desert you (verse 5). We are to remember those who teach us the Word of God (verse 7). There’s a lot of things to remember, and this is just another one of them. This hospitality, this love for strangers that is to go on, don’t let it slip from your mind so that it gets out of your mind and thus out of your life. Because once it is out of your mind and you’re not thinking about it, life will come and the days will stack up and the weeks will pass one after another and pretty soon you realize it has been months or years since I have done anything like this. But once you forget to do it, then it will be forgotten from your life, and you and others will suffer as a result of it. And I mean suffer not because God’s going to discipline you or hurt you or harm you—that’s not the idea—but just that we lose out a blessing when we forget to do this.

One last thing I should say about what hospitality is, and this is something that needs to be dislodged from our minds and our hearts. It is not a spiritual gift. It’s not a spiritual gift, it’s a command. People say this all the time; “my gift is hospitality.” No. Nobody has the spiritual gift of hospitality. The command to you is to be hospitable, to exercise hospitality, but nobody has that gift. Now you may have certain character qualities, you may have certain natural wiring, you may be a gregarious and outgoing personality. There might be things about your life and your pattern of life or your home that makes hospitality easier than it is for somebody else, but there’s no such thing as that gift. You may have other gifts that play well with exercising hospitality, but it is not a spiritual gift. And you can go to Ephesians chapter 4 where the teaching gifts and equipping gifts are listed, or you can go to 1 Peter chapter 4 where the distinction is made between serving gifts and speaking gifts, or you can go to the list of gifts in Romans chapter 12, or the list of gifts in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and guess what you will not find in any of those listings of spiritual gifts. In any of the four places where spiritual gifts are dealt with in the New Testament, you will not find hospitality listed among them. Because it is not a gift, it is a command.

Imagine if you will that it were a gift but it was listed here along with all of these other commands. Have you ever heard anybody say, “I would be very hospitable, I would exercise hospitality, but hospitality is not my spiritual gift.” Of course it’s not your spiritual gift. It’s not anybody’s spiritual gift. Nobody has that gift. But everybody has that command. Nobody would ever say, “Look, brotherly love is not my spiritual gift. I know it is commanded here in verse 1, but it’s not my spiritual gift. I’m more of the sarcastic, cynical, critical, snarky type of a person. That’s my spiritual gift. Brotherly love is not it.” Would you ever expect anybody to say, “Remembering prisoners is not my spiritual gift”? It’s nobody’s spiritual gift. How about the person who said, “Look, moral purity and holding my marriage in honor and keeping my marriage bed undefiled is not my spiritual gift”? What would you think of such a person? You’d say, “You’re a lunatic.” It doesn’t matter whether it’s a spiritual gift or not. It’s not a spiritual gift. Guess what it is. It is a command, which means that it is incumbent upon all of us.

Nobody has that spiritual gift. It is a command to be obeyed, which is why Paul in Romans chapter 12, after talking about spiritual gifts by the way—He does mention hospitality, but not in connection with spiritual gifts—in Romans chapter 12, in verses 3–8, he talks about the various spiritual gifts, but then he talks about things that are incumbent upon all of God’s people. Romans chapter 12, verse 9:

9 Let love be without hypocrisy [notice the reference there to love]. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.

10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;

11 not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;

12 rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,

13 contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. (Rom. 12:9–13 NASB)

That’s not a list of spiritual gifts. Rejoicing is not a spiritual gift. Being diligent, fervent in spirit, brotherly love, giving preference to one another, those are not spiritual gifts. Those are commands that all of us have to exercise by God’s grace—virtues of lovingkindness toward one another—and hospitality is included in that list. Hospitality is also included as one of the qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus 1. It is also included as a qualification for widows who were to be put on the list that the church would support in their destitution, and that’s in 1 Timothy 5 as well.

Hospitality is also not just in a New Testament command or ethic. This is something to remember: it’s not just a New Testament ethic. It’s something that goes back to the Old Testament. In fact, it’s part of the law. Leviticus 19:34: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” Now notice how the Lord there says, you once were an alien, a foreigner, a stranger, and therefore when you get into the land, and the people come into your land who are aliens and foreigners and strangers, you should treat them with kindness, remembering that you yourself were once just like them. And that command is repeated in Deuteronomy 10. “He executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:18–19).

In Job 31 when Job was defending his own integrity and talking about how he had not sinned against his neighbor, he lists his treatment of aliens and his acts of hospitality as among his righteous deeds. Job 31:19: “If I have seen anyone perish for lack of clothing or that the needy had no covering. . .” Verse 32: “The alien has not lodged outside, for I have opened my doors to the traveler.” You ask Job, “What is one of the marks of your righteousness?” He had opened up his doors to the traveler. That’s exercising hospitality. It was an expression of God’s heart, and therefore it was to be important to Israel, and if it was to be important to Israel, it was to be important to you and I as well. So not just a New Testament ethic. This goes all the way back to the earliest—the first book of the Bible ever written is the book of Job. First book was not Genesis; the earliest book was the book of Job. Even Job there talks about how he had exercised hospitality and treated aliens and strangers.

Now the second question, why is it important? What is it? It is the love for strangers. And second, why is it important? It is important because it displays the character of God through the lives of His people. This is significant. It displays the character of God. It is no mistake that the author has just said, “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken. . .” (Heb. 12:28) In other words, all of the future is yours. The new heavens and the new earth, the new creation, resurrected body; you are heirs of the kingdom. Everything that Yahweh owns He has given to His Son, and everything that the Son has received He shares with all of those who are in Him. So you are looking around here at other believers and you are seeing a kingdom of kings and priests who will reign in that new heavens and that new earth. So it is as if the author is saying, since you have been given everything by God that can possibly be given to you, show love to strangers. In other words, out of the wealth of what you have been given, what we have been given, we give out to other people. You’ve received a kingdom, God has opened up His table to you, God has opened up His family to you. Everything that God has, He has made available to you. He has laid it out and welcomed you to that table and welcomed you into His family. He gives you His entire kingdom! And so now it is as if the author is saying, so that little kingdom that you have here on earth, open that up to other people and share it with them in the same way that God has shared His kingdom with you. You’ve received an unshakable kingdom. So therefore this little shaky kingdom that you have, open it up and share it with other people. It models the character of God and the nature of God to show kindness like that and care for outsiders.

And just as the children of Israel were once aliens and strangers in a foreign land that was not theirs, God redeemed them out of it and brought them into their land. So you and I were once aliens and strangers from the covenants of promise and from God’s family, and we have been brought in and brought near through the blood of Christ. And the title “pilgrim” or “alien” is one of the best titles that you could use to describe what a Christian life is. We are in that way exactly as Abraham was and as Isaac and Jacob were. Hebrews 11:9: “By faith [Abraham] lived as an alien in the land of promise.” Remember his sojourn? Wandering around, living in tents, looking for that city that has foundations, whose maker and builder is God. And Abraham lived as a sojourner in this world. There’s a very real sense in which when we welcome strangers and other people into our homes—they may be strangers or travelers or aliens or people we don’t know very well and we welcome them in—we are modeling the same thing that God has done for us. And we are offering up what God has given to us to serve other people and to benefit them. And then we are modeling the character of God in doing so and reminding ourselves that you and I were also once aliens and strangers to the covenants of promise. And God has brought us in and welcomed us.

This practice was essential in ancient cultures, by the way. Far more essential than it is in our culture and in our time. And I speak here only of western American Christianity. But it was something that was incredibly necessary in ancient times when people would travel because they didn’t have hotels and Airbnbs and ramadas and inns with pools and hot tubs and all that good stuff. If you wanted to go to a hot tub, you went to a bathhouse, and those were places of ill repute. And if you were traveling from one city to another and you didn’t know anybody in that city to go stay with—a friend, a family member, an acquaintance, somebody that you had connected with previously that would open their home and share it with you—then you either slept outside, which itself was dangerous because imagine sleeping outside in South Central LA. That can be a dangerous place to sleep. And if you didn’t do that, then you might choose to take up lodging in one of the houses or places where they would sell rooms. And those were something akin to a brothel. Not a ramada but a brothel. So as a believer, if you were traveling to another city and you wanted to avoid danger, temptation, the appearance of evil, and just being immersed in a culture that you had already left, if you didn’t have somebody in that city to stay with, you were in horrible straits. It was essential back then.

Not only essential in the ancient culture, but listen, it was essential in a culture and in a place where the church was persecuted. And these early Hebrew Christians, they were being persecuted. We already read back in chapter 10 how some of them had had their possessions seized and some had been thrown into prison. When you live in a persecuted culture, there is of course the temptation to close in for yourself and amongst your own. If we lived in a persecuted country, the natural inclination for the child of God would be to turn inward and to say, “I need to protect my family. I need to protect what is mine. I can’t trust people traveling into the city that they’re not a turncoat, that they’re not a plant from the government trying to seek out the location of a home church. I can’t trust that.” So the natural inclination is to close up and to stop doing that. You don’t even want to go exercise kindness to prisoners and to remember them. Why? Because if you go to the prison to give bread and sustenance and show kindness to people who are in prison who were once the week before in your church, if you do that, then guess what? They think of you. You become the next target on their list.

So in a persecuted culture, in an ancient culture like that, the natural inclination is to turn inward, and the author here is saying you need to remember to do the exact opposite. Open yourself up to strangers who will come in. Show them hospitality. It is an evangelistic opportunity. It is also a way to demonstrate grace and kindness to your brothers and sisters in Christ. And though you might be inclined to forget the prisoner and to forget hospitality, a persecuted culture is the wrong time to do that. That is so counterintuitive, is it not? That is so counterintuitive. The natural inclination would be to say no way. I will exercise hospitality once it is safer to do so. And the reality is that hospitality is a risky thing. This kind of grace and obedience is an expensive thing and it is a time-consuming thing. It is an energy-draining thing, but it is a Christian thing. Not a gift, but a command.

It is all the more necessary in difficult times for believers to exercise hospitality. We have a great New Testament example of this in Acts 16 when Paul is on a second missionary journey. After receiving the Macedonian vision, they sail across the sea and they land in the city of Philippi and they go into the city and then on Sabbath day they go back outside of the city to where the Jews who had been expelled from Roman colonies at that time met for prayer outside the city by the river, and it says that Paul went out there and spoke to the women who were gathered there for prayer. Acts 16:14:

14 A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.

15 And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.’ And she prevailed upon us [Luke says]. (Acts 16:14–15 NASB)

Notice what happened. The Lord opened her heart, and Lydia opened her home. The most natural response for her after embracing Christ and being baptized and understanding that salvation, the most natural thing for her was to open up her home and to implore Paul and Luke and anybody else who was traveling with him to come and to stay there and have lodging. Lydia was, by the way, the first convert in all of Europe. He landed in Europe and converted this woman, and she gave them a place to stay. She opened up her house and gave them lodging. That is the most practical demonstration of love and brotherhood. God opened her heart, and Lydia opened her home. And if she hadn’t done that by the way, then Paul and the traveling companions would have had no other place to stay. They’d never been to Philippi before; they didn’t have connections there. She was the first convert, the first Christian in Philippi.

Now here’s the question. Is this only for believers? I suggested to you that there is no limit that is placed on us in the text that we just exercise this grace to those who are in Christ. So is this something that we are called only to do for believers? I don’t think that it is something that we are called only to do for believers. I think it is something we are called especially to do to believers. We are to do good to all men and especially those who are of the household of faith. In other words, some of our very first expressions of brotherly love should be to the brothers in exercising hospitality and welcoming them in and sharing our sustenance with them. But it certainly should not stop with the church. It certainly could go beyond that. And we should be seeking opportunity to have other people into our home who are not believers because that is an evangelistic encounter. That is an evangelistic opportunity. When you have unbelievers at your table and you say, “May we ask the Lord’s blessing on this? This is our custom as a family, so we are going to pray,” and you begin to pray and thank God for that food, and then you begin to discuss things as a family, spiritual things, that is an incredible evangelistic opportunity. So it’s not just limited to believers. It should also have something to do with unbelievers. And there should be unbelievers who are on your target list of people to welcome in and to demonstrate the grace of hospitality to.

By the way, this is something that is almost uniquely a Christian thing in our culture. There are rare times when, outside of this, unbelievers get together. But what do their get-togethers look like? Their get-togethers look like exclusively their drinking buddies or their partying buddies or something that they do that gathers everybody together. The Christian expression of hospitality and showing kindness to others is something of an entirely different nature, an entirely different character. We do this evangelistically. We do this as an expression of affection and love. How different that is from what the unbeliever is exposed to when they get together and they think it’s just all about talking about politics and it’s all about getting together and drinking or partying or doing what they do till late at night and then going home. The Christian expression of this grace is such a testimony to the unbelieving world.

Now having said all of that, before we talk about what angels have to do with it, let me offer to you some practical considerations now. A little over a year ago—if you want to know what this looks like in application, I would commend to you a message that was preached here a little over a year ago by David Forsyth where he talked about how to start doing hospitality, what hospitality looks like, how you express it, some considerations, etc. And I’m not going to go back, and I don’t want to rehash all of that. I would just commend that message to you. But I do want to talk about some practical considerations. And then I will leave the application of this up to you.

So here’s my practical considerations. We do have to remember that we have obligations alongside hospitality that can sometimes conflict with hospitality. That should be obvious. There are limits to the ways in which we express this love and this grace to other people, especially when we’re talking about strangers. So for instance, I am not suggesting that you go find a random homeless person, bring them home, and allow them to sleep in the basement with your small children. That’s not hospitality. See, that’s not wise. You may have obligations to your family, to your spouse, to your children that will affect how it is that we make application of this principle. There will be times when hospitality looks different for different families and even for the same family at different seasons of life.

So for instance, a single mother who works an eight-hour day so that she can provide for her two teenage children, the exercising of hospitality, this grace, is going to look different in her life than it looks in the life of a retired couple who have nothing but space, nothing but time, and nothing but money. You see how it’s going to look different? It’s going to look different for you with small children and all the demands that go with that than it will look for you when your children are older and half of them are moved out of the house or all of them have moved out of the house. Hospitality is going to look different for different families. It’s going to look different in different environments. And my job is not to say here’s what it’s going to look like in your life, you should follow this person or do exactly what this person does, because that may be unrealistic to you. But here are the principles.

Do I have a heart for strangers? These are the questions. Do I have a heart for strangers? Am I willing to open up my little kingdom and give of what I have to other people, those that I know well, as well as those that I don’t know as well? Am I willing to give of myself and my provision and my efforts and my time and my attention and my affections to other people? Do I welcome others into my home with grace and kindness? Have I neglected to show love to strangers? Do I demonstrate my love for others in such a tangible way? How can I improve in showing hospitality to others, and have I forgotten how important this is?

Those are the questions we can answer. Now again, I would leave the application of that up to you and your circumstances and your situation. We’re all reasonable people, and we can evaluate where we’re at and say, I can do this better, I could do that better. But I would just encourage you with this: do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers. We know what it is, we know why it is important now.

The third question: what in the world do angels have to do with this? That’s probably what you’ve been waiting for since the beginning of this. You’re like, the time is ticking on now. I know we have communion; you haven’t even talked about angels yet. What is this interesting statement at the end of verse 2? “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this [that is, by the love of strangers and showing hospitality] some have entertained angels without knowing it.” The event that the author has in mind here goes back to—I think that there’s one event that actually incorporated two different people, Abraham and Lot. His reference here goes back to the event in Genesis 18:1–3. I’ll read that, and then I’ll give you the follow-up. Genesis 18:1–3:

1 Now the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day.

2 When he [that is, Abraham] lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth,

3 and said, “My Lord, if now I have found favor in Your sight, please do not pass Your servant by.” (NASB)

So Abraham is sitting in the doorway of his tent; it’s the heat of the day, and he notices three men who are over standing next to the trees. Abraham has no idea who these men are; he has no idea where they have come from. It is not until later on in the text that it is revealed to Abraham that these are actually angels. But at that moment, he just sees three men standing out in the heat of the day and he offers to provide them shade and shelter as well as food and drink. And he does so; he gives them water to refresh themselves, and then later on Abraham came to realize that these three strangers were not all that they had cracked up to be, not all that he expected them to be. In fact, he finds out that two of them are angelic creatures and one of them is not an angel of the Lord, but the Angel of the Lord. He’s called Yahweh in verse 13. So one of them begins to have a conversation with Abraham, and Abraham recognizes this is an appearance of God in human form, or what we would call a theophany, an Old Testament appearance of God. It is the second Person of the Trinity, the Son before His incarnation, making an appearance in physical form. Abraham calls Him Yahweh, and He has a conversation with Abraham.

Now those two angels, or two of the angels who are not Yahweh, leave and go into Sodom. And Yahweh then begins to have that conversation with Abraham where they’re negotiating over the city—“How many righteous people are in the city before You destroy it?” And Yahweh has that conversation while the other two angels go into the city of Sodom, and there inside the city gate is Lot, and Lot sees these men, and Lot rushes up and does the same thing that Abraham did to them and offers them lodging and a place to stay. And they say, “No, we’ll stay out in the courtyard,” and Lot says, “No, you come into my house; it’s not safe in the courtyard.” And he ends up bringing them into his house. Neither of them, neither Abraham nor Lot, realized that these were angels. Now that is what the author is describing here.

So now the question: why does he bring it up here in this context? What is the point of this? What do angels have to do with this? Is the author suggesting that if we exercise hospitality, we might end up showing hospitality to angels? “You never know. There’s angels wandering around Walmart right now as we speak, out in the city of Sandpoint, down in the homeless shelter, and if you just go find yourself a random person, a stranger, and invite them in for a meal, you might want to poke them and see if they’re actually physical and then start asking them questions and see if maybe they will reveal themselves to be angels.” That’s not what the author is suggesting. He’s not promising that if we exercise hospitality that we might end up exercising hospitality to angels. In fact, I would be willing to promise you that if you showed hospitality to every person in this room, you would not end up having an angelic visit, because none of you are angels. I would be willing to bet that none of you are angels. That is not his point. But what his point is, is that Abraham, without knowing they were angels, went out to give of himself and his kingdom to these complete strangers. And who got the bigger blessing? Abraham got the blessing. Abraham did. He had no idea what he was doing. That small act of exercising hospitality to them, that small act of opening up his house and blessing them, it ended up being he who was the one blessed because of what he did.

And he ended up actually serving angels, and he ended up serving Yahweh. And friends, there is a very real sense in which, when you and I exercise hospitality to strangers and when we exercise hospitality to people that we know and that we love who are part of the body of Christ, we are actually offering service and hospitality to Yahweh Himself. It was Jesus who said as much when He said, “What you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to Me. And if you give even one of these a cup of cold water in My name, you will not lose your reward.” What was He saying? When we do this to the body of Christ, when we do this to the bride of Christ, we are serving the Bridegroom as well. And He blesses that. We’re demonstrating the character of God. We’re opening ourselves up for blessing. We’re pouring out blessing to other people. And there’s a mutual blessing that is involved in this.

Now, what is more likely? That you will exercise hospitality and that you will entertain some angelic being, or that you will exercise hospitality and by so doing serve Christ and serve His bride and earn an eternal reward? You’re not likely to entertain an angel. You might; I wouldn’t bet on it. But certainly that is not the motivation. The motivation is because I have been given an unshakable kingdom and because I have an unshakable kingdom, therefore I can serve the King by yielding up the resources that He has given to me at this time with my little shakable kingdom to serve Him. And when I serve others, I’m actually serving Christ Himself.

Entertaining angels was simply an example of the hospitality that Abraham gave, which held more blessing than Abraham could have ever imagined. He didn’t go to those angels and offer them those things because he knew they were angels. He went to those angels and offered them those things because that is what righteous people do. That is what God-fearers do. You want to see a demonstration of Abraham’s faith, which is mentioned in chapter 17? Then you go into chapter 18 and you see a man whose heart has been opened just like Lydia. And so he opened up his home just like Lydia. That’s the example that we are to follow. God had promised Abraham all the land that he could see. Remember that back in chapter 11? God had promised Abraham all the land that he could see. “Walk amongst the land. Everywhere you go, north, south, east, and west, it’s all yours, from the great river to the sea, from the tip of this to the top of that, you get it all.” Dan to Beersheba, He had given him all of the land. Abraham believed that and possessed that land by faith. And he lived in that land by faith. And so it was quite natural for one who in his own mind already possessed the kingdom, already possessed the land by faith, having embraced that, to say, “I can show hospitality to three men.” And so he did it as a natural expression of his godly piety, his godly and righteous respect and love for God.

If we love God, we will love those who are born of God. That’s brotherly love. And if we love those who are born of God, we will also love the stranger. It’s just another expression of the kind of affection that we are commanded to have. And thus we follow the example of Abraham. That’s what the angels have to do with it. It is a simple act of brotherly love where we remember to show grace and hospitality to strangers and of course to those that we know well and love well. That is included as well as that.

It can be risky, it can be costly, it can be uncomfortable, but it is love in action. And it is not only the example of Abraham, it is also the example of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. You and I were aliens and strangers and we have been brought near to Him. And God has opened up His table, He has opened up His kingdom, He has opened up His family and His house and He has given to us everything. And when we exercise hospitality and show grace to others, we’re simply passing on grace that has been given to us. And we are modeling the character of God in Christ who has done that Himself. And Christ has promised that there is coming a day when we are going to sit down with Him in the Kingdom and we are going to eat and we are going to drink, and it is going to be a lavish, enjoyable, blessed feast. All the saints gathered together in that Kingdom.

The author encourages his readers to continue in brotherly love. This is the natural response of the believer to the immense blessings bestowed upon them in the new covenant. Brotherly love is essential in the church and the mark of Kingdom citizens. An exposition of Hebrews 13:1.

Sermon Transcript

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Romans chapter 12, beginning at verse 9, and we will read through the end of verse 13. That is going to be our focus this morning after a bit of introductory comments. Romans 12:9:

9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.

10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;

11 not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;

12 rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer,

13 contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. (Rom 12: 9–13 NASB)

Now why did I land here today in Romans chapter 12 instead of Hebrews chapter 13? I started this last week, not committed to the idea that we would be in Hebrews 13 for this Sunday or the next Sunday, but I started to do some study in Hebrews 13, and I found myself continually turning back and taking note of the way in which the applications in Hebrews, sorry, Romans chapter 12—this is going to be difficult to keep these passages separate in my mind—the applications in Romans chapter 12 paralleled the applications in Hebrews chapter 13. Not only does the structure of the proclamation of truth followed by application parallel in both of those passages, but I find in Romans chapter 12 some of the same applications of truth given as we find in Hebrews 13 but with a little bit more explanation. In fact, I find the apostle Paul in Romans 12 fleshing out those ideas very thoroughly over the course of a number of chapters. In fact, with your Bibles open to Romans 12:9, I want you to look there at that passage and just kind of let your eyes glance through that as I read to you again from Hebrews 13:1–5.

1 Let love of the brethren continue.

2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

3 Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body.

4 Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

5 Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.” (Heb. 13:1–5 NASB)

You’ll notice there that the apostle Paul in Romans 12 mentions showing hospitality, remembering prisoners, or the idea of persevering in tribulation or in persecution. That’s also in the context of Romans 12. And of course, love for the brethren in verse 1: “Let the love of the brethren continue.” That’s Hebrews 13:1. Romans 12:9 is, “Let love be without hypocrisy.”

And we’re parachuting into this passage in Romans 12, so I want to set the context for you so that you can understand what the apostle Paul has been doing in the book of Romans and why it is now that he begins to sort of flesh out some of these applications. And to do that, you’d have to glance back up to verses 1 and 2 of Romans 12. And this is where the apostle Paul switches from a doctrinal emphasis in the first eleven chapters to more of a practical application emphasis in Romans 12. So 12:1:

1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God [notice the therefore at the beginning of that verse, at the head of chapter 12], to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God [now you’ll remember that last week we looked at acceptable service in Hebrews 13], which is your spiritual service of worship.

2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom. 12:1–2 NASB)

The apostle Paul in Romans chapter 12 is drawing to a conclusion his theological principles and truths that he has laid out in the first eleven chapters of this. And so he says, in light of God’s mercies, therefore, by the mercies of God, or that is to say, in light of all of these mercies that you have received—and you may be tempted to think, OK, so what mercies does he have in mind? Well, you go back to chapters 1–3 and we find out that we were lost and dead in our trespasses and sins, under the wrath of God, that there was none who did good, no not one, that we were all under sin and all justly condemned. Chapter 1 describes that sinful condition of the Jews and the Gentiles. Chapter 2 sort of begins to apply that to the Gentiles. They say you shall not commit adultery, but do you commit adultery? You say you shall not murder. Do you murder? And the apostle Paul begins to indict all of humanity regardless of their ethnic tribe or their nationality or their background. All of us stand guilty and condemned—that’s chapters 1–3—so that we are all under sin.

But God (Rom. 3:24) has made a way of salvation so that you and I can be justified (chapter 4) like Abraham, not by our works which damn us and condemn us, but instead we can be justified or declared righteous even though we are not righteous in practice. We can be declared righteous in the courtroom of God’s justice on the basis of faith and faith alone. And therefore (chapter 5) we have peace with God, and the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, and we have the Spirit of God now who dwells in us. And though we all died in Adam’s sin and were condemned because of his one transgression, through the act of obedience by the Lord Jesus Christ all those who have placed their faith in Him are now justified and declared righteous, and in Him we have both righteousness and life, so that all who are in Adam die and all who are in Christ will live. Adam’s act of disobedience is imputed to all of us so that we are all sinners. That explains chapters 1–3. But by Christ’s act of righteousness and His obedience and His sacrifice on the cross, many—that is, all who are in Him—will be justified, will be made righteous and declared righteous.

So (chapter 6) then we are set free from the sin that condemned us in chapters 1–3. Now we are free from sin, so therefore we do not yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness but now instead instruments of righteousness so that we may become slaves of obedience and slaves of righteousness. And yes (chapter 7), we will still continue to war against sin and hate the indwelling sin that is in us. And that indwelling sin is going to make yielding our instruments to righteousness very difficult, so that you may in fact get to the point where you say, “Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24) The things that I want to do, I can’t do. The things that I don’t want to do, those are the things that I feel compelled to do, and I want to be delivered from that.

Well, praise God, the answer in chapter 8 is that in Jesus Christ there’s no condemnation to those who are in Him. So now because of what Christ has done (chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7), you and I are now sons of God, indwelt by the Spirit of God, and if we walk in obedience to the Word of God and in the Spirit of God, we will now practice righteousness. And now we will be delivered. And though we long, because we are in these bodies of death, to be swept up with all of creation and delivered from the groaning that affects all of us, this barren land in which we live, now because of the work of Christ we will be caught up with that groaning creation and we will be renewed. And eventually that battle with sin will be over. We will be delivered from its presence. We will be delivered from its power. We will be delivered entirely from its dominion.

But then the question comes up at the end of chapter 8: if all of that is true, then what is true then of the nation of Israel? Chapters 9–11. They were so prominent in God’s plan of redemption; what has happened to them? And Paul says they’ve not been cast off, they’ve not been sent away, because God still has a plan for national Israel because “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29). So we Gentiles have been grafted into this salvific tree that is planted in the nation of Israel. We benefit from all of the salvation blessings. And guess what. At the end of all that, we get a kingdom. So we’re delivered and we get a kingdom and a new creation and all of that just like was promised to Israel. Now we’re grafted in and we get to receive that as well.

So Israel has not been set aside. Instead you look at the entire panoply of God’s mercies and grace and you say, “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?” (Rom. 11:34) God is infinite in wisdom. Who could possibly have fabricated a plan of salvation like that, that would deliver unworthy rebels, people allied against His truth and against His Word, hating God, hostile in their minds, enemies of God in their unrighteousness, and then turn them into sons, and not just sons but Spirit-indwelt sons, and not just Spirit-indwelt sons but Spirit-indwelt sons who are in union with their head, the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the only way their salvation can fail is if He fails. And then we get all of that and all of those blessings right along with God’s eternal plan with the nation of Israel itself. Magnificent.

Therefore, brethren, in light of those mercies—not in light of His justice, not motivated because of His wrath, but in light of His mercies upon you, (verse 1 of chapter 12) “I urge you . . . to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice.” See, when you contemplate what you have been given and what has been done for you, the only thing we can say is just, OK, I’ll just—He’s worthy of it all. And therefore, I will present my body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service of worship. And we will not be conformed to this world—that is, we will not have our minds and our hearts, our affections, our desires, our thinking, and our behavior conformed to the worldly pattern around us which leaves God out and is at war with Him. Instead, we will be metamorphoo, transformed, changed, metamorphosed into something different. So we are to be transformed.

This is a command, and this is something that we are to pursue. This is something that we are to be engaged in. It involves the resistance of being conformed to the world system and instead a pursuit of a transformed mind, which happens through the Word of God and the work of the Spirit of God that He does when the Word is preached, when it is memorized, when it is studied. When we bring that in and begin to live our lives in obedience to that, the Spirit of God does a work through the Word of God and the child of God to conform them into the image of the Son of God. So we are renewed then, and we are to pursue that renewal.

And it is out of that pursuit of being renewed by the Spirit of God that all of the moral commands in Romans 12, 13, 14, and 15 flow. Those four chapters, the commands of that, all flow out of those mercies. It is in light of those mercies that we are to be obedient. So gospel truth gives birth then to obedience to the moral commands of Scripture. And if we try and obey the moral commands of Scripture without first heeding the doctrinal, theological gospel truths, then we are just nothing but moralists or legalists. But if instead our love for the Lord and our desire to be conformed to the truth and our efforts toward pursuing sanctification without which no one can see the Lord, if that is gospel driven, then in fact we won’t be moralists and we won’t be legalists, but we will be obedient sons of a king.

So it’s the same pattern you see in Hebrews chapter 12. Since you have not come to Mount Sinai but Mount Zion, since you have been given the city of the living God and the heavenly Jerusalem, since you have been brought to the myriads of angels and the general assembly and the church of the firstborn and God, who is the Judge of all, and to Jesus Christ, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel, and since you have received a kingdom which cannot be shaken, therefore we show gratitude by which we offer to God acceptable service, we love the brethren, we show hospitality, we remember the prisoners, etc. So all the obedience to the moral commands flows out of affection for the mercies that we have received, and chief inside of those moral commands is love.

So we are commanded at the beginning of chapter 12 to be transformed. So now the question is what does a transformed life look like? What does a transformed sinner look like? How do they behave? How do they interact with other people? How do they go to war with their sin? How do they relate to their sin and temptation and desire, etc.? How do they treat other people in this body of likewise transformed individuals? Well, beginning in verse 3, the apostle Paul says it involves service to the body of Christ through the spiritual gifts that He has given to us. Look at verse 6:

6 Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith;

7 if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching;

8 or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. (Rom. 12:6–8 NASB)

And then we have a way in which we are instructed to relate to others, especially when we are being persecuted. Look down at verse 14, skipping for just a moment the text we’re going to come back to. Chapter 12:14:

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

15 Rejoice with those who rejoice [this is what the life of a transformed sinner looks like], and weep with those who weep.

16 Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation.

17 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men.

18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. (Rom. 12:14–18 NASB)

Does that command sound familiar? Pursue peace, and sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. Here’s how Paul says it in Romans 12:18: “Be at peace with all men.” Look at verse 19:

19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord.

20 ‘But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.’

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Rom. 12:19–21 NASB)

That command is similar to Hebrews 13:16: “And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” How does a transformed sinner treat his enemies and deal with evil and evil people? That’s chapter 12 here, verses 19–21.

And then speaking of enemies and evil people—government. Chapter 13, we are to be subject to those who are in authority over us. I’m sure it’s entirely coincidental that the very next subject Paul brings up is government. And though the author of Hebrews does not speak of governing authorities, the author of Hebrews in chapter 13 does address the issue of submission to authority. Chapter 13:7: “Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.” Hebrews 13:17: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.”

Then you’ll notice in Romans chapter 13, verse 8 that the apostle Paul returns back to the subject of love, which he started to unfold beginning in chapter 12, verse 9. Romans 13:8:

8 Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.

9 For this, “You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in this saying, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Rom. 13:8–10 NASB)

Love does its neighbor no harm. If you love your brother, you won’t take his wife in adultery. And if you love your brother, you won’t take his life in murder. And if you love your brother, you won’t covet his stuff and you won’t take his stuff by stealing. Therefore, you can see that every sin that we commit really springs from an inordinate love for ourselves or a lack of love that we have for somebody else. If I love somebody else, I would do them no harm. In fact, my love for others would keep me from ever offending somebody else or doing harm to them. So at the root of all of that, my offense or my sin against my brother, and this is the same for all of us, our offense and our sin against our brother or our sister in Christ really comes down to a lack of love. If we loved one another, we would never do them any harm.

So you can see how that connects back to chapter 12, verses 9–13. For all of these moral commands are colored with love. Love bleeds into all of them. And it is love that motivates our war against sin. Chapter 13, verse 11:

11 Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than we believed.

12 The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

13 Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy.

14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. (Rom. 13:11–14 NASB)

You can see how Romans 13 sounds a lot like Hebrews 13.

4 Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.

5 Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.” (Heb. 13:4–5 NASB)

Love for God, love for family, love for your spouse, love for your children, love for your church, love for your neighbor, love for all the people, including your enemies and those who persecute you, will motivate your obedience to all of these commands and particularly your desire to be sexually pure. Sexual impurity is at its heart a self-love and not a love for others. It is a self-love and not a love for others.

And then this idea of love also bleeds into chapters 14 and 15. You’re saying, Jim, when are you going to get to the text that you promised we’re going to get to? I’m not going to read chapters 14 and 15, but look, chapter 14 is all about the conscience. If you love your brother, you won’t judge another brother in terms of what he decides to do with his own conscience on the areas where Scripture does not speak. That’s motivated by love. And further, if you love your brother, not only will you not judge him, but you won’t exercise your liberty and your conscience in such a way as to try and trick or persuade him into violating his conscience so that he would sin and you would cause him to sin by joining you in something that his conscience does not give him liberty to do. Therefore that is an expression of love.

In chapter 15, if you love one another, you seek to bear the weaknesses of your brother. Chapters 12, 13, 14, and 15 are all colored by love. It is love for the mercies of God, love for others out of a gratitude for the mercies of God that motivates all of these acts of obedience. Love pervades it all.

So now with very little time left, let us return back to chapter 12, verses 9–13. We’ve seen quite a picture, I think, of how love affects all of these things. I would just remind you that chapter 13 of Hebrews, verse 1, begins with this command: “Let love of the brethren continue.” So now the rest of this sermon, as short as it is going to be, is going to be somewhat of an overview of the subject of love from verses 9–13 of Romans chapter 12. And there are five qualities of love, this love that springs as a fruit from the mercy of God toward us. There’s a kind of love that you and I are to pursue.

Look at verse 9, the first mark of this. The first characteristic of this love is that it is sincere. Romans 12, verse 9: “Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.” A biblical love is a sincere love. It is not—that word hypocrisy or “without hypocrisy” means unfeigned, genuine, sincere. It means it’s not fake or pretentious or pretended, counterfeit or phony. It’s not mingled with pretension. It’s not a simulated love, but a genuine love, agape love, the kind of love that is sacrificial. That’s one of the other marks we’re going to deal with here in a moment. It is a genuine and sincere love, not a pretended one. It’s not simply acting loving toward others on Sunday mornings from ten till noon. That’s a hypocritical love. Instead, the kind of love that we are called to is a love that thinks of others, including others in our body, others in our family, others in our own household, not just on Sunday mornings but always. It is that others-focused kind of genuine love that is interested in the other person and seeks their good constantly. That’s genuine love.

Love to get something, like to get a return, that is a hypocritical love. It’s not genuine love. The husband who loves his wife so that he can get something from her, that is a hypocritical love. That’s fake. That’s pretending. That’s not offering up genuine love. That’s just doing something for a period of time so you can get a return on the love. Children who feign love for their parents in order to get a reward, that’s a pretentious love. To act loving without a heart that bears that love and really expresses that love is a hypocritical, insincere, pretended, fake, phony, counterfeit love. That’s not genuine and true love. Love that has with it an ulterior motive, simply to be approved by others, to be loved by others, to be liked by others, to be seen by others, that’s hypocritical love.

The love that the apostle is describing here, a love that is true and sincere and genuine, is a love that has to flow from God because God is the source of that kind of love. 1 John 4, verse 7: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Now that is not to say that an unbeliever has no capacity for some expression of love, because unbelievers do love, right? Unbelievers love their dogs, they love their kids, they love their wives, they love their jobs, they love their comforts and their conveniences, they love life. Unbelievers are capable of that kind of love. But the type of love that Scripture describes that is genuinely selfless and sacrificial and serving, the type of love that is sincere like this, can only come from God. When you see that kind of love, then you know you’re dealing with somebody who has been born of God, because God is love. And that is the kind of love that He sheds abroad in the life of His people. The ability to love your enemies, to truly love your enemies—show me an unbeliever who can do that. Can you? No. An unbeliever who would be willing to lay down their lives and sacrifice everything even for their enemy, for another constantly? That kind of love does not rest within the ability or the capacity of an unbeliever. Only believers have that kind of love. And we have that kind of love not because we conjured it up from within ourselves but because God loved us first. First John 4:19: “We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” God is the initiator of this kind of love. He is the source of this kind of love. And the kind of love that is a nonhypocritical love for the brethren is something that can only flow out of a redeemed heart.

One element of this love, by the way, and this is the next phrase in verse 9, is an abhorrence or a hatred for evil. “Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good” (Rom. 12:9). Those are two sides of the same coin. And by the way, your hatred for evil is itself an expression of the kind of love that God gives to His people. If you say to me that you love God, but you are fine cozying up to that which dishonors Him and shows your disdain for Him, you’re a liar. If you love evil, if you love sin, if you love that which dishonors God and blasphemes Him, then you do not have an appropriate love for God. Do you want to know what it takes to push out all of this self-love and inappropriate love out of our own hearts? It is to have that filled up with a love for God. And if a love for God, an appropriate kind of love, dwells within us, we will abhor, we will hate evil. And now in our day we have Christian leaders all over the country who are cozying up to every form of immorality and evil in the name of showing love and tolerance and blessing people, etc. And that type of a tolerance for evil shows you just how unloving they truly are, because they would never love that which dishonors God.

Second, this is a selfless love. It is a selfless love, verse 9. It is a—sorry, a sincere love, verse 9. It is a selfless love, verse 10. I’m not used to operating with an outline that’s so nice like this. So I’m going to stumble all over this. This is new territory for me. Romans 12, verse 10: “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor.” You see the others-centered focus of that? Biblical brotherly love is not just a natural affection that you have, whether you are a believer or not, that you simply bring into the church environment. Instead, it is a sincere and selfless love that actually—catch this—prefers the other person over itself. It’s not just that you conjure up the same kind of love for them that you have for you, but it is that you and I would get in sincerity to a point where we actually prefer the other person’s interests over our own interests. That is a selfless love. Philippians 2, verses 3–4: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

Of course we look out for our own interests. That’s natural. That’s why you go to a job. That’s why you pay the bills. That’s why you adjust the thermostat. We are always naturally inclined to look out for our own interests. But, the apostle says, you don’t do that, but instead you consider the other person as more important than yourself. That’s the selfless aspect of love. To give up for one another. To serve one another. To prefer one another. To give somebody else the biggest slice of pie, the bigger bowl of ice cream, the better cut of steak, the heart of the watermelon instead of all the seeds around the outside, to do that. It’s the opposite of what you see kids do when they walk up to the table full of desserts out on the plates and they begin to instantly examine which one of them is bigger. If they had a micrometer, they would be out there measuring that and weighing them because they’re hoping for at least a half a gram more than their brother or sister gets. See, that’s the opposite of biblical love. Selfless love says, I’ll take the smallest one so somebody else can have this. To prefer their interests ahead of your own. And it’s not just that. In fact, it is to seek the good of the other person and even the honor of the other person over yourself. A selfless love seeks the betterment of the reputation and the honor and the name and the acclaim and the position of the other person ahead of itself. So if you have an opportunity to give credit to somebody, you’re more than willing to lavish that credit and honor upon somebody else even if it means that you get none of it. You may deserve all of it. But if you can honor somebody else in some way without lying, and exalt them, that is to prefer them above you, above ourselves.

FIrst Corinthians 13:5 says love “does not seek its own,” and it is not self-centered. It does not seek its own. 1 Peter 1:22 says we are to have “a sincere love of the brethren” and to “fervently love one another from the heart.” Fervently love one another from the heart. 1 Peter 4:8: “Keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.”

So it is sincere, it is selfless, and third, verse 11, it is serving. Romans 12, verse 11: “Not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” This is motivated by love. Last week we saw this connection in Hebrews when the author says that we are to “show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service” (Heb. 12:28). That is to say that our service to the Lord and to others in the body of Christ is motivated by our gratitude or our thankfulness for the mercies that we have received and the benefits that we have been given. And one of the ways that we do this is the use of our spiritual gifts, which is why the apostle Paul in chapter 12, verses 3–8 describes our spiritual gifts and using them in serving one another in the body of Christ. And that of course is connected to preferring others. We have a desire—should have a desire to be a blessing to other people and to use the gift that God has given to us in ministry and in service to other people to platform them, to exalt them, to encourage them, to edify them, to bless them, to impart to them some grace. That is what a spiritual gift does. And the one who loves will desire to do that, make opportunity even to serve, and will intentionally pursue service to God. 1 Peter 4:10 says, “As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” That service is motivated by love. A sincere, selfless, and serving love.

Fourth, verse 12, this love is steadfast. Verse 12: “Rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer.” Every single one of these commands in verse 12 has the idea behind it of some sort of steadfast or persistent keeping on in something. Notice that in verse 12. “Rejoicing in hope.” What is hope? Hope is the confident expectation of something that is to come. You haven’t received it yet, but you’re rejoicing in what you know lies ahead. And if you bail out on that, then you’re not rejoicing in hope. Hope looks forward, hope anticipates until it receives what it is that has been promised or is expected. And so even with that phrase rejoicing in hope, the apostle Paul is encouraging us to continue on to be steadfast and to persevere in that confident expectation of what is to come.

The second phrase: persevering in tribulation. The suffering and the affliction that attacks us in this life should not deter our love and our service. The tribulations that come, either through persecution or just the difficulties of living in a sin-cursed and fallen world, tempt us to bail on that and to get out of the tribulation. You and I are to be steadfast in that.

And devoted to prayer. It is easy to skip out on prayer. It is easy to say amen before we should say amen. It is easy to slack off in that discipline and to tap out and to give up, but Scripture calls us to a persistence in that.

So the love that we are called to is a steadfast love. It continues to rejoice in the hope of what might lie ahead. It continues to persevere in prayer, and it continues to persevere even in tribulation, suffering, and affliction. And by the way, our lack of fervency in any of those things does itself come back to a lack of love. If I stop rejoicing in hope, it is because I lack, in some measure, love for something. For the truth, for God, for my fellow man, for my neighbor, for my brother or sister in Christ. Same thing with bailing out of tribulation and not persevering in prayer. It is love that motivates all of that.

And fifth, this love is not just sincere and selfless and serving and steadfast. You know that last one’s going to end with s, right? I couldn’t do that or I would’ve stopped with the fourth one. It is in fact sacrificial. Romans 12, verse 13: “Contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.” It’s sacrificial love. The word contributing there is the word koinonia in the Greek, or a form of the word koinonia. It has to do with fellowship, a sharing, or a participation in it. You see, fellowship is not just sitting around talking about football on Sunday afternoon. Fellowship is not just enjoying a meal together and talking about everything under the sun except spiritual things. Fellowship, true biblical fellowship, is a sharing in something. It’s two people sitting around and enjoying the same thing together and participating one with another in that thing, some spiritual enterprise. And the thing that brings Christians together is the fellowship or the sharing that we have in Christ and His church and His purposes and the truth. And we share in that, we participate together in that.

Well, the idea of contributing here is the idea of fellowshipping in or sharing in the needs of the saints. Love is sacrificial in that it sees a need and then seeks to meet that need. There’s so much that goes on—and for this, so many here need to be commended. There’s so much that goes on inside this body of Christ where a need is made known and it is met, oftentimes, most of the time, before even anybody else in leadership knows that the need exists. That need is shared, and it is made known to people. It begins to be circulated, and people jump in to meet that need, as far and as wide as that person’s circle of influence and knowledge goes. And that is exactly what it is that the apostle calls us to here, to contribute to the needs of the saints. And this is a costly, costly expression of love, to practice hospitality. Practicing hospitality requires sacrifice. Sacrifice of your time, your talents, your treasure, your attention, your work, the giving of yourself, the laying aside of your own interests, serving others in that way.

Remember that love and hospitality are connected in Hebrews chapter 13. You remember that? “Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality” (Heb. 13:1–2). “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it” (v. 2).

And love and hospitality are connected in 1 Peter 4. I want you to listen to all of the things that we have talked about here. Peter mentions them in 1 Peter 4.

7 The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

8 Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

9 Be hospitable to one another without complaint.

10 As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. (1 Pet. 4:7–10 NASB)

There in that series of verses you see the apostle Peter speak of the same thing that the author of Hebrews does in Hebrews chapter 13 and the same thing that Paul does in Romans chapter 12: prayer, love, fervency, hospitality, and serving one another. Now I’ll just ask you these questions and take a couple moments for you to reflect upon them. What would your life be like if these things characterized every single relationship that you have? Your marriage, your relationship with your children, your relationships with your coworkers, with your neighbors, with your friends, and with every other person in the body of Christ, and with your enemies? What would our lives look like? Would they look the same? Would they be radically transformed? These are in fact the qualities of a transformed life. These are the things that mark those who are redeemed: a sincere, selfless, serving, steadfast, and sacrificial love.

Our love is evidenced in these things. All these moral commands, the things we’re seeing in Romans 13, 12, Hebrews 13, love and affection for God, for His mercy, that is all at the root of that. And so we can only pray that God may grow us in these things, encourage our hearts in these things, motivate us, enable us, give us grace to manifest these things.