[Text: Hebrews 13:7-19] “Outside the Camp, Seeking the City”

At one point or another, each of us has said something to the effect of “I can do it myself!” As Silas began learning the ancient art of “spoon,” Jenny and I heard that phrase on more than one occasion. Silas would have spoon in hand and a bowl full of oatmeal but just couldn’t make that spoon find his mouth. We tried to help – we’re experienced in the art of “spoon” – but our experience wasn’t appreciated. Our words of instruction fell on the ears of a toddler who was both loving and frustrated by his entrance into the world of independence. And so, by the time breakfast was over there was usually more oatmeal on his shirt than in his belly.

When we see a toddler trying to feed himself, we begin to realize that the love of independence is deeply ingrained in us. The insistent and sometimes angry “I can do it myself!” reveals a heart that doesn’t want any help (at least, not when it comes to the oatmeal). But as we grow up, that love of independence grows and we see that love at work in so many spheres of life, especially as Americans in the 21st century. The love of independence is pervasive in our history, our current politics, in our transportation systems (we favor cars over mass transit) and in our often isolationist-minded neighborhoods. It’s in our thoughts about sexuality and what we do with our money and our time.

We love our independence. I mean, we really love our independence. We really, really, love our independence. I’d go so far to say we worship our independence.

Don’t hear what I’m not saying. Independence isn’t always wrong. But can independence lead us astray when we make it everything? More specifically, can a love of independence actually hurt us when it comes to our walk with Christ?

Absolutely, it can. The love of independence can hurt us because it makes it so difficult to fulfill our callings in this passage.

Chapter 13 contains the pastor’s instructions to the church. In light of all that God has done through Jesus – explained so fully in the preceding 12 chapters – these are the proper responses of those who have heard and believed that Jesus is the final sacrifice and their permanent high priest. Because he poured out his blood to cleanse us and set us apart, because he rose from the dead and went ahead of us to our true home – the City of God – we are called to a very specific response. We who believe are called to be grateful and to walk as committed pilgrims.

It’s all summed up in vv. 13-14. Because of what Christ has done in his death and resurrection, the pastor calls us to follow him outside the camp (a reference to leaving behind our old ways of life) and follow our Savior. But we follow him with a sure hope beyond today because, he says, “…here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

That’s it. That’s Christianity at this time in the Story. We hear of what God has done through Jesus to rescue us. We hold fast to him by faith, resting in him and receiving what he gives to us – forgiveness and cleansing and new purpose and life. And then we walk with eyes fixed on him, journeying on as pilgrims to the city that is to come. What that pilgrimage looks like is what chapter 13 is all about. We talked about vv. 1-6 in previous weeks. Now, in vv. 7-19, the pastor who first wrote this early Christian sermon brings into view three things that help pilgrims along their way; three things which we need to embrace.

And this is where our love of independence hurts us.

[Read Hebrews 13:7-19 and Pray]

In order to help us keep walking as committed pilgrims, these verses tell us that we have three things from God. Vv. 7, 17-19 tell us that He has given us leaders. Vv. 9-10 tell us that He has given us grace. And vv. 8, 11-12 tell us He has given us His Son. (Repeat.) And each of these things strikes at the heart of our love of independence.

Because the love of independence says, “I don’t need leaders. Jesus and I are doing okay on our own. I can follow him all by myself.” This kind of “me and Jesus” mentality is prominent in the church today because it is the very air we breathe in our highly individualistic culture. Combine that with experiences with less than faithful leaders (we’ll talk more about that in a minute) and we see ourselves shying away from any form of spiritual accountability. Rather than being helped along the way by leaders given to us by God, we would rather find our own paths, forgetting that it is easy for pilgrims to become lost for a time when darkness and forks in the road come. On top of that, a “me and Jesus” mentality will often turn our focus inward (either personally or even as a congregation), forgetting the call of v. 16 to “do good and to share what you have.”

But there’s more. The passage warns of “strange teachings” that revolve around rules about food, etc. that are held in contrast to the Word of God which speaks of grace that strengthens weak pilgrims like us. It is phrased as a warning because a love of independence can lead us to functionally believe, “I don’t need grace because I’m able to follow the rules well enough, thank you. I can get to the city of God by myself!”

But where does that independence go? Well, if I think I’m doing well, if I’m “keeping” the rules well enough, then pride is the only direction my heart will go. Instead of traveling and arriving in the city of God with a heart full of gratitude for unmerited grace begin shown to me along the way by Christ, I’ll be proud as I go, thinking that I’m the one who’s getting me there. And pride is a dangerous thing for a pilgrim to have. In the language of v. 9, it can actually lead me away from where I want to go.

And pride is only one side of the coin. What if, in my love of independence, I try to follow the rules and get to the city of God under my own power (not by grace) and what if I fail? What if, left to my independent self, I realize that I’m not keeping the rules well enough? What has my independent pilgrimage gotten me? Despair. The Christian who loves independence and thinks their journey to the city of God will be propelled through their own perfection is bound for either pride or despair: one boasting in their own accomplishments while the other is afraid the frown of God is always directed toward them.

And there’s still more. In vv. 11-12 we see that God has given us His Son, Jesus. He is our hope and he is our help along the way. Now, it may be self-evident that we need Jesus to reach the city of God. I hope that is obvious to you! But just as significant as it is that God gave us His Son is how God gave us His Son. It is the how that strikes at our independence. God gave us His Son, v. 12 tells us, by sending him to suffer; suffering outside of the gate of Jerusalem in his crucifixion; suffering for a purpose, to cleanse and set apart his people for the service of God. God sent His Son to suffer as he identified with us in our humanity even to the point of death. Now, we pilgrims walk identifying ourselves with him, even suffering like him – outside the comfortable and the safe while enduring all this fallen world has to offer.

It is this call to endure suffering that strikes at our independence, because which one of us, if we were in charge, would choose suffering for ourselves? We would choose glory and honor and success and perfect relationships and wealth and happiness and comfort and influence and, well, just about anything heading in the direction away from suffering. But chapter 12 makes it clear that God has chosen suffering to typify our lives at this point in the Story. It is painful, yes, and it is purposeful as he strips away everything but replaces it with Himself. That suffering is part of His discipline and His love. It is God treating us the same way He treated Jesus! But when we worship our independence, we will always seek to escape (rather than endure with eyes fixed on Jesus) the very suffering God has sent to train us for our journey.

Yes, we love our independence. But when it comes to responding to the Gospel through committed pilgrimage, independence is actually a curse. It robs us of health and deprives us of that which God would use to take care of us. In this is a call for us to turn away from our love of independence and begin anew embracing what He has given His people to help us along the way.

We turn back to God since He has made a better way than independence. So, let’s consider what this passage tells us He has given and be grateful that He has not sent us out on this journey by ourselves.

First, He has given us leaders. In vv. 7, 17-19, we see both the gift of leaders as well as what our response to them is supposed to look. In v. 7, a faithful leader is one who speaks “the word of God” to the people of God. In the context of the next couple of verses, we could also say that a faithful leader is one who protects those under his care from “diverse and strange” teachings that have more to do with human religion than the Gospel of Grace. In v. 17, the leaders are those who “[keep] watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.” The leaders God has given to his pilgrim people are like under-shepherds of Jesus, the Great Shepherd.

Here at Grace, you have the elders of the church who serve the church, keeping watch over the teaching as well as you yourselves. The work God has given us to do is to declare His Word and minister in the name of Christ. If we go beyond that in any way, speaking our own words or opinions in areas that the Scriptures do not touch, then you have no reason to listen or heed those words. But, if we speak the Word, if we minister in the name of Christ, then trust that we are seeking your good and it is really God’s way of taking care of you through us. Leaders are a gift for our help along the way. Even we are called to submit to one another – none of us are higher than the others – we listen to and submit to one another in the Lord both here at Grace and in the wider Church. That is for our good as much as it is for you.

Look, the reality is that we haven’t done this perfectly and we aren’t going to do this perfectly. Your elders here are sinners all and in need of the same grace from God as you. And we are in need of grace from you! So, please do pray for us, just as the pastor asks in vv. 18-19. We know our own weaknesses. And though our consciences have been cleansed by Christ, we still desire to be faithful to this calling as leaders in Jesus’ Church. So come to us. Talk to us. Pray with and for us. You have elders who love you and long to watch over you, counting it a joy to walk with you. I myself look to Kurt and Dick and Ken and Jonathan as men for me to imitate, especially their faith. We are here for you.

So, God has given leaders to pilgrims. And He has also given us grace to keep us going.

It’s important to recognize here where we find that grace revealed. The grace of God comes to us because of Jesus, but it strengthens us as it comes through the Word. Of course, the Scriptures speak elsewhere of the work of the Holy Spirit in all of this, the third person of the Trinity who applies the grace of Christ to us. But the emphasis in vv. 9-10 is on our commitment to be pilgrims walking in light of the Word of God and in it finding the strength to go on. In these verses, the pastor contrasts the meals of the Old Testament sacrifices under the law with the grace that has been made known in Christ. Those still committed to the works of the law (that is, those who still hold to the out-dated laws of Judaism) have no right to the grace of God unless they, too, embrace the true sacrifice, Jesus, by faith. The truth of God’s grace in Jesus and the hope that we have in him is what will strengthen pilgrims for the journey. That grace is made known through the Word. So, we are supposed to hold on to it.

Now, there are many things that the Word doesn’t say. It won’t tell you why you struggle with depression. It won’t give specific answers to questions about why God allows what He allows. But in the Word of God we hear the Story of Redemption; the beauty of Creation and the misery of our Fall; we hear the promise and arrival of Redemption through Christ and the promise of a Restoration – all things made new in him. And that Word gives me hope to go on because “he who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:23) God has promised grace to help us and more grace to lead us home to be with Him. And God’s promises have never failed. In v. 5 God promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” That puts strength into me and helps me believe His promises over the promises of this world that tempt me.

God has given us leaders. And God gives us grace (and more grace). But all this wouldn’t help us if God had not also give us His Son.

Jesus is the foundation of all our hope. No, Jesus is our hope. He is the one who came and identified himself with us so that we might be identified with him. He is the one who came and conquered death by death to free us from the one who held the power of death. He was the final, perfect sacrifice to atone for all our failures and all the times we’ve played games with God and we didn’t even care. And he is still our great high priest through whom we can come with confidence into the presence of God! And he will remain our priest forever, even in the age to come, as the one who makes us acceptable to God. And we know this because of what we hear in v. 8; “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Yesterday he was faithful even to the point of death. Today he is faithful as a high priest for those who direct their faith toward him. Tomorrow, he’ll be just the same and his kingdom will have no end.

In all this the pastor wants us here to see Jesus just as he introduced Jesus in the beginning. In Hebrews 1:10-12, the pastor begins his sermon rejoicing in the unchangeable-ness of the Son of God. He returns to that hope in the end, but adds to his praise one more thing. The eternal Son of God is the same except for one thing; he suffered – was sacrificed and cut off from life – in order to cleanse and set apart the people of God for the service of God. By his suffering and blood, we have been brought near to God. Jesus rescued us because we couldn’t save ourselves. What does our independence have to say to that?

It closes my mouth and makes me grateful for a God who would not leave me alone, but sent his Son and makes me dependent on him. I depend on him. I depend on his sacrifice to make me acceptable to God. I depend on his grace because I can’t keep the rules well enough to get me to the city of God. I depend on the leaders God has given because I think crazy stuff on my own. I need them to speak the Word of God to me to help me think sanely. Do you depend on God in this way?

If you even want to want that, then you, my brothers and sisters, are beginning to walk as pilgrims ought to walk. Keep walking in that desire and take hold of all that God has given you. These are the ordinary ways through which He breaks us down and builds us up in Christ. Oh, how it kills us and oh, how it gives us life!

It’s because of all that God has given us in Christ that we are called to respond as we are in vv. 15-16. “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” He’s holding two things together here in our response. We praise God, drawing near to Him with our confidence in Christ and gratefully thanking Him and declaring how great He is and how worthy of all our love and affection and time and money and all that we are. But paired with that is a life characterized by a love of others and a self-less generosity with time and money and whatever “you have.” As one writer put it,

“Without the praise of God, acts of kindness and of sharing would be little more than joyless humanitarianism. Without acts of kindness and of sharing, the praise of God would be empty formalism. Both praise and love are indispensable to the life of Christian pilgrimage.”[1]

There is no guarantee that doing these things will get anything for you. The praise of God and love of others are not a means to anything. In fact, a life of praise and love would actually fall under what the pastor called, “go(ing) to [Jesus] outside the camp.” This pilgrim walk will involve suffering, but will be called faithful by the One whose opinion counts. And He himself will help you to be faithful.

God has brought us together into a community of believers – this thing called the church – a place where weak pilgrims find a place where they can hear again the promises of God with under-shepherds of Christ ministering to them, reminding them of what God has done for through Christ. Here is where we help each other and go to God’s Word together to hear of His grace in Christ. Here is where we together celebrate our hope – that what we could never do on our own God has done through His Son, Jesus. In him we are cleansed and restored to God with the promise of a home with him.

[transition to the Lord’s Supper]

Hebrews 12 tells us that as we gather for worship here we have already “come to…the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant….” That is the work of the Holy Spirit, who raises us up into the heavenly places where Christ is now and by faith joins us together with him. And as you, with faith and hope in Christ, eat this meal, see and touch and taste and smell the promises of God in Christ. For this meal is the visible Gospel, telling you and confirming to you that what God has promised, God has done and will still do. With your faith in Christ and in the presence of God, eat and believe that because of Jesus your sins are forgiven and he will take care of you still as he leads you home to be with him.

[1] William L. Lane, Hebrews: A Call to Commitment, 174-175.