Message Overview

Title: Hebrews 13 — Life From Jesus and For Jesus

Big Idea: Life is from Jesus and for Jesus.

Life From Jesus and For Jesus

Hebrews as a whole has shown us that all of life comes from Jesus—He is our Creator, Redeemer, and great High Priest—and all of life is ultimately for Jesus. In every culture, including ours, it is easy to live as if life is “for me.” Hebrews 13 presses us to line up our everyday decisions (time, money, relationships) with the truth that our lives belong to Him.

Let Brotherly Love Continue

Hebrews 13 opens with a simple but demanding command: “Let brotherly love continue.” Love is often inconvenient, costly, and tiring, and we may feel like we have “done enough.” The author urges us not to quit. Love is expressed practically: showing hospitality, remembering prisoners, caring for the mistreated, and paying attention to people in uniquely needy seasons (grief, sickness, surgery, welcoming a newborn, etc.). Our Lifegroups are one of the main ways we quietly and consistently love one another in these very practical, ordinary ways.

Marriage: Faithfulness and Helpfulness

“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled.” Marriage is to be honored by everyone, not just those who are married. Faithfulness means keeping the vows we made—promises of future love in sickness and health, better or worse, richer or poorer. That includes guarding our eyes, hearts, and phones from pornography and emotionally risky connections (like rekindling flirty contact with an ex online). Bad things grow in that soil. Helpfulness means honoring and supporting the marriages around us so they can thrive. We want “working on your marriage” to feel like a normal, assumed part of life for everyone who calls Lifepoint home.

Money, Contentment, and Generosity

The author tells us to keep our lives free from the love of money and to be content with what we have—because God has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Contentment flows from confidence in God’s presence and care, not from having easy circumstances. This is why we can say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?” A simple framework like 70/20/10 (live on 70%, save 20%, give 10%) helps us practice generosity so money does not grip our hearts. Generosity is one of God’s primary tools to protect us from loving money more than Him.

Leaders Who Share the Word and Show the Way

We are called to remember our leaders, those who spoke the Word of God to us, to consider the outcome of their way of life, and to imitate their faith. Faithful Christian leaders share the Word—they love, trust, and teach Scripture—and they show the way by their example. No pastor is perfect, but you should be able to say, “If I follow Jesus like they do, I’ll be doing pretty well.” Hebrews also reminds us that leaders keep watch over souls and will give an account, which makes spiritual leadership both a gift and a sober responsibility.

Sacrifice, Suffering, and Our Worship

Jesus did not suffer and die at the center of the Old Testament worship system in the temple courts. He suffered “outside the gate,” in the place of shame, to sanctify His people by His own blood. We are called to go to Him outside the camp and bear the reproach He endured—accepting that following Jesus will sometimes look strange or foolish to our culture. Hebrews 13 also compares our ongoing worship to Old Testament sacrifices. Our New Testament “sacrifices” are clear: the sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name—and the sacrifice of doing good and sharing what we have. These everyday acts of worship are pleasing to God.

Benediction: Equipped to Do His Will

The letter closes with a rich benediction. The God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, is able to equip us with everything good to do His will and to work in us what is pleasing in His sight. God both supplies what we need to obey and actively works in us as we obey. If life is from Jesus and for Jesus, then we can trust Him to give us everything we need to live for Him.

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Lifegroup Guide

Warm-Up

• When you think about your life, what does it most often feel “for”—yourself, your family, your job, or Jesus? Why?
• Think of someone who has modeled Hebrews 13-type faith for you. What about their life stands out?

Read

• Read Hebrews 13:1–25 together as a group.

Observation

• What repeated themes or commands do you notice in this chapter (love, marriage, money, leaders, sacrifices, etc.)?
• List the specific commands in verses 1–6. What areas of life are being addressed?
• What does the author say about leaders in verses 7 and 17?
• According to verses 15–16, what kinds of “sacrifices” please God now?

Interpretation

• Why do you think the author moves from brotherly love and hospitality straight into marriage and sexual purity? What do those have to do with loving others well?
• How does the promise “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (v.5) practically strengthen our contentment?
• What does it mean that Jesus suffered “outside the gate” and that we are called to “go to him outside the camp” (vv.11–13)? How would the original readers have heard that?
• How does the benediction in verses 20–21 hold together God’s work in us and our responsibility to obey?

Application

• Love: Is there someone in a uniquely needy season (grief, sickness, newborn, etc.) that you could love practically this week? What would one simple step be?
• Marriage: If you are married, where might God be calling you to greater faithfulness (thought life, phone habits, time, words)? If you are single, how can you honor marriage and prepare to be faithful now?
• Money: Where do you feel the pull of the love of money or anxiety about money? What would generosity look like for you in this season (percentage, first steps, or next steps)?
• Leaders: How can you encourage, pray for, or support the spiritual leaders who “keep watch over your souls” in a way that makes their work a joy and not a burden?
• Sacrifice: What is one way you can offer a “sacrifice of praise” (publicly acknowledging Jesus) and one way you can “do good and share what you have” this week?

Prayer

• Thank God that life is from Jesus and for Jesus, and for the ways He has already provided for and led your group.
• Ask God to help each person grow in brotherly love, faithfulness in marriage (or preparation for marriage), and freedom from the love of money.
• Pray for your church’s leaders—that they would share the Word faithfully, live lives worth imitating, and find joy in watching over souls.
• Use Hebrews 13:20–21 as a group prayer, asking God to equip you with everything good to do His will.

Memory Verse

Hebrews 13:5–6 (ESV)
“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’”

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Full Transcript

Well, good morning and welcome to Life Point Church. So glad you’re here to worship Jesus with us this morning. Whether it’s your first time or you’ve been here more times than you can count, we’re genuinely thankful that you’re here. If we haven’t had a chance to meet yet, my name is Adam and I get to serve as the lead pastor here.

So today we get to finish our series in the letter to the Hebrews: Jesus is awesome and the greatness of Jesus. So chapter 13 is where we’ll be today. But before we jump into that, a couple things I want to mention to you really all wrapped around our upcoming kind of Christmas and holiday schedule.

The first thing we want to make sure that you are aware of is Christmas Eve schedule. And so we will have four services on Christmas Eve: 2:00, 3:15, 4:30, and 5:45. We’d love to see you here. Bring a friend. There are invite cards at the info center if that is helpful for you to remember the times and give to a friend or whatever.

Second thing: every year on the Sunday in between Christmas and New Year’s, this year it’s December 28th, we have what we call No Team Sunday. And so every single Sunday there are literally hundreds of people who take time out of their busy schedule to serve us, and we love that. As a way to express our appreciation to them, one Sunday a year nobody serves. No team that Sunday.

So what that means for you is one service at 9:45. If you come at 8:30 you can stand outside and pray—the door will be locked. If you come at 11:00 you missed it. Life is tough and then you die. So come at 9:45. That is the only service offered that day. You’re going to have to open your own door. You’re going to have to bring your own coffee. There will be no screens turned on. No Life Point Kids. Nobody has to serve on No Team Sunday. We would love for you to be here. We will sing a couple songs. We’ll have a brief message out of the Word. I think we’re taking communion, but honestly, I don’t know yet. I probably should know, but I don’t know yet. So maybe that’ll happen, maybe it won’t. You can come and find out. So that’s on Sunday, December 28th.

And then January 4th is the first Sunday of the new year. That’ll be our normal 8:30, 9:45, and 11:00 schedule. But one thing we want to mention to you: as our staff team has thought about how we can just help us all grow in holiness and love of Jesus and all those things, we’re going to kick off 2026 with 21 days of fasting and prayer. We’ll talk a little bit more about that in the coming weeks. We’ll mention it again on January 4th. We’ll start it on January 5th. We just wanted to mention it to you now so that you can begin to think about what God might be calling you to fast from in the new year.

As you think about that, I would encourage you to think about two buckets. You can choose one or both. One bucket is just food—some sort of food fast. You could fast from caffeine if you hate yourself. Others might choose to fast from food. I was talking to a friend and he was telling us a story. He’s done a 21-day water-only fast twice now. And we asked him, “How did that go?” He’s like, “Day one, you’re pretty hungry, but it’s fine. Day two, you’re hungrier, not a big deal. Day three is the absolute worst. And then day four is worse than that.” I was like, “Okay, good to know.” And then he said, “Day five you wake up and it’s like, I have never felt better in my entire life.”

And it’s not about how we physically feel, but he has talked about how that’s been so important for him as he’s tried to grow in just loving Jesus more. So maybe some of you are like, “That wasn’t even on my bingo card, but now maybe I…” So we just want to give you a chance to think about what you might choose to fast from for 21 days in the new year.

So food is one bucket. The second bucket is screens—what we take in through our eyes and ears. I would encourage you to think about maybe no phone for 21 days. Maybe no social for 21 days. Maybe no screens at all—you’re going to miss some big football game, whatever it is. We’d encourage you to think about those things as you think about how God might be calling you to fast from some things so that you can feast more on Him.

So one big idea for our time together this morning is this: life is from Jesus and for Jesus. And our question: do you agree?

One way that we might summarize all of Hebrews—we’ve been studying it for 13 weeks now—is this: life is from Jesus. He is God and therefore has a role in our creation as the eternal Son of God. Also, He is our Redeemer. Any hope that we might possibly have for life after this life, for eternal life, it’s rooted in Him—His sacrificial death, His resurrection, His role as our great high priest. Life is from Jesus. And also, it’s for Him.

In our culture, and probably every culture, it’s really easy to think that my life is for me and then to live in light of that belief. What I’m encouraging you to reflect on is: is your life not really about you? It’s not for you. It’s for Him. And what I’m hoping happens is as you and I reflect on that, hopefully a lot of us say, “Yeah, I agree with that. I do. My life is for Him.” If that’s true, other things flow from that into our Monday and Tuesday and Thursday decisions. “Man, my life isn’t for me. It’s for Him. And that’s going to change what I think and what I choose to do with the time and the money and the resources and the relationships that God has given to me.”

So before we jump into reading all of Hebrews chapter 13, we’re going to take a moment and pray and ask the Lord to help us. Would you pray with me, please?

Father in heaven, God, we praise you and thank you for the privilege that we have of being here together this morning to worship you. God, as we turn our attention now to your holy and perfect Word, we confess to you that we need your help. What we want is for every single one of us to love your Son Jesus, to trust Him, to obey Him, to enjoy Him. And God, we can’t do those things unless you help us. So Father, by your Holy Spirit, would you please give us the help that we need so that every single one of us might grow in our love, trust, and obedience to Jesus. We pray this in His holy name. Amen.

So Hebrews chapter 13, we’re going to read the whole thing:

“Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them.

We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

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.

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings. Grace be with all of you.”

The way we’re going to spend our time looking back at this passage is in three sections. The first part we’ll look at is Hebrews 13:1–6. Second, Hebrews 13:7–19. And then finally, Hebrews 13:20–25. The three categories we’ll look at here are love, marriage, and money.

So the first thing he starts with is love. He begins chapter 13 by saying, “Let brotherly love continue.” Our two words that we’ll talk about with love as we seek to alter our lives to be more like Jesus: we’re going to love more than we ever have. We are to love continually and practically.

He begins and he says, “Let brotherly love continue.” This love that you’re showing to other brothers and sisters in Christ—keep doing that. And that’s a good reminder that when we love other people, it’s often inconvenient. It’s often costly. It often causes us to have moments where we’re like, “You know what? I think I’ve loved enough.” We wouldn’t say it that way, but we feel like, “I’m kind of done sacrificing and serving. I’m not even related to these people.” There’s a temptation to maybe say, “I’ve done enough. I’m going to not continue with this brotherly love thing.” And he says, “Hey, as believers in Jesus Christ, living for Him, let that continue. Keep loving other people the way that God has called you to. When you feel like stopping or giving up, don’t. Keep going.”

And then the way I’m summarizing the rest of what he says is: love people practically. The specific examples he gives in the passage are believers who have been put into jail because they were Christians. Because of where we live, I don’t think any of us know personally Christians who are in jail because they’re Christians. But he points out those people and says, “Make sure that we’re caring for them, remembering them while they’re in prison.” And he begins to bring up basically people who are hurting.

So as believers in Jesus Christ we ought to be seeking to find and pay attention to: are there people in a uniquely needy season of life? Maybe they’ve recently lost a loved one. Maybe they’re sick or they’ve recently had surgery or someone they live with has had surgery. Maybe they’ve recently welcomed a newborn into the world. Whatever it might be, but they’re in a unique season where we could love them just a little bit more and a little bit better because we love Jesus.

One of my favorite things about our church structure is we do nearly everything through Lifegroups. And I often hear about it months after the fact. Let’s imagine someone in our church has a new baby. They don’t tell me—I’m not important enough to know—but it’s on Facebook. Maybe I see it. I’m like, “Oh, that’s so exciting,” and I pray for them. Then I find out later, their Lifegroup basically planned out like two months of meals for them. It wasn’t every day, so we didn’t overwhelm them, but we’re providing meals for them to take one more thing off of their plate because that’s a really simple, practical, tangible way to love the brothers and sisters in our body. He starts off chapter 13 saying, “Let brotherly love continue.” The practical good stuff—don’t get tired of that. Let that continue.

Then he talks about everyone’s favorite subjects: marriage and money. So how can we characterize what he says about marriage? He says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” The two words I’ll give you summarizing what he says about marriage are faithfulness and helpfulness.

So the first thing I’ll mention is: as believers in Jesus Christ, if you happen to be married, you are called to faithfulness to your spouse. One of the beautiful things about wedding ceremonies—I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, I try to point it out when it comes up—is in a wedding ceremony there’s almost always a moment where the man and the woman make vows. Whenever I’m doing a marriage, couples will often ask, “Hey, can we write our own vows?” I’m like, “Yeah, that’s great. Write your own vows. I just want to read them first to make sure they’re not whack,” is basically what I say. Because sometimes what will happen is you’ll get to the point of vows and they’ll say something like, “Oh, I love you so much, and you complete me, and you’re my best friend.” Those things are great and they’re probably all true—but that’s not a vow.

A vow, if you’ve ever listened to a wedding ceremony, is a promise of future love. “Sick or poor, I’ll love you. Better, worse, rich, poor, sick, health—I’m promising today to love you tomorrow no matter what.” That’s what a wedding vow is, which is partly why it’s so very beautiful. The author of Hebrews says, “Marriage should be held in honor among all.” Part of the way we honor marriage is faithfulness within our marriages.

Certainly he has in mind bedroom stuff—no adultery, that’s against the rules. Two other things I’ll mention that are really struggles in our culture and they both map to these things. These are great tools to do a lot of good stuff, but the entire world is accessible to me right here. You might be shocked to hear there are some bad things that the world has made that I probably shouldn’t look at, especially if my goal is to honor Jesus and to honor my spouse.

Statistically, a lot of men and women have addictions, habits, moments where this is a real struggle—where you’re cultivating lust directed not at your spouse. And if you’re asking, “Would that be considered faithfulness to my spouse?” the answer is no. That is not faithfulness to your spouse. My encouragement to you would be, if that’s a struggle for you, keep repenting, keep struggling. Don’t settle into that. Be violent against whatever sin you might find assaulting your life. But also remember the grace of Jesus. You don’t earn your way into heaven by being good with your phone, but also honor the Lord with your eyes and your ears and your heart and your thoughts.

The second related thing is this: sometimes marriage is difficult. If you’re not married, this might be shocking to you. Sometimes it’s difficult. You wake up and you’re feeling some type of way—lonely, unloved, unimportant, or “my spouse isn’t doing everything I want.” You just feel a little low. That’s life. Welcome to life. You could talk to your spouse and try to build your marriage and grow your marriage and do awesome stuff like that. Or you know what just can feel so good, like a sugar cookie at Christmas? If you hop on Facebook or Instagram and you’re like, “Oh, look, my ex from 5, 10, 20 years ago. Hey, how are you?”

Is it a sin to send a simple, innocuous digital message to your ex? No, that’s not automatically a sin. That’s fine. They write back. “Oh, that’s exciting. They wrote back. ‘Hey, you look great,’ or ‘It seems like you’ve really been successful.’” That feels good. A little validation. “Am I a loser like my wife sometimes makes me feel?” No, I’m important to this person from years ago. They validated me. Bad things grow in that soil.

So I would just encourage you, as you engage on whatever social media platforms are in your world, you’ve been called to faithfulness to your spouse. Sometimes that means not sending that message to someone from your past to get that emotional dopamine hit. Faithfulness.

Helpfulness: the other thing I’ll mention is he says marriage should be held in honor by all—not just the married people, but by everybody. My encouragement to you in that would be just looking for ways to be helpful to people who are married—helping them experience joy and faithfulness and all the good stuff we want everyone to have in their marriages.

As a church family, this is an area where we want to grow even more in helping marriages to thrive. Starting in 2026, you’re going to see what feels to us like a lot of activity. There’s a whole marriage retreat—Thursday, Friday, Saturday right around Valentine’s Day. We’d love for you and your spouse to sign up for that. There’ll be date night challenges and various things we’re going to be offering not just to the congregation, but to the community because what we want to happen at Life Point is for the idea of working on your marriage—to make it healthier, more joyful, all those things—to just be a shoulder shrug. “Well, of course I’m working on my marriage. I love my wife and even if it’s great, it could be better. Do I want my marriage to be better? Yes.” Shoulder shrug. “Of course I’m working on my marriage.” That’s what we hope happens for every single person who calls Life Point home.

Faithfulness and helpfulness. And I’ll say one last thing: if you’re not yet married, this is almost impossible for you to fully grasp before you’re married, but we want to help you in this. Your faithfulness to your spouse started the day you were born. When you’re still looking for that one, if you’re looking for that one, it’s hard to get that. But I’m 18 and a half years into marriage and it’s like a time warp. I don’t know if other married couples feel this. If you ask me, “Have you been married to Molly all of your life?” I’d say yes. Literally, it’s been forever. But also, I remember watching her walk down the aisle like it was yesterday. I think I’ve been married a day and a half now. It feels like both.

Honestly, kids feel the same way. I have a son who drives. I look up to him. Also, I remember the day that we found out we were pregnant like it was yesterday. Time is weird like that. If you’re not yet married, I just want to encourage you to think about your faithfulness to your future spouse: it’s already started whether you even know who they are yet.

Hebrews 13:7–19—we’ll talk about two things here that he talks about in the passage. One: leaders. And second, we’ll lump together sacrifice and suffering.

A few things that he says about leaders within the Christian community: he starts off this part and he says, “Remember those who shared the Word of God with you.” The two phrases that rhyme to describe Christian leaders are: Christian leaders share the Word and they show the way. They share the Word and they show the way. “Show the way” comes from where he says, “Imitate their faith. Consider the outcome of their way of life.”

Then he immediately redirects our attention to Jesus Christ and says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” If you’re wondering, “How can I know who to look to as a Christian leader? There are a lot of people online, even in our own community, who are maybe saying, ‘Hey, I’m a Christian leader. I want to lead you towards greater faith.’ What marks Christian leaders according to Hebrews 13?” The first thing he points out is: they share the Word. They love the Word. They trust the Word. They try to help you love and trust and know and obey the Word.

We’re not up here just making things up. My job would be so much easier if God said, “Hey Adam, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to tell them what they want to hear.” Thank you, Jesus. That would be great. Our church would triple in size tomorrow. That would be a great gig. But that’s not the gig. My job is not to tell you what you want to hear. It’s to tell you what God has said. We seek to do that as faithfully as we can. No one does it perfectly, but we seek to do it faithfully.

So if you’re wondering, “How do I know who to look to as a Christian leader?” ask: do they share the Word? Do they point you to God’s perfect, holy Word as our authority—the Word that tells us how we faithfully love God and love people?

The author of Hebrews then says, “Consider their faith. Imitate their faith.” I need to remind you of what you already know: no pastor you’ve ever met, no Christian leader you’ve ever met is perfect. If you’re asking, “Adam, do you sin?” Yes, I do. So can you imitate me in every single way? No, you cannot. That’s why he brings up Jesus right away—Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus and Jesus alone is perfect.

But also, should you be able to look to the Christian leaders in your life and say, “I’m going to more or less follow Jesus like they do. I’m going to imitate their faith. I’m going to consider the outcome of their way of life”? The answer is yes. You should be able to look at me or other pastors on our staff team, other leaders in our church, and say, “You know what? If I did it like they did it, I’d be doing pretty good.” You should be able to do that.

Then the last thing he says about leaders is: “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account.” Some of you are interested in stepping into either bivocational ministry or fully vocational ministry, and that’s great. We’d love to talk with you about that possibility. Hebrews 13 has a heavy almost aside: as a pastor, it’s my job. I will be held accountable for my faithfulness in watching over your souls. Whatever that means, I’m accountable for it. So there is a heaviness that comes with being a Christian leader. These are the things that he says about Christian leadership.

And as I write this, I realize I totally skipped money. So we’re going to circle back. I’ve got a few minutes left and we’re going to do it. Very quickly, he says, “Keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’”

He says you have to remember God’s faithful providence in your life. God loves you and He cares for you. If He is for you, what can anyone ultimately do to you? If you’re asking the question, “How do I do that? How can I keep my life free from the love of money?” I’ve heard 80–10–10, I’ve heard 70–20–10, but the answer is generosity. That is the answer to “How can I keep my life free from the love of money?”

I’ll talk about 70–20–10. A great way to think about the resources God is entrusting into your hands: I’m going to live on 70—that’s our real income. Twenty percent I’m going to save for later. I’ll be glad I did later. Ten percent I’m going to give away. Ten percent of whatever comes in, I’m going to give it away to the kingdom. That includes the church. It’s not only the church. It might be orphans and widows and things like that. But I’m going to give 10% of whatever comes in as a way to seek generosity, as a way to make sure that love of money doesn’t have a hold on my heart.

Jumping back to leaders: share the Word, show the way. Responsible to be faithful, to care for people’s souls. Then he talks about sacrifice and suffering. He points out that Jesus was not crucified in the temple complex where the center of Old Testament worship was happening. The center of what’s important, what’s rich, what’s healthy according to an Old Testament view—that’s not where He was sacrificed. That’s not where He was crucified. He was crucified outside the gate, the place of shame, the place of “you don’t belong here with the important people.” You’re out there.

And he says to us, “Let us go to Him outside the camp and bear the reproach He endured.” Because you’re not living life like the other people in your culture, they may reproach you. They may look at your way of life and say, “Man, that’s stupid. That doesn’t make sense to me.” They may say negative things about you. He would say, “Just like Jesus.” So when it comes to a life of suffering, go to Jesus, who was crucified outside the gate.

He talks about how Jesus’ sacrifice atoned for our sin. He also compares Christian ongoing worship to the Old Testament sacrificial system. I think sometimes we wonder, “Man, I want to do something to express my faith that’s tangible.” In the Old Testament it seems so simple: I find an animal that’s really nice, I bring it to the priest, we kill it, and then that’s worship. It’s very tangible. I can point to a thing that I did. There’s something that feels maybe appealing about that, even though the idea of killing an animal is really strange.

So what is given to us as believers in Jesus as a sacrifice, as a way to worship God? I don’t think Hebrews 13 is an exhaustive list, but he gives us two things. The first thing he mentions is what we spent the first fifteen minutes or so doing when we got here: lips that acknowledge God, our sacrifice of praise. Which is partly why in churches all over the world every single Sunday we get together and we sing, because God is worthy of our sacrifice of praise. One of the ways that believers express their love and devotion to Jesus is we sing it and we say it.

The second thing he says maps really directly to this. He says, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” The way he phrases that, he says, “Hey, don’t neglect to do this.” It’s again that reminder, I might forget to do this. I might neglect to do this. He says, “Don’t neglect to do good.” So spend your time serving others and share your stuff, because such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

Last section: the way we can characterize this is it has a benediction, so a blessing, and then just a brief “see you later.” That’s the last section of Hebrews. We’ll talk briefly about the benediction, which I would encourage you to go back and reread sometime. It is just delightfully rich.

He says, “May…” He says, “I want God to give you this gift.” The gift he prays for God to give to them and to us is that we would be equipped with everything we need to do what God says. “May the God who raised Jesus from the grave, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do His will.” It’s like, “Okay, so I’m going to do what He says because of the gifts He’s given me.”

Then the next thing he says: “Working in us that which is pleasing in His sight.” It’s like, “Oh wait, so it’s Him. It’s Him working in me that which is pleasing to Him. But also He’s given me the stuff so that I can do what’s pleasing to Him.” Again, life is for Jesus. Life is from Jesus, and life is for Jesus.

He concludes this letter to the Hebrews saying, “I want God to give you everything you need so that you can live for Him.” Do you want that? Do you agree that your life isn’t really about you—that your life ultimately is for Him?

Would you pray with me, please?

Father in heaven, God, we praise you and thank you for the gift of your Son, the gift of being here together to worship you in His name by the power of the Spirit. God, we confess to you that it can be easy for us to drift into thinking that our life is ultimately for us. God, please help us. Help us to daily remember that our life is both from Jesus and also for Jesus. Help us to joyfully and faithfully follow Him all of our days. We pray this in His holy name. Amen.

So this morning we have the privilege of celebrating three baptisms. Kevin and Laya and Payton are all here somewhere. If you guys want to go ahead and make your way up here, that would be awesome.

As we turn our attention now to celebrate baptism, I want to briefly explain to you what we get to see together. For each one of them, we’ll ask them, “Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” and they’ll say yes, or shout yes, or somehow acknowledge yes. If they don’t, it’s going to be real awkward for all of us. Then you’ll hear us say, “Then it’s our privilege to baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” and you’ll see them disappear for just a second.

What that symbolizes to us is that everyone who believes in Jesus Christ—we have been crucified with Him and we have been united with Jesus in His burial. A moment later you’ll see them raised back up soaking wet. That symbolizes to us a handful of things. One, the water symbolizes to us that they, and anyone who belongs to Jesus by faith, have been washed clean—not by baptism waters, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, forgiven and free forever. It symbolizes to us that they and we have been raised to walk in a new way, not perfectly but faithfully. And it symbolizes to us the reminder of Jesus’ promises that for everyone who belongs to Jesus by faith, these bodies will one day be raised from the grave to rule and reign and celebrate with Him in the new heavens and the new earth forever and ever and ever.

[Baptisms take place.]

We invite you to stand as we sing one more song.

[Closing song and prayer]

Again, thank you so much for being here to celebrate Christ this morning. If you’re relatively new, we would love to connect with you, and all that means is you’re willing to give us some contact info and we’re going to follow up with you and try to help you do what we talked about—follow Jesus.

Lifepoint regular attenders and members, we always want to thank you for how your generosity is making an impact both locally and globally. We always want to challenge you to be in prayer about how God is calling you to be generous to the poor through the church. If you want to give today, that’s great. You can see on the screen ways that you can do that if you want to.

One of the ways that your giving is making an impact is through a ministry we started years ago called Backpacks of Hope. What we discovered is that our community, like almost every other community, has local school children who during the school week get food at the schools, but go home to environments where they may not have access to food on the weekends. That really broke our hearts and we decided to try to do something about that.

So every single week it’s basically retired dudes with trucks who come here on Fridays. Food has been packed by a rotating cast of Lifegroups and teams from Kenyon and whomever else. It’s about 100 kids every single weekend. We’re delivering to their elementary schools tubs full of four full meals and snacks every single weekend during the school year. That’s happening, and it’s happening in part because of your generosity. We want to celebrate that and make sure you’re aware of that ministry where we’re seeking to do what the passage talked about: “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

As you go today, I hope that you are both encouraged and challenged by the passage. Life is from Jesus. It doesn’t matter who you are, what you’ve done—you’re invited and it’s free. You can trust Jesus and receive life. And also, your life—it’s not for you. It’s for Him. Maybe there are some things we could change to more fully align with His perfect will for our lives.

We would love to see you back this coming Sunday. You’re dismissed. God bless.