Text: Hebrews 13:15-21
Theme: Sacrificial Giving
Greetings: The Lord is good and his love endures forever!
Illustration:
Today, I would like to leave with you three spiritual principles based on Hebrews 13:15-21. The pleasing sacrifices, pleasing lives, and pleasing works of a believer in kingdom of God. The pleasing sacrifices based on Hebrews 13:15-16, the pleasing lives based on Hebrews 13:17-19, and the pleasing works in the kingdom of God based on Hebrews 13:20-21.
1. THE pleasing sacrifices: Praises and materials giving (Hebrews 13:15-16)
These two are pleasing sacrifices to God. The fruit of the lips, and the fruit of the hands. Both are outward expressions of the inner heart. The words of the lips and the deeds of the hands have come from the bottom of the heart. Your inner heart is expressed through your outer facial expressions.
The words of the Lips refer to our prayers, praises, songs, hymns, and gratitude to God. On many occasions we find it to confess the goodness of God within our family members relatives and friends. They are the immediate ones who know about our struggles, challenges, and confessions and stand with faith.
Spurgeon comments that we are called to pray without ceasing and praise without ceasing. Not only in this place or that place but in every place, we are to praise the Lord our God. Not only when we are in a happy frame of mind, but when we are cast down and troubled.
The following verses talk about the sacrifices of the lips. "Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man! And let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving, and tell of his deeds in songs of joy!" (Psalm 107:21-22, ESV). "I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hoofs." (Psalm 69:30-31, ESV).
“What proceeds from the lips is regarded as its fruit, which reveals the character of its source, as the fruit of a tree reveals the nature of the tree.” (Guthrie).
The fruit of the hands is helping others, comforting, hugging and consoling, and patting to encourage them others continually trust Jesus. Ephesians 2.10 says, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. Christians should be involved in good works and in generous giving to help others.
The following verses talks about these two sacrifices:
"Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and perform your vows to the Most High." (Psalm 50:14, ESV, Psalm 56:12). "I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people." (Psalm 116:17-18, ESV). "The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly, I will show the salvation of God!" (Psalm 50:23, ESV).
“It is through Jesus that we offer sacrifices of praise and sacrifices of good works and sharing to God. It is not just sacrifice that pleases God but sacrifices that are the result of faith in Jesus Christ and a life motivated by the Holy Spirit. We please God when faith in Christ expresses itself through praise that confesses the name of God, and through good works and sharing with others. Every time you lift up the name of God in praise or in testimony, and every time you do good to others in the name of Christ, you are pleasing God.” (Ron Latulippe, Baptist Pastor).
2. THE pleasing Lives with obedience and exemplary living (Hebrews 13:17-19)
Three spiritual sacrifices are mentioned here: Verbal praise. Doing good deeds. Sharing with others (koinonia).
Every born-again disciple of Jesus Christ should accept that first of all he or she is a believer in a local congregation. We need to take the role of an obedient believer and then become an exemplary leader in the immediate context.
As a Leader of the house, we are to live an exemplary life before the spouse, and children in seeking the presence of God, reading the word of God, attending Church services, doing the Lord’s ministry in whatever way we can, and earning the sustenance of the family.
Everyone is expected in the Lord to serve one another. We have a responsible role to play. Prayer life is the foremost example we can set for all. The author of the Hebrews says that he would like to live honorably in every way.
We are simply told to obey those who rule over us. When speaking on the authority of God’s Word, leaders do have a right to tell us how to live and walk after God. “A pastor, or leader should teach us to submit to God, not to himself.” (Chuck Smith). Cooperative conduct is not only a joy to leaders, but it is profitable for the whole body of the church. (Enduring Word Commentary).
The writer is saying when your leaders speak on the authority of God's word, they do have a right to expect obedience. The obedience of course is to God and not to men. You should obey godly leaders because they keep watch over your souls as those who are accountable to God. In the church, God has appointed elders or pastors (shepherds) to oversee the flock (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:1-4). They are not to lord it over the church, but rather to be examples to the flock (2 Corinthians 1:24).
On every level, those in authority are never in absolute authority. Every leader will give an account to God! Plural leadership is a safeguard against the abuse of authority. When all of the elders in a local church have wrestled through an issue biblically and in prayer, and they all agree, they are not infallible, but there is a fair chance that they are right. (Austin Precept). So, submission and obedience to the leadership is a sight of obedience to God. Obey in righteousness or in the Lord, which means to the demands of God.
3. THE pleasing works in the kingdom of God (Hebrews 13:20-21)
“Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
“Make you complete in every good work.” The word translated as “make complete” carries the idea of bringing something (or someone) to its proper condition. It is to bring to a state of fully functioning or full maturity. We cannot do His will perfectly if we are not maturing in Christ.
The average Christian is implored to not be average, but to excel in all ways, becoming perfect in knowledge, conduct, and adherence to the precepts of Scripture as they apply to us. The author is not saying that we are, or will become apart from glorification, perfect, but that God will continue to bring us to this state.
But this can only happen if we are willing to strive for it. God will work through those who are willing to be worked through. The very purpose of Christ's coming is to be the Mediator between God and man (Hebrews 8:6, 9:15, 12:24 & 1 Timothy 2:5).
The word great Shepherd refers to the Lord. He himself declared that He is the good shepherd (John 10:11). He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those which are with young (Isaiah 40:11). I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them; even my servant David (Ezekiel 34:23), and he shall feed them, and be their shepherd: and Awake, O sword, against my shepherd - smite the shepherd, and the flock shall be scattered (Zechariah 13:7).
"Fruitfulness is a consistent concept in the OT and the NT. The fruit God seeks in human beings is expressed in righteous and loving acts that bring peace and harmony to the individual and to the society. But that fruit is foreign to sinful human nature. Energized by sinful passions, fallen humanity acts in ways that harm and bring dissension. God's solution is found in a personal relationship with Jesus and in the supernatural working of God's Spirit within the believer. As we live in an intimate, obedient relationship with Jesus, God's Spirit energizes us as we produce the peaceable fruits of righteousness that can come only from the Lord.” (Richards, L O: Expository Dictionary of Bible Words: Regency).
Conclusion:
This passage reminds us that God is pleased with our praises of the lips as sacrifice, God is pleased with sacrifices of the good works done through our hands. God is pleased with our obedience as well as our commitment to leadership. God is pleased with the completion of our good work through Jesus Christ.
