Be Strengthened By Grace
Pastor Abdul Mabud
Chowdhury
Scripture: Hebrews 13:7–16
The Lord Is My
Helper, I Will not Be Afraid
We see from the first paragraph of this chapter
that we should love each other and show hospitality to strangers and care for
prisoners and keep our marriage vows and avoid the love of money - and do all
of this not by our own strength or ingenuity but by the power of the promise of
God in verses 5-6: "I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake
you," so that we confidently say, "The lord is my helper, I will not
be afraid. What will man do to me?"
In other words, if you really believe this
promise, if you believe it is true, and your heart is satisfied with the God
who promises to be there for you and help you, then you will not crave money,
you will keep your marriage vows, you care for prisoners, welcome strangers and
love each other. Faith in the promises of God is the power to live a radical,
normal Christian life.
It takes strength. It takes strength to love. It
takes strength to risk yourself with strangers. It takes strength to take the
suffering of prisoners into your life, when you may have enough of your own. It
takes strength to keep your marriage vows when the going gets rough and it is
not the way you dreamed it would be. It takes strength to turn away from the
promises of money. And that strength is what today's text is about. Where to
get it and how to keep it. And the answers are not new, just newly stated.
Is Your Heart
Strong?
Look at verse 9: "Do not be carried away by
varied and strange teachings; for it is good for the heart to be strengthened
by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not
benefited."
I ask you: is your heart strong? I don't mean
your physical heart. I think the writer means here the non-physical,
non-material you. The thinking, feeling, willing, hoping, fearing, trusting,
longing, raging, grieving, rejoicing you. The inner you - what Paul meant when
he prayed in Ephesians 3:16 that you would be
strengthened in the "inner person." Are you strong? It has nothing to
do with your muscles or your pulse or your measurements or your cholesterol.
Are you strong - the inner you?
Do you want to be? Verse 9 says, "It is good
for the heart to be strengthened." This is good. Therefore it is something
we should want. It is something you should, right now as I am preaching, desire
and seek. The strength of heart to be the kind of person described in verses
1-5. Not the power to put on a show. To clean the outside of the cup and leave
the inside weak and dirty. But strength of heart. Strength that is real enough
on the inside that it shapes the outside naturally. Do you want that? I do.
Let's look to God now in his word to work it in us.
Strengthened by
Grace, not by Foods
Verse 9 tells us in a word where to turn for
strength of heart and where not to turn. Turn to grace and do not turn to
foods. "Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings; for it is
good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, through which
those who were so occupied were not benefited." Evidently in that church
there were some strange teachings circulating about the power of foods. It's
good that we don't know the details. It causes us to consider our own
situation.
There are today many religious and secular food
routines. Religious food routines like fasting and sacramentalism and
vegetarianism and various kinds of abstinence. And there are the secular
routines of food supplements and vitamins and antioxidants and organic diets,
and fat-free, sugar-free, caffeine-free, chemical-free foods. And sometimes,
not all the time, these things become obsessive. They take on a life-consuming
importance. Slowly and subtly the promises they make for our well-being become
the promises we hope in and the promises we live by.
But over against this misuse of foods, God says
(in verse 9), "It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not
by foods." So beware of "alien (strange) teachings" that elevate
diet and nutrition and food to a place where they are the real strength-givers
and health-givers and hope-givers in your life. And instead learn to have your
heart strengthened by grace - day after day, morning noon and night.
How Do You Eat
Grace?
How do you do that? If you don't eat food to
strengthen your heart, how do you eat grace? If you wake up in the morning and
feel guilty and defiled because of something ugly you did yesterday, or you
feel like a failure because of how poorly something went yesterday, what do you
do? The "strange teaching" might say, "Eat a good breakfast. Get
the right nutrition pumping through your blood. Do some exercise and get out
into the sunlight." But God says, "Get your heart strengthened by
grace. On a morning like that, eat grace for breakfast."
How? Well, consider verse 10. Picking up on this
issue of being strengthened by grace and not foods, he says, "We have an
altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat."
He's referring to the priests in Jerusalem who have rejected Jesus as their
Messiah, but who go on "serving the tabernacle" which was meant to point
to Jesus as the final sacrifice and the cross of Jesus as the final altar of
sacrifice (Hebrews 9:26; 10:12). So the altar he has in mind is the
cross where our final sacrifice was offered once for all for our sins. There is
where our food is found. There is the table where grace was prepared.
If you want to know where your breakfast of grace
was prepared, the answer is (verse 10): We have an altar - the breakfast of
grace was prepared on the altar of the cross where Jesus died for our sins. If
you want to be strong in your heart, when your heart is groaning (weeping) with
a sense of sin and failure, before you go to the kitchen to eat food, go to the
altar to eat the blood-bought grace of forgiveness and hope.
Eating
Forgiveness and Hope
Keep reading in verse 11. He explains that on the
Day of Atonement (punishment) in Leviticus 16, after the blood of the
sacrificed bull and goat is taken into the holy of holies, and sprinkled there
to cover the sins of the people, the bodies of the bull and the goat are taken
outside the camp and burned (Leviticus 16:27).
"For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy
place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the
camp." The point he is making is that these sacrifices are not eaten, as
with some other sacrifices. The nourishment the people received on the Day of
Atonement (punishment) was forgiveness
and hope, not meat.
Yes, but all of that was meant to point to Jesus,
the final sacrifice for sin. There was a lesson in that. The writer draws out
the comparison in verse 12: "Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify
the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate." In other
words, Jesus has fulfilled the sacrifices of the Day of Atonement; they are
completed in him; they find their final meaning in him. And the meaning is: All
there was to eat on the Day of Atonement was forgiveness and hope. That's all
there is to eat from the altar of Calvary where the body of Jesus was consumed
with suffering.
So the point is: When you feel like a failure,
when you feel discouraged and hopeless and dirty, don't turn to food. It's an
alien (strange) remedy (medicine), and verse 9 says, it has not benefited those
who walk in it. It only makes things worse. Instead go to the altar of grace.
We have an altar. And there is food. And the food is grace - the grace of
forgiveness and the grace of hope. The only way to be strong is to come back to
this table again and again.
Feasting at the
Altar of Grace
I speak from some years of personal experience in
these things; there are many mornings when feasting at the altar of grace is
only way I survive. Sometimes the breakfast of grace has to replace the
breakfast of foods. When you are a leader, the heart must be strong. People turn
to you for help; they need answers to hard questions; and comfort in the midst
of grief; and guidance in perplexing decisions; and hope in the midst of
discouragement; and an ear for their disappointments or even their anger; and a
vision of God in the midst of darkness. The heart of a leader must be strong.
And so must yours. You are all ministers. And the
glory of Christianity is that we have an altar - we have an old rugged cross.
And there the Savior, Jesus Christ, serves inexhaustible helpings of grace. Do
you want your heart to be strong? Do you want to be a strong person who has the
resources to love each other, and take in strangers, and care for prisoners,
and stay married or single and (faithful) chaste, and not love money? Then stay
close to the altar and eat and eat and eat again - the grace of God.
The only strength that really matters in life is
the strength of heart that comes from feeding on grace and trusting in grace.
All the way through life, it is not health and physical strength that God
delights in. The Lord takes pleasure in those who hope in his grace (Psalm 147:11). And when we come to die, no
food and no diet will matter at all. One thing will matter: are we nourished at
the altar of grace?
Another Help to
Faith - Remembering Those Who Loved and Led Us
Now there is more help for us. Not only does this
writer tell us where grace is prepared, namely at the altar of the cross, he
also tell us how to keep faith in grace stirred up. He says in verse 7:
"Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and
considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is
the same yesterday and today and forever." This writer really believed in
the importance of heroes and models and biography (see chapter 11).
Not only should we remember that we have an altar
where we can find grace every day, but we should also remember people who
trusted that grace and loved and spoke to us the word of God. Remember them,
verse 7 says. Know some history - perhaps just your parents lives, or your
grandparents, or a pastor or a missionary. Or, even better know these familiar
ones, and then go to the wonderful biographies that tell the stories of those
who were leaders in the church and who spoke the word of God.
Specifically God says (in verse 7), look at the
result or outcome of their conduct. What does that mean? It's not just: Look at
their conduct. It's: Look at the outcome, literally, the exit of their way of life.
I think it means: Look at the whole course of their life, especially the end of
it. How did they run? Did they hold fast till the end? Did they finish well?
Did they do what this whole letter of Hebrews is written to help us do -
persevere to the end and be saved?
This is why dead heroes are more important than
living heroes. Living heroes are important, but they might cease to be heroes
before they die. They might let you down. Rather, he says, "remember"
- that's a word that reaches into the past. Remember those whose conduct you
can survey from beginning to end, and consider all of it - especially how it
ended.
Imitate (try to
be like) Their Faith
Why? Why this focus on human leaders who knew and
spoke the word of God? Was it so that you could copy their conduct? That's not
what the writer says. He says the reason is so that you will imitate their
faith. Verse 7: "Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to
you; and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith."
Not their conduct. If you try to imitate their
conduct, you become a religious fake, a spiritual counterfeit (fake). This is a
frightening reality when you see it - people who have learned the forms of
godliness and know nothing of the power that comes from genuine faith. Instead
he says: look at the whole course of their conduct and how they finished their
course, and get the same motor that made them what they were: their faith.
In what? The next verse says, "Jesus Christ
is the same yesterday and today and forever." Do you see the sequence of
his thought? In verse 7 he says "Remember leaders who in the past had
faith, and now in the present you imitate that very faith." Then in verse
8: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." Do you
see the point?
Jesus is the Same
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
They trusted Jesus in the past. Now you, today
and tomorrow, go on trusting Jesus. Why? Because Jesus is the same today when
you trust him and he will be the same tomorrow when you trust him.
But do you see what this implies about grace and
how it strengthens the heart? Something new is implied here that we didn't see
in verses 9-10. If Jesus were only important for what he did on the cross then
it wouldn't matter if he were the same today and tomorrow. All that would
matter is that the past work on the altar of the cross is still valid. Does the
blood still buy my forgiveness? But if Jesus is important not only because he
died once to forgive my sins, but also lives to be with me and help me in the next
two minutes and this afternoon and tomorrow, then everything hangs on whether
the Jesus alive today is the same as he was when he died for me on the altar.
And that is exactly what we saw he promised to be
last week: I will never leave you or forsake you (verse 5). The faith we are to
imitate is faith in future grace, not just past grace. Faith that the living
Jesus who helped yesterday will help today and tomorrow.
Grace of
Forgiveness and of Promised Help
When I wake up in the morning and feel guilty and
defiled because of yesterday's ugliness, and hopeless because of yesterday's
failure, my heart needs to be strengthened by two kinds of grace, not just one.
I need the grace of forgiveness based on a great past substitutionary sacrifice
on the cross, that covers all my sins. O, how precious! And I need the grace of
promised help from Jesus today and tomorrow.
If I can have forgiveness, and if I can have the
promise of omnipotent help from Jesus who is the same yesterday today and
forever, my heart will be strong, and I will be able to carry on another day.
Such is the glory of grace in the Christian life.
If you do not enjoy the forgiveness of your sins
or have hope that Jesus will give you all the help you need today and tomorrow,
then I invite you to turn from foods that cannot satisfy or help, and put your
trust in the grace of Jesus.
Dear Brother and
sister, I am on behalf of our church grateful to you for your prayer and love.
Please pray for us as mentioned verse 18 & 19.
And I pray for you according
to v. 21 “Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you
that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be
glory forever and ever. Amen
v. 25 “ Grace be with
you all. Amen”