Hebrews 13:1-25

Three Things

In the closing chapter of Hebrews the writer covers quite a bit of ground and says some striking things that are well known, though we don’t always think of them as being from this book. Today we will touch on three of these things.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Jesus Himself said that you cannot serve both God and Mammon. Here the writer says flat out, “Don’t love money.” Why? Because you have God. You can love your family and love God. You can love your dog, or trees, or the ocean, or sunsets, or music and love God. But apparently when it comes to money a line is drawn. You must choose: God or Money? You can love God and have money but you can’t love money and have God.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. That pretty much says it all. To those who claim that He doesn’t do the things today He did in the past we say, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” To those who try to claim that Jesus Christ isn’t really God we remind them that there is only one unchanging I AM, and yes, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” To those who think that while He was willing to accept them long ago but that now they have gone too far astray and done too much wrong we say, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. In Romans we are told to offer our bodies as living sacrifices. We often think of that as the real deal and this “sacrifice of praise” thing as second rate. No way! In fact, what we think of as a living sacrifice may at times be no more than fleshly displays. A sacrifice of praise is in fact an integral part of being a living sacrifice. 

As a pastor I often look out over the congregation and see people pouring their hearts out in worship whom I know are going through extremely difficult times and trials. It never fails to move me so I can only imagine how it must be viewed by God. Not surprisingly these are also people who have learned to love God instead of money and people who know that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever.