Dennis Tuuri

The chant version from the song from Revelation that we sang at the beginning of the service. We practice this a little at camp. We’ll be singing it more in worship. It’s the last song, the last formal song of the Bible and it’s based explicitly on texts found in the book of Revelation. This is why we also tried to learn Exodus 15 at camp. This is the first song of the Bible and the song of Yahweh being a mighty warrior at the beginning and then at the end the honor that’s due to Jesus the Lamb for the victory he’s affected.

That victory we read about today in Hebrews 13. We’ll try to do as much as we can to attend to the scriptures in spite of the heat. Actually, it’s fairly comfortable up here. No coat on for the first time in a while. It’s a dry heat, right? Pray that we’re trying to get the air conditioning installed by this weekend. If everything comes together, that should happen. But please pray for that in the context of this week.

So today’s sermon text is Hebrews 13:10-14. There is a handout that has the text on it. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Hebrews 13:10-14. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate.

Therefore let us go forth to him outside the camp bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing city but we seek the one to come. Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for your scriptures. We thank you for this next few minutes that we spend together considering them. Thank you, Lord God, for the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ and his forward advance that’s portrayed for us here into all the world.

And we pray that you may empower us, Father, by the power of your Holy Spirit to go forth from this place committed to go forth to him bearing his reproach even as we advance in the context of our callings in this world. In Jesus’ name we ask it and for the sake of the manifestation of the advance of his kingdom, we pray. Amen. Please be seated.

Children, young children, we have no coloring page. I wanted to find a page that would have the cross outside of Jerusalem. Jesus dies outside of the city. So what I’ve given you instead on the last page is just some instructions for the little ones—parents, to guide them during the sermon—that maybe they could draw a city, some buildings, something, and then a cross outside. Jesus on the Mount of Olives outside of the city. And that really is what is described in the text for us today.

We’ve been talking in the context here. We have this unit bounded by the submission to God’s officers in the church and the teaching officers, the elders explicitly. And now there’s this subunit in the context of that. We’re at the very center of this whole section that we’ve been talking about for a couple of weeks now. And we’re getting now to the very heart of this section. We’ll continue the section next week with the next couple of verses. What is this altar that we serve at and how do we do that is described for us in verse 15 moving into 16. But this is the heart of the text and at the very heart of this text, this section in Hebrews is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on that cross right outside of the city.

That’s at the heart of this. Gate is a reference to the city and it’s related in the text to the camp. So I thought about this last night. I thought, you know, maybe one thing we could do as adults is think of the things that prevent us from going forth to him, bearing his reproach in our lives. What prevents us? What in the city lures us not to do that, but to, you know, obscure our witness or maybe not to follow him at all in certain areas of our lives? What is it that’s holding us to our cities, so to speak, our place of stability and strength?

And so we could all this week sort of have a coloring thing and think of things we could put in that city that prevents us, you know, from going forth to Christ. And that’s kind of, you know, it’s a pretty simple message at the heart of this text. It’s the basic message of discipleship of taking up our cross, being pilgrims, and going forward in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So there’s gospel at the heart of this text. There’s good news that Jesus, to sanctify us, to set us up as a people to serve God, right, to sanctify us as priests, has suffered on the cross and has accomplished the work of the Day of Atonement. So that’s the gospel at the heart. And then as we back out of the center of this text, we come to a response—our response to that gospel. But let’s talk about the gospel a little bit first.

And here, you know, we have to kind of think again with a whole Bible approach. What is he talking about here? Well, I use the word exposition of Leviticus 16. It’s not quite it. The connection here is this: at the heart is what does strengthen our hearts with grace, right? Not the food stuff that we talked about last week. So what is the means? What is that grace that strengthens our heart?

It’s the work of Jesus Christ at the center of the text. And to understand that, we have to understand that he’s making reference back to Leviticus 16:27. Leviticus 16 is talking about the great Day of Atonement. The day of atonement was the sixth in the seven feasts in Leviticus 23. And it was the day that atonement—it was a purification offering. It’s not an ascension offering. It’s not a peace offering. It’s not a tribute offering. The day of atonement is a purification offering.

So it’s the definitive purging away of the uncleanness, the sin, and the manifestations of death—the uncleanness that occurs to God’s people. So the day of atonement is the great thing that’s happened here. This is what’s being described in Leviticus 16 and that the author in Hebrews is making reference to.

In Leviticus 16:27, talking about the ritual for the day of atonement, it says the bull for the sin offering—that’s purification offering—and the goat for the sin offering, purification drawing near. Offering means we’re drawing near. We can’t draw near in an unclean state manifesting the fallen world. We have to draw near as new creations. We need to be purified from the past.

So this is what happens on the day of atonement. All this stuff builds up and once a year all the defilements, uncleanness and sins are rolled away from the people of God symbolically on the day of atonement. And Jesus has accomplished that definitively once for all. And so it’s wonderful news.

Okay. So on this day, these two animals or purification offerings whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place. Atonement means reconciliation of human and God—at-one-ment. So the blood of these animals has been shed, or rather brought into the holy place. The one time a year they got to go in to the very presence of God. Not anybody, not any priest. The high priest alone goes in with the blood of the purification offering and puts that blood on the altar.

But this describes what happens next. He—these animals shall be carried outside the camp and they shall burn in the fire. Their skins, their flesh, and their entrails, their insides. So this is a reference to what goes outside the camp. It’s the once-for-all offering of the day of atonement for that year. And it’s the work of the Lord Jesus Christ definitively purifying his people, rolling back the effects of the fall and preparing them as a new creation.

So this is what’s being referred to. Jesus Christ is crucified outside of the camp. So that’s what’s being talked about. And remember the context here is we have an altar that they have no right to eat at. Who are they? Well, they’re the ones who are serving at the tabernacle.

Why does he use tabernacle, by the way? And why does he use the camp? Well, remember that what’s going on in Hebrews is they’re getting ready to enter the promised land. In AD 70, right, they’re in the wilderness. They got to keep going. They don’t want to fall back through fear of the Jews into the old ways or they won’t enter into the promised land. They’re on the cusp. They’re three or four years out from the destruction of Jerusalem.

The definitive statement by God is it’s over for the temple. Horrible, this dispensational idea that we should rebuild the temple or participate in it or look forward to it in the future. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Sacred space is gone. The whole world is sacred now. And so that’s what’s going on here and that’s what’s being referenced.

So it’s wilderness language. It doesn’t say temple. Doesn’t say the courts of the temple. He uses tabernacle language and camp language because he’s reminding them: the whole idea is they’re in the wilderness and they’re about ready to enter the promised land.

Okay. So they have no right to eat from our altar. Those who serve at those altars—at the altar of the tabernacle, the priests, according to Leviticus 6:30, could not eat any of a purification offering. The priests got to eat some of the tribute offering and the peace offering. We got some of the peace offering, but not the purification offering. They couldn’t eat any of that.

So again, that’s what the author of the sermon to the Hebrews is picking up on. Those guys couldn’t eat the great moment, the great sacrifice that would be producing people who are set apart, ready to draw near to God in service. So that’s what’s being talked about here. There’s a reference to—not an exposition maybe, but it’s the fulfillment of the type pictured in the Old Testament.

And Jesus now has gone outside of the camp, outside of the city, literally out there on the Mount of Olives to the east to make atonement and to usher in the new creation, the definitive removal of the effects of the old.

But there’s another reference going on here as well. Back before the tabernacle, there were really three tabernacles in the Old Testament and a temple. There was a tabernacle of David. We know about that. Then there was the tabernacle which was carried about in the wilderness. But before the tabernacle was constructed, there was another tabernacle, another tent. And we read about it in Exodus 32 and 33.

And here’s basically what’s going on. Moses is coming back and getting the law of God, the Ten Commandments. And we know that what’s happening in that in the camp is that they’re sitting with the golden calf. And so Moses comes down. And we read in Exodus 32:25 or 26, Moses stood in the entrance of the camp—the gate of the camp, I think, is the King James put it. So this camp and gate stuff in the middle of our Hebrews text at the very heart of this narrative—it’s all sort of right here.

Moses stands in the entrance or gate of the camp and says, “Whoever’s on the Lord’s side, come to me.” And then he commands the Levites to start killing people and specifically to kill members of their own family that are sinning with the golden calf. The Levites gather to him, it says, and it says explicitly, “Let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.”

You know, if they’re sinning and they won’t stop, all sin—you got to kill them. So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And about 3,000 men of the people fell that day.

Well, we heard about 3,000 men a couple weeks ago, didn’t we? Remember Pentecost Sunday? 3,000 people are converted in the preaching on Pentecost Sunday, the first Pentecost, the fulfillment of the Pentecost. And remember that Moses is coming down from getting the law. And that getting of the law was what was observed at Pentecost. It’s been 50 days—later. And Moses now has received the law. So this is Pentecost in this in Exodus 32.

And on that Pentecost when they received the law, 3,000 people were killed by Levitical ministers—using spears. And now we come forward to the culmination of Pentecost. 3,000 people are converted by Levitical ministers, not of the tribe of Levi, but by the apostles and the disciples. Now using the tongue—you know, the sword that comes out of their mouth to kill men, so to speak, and bring them to resurrection.

So there’s continuity, but there’s discontinuity. What’s happened now is the fulfillment has happened, and we’re not going to have physical effects. We’re going to have manifestations of new men being new creatures.

So that connects up, but this is the first time that there is an “outside of the camp.” And then, yeah, God blesses them and he says, “Consecrate yourselves today for the Lord, that he may bestow on you a blessing this day, for every man has opposed his son and his brother.”

So you know, the ultimate call is to go against your family if necessary for the cause—the greater cause of the glory of God. And this goes on and then in Exodus 33, what happens in verse 7 and 33, continuing this narrative.

Moses took his tent, his tabernacle, and pitched it outside the camp far from the camp and called it the Tabernacle of Meeting. This is the first tabernacle. It’s not the tabernacle we think of. It’s not the tabernacle, but it’s the first one. And it’s outside of the camp. And this Moses calls the Tabernacle of Meeting.

It came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out of the camp to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. The text explicitly tells us they went to God outside the camp. So it was whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, all the people rose and each man stood, etc. Verse 11: So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend and he would return to the camp. Moses would, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.

So and here out there at that tabernacle meeting, God tells Moses, “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” So, you know, if we’re understanding the typology, if we’re understanding what’s happening here, we have to understand what happened back there. And what happened back there was the definitive work of approaching God was leaving behind an idolatrous city or camp, right, to meet with God.

But now we’re meeting with God face to face. Moses—we’re in the presence of God and he’s going to lead those who come outside of the camp into battle into the promised land.

So some very obvious connections here with our text to the Hebrews and implications for our lives as well.

So you’ve got this imagery going on. At the heart of the narrative is this exposition of the day of atonement and drawing in the narrative from Exodus 33 that reminds us that what we’re having is not an advance and then we’re going to come back in. It’s an advance. It’s going out to the presence of God who will be with us and meet with us and prepare us then to be the people empowered by the spirit to go into the world, go into the promised land and conquer in the name of Yahweh.

So that’s what’s going on at the heart. But at the very heart—at the very heart of this text—is the person and work of Jesus again. So the bodies of those animals were burned outside the camp and then verse 12, the very heart: therefore Jesus also, that he might perfect, sanctify the people, prepare them to serve him as priests with his own blood suffered outside the gate.

The priest couldn’t eat of this meal but now we’re all priests and we all get to partake of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Lord’s day in the supper. So Jesus and his work outside the camp is the very heart of the text.

So it’s gospel. It’s good news that Jesus Christ suffered for sins. Jesus died paying the price for sins as the full accomplishment of the day of atonement. So Jesus takes upon himself the charge of blasphemy. That’s what he was charged with. And according to the law of God in Leviticus 24:10-16, a guy—a part of the Egyptian mixed multitude—blasphemes God. In verse 14 of Leviticus 24, it says, “Take outside the camp him who has cursed. Let all you who heard him lay their hands on him and kill him.”

So outside of the camp is a reference to what Jesus was charged with. And so there’s kind of a double thing going on here. We know that he’s innocent. We know the charge was bogus. But we also know that the gospel is that he took upon himself our shame, our reproach, for our sins, our curse—to take the blasphemer outside the camp, to take the two animals outside the camp, to take the Sabbath breaker in Numbers outside the camp and stone him. It’s a place of shame, it’s a place of, you know, mockery and curse.

So Jesus, at the heart of the text, it’s a reminder that Jesus suffered that curse for us. We’re the ones who are blasphemers. We’re the ones who violate what God tells us to do in terms of worship and the rest of life. And Jesus has paid the price for that. Outside the camp, becoming cursed, hanging on a tree.

But here in this emphasis here, outside the camp, it’s gospel. But of course, we know that he wasn’t guilty of blaspheming nor Sabbath breaking, even though they charged him with those things. So he’s accomplished salvation for us. At the heart of the narrator, Jesus—that name that reminds us—is the name of the incarnated Son of God, our savior. You name him Jesus because he shall save his people.

At the heart of this narrative from Hebrews is the work, the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ—dying for us, going out of the city as a malefactor, as a sinner. He bore all the reproach that was due to the sins of us, his people. So praise God. At the heart of the narrative there is the gospel—that Jesus died for sinners, died for his church.

So that’s the heart. That’s the gospel. That’s the message. Jesus has done that for us. And then he’s going to give us what our response to that should be. And he begins to set us up for it by the motivation here. Why? Why did Jesus do this?

This—the heart of the text tells us that he did this in order to sanctify a people. So to prepare us for the next call, the next verse, the response to the gospel, he tells us that the purpose of all this was that he would sanctify a people.

Remember in Hebrews, the Old Testament couldn’t definitively, perfectly sanctify a people, but Jesus’s work did that. And explicitly over and over again in Hebrews, we’re told that what that means is not just being set apart, but rather being prepared for priestly service so that we can go into the presence of God. We can go into the Holy of Holies. We can go with Moses outside the camp, be in the face-to-face presence of God. His presence is with us, preparing us for service.

The cleansing ritual prepares the priestly nation. The day of atonement did for its work in the next year. And so what Jesus did—the whole purpose according to the center of this text—the purpose was that he might make us a priestly people who will be those who serve him and live in the context of his presence with us.

Hebrews 9:14: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. So the cleansing, the sanctification, is for the purpose that we serve God with all of our lives.

The Lord Jesus, as John Owen in his commentary says, out of his incomprehensible love for his people would spare nothing, avoid nothing, deny nothing that was needful under the sanctification, the reconciliation and dedication unto God. At the heart of the text is the good news that we are a redeemed people and we can serve God because of the salvific work of the Lord Jesus Christ in dying for us on that cross outside the camp, rather.

That’s what the heart of the text is.

Now the gospel is the heart, but the gospel never stands alone. It requires a response. If we believe that gospel then it’s going to mean something in the context of our lives. And here in the next verse we read, therefore, so he’s told us about Leviticus 16 and Exodus 32 and 33, he’s told us about the Lord Jesus. For this purpose he has done this definitively once for all. So what’s the proper response?

He tells us: therefore let us go forth to him outside the camp bearing his reproach.

So there is a required response to this gospel that demonstrates our belief in what Jesus has accomplished for us. Just like the sacrificial animals were burned outside the camp, Jesus went outside the camp. Just as the offering on the day of atonement was a sin offering purifying the people, Jesus on the great day of atonement 2,000 years ago affected our definitive sanctification, removing our sins so that we could serve God.

So our response is then to let us go forth. Let us go forth. You know, I thought about this for the last week. Camp, gate, camp. Very hard. Why is it laid out that way? Camp, gate, camp. Camp, gate, camp. I was thinking over and over. Well, probably lots of reasons. One, as I said, is that camp is used to remind us that they’re in a wilderness situation, but they’re also in a city situation. The gate is the gate of the city.

And so on your outline, I’ve got: we’re to go forth from a camp or city into the world, the new Jerusalem. What do I mean? Well, the camp was originally the place that was sanctified, set apart for access to God. The tabernacle was holy space, right? Sacred space. Then when they get into the promised land, the temple now becomes sacred space.

But after they have to leave there because of their sin—Jonah’s message, right? They’re going to be cast into the sea into the Gentiles nations. But for what purpose? To save the world, to save Nineveh. So they’re taken out in the exile. And then they’re brought back in the restoration. Right? Five or six centuries before Jesus, there’s this restoration. And when they come back into the promised land, the entire city, Jerusalem, you see, is now a sanctified place.

The tabernacle has grown into the temple. The temple will exist in the context of the city, but the city itself is a sanctified place. How do we know this? Couple of things we know. One, the measurements of the city are given. Now, it may not seem like a big deal to you, but in the Old Testament, the things that were measured were sacred space. You define out what they are, and that defines a sacred space that’s set apart to God in a special way.

So the city itself, like the tabernacle and temple, have dimensions. Now, but even a stronger line of evidence is that when Nehemiah rebuilds the city, right, he doesn’t build the temple. Nehemiah rebuilds the city gates and then he has the Levites come and the priests and they sanctify, they consecrate or dedicate the walls of the city.

Now that’s language that’s, you know, given over to the sanctification of the altar, sanctification of the tabernacle, of the temple. But now all of Jerusalem becomes a sanctified place. There’s prayers of consecration and dedication of the walls of the city.

Well, now so the tabernacle is blown up into the temple. Bigger, better. The temple is blown up into a city. Bigger, better. But now the city is going to blow up and now the whole world is sacred space for God. That’s what’s going on. You know, we don’t want anymore to think in terms of sacred space. They did for a while, but that was to the end that God might show us that the movement of history as we leave, you know, the idea that sacred space exists in one location on the earth.

And now we see that the gospel—like the new wine—has burst the wine skins and the entire purpose of all of this movement of history is that the entire world become the sacred space now for Jesus. That’s why we go forth. We go into all the world. It’s all sacred space. The new Jerusalem covers the whole world. See, that’s kind of the idea of it in its description.

So we go forth into this. Now, to get there, to get into that, we have to leave behind some things. We go forth away from some things. And we’d already been set up for this in Hebrews. He’d already told them they had to be pilgrims.

In Hebrews 11:8, by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going. Abraham led out. We’re called. At the heart of this application in this section of Hebrews is the gospel. And the correct response to the gospel message is a consecration of our lives as pilgrims—to leave places of security and past and all that stuff and to go into all the world. Not to cloister up but to spread out as influence in the context of the world.

Now, we go out away from the idea of sacred space, away from the idea that there’s just one little place now that’s holy before God and a recognition that the gospel—what happens in the temple. Temple has a wash basin in the front of it, right? The tabernacle does. You got to wash your hands as a priest before you can serve God.

And then that wash basin in Solomon’s temple became water chariots. You know, it’s these things that have motion in the architecture. So that the idea is that cleansing, purification, the day of atonement work will go out into all the world at some point. And then in Ezekiel’s vision, he sees the water coming out of the temple flooding the whole world.

So the whole world now is God’s temple. And we’re to go into all the world as pilgrims following and consecrated to Jesus. We go forth to him. Okay?

So the application, the response is to go forth, but we go forth not just willy-nilly. We go forth to Jesus where he leads. Jesus is at the heart of this. He’s our savior and he is seen as advancing. Remember, you know, the Exodus 32 and 33—the whole point of going outside the camp was to be in the presence of God and God was going to lead us forth into the promised land in victory.

So we go to Jesus and Jesus is an advancing savior. He’s not a retreating savior. He’s advancing. He’s claiming all the earth as his possession by the power of the spirit. We go forth to Jesus.

The text then says outside the camp or the city. We’ve got to leave certain things behind. We have to leave secure, respectable, congenial past things behind. I mean it was not easy. Jerusalem—it’s not easy to leave any city, particularly the holy city.

What do you think about it? You know, if you go out on your own camping and you’re in the middle of nowhere, it’s a little dicey, particularly these days when culture’s gone more and more away from Jesus. You know, it’s scary for the kids. A lot of those eyes out there in the dark and it’s kind of scary for us. Well, we hear these tales of people, you know, being slaughtered and you just—it’s kind of frightening to be out on your own, away from the city.

The city is a place of—well, it’s supposed to be a place of safety. Even worse than the city, I suppose, think of the city as our suburbs. You got to leave the established secure places of the suburbs. As Owen again put it in his commentary: all privileges and advantages, whatever are to be foregone, parted with all and renounced which are inconsistent with an interest in Christ and a participation of him, as our apostle shows at large in Philippians 3 and other places.

So we’re to leave forth anything that holds us from following the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s on that drawing for the kids. You know, what keeps you from following Jesus? And Jesus wants us in response to the wonderful preaching of the gospel of his fulfillment of the Day of Atonement to commit ourselves afresh when we come forward to follow Jesus aggressively into the world, leaving behind the things that would prevent us from following Jesus.

We’re to bear his reproach. The text concludes with bearing his reproach. So we go forth. We’re advancing to Jesus who is moving us ahead. We’re leaving behind some degree of security and stability, things that might impact us and keep us from following Jesus. And when we do that, the central call of discipleship—again here as it is in the gospels—is bearing the reproach of the Lord Jesus Christ, bearing the cross of our savior.

Let everyone take up his cross daily, Jesus said, and follow me. You get up in the morning, you take up that cross of self-denial. You take up the cross of being willing to suffer reproach, shame, ridicule, hatred, whatever it is—distance, absence, loss of friendship, loss of family, relationships, etc. Whatever it is that would keep you from following Jesus, that’s what you to go forth from and be willing to bear the reproach of the Savior.

We bear the reproach of humble, self-effacing servants. That’s a reproach. We don’t go forward, you know, being wanting to lord it over people. We go forward as servants. And the servants were seen in most periods of culture as a horrible thing. James B. Jordan was saying that McDonald’s has transformed Eastern Europe primarily, and there’s a book about this about service with a smile. This is a new concept because in power cultures dominated by communists, etc., it’s all about power. It’s all making other people serve you.

But in the Christian faith, no, it’s a reproach to be seen as a servant by those who think that’s silly. But that’s the role we take up. We take up the reproach of humble, self-effacing service. We take up the reproach of witness to an angry, truth-suppressing murderer. What do I mean by that?

Well, why don’t we want to talk about Jesus? Well, you know, people make fun of us. They’ll mock us, but some people will hate us. Because you know when we remind them about Jesus, we’re reminding them about the one who was crucified. And the truth is they know about that. The truth is they are actively suppressing the truth of God and unrighteousness. Romans 1. And when you talk, you name the name Jesus to them, they tune into that and they have a strong negative response.

Yeah, maybe because Christians, you know, aren’t very good at what they’re doing sometimes. But primarily the reason you suffer reproach for using that name is because fallen man hates you bringing up Jesus to him. That’s why they hate Christian involvement in politics. Whatever it is, they hate it because they don’t want the claims of Christ articulated to them. They’re murderers. They’re the ones who killed Jesus ultimately. I suppose we could say we all did.

That’s what we want to do is suppress the truth of God and righteousness. Kill Jesus. Get rid of him. Put him off to the side so that we can be at peace without him. And we bring all that message back—that Jesus is the savior and that there’s sinful people. So we bear the reproach of witness to the angry, truth-suppressing murderers.

We bear the reproach of Jesus. Piper on the outline I’ve got this here says that we should move toward need and not comfort. That’s what Piper’s exegesis of this is. We bear the reproach of Jesus by moving toward need as opposed to our own personal comfort. And he preached a sermon about this and it was a call to missions. I mean foreign missions work. And at the bottom of today’s outline, you know, Voice to the Martyrs. How can we bear the reproach of Jesus denying comfort and looking instead pointing toward need?

And there’s some ways we can do that. I’ve listed at the bottom of the text: service opportunities. All Christians should be doing something, some kind of self-effacing service to the broader body of Christ that involves potentially some degree of reproach to them and mission and commitment to leave what’s comfortable. In other words, we leave our own reproach, our own area or city of comfort as we move forward following Jesus. And that’s a perfectly good application to make of the text.

There are others as I’m going to point out, but that’s an important one. You know, even if you don’t get mocked working with the Voice of the Martyrs or pregnancy resource centers or supporting work going out in Russia or Poland or Albania or India or wherever it is, you may not get mocked directly for that stuff, but see what you’re doing is Piper was trying to point out is you’re leaving your comfort space and you’re doing something a little less comfortable. You’re serving need. You’re looking for Jesus to show you what an area of need might be that might cost you something.

It may cost you your city, your established pace, your place of peace and affluence to do this, but that’s what you do anyway. And a perfectly good application of this text.

At times we leave, we suffer the reproach of Jesus from the institutional church. That’s what’s going on immediately here, right? The reproach that they’re getting in the Hebrews are getting is from Jews who rejected Jesus. And so sometimes you have to break with liberal churches or sometimes you have to go follow Jesus that will bring reproach upon you for your following of Christ from the institutional church itself and even from the reformed church.

You know, paedocommunion is working its way through the reformed churches. It’s a little leaven that God inserted into the lump. It’s having an effect. It changes the way faith is defined. It’s not an intellectual set of adult, you know, assertion or agreement with propositions. Faith is more trust, a simple trust of people that trust Jesus.

And so this is working its way through, but not without some degree of conflict. And this past week, as I understand it, there were public statements made by a representative of the OPC to the PCA saying, “We’re going to work with you to fight against these people. We fought against abortionists. We’re going to help you fight against these people.”

So, you know, people that affirm paedocommunion and the implications of the theology based on that are now being lumped in the same presentation with abortionists. So there’s a suffering reproach for the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this shouldn’t surprise us. Worship always sort of is what’s difficult. And for how many years? For how many years now? Decades—have the simple message been that our worship should look like biblical worship. We should sing psalms. We should have the Lord’s supper every week. We should have our children at the supper. We ought to use wine. The simple things that Jesus said about worship. And yet the institutional church kind of rebels against that. Stiffens its neck against it.

It’s always been thus. Change is difficult. Even within, you know, institutions that are dominated by Christians. There’s a bearing of reproach that’s necessary at times from the institutional church. There’s a bearing of reproach at times from the pagan culture around us. Of course, I mean earlier again in the hall of faith, we were told that uh Moses chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasure of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward.

Do we do that? You know, do we esteem the suffering of Christ have higher value than the riches of Egypt? Would we rather be comfortable in our, you know, high-income jobs with our high-income homes watching high-income television and entertainment and never really go out there and talk to people about Jesus Christ or maybe not threaten our position at work with an overt witness to Christ?

Are we willing to turn if necessary? You know, all that stuff’s good. High-paying jobs influence the culture. If you’re doing it for Jesus, if you’re following Jesus, if you’re being willing to accomplish that, suffering the reproach of him. Yeah, it’s great stuff to do. But how easy it is for the tantalizing taste, smells, and sights of Egypt to prevent us from bearing reproach for the Savior.

They already knew. They’d already been told. There was a guy that had to turn his back on an apostate world. You know, this world will not love you for expressing and confessing Jesus Christ in all that you do and say, but it’s still more valuable to us or should be than all the riches of Egypt. So we suffer from them if need be. We suffer also at times reproach from parents or children.

That’s what happened at the camp in Exodus 32 and in Matthew 10:37 and 38, Jesus said, “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. He who does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”

Wow. All this links together. If you’re not willing for the cause of Christ to break with idolatrous family members, you will stay in that city that’s going to be destroyed by the judgments of God. But if you’re willing to suffer the reproaches of Christ from family members for calling them to account for their idolatrous rejection of Christ, you can suffer reproach from them. You’re going to be doing it in the presence of God and you’re going to be moving into the future.

We move into the world. We leave the past behind. We move into the future as we bear and we must do this bearing the reproach of Christ. No matter if it’s family or the pagan culture or the institutional church, whatever it is who might cause us to bear reproach. It always involves a cross. This is a call to discipleship in response to the gospel of Christ.

And that call to discipleship is always about picking up our cross and following him.

Moby Dick—Melville wrote his great Old Testament book—and the preacher gets up in the bow of the ship moving forward into new waters, right? And then he pulls up the ladder so that nobody can stop him from preaching the word of God and he tells him about the story of Jonah. God gave Jonah a hard thing to do, brothers. It was a hard thing to do. And it really was a hard thing to do.

What God requires us of us is always hard. As the preacher in Moby Dick said because it involves a denial of ourselves. It involves a taking up of a cross—always does.

Hebrews 12:2 well, the gospel passage I just read that we’re to take up our cross and follow Christ. Hebrews 12:2 we’re to look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Matthew 8:34 when he had called the people to himself and his disciples also. We go outside the camp. We go to be with Jesus. What does he tell us there? He says to them, “Whoever desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Whoever desires to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me, listen brothers and sisters and little children, whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him, the Son of Man also will be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

We live in like times and ultra sinful world that’s rejected Christ. And to be take up our cross and follow him means denying ourselves. And beyond that, it means being willing to suffer the reproaches of the cross from the culture round about us.

Now, I’m preaching to the choir here because this church was established by men and women who took up their cross, followed Jesus, had great personal sacrifice, and did some stuff that drew reproach upon us. Did it not? I mean, when you had more than whatever it was 2.3 children in the 80s you suffered the reproach of Christ and I suppose it is that way to this day when you decide to have more than a couple of kids when you decide to have six, seven, eight, nine or ten, this culture will mock you and reproach you worse then. I think the whole thing was you’re eating up all the world’s goods with all those terrible children. In actuality you’re producing the capital to run that world and produce the food.

But reproach and you had to you had to bear the reproach of the world. You also—many of us, many of us had to bear the reproach of our families, our parents. Another child in the way. Oh, well gosh, that’s too bad. You know, gee, do you know what causes that to happen, young people? Yeah, we do. And we’re we’re following Jesus into the future. We’re creating, you know, people to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then, not only did we have a bunch of kids, we decided not to send them down to PS48, public school 48. Now, that really ticked our parents off because all of them went there. And what you’re telling them is that wasn’t a very good thing to do to send us to public school. And we weren’t saying it in a mean way. Hopefully, some of us didn’t or some might have. But you see, it involved—whenever we do these things, following Jesus will inevitably produce a degree of conviction even on Christians round about us who are trying to defend what they did as Christians.

And of course, the salvation of this culture is linked to education, the public education system. That’s what it is. It remains that to this day. It’s stronger than ever. Even the Republicans want to keep the public schools going more than they did 20 years ago, I think. So it’s still a reproach. You’re going to teach them at home. What in the world are you thinking of? You know what I’m talking—older folks?

We suffered reproach from the culture. I mean, in the beginning, back before we changed the laws, you know, a lot of people, we felt we should homeschool them inside the house. Couldn’t let them outside ‘cuz people would see them. They’d call the authorities on us. We were on a block where there was a public school teacher. Man, she hated us. Hated us. Would not even look at my wife. Just turned her back on her because we had several children and we were homeschooling them.

We bear those reproach for the cause of Christ.

Jesus says, “That’s okay. If you’re going into the permanent city, you’re leaving behind the one that’s going to be destroyed.”

Brad Hangardner suffered the reproach, no doubt, of many people for many years because he turned his back on Egypt’s indebtedness, long-term indebtedness, and tried to create a situation where he could get into a house debt-free and he lives in a little tiny trailer. I’ll bet you whether now they got great extended family, so maybe they didn’t get reproached by them, but you know, if you do that kind of a thing and try to live debt-free, your family, you’re living in a mobile home, a little trailer, what’s that?

You know, you make good money. Yeah, I’m making good money. I’m going to save it up and have a nice house eventually. Long-term perspective on all these issues brought upon us reproach and I’m saying that this is what we got to keep doing. Now some people are suffering reproach. I don’t know if I should say it or not. I think I will. You know, now you know you suffer reproach for maybe sending your child to a private school instead of a home school or maybe you suffer reproach for homeschooling your child when a great private school might be available.

We shouldn’t do this. We have to suffer the reproach of the world, okay, and from parents who have, you know, one leg in the old world that’s being that’s going away. Let’s not cause each other to suffer reproach for doing different means to accomplish the basic principle of raising a generation for the Lord Jesus Christ. No, you shouldn’t do that.

We suffer reproach—debt, lots of kids, leaving the public schools, having a commitment to educate them, all kinds of things we can think about. And this church was founded by people like that. This church was founded by pilgrims who moved out of what was comfortable and moved ahead and suffered reproach in all kinds of ways and continue to for that reason.

And so the message to you is keep doing it. Don’t grow weary. Don’t fade back now that we’re grandparents. Don’t you do that. Young people, understand what we tried to give you. This idea of pilgrimage, going forth, bearing the reproach of Christ, taking up your cross. Mom has to work hard to do that all day long. Much easier to sit at home doing nothing, send the kids off to the public school or the private school, you know, yeah, much easier to just do nothing.

But no, we’re called to self-sacrificial service, denying ourself, taking up our cross, suffering the reproach of Jesus if need be. Praise God for it. That’s what this is a call to. It’s a call to discipleship.

Now, there’s an assurance at the end, too. The heart’s the gospel. The response is discipleship. It’s pilgrimage discipleship. Being willing to suffer for the Lord Jesus Christ, taking up our cross, and then there’s an insurance and a promise given to us. God is so wonderful. He gives us the great gospel before he tells us what we should be doing. And then he gives us tremendous assurance.

Verse 14: Here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Here we have no permanent, established place city, but we intently are working toward the one that’s coming. Now, in its ultimate sense, yeah, this is talking about heaven and all that, and we intently move toward that throughout all of our lives. That’s fine. But remember the immediate context.

We have no permanent city in Jerusalem. In fact, it will be torn apart brick by brick and people will be slaughtered and blood will be running through the streets. There’s no permanent city there. But we do seek intently the one to come. With that destruction of Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem. Hebrews already has told us that we come in worship to that new Jerusalem. It’s not totally pushed off in the future. Its advent is approaching and it approached in a very definitive way in AD 70. Began to grow to fill the whole world.

So don’t ultimatize this too much. God says we’re to intently seek. They were looking right away and pointing towards something that would happen in three or four years, and it’s here now for them. And see, it’s a reminder to us.

I said that I said that Moses stood in the gate, right, of the camp and said, “Kill him. Start up the judgment.”

Well, listen to what Jesus says. Luke 23:26-31. Luke 23. As they led him away, they told of a certain man Simon of Cyrene who was coming from the country and on him they laid the cross that he might bear it after Jesus. So they’re leading Jesus out of the city and here comes a guy in from the country. So this is liminal space between city and country. And the way it’s setting it up is he’s kind of at the gate of the city. We can think verse 27:

A great multitude of the people followed after him and women who also mourned and lamented him. But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem.”

So he’s in this liminal space between city and country. He’s on his way out of the city. We could say he’s at the gate. He’s at the liminal doorway passageway. And he says, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me. Weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed.’ Then they will begin to say, ‘To the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us. For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?’”

Jesus is saying, “Hey, it’s okay out here. It’s okay outside of the city.” And in fact, what you really ought to be thinking about is I’m Moses again in the gate of your camp. You’ve become idolatrous. You’re now fit for nothing but destruction. Fire, brimstone is going to come down on this city. Weep for yourselves. He’s saying—he announces to them the judgment on that city.

And and brothers and sisters, listen to me now. It’s hard to bear reproach. It’s hard to deny ourselves. It’s hard to be a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ in the kind of culture that we have. But understand, there’s nothing to go back to. Whatever it is that we put into that drawing of the city that makes us comfortable, that makes it hard for us to serve Jesus. Whatever that is, Hebrews says it is being shaken and will be destroyed.

And the picture of that is the city that’s going to go away. There’s nothing there. Whatever is luring you back to stability and contentment and permanence, it’s a deceptive illusion because God says the only thing that’s being established firmly, the only place of stability and permanency, the only continuing city is this new Jerusalem, the city of God that we go forth to Jesus in the context of and that’s now filling the world.

There’s nothing to go back to and there is everything in front of us. The future is bright in front of us. It is a heavenly bright city. It’s not like the dark city.

We’ve been thinking about this movie dark city. You know, it’s interesting. Jordan was talking about we go to death end of each day darkness and then light. Dark, light. We lie down at night. We get up light. New day. God’s rearranged the world. Things are different. He’s rearranged us.

Dark city. Aliens are in control of this vessel. People go, the city goes dark every night. And they tune the city. They change the structures, the setting, the rooms, everything changes. And they inject memories into the heads of everybody. I got up this last week channeling Richard. And I didn’t even know I dreamed about him until I started to act like him. I did some expression. Then I realized I dreamt about Richard last night.

You know, God puts us into each other’s dreams. Hopefully in a nice holy way. That’s what it was. It was a nice conversation with Richard in my dream. It’s all the way. So but God does this. We lay down. The world is transformed. We have dreams. Those dreams are frightening to people because they don’t believe that God is in control.

If you don’t have a sovereign God—God. If you’ve got some kind of weird coincidences that are always going on, then you’re dark city. You live in fear and darkness of forces around you that you do not understand, but you know are controlling you.

But if you know that God is sovereign and he’s called you for his own, Jesus has shed his blood for you and made you a servant of his, then the darkness of night, we know it’s a time when God will change the world around us. His mercies are new every day. And whatever he’s doing to us while we sleep, it’s for the purpose of motivating and moving us and maturing us ahead.

You see, we can rest. It’s scary going into the future. It’s scary going into the darkness of the unknown. It’s scary leaving the city for the wilderness. But God says, “That’s where I am. I’m the light there. I’m controlling everything.” Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Be confident that this is a city of light.

May we never be so afraid of the consequences that we become ashamed of Jesus.

Somehow there’s a great song written by a mechanic by the way. Guy who fixed cars back in the 1700s or vehicles of some sort, buggies, I suppose, not cars. He was a mechanic of some type. And he in the mid-1700s wrote this song. The lyrics go:

Jesus, and shall it ever be, a mortal man ashamed of thee, ashamed of thee, whom angels praise, whose glory shine through endless days?

Ashamed of Jesus? Just as soon let midnight be ashamed of noon. Midnight with my soul till he bright morning star bids darkness flee, ashamed of Jesus? Soon or far, let evening blush to own a star. He shed the beams of light divine or this be nighted soul of mine.

Ashamed of Jesus, that dear friend on whom my hopes of heaven depend? No—when I blush be this my shame I won’t no more revere his name. Ashamed of Jesus? Yes, I may. When I no guilt to wash away, no tear to wipe, no good to crave, no fears to quell, no soul to save.

Ashamed of Jesus, empty pride. I’ll boast a savior crucified. And oh may this my portion be: my savior not ashamed of me.

Let’s pray.

Lord God, help us to go forth from this place today into the bright future into this world outside of the places of comfort. Help us Lord God to be brave and courageous knowing your great love for us. The picture of that love at the center of this text—Jesus bearing shame and reproach outside the camp to sanctify us as your servant people. May we be that with Jesus’ name on our lips today and into this week, Lord God. May we not be ashamed of him. And may we, Lord God, enter into our rest with him saying, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

In Jesus’ name we ask. Amen.