Love Among God’s People

Transcript

GR 1724
05/11/2014
Love among God's People
Hebrews 13:1-3
Gil Rugh

I direct your attention to Hebrews 13, the last chapter of the letter to the Hebrews. It is the fullest and clearest unfolding of the finished work of Christ on the cross that we have in Scripture. He has worked through the details of the person of Christ and the work of Christ, demonstrated that all the focus of God down through history was on this one event—the sacrifice of His Son who came to the earth for the express purpose of dying on the cross. Jesus said during His earthly ministry that He came “to give His life as a ransom for many,” and the book of Hebrews has been unfolding the importance of this because as so often happens people begin to trust their religious activity and think that is what is pleasing to God. And some of these Jews thought that going back into Judaism and obeying the Law and the Ten Commandments, observing and honoring the priests associated with the Mosaic Law would be pleasing to God. The writer to the Hebrews makes clear there is only one sacrifice pleasing to God. There is only one high priest who can represent a human being before God, and that is God's only Son. There is only one way to become a child of God and that is through faith in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross. That is foundational to everything. There are only two ways, Jesus said, a broad way and a narrow way—a broad way on which many are traveling that ends in an eternal hell and a narrow way that you enter through a narrow gate and that is faith in Him alone.

That's what the book of Hebrews has been about. We're going to talk about love and love among God's people. We have to put it in the context. Hebrews has unfolded the love of God in providing salvation through His Son. Paul wrote to the Romans and said, “this is the great demonstration of love in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. For God so loved the world, John 3:16, that He gave His only begotten Son in order that whosoever believes in Him might not perish but have everlasting life. “ Everything focuses in Jesus Christ and what He has done. The book of Hebrews has unfolded that, and that has been clear and strong in warning of the serious, dire consequences of failing to trust in Christ, the serious, dire consequences of being confused and thinking that you can obey parts of the Bible and be very religious and be acceptable to God.

Back up to Hebrews 10. Throughout this rather extensive letter there are a series of warnings given. One of these warnings which we have reviewed a number of times is found in Hebrews 10:26, for “if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth.” The point is if you continue to refuse to place your faith in Jesus Christ after you have been told about Him, “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” He is the only sacrifice for sins acceptable to God. If you refuse to believe in Him, there is no other sacrifice for sins. What awaits you, verse 27, is “a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.” Summarize it, all that awaits you is an eternal hell, which we have seen in Revelation 20. It's called the “lake of fire where people will be separated from God for all eternity.” Serious matter.
Come over to Hebrews 12:25, another warning. “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking.” It is a serious matter to turn your back on God, to close your ears to what He is saying, to refuse to listen. The example is those in prior history under the Mosaic Law, the Ten Commandments who did not obey God, suffered the penalty of death. And yet the warning is, verse 26, “there is coming a time when there is going to be a shaking of heaven and earth.” And we saw similar to what we talk about, “things will shake out,” God is going to shake out every person who has never come to trust in is salvation. They will come under His eternal judgment.

In that context of promising eternal glory and eternal blessing because believers in, Hebrews 12:22, “have come to Mt. Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, myriads of angels, the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven to God the judge of all, the spirits of righteous men made perfect, Jesus the mediator of the New Covenant to sprinkled blood which speaks better than the blood of Abel. It is a saving death and our destiny is the glory of the presence of God in the New Jerusalem.” What a contrast. Eternal condemnation in hell, an eternal glory in a city and we saw its description in Revelation 21. Glorious beyond our ability to comprehend.

So in light of that the exhortation of Hebrews is place your faith in Christ. And if you have placed your faith in Christ, you will remain firm in that faith and continue in a life lived for Him. The evidence of having placed your faith in Christ is now a life lived in obedience to His Word. You are not saved by trying to be obedient to God; you are saved by believing what God has done for you in Christ. But when you have placed your faith in Christ, you are born again.

I spoke with someone a couple weeks ago and said, you must be born again or you will never see the kingdom of heaven. He said, I've always wondered, I hear that expression born again, I always wondered what that means. You must be born again. Your birth into the human race is not enough. You need a second birth from heaven when you are born into God's family. That's what happens when you place your faith in Christ.

So we had Hebrews 12:28-29 which leads into what He is going to say in our section in Hebrews 13, verse 28, “therefore since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken.” That's where we are going as those who have placed our faith in Jesus Christ. Not because we are better because we are all sinners under condemnation, but because by God's grace we have come to place our faith in Christ and be born into God's family. So we are destined to the kingdom. He talked about it in Hebrews 12:22ff, “since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, our thanks to God, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe.” That is now the life that we have as God's children, a life of gratitude, serving God in a way that is pleasing to Him with reverence and awe. For our God is a consuming fire. That's the alternative we talked about. We are thankful; we serve Him with reverence and awe because we never forget the wonder of our salvation. We sinners, condemned, separated from God have been cleansed, all the guilt, all the defilement is gone. He said He washes us whiter than snow, He makes us new. We no longer fear His wrath and destruction in hell, we rejoice in the glory before us.

You ought to mark or underline the statement in verse 28, “by which we may offer to God an acceptable service.” An acceptable service, that word translated acceptable means pleasing or well-pleasing; that word service, we get the English word, liturgy from it. It is often used of spiritual service. We now serve God as His children in a way that is pleasing to Him by obeying His Word. Again, keep the order. That is important as we start out Hebrews 13 and the command is given, “let love of the brethren continue.” People who know almost nothing about the Bible, along with people who may know a great deal often will quote portions of the Bible and because they quote a verse, that seems to settle it. Well, I believe God is love, and then they follow up. It is true, the Bible says God is love. Therefore, I don't think He would send anyone to hell. Where did they get that? They didn't get it out of the Bible, they made that up. That's not in the Bible. God is a God of love and He will send people to hell because He is also a God of justice. So we want to be careful we understand the Bible in its context.

So when we come to Hebrews 13, you understand this is as we have it, the 13th chapter of this letter. It's the end of the letter. People pull out a verse like this and say, really God wants us to love one another, as though the first 12 chapters of Hebrews didn't exist. This instruction is given on the basis of what he has said. He says, “let love of the brethren continue.” Hebrews 13 opens up with three commands, that's as far as we are going in our study today—the first three verses. I'll just note the commands to you, then we'll go back and look through them. Let continue, and we break it up in English, it's one word, let continue. It's a command, imperative, present imperative. You could literally translate “it the love of the brethren must continue.” That's the first command. The second command is verse 2, “do not neglect;” the third command is verse 3, “remember.”

This is all based upon what he has said in the first twelve chapters. “Let brotherly love continue,” or if we are going to put it, and this is the order if you were reading it in the Greek, “the love of brethren must continue.” It's a command. You must love brethren. Now first we have to talk about who are we talking about. We're familiar with the word, it's a compound word, we have it translated here, love and brethren separated. But it's a compound word. We know it because it's the city where Marilyn was born and where I spent much of my life in the early years and where I went to school, Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. But when we talk about brotherly love here, we're not talking about just general love among people. We're talking about love of brethren. Two major Greek words for love that we're familiar with—phileo and agapao. We talk about agapao as self-sacrificing love. Phileo love is family love, friendship love, it is more reciprocal. Agapao love, and there is not a firm fixed barrier between the two, but we make a distinction. Agapao love is a love of self-sacrifice. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” That was a self-sacrificing love, it wasn't a reciprocal love. He was loving the world that did not love Him; He loved those who were His enemies, who were opposed to Him. But He did what was best for them. Phileo love has more of a reciprocal character to it because it is among family. You think of your physical family, there is love among a family for the members of the family. We are talking here about God's family, the brethren, those who are God's children.

Come back to Hebrews 2, talking about the sacrifice of Christ and faith in the finished work of Christ causes us to be born again. In Hebrews 2 he warned, in the first part of this chapter, verse 3, “how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” There is no escaping God's wrath and condemnation if you neglect the salvation He has provided in Christ. You come down to verse 9, “we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.” Here is the provision. It was fitting for Him to perfect the author of their salvation through suffering. God the Father's plan was to provide salvation through the sacrifice of His only begotten Son.

Then verse 11, “for both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father, for which He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” Jesus the only begotten Son of God and those who come to trust in Him are born again into God's family. So we become brethren with Christ. Remarkable, the change that God's salvation brings. Verse 12, saying, “I will proclaim your name to My brethren.” Down at the end of verse 13, “behold, I and the children whom God has given Me. Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood He Himself likewise partook of the same that through death He might render powerless the devil who had the power of death, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

Verse 17, “therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” Propitiation means satisfaction, to satisfy the demands of a righteous and holy God. And when we believed in Him, we were born into God's family, God becomes our Father. Jesus said then you can come before Him and pray, “our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” But you have to be born into God's family to truly have Him as your Father. That's not the case because you've been born into the human race, not the case because attend Indian Hills Community Church or another church, name the denomination, or another religious group. We are really sincere, we are really earnest, we have our beliefs. Your beliefs are worthless, my beliefs are worthless. It's only what God says and our response in believing what He has done and said that matters. No one will stand before God and say, God, this is what I believe. The only response is God says, this is what I told you that you had to believe. You rejected that, you thought you could play God and come up with your beliefs and it would be acceptable. No.

So we become brethren, we become the children of God. We have God as our Father, Christ as our Savior through faith. So come back to Hebrews 13:1. “Let love of the brethren continue.” We've been born into God's family. He is concerned now that we continue to manifest our new life in Christ, the relationship we have with God as our Father in our relationship with one another as God's children. Family love. This is important to God. It's repeated.

Turn back to 1 Thessalonians. Paul wrote to a church in Thessalonica in Greece in his first letter to the Thessalonians. And we'll be in this in our next study as well because this chapter has the same kind of context we have in the verses we are going to be dealing with in Hebrews. But we're going to pick up with 1 Thessalonians 4:9. “Now as to love of the brethren, there is our Philadelphia, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.” This is God's instruction. It's like in our physical family, sometimes if there is disagreement among siblings, you say, that's your brother, that's your sister, you have to get along. It's a family. God is saying, now you are My child, this is My family, you are to love one another. Sometimes he'll use both words for love, the family love and the agapao love because they do blend together. Because we have a family love, we are willing to sacrifice for one another. We are honoring mothers because they love their children, they sacrifice for them. It would be abnormal not to. We talk about a mother's love, a father's love, it's a family love. That's what God is talking about. This is My family and He expects within the family that love be demonstrated toward one another. And these Thessalonians had been doing that. He says in verse 10, “for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in Macedonia.” That's the region of Greece in which the city of Thessalonica was located. “But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more.” There is always room to grown. Again, the analogy of a family helps us understand it. We have to keep working on it. In a family we can irritate one another and things bother us, so we get grumpy, we get irritable, or we do things out of spite. We need to get over it, correct it. How sad it is to see a family tearing itself apart. God said that is not tolerable in My family. You must demonstrate love to those who are My children. It's a personal affront to God. I mean, if I'm a child of God and you are a child of God and I don't treat you properly, that's an affront to God, that's disobedience to God. Just like in your family, if one child is mistreating the other, that's disrespect to the parent. God says, I want you to continue to grow; He wants the love to deepen and grow stronger.

Come over to 1 Peter 1. This pulls together some of what we have talked about. Verse 22, “since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls.” What that is, you have heard the Word of God. We'll read the rest of it in a moment, regarding the death of Christ the Son of God as payment for your sin. You quit trusting your religious practices, your good works, and you placed your faith in Him. That was obeying the truth. God instructs all people everywhere to repent and turn from your sin and place your faith in Christ. In obedience to the truth you purified your souls. You were cleansed within. The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things. And this is God who is searching the heart. And it is cleansed. “Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins are like scarlet, they will be white as snow.” Complete cleansing.

He goes on, “you have purified your souls for a sincere, genuine, un-hypocritical love of the brethren.” There is our word again. You see you are not saved by trying to love the brethren. You love the brethren as a result of having been saved. People get this confused. They are trying their hardest to do their best to please God by their works, by their religious activities, by trying to be the best person they can be. There is no work that can make you clean before God. Our condition is too serious. It took the death of His Son to make available a cleansing that could cleanse me in the innermost part of my being so I could be acceptable before a holy God.

“You have purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren. So fervently love one another from the heart.” Why? Because “you have been born again.” How? By trying your best. No. “Of a seed which is not perishable but imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God.” How awesome it is. It is the Gospel which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Think about it. People all over this city, all over this state, all over this country, all over this world haven't changed from the time that the Bible was written. Trying by their own efforts to please God and be acceptable to Him. God says, here, you must believe the truth concerning My Son. That's the good news, that's why the Gospel, the message concerning Christ and His finished work is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Because when you believe that, the power of God is unleashed in your life and you are born again, you are made new, you never will be the same again. Now you live as a child of God. You've been born again ”by the living and enduring Word of God.” You've been saved so now, isn't it wonderful? God brought us into His family. He saved us so we can be His children, now we are to live as His children.

Come over to 1 John, stop at 2 Peter 1, pick up verse 3. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.” Verse 4, “He has granted to us precious and magnificent promises so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature.” We haven't become divine, we can't become deity, but we have become God's children, we become partakers of His very character. We have escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust that formerly enslaved us, dominated and controlled us. That's why you can't be saved by trying to clean up your life. You have no power. You can clean up parts of your life, you can quit being a drunk, you can take anger management and not lose your temper as much, I guess. But you can't cleanse yourself within. Only God can cause a new birth and cause you to become a partaker of His very nature. And when you have, you now live for Him and so you diligently desire to please Him, verse 5, and all these things become our desire and the characteristic of our lives as partakers of His nature. Down in verse 7, we add to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. This love, love of brethren, becomes now a characteristic.

Come over to 1 John 4:10, “in this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us,” He's the initiator, “and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins,” to satisfy the requirements of justice and holiness. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.” That's what He expects of us. Verse 14,” the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. We have come to know and believe the love which God has for us. God is love. The one who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.” Verse 19, “we love because He first loved us, now note this. If someone says, I love God and hate his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This commandment we have from Him that the one who loves God should love his brother also.” See why it's so important. I cannot not love you and yet say I love God.

Remember this is a problem among the Hebrews who received the letter that we are studying. Some of them had stopped fellowshipping with believers in that local church. How are you going to do that? I don't like to be around Christians, they bother me. Well, I don't doubt that. If you are not a child of God, it's not comfortable being with Christians. But those who have truly trusted God delight in being with believers. That doesn't mean we are perfect, we're not. We still sin. We still say things with our tongue. James says if you could control your tongue, you could control your whole life. We say things, things that we shouldn't say. We hurt one another. We fail to do what we should do. There are stumbles. But we're family. You don't say to your kid, you hit the mailbox when you backed out. Pack your clothes; you're not in this family anymore. No. You should have been paying attention when you backed out and shouldn't have hit the mailbox. What's the point? I use that as an example because Marilyn hit the mailbox. What's the point? We're family. We find reasons to be irritated with one another, to get upset with one another, be offended. I'm not saying sometimes we have the blessing of having other churches comprised of believers. Sometimes God leads a member of the family from this part of His family to another part of His family. Wonderful. This idea that we're in a huff, we get upset, we don't like something and I'm out of here. You understand this is serious business with God, this is my family. Part of the things that we are learning is to grow in love toward one another. And if you were as lovable as you should be 24 hours a day 7 days a week it would make everybody's job easier. And we have to learn. That's why the instructions are to love.

Look at 1 John 5:1 while you are here. “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.” This is the love of God that we keep His commandments. Now we don't become the recipients of God's love by trying to keep His commandments; that's disobedience to God. The starting point is, God says, we have to repent; we have to believe in His Son.

Back in 1 John 3:23, “this is His commandment that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another.” So the verse we started with, we believe in Him and we love one another. We're born again, have our souls purified so we can love the brethren. So it's family love.

Come back to Hebrews. We've spent more time on this point because it is foundational to the next two commands. The next two commands really just elaborate on this command to love one another and show how you can demonstrate this love to fellow believers in certain situations. Hebrews 13:2, the command is do not neglect, a command given in the present tense, it would be called an imperative. He could say you must not neglect “to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Show hospitality to strangers. The word really is the word stranger with the word we talked about, the noun form of the verb we're talking about, phileo, to love. It's in love of the brethren. Here it is love of the strangers. But the strangers he is talking about that we are to love with this love, he is talking about fellow believers. This family love goes beyond just our local fellowship of believers. Of course it starts there. This is the hardest point because we have to get along with each regularly. But it is also to expand on and recognize others who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ are our brothers, are our sisters in Christ. We're going to spend eternity together in the house that God has prepared for us. That says one big happy family. So we recognize you must not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, love to strangers, hospitality. Important part of God's plan.

Come back to 3 John 5, “beloved you are acting faithfully in whatever you accomplish for the brethren, and especially when they are strangers.” You are manifesting your love for fellow believers. When you demonstrate the sincerity of that, you do that even for fellow believers that you don't know, that are visiting your area. “They have testified to your love before the church. You do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God, for they went out for the sake of the name, accepted nothing from the Gentiles.” He particularly is talking about here traveling evangelists, teachers like Paul and others of the apostles and other teachers. They would travel from place to place, carrying the Gospel, bringing teaching from the apostles. In those days you don't stop at a motel, there weren't fast food restaurants. You depended upon the hospitality of people. But you know believers coming, remember Paul when he said, “when I came to Corinth I didn't take anything from you” because if you go and start to share the Gospel with unbelievers, then you ask them to take you to dinner, to put you up for the night, to give you some money to help you on the way, they think he is just here to get money. So Paul said, “I didn't take money from you.” He accepted gifts from other believers.

So these believers, John says, have shown their graciousness, they are pleased to encourage and help these fellow Christians who would happen to come into their area. And do you know what? That encouraged people in other places because when these went back to their home church, like Paul would go back to his home church in Tarsus, and share they would all be encouraged. And the believers there welcomed me in and some supported me and they are just excited. And they say, here are other believers like-minded like us.

Back up to 2 John 10. Now there has to be discernment in this. Watch yourselves, a word of warning. Verse 9, the particular part of the warning we want to pick up. “Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have God. You've corrupted the truth concerning Christ, you've added to it, taken away from it, they don't really belong to God. The one who abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, do not give him a greeting. For the one who gives him a greeting participates in his evil deeds.” Now we need to be careful here, he's not talking about we don't treat with kindness and so on our unbelieving neighbors, those you work with. He particularly focused here on those who are false teachers. We don't want to give any idea that we are in any agreement.

I've shared with you, many years ago I was on a television interview program out of Omaha with an unbelieving pastor. And he kept trying to make points like he and I were in agreement on things. Finally I said, naming the man who was hosting, I said, “before we go any further I just want to make as clear as I can that so-and-so and I have absolutely nothing in common when it comes to God's message of salvation. We are mortal, eternal enemies when it comes to the truth of God's salvation.” And I walked through the Gospel. The program ended, the other pastor never said a word. He got up out of his chair, walked to the end of the stage, slammed the door so hard everything shook, and the host of the program just stood with his mouth open. We don't want to add, there is no harmony. Sometimes people think that maybe here we would say too many things about what we say false teaching. Why do we have to do that? We have to be clear on the truth. And we are not the only church preaching the truth in this city. There are numerous other churches preaching the Gospel. We praise the Lord for that. But it is not we're all a community of faith so we don't want to emphasize we differ from this group or this group or this group. We do want to emphasize that.

And so when these teachers would come by, you don't do anything to encourage them. But when it's your unbelieving neighbor, of course you want to be civil to him, you want to be friendly to him, you want to treat him kindly. There are opportunities to do nice things for them, of course. In one sense they are the enemy spiritually, but in the other sense we know, we were one time just like them. And we want to be as good a neighbor, as friendly, some just wonderful people who don't know the Savior. Humanly speaking they are thoughtful, we appreciate them, and I want to be thoughtful and kind to them. My desire for them is that they would come to know the Savior. So we want to be careful here. He's talking about false teachers and there is no hospitality shown to them.

Stop at 1 Peter 4:8, “above all keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins.” Be hospitable, there is our word, be hospitable to one another without complaint. The importance of love. We're not excusing sin but we all sin. James said if you didn't sin with your tongue you would be a perfect person. But you know in family we overlook those hurts, in our physical family we do. Your family is not bound together because you as a father, you as a mother or the children are perfect. You are bound together by a family relationship and the love for one another in spite of your imperfections. And you overlook the faults. Mothers are great for this. Did you ever notice how mothers all have perfect kids? We fathers tend to be a little more objective about those little sinners. Really we do, in family, we overlook things, things that would drive someone else crazy. Did you ever have it, since I'm a husband, I couldn't live with her. But you do. You look at someone else and say, I don't know how she lives with him. I don't know how he lives with her. Those kids would drive me crazy. But in family we overlook things. We are God's family, we overlook things. I don't want you to give me a litany of someone's faults here. I don't want someone giving a litany of my faults. We all have them. We want to grow, we want to help one another grow, conform to the character of Christ. We are perfected in Christ, but that's not worked out yet in our lives. So love covers a multitude of sins, be hospitable without complaint. This gives opportunity for us to be involved in one another's lives in a variety of ways.

The reason, back in Hebrews 13, “some have entertained angels without knowing it. “ And some people have really gone off on this. They think every strange visitor they had could have been an angel. That's not the point. It would undermine it if you are being hospitable to a lot of people because you only have one motive—I hope somewhere along the line I get to find an angel. Not so. The point is, and this would go back particularly to Abraham in Genesis 18 where three men came by his camp and he offered them hospitality and they ended up being angels. Lot had a similar thing in Genesis 19 and there are a couple of occasions in Judges. But the prime case will be Abraham. The point is from this illustration, not that you may sometime entertain an angel. That's not the point. The point in being hospitable to one another is God may use them to bring a special blessing to your life.

Now, how often is that? You've done something for a fellow believer, you come away and you feel like your life has been enriched and blessed. That's the point. Not that you might get an angel, because if that's all we were looking for, sorting through this, trying to be nice, hoping we'll get an angel to come. No. The point in this is to be our conduct and we are glad to do it. We find our lives enriched by doing it because this is part of what God intends for us to do as we serve Him in a pleasing way.

And then verse 3, the command, remember, mimnesko, present imperative, remember. “Remember the prisoners as though imprisoned with them, those who are ill treated and since you yourselves are in the body.” Pressure can cause cracks in relationships, magnify them and these believers are under pressure, persecution. They have been through it, imprisonment, Hebrews 10, remember. Just like in our family, how often have you been unkind in your physical family and then you say, I'm sorry. I've been under a lot of pressure at work. Or I'm sorry, the kids just drove me to distraction today. And pressure. And for a church, pressure, persecution, attacks, slander. Pretty soon we say, I'm uncomfortable. Then when you get arrests. I saw part of an article in the paper yesterday of a church in China, the community just tore the church down. Evidently thousands of people were fellowshipping there, the article indicates they were believers, because it didn't meet the building code, although a year earlier they had been given an award for the improvement of the community in building such a building. Now they are talking among the Christians about the fear that the government is going to be coming down, what this could mean for those who are identified as Christians who are in business and if the government can manipulate and control things and it becomes impossible for you to do business. And all of this. You see the fear of association.

That kind of pressure makes believers may want to pull back from one another. It can happen to us. If we are being slandered or attacked for our view and we say, I'm uncomfortable with people saying they belong to Indian Hills. Isn't that the church that doesn't like women? Isn't that the church who punishes people who don't do things that they want them to do? Isn't that the church that thinks they are the only ones going to heaven? Pretty soon we say, I don't know if I like that identification, I sort of like . . . You know, we want to pull back. And then we can become critical of one another because I don't think they should do it that way, I don't think they should say it that way, maybe they wouldn't have this opinion if we . . . And pretty soon the family begins to divide. We have to decide. What would happen if they were deciding, those who are bold with the Gospel have a position against certain kinds of behavior, who preach that salvation is only by faith in Christ are harmful for our community. And they come and knock on the door and some are going off to prison. Well, do you know what would happen if you'd go and visit them in prison? Oh, he is one of them. Well, if this person is in prison for his faith in Christ and you go visit that person in prison for his faith in Christ, you may end up there.

So he has to remind them. They had already done, we saw this back in Hebrews 10:32, “remember the former days when after being enlightened you endured a great conflict of suffering, you were made a public spectacle, reproaches, tribulations. You shared with those who were so treated, you lost your property, you showed sympathy to the prisoners.”

Come back to 2 Timothy 1. Paul is in prison in Rome, this is his last imprisonment. He knows he is facing coming execution. He'll say in a later chapter that the process that will culminate in my death has already begun. Now 2 Timothy 1:15, “you are aware of the fact that all who are in Asia,” that would be Asia Minor where churches like Ephesus, Colosse, the seven churches of Asia Minor in Revelation 2-3 are located. “All who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes.” These evidently were people who would have had opportunity to meet with Paul in Rome while they were there. And many people came to Rome, the capital, for activity and business. Nobody, even these two outstanding people, well-known, turned away from Paul. You can find a lot of excuses—Paul is too hard, he is too harsh, he should have been more like Barnabas, the son of encouragement. Paul took too many stances that he didn't need to take, and besides, why did he call the people in Galatia anathema who preached a different gospel. And I think Paul is in prison there but it probably is a lot of his own doing. And we find reasons. But whatever the reasons he said, they abandoned me, turned away from me. “The Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, was not ashamed of my chains,” not embarrassed to be identified with Paul as a prisoner. “But when he was in Rome he eagerly searched for me and found me.” I mean, when they put you in prison . . .

I remember talking to a pastor in China many years ago, talking about when he was in prison. I've told you the story, they as believers kept a little bag by the door because they might get a knock at night. Then they come, you're coming with us, and you are carted off. And in their prisons they don't give you the necessities. So they had a little bag of necessities they could take with them. Because it took his family three months even to find out where he was in prison so they could visit him. Those kinds of things.

So here I think of that with Paul, Onesiphorus had to search out where Paul would be in prison. When we were in Rome they showed where one of the places they believed Paul may have been in prison. And it's a cistern, underground, that had been used for keeping water. How would you find the guy there? He's not singing songs out the jail bars as you see on a TV program, he's down underground. So he eagerly sought me, searched for me. The Lord grant him to find mercy. And that was characteristic of his life because he showed the same kind of care. That's the point, we care for one another, we're identified with one another, we're not ashamed of one another because we believe in the same Savior. We have the same Gospel. We are submissive to the same heavenly Father. We don't divide over these other things. It's the truth of God. We're not going to say, their personality is difficult, they sometimes are not very smooth, they say things and sometimes I've been hurt by them. Have you ever been hurt in your family physically? But if you're going to carry that around indefinitely, things are going to unravel.

So it is with us. We are God's family. We live to please Him and we live to love one another. I'm so glad God didn't save us and keep us in isolation. Wonderful to have a family to care for one another, pray for one another, given of themselves to help one another. We're not embarrassed by the fact we're not perfect. We are family. People complain about people at Indian Hills, just say, we're not perfect there but we do have a perfect Savior and our desire is to grow. The imperfections that you may have noticed may be genuine but the salvation we have is real. And that is what makes us a family, enables us to live together.

I trust you know the Savior.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the riches of our salvation. How blessed we are to be members of Your family. Lord, may we never take that lightly or for granted. We are privileged to have family love among brethren, we are privileged to please You in our service because we obey You, we serve You with reverence and awe. Lord, we love one another because that is pleasing to You; we are hospitable to one another because that is pleasing to You; we are not ashamed to be identified with fellow believers because that is pleasing to You. And the desire of our lives, the goal of our lives as Your children is to please You in all that we do. We praise You in Christ's name, amen.