Community Note
This week is the last scheduled week of the fall term. Groups are free, of course, to meet throughout the holiday season as you’d like, but make time to set a plan together to set a plan for the season ahead. Consider having a celebratory holiday party together, if schedules allow.
Sermon Recap
The book of Hebrews has painted for us a grand picture of the person of Jesus. Jesus, uniquely divine, became human so that he might be a faithful high priest for us, making a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. What Jesus has accomplished clears the way for us to have life with God. We look forward to life together with God in a coming kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28).
That vision feels heavenly – and distant. What are we to do now, here, while we wait for that? The pastor who wrote Hebrews ends the book by answering that question. He gives advice, showing the logic under it and pointing to the motivation for it.
His advice is simple: “Let mutual love continue” (Hebrews 13:1). The word for “love” here is philadelphia, or love within a family. For the pastor, the family is the church. He tells them to keep investing in relationships with each other. He continues by urging them to also love the stranger, faithfully committing to showing hospitality to them.
As the advice to love continues in the chapter, the pastor shows the logic under his counsel. He calls the church to care for prisoners, to love faithfully in marriage, and to stay free from the love of money. The underlying logic is seen in verse 3: care for prisoners “as though you were in prison with them.”
The logic of love is to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and love them like you would want to be loved. This is what Jesus commanded when he said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” echoing the same command from the Torah. Regarding marriage, we might also ask, “What would God’s own love look like in this particular situation?” Serving wealth turns other people into objects or obstacles. We wouldn’t want to be treated as such, so the right love of neighbor seeks to be free from the love of money.
Why love in these ways? The twin motivations are imitation and worship. He calls them to remember previous leaders and imitate them, insofar as they imitated the unchanging Jesus (vs 7-8). This imitation may include suffering, even as Jesus himself suffered for us.
We do this not in a form of try-hard legalism, with our teeth gritted. Instead, as a “sacrifice pleasing to God” – in worship. This joyful imitation and grateful worship are, in face, forms of love.
The two thoughts that end chapter 12 and begin chapter 13 – “since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken” and “let mutual love continue” make a bold claim. You get at that grand vision of all things made new by way of small, ordinary human acts of love. Learning to love like Jesus is taking part now in that very kingdom that cannot be shaken.
Yes, we wait for the fullness of that kingdom to come. But loving like Jesus now is the real stuff of that kingdom. The kingdom that cannot be shaken looks like loving each other. Welcoming strangers to your table. Sexual faithfulness. Holding your bank account lightly.
Jesus – the same yesterday, today, and forever – is the radiance of God, fully human. The kingdom is like him – decidedly human. The work of God on earth right now is making of us complete people of love. This is not a downgraded version of the real thing. It is the real thing, just not fully realized yet.
If this is God’s goal for his people, we should ask: am I working toward the same goal? Is becoming a person of love the goal of my life? Would my calendar or bank statement show that is true? Do my daydreams about the future line up with God’s goal to make me a person of love?
This work is ours, together. A church that would give itself to joyful imitation of Jesus and grateful worship – out of love – would be beautiful, a church you would not be able to look away from.
Entering Conversation
Feel free to use any or all of these questions - or your own – in any order. The goal of our talking together is not merely better understanding, but to help us respond to what we have heard. Always, share as much or as little as you are comfortable with.
(NB: Some groups are giving intentional time this term to learning each other’s stories. If so, feel no pressure to also attempt a weekly sermon discussion. Let stories be told, maybe followed by a prayer of blessing over those who shared this week.)
Hebrews spends twelve chapters on angels, priests, and heavenly sanctuaries, then ends with “let mutual love continue.” Why do you think it ends there? Does that ending surprise you?
Where have you sensed the kingdom of God show up in something small and ordinary: a meal, a visit, a kindness? Tell the story.
If God’s main work in you right now is making us persons of love, how might that reframe this present season for you? For Refuge?
If becoming a person of love were the main goal of your life, what would change in your calendar, your spending, or your daydreams?
As we close our time in Hebrews, what’s one thing from this book you want to carry forward into the way you live and love?
Close your time together in prayer, inviting the Spirit to lead you forward together, to lead Refuge forward together. Pray over the upcoming conversation about our facility change, asking the Spirit to give us discernment, wisdom, and unity as we talk together next Sunday.