A Loving Warning - Hebrews 13:1–3

If you’re traveling to the United Kingdom, and you want to rent an AirBnB, one fun option is a narrowboat. Narrowboats are a type of canal boat, originally built for travel on the narrow rivers throughout England during the Industrial Revolution. Nowadays, people are converting them into permanent homes or vacation rentals. 

But being on the water can present a unique problem for a vacation spot. Imagine if you scheduled a rental, arrived and dropped off your bags, freshened up and then went out to dinner; and when you returned, the boat was gone. It could happen, and the owners of a boat called “Expensive Hobby” know this to be true. In 2015, rising flood waters caused their narrowboat to come loose and drift out of control down the river. Authorities were able to save the boat just before it collided with a bridge. 

You see, without an anchor to hold it in place, or a motor to power it upstream, a boat naturally drifts from where it belongs. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments tell us that people are this way as well. For instance, when it comes to loving God’s holy ways and living lives that bring Him glory, our natural tendency is not to drift toward God and His ways, but rather, away from them. 

D.A. Carson states this well in his two-volume work titled For The Love of God. He writes, “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, and obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward god-less-ness and convince ourselves we have been liberated." 

Like a narrowboat adrift with no anchor or captain on the canals of Great Britain, we naturally move farther and farther from where we belong. And what we have here at the beginning of Hebrews 13 is clear evidence that we drift away from God-centered love. We have these commands, and the implication is that we will not naturally do these things. Similar to the parent who tells their child to wash the dishes. Without direction, the child would not do it. Or like the city who posts the speed limit; without a law and a sign - without the command - people will drive too fast.

God-centered love does not increase in us and is not sustained in us naturally. But through the finished work of Jesus Christ, that natural tendency is overcome. In those who have been born again by the power of His Spirit, those who then repent and trust in Jesus, God produces this kind of love. But as we saw in Hebrews 12, our decisions and actions are also important. What we do makes a difference. 

Of course, only by grace through faith can we know and please God, but we must strive to obey God. We must pursue God-centered love within our hearts and relationships.And although the Spirit of God lives within those who are born again, our sinful nature still rises us in defiance of God. Therefore, we have natural tendencies that we must be aware of. 

What are those? Well, these three verses today address our sinful tendencies. You can find an outline of them on page 6 in the WG. God issues us a loving warning that: Devotion to our fellow believers will naturally die down, Attention toward our fellow sojourners will naturally diminish, and Care for our fellow sufferers will naturally decrease.

Now, I want you to notice my sermon title today. I had a double meaning in mind. You can put the emphasis on the word “warning” or on the word “loving.” So, Hebrews 13:1-3 provides a warning from God that is issued in a loving way by Him, but also, it is a warning related to how we love others, a warning about our loving of others.

Look at verse 1 again, “Let brotherly love continue.” Very simple command. This refers to love within the family of God, within the congregation. Hebrews is a letter, probably a sermon, to a local church. Then it was circulated to other churches. “Brotherly love” is love between brothers and sisters in Christ. We have this common union with each other through our union with Jesus. 

The apostle Paul told the Colossians who trusted in Jesus, “You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Essentially, you died with Jesus on the cross and then were raised along with Him. We have union with Jesus, and therefore union with all those who are in Christ. 

Later on this morning, when we participate in the Lord’s Supper, we do so together. We have a special connection, a special relationship. That relationship, though, is always vulnerable to sabotage. The writer of Hebrews is led by God to tell these folks, and to tell us today, that when it comes to love within the local church, “Let it endure. Persevere in it. Let it remain. Let it not go away or be put aside. Abide in it. Keep on pursuing and protecting it.” 

What might cause the love to die down? Well, think about the relationships between siblings. You spend a lot of time around them. You get to know them well. Why do people famously say, “Familiarity breeds contempt?” Because often, the more you get to know someone, the less you like them, the more you see their flaws, the more likely they are to offend you or be offended by you.

Have you ever found it to be true that, often, friendships are great in the beginning, but over time, words and actions begin to strain the relationship. It’s not uncommon for folks to have what we call a “falling out.” Certainly you know people who once were close like siblings but now they don’t talk and perhaps they despise one another. 

This is a danger in the church. We must be always humbling ourselves, going to each other when necessary to say, “I should not have said that, I should not have done that, please forgive me.” Also, we should be going to one another if necessary to say, “What you said or did hurt me.” Also, we should be overlooking offense when we can, extending grace to our brothers and sisters. We don’t have to confront every little thing. We heard earlier that God “sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” This means that Jesus absorbed our offenses on His cross. 

For devotion between fellow believers to continue, we must all be looking to Jesus who absorbed our offenses - the offenses of each of us - and we can forgive, because Jesus has forgiven us. We fix the eyes of our hearts on Him, and He produces God-centered love within us.

Who do you need to forgive? From whom do you need to seek forgiveness? What offenses do you just need to overlook? Ask the Lord. 1 Peter 4 says, “keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” As time goes by here at GS, we will have been in this together for a longer and longer period of time. We cannot let devotion to one another begin to die down. We are truly a family in Jesus our Lord. 

But not only is love within the church essential. Notice verse 2, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.” Interestingly, in the Greek manuscripts there is no word present which we would simply translate “strangers.” It literally says, “Do not neglect hospitality,” but the word used meant “love toward strangers,” toward those not in your covenant community, toward outsiders. 

The idea is don’t just be absorbed with each other. Don’t be in-grown, only concerned about fellow believers. Be concerned about those not in your group, those perhaps on a journey. Why? You were once without a group and you are still on a journey. 

If you see someone in need and far from home, while you’re here in Florence, don’t forget, you’re far from home too. Your home is in heaven with the Lord your God. Concern for our fellow sojourners will naturally be overlooked. Why? Because we are naturally self-absorbed and focused on us and ours. We must be generous towards strangers. 

And some interesting logic is provided here, look at the rest of the verse, “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” This recalls Genesis 18, when Abraham, who was himself far from home, showed hospitality toward three seemingly random men. We understand from the text of Genesis that it was God and two angels. It was a theophany, a physical appearance of the covenant God to Abraham, along with two angelic beings.

So if you and I look down our nose at someone we don’t know, we don’t know who it might be. Our first thought should be compassion, pity, and concern. We should pay attention. In Deuteronomy 10, God told the people of Israel, “He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.” And then God gives His people this command: “Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” You were sojourners; you were strangers. You were in need of deliverance.

We enjoy great fellowship within the body of Christ here at GS, but we cannot lose sight of the outsiders. True God-centered love generated by Him in us will produce good fruit within the covenant community and outside of it. 

Do you see in yourself a tendency to overlook the stranger? Have you seen where at one time you were attentive to the sojourner, but now that attention has diminished? We get caught up with our own life and concerns, or the concerns among those whom we know and love. Or we find that outsiders have issues and can’t seem to be helped. 

But we cannot just avert our attention altogether, because the Lord God Almighty gave attention and showed concern for those who did not know or loved Him or even care to do so. “This is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us.” We cannot let our attention toward our fellow sojourners diminish. and we cannot let care for our fellow sufferers decrease. 

Look finally at verse 3. “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.” It was common in the first century church for believers to be put in jail for their profession of faith in Christ. 

It was a big deal to be known as a Christian. Many were oppressed, and folks were mistreated for their faith in other ways. Notice what the writer of Hebrews does here. He might have said something like, “Put yourself in their shoes.” Think about what it’s like to be in prison. Of course, they are alive, but their lives are put on hold, stolen from them. Their time locked in prison is time away from spouse and children and home and work. It’s time that they can’t get back. 

He might have said, “Don’t forget, it could be you in there.” It could be you suffering. Think about the loneliness of suffering in general, the isolation and frustration of it. It can feel hopeless. The people in prison would not be seeing you at worship on Sunday. They couldn’t be there. They were isolated, unable to join you in fellowship. 

The writer of Hebrews is warning them not to be so caught up with those you see that those whom you cannot see fade away from your memory. Often those steeped in suffering are forgotten, but they need our care. Keep in mind, we all must suffer. We all need this care.

Who do you need to check on? Who do you need to encourage? Who may be in need? Often, in this day and age, we think everyone is fine. But many times they are not. And, one day, you will need someone to check on you. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes.

As we go to the Lord’s table today, “put yourself in someone else’s shoes” is an apt description of what the Lord Jesus did. We all fail in these commands issued to us in verses 1-3. But Jesus performed each one to perfection. He became our fellow believer (our brother). Hebrews 2 says Jesus “had to be made like his brothers in every respect.” Jesus put aside the comforts of heaven and was born in the likeness of regular folks. He trusted in His Father’s holy will. Jesus walked by faith; He believed God. 

He was our fellow stranger, who traveled through this world on a journey, often as an outsider. Matthew 8 describes a conversation between Jesus and a religious man. The Word says, “A scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Jesus went from place to place in obedience to the Father, and He was consistently rejected, run out of town, a sojourner simply following the lead of the Spirit of God.

And Jesus was our fellow sufferer. He suffered to death; He suffered the punishment not for sins he had done, which were none, but for the sins of His people. What loneliness and mistreatment did Jesus endure so that you and I could know God and experience the joy of God-centered love? Jesus willingly became like a prisoner in order to set us free from the natural tendencies of our sinful nature. 

Have you trusted in Jesus? His devotion to you will never die down, His attention toward you will never diminish, and His care for you will never decrease. In his earthly life, he did all these perfectly for those He came to save. He put Himself in your shoes. Will you admit your sin, trust His perfect work, and put Yourself before His throne in humility, surrender, and worship?

Let’s bow together in prayer.