Good morning. I am Nick Anders, and I'll be reading this morning from Hebrews chapter 13. Today's passage can be found on page 1194 in the Bibles in the seat in front of you. Hebrews chapter 13 will be looking at verses 9 through 14. Beginning in verse 9. Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods which are of no value to those who eat them. We have an altar from which those who minister at the Tabernacle have no right to eat. The high priest carries the blood of animals into the most holy place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. The word of the Lord. I don't know about you, but I'm not a huge risk taker. I don't do things that I know deliberately will endanger my life. Like I told you a few weeks ago, I've never gone bungee jumping, and I never will. I've never jumped out of an airplane. I've never ridden the incredible Hulk over at Iowa or the Manta at SeaWorld. I've never started a business from scratch. Like some of you have. I've never swam with dolphins or jumped in the ring with a boxer or gone cow tipping or anything like that. I've never even gone on a blind date, believe it or not, or died my hair. And a lot of you have done both of those things. Probably the craziest thing I've ever done in my life was that as a kid, around 12 years of age, in my hometown there was a Christmas parade one year, and I and another friend of mine took our pea shooters up on top of a building and we started shooting peas at all the people down below. And we were chased down by a couple police officers. Kids do as I say, not as I do, please, in that particular case. And my wife reminded me last week, last night rather, that we did take a risk in taking two of our kids and uprooting our lives and moving up to St. Louis, Missouri back in 1982 so that I could go to seminary. That was indeed a risk. But normally, I like to hug the tree trunk rather than going out there on a limb. What's the riskiest thing you've ever done? What's the riskiest thing you've ever done? Whatever it was, you must have counted the cost and figured that the benefits of doing that thing outweighed the damage that you might do to yourself and other people. It was worth whatever pain, whatever ridicule you had to put up with just to do that thing. In this passage that you just heard, the author says to do the riskiest thing imaginable. Go outside the camp. Do you know that that is the riskiest thing you could possibly do? I know there are a lot of dangerous things we try to do, a lot of great projects, a lot of things that take chances. But according to God's word, the absolute riskiest thing that a human being can ever do is go outside the camp. Says in verse 13, let us then go to Jesus outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore. And we're going to talk about that today before we have the Lord's Supper. For the last several months, we've been studying the book of Hebrews and we're almost there to the end. Next week will be our last study in the book of Hebrews. I've told you before, I'll say it almost one more time. And that is that this letter was written to a group of Christians who were Jewish in ethnicity, probably living in Rome, and the date was sometime before 70 AD. It was a time of great persecution for Christians. They were marginalized. They were pushed out to the margins of society. They were discriminated against. And because of that persecution and discrimination, the people to whom Hebrews was written were being tempted to turn their backs on Jesus and return to the old religious system of their ancestors. And again and again throughout this letter, what we've seen is that the author tells them, don't do that. Don't go back to the old covenant. The new covenant is far, far better. Don't turn your back on Jesus. He's the great high priest that human priests will never be. Don't fall short of entering God's rest because the rest that Jesus offers you is so much better, so much deeper than the rest that the Old Testament saints could enjoy. Don't put your trust in animal sacrifices because Jesus, the author, says, is the one and only sacrifice that you need, the final sacrifice that cleanses the conscience, not just the outward body. So using picture after picture from the Old Testament and metaphor after metaphor, the author tells his readers in the book of Hebrews to sever their ties with the old dead religion of their past, take the risk and go forward with Jesus Christ. And here in this passage, for the very last time in the whole letter, he's going to do it again. Only this time he says, go outside the camp. See, it's just another way of saying the same thing. He said many, many times before. So what does it mean to go outside the camp? Well, to understand what that means, you need to understand what the camp was. The camp, what was it? It was the Israelite community of the Old Testament day that marched up through the wilderness to the Promised Land during the days of Moses. Here's a picture of the camp, at least an artist's rendering of it, and you only see a little portion of it. It's the best picture I could find. In the center of the camp was the Old Testament tabernacle. That's what the big structure that you see in the picture. Right there in the center of the camp was the tabernacle. It was the headquarters, the center of Jewish worship under the old covenant. And surrounding this tabernacle around the courtyard that you see there marked off were all of the tents that the people lived in. And this is just a bare minimum of what was really there. The tents were displayed all around in a very logical fashion that you can read about in the Old Testament. As they made their way up through the wilderness to Canaan over a period of 40 years, they would move this camp along the way. And every night they would plant it in a new place, lay out their tents according to the instructions, and so on. And for the Jewish people that I'm talking about, the camp was the place of three things. And this is where it begins to get practical for you and me. The camp was the place of comfort of cleanliness and of control. So let's take a look at each one of those things. First of all, the camp that's spoken of here in this passage was the place of comfort. See, as long as the people stayed in the camp, they were safe. That's what I mean by comfort. They were comfortable. That's where they had a sense of belonging, of community, of identity, the camp defined who was in and who was out. Inside the camp were the chosen people, the Jews. Outside the camp were who? The Gentiles, right? The pagans, the nations, the aliens, the strangers, the foreigners, the rejects we might even say. It was comfortable. You see inside the camp, it was safe inside the camp. But outside the camp, it was dangerous. Secondly, the camp was the place of ceremonial cleanness, or we might say purity. If you read through the book of Leviticus, everyone's favorite book of the Bible, what you'll see is rule after rule after rule about holiness. Priests had to be consecrated, which means set apart in just such a way. People with infectious skin diseases had to go through this ritual of cleanliness and of being quarantined for so many days. There were rules about what to do if mildew grew on your clothing or inside your home. There were rules about what you could and couldn't eat. There were rules about sexual relations between husbands and wives. And of course, there were rules about animal sacrifices. There were sin offerings and guilt offerings and burnt offerings and fellowship offerings and grain offerings. And all of these rules were laid out in books like the book of Leviticus. If a person followed the rules, he or she was considered ceremonially clean. But here's my point. Outside the camp, it was unclean. As it says in verse 11 of our text this morning, the bodies of animals that had been killed on the day of atonement were burned outside the camp. So as not to contaminate the people who were inside the camp. If a person went outside the camp, he or she would have to go through this elaborate ritual of purification before being allowed back into the camp. Lawbreakers and criminals were executed outside the camp. You can read, for example, Leviticus 24. It tells about the time when a blasphemer was stoned outside the camp. You can read numbers 15. It talks about the time that a Sabbath breaker was stoned outside the camp. You can read Joshua 7. It recounts the story of a guy named Akin, A-C-H-A-N, who was taken outside the camp and put to death for his sin. So you get the picture. Inside the camp, you're clean. Outside the camp, you were disgusting. It's really a more accurate way to put it. The camp was a place of comfort, of cleanliness or purity, and thirdly, the camp was the place of control. It was predictable inside the camp. You had a set calendar that was filled with dates of feasts and celebrations. There was, for example, the weekly Sabbath with all of its laws and regulations. There was every seventh year when deaths were canceled and slaves were released. There was the year of Jubilee when your land went back to the original owner. There were new moon festivals and pilgrimage festivals and seasons of fasting and of prayer. And of course, there was, as I mentioned a moment ago, the annual day of atonement, Yam Kapoor. It's been something that I've talked about several times in this series. And it's referred to there in verse 11, the day of atonement. When the high priest went inside the most holy place, sprinkled the Ark of the Covenant with blood and did the other things that were required to cleanse the people for yet another 12 months. Everybody likes control, am I right? I do. I mentioned that earlier. We like a predictable life. We don't like a world filled with tornadoes that come out of nowhere and kill dozens of people. We don't like a world that is filled with terrorists whose strap explosives on their body and blow up all kinds of buildings. And so if we can at least plan a calendar and stick to it, if we can at least be on time for our appointments, we feel good about ourselves. We like it inside the camp where there's a measure of control in an uncontrollable world. But outside the camp, for the Jew of the Old Testament, it was wild and unpredictable. Outside the camp was the land of enemies and foreign gods and strange teachings, which is mentioned there in verse 9. Outside the camp was powerlessness and danger and all kinds of temptations.
So in short, as you think about this, nobody in their right mind wanted to venture outside the camp. To do so was to choose to be uncomfortable and unclean and out of control. But look at verse 12. Verse 12 says that Jesus did it. It says Jesus suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Take a look at this map. Here's a very rough looking map. But if you look at a map, this is a map of Jerusalem during the time of Christ, you'll see what I'm talking about. Do you notice up in the upper left, around the 11 o'clock position, is Golgotha. Golgotha is the place of the skull. You know what happened at Golgotha? That's where the cross was. And notice that it's outside the walls of Jerusalem. Outside the city gate, outside the camp. That's where Jesus went. Not the place of comfort but the place of pain. Not the place of cleanliness but of profanity. Not the place of control but of powerlessness. That's where Jesus gave his body and shed his blood for sinful human beings like you and me. He went outside the camp. And verse 13 calls those who would follow Jesus to follow him outside the camp. It says, let us go to Jesus outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore. That word disgrace means literally reproach, insults, abuse, shame.
Can anything be more contrary to the natural desires that human beings? Than to follow Jesus to a place of disgrace, a place where we would be insulted, a place where we will be rejected, discomforted. In other words, we who call ourselves Christians are called here to go where Jesus went to find our security not in earthly comforts but in him. To be cleansed from sin, yes, but not by following rules but by trusting in the one who bled and died for us and to give up power, to give up power and take the role of a servant in a world that often doesn't want us around. I find it really interesting that if you were to look at Exodus 33, it's after the golden calf story in the Old Testament. After during Exodus 33 and thereafter Moses would take his little tent outside the camp to fellowship with God. And he was showing us by that, that's where God is, that's where we are called to go. If we would fellowship with God and be in true community, Moses it says there, spoke face to face with God in that tent outside the camp as a man speaks to his friend. Do you want to really know God? You've got to go outside the camp where Jesus is. Are you willing to take that risk? Are you willing to sever all ties with comfort, with cleanliness and with control and find life in Jesus alone? Because that is what God calls us as His people to do.
I met a man on Thursday named Tim McKinney. Tim works with United Global Outreach here in Orlando. And he sensed that God was calling him to go outside the camp in a literal way. He now ministers all the time in Bithlow. You know I used to make jokes about Bithlow. I'll never do it again because Tim took me and Matt and Seth and Karen Acres and Joan Stevens took us on a tour of Bithlow. Bithlow is a place that desperately needs the gospel. And Tim's doing that and he literally went outside the camp. Now I'm using him as kind of a metaphor because God doesn't call everybody to do stuff like that. But what that is is a conscious decision to choose discomfort and pain and and insults and rejection for the sake of Christ. And it was such a challenge for me. I had to ask myself am I ready to go outside the camp and whatever way God's calling me to do it? Are you? Are you ready to follow Jesus not as a religion of outward ceremonies and rituals but as a relationship? A relationship with a God who really loves you with a relentless pursuing love. That's what Christianity is. Are you ready to follow Jesus not in order to get something from Him but in order to give your life away to others? Are you ready to follow Jesus not in order to gain power but to lose power to be last instead of first to serve rather than be served? So here's my challenge to us here at UPC. Let's do something crazy together. Let's go outside the camp as individuals, as families and as a congregation. Let's kiss the camp goodbye where it's comfortable, clean and predictable and let's choose to live life where Jesus is carrying our cross, bearing the reproaches that Jesus bore and giving our time and money and love away to those who don't know Jesus. Your sermon discussion guide that I gave you has a couple of questions that you might want to ask yourself. Ask yourself as an individual. Take it home and maybe use it as a family. You'll notice at the bottom of page two and page three there are questions for you to discuss amongst yourselves and that question is basically, are you ready to go outside the camp? You know, I don't know what that's going to look like for you. I spoke to someone this past week who asked me about how they could take steps to adopt a child. That's outside the camp. What might it be for you? I gave here's some ideas. It might be to walk across the street and get to know your neighbor or to start tithing 10% of your income giving it to the church. It might be to have that conversation with your parents that you've been avoiding or to volunteer for vacation Bible school or go on a mission trip or stop or start writing that book that you've always dreamed about writing or it might be to go back to school or start a nonprofit or help us feed the homeless. Going outside the camp might be telling somebody about your addiction or getting counseling for it. It might be to invite someone over to your home or give away something that you value highly or to tell somebody else your faith story in your journey with Christ. It might be to give somebody else a chance. It might be to apologize to that person you heard or to end the relationship that you have with someone that is an ungodly relationship. I don't know. Surprise me but do something as you've probably heard that is bound to be a joke if God's not in it. What will it be for you to go outside the camp? Earlier today I asked you what's the riskiest thing you've ever done. Now do you see that what I'm talking about is riskier to go outside the camp. Whatever outside the camp means for you it's going to cost you something. It'll cost you comfort and cleanliness and control. You'll experience pain, you'll get your hands dirty and you'll have to give away your power. But what you'll get is two things. Did you see in this passage the two incentives that the author gives for going outside the camp? One of them is in verse nine. It says the second half of verse nine says it's good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace not by ceremonial foods. You want grace? Grace is outside the camp. The other incentive is down there in verse 14. For here we don't have an enduring city but we're looking for the city that is to come. There's another incentive to go outside the camp. You'll get an enduring city that stands for life that's really life. So grace now and enduring city in the future. Those are your benefits. If you do a cost benefit analysis you'll find out that going outside the camp is worth it. Let's pray. I want you to think about it as you bow your heads with me. What are you holding on to for dear life? What are you holding on to for dear life besides Jesus? Is it money? Success? Your job? Your spouse? Maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend is your talents? Is it your good looks? Whatever it is I think God's calling us to open up our hands and let them go. Leave the camp. Go to Jesus. He's calling from outside the camp. You know the camp will in the end not satisfy ceremonial foods. It says are of no value to those who eat them. Only Jesus fills the hungry heart. So think about it with me. Are you ready to burn the ships? Are you ready to cut the apron strings and the ropes that hold you back from the life that Jesus is calling you to enjoy? Are you ready to take the greatest risk in the world in order to join the greatest person in the world and the greatest work in the world? God promises you grace now in a city in the future. Go to Jesus outside the camp. At work, at school, in your marriage, with your children, on your summer vacation. Go to Jesus outside the camp. Give up comfort. Get your hands dirty. Be a servant. Father, you know what's going on in our hearts this morning. I know I'm scared to death of what outside the camp looks like. And I need grace. Lord, I need so much grace because I'm so self-centered and so comfort loving, so idolatrous. Jesus, thank you for going outside the camp for me. Thank you that you bore the disgrace of the cross and rose again in victory over sin and death so that we who follow you might have this enduring city to look forward to. Lord, as we come to the table, we pray that you will give us much grace, that you'll use these elements, that you'll bless the bread and the cup and separate them, Lord, from their common use to the special use of being means of grace for us today. Help us to feed by faith upon Jesus' body and blood, that we might grow to become more like Him. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.