Let me ask you a question again. How much hope do you have for the future of our civilization in a multi-generational context like this? I would imagine there would be varied answers, but I think if we were to poll and hear out everyone's heart, we probably would come back with a fairly pessimistic response. Ever increasingly, it seems we are inching towards this question, what are we to do when we reach the end of the world as we know it? Interestingly, back in 1969, Carl Henry, Carl was the founding editor of Christianity today, an evangelical thinker that time magazine in the 60s said this about him. He is evangelicalism's leading theologian. In 1969, a series of addresses, Carl Henry said this, we live in the twilight of a great civilization, and the deepening decline of modern culture. Those strange beast empires of the books of Daniel and Revelation seem already to be stalking and sprawling over the surface of the earth. We are so steeped in the Antichrist philosophy that we little sense how much of what passes for practical Christianity is really at a post-ate compromise with the spirit of the age. The generation is lost to the truth of God, to the reality of divine revelation, to the content of God's will, to the power of his redemption, and to the authority of his word. Again, he wrote that in 1969. Twenty years later, Chuck Colson, heavily influenced by Dr. Henry, wrote his own book in a similar vein. He entitled it against the night, living in the new dark age, and in the opening chapters he, too, spoke of the death of Western culture, writing this, indeed, the times smell of sunset. Social critics see the darkness encroaching upon every area of our life. Politics, education, law, medicine, the arts, even our communities, churches, and families. Alicitor McIntyre refers to the new dark ages of moral decay. Alexander Soltson meets in warns of the West's debilitating spiritual exhaustion. Malcolm Muggrich, as always, paints it more colorfully, having educated himself into imbicility and polluted and druged himself into stuprification, Western man keeled over, a weary, battered old Brontosaurus, and became extinct. Colson continues, I believe that we face a crisis in Western culture, and that it presents the greatest threat to civilization since the barbarians invaded Rome. I believe that today in the West, and particularly in America, the new barbarians are all around us. And here we are, 20 years later. What are we to make of our present day and age? It's become common acceptance that we now are living in a post-Christian society with an opposed modern culture. We almost can hear the psalmist saying out to us as we would say, what are we to do with the foundations are destroyed? What can the righteous do in Psalm 11? Thankfully, the answer is the same as it always has been. It's the same as it was at the beginning of Western civilization. The answer is the church. A trident might surprise you, right here, we are the answer. It's the same as it was when the apostles walked the Roman roads, sailed the ancient seeruts, the people of God. Where you see having reached what many are calling the end of our civilization, we find ourselves once again at the opening pages of all of our history. And first century Rome, in the beginning of our civilization, it was the church, the people of God living authentic, devoted Christian lives that raised the civilization in the first place from its pagan roots and into what history has known it to be today. And so having come back to the beginning, we can hopefully return to the institution that built and saved our culture in the first place. And no, I'm not talking about church life as usual, but rather the people of God living out a true faith. In other words, the hope of the world and the twilight throws of the death of Western civilization is the rebirth of true Christianity amongst us. For when we truly begin to believe, to think and live, like real first century Christians, then we're going to see our culture, our society, rescued back by gospel people living out the way of grace. How is this to be? Well, that's what we will look at over the next 10 weeks. And we're going to find that the end of the epistle of the Hebrews in chapter 13 of that epistle, God map out for us, an aspired approach to living a world changing faith. My task is to set up this series of which the other pastors and myself will lay out over these next 10 weeks, an aspired approach to living a world changing faith, not a program to be instituted, not some new theology to be debated, not principles of faithful, fulfilling relationships that we all need, rather a straightforward explanation of what kind of Christian life changes the world. Ten exhortations for the church in the pagan world, turn to Hebrews chapter 13, and I will read the whole chapter by way of introduction, Hebrews 13, 1-25, let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some of entertain angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them and those who are mistreated since you also are in the body. Let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have for he has said I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear what can man do to me. Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. You must not be led away by diverse and strange teachings for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat, for the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside of the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the camp in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him, outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come through whom him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Obey your leaders, submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner. Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead are Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever a man. I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly, you should know that our brother Timothy has been released from whom I shall see you if he comes soon, greet all your leaders and all the saints, those who come from Italy, send your greetings, grace, be with all of you. Let me set the context of our summer study by laying down the background for this chapter, really the background for the whole book. First let's think about the author, just going to give us an overview of Hebrews that will help us be able to dive in to chapter 13. Put simply, we have no idea who the author is. The letter makes no explicit claim of who wrote this as a result we turned to church history, but throughout church history there's been various different opinions. The most consistent one is that Paul wrote it. The earliest opinion was that Barnabas wrote it. I like to think it was a palace, Martin Luther also thought so, so I'm in good company. Some have said Silas, Philip, even recently someone said that the author asked was Priscilla. There is one reference where the writer refers to himself with a male pronoun, so we know it wasn't Priscilla, but here's why I think the letter was anonymous. Turn back to Hebrews chapter 2, verse 3, we're going to catch just right in the middle of a verse, but it's going to give us insight into the nature of our author. Verse starts with the question, how we escape if we neglect such a great salvation, but here's what I want you to see. It was declared the gospel was declared to us at first by the Lord, excuse me, it was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who heard. So what we see is this writer is saying that he was not an eyewitness in the same way as the other apostles. It seems that Jesus Christ declared proclaimed forth this message to others and then this writer heard it from them. Why is this important? It doesn't imply that the writer of this book is just like us. He'd heard this message of Jesus Christ declared to him from others and now was striving to live as really a second generation Christian underneath the authority of Jesus Christ and yet God accepts this letter, Jesus Christ places it within the canon as his own declared word. As a result, I think he was hesitant maybe to put his name on the letter and yet the Lord Jesus places this was in the canon. We get a sense here that this is a letter that's written to people like us, second generation Christians. Now, as you might expect, not knowing the author does affect our ability to know when the date of the letter was. There are hints in the letter that aid us in placing it in its historical timeline, again all of which is going to help us as we grasp chapter 13 and Hebrews chapter 10, verse 32, we read this. I don't need to turn there, I'll read it for you. But recall the former days, when after you enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction and sometimes being partners with those so treated. The writer refers to these former days of persecution. The church was originally the most severe persecution, the initial instances of persecution happened between 8064 and 8068 under Emperor Nero. But here, the writer is saying this persecution seems to be previous, almost so far along ago that they've begun to forget how desperately difficult it is to endure in their faith. So most commentators have argued that this probably is one of the latest of the epistles in the New Testament. There's disagreement whether it's where exactly, but everybody would say it's later than 8068 and it's before 8094. My assessment as I've been studying is that it's somewhere probably in about 80, 80. Mike Ross also agrees with me in case you're wondering. Why again is this important information for us? What is this background? How's this going to help us as we study chapter 13? Well because this date places Hebrews in our chapter in a time period when most of the apostles are gone. John's the only one left. And these frequent extrotations to pay attention, to encourage one another, to persevere, to run with perseverance, to resist sin. It leaves this impression that the recipients of the epistle lived in a period of peace. They no longer seem to suffer for being Christians. And because of these peaceful times, religious backsliding had become a distinct threat to these people who were receiving this letter. So it's a letter that speaks to a church that's soon to be post-apostolic and increasingly just becoming a part, a normal part of Roman society. It tells us that this was a letter filled with instructions for a church after the apostles, namely, a church just like ours, just like us, who then were the actual recipients. Who received these instructions again? We don't have a lot of clear answers, it's called Hebrews because the best we can get from it is this was a group of converted Jewish Christians. We get that from all the instruction about the law, about the priesthood, about the tabernacle. It seems that clearly the readers, the original readers of this letter, were familiar with many of the things of the Old Testament. However, all the references to the Old Testament in this book are written in the Septuagint. That's the Greek translation of the Old Testament. So what that tells us is, in all likelihood, this letter didn't go to a group of converted Jews that were in, let's say, Jerusalem or near Palestine, but probably were a people, converted Jews, that were used to reading Greek rather than Hebrew. As a result, the majority of commentators think that this letter probably went to a group of converted Jewish Christians who were in Rome. Again, why is this important to us? The original readers were Christians living in the metropolitan capital of the known world. They were struggling with complacency, with perseverance. They were having difficulty coming out of their old cultural traditional patterns to accept the call of the Great Commission to reach and transform the world. Again, for those of us in Charlotte, in America, in the center of many respects, you could argue the known world, this is a letter for us. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12. Just right there before chapter 13, again, as I'm setting the context, I just want us to look at verse 25 through 29. These are the immediate preceding verses to the chapters that we're going to study this summer. I want you to see here the foundational theme of the whole book of Hebrews that will play itself out through our chapter, influence our understanding throughout the whole study. We read it, see that you don't refuse him who is speaking. Right there, ultimately, is really what all the Hebrews is about, is that Jesus Christ is Lord and sovereign over all things in your life, and he has come forth to speak, listen to him, receive his revelation. For if they didn't escape when they refused him who warned them in earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time, his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heavens. This phrase, yet once more, indicates the removal of all things that are shaken. That is, things that have been made in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe for God is a consuming fire. I said the whole book of Hebrews is really about the supremacy of Christ, and these particular verses right here in chapter 12 established the clear reality that God's presence, his power in the life of a community, is intended to shake the very foundations of the earth. Referencing the descending of God upon Mount Sinai as he gave forth his word to Israel, the right of Hebrews is arguing that God's revelatory word lived out in a community will lead to the shaking of a culture in order that the only things that will remain are those things that cannot be shaken. These unshakable things are the very foundation of the kingdom of God. It is what we will be studying over the next ten weeks. It is what he then leads into in chapter 13 to explain, what are those unshakable foundations of this kingdom culture that he vites us up into? That is what we will be studying. One of the fundamental principles then of Hebrews, which again we will see played out here in the chapter, is this culture clash that exists between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the world. And the author is speaking to a church that is in danger of assimilating to the society that surrounds them. They are wanting a peaceful coexistence or they are tempted to a peaceful coexistence. False teaching is threatening the gospel. Accraving for superstitious experiences is creating a strong temptation to compromise with the culture. Again, it is a sound familiar, but while the church is flirting with the prospect of making peace with their world, God is radically proclaiming principles of church life that will overthrow the world. And that is exactly what will happen in the 250 years after this letter is written. The church will rise up and faithfully live out there, walk with God, and the Roman society, and all of the Roman Empire will be transformed as a result. As we close, I want to examine what it was about first century Rome that made it ripe for the growth of the gospel of Jesus Christ susceptible to the uprising of God's kingdom. One theologians said this, probably there was no period in the history of the world that was better suited to receive the infant church than the first century AD. And as I give you just a brief history lesson of sorts, yes, I was a history major, so bear with me. But I want you, as we think about first century Rome, I just want you to listen again for how familiar this seems to our 21st century context. First century Rome was marked by what historians refer to as the Roman piece, fundamentally in the known world, the predominant Western world that we know of, and really the main central focus of our history, Rome was the only superpower, and through its military influence it had established its presence all throughout Europe all the way up into England throughout the whole Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East, and in so doing through its military force it had created what was known as the Roman piece, and in so doing provided a stability to the day and age. Today, historians will refer to the Pax Americana, the piece that our entire global world now, not just the world surrounding the Mediterranean, but really the world all around our entire earth, a piece that has been provided through once again one major superpower in the world. Again, providing a stability, a relative stability that's we've seen seldom throughout world history. Second Roman roads, a mark of first century, basically Rome through their military forces established this whole network of roads going out from the main city in Italy, all the way up up to England, you can still walk these roads in England all throughout North Africa out into the Middle East. These Roman roads provided this easy transmission of information as well as people. There's one gravestone that you can find in Turkey where this guy upon his death put on his grave stone, I've been to Rome 72 times, which that in itself it's just showing that you had this, that never happened before Rome. Now, what do we see in our own day and age? It's almost cliche at this point to speak of the internet, but the internet in many respects has created an information system that allows us to go to get information from one part of the globe all the way to the other instantaneously. People are in contact with one another on a daily basis that are in radically different spheres of culture and background and yet are able to relate and communicate. What does that provide? This free access of information and association that was there in the first century and now is even extended around the entire world. Roman culture, Rome as it established its military and governmental system throughout the Mediterranean world also brought with it its culture. So you had an essence, this one world government, at least surrounding this major parts of the Western world, a megalopolis of sorts of culture policed by these Roman soldiers. Isn't that exactly what we're seeing today? Increasingly, one world culture, you can get a Big Mac anywhere you want to go. You want to go to Indonesia, you want to go to northern China, you want to go to the southern tip of Africa, you can get a Big Mac. You'll see people walking around and leave eyes. You can get your iPhone service whether you're in Mongolia or whether you're in Montreal. One world culture extending itself across the entire globe. A common community is being provided to the world just as it was there in the first century. Rome was marked fourthly, it was known as being a culture of bread and games. In essence, Rome, how you were able to bring peace and how you kept the people happy in Rome was by feeding them and entertaining them. Man, that sounds like at least American culture. You've got this entertainment crazed, sex crazed culture that isn't just here in just the Western hemisphere. It's now spreading itself wherever you go across the world. This common entertainment driven, bread and games society. What is that provided? What are we seeing in there now? It was there in the first century. It's here today. Common cravings. Fifth, first century Rome was marked by one common language. Greek had become the main language of which wherever you were, whether you in Spain and become a Roman citizen or whether you were in the Middle East and were a part of a Roman culture or even you weren't. You could speak together in the Greek language. It's exactly what we have today. One common language, English having been spread all across the globe where wherever you go, you pretty much can have an opportunity to communicate to someone through the English language. A common language is being provided. It was then and it is now six. There was this common world view. Greek philosophy had established itself and rooted itself obviously first in Greece but I was spread throughout all of the Roman world to the point that what's significant as I was studying through this is that in first century Rome it was a time period where the known world was going through a major shift in world view. So Rome and Greek which had the culture had been established with this notion of this pantheon of gods, these kind of mythic beings that controlled our world suddenly now in the first century, these Greek philosophers are throwing out all of these notions that there's gods at all and said man has become the measure of all things. Isn't that exactly where we are today? A pivotal period in human history when we are seeing a dramatic change in world view. Shifting from this modernist world view and really a fairly western world view that's been existence probably since the Reformation, now shifting into this postmodern deconstructionist radical changing of the way we think. Common language, common cravings we spoke of now common questions that's happening because of a changing world view. Also the Roman world that we see what was significant in the first century. All of this was the recipe for why the church grew in first century Rome. There was this growth of mystery cults as Rome was extending itself throughout the Mediterranean. These individual citizens were coming more and more in contact with religions with these other religions with Egyptian religions and Egyptians are religions of northern Gaul and France and as a result they're getting exposed to all these new ideas and there's this growth of this craving for experiential spirituality. It's amazing if you read some of the things the way the Romans prided themselves on being a society that was tolerant and non-exclusive. You honestly can read emperors declaring that this is one of the greatest things about being Roman. Isn't that exactly where we are today? An experienced driven culture longing for spirituality where today more than ever in human history people it is a normal category in polling to say spiritual. It never used to exist even 25 years ago. There was just what religion were you. Now it's become its own religion. I'm just spiritual. I'm craving spiritual experiences. What did that provide in the first century? What's it provided today? Common needs. And finally this is an interesting one. Theologians and historians look back to first century Rome and what they find is that the spread of Judaism throughout the Roman world was a significant influence on the growth of the church in first century because what has happened is almost the majority of Romans would have known a Jew and as a result they would have known that there was this people out there who believed in this monotheistic one God and they got all the information from this one book. And as a result when Christians came on they weren't there was this there was a normalcy to their worship practices into what they believed. Again I ask is that where we are the 21st century? Hasn't the growth of the Catholic church, the billion worshippers in the Catholic church spread throughout the entire globe established a common ground in the 21st century where people know that there is this monotheistic religion even if it's not gospel centered they know that there is this book of which God has spoken, the living God has spoken forth. And the first century what were the ingredients? There was stability, there was this free access of information and association of people, there was a common community, common cravings, common language, common questions, common needs and common ground. And that is exactly where we are today in the 21st century only it's not just surrounding the Mediterranean world, it's the whole globe. And so in the beginning of the 21st century in the third millennium after Christ we find ourselves the twilight, the sunlight, the sunset of our civilization. Here is an opportunity now for us to look again and see what it was that helped this Christian church, this small band of followers of Jesus captured the entire empire in the first place. I want to conclude just with these, it's there in your notes if you don't have it you should pick it up as you go because it's really helpful. There is this scholar, an evangelist and theologian pastor and he wrote a book called evangelism in the early church. He was so gripped by the similarities between the first century and the 21st century some of the things that I've been talking to you about that he went back and he said well what was unique about this first century church that enabled this church to conquer the world. So he wrote down 70 kind of established seven key aspects of the New Testament church that I just want to, I want to read to you and invite us up into. It's the very things, many of the things that we will be looking at over the next 10 weeks. First and foremost, the church, this, this, these significant aspects was the church's confidence in the truth of their message. They believed the gospel of God. Second, the churches theologians were evangelists and their evangelists were theologians. Michael Green, this author who wrote this book, he writes this unfortunately much evangelism today is brash and unthinking. The intellectuals do not usually engage in it. This is a double loss. The practitioners do not know any theology and the theologians do not know any evangelism and the early church it was not so. Third, the passion of the early church was amazing contagious sincere. He notes their passionate commitment to Christ. They're passionately convinced of the gospel. They were passionately concerned with the souls of those who didn't know Christ and who had not received and believed the gospel. Fourth, he notes their unwillingness to compromise on the exclusive claims of Christ in the pluralistic and tolerant world of the first century Roman Empire. We can tend to think that our day and age is the first of its kind, but it's not. Rome was just as pluralistic and tolerant as our day and age. Maybe more so. The only thing that's excluded is an exclusive claim for truth. As the way it wasn't Rome, that's the way it is today and yet Christians at the point were willing. They're unwilling to compromise. Fifth, the willingness to take their message into the marketplace and to all their relationships. Sixth, the use they made of their homes to gossip the gospel, to neighbors and friends, worship with their brethren showing hospitality to strangers. Seventh, most of all, there's the transformation of their lives and character by the Holy Spirit. That's what made the deepest impact upon the world. Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ filled the lives of these first century Christians in such a way that He transformed the entire world order through them. While many might find the death tolls of our civilization, the pessimistic, fatalistic sound, Jesus Christ does not. The similarities between the relativistic, pluralistic, pagan world of Rome and our postmodern, post-Christian, nihilistic global society should actually fill us with hope. Because having come to the end of our world, we find that Jesus has brought us right back to the beginning again. And that's what this study of Hebrews 13 is going to be about, leaving out these foundational principles, calling us up to be this kind of community of which the world has changed, which changes the world. Think about this. What if the Lord would restore to us, a genuine confidence in the Word of God? What if our theologians also were evangelists? What if we all were able to both explain and proclaim our faith? What if we were re-ignited with the passion for Christ? What might happen if we were refused to compromise our conviction and confidence in Jesus Christ and his gospel? What if we took our faith with us every single day to the marketplace, the ballfield, the shopping malls? Which of our neighbors might be waiting for us to invite them over so we can gossip about our great king and savior? What if all who knew us could tell from our character, tell from our conduct that we were committed to Christ as church and his great commission? This is what we'll be studying. Together over the next 10 weeks, our passage starts in Hebrews 13 with these words, and this is what I'll end with, let the love of the brethren continue. Let this love the writer is saying, remain amongst us and within the world, for when it does, we will watch and see what a gracious and a strong faith looks like as it blossoms in a neo-pagan world. Rome was transformed not by barbarians, not by economics, but by commonplace Christians, living out the principles of Hebrews 13. Let's watch and hope and expectation that Jesus Christ can do the same thing in us and transform our world. Do it all over again now that we find ourselves back at the beginning. Should pray with me to that end. Jesus, I love your hope for our world that while we might at times read the news or open a newspaper or hear certain stories and it fills us with despair and we wonder, is it, are we going to be able to last? Will America make it? You are strategically orchestrating all things for the advance of your kingdom and you are shaking the earth. You're shaking every single culture so that the only thing that will remain is the truth of your gospel, is your sovereign reign, is your kingdom in full expression through your church. So we pray that you would fill us with an expectation as we study this chapter of Hebrews 13, that we might live this authentic faith and watch you. Use us and use this church to transform the world. We pray this all in Jesus name.