Now if you would take a copy of God’s Word in your hands and turn with me, please to our stewardship text this year from the letter to the Hebrews, chapter 13. Hebrews 13, verses 15 and 16. As you may know, we have been working our way through the book of Leviticus on Sunday mornings here at First Church, and we have regularly turned to the letter to the Hebrews to provide the interpretive keys that we’ve needed to help us unpack the contemporary New Testament significance of many of those Old Testament rituals and sacrifices that we have been studying. And in particular, we have referred to our text today, Hebrews 13:15, more than to any other to help us to understand the sacrifices we are still required to offer to God. Not the sacrifices of a bull or a goat or a lamb, but the sacrifices of praise.
And so, it is both helpful and appropriate as we break from Leviticus today for One Sunday that we would turn here to Hebrews 13:15-16. We could say these two verses summarize the whole practical duty of the Christian life. They summarize the whole practical duty of the Christian life, which by the way is what we really mean when we are talking about stewardship around here. Make no mistake, we absolutely do mean the wise, God honoring stewardship of your money; we want to encourage you to give generously to the cause of Christ in this place, for sure. But your financial support is really only a tangible expression of the wider stewardship of your whole life, lived for the pleasure and praise of God. And that is the point of these two verses.
If you cast your eye over the context for a moment you will see that Hebrews 13 provides a string of direct exhortations for practical Christian living, all connected. The theme that holds them together is brotherly love. Verse 1, “Let brotherly love continue.” So, this is the writer’s theme for this part of his letter – brotherly love. And then he explains what brotherly love in the church ought to look like. Christian love, he says in verse 2, involves hospitality towards strangers. It involves the care of Christians, suffering or imprisoned for their faith, verse 3. It involves the honoring and valuing of Christian marriage and fidelity and sexual purity within marriage, verse 4. It involves the exclusion of the unholy love of money and the cultivation instead of godly contentment, verses 5 and 6. Practical, Christian love in the local church extends even to the support of ministers, of all things, and it includes our own commitment to learning from those that God has called to teach us His Word. Of course, real Christian love always looks, finally, not to any earthly leader but to the Lord Jesus Christ who never changes. Mere men always change; He never does, verses 7 and 8. In fact, if Christian love is to flourish in the church, Hebrews says, it requires a diligent refusal to be led astray by false teaching. Instead, we are to focus on Christ, the perfect sacrifice for sin, who sanctifies His people by His blood, verses 9 through 12. And then we must be willing to go to Him, outside the camp, to bear the same reproach He endured from a hostile world if necessary because we know this world is not our home, verses 13 and 14.
And all of that together is part of what we are talking about when we encourage you to renew your commitment to Christian stewardship. We are talking about growing in the deliberate practice of Christian love, demonstrated in concrete ways within our fellowship. We are talking about hospitality, prison ministry, sexual purity, financial generosity, material contentment, commitment to biblical truth and to spiritual growth under the Word of God. That’s all stewardship, and all of that is summed up now in the two verses before us here in verses 15 and 16, which form something of a conclusion to this part of the chapter. If you look at them with me, we are going to consider their teaching under four headings. Christian stewardship is centered on Christ, it is continuous, it is costly, and it is comprehensive. Christian stewardship is centered on Christ, it is continuous, it is costly, and it is comprehensive.
Before we think about all of that, we need to pray and then we’ll read God’s Word together. Let us pray.
Blessed Lord, You have caused all holy Scripture to be written for our learning. Grant that we may hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them so that by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word we may embrace and always hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which You have given us in our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Hebrews 13 at verse 15. This is the Word of God:
“Through 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.”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken to us in His holy and authoritative Word.
First of all, Christian stewardship is centered on Christ. Do you see that in verse 15? “Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise.” Through Him. I have a friend who used to fly those ultra high altitude intelligence gathering airplanes for the United States Air Force. He was never allowed to tell me really anything about his job for obvious reasons, but once or twice he would surreptitiously snap a picture on his cell phone from the cockpit window and send me the view. These were incredible pictures where you could see that he was flying right on the edge of space. You can see the limits of the atmosphere where the color changes and the whole curvature of the earth, amazing pictures. But then he said to me one day, “You know, if you are going to fly at that altitude and do it safely, you have to wear what really resembles a spacesuit. It’s a pressurized spacesuit. Otherwise your blood will boil in your veins.
Hebrews 13:15 is reminding us that we cannot ascend to the heights of God’s presence safely unless we are clothed in Jesus Christ. The only safe way to climb to that altitude is through Jesus Christ. “Through Him let us offer a sacrifice of praise.” If you want to steward your life, your money, your relationships, your gifts, your time, all for the glory of God, if you want to offer sacrifices of praise that please Him, the only way is through Jesus Christ. “Through him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise.” When it comes to the subject of Christian stewardship, before we can think about our offerings of service and generosity and sacrifice for God, we must trust in, rest upon, the sacrifice and service of the Lord Jesus Christ for us. Christian love, Christian hospitality, mercy ministry, discipleship, financial generosity, all the things involved in Christian stewardship will all only ever feel like a dull, dreary burden, it will be all drudgery, all obligation if you don’t get this first. Jesus Christ has given Himself up to the fires of divine judgment as our perfect burnt offering, a sacrifice to satisfy the judgment of God, my sin and yours, rightly deserves. Suffering, as verse 12 puts it, outside the gate, so that we might be pardoned forever.
And that amazing truth really must be more than a doctrine to which we assent in our heads. It has to capture our hearts. Only then will sacrificial stewardship turn into joyful service. Only then. Did you get that now? Sacrificial stewardship turns into joyful service when our hearts are captured by the good news about Jesus Christ, crucified for us. I wonder if you have perhaps found yourself becoming reluctant to give, unwilling to serve, reticent to share your life, open your home, give yourself for others. Maybe like the “check engine” light on your car dashboard, those attitudes are actually pointing out a deeper problem. You have been drifting from a purposeful, intentional, heartfelt, Christ-centeredness. Ask yourself now, “Is my Christianity really nothing more than do, do, do, all duty, all burden, all obligation?” You can never be a good steward, you can never bring to God sacrifices of praise that will please Him that way, if it’s all only do, do, do, obligation and duty. You must go back to Jesus Christ, crucified for you, risen and reigning, ever living to make intercession for you. “Through HIm then let us offer a sacrifice of praise.” The only fuel that can drive good stewardship in the end is a believing grasp of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Sacrificial stewardship turns into joyful service, but only when our hearts are captured by the good news about Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. So first of all, stewardship is Christ-centered.
Secondly, stewardship is continuous. It is continuous. Look at verse 15 again. “Through Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise.” Clearly, Hebrews doesn’t merely have an hour or so on a Sunday in mind, does it, as if the whole scope of Christian stewardship can be fulfilled between the Call to Worship and the Benediction. Then we’ve done our duty and we can live as we please thereafter. No, no, this is a call in view of the cross of Jesus Christ to cultivate a posture and a temperament, a mindset, a life of unceasing praise. As I was reflecting on these verses this week, I was deeply convicted about how little praise there actually was in my own life, and especially in my own private prayers. I do express thanksgiving to God, though not nearly enough. I pray for my own needs, the needs of my family a good deal, I frequently ask for God’s blessing and help for a whole array of church members, many of you, for missionary friends around the world, for fellow pastors. But it struck me forcibly that I tend – I wonder if you can relate to this – I tend to rush far too quickly in my prayers into petition, into asking for stuff. I need to learn to linger in a posture of praise. “Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise,” all the time, on every occasion.
Like most of us, I do not always know what to do or how to pray in every situation. But here is one thing that is always fitting. One thing I can do, you can do, that is always appropriate – in trials, as well as in triumphs – no matter your circumstances, we are to praise God continually. As we think about stewarding our lives and our resources this stewardship season, a top priority, Hebrews 13 is saying, a top priority ought to be praise. Praise sweetens every other duty in the Christian life. Praise is like a good friend in hard times. In its company, the daily grind gets a little lighter. Bathe your life in praise and you will make it beautiful. You fight the infection of bitterness and discontentment in your heart with the penicillin of praise. Praising continually. Does that describe your Christian life?
Stewardship is centered on Christ. Stewardship is continuous. Thirdly, stewardship – notice in the text – stewardship is costly. Twice in these two verses the duty of a Christian is described as a sacrifice. Do you see that? Look at the passage. “Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. Do not neglect to do good, to share what you have, with such sacrifices God is pleased.” So at one end of the spectrum of Christian stewardship there is the possibility of joylessness, of dreary duty of do, do, do. But at the other end of the spectrum there is trouble too where we can begin to view our Christianity as comfortable, familiar, routine. It never demands anything of us, we are never provoked to deal honestly with our sin before God, we are never moved to reassess our lifestyle, our language, our priorities. And we can start to live like nice, safe, middle class, well heeled, polite, worldlings, come to church on Sunday and feel no conflict at all between the values of the kingdom of God that we read of in holy Scripture and the values we find ourselves really pursuing out there in the world Monday through Saturday.
But Hebrews 13 wants to challenge that, doesn’t it? The writer puts before His readers the costly sacrifice of God for us in verses 10 through 14. He’s saying, in effect, “See from His head, His hands, His feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown?” Look at it, he’s saying. See what your Savior has done when He gave Himself for you. And then, having pointed us back to the cross, he now says in verses 15 and 16, “Here’s how I want you to respond. In light of what God has done for you in His Son, here’s how I want you to respond.” What does the death of Christ call for from all of us who trust in Him? “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small. Love so amazing, so divine, demands” – what? An hour or two on Sunday? “My life, my soul, my all.” He offered Himself to the hell of the cross, a sacrifice to God to atone for my sin. How can I do anything other than offer myself as a sacrifice of praise to Him?
Stewardship is costly. It’s a call to sacrifice. And just to be clear, the sacrifices we are talking about are for the most part not especially dramatic or onerous or difficult. We are talking about the sacrifice of money. When was the last time I made a lifestyle change so that I could be more generous in my giving in the local church? The sacrifices of our priorities. When was the last time I decided not to go to the sporting event or to attend that party or to come home early and endure a little FOMO, you know, so that I can be with the people of God on the Lord’s Day. There are the sacrifices of hospitality. When last did I invite someone I didn’t know all that terribly well into my home from church to share a meal? We need to ask ourselves, “Am I really sacrificing for the glory of God?” That is His call on our lives. The Christian life is a life of sacrifice. Is yours a life of sacrifice for the glory of God and the good of His people and the extension of His kingdom?
Let me press that a little further and say to those of you that are retired, please do not point to all your years of sacrifice thus far and then say, “Well I’m retired now. I’m done with all that. I’m done with service. I’m done with sacrifice.” You do not retire from the Christian life. The call to the wise, costly stewardship of your time and talents and treasure continues. You’re not done yet. Run so as to finish the race. End well. Or let me say to you at the other end of the spectrum – you who have young families in your home. Please don’t tell yourself the priority of your sacrifice right now ought to be your children. You’ll sacrifice for the Lord Jesus later, you know, down the line when the little ones are older. No, no, listen. If you make your children and not the Lord Jesus the center of your world, do not be surprised if your children and not the Lord Jesus become the center of your children’s world too. We must model such a love for Christ that our little children or our grandchildren for that matter see that He has first claimed – not them – He does, not just on our beliefs but on our behavior, on our bank accounts, on our calendars, on each day’s time, on our affections, on our lives. We want them to see us sacrifice for Him who sacrificed His all for us. Because isn’t that what we want them to do too? To have Jesus hold first place in their hearts and lives. If we make our children and not Jesus Christ the center of our world, we mustn’t be surprised if our children and not Jesus Christ become the center of our children’s world.
Faithful stewardship is centered on Christ. It is continuous. It is costly. And finally, it is comprehensive. When a preacher says something is comprehensive, this is where he puts all the other points! And so there are four things to which this passage points us as we steward our lives! Four things, four parts of this comprehensive call I want you to notice. First, there is the sacrifice of praise that we have already mentioned. Secondly, there is the sacrifice of public witness. That’s part of our call to be good stewards. Look again at the second half of verse 15. Our praise, notice, is to be “the fruit of lips that acknowledge His name.” The fruit of lips that acknowledge His name – people that name the name of Jesus for the world to hear. Back in chapter 4 verse 14, again in chapter 10 verse 23, the verb form of this world translated here “to acknowledge” means “to make public confession.” To name the name of Jesus before the watching world. The point is, the sacrifice of praise is meant to ascend from the same lips that publicly confess that Jesus Christ is “my King, my Savior, my Lord” and has first place in my life. Do not isolate your duty to worship from your duty to witness, Hebrews is saying. A faithful steward loves the praise of God so much that he wants more and more people to come and join him in it. He becomes a witness as well as a worshiper. Does your zeal for the worship of God make you a bold, bright witness for Jesus Christ?
Stewardship involves the sacrifice of praise, it involves the sacrifice of public witness. Thirdly, it involves the sacrifice of practical care. Look at verse 16. “Do not neglect to do good.” There is so much wisdom in the negative form of that command, isn’t there? Do you see it? “Do not neglect” to do this, he says. Presumably because he knows full well how easy it is to become absorbed with praise and witness and still somehow forget to be kind and practical and helpful toward people around us. He knows we can easily prioritize words and neglect godly deeds. Now it’s true, no one ever became a Christian without hearing the Word. Your kind deeds will not, cannot save anyone. Only the Gospel Word can do that. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.” We must open our mouths and speak for Jesus. But listen, if you neglect kind deeds, every time you do open your mouth and speak for Jesus, you will undermine the Gospel Word. I’ve known people who had the gift of the gab. They could talk to anyone and they were bold, fervent evangelists. I’ve known people who were all about worship, singing the great psalms and hymns of the faith. That was their thing. And yet for all of that, they had huge blind spots in their Christian lives when it came to practical, everyday care of the people around them. “Someone else will do the service stuff. That’s not my gift. I’m a Word guy. I’m a worship gal.” No, no, Hebrews says. “Do not neglect to do good.” This is your job and mine, all of us.
Stewardship involves the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of public witness, the sacrifice of practical care, and finally it involves the sacrifice of personal generosity. Look at verse 16 again. “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” We are to share what we have. That word “share” is a form of the familiar term “koinonia,” sometimes translated as “fellowship” or “communion.” But very often, as is the case here in verse 16, it really means financial generosity. Financial generosity. Hebrews is asking us, “Do you hoard your prosperity or do you share it? It’s part of the doctrine of the communion, the koinonia, the fellowship of the saints that we are celebrating this day, One Sunday. It’s part of that truth that we share what we have with one another.
And so given that, let me offer some practical counsel as we think about giving before we are done. The key principle is this, when it comes to giving – our giving should be guided by the priorities of God, expressed in His Word, rather than by our own preferences and pleasures. And remember that the center of God’s plan for the evangelization of the nations, the discipleship of His people, is the church of Jesus Christ. God loves the Church. Christ died for the Church, His bride. His Spirit dwells in the Church. The Church is God’s instrument for the advancement of His saving design in the world. Every other institution, however influential in your Christian life or however effective it may be in its own sphere of labor, every other institution is of purely human invention and may only ever be an auxiliary or an assistant to the Church at best. And so the church, your church, should be the priority in our giving for the simple reason that the Church is the priority in God’s plan and we are not wiser than God.
As for how we should give, the Bible teaches us to give generously and sacrificially. If we use the familiar Old Testament tithe as a standard starting point, putting that together with what I’ve just said about God’s priorities, I think we can say it is the teaching of Scripture that we are to give our whole tithe to the church. If you want to give more to other worthy causes above and beyond, by all means do so at your own discretion. But remember, our giving should align with God’s stated purpose and God’s ordained means – His purpose, His worship, evangelism, discipleship and mission. His means to accomplish His purpose is the local church.
And now in the light of all of that, I wonder if it’s time to take another long, hard look at our stewardship priorities and patterns. Do not give to the church because you are confident the church always makes the right decisions with your gifts. It doesn’t and it won’t. The church is led, administered by sinners. Rather, give to the church because the church is God’s plan. With all its mess and weakness, the church is God’s plan for the fulfillment of His great design – to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. So is it time to take another long, hard look at your giving patterns and at your wider habits of Christian stewardship? The One Card is designed to be a tool to help you to think about giving to the local church, to global mission, to think about prayer, to think about Bible reading, to think about Christian service – all the things we’ve been describing, belonging to the ministry of stewardship. There are tools available to help you track and stay accountable. We would love it if you would make use of them. We want you to learn these disciplines and practice them together, not so that we can keep the lights on our build our name or brand or empire, but so that men and women, boys and girls, may pass from darkness into God’s marvelous light because someone here opened their mouths and told them about Jesus and lived a life of contrite, broken, repentant faith and integrity as they followed Jesus Christ.
That is Christian stewardship. If it’s not to be a dreary duty, it must be centered on Christ. When it is, it becomes a joy. It must be continuous. It’s not a one and done kind of deal. It is not confined to an hour on Sunday here or there, but it is to mark our whole Christian lives. It must be costly. Give, serve, care till it costs you something. And it must be comprehensive. It includes the sacrifice of praise, of public witness, of practical care and of personal generosity. These are the sacrifices Hebrews says that are pleasing to God. May God, therefore, make us all better stewards of His manifold grace like that, for the glory and praise of His name. Let’s pray together.Abba Father, we bless and praise You for Your Word. It is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. Guide us by it, we pray, for the glory of Your name. Amen.