We’ve talked before about how, as Christians,
we’re supposed to be part of the world, and yet not be influenced by the
world. In other words, as Christians, we are not supposed to just wall
ourselves off from the rest of society.
We need to be engaged with other people, including people who are not
Christians. We need to be engaged with society as a whole. After all, Jesus told us to go and make disciples,
and we cannot make disciples by staying to ourselves. The only way we can make new disciples is to
associate with people who are not already Christians.
But, of course,
there’s a danger in that. Our purpose in engaging with society is to try
to change society. But the danger is that, instead, society may change
us. It’s easier for that to happen than
you may think.
You see, the
thing is, most of us want to be liked. We want to have friends. We want the people around us to think well of
us. And the easiest way for us to be liked, and to have friends, and to
have people think well of us, is to fit in. To go along with the
crowd. To do what the people around us
do. It’s really easy for that to happen. It can happen without us making a conscious
decision for it to happen. It can happen without us even realizing it has
happened. Sometimes, we even rationalize
it. We tell ourselves that we’re just
getting to know people, that we’re learning how to relate to them, that we’re
trying to earn their trust. But we cannot be witnesses for Christ if
people cannot see that our Christianity has made any difference in our
lives. And so, while we may start out by
wanting to change society, we instead allow society has changed us.
This is not a new
problem. It was going on when the letter to the Hebrews was
written. That’s why the letter contains the things we read for
today. The Hebrews of that time were
tempted to go along with the crowd, too, just like we are. And so this
letter was written to remind them that, as Christians, they and we are supposed
to be different.
Let’s look at
some of the examples our reading gives for how we’re supposed to be
different. Love one another as brothers and sisters. We’d like to think we do that, but do we,
really? I suspect many of us fall
short. I know I do. I’ll do things
for family that I would not do for other people. I certainly will do things for family that I
would not do for people I don’t know very well. And I’m guessing I’m not
the only one.
Show hospitality
to strangers. Again, we’d like to think we do. And in some
situations, maybe we do. But how many times do we walk right by a
stranger and not even take any notice of them. It probably happens less
when we’re here in town, because there are not that many people who would truly
be strangers to us. But when we’re out of town, do we even notice people
around us? If we walked by someone, and
it looked like they were hurting or it looked like they were sad or it looked
like they needed help, would we even see that? Because if we don’t see
it, we’re not going to do anything about it.
Continue to
remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison.
That does not mean that we all have to go into prison ministry or
something. But I suspect most of us have
known people who were in prison. I have.
Did we take the time to send them a card or a letter? Did we make any effort to let them know we
were thinking of them? Did we do
something to let their families know we were there for them? And again,
I’m not saying I do this and you don’t.
There are times I have, but there are many times I have
not.
And sometimes, we’re tempted to think, well,
it’s their own fault they’re in prison. And maybe it is. But the letter to the Hebrews does not say
“remember those in prison if they were wrongly imprisoned.” It does not
say anything about right or wrong. It
says to remember them and be there for them.
Because the fact that our troubles are our own fault does not make the
troubles easier to deal with. In fact, it can make them harder, because
we have no one to blame for them but ourselves.
And those times, when people are at a really low point, are the times
when people need us more than ever.
Honor marriage, because God will judge the
adulterer and the sexually immoral. I don’t need to tell you that our
society does not honor marriage like it used to. You know the statistics
on divorce and on people cheating on their spouses. And I’m not here to judge anyone, don’t get
me wrong. Our reading says God will judge, not the pastor will
judge. Divorces happen for a lot of
reasons, and there are a lot of circumstances involved. But still, as
Christians, we are supposed to honor marriage in a way that society does not.
Keep yourself free from the love of money.
Be content with what you have. That
might be the hardest one of all. How many of us would not like more
money? I would. Probably you would, too. We may not
love money, but we do like it, right?
And I’m not saying that it’s unchristian to have money. But it’s
easy to fall into the trap of chasing too hard after money. We need to trust that, whether we have a lot
or a little, God will take care of us and give us what we need.
Our reading from Hebrews does not give us a
comprehensive list, of course. But it does give us a lot of important
things to work on. It gives us a lot of
important ways that, as Christians, we are not supposed to go along with the
values of society. As Christians, you and I are supposed to be different.
But you know, there’s one other thing we need to
be aware of, and it’s one we don’t talk about a whole lot. When we make
that decision that we are going to be different from society, and when we then
try to follow through on that decision, it’s really easy for us to start
thinking we’re better than other people. It’s really easy for us to start
feeling superior, to look down on the rest of the people. The people who are not quite as “holy” as we
are, you know. And again, a lot of times
that’s not something we intend to do. We may not even realize we’re doing
it. And it’s not necessarily wrong to
feel good about ourselves when we resist temptation. But it is wrong when we allow that good
feeling to slide into arrogance.
Because arrogance is a sin, too. And it’s
one that God has a lot to say about. God’s words against arrogance are
all over the Old Testament. Almost every one of the Old Testament
prophets talked about how arrogance was the root of the people’s sin, and that
God was not going to let that arrogance go unpunished. It was arrogance
that led them to go against God. It was
arrogance that led them to trust in themselves rather than trusting God. Isaiah says, “The arrogance of man will be
brought low and human pride humbled.” Hosea says, “Israel’s arrogance
testifies against them.”
And it does not change when we go to the New
Testament. Remember Jesus’ story about the Pharisees who goes to the
temple and thanks God that he’s better than other people? That was one of
the main things Jesus had against the Pharisees--that they were arrogant, and
that their arrogance had led them to love their own rules more than they loved
God.
So what do we do? How do we refuse to go
along with society’s values, how do we resist the temptation to go along, and
yet not start feeling that we’re better than other people for doing
it?
I think our reading from Hebrews gives us an
answer. In verse fifteen, it says, “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually
offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that openly profess his
name.”
“A sacrifice of praise”. Think about that
phrase. Right before that, our reading
talks about the animal sacrifices that the priests made. But that’s not
the sacrifice God wants. God wants the
sacrifice of our hearts. God wants
hearts that are dedicated to God. God wants hearts that praise God and
show gratitude to God and are eager to serve God.
Hearts like that will be able to resist the
temptation to go along with society’s values. But they will also be able
to resist the temptation to be arrogant.
Because they will be hearts that realize that everything that have, and
everything they are, comes from God. And they will be hearts that are
eager to acknowledge that, both to God and to each other.
You know, sometimes people wonder why the Bible
tells us so many times that we should praise God. Well, this is one of
the reasons why. We cannot praise God
and be arrogant at the same time. Not if
our praise is sincere, anyway. If we believe, and acknowledge, that
everything we have and everything we are comes from God, we will not be able to
give ourselves credit for anything. If we give God that sacrifice of
praise, we will not need to worry about falling into the sin of arrognace,
because we will know, in our minds and in our hearts, that God deserves credit
for everything.
As Christians,
you and I are supposed to be different from the rest of society. And if
we’re going to be witness for Christ, people need to see that our Christianity
makes us different. But we should not be arrogant about it, and we don’t
need to be. We just need to keep making
those sacrifices of praise to God. We need to have hearts that are
totally dedicated to serving God, and that acknowledge that everything
we have and everything we are comes from God. It’s not always easy, and
we may fail sometimes. But if we keep
trying, and keep trusting God, and keep praising God, you and I will succeed
more often than we’ll fail. And we will be the witnesses for Jesus Christ
that God has called us to be.
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