Let Us Go Outside, Where Jesus Is (Hebrews Sermon 72)

We just sang a moment ago, one of my favorite hymns, Power of the Cross, and it begins with the most courageous, the most vital, the most blessed, and the most difficult journey that’s ever been made by anyone in poetic language.

Oh, to see the dawn

of the darkest day,

Christ on the road to Calvary,

tried by sinful men, torn and beaten, then

nailed to a cross of wood.

That journey that Christ made outside the gate, outside the camp for us, saved my soul and yours if you’re a Christian. And what immense courage and we should stand in awe of Him, and we should never cease praising Him for it. Eric that was a beautiful song. I love that song and it gave me the chance to just close my eyes and sing to Jesus who saved my soul, by that journey that He made, that’s the greatest, most courageous journey that’s ever been made. But the text calls on us now to make a similar journey. That’s what this text is about. He’s calling on us to join Him, to come outside the camp, to come outside the gate and bear the reproach of this sinful generation. And we’re to do it for the same reason really that He did it, for the salvation of souls. That we are to make that journey so that others can be saved and spend eternity with Christ. And so, that’s the burden of my text.

The question in front of me today, in front of all of us, is what enables, what empowers radical joyful Christian suffering. How can we do it? We come immediately face-to-face with our flesh when we come to this topic of witnessing, sharing the Gospel, bearing the reproach that He bore. What enables or empowers this, this journey, this second journey, this is how the finished work of Christ, the blood He shed on the cross, gets applied to the nations, gets applied to the elect. When people like you and me are willing to follow Jesus and suffer and bear the reproach He bore, the blood of Christ, the preaching of the Gospel, gets applied to them and they get saved.

And that’s what Paul meant in Colossians when he said, “I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to the afflictions of Christ.” There’s nothing lacking in the atonement. It is finished. We celebrate that. But it needs to be applied and it’s going to be applied by messengers like you and me who are willing to count the cost and to do it. And as I’ve thought about this text, I’m just so excited to preach it to you, so desirous that you would be free from your fear of people and serve Him more faithfully. I want the same for myself. And I think the Scripture has the power to do it by the power of the Spirit, that we would be more fruitful, more faithful evangelists. And here, as we look at this text, “Let us go to Him outside the camp,” it implies a certain space between us and Jesus, but earlier in the text we are told, “I will never leave you. I will never forsake you.” That implies a certain complete intimacy with Jesus right now. So which is it, is He with us or is He out there, beckoning for us to come? Both, both. He’s with us right now in our weakness, our frailty, our failure, He’s right there loving us, covering us, forgiving us. But He’s also out there saying, “Come to me, come out of that place of comfort and ease and all that, and come and serve Me and bear the reproach that I bore.” It’s both.

I. The Central Question: What Causes Radical Joyful Christian Suffering?

So the central question of this text, and I think of the whole book of Hebrews… And really friends, I have two more sermons in Hebrews, but really this is my climactic sermon in Hebrews. The next two passages are valuable and I’m looking forward to preaching them, but I really think this sermon will culminate the whole book for us, culminate the whole book. So what is powerful enough to transform us, weak as we are, and make us embrace radical Christian suffering joyfully for the cause of the gospel? What’s powerful enough to do it? What engine can do that, what can change us enough to make us do something crazy for Jesus, to take risk for him and to live that kind of life? What can do that to us, to have a radical element in our Christian lives that can only be explained by faith? What can give us the courage and the strength sufficient to venture forth from that circle of comfort and safety, to go from where that comfort and safety is to where the need is, and to know that the needy ones who are going to benefit will be the ones pouring out the reproach on you, that’s who does it, where the pain and suffering… What can enable us to do that?

Friends, this is what the world needs most from us today. That’s what it needs. It needs us to make that journey. This is what the triangle needs, this is what Durham needs from FBC members. That we would be willing to do this, to go outside the gate and bear the reproach He bore. Why do I say that? Because frankly, if the world sees Christians living essentially the same kind of life with essentially the same kind of pleasures and the same kind of patterns and the same kind of hobbies and the same kind of movies, and the same kind of restaurants and the same kind of ambitions and all that same stuff, and if we somehow tell them that Jesus is our ticket into that game, they’re not going to be impressed. It’s the same game they want. When you’re at the game, or at the show, how much do you think about the ticket? Are you thinking about the ticket that got you in there? You’re not. So, Jesus is your ticket. My ticket is hard work, or discipline or education or Buddhism or who knows what all their ticket is, but it’s the same game, worldly pleasures, worldly comforts, worldly ease, worldly ambitions, worldly achievements, that’s the game. And if Jesus is the means to the end, then that we’ve missed the whole point of Hebrews I think.

And so the world needs more than that from us. It needs us to live a radically different kind of life for radically different things and radically different reasons, and the book of Hebrews was designed to call people in that first generation setting, Jewish people, to make that journey in reference to their Jewish friends and neighbors and family. We’re not Jews, we’re not first century Jews, but we have the same journey to make and it doesn’t feel any different. It’s the same kind of thing that we have to do that they did. And so, it’s a timeless word, this word of exhortation, this sermon that the author to Hebrews preached to these Hebrew Christians, word of exhortation he calls it in 13:22, a brief word. It takes about 50 minutes to get through the whole book of Hebrews at a good pace. When I practiced the sermon this morning, it was 56 minutes, so I’m going to have to lose six minutes somewhere.

Oh, now you’re looking terrified because we still have the Lord’s Supper to go, right? How are we going to get through this? But this was a sermon I think that was preached and written down, and it was a word of exhortation. And what was the point? It was to, it was to enable, empower ordinary sinful comfort-loving, security-seeking people like you and me, like them in the first century, to be transformed enough to make this journey, to go outside the gate and bear the reproach that Jesus bore. But what power is strong enough to move us out of the comfort zone and to serve Jesus and suffer with Him? And the answer is, the Holy Spirit, as He uses the word of God to build faith in us enough to treasure Jesus both now and forever, that’ll do it. The Holy Spirit, using the Word, building faith, focused on Jesus, He the treasure and you can experience Him now. And you will experience Him forever. That’ll do it. And so it’s to that end that I preach today.

The elders as we think about FBC, I’ll speak for myself, I think this is the greatest need of our church, pastorally. If I could have just one thing over the next five years, it would be that we embrace this lesson from Hebrews, not this one text but others besides, I’ll show you in a minute. And we just get bold and crazy and radical and risk things for Jesus. And as a result, there are more people baptized, more new Christians to disciple and train and build up, and the thing just multiplies. That’s what I want for this church. I love this church, I love you guys, I love shepherding this church and you love the Word and I know it, and I see that in you and it’s, it’s a pleasure, but this is the one thing that I desire. And I think that this text has the power to do it. So let’s listen together as we hear it.

Now I’ve said it isn’t just one text here, this is a culmination, I think, of the whole movement of the Book of Hebrews. I think it’s why the whole thing was done. So the portion that gives us a sense of the greatness of Christ serves this end, so that we have a sense of the greatness of Christ. I’m going to end the sermon with just tracing through that, how the book of Hebrews just shows us how great Jesus is, and then the New Covenant and how we are by that once for all sacrifice, the blood shed for us, freed from our sins, forgiven before God and He’s at the right hand of God and is interceding for us and all that, it’s all of that, to the end that we will live radical, different Christian lives and live for Jesus as our treasure, both now and forever. That’s the end. That’s why Jesus did all of these things. So, I want to trace it out.

So in your Bibles, go back a little bit to Hebrews 10. I’m going to show you seven texts that say the same thing, over and over and over, 10:34, it’s just the same lesson again and again, look at 10:34. He says, “You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew that you had a better possession and a lasting one.” These people, these Hebrew Christians at the beginning of their Christian life, found people that were being persecuted, they were perhaps being arrested for their faith or being beaten up in some way or hindered in some way, and they came out of the crowd and joined with them, stood by them, encouraged them, or visited them in prison, and risked the same treatment themselves. And the reason they did it, what is the reason? It’s right in the text, because they knew they had a better possession and a lasting one. The name of the better possession is Jesus.

Okay, that’s the first text. Secondly, look at Hebrews 11:6. “And without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly or diligently seek Him.” Alright, I’m going to put a new light on that text, on 11:6, I’m going to put a Hebrews 13 light on it, Jesus is out there, we’re inside where it’s safe, He’s saying, “Come to Me, and if you come to Me, I’ll reward you, you’ll find Me. You’ll have deeper fuller, richer experiences with Me.” And so the only way you’re going to venture out of where it’s safe and secure, going outside the camp is if you believe 11:6. He’s out there and He’ll reward you if you do it. And that He himself is the reward, He’s what you get.

Third look at Hebrews 11:10 and 13-16. We’re talking about Abraham and then, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, the patriarchal period. And these people left the security and comfort of Ur of the Chaldees, and that comfortable setup that Abram had, and they went and wandered in the promised land that wasn’t even given to them in their life and they lived in tents and they admitted that they were aliens and strangers in this world and they wandered around from place to place. And they had opportunity to go back but they never went back because God had prepared a city for them whose architect and builder is God and they’re looking ahead to that city, and they can’t wait to go to that city; and so therefore they are willing to be called aliens and strangers and have disadvantages in this world and rejection in this world, living in tents, etcetera, for the sake of that future glory, that city that’s to come. It’s the same lesson.

Look again at Hebrews 11:24-26, we have the case of Moses, “By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, he chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward.” Why did Moses do it, why did he leave the security and comfort of a good place at court, at Pharaoh’s court, as a son of Pharaoh’s daughter, all of the pleasures of sin and all the lustful things and the sensuous things and all that? Why did he leave all that behind? It says right in the text, he did it for Christ. And why? Because he’s looking ahead to his reward, Christ again, Christ is now and Christ is the reward. Moses did it.

Look again at verse 35, same thing, “Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.” They’re in prison, they’re getting tortured, they’re getting… And apparently in the verse, they have the ability to stop it, they could shut it down if they would just do something, probably deny Jesus. But they refused, they wouldn’t do it. They would rather be tortured, than to have a sinful release. And why? Because they were looking ahead, looking ahead to what? A better resurrection. By now you should know the name of the better resurrection, His name is Jesus. He said it plainly in John 11, “I am the resurrection.” Not merely, I give you the resurrection or I empower your… I Am the Resurrection. You’ll hear His voice and come out of your tomb, and you’ll see Him. He is your resurrection. And so, they were tortured and refused to be released so that they could have that better resurrection. The highest example of all is in chapter 12 in verse 2. Let’s give the best to Jesus, amen?

It says in Hebrews 12:2, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Why did He leave the comfort and security of heaven, come down to earth, lead the kind of life He did and ultimately go to the cross? The reason in the text is He did it for joy. It wasn’t some grim, stoical kind of thing, it was… He would say, I did it for joy. What joy? I want to be with you all forever and ever, I want the elect, I want those, Father, whom You have given Me, to be with Me where I am and I want them to see My glory and I know the price tag is My own blood, I’m willing to pay it. And so for the joy set before Him, He went outside the city gate, and He suffered and He shed His blood. And so, you guys, if you do it, you’re going to do it for joy. I guarantee it, you will not do it out of guilt manipulation, you won’t do it out any of that. You’ll do it once or twice for guilt, but you’ll do it for the rest of your lives for joy. For the joy set before you. And so, Christ is our pattern in this.

And then the verses we’re looking at today, look at them again, 13:12-14, “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’re looking for the city that is to come.” Same thing, seven texts that say the same thing. If you can find some more, great, add them to the collection, but it’s the message of Hebrews, it’s what the author is trying to get us to do. It all adds up to one thing.

John Piper in a beautiful message based on the same text and I’m indebted him for some of the structure of my sermon but Piper in T4G… Together for the Gospel 2008 said this, “I want the world radically rocked by the way you live your lives. I want your lives to have a risk-taking flavor. I want you to be living with such an overwhelmingly powerful heavenly focus that people will feel uncomfortable around you. I want you to be the salt of the Earth, and the light of the world, so that they’ll either yearn to know the Christ that has made you so radical, so different, or they will seek to persecute you and pour out abuse on you.”

So look what happened to Stephen, for example, he was like that. He lived so radically and so powerfully free from the praise of people, it just didn’t seem to matter. He’s there boldly preaching Jesus in the Synagogue of the Freedmen who were Jews from Tarsus and other places included, I feel certain Saul and others, and he’s there and they cannot refute him, and you know what he’s doing, I think he’s preaching the message of Hebrews. The Old Covenant is over. You don’t need the animal sacrifice anymore, Jesus is enough. Jesus says Come, and He’s changing everything. Now, they weren’t ready for that. If he didn’t die so young, I’d have guessed at Stephen as the author of our book, but we’re not supposed to guess. So, anyway moving on. He knew it, he saw the themes, he knew that the time for the temple sacrifices were done. Well, they couldn’t handle that, and they dragged him up in front of the Sanhedrin, and when they looked at him, they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. Makes you want to just live so heavenly that that’s what you’re like, and you just don’t care what they do to you. You just don’t care what happens to you, at one level. And then he preaches a genius sermon. And the basic lesson is you’re just like your fathers, you always resist and persecute the ones that the Holy Spirit sends, always, and now you’ve done it to Jesus.

Well, that’s not a great… That message will not get you a lot of friends at the Sanhedrin. And they couldn’t handle it, and they’re getting really angry at him, frothy even, and at that moment he looks upward. And he sees heaven open, he sees Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, “Look, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” And they couldn’t handle that either, and they covered their ears, and you know what they do with Stephen? They dragged him out of the city. Now, why do they drag Stephen out of the city? Well look at our text they dragged him out of the city to kill him. So, that was Stephen. Now, Stephen didn’t die in vain. Stephen’s death lit a fire of persecution under the church in Jerusalem. Interesting, the same city, same walls, same gate, and the church was in there comfortable, and Stephen’s death lit a fire in Saul of Tarsus and the enemies of the Gospel, which just launched the rocket of church growth throughout Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth. Stephen didn’t die in vain.

So the call of the text for us is, who are the radical Stephens that go forth and then light a fire under this church and get us to finish the mission that God has for us? Who is that going to be? Who can live so other-worldly in your mind, in your heart, by faith, like Stephen, so that you can do this kind of thing? An other-worldly faith. So that’s what I want.

II. Jesus Suffered Outside the Gate

Now, let’s look at the text a little more carefully. Verse 11, “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.” So the author’s bringing us, as he’s done so many times before, back to the Day of Atonement. And so, we’re there at Leviticus 16 and one bull and two goats were selected out. And the bull was slaughtered for the sins of the priest, as the author to Hebrews already mentioned. One of the goats was slaughtered for the sins of the people, some of the blood of the bull and the goat were brought into the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled on the mercy seat on the Atonement cover on the Ark of the Covenant, the other, the live goat, the scapegoat, was led a far distance away, and released as a symbol of our forgiveness in Jesus.

Please hear this right now. The text says that Jesus suffered to make the people holy through His own blood. If you believe in Jesus, if you trust in Him, by faith in His blood, you are holy. You don’t have to make this journey better to be holier. Do you understand what I’m saying? You don’t have to do better at evangelism to be made holy in God’s sight. They’re just two different things. The work of Jesus for you is finished, you are redeemed, if you have trusted in Jesus. You’re not saved by your own evangelism, you’re saved in part by someone else’s evangelism to you, but you’re saved by the Gospel. You’re saved by the finished work of Jesus. Amen? So you’re saved, you’re holy, you’re forgiven. You’re free. Free for what? Free to go outside the city gate and join with Jesus and suffer, but you’re not going to earn any more forgiveness with God. Does that make sense?

Oh, I want to make this so strong and so clear. This is a convicting sermon. I know it is. I mean for it to be. I think the Lord does too, but I want you to know the firm basis under your feet, the rock under your feet, the finished work of Jesus. You’re not going to be any more forgiven by how well you do at evangelism. So important to know that, but Jesus made you holy by His blood. Now, why was He… Why did the Lord set up the symbolize, why the symbolism? Why did He set it up that the body of the bull and the dead goat were dragged outside and burned outside the camp? Sometimes the priest got to eat the food. The whole eating thing we’ve talked about last time. I don’t want to get into the eating thing, it’s there but there just isn’t time to develop all these themes, but the reason the Lord set it up is because essential to our salvation is the rejection of Jesus by His own people. He wouldn’t have been crucified otherwise.

And so he set up a symbolism, God did, through the prophetic word, the symbolism of outside the camp and all that, to show that Jesus would be rejected by his people. Then he told us plainly through Isaiah that it would happen, “He was despised and rejected,” it says, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him, He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised and we esteemed Him not.” John 1, “He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to His own and His own did not receive him.” Later, in John’s Gospel, Jesus said, “This is to fulfill what was written in their law. ‘They hated me without reason.'”

In front of Pilate, when He’s being, when He’s being tried for his life, and Pilate’s doing everything he can to release Jesus because he doesn’t want to kill Him. He’s innocent, he knows He’s innocent. He tries this expedient, he goes out to the Jews and says, “‘It’s your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of Passover. Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?’ They cried out, ‘No, not this man. Give us Barabbas.'” He was despised, he was rejected by his own people, and that was essential to his crucifixion, he wouldn’t have been crucified otherwise. Pilate wouldn’t have done it. Even deeper, He had to go outside the camp to atone for our sins. Other than Jesus, we would have been despised and rejected by God himself, because of our sinfulness. And so Jesus bore the disgrace and the rejection we deserved for our sins, he took it on himself so that we could be welcomed into Heaven and embraced as sons and daughters. And so He cries out on the cross, “My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?”

The disgrace of the cross. Picture it in your mind. Condemned as a criminal, death penalty, rejected by His own people, cast out of the city like a piece of garbage, out there where they put the garbage and burn it, just cast out like He’s nothing, mocked and scorned viciously Jesus was. Matthew 27:39-44, “Those who passed by hurled insults at Him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘You who were going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, come down from the cross if you are the Son of God.’ In the same way the chief priest and the elders and the teachers of the law mocked Him, ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he can’t save himself.’ He’s the king of Israel, let him come down now from the cross and we’ll believe in Him. He trusts in God, let God rescue him now, if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.'”

Listen to the next verse. “In the same way the robbers, plural, who were crucified with Him, also heaped insults on Him.” Here’s my point in the sermon, the people we have to go outside the city gate to rescue, they are the ones who do the reproach stuff, they are the ones who pour out reproach. You have to push it aside and say, “Some day we’re going to be brothers and sisters in Christ, some day. Right now you’re pouring out scorn on me, just like the thief on the cross did.” This is the reproach. Look at Verse 13, “Let us therefore go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace or the reproach that He bore.” Stephen’s own people killed him. Jesus’ own people killed Him. Muslim converts, when they come to faith in Christ, it’s usually their own family members, extended family members, that abuse and persecute them, the father, the brothers, the uncles, the cousins. That’s the price our brothers and sisters in the Muslim world are paying for coming to faith in Christ.

And so, the reward of the cross is clear, the reward of all of this. Jesus makes us holy by His blood, the reward of our suffering is we get to take the blood of Christ by the preaching, and apply it to people who haven’t been saved yet, and so that they can be holy too.

III. Let Us Go to Him Outside the Camp

Alright, so here’s the command, “Let us go to Him outside the camp.” Jesus suffered outside the city gate. So what is the city? What is the camp? And what is the significance of going outside? Well, I think the city and the camp are the same thing and they represent human society, approval from other people. It represents good comfortable relationships with other human beings, it represents peace and harmony, and prosperity. From infancy, every society trains up its children on social etiquette, social norms, so that they can fit in. Manners, how to behave pleasingly at the table. How to say please and thank you. Parents are complimented on how well-mannered their children are, all over the world, whatever good manners are in that culture. In every society of the manners are different. There are rules and regulations for greetings and dress and language patterns and educational expectations and all of these things. That’s the city, that’s what it is.

Society puts pressure on every child to conform to those norms, to fit in, to do what everyone expects. This training comes in terms of things so simple as body language, facial expressions, and manners and gifts given, compliments, different things, or disapproval, little words of rebuke or correction or bigger. Parents trained in that way too. And children learn to study the faces of their parents and then a wider and wider circle of other people to say… And they’re asking the same question, “Am I okay, are we okay? Do you like me? Are we good?” It’s a strong force inside us, it’s not weak, it’s strong, it becomes ingrained to yearn for approval of others. For the most part, friends, this is a good thing. Children, people, let’s say, people who have absolutely no concern whatsoever for what anyone else thinks are dangerous. Sociopaths probably.

So the city or camp represents safety, security, ease, prosperity, everything you want in the world through good relationships with other people. The city had walls around it for protection, it had shops and bazaars and other things, had houses to live in, plenty of food, plenty of water, all that good stuff, represents everything the world has to offer. To have the city turn against you is a traumatic experience. Probably one of the most traumatic you can endure. We link it to the word shame, to have the shame of societal rejection, to be ashamed is one of the number one forces that there is. That’s why Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel,” he knows what it feels like to be tempted to be ashamed of the gospel. Jesus says, “If anyone is ashamed of me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed.” So shame is right there, it’s what the world does to try to get us to shut up. So there’s this shame aspect. So to be rejected and mocked and hated by people is a nightmare scenario, lurking strongly in the heart of all sane, normal people.

Number of years ago I saw an episode of Candid Camera. I don’t know if you remember that show. I used to like the show. It’s kind of morphed now into YouTube videos that people watch and all that kind of thing, where you can see setups where people kind of do tricks on people, some of them are nicer than others, but there was this one that I’ll never forget, and it was set up in a diner and everyone in the diner was in on it, everyone. And so the person, the subject of the thing, would come in, and basically on cue, everyone would just kind of stop eating and just kind of look at the person with no smiles, just looking. And the person would come and sit down at the counter, and the waitress would say, “What do you want?” Total stranger, “What do you want?” “I don’t know, a menu.” The cook isn’t cooking anymore, the cook comes out, “What does he want?” “I don’t know, I don’t know what I want, I wish I hadn’t come in here. What’s going on here? Bowl of chili and some coffee.” “He wants some chili. Chili.” And he goes, gets the chili and gives it… Everybody starts eating and talking quietly and all that.

Well, after the Candid Camera thing, the people were inevitably angry. They didn’t laugh, didn’t think it was funny, it was probably one of the worst things they’d been through in years actually. But how is that relevant to evangelism? I think you know, I think you know. It’s not funny, it’s hard, and frankly it’s effective. And if these kind of things weren’t happening to us, we would witness 10 times more than we do. It’s true, isn’t it? Because it’s good news and it’s exciting to lead someone to Christ, and even if they were neutral and said, “Well, that’s not really for me, but thank you so much for sharing, I’m so grateful. And who knows, maybe five years from now. I will come to Christ, I don’t know, but I’m just so grateful that you did that,” our evangelism’s going to walk through the roof. It’s because the world does this kind of stuff to us…

What does it mean then to bear the approach that He bore? What does it mean? It means to be willing to break some societal rules, to speak up for Christ. It means to be willing to endure that kind of behavior. It means to be salt that hasn’t lost its saltiness, it’s to be the light of the world that isn’t hidden under a bushel basket but you’re salting and you’re lighting the world as Jesus intended, it means to be willing to stand up on a matter of biblical righteousness or to preach the Gospel, do something that takes courage for Jesus.

Now, in other countries, the reproach could be lethal, like in the Sudan right now, if you stand up for Jesus, and you’re counted a Christian, there could be some machete-wielding teenage young men that’ll come after you at night and kill you or chase you and you’ll run for your life. Your house will be burned. In Nigeria, churches are blown up. It means different things in different places. Persecution.org is a website, you go there and you look and they have the 30 most recent persecution stories there are, that they’ve gotten. And they put them up with two icons, two types, one of them is black and white, and it’s a skull and the other one’s red and it’s handcuffs. And so they have basically organized into two main categories the persecution the world does. It’s death/physical attacks or government-sponsored incarceration basically, those are the two things. That’s out there though, that almost certainly won’t happen to you. Not any time soon in America. Maybe in the future, we may be going there, I don’t know. But not soon.

Does that mean that there are no forces on us that make it hard to go outside of the camp? You know there are. What does it look like? Well, like, you go on an outreach, you’re going door-to-door, you ring a doorbell and say, “Hey Summer Sizzle’s coming up next week.” Door gets slammed in your face. Okay. I actually had one occasion where there’s a big picture window and they’re watching a ballgame, rang the doorbell, they looked over their shoulder at me, just looked me up and down, and then just turned back and kept watching the game.

I don’t know which is better, the slamming the door or just, “you’re not worth my time.” So there are those little moments. Or in the workplace, you’re stepping out in faith to witness to a co-worker, and he’s having marital problems and you get a chance to give him a ride home, you’re not on work time, work anything, it’s your car even, and you’re giving him a ride home and you venture forth, you’ve been praying for him, and you go there. You talk about Jesus, you talk about the Bible, you try to help, you try to do it gently and lovingly, but he gets real quiet. Doesn’t say much, it gets real awkward. You get to his house and he gets out without really saying anything, and the door closes… “Okay. Hmm, I don’t think that went too well.” Satan starts working, “Was I not loving? Did I not do it right?” Whatever. You go to work. And then it’s never the same again with that guy. Never. And you’re walking down the hall and it gets kind of quiet. There’s a group of people, they’re all talking whatever. You go around the corner and he says something you can’t hear, but they can hear, and they all burst out laughing, you know what’s going on.

Or you might invite your boss to church, and he gets quiet and kind of looks at you and he’s like, “We don’t talk about that kind of thing at workplace. I don’t want you to do that.” So it’s like, “Okay.” So you pray for him, and five months later, you have your review, and you’re getting average or below average grades and things, though you’re trying to be a witness and let your light shine and all that, and you get passed by for certain things that the work… Is it connected? I don’t know. Probably. You don’t know for sure. In the neighborhood, you have a cook-out for example, you invite all your neighbors, everyone to come, try to be a good host, hostess, show them a good time, all that kind of thing. You’re just trying to build relationships, you don’t set up a podium and preach, you don’t do that, you’re just trying to build relationships, but you do want to share Christ and you think you have a good opportunity and you open with maybe a woman that you see regularly, but haven’t gotten to know yet. Doesn’t go well, same kind of thing, gets real quiet. During the week, you see her, she’s walking her dog as usual, you wave like you always do. She doesn’t wave anymore, she turns away, keeps walking. Is that kind of stuff effective to keep you from sharing the Gospel? I tell you, it is. Enough of that starts happening, it gets harder and harder to share.

Or you’re a college student and you’re having, you eat your meals in the common hall and you sit down, building relationships, and kind of a community growing up there, and you share, try to invite some people to a Bible study. Maybe a guy comes, doesn’t really like it, kind of detached, doesn’t say much, never comes again. You go and sit down next to him to eat, and he gets up and walks away, sits somewhere else. I was the guy that walked away, that was me, I did that to Steve, who was trying to lead me to Christ. So I tell you, the very people who are persecuting you are the ones you’re trying to reach. Or again, on the college campus, you’re in a room, a worldview class, a philosophy class or something like that, and you’re talking about an issue that the Bible touches on, and other people are boldly giving their interesting views from their interesting worldviews, and they’re sharing things and you share something from the Bible. The room gets really quiet, the professor makes a mocking comment, everyone erupts in laughter and you sit down, tempted to be ashamed.

I was talking to Andy about his son who is on a baseball team, and he, the his kids are just incredibly desirous to make that a ministry. And he was sharing the gospel with some of his kids, some of the other boys in the dug-out and one of them finally said, “Would you shut up about Jesus?” He is like 9 or 10 years old. Does that have an impact, that creates a force that makes us want to stop witnessing? Well, you know, it does.

Alright, now here’s the hard part, the fact is we are called on to live in the city. You’re actually not making once for all leaving and then we’re done with the city. Let me put it kind of plainly, We are not called on to dress up in weird Halloween-like costumes and wear some cologne that no one’s ever smelled before, and it’s bizarre, and speak in some language that no one can relate to, and they look on us like the most bizarre Martian people that have ever lived.

No, actually Paul says quite the contrary, in 1 Corinthians 9, that to the Jews he became as much like a Jew as he possibly could to win the Jews. To the Greeks, he became as much like a Greek as he possibly could to win the Greeks. So what does it mean? It means get along, get along with them as much as you can, as much as you can, but you have to be willing every day to trade it in for a good Gospel presentation. That’s it. And then when you’ve gone outside of the city gate, where Jesus is, and you’ve borne the reproach, guess what you get to do after that? Go back inside and live there some more, and then the next day you get another chance to go outside the city gate. It’s not just one time, it’s again and again and again. It’s what God’s calling on us to do. It’s very hard to do.

IV. For We Are Looking Forward to the Future City

So what’s our motivation, why should we do this? Text gives us two, quickly. Negatively: For here, we do not have an enduring city. You may think this city’s secure, it’s permanent, and all that. It isn’t. The approval of other people doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean a thing, they will not be with you on Judgment Day to help you give an account. They’ll be busy, giving their own account, and so it really doesn’t make a difference. And the possessions that you accumulate by being in great relationships with other people and all that, they’re going to all go away, all of them anyway. We do not have an enduring city here, that’s negative. Positively, we are looking by faith, ahead to the city that is to come later. We’re looking ahead to Jesus, and living with Him forever. Only by trusting in that, will we be willing to do this. So looking ahead to Heaven, looking ahead to your heavenly reward, that is a motivator, that will get you outside the city gate. But there’s an even more powerful one than that and it’s right there in the text. It says, “Let us then go to Him.” Him.

You know what you get if you go outside the gate? You get to be with Jesus. And this book maybe, I would say almost more than better than any other book in the Bible, specifically details the glories of Christ and how wonderful He is so that you are willing to go outside the gate and be with him. He is the radiance of God’s glory, He is the exact representation of his being, he is the one who shed his blood and sat down at the right hand of God, he is the one whom angels worship, he is the one whose throne is based on righteousness and a hatred of wickedness. He is, he is the Son of God, who became the Son of Man, and he’s not ashamed to be called a family member with us. He is the one by whose death he who held the power of death, Satan, was destroyed and we freed from being afraid of death. That’s who we get when we go out there. He’s the one who’s the Son over God’s house, not like Moses, merely a servant in God’s house, he is the Son ruling over God’s house.

That’s who you get if you go outside the city gate, you get this High Priest who’s like Melchizedek, only infinitely better. He is perfect in every way, without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days, or end of life, forever ministering at the right hand of God, that’s who you get if you go outside the city gate, you get the one who opened a new and living way, the one who is seated on the throne of grace, and who welcomes you and who pours out grace. Simply put, you get happiness in Jesus out there. You just get to be with him. And Paul knew it, didn’t he? Paul knew it. And in Philippians this is so powerful, when I was going over this sermon this morning, this brought tears to my eyes, powerful, Paul said in Philippians 3, “I want to know Christ… and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” That’s what you get if you go outside the city. You get to know the fellowship of sharing in Jesus’ sufferings.

V. What Does It Mean for You to Go to Jesus Outside the Camp?

So practically, what does this mean for you? Witnessing, evangelism, change in lifestyle, looking at your finances, I don’t know. Sticking to the issue of reproach or disgrace, I think it means just being willing to be bold and speak up for Christ. Go on outreach, get involved in Summer Sizzle. I’m going to go this afternoon. So here’s a chance right away to go knock on some doors and reach out to people without hope and without God in the world. Would it bother you if somebody, one of the people, we knock on the door, come to faith in Christ, and eventually gets baptized and grows but doesn’t come to Summer Sizzle? So we have an opportunity today to lead some people to Christ. Isn’t that awesome?

Do that, get involved in our international student ministry. Craft a ministry of your own, get to know your neighbors, hospitality…Use your home as a place of evangelism, do something on at the workplace. Don’t seek rejection and persecution, all that. It comes naturally, seek to love people, seek to share Christ. And then some of them are going to reproach you, but they might be like the thief on the cross, very close to coming to Christ actually because you’ve hit a nerve. That’s what happened with me.

Alright, we come now to a time of preparing for the Lord’s Supper. And as we do, I want you to trust in the promises of the Gospel and the words of the institution, and that we through the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, can have an encounter with Christ now by the Spirit. If you have never come to faith in Christ, trust in Jesus right now, believe in him. Put your faith in him for the forgiveness of your sins, but don’t come to the table. This is for those that have already put their faith in Christ, and have testified to that publicly by water baptism. For those, please come. Let’s close this message in prayer.

These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.

The most courageous journeys in history:

Where someone left the comfort of a WWI foxhole to run amid a hail of machine-gun bullets to rescue a buddy who’s injured and pinned down in a mud-filled artillery crater in No-Man’s Land

Or the American soldiers who landed in the first-wave at Omaha Beach on D-Day and were pinned down by murderous German fire from the pillnboxes and accurate artillery fire from pre-sighted locations… screwing up their courage and running the 50 yards across the terrifying beach

Or the courageous journey made in a tiny open boat over 800 miles of tumultuous ocean by Lord Shakleton after his Antarctic expedition was frozen in

Or the courageous journey made by men and women who crossed the rivers and mountains and deserts of our continent to settle the American West

All of these journeys took immense courage, when it would have been far safer and easier to stay secure at home and risk nothing

I.   The Central Question: What Causes Radical Joyful Christian Suffering?

A.   The Most Heroic and Vital Journey in the History of the World

O to see the dawn of the darkest day… Christ on the Road to Calvary

Tried by sinful men… torn and beaten, then… nailed to a cross of wood

B.   The Second Most Heroic and Vital Journey… in our Text

“Let us go out to him, bearing the reproach He bore.”

The journey of Christians, a journey made by faith… from the comfort and ease of the city of security… through the gate outside to where Jesus is suffering.

It is BY THIS SECOND JOURNEY ALONE that the value of the first journey has been applied to lost people to the ends of the earth

Because Christians came to Jesus outside the camp and bore the reproach He bore, the gospel has advanced, step by bloody step

C.   The Paradox of our Text in Context

1.   We have been told that Jesus “will never leave us, nor forsake us”

2.   But in this text, Jesus is beckoning to us to come to where He is

3.   What does it mean that Jesus calls us to come to Him outside the City Gate, outside the camp?

D.   Central Question of Both the Book of Hebrews AND Our Text

What is powerful enough to transform us and make us embrace radical Christian suffering joyfully? What can change us enough to make us do something CRAZY FOR JESUS? To take risks and venture outside where it is cold and dark and dangerous? To have a radical element to our Christian lives that can only be explained by faith? What can give us the courage and strength sufficient to VENTURE FORTH from safety and comfort and ease and luxury to where the NEED IS, where the PAIN and the SUFFERING is… and to do it because JESUS IS THERE?

E.   What the World Needs MOST from the Christian Church Today

1.   If the world sees Christians living roughly the same kind of life they do—a life of comfort and luxury and ease… watching the same movies, going to the same restaurants, buying the same clothes, driving the same cars, watching the same ball games… and if they ask us about the foundation of our lives and we say it is JESUS CHRIST… they will just shrug and say Jesus is your ticket to the show, education is my ticket, self-reliance is someone else’s ticket, Buddhism someone else’s ticket… but we’re all enjoying the same show

2.   Once you’re at the show, the ticket gets tossed on the ground or in the trash… no one cares about the ticket once you’re watching the show

3.   The world needs FAR MORE THAN THAT FROM US!! The world is not impressed by a faith that produces the same worldly success they are craving… worldly material success, worldly accolades, worldly Olympic gold medals, worldly PhDs, worldly houses and health and beauty and comfort… that’s what they are all living for… if someone achieves those exact same things BY MEANS OF JESUS vs. BY MEANS OF something else, the world is NOT AT ALL IMPRESSED

4.   The Book of Hebrews was designed to call Christians out of the comfortable hiding place to embrace joyful, faith-filled, hope-filled courageous suffering… the roots of that suffering can ONLY COME FROM HOPE IN FUTURE GLORY

5.   So… what is the engine that transforms us and makes us radical, courageous, faith-filled sufferers for Jesus… risk-takers, people who live inexplicable lives

6.   The whole purpose of this sermon is the same as the sermon that is the Book of Hebrews

Hebrews 13:22 Brothers, I urge you to bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written you only a short letter.

F.   Christian History is Made Up of those Who Made This Journey

G.   Central Question Again:

1.   How can ordinary, sinful, comfort-loving, security-seeking people like us be transformed to go outside the gate and join Jesus where He is suffering for the sins of the world? WHAT POWER IS STRONG ENOUGH TO MOVE US out of the comfort zone to serve Jesus and suffer with Him?

2.   Answer: vivid faith in the FUTURE REWARD, which is CHRIST HIMSELF

3.   Simply put… treasuring Christ more than any earthly privilege or possession or pleasure will move you to be willing to suffer with Him and for Him

4.   A FUTURE-LOOKING disposition… FAITH

H.   Seven Texts In Hebrews Cover the Same Ground… So it is No Overstatement to Say this is the Central Purpose of the Whole Book

1.   Hebrews 10:34 People who joyfully accepted the seizure of their property

Hebrews 10:34 You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had a better and lasting possession.

That “better and lasting possession” is CHRIST

2.   Hebrews 11:6 The essence of faith is to look ahead to the reward

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

The reward God gives those who earnestly seek Him is CHRIST…

3.   Hebrews 11:10,13-16 Aliens and strangers on earth who lived in tents

Hebrews 11:10 For Abraham was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

The glory of the eternal city is CHRIST

Hebrews 11:13-16 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country– a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Again, these people were willing to live strange, counter-cultural lives, giving up the security of the city of Ur of the Chaldees to wander in the Promised Land, living in tents and having no permanent thing to call their own because they were longing for an eternal country and an eternal city… and again, the glory of that city is CHRIST

Revelation 21:23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

4.   Hebrews 11:24 Moses embraced a life of suffering

Hebrews 11:24-26 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward.

Moses gave up a life of pleasure and ease and comfort and security as a relative of Pharaoh… he gave up the fleeting pleasures of sin and chose a life of suffering for CHRIST… why? He was looking ahead to his reward, and that reward is CHRIST

5.   Hebrews 11:35 the better resurrection

Hebrews 11:35 Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.

The “better resurrection” is CHRIST…

John 11:25 “I am the resurrection and the life”

These faith-filled people delighted in the idea of their future resurrection with Christ and thus refused to be released from prison. They were TORTURED and REFUSED RELEASE!!! Why? They were looking ahead to their infinite reward

6.   Hebrews 12:2 Jesus and the joy set before Him

Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

What motivated Jesus? It was nothing less than the JOY SET BEFORE HIM… that was the MOTIVE that drove Him through all of the suffering and the shame of the cross

This is the perfect example of motive that we are supposed to understand and emulate

It was not GRIM DETERMINATION or STOICISM that caused Jesus to endure the cross… it was FUTURE JOY!!! It was the contemplation of all the glory that would come to God from His suffering to save a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe and tongue and nation and language.

7.   Hebrews 13:14 the city that is to come

Hebrews 13:12-14 so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

8.   ALL ADD UP TO ONE THING: embrace a radical life of suffering for Jesus because of the sweetness of the eternal treasure that comes… and that treasure is Christ

John Piper, T4G: “I want the world radically rocked by the way you live your lives! I want your lives to have a risk-taking flavor. I want you to be living with such an overwhelmingly powerful heavenly focus that people will feel uncomfortable around you… I want you to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, so that, they will either yearn to know the Christ that has made you so radical or they will seek to persecute you and pour out abuse on you.

Look what happened to Stephen… he was proclaiming Christ in the synagogue so powerfully that they arrested him and brought him before the Sanhedrin.

There, his face was shining like the face of an angel!! He then preached Christ so boldly and powerfully that they stopped their ears and ran at him screaming…

Acts 7:55-58 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” 57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

BUT HIS DEATH WAS NOT IN VAIN!!! At the cost of Stephen’s blood, the Holy Spirit used the ensuing persecution—led by Saul of Tarsus—to expel almost the entire church out of the city of Jerusalem… Stephen lit a fire under them at the cost of his blood!! And he lit the fuse on a time-bomb in the heart of Saul that went off on the road to Damascus

It was Stephen’s other-worldly faith that did this

I want us to live openly for Christ and risk for him and move out for him and be persecuted for him

The world is largely ignoring us because we seem to want and love the same things they do. Hebrews 13:12-14 calls on us to come to Jesus OUTSIDE THE CAMP… out into the suffering place

II.   Jesus Suffered Outside the Gate

Hebrews 13:11-12 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. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.

A.   The Day of Atonement

1.   Worshipers USUALLY were allowed to eat from the flesh of the animals they offered in sacrifice

2.   BUT the Day of Atonement had a major exception

3.   On that day, the Lord perfectly symbolized the death of Christ on the cross for our sins

4.   One bull and two goats were selected

a.   The bull was sacrificed for the sins of the priest… he had to offer sacrifice for his own sins

b.   One of the goats was sacrificed for the sins of the people

c.   The other goat—called the scapegoat—was led out into the wilderness where he was let go as a symbol of the perfect forgiveness of sins Christ would work

d.   Some of the blood of the sacrificed bull and goat, however, were carried into the Most Holy Place and sprinkled on the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant

e.   Then: the flesh of the bull and goat were carried OUTSIDE THE CAMP to be burned there… they were NOT EATEN

B.   Christ Fulfilled this Picture Perfectly

C.   Why Did God Establish This Picture? It was Symbolize Christ’s REJECTION for Us

1.   Rejected by His own people

Isaiah 53:2-3   He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

John 1:10-11 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

John 15:25 this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’

John 18:39-40   it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?” 40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion

2.   Rejected by God in our place

Psalm 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Matthew 25:41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

D.   The Disgrace of the Cross

1.   Condemned as a criminal

2.   Rejected by his people

3.   Cast out of the city as a piece of garbage

4.   Mocked and scorned viciously

Matthew 27:39-44 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40 and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!” 41 In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. 42 “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.'” 44 In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

5.   This is the “reproach” that the verse mentions

Hebrews 13:13   Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.

a.   The “disgrace” is the societal scorn and rejection… the humiliation poured on by a persecuting people

b.   Stephen’s OWN PEOPLE killed him

c.   Muslim converts are frequently executed by their OWN FAMILY MEMBERS… their own fathers or brothers or uncles or cousins accuse and execute them for their conversion

E.   The Reward of the Cross: Making the People Holy

Hebrews 13:12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.

1.   All this abuse was not mindless and purposeless

2.   Jesus knew very well this was the price for making His elect people HOLY… the cost of our salvation was His precious blood, shed in such a cauldron of humiliation and rejection by the people

III.   Let Us Go to Him Outside the Camp

Hebrews 13:13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.

A.   What Does the “City” or the “Camp” Represent?

1.   Human Society… approval from other people

2.   It represents good, comfortable relationships with others

3.   It represents peace, harmony, and prosperity

4.   From infancy, every society trains up its children on social etiquette, social norms

a.   Manners: how to behave pleasingly at the table; how to say “Please” and “Thank you”… parents are complimented on how well-mannered their children are

b.   These manners are different in every society; there are rules and regulations for greetings and dress and language patterns and educational expectations

c.   Society puts pressure on every child to conform to those norms… to FIT IN and do what everyone expects

d.   This training comes in terms of things so simple as body language and facial expressions: little children learn to study the faces of their parents and then a wider and wider circle of other people to determine one question: “Am I doing the right thing?” The affirming smiles and laughter and nods and pats on the pack form a huge part of the way a culture shapes and molds each child for future adult life as a pleasing member of society

e.   It becomes ingrained to YEARN FOR APPROVAL of others… and for the most part this is a good thing; children who have absolutely NO CONCERN for societal approval are SOCIOPATHS who will probably end up in jail

5.   The “City” or the “Camp” then represents safety, security and ease and prosperity… everything you can want in this world

a.   The city had walls around it to protect it from enemies

b.   It had shops and bazaars and comfortable homes and an economy and plenty of food and water

c.   It represents everything the world has to offer

6.   To have the city turn against you and reject you is one of the most TRAUMATIC experience one can endure

a.   We usually use a strong word for it: SHAME

b.   To be ASHAMED is one of the greatest, most powerful fears in anyone’s heart

c.   To be rejected and mocked and hated by people is a NIGHTMARE scenario, lurking strongly in the heart of all sane, normal people

d.   To become a LAUGHINGSTOCK or even worse, the focus of universal societal REJECTION and HATRED is such a powerful force, it could lead even to suicide

B.   What is the Call to Go to Him Outside the Camp?

1.   The text pictures Jesus outside the gates, having been rejected and hated and scorned by His people

2.   From the text, Jesus is calling to us, beckoning to us to JOIN HIM IN HIS SUFFERING

3.   He is calling to you from a distance… He is saying, “I’m out here… I’m not in there!”

4.   Out there it is dangerous… there is HUMILIATION out there… there is PAIN out there… there is SUFFERING out there

5.   But that is where the NEED is too

a.   Outside the camp are the Gentile nations

b.   Outside the camp are the lost neighbors

c.   Outside the camp are are poor people and mission trips and outreaches and contact evangelism and strangers on airplanes and in malls and at play groups and watching children’s soccer games…

d.   Outside the camp are the needs of the world… no one can stay SAFE and SECURE and meet those needs

C.   What Does it Mean to Bear the Reproach He Bore?

1.   It means to break societal rules and let your light shine for Jesus

2.   It means to be willing to speak up for Christ and witness for Him

3.   It means being willing to stand up for a matter of biblical righteousness and bear the scorn that comes from that

4.   In America, the reproach will be different than it is in other countries

a.   In the Sudan, the “reproach” of Christians at the hands of Muslims is terror and assault and maiming and death… it means having your home burned to the ground or having your church blown up; it means having roving gangs of young Muslim men wielding machetes hunting you at night

b.   Persecution.org has a map of the thirty most recent persecution accounts they have received… the map shows the entire world with little icons showing types of persecution… one of the icons is a skull, the other is a set of handcuffs… these are the two major sorts of assaults—1) physical assaults that result in injury or death; 2) imprisonment

c.   In America, we are not very likely to see either one… but instead it is the following things:

i)   On outreach, going door to door to witness to people, and the people in the house say something rude to you and slam the door in your face

ii)   In the workplace, stepping out in faith to witness to a co- worker as you give him a ride home from work—he’s having marital troubles and you lovingly share Christ with him—he doesn’t take it well, and from then on avoids you in the office; as you walk by, he makes a little comment that you can’t hear and four or five people who do hear it snicker at you

iii)  In the workplace, you invite your boss to church and he looks surprised and says “This isn’t the time or place to be talking about religion.” From then on, he’s not as friendly to you as he was before. Five months later, you get your annual review and he gives you mediocre grades and no raise. You start getting passed by for better work assignments, and they are given to other employees instead.

iv)  In the neighborhood, you have a cookout for the neighbors; you invite them over and do a great job of making everyone feel at home; you seek to get to know them and have good conversations one at a time; but as you get into a conversation with a woman who hasn’t been to church in years, she clams up and refuses to talk much after that. A week later, you see her walking her dog and wave to her as usual… but she turns away and won’t look at you as you drive past.

v)   You are a college student; you eat dinner at the student center with other students from your dorm floor and start to build relationships; you are starting an investigative bible study on the Gospel of Mark and you invite this one student; he comes once, but seems detached and a little turned off; the next time you see him in the cafeteria, you sit down to eat with him, and he gets up and sits somewhere else.

vi)  You are involved in a pro-life ministry, and go to Planned Parenthood to reach out to the scared, troubled women who are walking into that wretched building to end the life of their pre-born baby; along with others you call out to offer them hope in Jesus’ name; one couple—a man and a woman—are walking quickly in; the man has his arm firmly around the woman’s shoulder; he looks determined, she looks sick and scared; you call out to her, offering her hope and saying Jesus wants to help her; the man turns fiercely on you and yells profanity, cursing you for interfering; he calls you self-righteous, a Bible-thumper.

vii)   You’re in a college philosophy class, and an issue comes up that the Bible addresses; like the other opinionated, articulate students who freely offer their worldview opinion, you speak up for God and for the Bible; the classroom gets very quiet, and the professor makes a mocking comment; the room erupts in laughter, and you feel like you want to crawl in a hole and die.

viii)   You have a brother whose life is falling apart because of various bad choices he’s made; he knows you’re a Christian, and you know that, more than ever before, he needs Jesus; you meet with him for lunch, and gently talk to him about his life, how things are going; he immediately gets touchy, a little defensive; you are humble, saying that Jesus came to help anyone who calls on him in faith; suddenly, he erupts in anger, making a little bit of a scene in the restaurant, and walks out on you.

So… it’s FAR EASIER to stay inside the city gate; to stay in the safety of the camp; to have your private thoughts about Jesus but keep them to yourself and not let your light shine

Amazingly, Christianity calls on us to LIVE IN THE CITY or the CAMP USUALLY!!! We are not to be freaky, weird people who wear Halloween Costume clothes and speak some strange dialect that we make up and smell of some strange scent that makes people gag so that everyone runs for cover when they see us coming

Actually, Paul says we are to try to do everything we possibly can to fit in as long as it doesn’t affect the message we proclaim:

1 Corinthians 9:20-22  To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.

D.   What Makes this So Very Difficult to Do?

1.   We are wired PROPERLY to seek others’ approval and that is normal

2.   We are called on to LIVE IN THE CITY ALL THE TIME… and just trade the comforts of the city in case after case after case so we can win others to Christ

3.   In one sense, it is a ONCE-FOR-ALL decision we make to come outside the city and bear the reproach of Christ; but in another sense, we have to REMAKE THAT SAME DECISION every time we want to witness for Christ, stand up for Jesus in this dark world

E.   So… How Do We Get Over those Difficulties????

IV.   For We Are Looking Forward to the Future City

Hebrews 13:13-14 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

A.   What Is Our Motivation? The Text Gives Us TWO

B.   Negatively: This City is Not as “Safe” as It Appears

1.   We are deceived by the devil into thinking that this “City” of social approval and wealth and comfort and ease and happy feelings is SAFE, and that place out there—the place near the cross of Christ, bearing the reproach He bore—that place is the DANGEROUS place

2.   Actually, the OPPOSITE is true spiritually; the more we resist the call to go outside the city gate and be with Jesus, the harder our hearts grow; the more worldly we become; the SALT LOSES ITS SALTINESS; the word of God doesn’t taste as sweet as it used to; we can become more susceptible to temptations, and lose our edge in fighting them; we can become more and more listless in the Christian life, more depressed, wondering what we’re living for; this city is really the “City of Destruction” that is under the judgment of God; the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares says we have to live together in close proximity, drive on the same roads, shop at the same stores, etc. But if we don’t venture out from the city regularly to bear the reproach of Jesus, we may learn to love the world and the things of the world; this CITY IS NOT SAFE!!!

3.   Therefore, we should not seek to be STORING UP WEALTH in this city… nothing stored up in the city will last for eternity… this is NOT A SAFE PLACE to store your riches… the things you’re trying to PROTECT by staying SAFE in the city

John 12:25-26   The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.

Matthew 6:19-21 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

C.   Positively

Hebrews 13:13-14 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

1.   The “City that is to come” = the Heavenly Jerusalem… our eternal home

2.   We “are looking for” that city = looking ahead by faith; living for heavenly rewards and heavenly accolades and heavenly pleasures and heavenly security and heavenly esteem

3.   Every time we venture by faith outside the circle of comfort, and go out where it’s cold and hard and vicious and scary… doing it so we can serve Jesus and exalt Jesus and proclaim Jesus to a lost world… no matter what the outcome, we will GLORIFY CHRIST and PROCLAIM that He is our treasure; Jesus is worth more than anything else in the world to us

4.   Every time we do that, we will STORE UP RICHES in heaven that can never be destroyed or stolen from us

D.   Summarizing the Seven Passages: Looking Ahead to Our Reward

1.   Hebrews 10:34 The Hebrew Christians joyfully accepted the confiscation of their property because they KNEW they had a better, possession… a lasting one

2.   Hebrews 11:6 Without faith, it is impossible to please God, because we must believe that He exists and that he REWARDS those who seek Him

3.   Hebrews 11:9, 13-16 The patriarchs were willing to live in tents and be aliens and strangers on earth because they were LOOKING AHEAD

4.   Hebrews 11:26 Moses embraced a life of suffering and disgrace because He was looking ahead to his reward

5.   Hebrews 11:35 Martyrs who were tortured and refused to be released did so because they were LOOKING AHEAD to their reward at the resurrection

6.   Hebrews 12:2 Jesus suffered the very things Hebrews 13:12 speaks of because he was LOOKING AHEAD to the JOY of living with use forever in heaven

E.   The Stories We Will Tell in Heaven: Courageous Journeys!!

1.   A 1st century woman who goes to live with lepers in a leper colony so she can share the gospel with them and become as much a hated outcast as they were

2.   An 8th century English monk gets in a boat and sails to Scandinavia to seek to evangelize the terrifying Vikings

3.   A 13th century teenaged girl who refuses to flee the bubonic plague and stays behind in her town instead, laying down her life to nurse plague victims, contracting the disease herself

4.   A 16th century monk named Martin Luther travels to Wittenberg and defends the true gospel, saying “Were there as many devils in Wittenberg as tiles on the roofs, I would still go”

5.   A pair of 18th century Moravian men get on a boat and sail to the sugar plantations to become slaves in the West Indies in order to win them to Christ

6.   A Muslim woman in Indonesia has a dream about someone in the capitol city of her district who will tell her the way to be saved; she risks her life to go hear this message, then risks her life further to tell it to her family

7.   Less famous stories:

a.   In a city neighborhood, a teen-aged boy crosses the street to witness to some gang-bangers, risking physical harm or at least ridicule in the effort

b.   A tent is set up and a travelling preacher comes to town to preach the gospel; one youth wants to go, but all his friends make fun of him; he goes anyway, then returns to tell them the gospel message; they ridicule him further, but he leads one of them to Christ

SO… these are the reasons to make this journey… but they are not even the most compelling one

F.   Adding One Very Profound One

1.   Let us go TO HIM…

Hebrews 13:13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.

2.   Hebrews presents the glorious Son of God as both the MEANS and the END of this journey

a.   Jesus’ entire ministry of atonement—of the shedding of the blood and the purification of sins and the giving of the gift of the Holy Spirit, of our adoption as sons and daughters—it was all a MEANS to an END

b.   What is that END? Eternal pleasures in Jesus… absorbed in the delights of the glories of Christ forever and ever and ever

3.   So, those who venture out of the gate, outside the camp, will KNOW JESUS better and better now… it will be a painful foretaste of heavenly delights

4.   Jesus is

a.   The radiance of God’s glory

b.   The exact representation of His nature

c.   The one who sustains the universe by the word of His power

d.   The one whom angels celebrate and worship

e.   The one whose throne will last forever and ever, because it is founded on His love for righteousness and hatred of wickedness

f.   The one whose enemies God will make a footstool for His feet

g.   The Son of Man, who learned obedience and was made perfect by what He suffered

h.   The one whose death purified many sons and brought them all to glory

i.   The one whose death destroyed Satan’s dark Kingdom

j.   The one who is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters

k.   The one who is greater than Moses… as a Son over the house is greater than a servant in the house

l.   The one who is a merciful and faithful high priest

m.   Who knows what it feels like to be tempted in every way just was we are, yet never sinned

n.   The one who has opened for us a new and living way into the throne room of grace

o.   The one who is greater than all other priests… greater than Aaron, greater than Melchizedek… whose priesthood is perfect and eternal

p.   The one who offered ONCE FOR ALL TIME His own blood to make us holy

q.   The one who always lives to intercede for us at the right hand of God

r.   The one who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, thinking very little of its shame… who did it all for JOY

s.   This JESUS… He is the destination at the end of your courageous WALK OUTSIDE THE CITY

5.   If you make that walk, the Holy Spirit will rest on you and make Jesus more delightful to you than ever before… while the world pours on its abuse, like Stephen, you will look upward and see the glory of JESUS

1 Peter 4:14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

Philippians 3:10-11 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

V.   So… What Does It Mean for You to Go to Jesus Outside the Camp?

A.   Come to Christ to Begin With

B.   Treasure Christ More than Ever Before

C.   Be Willing to Suffer for Jesus… Start to See the “City” and “Camp” for the Illusions They Are

D.   Focus on Evangelism and Missions

E.   Take Some Radical Steps to Serve Jesus… Do something RISKY for Jesus!!