Exhortations To Meet God's Expectations
Part 2 - Exhortations To Be Loyal - Hebrews 13:7-9

Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

Paul Exhorts Loyalty To The Loyal

He exhorts them to be loyal to those who have shown their loyalty to Jesus Christ.

He says in vs. 7 “Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God.

“Remember them” means to be mindful of them, think of them, see them as examples and a pattern for you to follow. These he says have the rule over you and have spoken, the word of God. This is why you are mindful of them, because they are the ones “whose faith you should follow.” Paul tells them to think deeply about “the end of their conversation,” the way these faithful leaders lived and the way they died.

Paul is encompassing all the leaders the church had had from Paul, Apollos, Timothy but also those like James and Stephan, who they knew of and had died for the cause of Christ. He would also include all the Old Testament heroes he had listed in chapter 11’s “Faith Hall of Fame.”

These pastors, apostles, prophets and elders, Paul exhorts the Hebrews, need to be kept in your mind, following after their faith, a faith that was genuine as proven by the way the lived and died. These leaders lead a life of faith and concluded that life with a martyr’s death proving their steadfastness. Be loyal to their example.

Then Paul points them to the ultimate example of truth and steadfastness, Jesus Christ.

Vs. 8 “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today and for ever.” As these leaders, preacher, pastors and OT saints followed Jesus Christ the Hebrew Christians should follow them. In vs. 9 he gives the conclusion to their following faithful leaders. “Be not carried away with divers and strange doctrines.”

He gives an example then, “It is a good thing that the heart be established with grace not with meats (foods)”

He is giving a foundational premise to sorting out what is good and what is unprofitable. It all centers on “grace.” The grace which saved them, is also the grace that establishes their heart and anything that is not grace is just another regulation about “meat,” about the law and things so base, mundane and short lived as lunch.

In Colossians 2:20-22, Paul stated it this way, “Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? Those things are gone once you use them, but your life is hid with the eternal Christ, above the rudiments of this world.

Loyalty To Those Who Have Led

Paul exhorts us today, “Look to those people who inspire you to follow the Lord.” Yesterday’s heroes of the faith should inspire you. “Read about the heroes of the OT and NT.” Learn of the heroes of the faith from today, like Jim Eliot, Oswald Chambers, or David Livingstone. Our for like Bro. Johnston, or Bro. Watson, or Bro. Aubrey Cooper, or my dear friend Larry Jones. And many of you right here in this sanctuary, heroes by your faithfulness and loyalty to the Lord, even as these days grow darker and darker. Think of  them and let those heroes of the faith inspire you to be faithful as they were faithful. Our heroes should be the men and women of God who have faithfully served Him with no reserves, nothing held back and in complete dedication.

Remember them as they remembered Jesus Christ. In a world that is constantly shifting under our feet, with values that promote sin and punish morality. We need something steadfast, someone who will not change because He has always been “the truth, the way and the light.” In this world that changes like the winds of a storm there is a place of unchanging surety in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

In Colossian 3:1-2, I think Paul is saying much the same thing, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.  Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”

When my eyes, my heart, my goals are set on Christ and I reflect on those whose faithful lives proved they had set their heart on Christ, then I will better equipped to be steadfast with my eyes on Christ.