Welcome to what I believe to be the most difficult “Let us” statement of the bunch. This last one that we will study is soaked in Jewish tradition. Those to whom the letter is written have a much better understanding of the Jewish laws and tradition than most of us. It seems there is a conflict over food. We as the reader don’t know what it is, but we would guess that it has to do with the Jewish law. As happens many times in this book of Hebrews, there are Jews who are trying to pull the new believers away from Christ and back to the Law. The writer, as he often does, refocuses the people on Jesus.

“Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” Hebrews 13:9-14

In verse ten, he brings us to an altar. I believe more specifically he is alluding to what the Old Testament calls the Day of Atonement. This was when the priest, once a year, would sacrifice a goat and, as Nelson's Bible Dictionary states, it was a “recognition of people's inability to make any atonement for their sins.” We know that this atonement was just a foreshadow of the work of Jesus on the Cross. There is only forgiveness through the perfect sacrifice of the Lamb, Jesus. In the description of the Day of Atonement we read that the carcass of that animal is to be taken outside the city (Leviticus 16:27). Hebrews 13:12 brings the focus back to Jesus and says that Jesus was taken outside the gate. Why? I believe Ephesians 2:12-16 explains the why very clearly. “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Ephesians 2:12-16).

Because of what Jesus did on the cross, He has offered to all a new life in Him. Earlier in Hebrews, he explains this very clearly in chapter nine, “For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him” (Hebrews 9:26-28).

Again, God's word is challenging the Jewish reader that if they stay inside the camp of the Jewish law, they will miss Jesus and they will miss salvation. Only if they come to Jesus, only if they come outside of the camp of their beliefs will they find the Messiah, the Savior, life, and forgiveness. The author is saying, “Come on... let's go with Jesus. Go to Him, trust Him, follow Him, and be like Him. He is the Savior.”

What does this mean for the church today? I want to be careful how far I can stretch this point, but I believe there are great truths for the church today.

Let's Go To Jesus

In this past week, I’ve never been more challenged in my life to take a slow look at the cross. I know the truth of what Christ did for me on the cross, but how do you slow down to realize what He did for us “outside the camp” on the cross? As a church, let’s slow down to see Christ on the cross, to look to Him and really know what He has done for us. In American culture, is there anything more misunderstood than the cross? Think about it; we have cross jewelry, cross tattoos, cross bumper stickers, and cross t-shirts, but how many people have no clue what it actually represents? I was working out in my gym one week, and a man came in with a cross logo on his shirt and on his hat. I had seen this man before with the same shirt on, so I had to ask. My question was simple, “What does that mean?” Church, do we know the answer to this question? What does it mean to go to Jesus on the cross? I was challenged by A.W. Tozer to slow down my gaze at the cross, to see, remember, and to understand what it truly means. His quote that sparked this thought was this, “Neglected Christian truths can be revitalized only when by prayer and long meditation we isolate them from the mass of hazy ideas with which our minds are filled and hold them steadily and determinedly in the focus of the mind's attention.”

Church, let us bring our focus to Jesus. Come to the cross where He took our sin upon His sinless life. Where He became sin for us who knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). The cross is where Jesus, because of our sin, was forsaken by God. Because of God's holiness, Jesus hung alone in the darkness for our sake. Jesus never stopped being God, and the Trinity wasn’t severed, but for that time, Jesus bore our sins on the cross with God looking away. Let us cry out, “Thank you, Jesus!”

May we go to Him, trusting Him and serving Him. To use a phrase that is used over and over again in our culture, said with much emphasis and a loud voice, I now say with the same enthusiasm, Church, “Let’s go!”

I think “let’s go” is one of the most overused phrases in our culture today. It makes me think back to when I was in grade school and all of our overused phrases. I remember in middle school it was “Not!” Then the Budweiser commercial came out and everyone would yell “What’s Uuuuuuuup?!” Maybe you had one growing up. Currently, I would consider “bruh” as the most overused word, but not far behind is the saying “Let’s go.” (This will most likely date this book!)

When I think of the phrase, “Let's go,” I think of Dude Perfect. They are YouTube influencers who are famous for performing amazing trick shots. Almost after every difficult shot made, one of them would run around in crazy excitement, yelling, “Let’s go!”

Can I express this excitement to you? The book of Hebrews is almost over. This book you are reading is just about done. As a church, let's go to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. Let's go to Jesus, the one who rips the curtain of separation between God and Man in half, the one who heals us by His shed blood. Let us be a Church that goes to Jesus. I challenge you to read each Gospel account of the cross found in Matthew chapter 27, Mark chapter 15, Luke chapter 23, and John chapter 19. Let it sink in and know the power of the cross today.

Let's Go Outside the Camp

It seems that this letter written to a church of Jewish believers had made life very difficult. The outside pressure had become so loud that some were contemplating going back to the old ways. Kent Hughes says it so well, “Their Christianity had not been a worldly advantage. Rather, it set them up for persecution and the loss of property and privilege, and now could possibly even cost them their lives.” They were tempted to stop meeting together, tempted to stop looking to Jesus, tempted to not run the race, and here, the writer says to come outside of the camp to Jesus. I believe this is a picture of coming out of their old ways, and coming to wholly follow Jesus. Arthur Pink said, “To go forth unto Christ without the camp means for the believers to make a complete break from his former manner of life, to renounce everything which is opposed to Christ, to relinquish whatever would hinder communion with Him.”

Today, most of us are not tempted to go back to the Old Testament way of life. What we are tempted to do is to go back to the old, human ways of life. What are those old ways for you? What things are drawing you back into the old ways of life?

“Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:22-24

“Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.” Colossians 3:9

Reading this passage, I can’t help but think of a song I was taught in kids' church way back in the day. I have no clue what the official title to the song is; we just called it “The Robe Song.” It goes like this:

Well, the best thing in my life I ever did do 

Was take off the old robe and put on the new. 

The old robe was dirty, all tattered and torn, 

And the new robe was spotless and never been worn. 

Well, the best thing in my life I ever did do 

Was take off the old robe and put on the new.

Realize that for the people that received this letter, to go outside the camp was a radical change in life, one that would cost them. As a church, let’s dive into this radical living of life, to leave the old behind and to put on the new. What will that take?

When I first got married, some 20 years ago, my wife was a substitute teacher and I was a student director at the church. With our massive income (said with sarcasm!), we tried to find a house in our town that at least had walls that were not leaning. Everything else was negotiable. We spent months making the house livable and were able to move in the week after our wedding. The next year, my wife inquired about planting a garden. We had a sizable back yard, so I did not think too much of it and I figured I could make that happen. The back corner of our backyard was a perfect spot. All I needed to do was remove the one plant that was growing there. In all my life, I had never seen a plant like this before. It grew in what I can best describe as stalks. It looked a little like bamboo, but was way more flimsy. As I started removing this plant, I realized that its root system was huge. It took me days to remove most of it. The scary and frustrating part of removing this plant was that just a few days after I removed a sizable amount of this plant and its roots, it all started to rapidly grow back! Even out of the stumps that I removed from the ground, this plant continued to grow. At that moment I did what all of us do when we are trying to figure something out; I Googled it. The more I read about the plant, the more scary it became. I came to find out that the plant was a Japanese Knotweed. One person on an online forum remarked, "My dad battled Japanese Knotweed for 25 years. He has passed away, but the knotweed lives on.”

I have told this story many times over the years. Just recently, I had someone in the church tell me that they found out that some banks will deny mortgages on a house if the knotweed was present near the foundation of the house. The root system of this plant can wreak havoc on foundations and drain systems. It is crazy to think of the power of this little plant and the destruction that it can bring. I had approached the neighbors about trying to get rid of the plant, but because one of them liked it, the plant remained.

It's been twenty years since we bought that house. We have since moved multiple times, but I can still drive by that house today, look in the back yard, and see that wonderful plant. The only way we were able to get rid of that plant was to move.

Are you willing to move? This was the difficult question the people in the church had to answer. Were they willing to move outside of what was comfortable, outside of what their family wanted, outside of what their friends were doing, and follow Jesus?

Let's Go and Be Persecuted

The end of this verse gets even more radical. It wraps up by saying let us go and “bear the reproach he endured.” As I wrap up this book, I'd like to end with one final question. Are we as a church willing to go and be like Jesus? Again, Hughes says it well, “Jesus' death means he is accessible to anyone in the world who will come to him. Jesus planted his cross in the world so all the world could have access. And there he remains permanently available!” Is it not the heart of the church to point people to Jesus, to reach out to a world that is lost and needs a Savior? Are we willing to live this life even when it costs us? Scripture reminds us that this is not “if,” but “when.” “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” 2 Timothy 3:12

Not some or a few, but ALL who live a godly life will be persecuted. I had dinner with a younger man in the church. He is young in his faith, but as his pastor, it is so exciting to watch him grow. He said that his coworkers are starting to notice a change in him and they have started asking him questions. He said at one point he had to tell them that he is like a toddler in his faith and doesn’t know it all. I smiled at the excitement of his growing faith. He then asked me what to do when he is mocked. He said people are now looking to take advantage of him because of his beliefs. I again smiled and told him there is a joy to be persecuted for Christ. Acts tells us, “Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” (Acts 5:41). The next verse to me is so powerful: “And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus” (Acts 5:42).

Our lives are a testimony that hopefully points others to Jesus. Church, let us have a focus to teach and preach that Christ is Jesus. Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount recorded in the Gospel of Luke, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets” (Luke 6:22-23).

Here are four vital things we need to learn to do in order to grow in Christ and help others to come to know Him as their Savior:

Learn to share your story.

Some of you have crazy, powerful stories of how the Lord saved you—share them. Others have quiet, beautiful stories of His call—share those too. Whether you have a crazy story like my father, who was an addict far away from the Lord and one day the Lord got in his truck and saved him, or a simple story like mine, about parents who loved the Lord and raised me to follow Him. Both stories are beautiful. Either way, take time to walk through it. I even suggest you write it out so that you will be able to share how you received Christ as your Lord and Savior clearly and precisely.

Learn to share your life.

More and more these days I see Christian families wanting to find a bunker some place away from the world to raise their families. We are moving our jobs to our homes, our kids' schooling away from all other kids, thinking this is what a Christian life should look like. Now I'm not saying working from home is bad, or homeschooling is bad, what I am saying is that the church must have an impact on the world around them. Christ didn’t live in a holy bubble. He was known as one who hung out with the sinners. I believe to be like Christ is to be salt and light in this world. Let us learn to share our lives with people who do not know the Lord so they may see the good news of Jesus in our lives. Just as Matthew 5 says, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).

Learn to share the truth.

More than just sharing our story, more than just sharing our lives, we must learn to share the truth of the Gospel. To know Scripture, and the truth on how someone can believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Here are a few of the passages that I use:

Start to pray.

As a church, let’s pray for the unbeliever. If you are reading this book in a small group or for a bible study, who can you start to pray for as a group? Share their names with each other. “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:1-4

Let us be the church that lives and loves like Christ, to let the world know of His amazing love. Let us go into the world and preach the gospel of Jesus. I yell with much enthusiasm, “Let’s go!”

Questions for personal study or group discussion: