In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the tragic circumstances in which people often die and draws a parallel to Jesus' crucifixion. He emphasizes that Jesus' death was not just a tragic event, but a purposeful sacrifice to sanctify and set apart the people who choose to come to God through Him. The speaker highlights the significance of leaving behind worldly attachments and going forward to something greater in order to meet Jesus outside the gate. The sermon concludes with a prayer for the Holy Spirit to move in the lives of the listeners and bring about transformation for God's glory.

Hebrews 13, beginning at verse 12, Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. You know, it seems that you can't listen to the news or pick up a newspaper. Without just about every day hearing about somebody who's died under tragic circumstances. Someone is abducted and never comes back. Not too long ago, there was a story about a poor woman who was mauled to death by vicious docs. You hear about people dying in tragic circumstances, in warfare and such. Just the other day in Afghanistan, one of our soldiers stepped on some kind of landmine and his life was taken in a moment. We think very often about peoples whose lives end under tragic circumstances. And there's a great temptation for us on this Good Friday to think of Jesus in the similar category. A good man whose life was taken under some very tragic circumstances that we all feel terrible about. And that's that's not it at all. I want to show you how our text in front of us, Hebrews chapter 13, verses 12 through 14, speaks about that and shows what's different about the death of Jesus. First of all, it tells us what Jesus did. Did you notice that in verse 12? Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. It's interesting that it came to that past because that really wasn't so much how the Romans preferred to do things. The Romans like to do things as publicly as possible. I've read that in old time England, when they used to execute criminals, they didn't do it outside on the edge of town. They did it right there in the town square. As public as possible, there'd be huge crowds for an execution. It'd be almost like a celebration for people, some sort of of sick entertainment for them to see a man hanged and to perish. But Jesus didn't die in the center of town. He died in a public place, but he died, as it says there, outside the gate. You know, when he was condemned there at Pilate's tribunal and then forced to carry the cross on a meandering route, because when they carried the cross, they didn't carry it in the most direct fashion from point A to point B as quickly as you could make it. Now, that would be too easy for the person about to be crucified. When a person was condemned to crucifixion, they would take the cross. And by the way, they didn't carry the entire cross. They typically carried only the horizontal beam, not the vertical beam. Typically, the vertical beams stayed at the place of crucifixion and the crucified victim just brought the horizontal beam and he carried that. It was heavy enough, especially in the weakened condition he had been during the vicious beating and mauling that he had just just endured. So he would take that piece of wood that they would hang around his neck, a sign describing the crime that he committed. Interesting. The sign they hung around Jesus's neck described the crime that he committed. Jesus of Nazareth, king of the Jews. That was his crime. And they went throughout in a procession throughout the streets with the Roman centurion leading the way, calling out the crime of the accused. And it was a very public thing and it let everybody know, well, look at this poor man, this poor, pitiful man carrying on a cross and he's going to be crucified on that piece of wood that he's carrying. And this is what happens when you when you mess around with Rome. This is what happens when you defy Roman authority. And so they would take this meandering route through the neighborhoods and through the different sections of town until they got to the place of crucifixion. It wasn't in the middle of town. It was outside the gate. Outside the city walls. As much as anything, this was done as a as a concession to Jewish sensibilities. The Romans didn't care about executing people right in the middle of town square, but the Jewish people having a more sensitive conscience said, no, we can't have that kind of disgrace right in front of us. If you're going to execute somebody, it has to be done outside the city walls. We don't we don't have in our mind much of a concept of city walls today, do we? You drive outside of Simi Valley into Moore Park and you hardly know where one ends and the other begins. You know, you kind of cross over a hill to go to Thousand Oaks. You get a little bit more of appearance. You go to San Fernando Valley and you go from Canoga Park to Chatsworth to Van Nuys. You wouldn't know unless there was a sign telling you. But back then, the cities had to have walls. And that wall wasn't just a physical barrier. It was a psychological barrier. Inside of the wall is safety and the city outside of the wall. You're on your own. Anything could overtake you outside the walls. You're not protected out there. So Jesus bore that piece of wood and he took it. He took it outside the gate. They laid him down. They took those cruel nail spikes, really, and they drove him through his hands. They put him up on the cross and he hung there. You know, typically people would hang on a cross for days at a time. They would die of starvation, of dehydration. Sometimes they would die because wild animals would come during the night and start eating the victim as they were still hanging there on the cross. We know that our Lord died unusually fast within a few hours of being nailed to the cross. Why such suffering? Why? The text tells you. Look at it there in verse 12. That he might sanctify the people. Well, what people? You people. Oh, well, just you? No, everybody who will choose everybody who will come to God through Jesus Christ. That God would set aside a people for himself. And those people could not be set aside any other way than by the atoning work of Jesus on their behalf. Oh, they're not set aside because they're smarter than anybody else. You may think yourself very clever. You're not smart enough to save yourself. They're not set apart because they're better than everybody else. And you may be a fine citizen. You may be much more of a fine person than I am. You know, I get cranky and irritable and all the rest of it. Just just ask my family. They'll tell you. You may be a fine, fine, wonderful person. You're not good enough to save yourself. You see, he he did it because it was the only way to sanctify those people. The work that Jesus did on the cross is what saves us. You could divide up the world into two kinds of folks, the folks who are trying to save themselves and the folks who are receiving what Jesus did on their behalf to save them. He did that to sanctify a people to set them apart. And notice how he did it. That he might sanctify the people with his own blood. Did you see that? Not with his noble intentions, not with his teachings. Ladies and gentlemen, you're not going to find finer teaching in this world than any place that's come from the lips of Jesus. What you find there in the Gospels, I've heard it said that if you took all the best, all the best advice from all the best counselors and wise men and psychologists all throughout all the ages and boiled it down and took just the nuggets, just the true things and the things that were really good and you compiled them all and edited it and came to just a really great condensation of it all. You put that all together and you'd come to a very, very pale comparison to the Sermon on the Mount. As great as the teaching of Jesus was, it's not just teaching that saves you. As great as the life of Jesus was and what a life, what an example for every one of us that we should live as Jesus lived. It's not his life that saves you. It's what he did on the cross. I feel like I say it all the time. I feel like sometimes almost every time I'm behind this pulpit, I say the words that I'm about to say. I say it. But I wonder if there still aren't many who don't don't really have it. Isn't it funny how you can hear something a hundred times and it never really clicks for you? Maybe tonight it'll click for you like it never has before. That Jesus Christ hung on the cross as a substitute in your place, he hung on the cross as if he were a guilty sinner when really you were the guilty one and he hung as if he was in your place. And all the punishment, all the wrath, all the shame, all the guilt, all the punishment that your sin deserved. God, the father poured it out upon God, the son on the cross, and he bore it perfectly and satisfied all that wrath perfectly. And he did that by his shed blood on the cross. That's what it means that he might sanctify the people with his own blood. He suffered outside the gate. Well, that's what Jesus did. Now, you know, our verse also tells us what we must do in light of it. What must we do now? It's wonderful for us to carefully contemplate and to meditate upon what Jesus did. And I think that's important for any Christian. But friends, I don't think we're gathered here tonight as the as the Jesus Christ Contemplation Society. As as the memorial to Jesus, let's remember his his his works on our behalf, society. There's something that we must do in response to all of it. This isn't just food for thought. He says there, verse 13. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp bearing his reproach. The first thing it tells you to do is to have fellowship with Jesus. Did you see that there? Go forth to him. There's Jesus. You can picture it in your mind's eye. There he is crucified on the cross, forsaken by by all of his disciples. The few of the faithful women are still around there. But the majority in the crowd, it's the mocking priest, the mocking Pharisees and Sadducees, by the way, which sometimes I wonder if that wasn't some of the worst torture of the cross. Yes, there was the physical pain. Yes, there was the shame and degradation of a man just being exposed in that position. But but on top of all of that, too, there's your enemies laughing in your face, spitting at you. Oh, they're just having a great time. There you are in the extremity of your agony. And these men who set themselves up as your opponent, they think it's the funniest thing they ever saw in their life. There you go forth to him. Would you go and would you go to that cross and stand beside it? Amidst all the laughs, all the jeers, everybody. Oh, they're just they think it's great that this guy is getting his due. You would stand beside him and say. This is my Lord, I will serve him. You laugh at him, you laugh at me, too, because I'm with him. You spit at him, go ahead, spit at me, too. You mock him, mock me right alongside with him. You're going to hiss at him, you're going to make fun of him with your clever, cynical jokes that everybody thinks are such a crack up. Then pour them out on me, pour the contempt on me. Friends, if I take the easy road. Wanting to please everybody, want to be popular with everybody, never wanting to offend anybody, never wanting to hear somebody mock me or hiss at me or call me stupid or freak for what I believe. And don't you see that I have failed to go forth to him? If I'm beside him, I'm going to bear some of his shame. And then and then you see where you have to go and where you have to go is outside of the camp. You see that there again, verse 13. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp. Now, the ancient rabbis used to refer to the city of Israel as the camp of the Lord. The idea was, was that when Israel came out of Egypt and they were all encamped in the wilderness, God gave specific regulations for the people of Israel as they encamped out in the wilderness from Egypt on the way to the promised land, that there were certain things that you could do inside and certain things you can only do outside of the camp. For example, if there were lepers in the midst, they had to be put outside the camp. If there were unclean people in the midst, they had to be put outside the camp. And when they came into the promised land and after hundreds of years of Jerusalem being the capital city of the people of God, they looked at Jerusalem and its walls and its wonderful situation and they said, well, surely this is the camp of the Lord. Jesus says, let's go outside the camp. Now, when you go outside the camp, do you see what you're doing? You're saying, oh, that's where the decent folks are. You know, I'll go outside the camp, I'll come out over to where Jesus is and well, look, there's all the lepers, they're put outside the camp, there's all the unclean people, that's where they are, they're outside the camp. And that's me, too. The great thing is, is that if you go outside the camp, that's where Jesus is. That's true. That's where the lepers and the unclean people are. And I'll lay it down before you straight. If you're going to be a Christian and if you're going to associate yourself with Christians, you're going to be in the midst of some weird people. You know that from experience already, but many of us chafe against it. We're like, hey, look, Jesus, man, he's fine with me, OK? But it's all those weird people who are Christians. That's what I can't stand. Well, I'll tell you what the problem is. The problem isn't that you're ashamed of those weird people. I'll put it as plainly as I can to you. The problem is that you're ashamed of Jesus. You say, well, no, no, no, I have no problem with Jesus. It's just the weird people. No, you don't understand. Jesus is with those weird people. And so if you've just made it up in your mind, no, it's just the cool people for me. None of those weird people, then fine. Get Jesus out of the way then. Then you don't want him. You just want the praise of men. You just want people to think you're something. You won't go forth to him. You won't go outside the camp where Jesus is. Let me read you something Charles Spurgeon said. He said, if you can dwell with the wicked, if you can live as they live and be hail fellow, well met with the ungodly, if their practices are your practices, if their pleasures are your pleasures, then their God is your God and you are one of them. There is no being a Christian without being shut out of the world's camp. So what do we do when we're there? Verse 13 tells us. Bearing his reproach. Oh, this just gets worse and worse. You go forth to him, the rejected, crucified son of God. You go outside of the camp and then you bear his reproach. And this is one of those things that is just absolutely one of tremendous mysteries of the Christian life, because if I listen, as I'm explaining it to you right now, I'm almost asking myself, what am I crazy? This sounds like a great offer, doesn't it? Go associate yourself with a crucified man regarded as a criminal. Go outside the camp. You have to turn your back on respectable society. And then you have to you have to bear his reproach, his shame, his rejection. But if you've lived some of this, you know how sweet it is. That's one of the great paradoxes. If you've lived some of this, you go, yeah, yeah, that sounds good to me. I need to do more of that. Jesus, I want my life to be more filled with that. I mean, if you've touched, if you've tasted even a little bit of this, you're convicted by this and it's it's I need more of this, not less of this. And you know what draws you to it? You know what makes you say, well, forget this. You say what makes you not say forget this and may say, I want to join in with this. It's because when you go forth to him, when you go outside the camp, when you bear his reproach, then you're with Jesus. And I tell you, with Jesus is the absolute best place to be with Jesus is the place of peace, the place of contentment, the place of hope and power in your life. If somebody were to say to me tonight, well, you know, I tried that with Jesus stuff and it didn't sound so great to me. I'd say, well, no, you did not try. You did not surrender yourself to Jesus. I don't know what you did, but maybe you looked at Jesus from over the wall of the city and you saw him from afar or maybe you read about some of his teaching, but you didn't do what it says here. You can't do this and be disappointed. And it sounds like the craziest thing in the world. Maybe that's why it's attracting the weird people like us. Man, this is life. This is the glorious life in Jesus Christ. There is no other way to live. Finally, let me explain to you a reason to do this. It's in verse 14. For here we have no continuing city. But we seek the one to come. You see, we don't have a continuing city here. Let the world have its way. Let others live for the applause and the plaudits and the rewards of man. Let them do that. If that's what they're interested in, great. You have your reward. It's like Jesus said, you know, when we do a good work and receive the praise of men for it, he goes there, enjoy it, live it up. You just had your reward. That's it. And you feel that way for folks. They turn their back on Jesus. But man, they're just loving it in this world and they're getting all they can. Oh, wow. It just seems great. And you just look and you scratch your head and go, well, man, I hope you enjoy this life because this is the best you will ever have it. You pass from this world to the next and there's nothing good for you in the world beyond. So you may as well just have a few pleasures along the way here. Personally, I'd rather live the life now where. Where life is so full and beautiful and rich with Jesus. Plus, I know that this is the worst I'll ever have it. And that's so much better because there's a continuing city. I have no continuing city here, but I seek the one to come. Well, that's the glorious one. That's the one beyond. Man, in our church, one of our elders, Wayne Wallifer, I got a call from his wife, Carol, today and this afternoon, and she told me that Wayne's mother, for whom they have been caring for for many years, and she's in her 90s, that Wayne's mother today went to glory with the Lord. And, you know. They were amazed to see God's work in her life. You know, it was just a few years ago that the woman was almost 90 when this happened, I believe. That she opened up her life to a whole nother dimension of the work of the Spirit of God in her life. You think good heavens, you're in your late 80s. I mean, it's either time just to give up or whatever by then. No, not for her. And now she's in that city that lasts forever, the one to come. So, you know, in light of it all, it's all worth it. It really is. And if you tasted a bit of it, you know what I'm talking about. But friends, don't you see that this requires something of us very significant. What it requires of us is to leave something behind and to go forward to something that's ahead of us. If you're not willing to leave what you need to leave behind, then you're not willing to go and meet Jesus outside of the gate. So that's my challenge to us and what we're going to just do as we continue on in the service here. Antoine's going to come on up and sing a song for us. What I want you to see is that God in this text is telling us that Jesus died on the cross to purchase us, to set us apart with his blood. And now something is required of us, something to go forward to and something to leave behind. Let's let's pray together, and as I pray, Antoine's going to come on. Father, my prayer for each of us this evening is that you'd move with power by your Holy Spirit to speak to our lives, to speak to our hearts, to, Lord, virtually overwhelm the defenses that we've put in the way so that we would see your work in our midst. We'd see lives changed and your spirit move among us for your glory in Jesus' name. Amen.