Bearing the Reproach of Christ

“Soon, your earthly mission shall close, and your pilgrim days shall swiftly pass.” Teach us to number our days. We need to be taught. We number our years. Scripture says, “Teach us to number our days.” How many do we have left? How many do you have left? Do you know?

And are you living as you would want to be living at the end? Are you leaving those who love you with a sense of confidence—this person, for whom it was Christ? For me to live is Christ. It is undeniable.

And that is what is so encouraging when you see almost an exuberance at a funeral—to express that, undoubtedly, this person, they lived for Christ, no question. There is no one doubting it. There is no shimmer of wandering or confusion. You are looking at them and assessing and saying, what a precious thing it is—this person all out for Christ, not just in the last couple of days, but, as was clear from the testimony yesterday, a woman who pointed her siblings to Christ in her youth. Living for Christ in her youth. Honoring Christ in her youth. Is that how you are living?

Soon, your earthly mission shall close. Swiftly, your pilgrim days shall pass. May the Lord help us.

Turn to Hebrews 13. May the message this morning aid us in this as well, putting our priorities in order, because there is a great contrast here in the verses we will look at. And you are being called to a total and very public identification with Christ as one who is reproached—to identify with one who is despised; to embrace that you yourself will be despised because you so wholeheartedly identify with Him.

And you have chosen Christ—and whatever that means—over everything else. And it is not a matter of convenience. It is not a matter that I have just chosen Christ; I have Him and His salvation here in my pocket. I have my passport to heaven, and I get to really live however I please, but I have this security blanket, this get-out-of-jail-free card. No. No. You are called to identify with Christ here, now, in the present—and all the reproach that that may bring. Suffering with Christ.

We are going to read here in Hebrews 13. I am going to read from verse 6. Hebrews 13, verse 6. We are reminded, “He will never leave us nor forsake us, so that we may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper. I will not fear what man shall do unto me.’” Remember those who 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 today and forever. Be not carried about with diverse 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. We have an altar. For they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle, for the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Here is where we are looking today.

“‘Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.’” Amen. May the Lord bless the public reading of His Word.

It is the eternal Word of God which you have heard, which you have received, believe, and obey. The people of God said, “Amen.” Let us pray.

Lord, give grace now. Give the power of the Spirit. You know exactly where every heart, every life is. You know those who are pressing on and need encouragement. You know those who are wavering and needing to be corrected. The choir reminded us of the proneness of our hearts to wander. Maybe that is exactly where someone is today. And I pray that the Shepherd would find and recover.

And I pray for those who are lost, that they too may be found and brought today to an assurance of Christ’s death and resurrection for them, believing on Him to the salvation of their souls.

Lord, give us a message, a message from God. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Has the cross of Christ lost its stigma?

It’s impossible for us to put ourselves in the context of the first century. We can’t actually go right there, and even if we could, we couldn’t put into our minds the way that those of that era would look at their world.

But it seems as though—I think most of us would agree—that there is generally a sanitizing of Christianity; an effort, whether intentional or a problem of the inherent flaws of our nature, of trying to change the real heart of the message of the cross of Christ.

We want a crown, if possible, without the cross. We want the blessings without the burdens. This is the way we live. Leave the difficult. Give me all the favorable things.

What is the worth of a socially acceptable Christianity that ends up leading souls to hell? It has no value. Oh, it has value here, perhaps, but it has no lasting value. That first moment in eternity and the horrific realization that you’re in God’s hell—oh, what a dawn will descend. It can’t be imagined.

Christ pulls back the mystery of it a little in Luke 16. When the rich man is so desperate, maybe he can enjoy some relief. And if not, that something may be done to intervene in the direction of his siblings, that perhaps he was instrumental in leading astray—knowing they believe what I believe, they’re going where I have gone.

In the days of the apostles, the cross was not something that was crafted by some material and then worn around the neck as jewelry. And I’m not going to rail against that necessarily. I well remember having my eyes opened a little when you live in an environment surrounded where Christianity has been the dominant religion for so long—it’s hard for you to put yourself in a context where that has not been the case.

And I remember being somewhat rebuked by a lady who had grown up in Iraq. For her, the cross was a way of saying to a Muslim environment, “We are not you; we are Christians.” So, some of my hardness toward whether it is putting a cross in some place or wearing it—though I think there are dangers in it—some of my definitive black-and-white perspective on it somewhat softened in that moment.

I realized that if you grew up in that context and wanted to make sure there was no uncertainty or question about the fact that you are not a Muslim, perhaps that is a way you would do it.

So immediately, without even saying something, people would know. Perhaps there is some merit to that. Perhaps.

But we are a far cry from that in most contexts. Just wearing the cross—some emblem—maybe it is an indication of my love for the Lord. But that is as far as it goes. The commitment ends with a piece of jewelry. There is not actually cross-centered living.

There are others, of course, in our modern context who go to the extreme of tattooing it on the body. Is that really what Christ is looking for? What would the apostles say if they saw that today? Are we confident that they would approve of it? Might they not scrape it away and say to us, “But are you really living it? Are you really living a cross-centered life? Or is this an easy way to convey that you have put Christ first, but it does not go literally any deeper than skin deep?”

The passage that we have before us calls us to go forth to Christ outside the camp, bearing His reproach. It is a call to live a life fundamentally at odds with the age—to stand in opposition to the momentum or the general thoughts and ideas that were present at the time. It is to oppose a sense of worldly respectability; to identify outside the gates; to be identified with the rejected King. Stand with Him, though despised.

And it’s only when we embrace this stigma—when the posture of the hearts, and the bent of the being, is to embrace that stigma—that truly you begin to experience the power of a life that has no reservations, a life that knows the unction of God; a life that is truly enriched and blessed because, having made a definitive break with the world, you have gone positively to prioritize fellowship with Christ. You will go where He is, no matter what that means.

It is not just something negative, this passage. It is positive. It is going away from to go on to. It is moving away in order that we might go on to. It is recognizing that I can’t carry what I’m being told to avoid to another location. I can’t take with me the respectability and all the credibility, or the honor, that the world may convey or bestow upon me. I can’t carry all of that… and enjoy fellowship with Christ. Much of it—maybe all of it—I am going to have to abandon, leave it there, to go on to Christ.

There was an unmistakable safety for the Hebrews to, as it were, stay within the walls. Stay within the perimeter of the Jewish religion. Identify with the old ceremonial ways. Stay there. It’s safe there. The present is respectable, even as far as the Roman Empire is concerned. Stay there.

And that’s a temptation. You know, it’s what Nicodemus did for a while. Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus by night in John 3, has his questions, poses in an inquiring way. We know, we know there’s something different here. We know—not just me—we’re talking about it. You’re a teacher who’s come from God. No man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. And I’m here to try and figure it out. But he did not make a clean break right there. But eventually he did—before you get to the end of John’s gospel, you discover that.

But the temptation to stay, to remain in that respectable circle, to keep all the credibility, the position, the love, and the respect that you have built up over the years, is strong. No one wants to be despised, and no one wants to be looked at in a way that makes them hated or thought less of.

But if these Hebrews wanted Christ and His saving benefits, they would have to join Him outside the camp. The Head is out there. If you’re going to be part of the body, you need to be out there too. They cannot be separated. It cannot be done.

And this, though we do not live in the first century, is relevant to you and to me because there is always this temptation to mingle. There is always the temptation to try to be in the world and have enough Jesus to give us assurance that we are going to heaven.

I do not think that the major threat upon these Hebrews was to completely deny Jesus as the Messiah—at least for many of them. Instead, the threat may have been to function in a more hybrid fashion. Maybe we can synthesize these things so that we do not have to bear the reproach.

And oh, the ingenuity of man. He can figure out ways to do that. He can try to make it work together. That is what Roman Catholicism has done as it has tried to evangelize the world. It has gone in and seen the culture, seen the gods, seen the kind of basic understanding of deity, and then it has tried to synthesize it with Christianity. This can be seen in many parts of the world.

But the Apostle says, “Let us go to Him.” He is not just saying that you should go; we all must go. Where is He? He is outside the camp. We go there bearing His reproach.

Of course, there is great motivation to do this. Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. Do not blur the lines. That is really it. Do not blur the lines.

Are you a Christian? What does that mean? It means you embrace everything it means to be a follower of Christ. Will it cost you? Sometimes. Sometimes it may cost you everything. But the Christian has counted the cost. He has already decided that Christ is for him. And if it means death, so be it. He has already done that calculation. He has already determined that in his mind.

And that is what the Apostle is calling them to. It is decisive. Do not dare try to mingle these things. Christ has completed the work. The old covenant is past. We are moving in. We are in this new covenant era now. It is Christ. He has fulfilled the types and shadows.

We are not going to turn and give respect to other priests when we have God’s priest in Jesus Christ. We are not going to value other sacrifices when we have the sacrifice that puts away sin. We are not going to do any of that. We are going to identify with Christ even if the world hates us.

So this morning, let us consider that steadfast living bears the reproach of Christ. Steadfast living bears the reproach of Christ. I have been driving home that the latter part of Hebrews 13, if we could summarize a kind of theme, is steadfast living—staying right where you ought to stay, be there—and part of that includes bearing the reproach of Christ.

Now, I have two main headings this morning: identifying with Christ and anticipating a city. Identifying with Christ and anticipating a city.

So first, we identify with Christ. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. It’s not just for the super-spiritual. It’s not just for those who aspire to be a pastor. This is for everyone. Let us—all of us, Apostle included—all of us are going.

This is a fundamental practice of the Christian life. It is to follow Jesus, to go on to Him, and leave whatever can’t go there behind. Leave it behind. It has no part—trying to join it to Jesus Christ. It’s your own personal exodus, beloved. You’re leaving it.

This is what Moses had to do, isn’t it? He esteemed the reproach of Christ’s greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. He went on to Christ, and he left Egypt behind. Couldn’t have both.

And so, as we have observed what Moses did, and we’ve gone through that in Hebrews 11, now this is driving the application, summarizing the application, pushing it home afresh: there must be this decisive leaving, which I want us to see—this identification is decisive. Let us go forth unto Him. It is not just going away from the world; it is a going on to Christ.

It’s not just the prohibitions. There’s a list of things not to do. That’s not Christianity. Christianity has prohibitions. There are things that the Christian shouldn’t do. Read the New Testament. You don’t just have to read the Ten Commandments. Read the New Testament. There are things that Christians shouldn’t do.

But if that is all—if that is your Christianity—you do not do this, you do not do that, you do not do the other. Therefore, you are a Christian. No. No, you are not. Not simply because you do not do things. Christianity is first positive; it is a going on to Christ. Then, necessarily, there are things that are left behind. There are things that do not fit, things that do not mesh, things that do not belong.

Remember that. When someone—maybe even in your own mind—you think, This is negative. I am not to do this, whatever it is. Turn it around. Ask yourself, Is this leading me on to Christ? Is this an expression of going on to Christ? Is this a reflection of living out the life of Christ? Is this what that is? Because if it is not, then I can leave it behind. It is not just focusing on the negatives; it is just getting rid of what does not belong.

The camp that he referred to—let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp—is just a way of describing that organized religious system of Judaism which had rejected the Messiah. And so, for these early first-century believers to stay in the camp was to stay in a crisis religion. To go forth is the decisive break. It is choosing to go out there and identify and say, Christ—Jesus Christ—He is my sacrifice. He is my mediator, my high priest. He is my altar. I do not need what Jerusalem has to offer, what can only be found in Jerusalem. I have what I need in Jesus Christ.

They are being called to sever their ties with that which most, if not all of them, had grown up understanding was part and parcel of their identity. Leave it behind. Leave it behind.

And this going forth unto Christ without the camp, of course, brings in what we looked at last week: the illustration of the Day of Atonement, that depiction of the sin offering and the remnants of it being carried outside the camp to be burned. Of course, the one who carried that out becomes ceremonially unclean. There is a stigma attached to that sort of thing. And they are rejected.

You can see the camp. You can almost visualize it as the process unfolds. And again, you have the entire nation gathering around the tabernacle in those old initial days—gathered around the tabernacle in the wilderness—and they are all assembling and pressing in to watch as this ceremony unfolds on this given day each year.

And there comes this moment where one comes out with a carcass, and there is just a parting as they move out of the way to let him carry it beyond the camp to be burned. And what this text is saying is: you go out there with Christ. You go out there and you identify. You embrace the rejection. You embrace the suffering. You embrace the cross.

That is where you go because that then, of course, was fulfilled in Christ being led outside the city walls of Jerusalem, going there to the place of a skull. I mean, it has the marks of death all over it, does not it? The place of the skull. And here is where criminals are executed, and here is where our Lord is led, bearing His cross—nailed there like a criminal.

And yet, beyond what was visible to the eye of man was this cosmic work in which God is laying the sins of His people upon His Son. He is taking on that guilt and that shame, and He is putting away the judgment deserved by enduring the suffering of the curse upon Himself.

You are then called to do this. Go forth, therefore, unto Him without the camp.

In one sense, if you will allow me to describe it, this depicts the ugliness of what we are doing as Christians. We are going on to and identifying with that place of death and suffering. We are willingly embracing that which is the very reason for our reconciliation before God. And the world despises it.

So the cross is, of course, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. How could this be? What is this all about? It seems bizarre. But the Christian, by faith, identifies with it, goes out there, and whatever hatred and animosity the world throws at us, we embrace it and say, “I would rather have Jesus than anything this world can offer me.”

So we are not then allowed to have this secret faith. In Matthew 16:24, Jesus says, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” He is charging discipleship with language of this willingness to take up and identify with that which is despised and hated.

And so, in that language: “If any man will come after me”—if you’re going to follow me, if you’re going to go on to me—you have to deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow. Wherever that leads, however the world responds, there is a clean break. It is decisive. That is what I want you to understand. I am choosing this. I do not just fall into Christianity and live out the Christian life in an unthinking way.

The apostle is calling these people to ponder what it is to be a Christian, and he then illustrates it in this way: “Go on to Him outside the camp bearing His reproach.”

Let us move away from this. Does that mean family will reject us and not speak to us again? Possibly. He is not calling them to make enemies with their family. Do not misunderstand. He is not calling them to make enemies with the Jewish community. That is not the point. He is not saying, “Be a troublemaker and go in there and so on and so forth.” He is not telling them to do something like that. He is simply saying, “Go to Christ, and whatever happens—if it means great suffering and rejection and disinheritance or whatever—then go. Bear it.”

So you young people, do not be secretive. It is a very dangerous place to live secretly. You have one foot in the respectability of your peers and another foot in the honor of Christ. It is not going to work. It will not work.

When you go into a place of employment and you know your boss is not a Christian, and you know that the people you work with are not Christian, and you know all of that, I am not saying go in there and just walk in on the first day and say, “You all are going to hell.” That is not my point.

You go in, you identify with Christ, and when they speak or act in any way that is not fitting with that, you say, “I am excusing myself.” You want to come to this party? I appreciate the invitation, but I will not be there. Because you have already decided. You are with Christ. You are not going to play games with your own soul and the honor of His name by trying to make these things mingle together that do not belong.

Think about it. I mean, think of how— I am not going to get into this today. This is not the time, though it does greatly burden me: engagement with the media today. And especially—especially—music, because you carry it with you every day. And all the time this stuff is pouring into your ears.

Let me just ask you: is what you are listening to reflective of, “I have gone away from this onto Christ”? Or is it reflective of, “I am here in this world loving everything it loves as well”?

They hate Christ’s name. They have no respect for anything he is or what he has done. And the whole sentiment surrounding the language is… that’s what I mean. This is like what we looked at in the catechism this morning: being careful in everything that we do to honor the Lord and going on to him.

So this identification is not only decisive; it is deliberate. Because it is the awareness that we will bear his reproach. “Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.” We’re not going blind. We know this will cost us.

Jesus did not hide this from us. He did not hide it. He put it out there in Luke 14 when he discusses, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?” And he is drawing a conclusion. Are you prepared for what this will cost you? Are you? Are you? Are we? Are we prepared for what it will cost us?

But first-century Christians would recognize this sentiment. And I know there’s so much change in the culture. I get that. I’m not being naïve about it. They simply would not recognize much in the way of life today. But the sentiment—the sentiment of all at the altar, of putting him first, of sacrificing whatever is necessary, of joyfully suffering for him, of experiencing suffering and walking out of there and thinking that it was a privilege and an honor and that we are worthy to suffer for his name—we’re outside the camp with him, and it’s going to bring this kind of thing. And it’s an honor.

So it is deliberate. I am not calling you, and I am not saying to you, “Come, and Jesus will make everything well, and your life will be swell, and everything will be smooth, and all will go exactly as you plan.” Later on, you will find that we must, through much tribulation, enter the Kingdom of God. This is not what we are about. It is right here: bearing his reproach. There is an identity with suffering—with the slander, the curse, the shame, the mockery, the social ostracism—being identified with Christ.

What? Your king was crucified? He must have been a really awful person. And they try to say, “No, no. He never sinned, neither was guile found in his mouth.” It seems hard to believe. He was crucified. We keep that for the worst of criminals—when it is definitive and clear that this person is not good. No. No, you do not understand. I am trying to elevate him.

The world’s general sense and view of it is, “Why would you want to have anything to do with such a one?” Until the Spirit removes the scales, until the Word sheds light, it makes no sense.

And so this is part of our problem. We are living in this world, and if we try to have one foot in the world so that our lives make sense to the people around us—we still go to places and do things and all the rest of it—then they say, “Well, that makes sense. Oh, I get it. You do all these things, but you have a little bit of religion there. I see that. You’ve kind of added it into your life. Okay, I can understand that.”

But what if that part of your life is all your life, and they do not understand any of the rest of it? What then?

And this is what it is calling us to: a deliberate embracing of the suffering. It is His reproach. We embrace His reproach. He has already been rejected by the world. The world hates Christ. That is what He told them. Therefore, they will hate you.

And so you are embracing that—what the Lord told His disciples: “They hate me. And if you identify with me, they are going to hate you as well.” And so the reproach, the suffering, the shame—all of that—is not like directed first to you. It is first directed to Christ, and because you align with Him, then to you. And there is the honor of it. The Lord appreciates those who stand with Him.

It is a way in which we—at least one way in which we enter into the fellowship of His suffering—as Paul mentioned in Philippians 3:10. And Peter had to learn it. Peter, he was—he seemed to be so bold. And then at the point of testing, he crumbled. His whole faith, in terms of his stand for Christ, just collapsed like a house of cards.

The Lord drew him back. He put steel into his heart, and the resurrection solidified in his mind: this is worth not just living for, but dying for. And more than that, it is a joy. And so he writes then, does he not, in 1 Peter 4.

If you are reproached for the name of Christ, remember—if you are reproached for the name of Christ—you are blessed! For the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. The Spirit of glory—the Spirit of glory—rests upon the one who bears the reproach. You are blessed!

I mean, when we compromise with the world—when we make Christianity as palatable as possible and just enough to ease our conscience, to make us think we are going to heaven—when we do that, we actually deprive ourselves of happiness. We deprive ourselves of happiness.

It is like the person who is stingy, who will not give. He deprives himself of a blessing. It is more blessed to give than to receive. A person who will not give only deprives himself of blessing. And so when you compromise with the world and you try to live and dialogue with the world and be like the world and just have enough—when you do this—and you will not go outside and suffer with Christ, you actually deprive yourself of the happiness Peter had experienced.

“If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed.” You are blessed. And he is inviting you into a happiness that he could testify to. He is inviting you in, young person, to say: do not believe the lie that happiness is found in social, worldly acceptance. It is found when you love Christ, and even when the world hates you, there is a bestowing—there is an experience—of happiness.

So we should not be ashamed of him. We should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, and so there is a way in which we can express our convictions. There can be a tact that is not deliberately deceitful, and God will judge that. God will judge. He knows the difference when we are trying to skirt around the thing because we are ashamed of our convictions, and where we are actually just tactfully trying to guide this person into an understanding. He knows the difference there, and that is not for me to judge.

Some of us, of course, our characteristics will play into it—in which some of us are just very forthright. We’ll just say it—just get it out there—just say it. Sometimes it works. Sometimes, maybe it wasn’t a very good way to go about it, and it blows up in our face.

And others, of course, are much more cautious, and sometimes that’s going to work out. That cautious approach is going to work out, and sometimes it’s going to blow back in their face too, because the lack of clarity has not been helpful. So we need the Lord to guide us and lead us, and he will determine what’s actually going on in our motivations. But we are not to be ashamed of him.

You find yourself in a place of rejection—here’s the encouragement: let us go forth, therefore, unto him. There’s a fellowship out there that can’t be experienced over there—a fellowship. It’s where he is, already despised and hated and rejected and dishonored—that’s where he is. If we go out there, that’s where we’ll find him. And we’ll experience something of the comfort of being close to him, of hearing his voice.

The world is screaming this, and we move away from what the world is saying. We dull its sound in our ear, and we begin to get closer to Christ, and we begin to hear the comforts of his promises. We become much more content, much more at ease within our soul.

Identifying with Christ.

Anticipating a city—time is moving on so swiftly this morning. Why would anyone willingly leave the camp? Well, of course, first, because that’s where Christ is. But also because here we have no continuing city. We seek one to come. We have a perspective that this isn’t everything.

So there are two things here to leave with you.

First, there is no lasting home here. There is no lasting home here. There is a transience to this world. Here we have no continuing city. You are looking to Jerusalem as if it is going to be there forever, but it is not. It is going to be raised to the ground in just a few years—which they could not, you know, even though it had happened before, they could not really fathom that that was right around the corner. But it was going to happen nonetheless, just as Jesus said.

But it is true today. There is a transience to this world. Greenville will not be here forever. New York City will not be there forever. Things change. Empires rise, empires fall, even in the estimation of this scene of time. But there is coming something in the future as well that will bring a finality to all that we see in this world.

And this does not mean—just to underline—it does not mean that we do not live and work and build because of this transient aspect. It does not mean that we just bury our heads in the sand and we ignore all of this. No, we have a purpose here. We do.

We endeavor to make the world a better place. I mean, that can sound cheesy and empty, but there is a reality in which the Christian functions to make the world better—truly better. That is an honorable thing. Light is a good thing, and you are light. So let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

So it’s not like it doesn’t matter how we live because it’s transient. Don’t misunderstand again. But we are not to lose focus on the eternal and imagine everything is here and now. It’s not. We are pilgrims. At times we do feel like foreigners. I feel like I don’t belong here. I mean, I don’t know about you, but sometimes that just dawns more heavily upon me than others.

Something’s transpiring. The world is losing its mind over whatever is going on. These little moments, these little epochs where you just like, I really feel like I don’t belong. I just don’t belong in this place. There’s such confusion.

And maybe that’s what the psalmist David felt and was reflecting on in Psalm 39: For I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner as all my fathers were. A stranger with thee. There’s a transience here in this world. There’s no lasting home. Here we have no continuing city. So we try so hard, prioritizing the acceptance of the citizens who only live for this time. To what end? There is another citizenship.

There is no lasting home here, but there is a living hope ahead. There is a living hope ahead. Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come.

It points us away, doesn’t it? We seek. We seek it. That implies diligence, yearning. There’s activity there. We seek one to come. It’s not just we know there’s one to come, but we seek it. It’s a driving, motivating principle in the heart.

It is like that city Abraham looked for, which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God—Hebrews 11. The city, the New Jerusalem, this place where there is no need of the moon and the sun, and God himself lightens it. The lamb is the light thereof. Where there’s no more death and sorrow and crying.

I was thinking about that yesterday, I was—sitting there in that funeral—asking myself, will there be tears? There’s no more crying. The pain that brings a certain kind of tears will be gone. But will there be no tears? Sometimes tears, they speak volumes of something precious. It has nothing to do with the curse. Tears of joy. Tears that shed when, in prayer, you have a fresh sense of being forgiven. Possibly then the tears that may—don’t hold me to it—there may be a certain category for tears, even in the eternal state. Oh, the things that bring pain—the things that bring a certain kind of tears—are gone.

But we are going to another place, and we seek it. We seek it because it will be a place of relief, a place of unimaginable joy, a place of seeing the Lamb.

And our citizenship is already there. Philippians 3:20—our conversation, our citizenship, that’s how it can be translated, is in heaven. It is in—not will be—is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so there is another land that we seek for. We’re living looking towards it, living in light of it, conducting our affairs knowing we’re headed there.

Yes, it produces a kind of holy detachment. Because as Job acknowledged, naked came I into this world. Naked will I return hither. I’m not carrying all this stuff. I came in stripped. I’m going to go out stripped. What is lasting?

So then we embrace the stigma. We don’t try to make it cool and acceptable. Away with it. God deliver us from trying to make Christianity acceptable—in some awful distortion of what it’s all about.

I’m not calling you to an ascetic life. I’m not calling you to say that—go and abandon everything reasonable and leave your wife and your husband and go on. That’s not—don’t misunderstand me. But a life that is ordered by a principle that I have abandoned any desire to receive the benediction of this world. I’ve gone on to Him outside the camp. I’m going to suffer if that’s what it takes. I’ll embrace the stigma. I’ll identify with the cross—whatever offense may be caused when I say, I am a Christian, and I believe this is God’s Word.

And we’ll invest in the eternal. Here we have no continuing city, and yet—oh—what investments we make in it. Be careful about your investments: your time, your money, your alliances. Be careful, be careful. I’m not saying that you’re to live as if you’re not in this world; I’m not saying it—saying that you’re to construct in your mind an alternate reality. But make sure you’re laying up where moth and rust does not corrupt, where thieves cannot break through and steal, where the stock market can’t take away everything that matters to you. Invest in the eternal.

Does God have it? Does He have everything? Does He have it all?

I was watching a lecture by R.C. Sproul the other day, and he was lamenting. He said, “A recent survey—though this was probably 20 years ago or something—showed that 96% of Bible-believing, born-again, evangelical Christians do not tithe.” And he was lamenting over that, and I thought, What? If the Lord does not have the material, there is no way He has our lives. There is no way. What is this Christianity that we have made as palatable as possible?

Let us go forth. I am going with you. Let us go forth. We are all doing this together, onto Christ. May we link arms and help one another, going out there, standing with Christ.

And we will find that we are not entirely on our own. There will be a remnant, according to the election of grace—a people who bear the reproach, a people outside the camp. May the Lord make us to be among that number.