What does Christianity entail?

Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"

Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:1-8).

When we read the Bible, it often seems that God expects a lot from us. Just consider today’s epistle lesson: love each other as brothers…entertain strangers…remember those in prison and those who suffer…honor marriage and avoid sexual impurity…keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have…remember your spiritual leaders and imitate their faith.

And these are just the tip of the iceberg. Consider the Ten Commandments. Think about the kinds of behavior Jesus praises in the Beatitudes. The entire book of Proverbs is one long collection of advice on how to live a God-pleasing life.

There have been any number of people who have walked away from Christianity because they looked at what God expects of us and concluded that it was too hard, too rigorous. Others snub the faith by claiming that it puts too many restrictions on their rights, that it limits the freedom to have fun and pursue happiness. The bottom line is that they don’t see the benefits of the Christian way of life as outweighing the drawbacks.

What does God expect of us? What is the Christian expected to give up for Jesus? And what are the benefits the Lord promises us in return?

Let us start with what the Almighty expects of us. The apostles Paul and Silas were asked this question: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household" (Acts 16:30-31). Jesus told His followers: God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). He told His disciples: I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6). When He was confronted by unbelieving Jews, Jesus said: if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins (John 8:24).

This Jesus is the Son of God, but He is also something more—He is also the Son of Man. Jesus was born of a human woman by the power of the Holy Spirit, making Him both the Son of God and the Son of Man. It was necessary that Jesus be the Son of Man so that He could do something that God cannot—suffer and die. Jesus predicted His suffering and death many times, most explicitly in Matthew chapter 20: "We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!"

Why was it necessary that Jesus do this? The Lord said, "the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost" (Luke 19:10). We were lost. We were lost in ignorance of who God is and what He expects of us. We were lost in our trespasses and sins. Isaiah said, We all, like sheep, have gone astray (Isaiah 53:6). We have all sinned by wandering away from God and the way that He expects us to live. And sheep who have wandered from the shepherd into the wilderness on their own have sentenced themselves to inevitable death.

So Jesus, the Good Shepherd, came looking for us, to bring us back to life in God’s care. But there was a price attached for our safe return. Jesus had to suffer and die to successfully bring us back. God the Father was angry at us for willfully disobeying Him. He would not let us back into the safety of His protection. The consequence for sin is death and hell. But Jesus volunteered to suffer the Father’s anger at us in our place. When He went willingly to Calvary’s cross, our Savior endured God’s awful punishment for every human sin throughout history. This terrible punishment resulted in the Savior’s death—a death that you and I had deserved, not Him.

But the horrors of crucifixion and death were not the end for our Lord; on the third day He rose from the dead alive once more! Still the Son of God, still the Son of Man, Jesus is now beyond the power of death and hell forever. He has gone to His Father’s side, where He stands for us as our defense attorney, winning God’s verdict of "not guilty" for each and every one of our sins. He lives so that we can join Him in eternal life.

This is the heart of the Christian faith—Jesus is the Son of God who entered our world in the body of a man, so that everyone who believes in Him can live forever, even in spite of physical death. The first thing that the Lord expects of we Christians is to believe that Jesus is real—not a myth, not a story, but a real living person who is our only way to approach the God of heaven for eternal life.

There is a second thing that God expects of us as well. When Jesus began preaching, He said: "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" (Mark 1:15) Following a disaster that killed many Jews, Jesus warned: unless you repent, you too will all perish (Luke 13:5). Following Jesus’ resurrection, Peter told the Jews "Repent…and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out" (Acts 3:19). And Paul described his ministry under Jesus this way: I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds (Acts 26:20).

Jesus died to offer compensation for our sins. It is inconceivable that people could claim to follow Jesus and not repudiate the sins that He died to pay for. In Romans chapter six Paul writes, We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? When we follow Jesus, we are called upon to reject our love affair with our sins.

We love to sin—if we didn’t love doing it, we would stop. Sin gives us perverse pleasure. Think of the first time you tasted a cigarette or coffee or hard liquor—it didn’t taste very good, did it? And yet billions of people have conditioned themselves to enjoy such drinking and smoking, because of the pleasure their bodies receive from the alcohol or caffeine or nicotine. Sin is like that. Sin causes pain, and yet there is a rush of pleasure underneath the pain that keeps luring us back for more.

It is these very pleasures that Christ calls us to give up—the pleasures of making ourselves feel good through sinning. The Epistle lesson draws our attention to a just a few. Devoting yourself to pleasure while ignoring the discomfort and need of others. Seeking sexual gratification outside of marriage. Making money and the things it can purchase the moral compass by which you steer your life. Hebrews says to the modern American "put an end to partying, stop sleeping around, and turn your back on crass consumerism." Put in these terms, its no wonder that so many Americans find Christianity undesirable.

Instead of loving sin, we are called to direct our love towards God and each other. Hebrews encourages us to bring pleasure into other peoples’ lives, to honor commitments, to treasure relationships instead of things. These are not commands to live a life of drudgery, these show us how we can make our days more fulfilling, and how we can bring joy into each other’s lives while here on earth. We show love for our God when we show such love to His children.

But we must not make the mistake of thinking that cleaning up our lives is a way to earn God’s favor; nothing could be further from the truth. Isaiah issues a harsh judgment on our attempts to lead good lives: All our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away (Isaiah 64:6). King David prayed, Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you (Psalm 143:2). In Galatians chapter two, Paul says a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

Since we cannot live lives that are free of sin, what can we do? How can we please God? The key is this: Jesus expects us to hate our sins and reject them, but He does not expect us to live a perfect life. He knows that we will continue to give in to sin for the rest of our days, whether we believe in Him or not—but He does not want us to embrace our sins like a favorite pet. God expects us to repent of our sins constantly, and to try our hardest to resist Satan’s lure to stray from God’s side into spiritual danger.

What is the trade off? What are the benefits we can expect for renouncing sin and pledging ourselves to the Lord? Hebrews suggests three reasons. The first is: God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Almost everyone has felt isolated and alone at some point in their lives. It may have been when you graduated from school, when a move separated you from loved ones, or when you felt the loss of death or divorce. And yet, when we have Jesus in our lives, we are never truly alone. Our Lord has promised to always be near us, listening as we speak to Him in prayer of our joys and sorrows, our needs and fears. Proverbs 15:29 says, The LORD is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.

In Hebrews we also read these words: we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid." How wonderful—the God who created the universe, the Lord who gave you life, the Savior who offered His own lifeblood in exchange for yours, this Mighty One promises to help you! He promises to give you strength and courage in the face of adversity. He promises to protect you from anything that would endanger your soul, including the temptation to fear or worry or give in to despair. Psalm 37 says, If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm; though he stumble, he will not fall, for the LORD upholds him with his hand.

And Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. His love for us does not change—the Savior who died 2,000 years ago to forgive your sins loves you just as much today. Nor do we need worry that our Savior will ever go away; He who died once now lives forever as the victor over death—there is nothing that can prevent Him from opening heaven’s gates for us, where He waits to welcome us in joining Him when we finally leave this vale of tears behind forever.

What does God expect of us? He expects us to believe that Jesus is His Son, the Son of God and the Son of Man, who suffered and died in our place to give us eternal life and happiness. What is the Christian expected to give up for Jesus? We are expected to turn our backs on the love of sin, seek Jesus’ mercy for angering God, and ask Him for help in living lives that follow His teachings. And what are the benefits the Lord promises us in return? The benefits are God’s loving presence in this life, giving us comfort and strength and protection, and the promise of bringing us into eternal life when we die. When we look at earthly pleasures (which also bring us pain because of sin), and compare them with the perfect gifts God offers through Jesus, rejecting such dark desires is ultimately no loss.