to calm us, to give us clarity
of thought, and give us precision in our hearing, that we may hear
and know the word that you have for us tonight. Father, that
you would help me to teach, that you would take away my flesh
and wisdom, and Father, just by your spirit, help us to see
the simplicity of this text as we close out our time in this
great letter. Lord, I thank you for the privilege
and the responsibility to be together with the body, those
whom you have given to your son who paid for our sins and satisfied
your wrath against us. And so as we worship tonight
through the hearing of your word, we rejoice and we thank you for
your grace and for your love for us. In Christ's name, amen. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 13
and Let's start in verse 7 and read
down through the end and I will do what I can tonight to walk
through some of this. Of course there are months and
months and months and months of small little nuggets that
we can pull out of here but for our purposes tonight we will
close this reading and then in the weeks to come as we start
back we will start in the letter of James. Verse 7, remember your
leaders Those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the
outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 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 likewise suffered outside
the camp, outside the gate, in order to sanctify, to set apart
to holy his people through his own blood. Therefore, let us
go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach that he endured.
For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is
to come. Through him, let us continually offer up a sacrifice
of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge
his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have,
for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Obey your leaders and
submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls as those
who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and
not with groaning for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray
for us. We are sure that we have a clear
conscience desiring to act honorably in all things and I urge you
the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored
to you the sooner. Now may the God of peace, who brought again
from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep,
by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good
that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing
in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever
and ever. Amen. I appeal to you, brothers, bear
with my word of exhortation, for I've written to you briefly.
You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with
whom I shall see you if he comes soon. Greet all your leaders
and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send
you greetings as well. Grace be with all of you. Okay,
I won't finish this tonight, because I want to spend a little
more time in verses 20 and 21. But here we have this final,
this parting doctrine, this parting teaching, this parting theology,
this parting exhortation, the therefores, several of them. Several of them, as it begins,
to let brotherly love continue, be hospitable to strangers whereby
you may be entertaining angels, remember those who are suffering
and in prison, hold marriage to high honor, do all the things
that are necessary to keep your life simple and free from the
love of money and content. Know that God cannot forsake
you, that Christ cannot forsake you. He will never change. Look
at your leaders and watch them and imitate their way of life.
Don't be led away by diverse and strange teachings. Remember
the truth of the gospel. Remember the truth of the teaching
of the person of Christ. And you will be strengthened
by grace. Don't fall into strange stuff, Paul says. Don't worry
about these people who say, well, if you eat this food, or if you
do this stuff, or if you follow this ritual, it'll work for you,
it'll do something for you. It won't do something for us.
Nothing will do anything for us before the Lord except what
Christ has already done. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ,
of his own body, is sufficient to satisfy the wrath of God forever
for his people. And in verse 10, and to the end,
we begin to see something amazing. We've already seen it, but we
begin to be reminded of something. He says, we have an altar from
which those who serve the tent, in other words, those who serve
like the tabernacle, those who serve in the temple, have no
right to eat. talking about the sacrifices
of animals, we're not talking about the sacrifices of birds
to which after we're done and we present these things to God
in our rituals as he commanded, then we are able to eat upon
the body of that which was consumed by fire. For the body that was
consumed by God's justice and wrath has not been laid to death
forever. It has been raised to life. Jesus
Christ sufficiently satisfied the justice of God in His death.
He sufficiently atoned for the sins of a particular people.
The death of Jesus was not permanent because Jesus was not deserving
of that death and in our place He stood in the righteous justice
courts of the Father and He paid for His people. He paid for his
people. And beloved, this is not like
any other sacrifice. It is not like in verse 11, the
bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy
places by the high priest were burned outside the camp. Christ
was not tossed into the grave and to be left there to decay.
He is alive today. And because he is alive, it proves
the very thing that he promised eternal life. So in this picture, in this picture
as these sacrifices were given as a sacrifice for sin and burned
outside the camp. Why outside the camp? Because
it was no longer worth anything. Being outside the camp is to
not be in the presence of God. To be outside the camp is to
be consumed and destroyed. To be outside the camp is to
be excommunicated. So now we come to Jesus in verse
12. Jesus also suffered outside the
gate on Golgotha. He suffered as a criminal. He
suffered outside at the hands of Gentile rulers. And why did
he do that? This is the picture of the animals
being burned outside the gate. So Jesus being crucified outside
the gate in order to sanctify the people
through his own blood. This isn't new. This isn't a
long time coming. We just want to make sure he
knows we've already talked about this. You can read this letter
in just a few short minutes. And Paul has already talked about
this over and over and over again. And faith looks at what Christ
is. Christ is God. Christ is Creator. Christ is the Son of God. Christ is the Man. Christ is
the Son of Man. Christ is the Great High Priest. Christ is the Sacrificial Lamb. Christ is the Propitiation. Christ is the Atonement. Christ
is the Mercy Seed. Christ is the Lamb of God that
takes away the sins of His people. Christ is the one who goes through. Christ is the founder of our
looking to Him, our faith. Christ is the perfecter of our
faith. Christ is the one who holds and
keeps. Christ is the sufficient sympathizer
who knows everything that we're experiencing in this life, all
the suffering, the persecution, which we're going to get to as
a close. It's amazing that that's what He closes with. And yet
he suffered in every way but sinned not. He sympathizes with
us in our weakness. Christ is the mercy bringer. Christ is the sanctifier. Christ
is the wisdom of God. And he suffered outside the gate
in order to sanctify his people with his blood. So now we have
a command in verse 13. You see how this is a reminder
of the entire letter? I mean, this is who Christ is. This is who Jesus is, the Christ. Our faith rests in Him. It looks
to Him in all that He is. What we've been talking about
on Sunday mornings, and I'm going to continue now part three of
a one-week sermon this coming Lord's Day. We look at everything
that He is, and we're taught by God according to the Word
by the Spirit, and we rest in Him. and the promises of him
and the proclamation of him and the story of him. Therefore,
let us go to him. outside the camp and bear the
reproach he endured. I want you to think about this
for a second. This letter is not evangelistic. He's not writing
to a lost people to say if you want to be found in Christ go
outside the camp and look for him. He's not saying see Jesus
come get him. He's not saying y'all come now
and offering an altar by which you can come. There is no altar
to which you can come. and take your place and take
your piece of righteousness. That altar has already been done.
That altar has already been consumed. That sacrifice has already been
accepted. And then the altar has been destroyed. And we have Christ who has gone
through the Holy of Holies. And by faith, with great confidence,
we enter into the holy presence of God. We call him Papa and
we are not ashamed nor are we fearful. So we go outside. Who's he talking
to? The believing ones. He's talking to those who already
know Christ intimately. The knowledge of God that is
I am in the knowledge of the Son who He has sent, who is I
am. This is, this is the one who
has come to us in mercy and in grace and in
love. And He came to us in this grace
through the means of suffering and death because it is that
shedding of blood that gives the remission of sins. It is
the efficacy of death in purity and in righteousness and in justice
that gives forgiveness. So we who are in Christ, we should
not look to the world. We should not look to embrace
the world. And here's another one. We should
not look to be embraced by the world. We should be looking for the
gate. We should be looking for the city that's not here. and
we should be going outside the camp. And when we do so, we are
going to bear the reproach he endured. Beloved, if you don't
think it's a reproach to be a true believer in this culture, then
you're not really getting out enough. You don't have enough
people around you. When you go to work and people
find out that you're a believer, they judge you based on what
they believe. When we're out in the world and
people see you not worshiping the world. They judge you based
on what they believe. When so-called believers think
that they believe like you and then you realize these people
don't believe the truth, they begin to bring reproach upon
you and charge you and accuse you of all sorts of things. And
beloved, that is sharing in the reproach of Christ. Why would
we do that? Verse 14, very simple. This text
preaches itself very clearly. For here we have no lasting city. So why would we hang out? Why
would we put anchors? Why would we make ourselves at
home in this world? We don't need this world. We seek the city that is to come.
If the Lord wills, I will do this. If the Lord wills, I will
do that. And you know what? If the Lord wills, that is why
it is so. And when it is so, to our benefit,
it is a blessing that we may bless others and be engaged in
a way that we can invest in the lives of others who are in Christ. And when the Lord says no, it
is a blessing. so that we may learn that in
the hardest of, emptiest of places, it is that call to be the people
of God and to face and endure the reproach that Christ endured
for the sake of His name and His glory, so that we can say,
your grace is sufficient. Not my will, but yours be done. And so we don't look to this
world. We don't look for acceptance
here. It's not going to happen. It's
not going to happen. For the true believer, he or
she will not be accepted by the world. There may be some areas
of our lives that are acceptable to the world, but as soon as
the zeal of our heart is expressed in the gospel of free and sovereign
grace, as soon as we exalt and exalt in the Christ, the true
Christ of the Bible, all things will change. So you might think,
well, what shall we do? What are we here to do? We are
to submit and to endure. the reproach, because in the
reproach we will find an unlikely joy. What should we be doing? Look at verse 15, "...through
Him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God."
Now if we take that sentence, if we take that sentence, well
it's not even a sentence, If we take that first part of the
sentence, it could be, there's some different punctuation there.
Then everyone of us, all the people in the world could come
up with what they think that means. Well, let's, through Christ,
continually offer up a sacrifice of praise. Well, what is a sacrifice
of praise? Well, let's get sister up here
and play some music and then we'll get the choir singing and
then we'll get the instruments going and then we'll get the
kids dancing and we'll just praise and praise and praise. We'll
clap our hands and stomp our feet and swirl around and we'll
enjoy a good old time of worship music. That's not a sacrifice
of praise, that's singing. That's singing hymns, songs,
and spiritual songs. That's what we do in the assembly,
it's commanded of us. Songs that have doctrine in them,
that teach us about God, that teach us from God's Word concerning
our relationship with God, and that teach us by the poetic example
of the worshipers of the Bible, things that we can and should
say concerning God as a thank you. So what is a sacrifice of
praise? Continually? sacrifice of praise. That is, that is, you want to
know what that is? What I mean here, Paul says in
verse 15, is the fruit of lips. What is the fruit of lips? Words,
confession, conversation. The fruit of lips that acknowledge
His name. This goes hand-in-hand with going
outside the camp to endure and bear the reproach he endured. It's what the Christian life's
going to be, beloved. It's what the Christian life
is all about. And the living of it. We're saved by our Savior
who bore reproach on our behalf. You're talking about fame. You're talking about popularity,
you're talking about likes and followers. No one's followed
any human being like the world has tried to follow Jesus. In the first century, when all
you had was the word of mouth, in Christ, Jesus would come into
a city and hundreds of thousands of people would follow him around. When has that ever happened? If Jesus had a Twitter account,
He'd shut down the server. The thing is, a lot of people
say, look at all the people that have followed Jesus. But what did Jesus, what
did these people who followed Him out of popularity, what did
they do when Jesus exposed His true nature? What did they do
when Jesus said, I am the bread of life? They said, then give
me a pack of it. I want some bread. Got some sausages
to go with it, I'll take those too. Side of macaroni will be
even better. No salt. High blood pressure. What do they do when he said,
unless you eat of my flesh, that means partake in my death, and
drink of my blood, that means the effectual remission of sins
through my sacrifice. Unless you believe, rest, see,
hope, know, me, you will not live. And they thought he was crazy.
So what did the populace do? When Jesus exposed himself for
who he was, those who followed after him, they walked away. They went, this man's lost his
mind. This is, they canceled Jesus. And then the leaders got excited
about the fact that people were getting a little aggravated with
him. Even though he had a lot of followers that supported him,
he lost a lot of likes. And then the leaders decided,
let's get under this cancel culture movement thing. Let's just get
on this. And then I'm done with that metaphor. And it was the will of the Lord
to crush him. It was God who put forth his son to be our propitiation,
to be received by faith. So through Christ, we offer up
a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that
acknowledge his name. When we acknowledge the true
Christ of scripture, we also acknowledge all that he is and
he teaches us that he is. And most importantly, well, not
most important, but as important, we acknowledge the reproach he
endured and the fact that we shall share in this reproach.
Because isn't that the way to really stay away from the pain?
Isn't that the way to stay away from the, you know, from the
world letting go of their hugs? It's just, okay, I can believe
what I believe. I'm just going to stay to myself. These people,
we're all embracing this feels nice. This is comfortable. Everybody
loves everybody, but they don't because they don't love the God
of heaven, who is Jesus Christ, the righteous. But the minute we say, I, I know
the true Jesus. What, what'd you say? You like
a lot of cheeses? No, I know the true Jesus. Y'all
were listening back there, weren't you? I know the true Jesus. This is
his name. This is who he is. This is what
he's done for his people. This is the God man, the Christ. And all of a sudden these embraces
just sort of go in a real cold effect. And now we're outside the gate
again. Beloved, we can't have it both ways. We cannot have
the joy of the glory of Christ and the joy of the fakeness of
the world. And then right after that, look
what he said, verse 16, right after that, do not neglect to
do good. I'm going to tell you, when I
think about this instruction, go outside, go outside the camp,
face the, reproach the endured, bear it, hold it, let it come
down on you, carry it with you. Because we have no lasting city,
we're looking to something that's eternal. Through Him, let us
offer a sacrifice of praise with our mouths, with our lives, that
acknowledge His name. When I stop right there, when
I put a really hard period there, James Tippins gets all excited,
he gets frustrated, he gets a little depressed, all in the same thing.
I become this spiritual ball of hodgepodge of emotions. And then I start thinking, what
am I gonna do to remedy this in my life? I gotta do more,
I gotta be more, I gotta... And he's just right back to the
same old list. Remember your leaders. Hold marriage in high
honor. Strive for purity. Do not neglect
to do good. Do good. Do good and share what
you have. What does it mean to do good?
We don't have to answer that question. You know that none
of the good we do or none of the good we are accounts for
anything except to the praise of His glorious grace. the sacrifice
of praise because he loved us we love him because as brother
Scott said last week he served us first we now serve him we
can serve him and how do we do that through serving each other
so we do good do not neglect to gather together as some are
accustomed to doing but what does he say what's he say there he says but
Hold fast. Teach each other. Give encouragement and exhortation. As long as it's called today
for us to do love and good deeds, service to the Lord. What did
Christ do when He went outside the camp? What did Christ do
when He willfully subjected Himself to the government for crucifixion? He served us, beloved. He served Himself for our sake. And I'm going to say this is
going to sound strange and I'll show you what I mean. Christ, the God of glory, came
out of glory, served us for our glory, which is His glory. that we share. His name which is greater than
all names which we share. Do not neglect to do good and
to share what you have for these sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Now I could preach an entire sermon, I could go through the
entire letter and I could use other instances in the New Testament
where all of the apostles reinforced this reality. We've done that.
We've gone through John's Gospel. We've gone through Colossians.
We've gone through other things. We've gone through 1 John. We know that this type of worship,
this type of praise is centered on the thankfulness of what Christ
has accomplished for his people. And so we know what is pleasing
to God in our daily lives. Most importantly, we know the
object of that praise is Christ himself. And the beneficiaries
of that service to Christ is one another. I'm not making this
up. It's the context. And someone
says, well, I don't have to listen to that. Look at verse 17. Yes,
you do. Not only do you have to listen to it, you have to
do exactly what I just told you to do. You don't have a choice,
because it's commanded. Now, if you're like me, when
my parents would tell me, you have to do this, I would always
come back, I don't have to. I'm not arguing. I'm just explaining,
Mom, that, you know, I don't have to do what you just said.
You can't make me. And she, you know, I was correct. Long before there was TikTok,
this opening eye of darkness, blinky thing would have been
my mom's invention. She just didn't talk to her like
that without hitting the floor, you know. But it was true. I don't have to do anything.
Okay. We don't have to obey God. We
don't have to obey our leaders. Well, no. All right, everybody,
take off your left shoe and throw it against the wall. I mean,
this is ridiculous. This isn't what Simon says in Jesus' name. This
is what Jesus says from his word. Why should we do it? To the praise
of His glorious grace. Why should we submit to our leaders?
Because remember, they spoke to you the word of God. And they
have consumed themselves with living their lives outside the
camp for the sake of helping the body of Christ live in a
manner worthy of the calling that Christ has called us to
in His own death. to believe and to share in His
life, in His death, in His burdens, in His reproach, and in His glory. We don't obey any old thing,
but we do hear the Word of God. And it's not you that I will
ultimately submit to either, is it? It's a far greater thing. As James will say in chapter
3 of his letter, It's in the perfect spot. Hebrews, then James. It's the perfect spot. It's just,
while we're at it, let's just keep going. Because they're both
written to the same audience. Hebrews, who were Christians.
Not many of you should become teachers, James says. My brothers,
because you know that we who teach will be judged with stricter
judgment. will have stricter judgment. That doesn't mean condemnation. That doesn't mean death sentence.
But beloved, the leaders of the body, the under shepherds of
God's people giving watch over our souls is for our joy. And we as leaders We'll have
to give an account to Christ Himself. Why? Because we're overseeing
as stewards His body of which we are a part. That's the craziest,
craziest thing. See, in the temporal sense, in
the picture, I'm a husband. In the context of the temporal
sense of the body of Christ, I'm an overseer. But I'm really
a bride. And I'm really a she. So we have these roles to play.
And the scripture says to listen to your leaders and do what they
tell you to do by the word of God and do so because I'm gonna
call them to the carpet on how they've done this. And you know
what else that means? Some people say, well, let's see if they
do it wrong, God's gonna get them. No, if they don't do it at all, God's
gonna get them. And God's gonna get them is a
southern colloquialism for we don't know what's gonna happen,
but you don't wanna know. And we don't. There's no condemnation
for we who are in Christ. But do we really want to just
nonchalantly walk our way lazily through this Christian journey
as the church and just don't care about what the Lord would
love for us to do for our own joy? It's like having the bank
accounts for all the wealth and not having any food to eat. And
they say, why haven't you opened the account book yet? Well, I
just, I don't like numbers. I don't want to read the account
number. Open it! Here we are! And let the leaders lead with
joy and not with groaning. For that would be of no advantage
to you. Why? Because I can't teach and pray
rightly when I'm groaning. Shepherds can't pray. We don't pray imprecatory prayers
on purpose, but they do come. Everybody's laughing. It's a
joke. But it is the sentiment. It is
the sentiment. There's no advantage when we're
not all joyful. And then verse 18. Here's the
leader of leaders. Here's the shepherd of shepherds.
The elder of elders. The apostle of the apostles.
Paul. telling everybody how it is,
giving everybody divine instruction, giving everybody divine commands,
giving everybody the parameters in which we should walk, and
the attitude, and all this kind of stuff, and saying it's all
by God's grace, it's all for God's name, it's all for His
glory, and it's all by His power, and we're just vessels of mercy
rolling down the waves of Christ into the hands of life. And he doesn't sit here and say,
and I got it all straight, so do what I say. He says, pray
for me. Pray for us. Look at that. Pray
for us. Then he says, we are sure that
we have a clear conscience. We know we're doing what's right.
We know we're acting with pure motives. We know that we're trying
to encourage the church, exhort the church, admonish the church,
and all of these things. We know that what we're saying
and what we're doing is honorable. It's what we want. Desiring to
act honorably in all things. Pray for us. And I urge you the more earnestly
to do this, to do what? To pray for us in order that
I may be restored to you sooner. What is Paul's biggest desire? He says the same thing to the
Philippians. He says the same thing I mean, in all of his letters. He wants to come back and be
in their presence. He wants to receive the blessing
of their joy. He wants to be encouraged through
his encouragement and then their encouragement. He wants to rejoice
in the Father's work and in the Spirit's work and in the Son's
work amongst these people that they are hurting and enduring
great suffering and persecution and reproach. and every little
thing and it takes a toll on the body and on the mind and
on the spirit and on the emotions and Paul wants to join them in
this suffering so that they may rejoice together because there
is only the encouragement of the Saints is only found when
we're able to share life together in the right parameters with
the right gospel with the right heart with the right attitude and in this doxology This doxology in verse 20, it's
like he just recapitulates the entirety of the writing of this
letter. Look what he says. Now, a prayer
I meant, a prayer. Now may the God of peace, we
know, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, who
is the great shepherd of the sheep. See, I've already hit
on these things, right? James Tippins, who's the shepherd
of the sheep, it's not the elders, barns and baits, it's Jesus Christ. The great shepherd of the sheep,
by the blood of the eternal covenant, now, what is he asking God to
do? Now may this God, who has done
these things, in this power, and for this purpose, and in
this way, equip you. Because what do we do when we
hear the Bible? Oh, what am I going to do? You are not going to do. That's the point. We are going
to trust in the Lord who wills and works for His good pleasure
in us. You pray for me, now I'm praying
for you, Paul says. Now may this amazing, glorious
God in all of His covenant promises and power who looks after us
and takes care of us and has promised us life and will raise
us to life as He did Himself, may He equip you with everything
good that you may do His will. This is not evangelistic, this
is not talking about Someone seeing the truth. These people
have the truth. May he equip you with everything
good that you may do his will. Working in us that which is pleasing
in his sight. What have we already seen was
pleasing in his sight? Believing the gospel for sure. Brotherly
love. Helding marriage in high honor,
remembering our leaders, facing and enduring the reproach of
Christ, not neglecting to do good, encouraging one another
unto love and good deeds. And then if we went to his other
writings, into John's writings, into Peter's writings, we could
have a list and it's all the same thing. It all boils down
to the same thing. Let us be busy about these things.
that God will work in us that is pleasing in His sight through
Jesus Christ. Now I'm going to tell you something,
beloved. There are some people, and that's why I want to visit this text, this
little piece of text here, 20 and 21, again in a couple of
weeks. There are some people who get
extremely upset when they hear this type of instruction. because they failed to know and
to see and to hear that when God speaks to the apostles and
does some correcting and does some instructing and does some
commanding about how we should relate to one another and how
we should relate to those around us in our being, in our person,
people think you're preaching self-righteousness. That's not
in this text. Paul is not preaching self-righteousness.
As a matter of fact, you can be excommunicated from the family
because you refuse to put away certain sins that are destructive
to the relationships of the family. And then when those stop, you're
welcome to be part of the family again, you see? It's like coming
to dinner without a shower. Mom goes, no, you stink. Go away
and bathe until you've got, that's not got anything to do with being
her son. It's got, that you stink. There
is teaching in the Bible that is good for us and we should
learn this. We should learn it. We must learn
this and if we are the children of God we will learn this and
we will do what we're told to do because we will hold each
other and help each other in this. Not from judgment but from
mercy and grace. Nobody, nobody in the body of
Christ has the authority to cast judgment on another person. But
you can say, Brother James, your attitude, man, I've noticed you
don't have joy. I saw how you treated your family. I saw how this happened. You
snapped at me. What's wrong? How can we help? What's got you right now that
you're not focused on Christ? Let's encourage one another.
We're together in this. I think we fear too much. I have worried more this week
then I've worried in my entire life. I feel the physical effects
of thoughts for the first time in forever. It's the craziest
thing I've ever seen. I confessed it to my seven-year-old
today. And I said, it was sin, and it was doubt, and it was
anxiety, and it's worthless. And I said, what good does worrying
do, Abigail? She says, nothing unless the
devil hears it and makes it happen. Touche. And then we talked about
sovereignty for a minute. God can equip us with everything
good that we may do His will working in us. God will work
in us that which is pleasing to His sight. How does He do
that? Through the hearing of His word by the Spirit. Listen
to this, beloved, and then we're finished. through the hearing
of his word by the Spirit. We hear this exhortation, we
hear this instruction, this doctrine, we hear this gospel, and then
we hear the therefores, and these therefores come alive in us in
the excitement of what God has done for us. And then when we
aren't equipped, then we are submissive to one another, because
I'll be honest with you, brothers and sisters, everything that
we need is right here in our family. It's right here, God has put
us together for his purposes and what we need at this present
time is provided for us. We just have to get together
a little more and relate a little more so that we may know what
it is that each of us have that we might share as a sacrifice
of praise that is pleasing to God. It's not always about the
dimes and the dollars, sometimes it's about the encouragement,
the words, the investment, the mentoring, the relationship,
the prayers. So now let me read this entire
prayer again. Because in the very end of it, it's the way
it happens. It says, Now may the God of peace,
who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd
of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you
with everything good that you may do His will, working in us
that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. See, to me, I would
stop. He'd be like, full stop, we're
done, but then he goes, I appeal to you brothers. So he gives
this prayer doxology, and this is to remind us of all of this
glorious, gracious gospel at work within us, that is Jesus
Christ himself at work within us, and then he says, I appeal
to you, my dear precious brothers in the Lord Jesus Christ, in
whom all be the glory forever and ever, amen. Bear with my
word of exhortation. Why would he say that? Because
it's not an easy thing to hold. And then he says, for I have
written to you briefly. And some people go, Hebrews is briefly? Yes,
it's briefly. Bear with my exhortation. Hold
fast. Just carry the load. Understand
what I'm trying to instruct you here. Understand that you don't
need to step away from Christ in order to escape this reproach
of the world. Hold fast to Christ and live
fast and hold fast to one another in this confession of hope. You
don't need anyone in the world. You need no one in the world. Don't think you need the world.
You don't need the world. See, that's what Paul's saying.
You don't need the world. You need the church. The true
church. The true family of faith with
the true gospel. That's what you need, beloved.
See, that's what he's saying there. And I'm in prison or I'm
hurting or I'm sick and I can't wait. I've written to you and
Timothy has been released from prison. And what is Timothy doing? Not going back to his mama, Eunice,
and his grandmother, Lois, or whoever they are. I get them
confused sometimes. He's coming to me. And then I'm
coming to you. That's what I'm all about. If you come soon, I'll see you.
And then greet all your leaders and all the saints. And those
who come from Italy, send your greetings. Grace be with you
all. This is the instruction of our Lord through His messenger,
Paul. To the ethnic brothers in blood
of their parents, the Jews who are in the blood of Christ with
all the saints in the world. now to us. And the reading of
this word is powerful, and it has done that which is intended
to do being sent by God the Holy Spirit this very day in 48 weeks
prior to today for our joy and our encouragement and our growth.
Let's rejoice. Let's pray. We thank you so much,
Father, for this word. And Father, I thank you that
you do not burn me when I misspeak or when I forget or when I fail
to study enough or to take enough time or take too much time thinking
that what I have to say may be beneficial or more important
than what your word has said. So I thank you for that mercy. I thank you for the great purpose
of the church. to praise you for your glory,
to the praise of your grace, which reveals who you really
are, glory in the salvation and your love for your people alone
through Jesus Christ who saved us through his own body and blood,
who has been born in the flesh as the Almighty God and as the
Son of Man and who has died and who has been raised to life.
and that we by the Spirit have been born from above to see and
to rest and to behold and to know and to live because Christ
is alive within us. Lord, help us to receive this
word and help us to worship and help us to share the truth of
the gospel with all that we can and take the time out to listen
and to talk and to grow together. Knowing that there is no such
thing as growing and are standing before you or that we're becoming
purer or more righteous. But Lord, that we are maturing
in worship. We are maturing and growing in
service. And we are maturing and growing
in love. But we still are not. Still not
enough. Father, even if you grew us all
to the greatest stature of Christ, we would never be the righteous
one. But even as we know these things, and even as our lives
ebb and flow, you do not count these half-hearted righteous
acts to our account because they don't count. But you also don't
count them against us because Christ's death has paid for them. And so our righteousness is His.
You have opened up the coffers and the treasure chests of our
hearts and you have poured in the righteousness of Christ so
that we are counted as perfect as He. Father, that is our only hope,
that our debt is paid in the blood and the body of Christ
and that our perfection before you is the righteousness of Christ
to our account. We thank you for this in Christ's
name, amen.