Enduring Under Blessing

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0:00I do love the song we just sang. When we bless God, we are exalting his name. We're declaring him to be great and greatly to be praised. We're going to be talking about blessing today. So I'm not going to ask for a show of hands. I'm tempted to, but there's a certain group of people that when you sneeze, if someone doesn't say God bless you, you're a little miffed about that. Others of you will let it go. But some people are like, where's my God bless you?

0:34From the person that's around. That's a weird little social convention we have to say God bless you. It's a little act of politeness. That's fine. That's good. But sometimes we forget that blessings are real.

0:53To say to someone, may God bless you, is a really powerful thing. It's way more than just wishing someone well. It's actually asking God to bring wellness into their lives. It's not a wish. It's an invocation. It's asking God, do the thing that you've promised to do. Bless this person. And we say it in faith because we serve a God who is determined to bless us. Praise the Lord indeed. That is really good news. He has blessed us and he will bless us.

1:32To ask for God's blessing is merely to ask him to keep doing what he's already doing. That's what we just did with the Jacksons and what we'll do again tonight. We're saying, Lord bless them. It's way more than just the God bless you that we say after someone sneezes. It's asking God to keep his word. Today's passage is an extended and sincere God bless you to the people that it was written to. The original audience, the Hebrews, and to us. It's an extended God bless you.

2:08That's what this final passage is. We're concluding our sermon series in Hebrews today. God's good. 27 sermons, 27 Sundays. It's been great. I've really enjoyed it. I know that many of you have as well. But we're going to wrap it up today and we're going to wrap it up with a blessing. The Lord is eager to bless his people. He is not stingy. He is not stingy with his blessings, church. He is generous. He is so generous. So let's come and receive the blessings that he has to give us.

2:45Hebrews chapter 13, starting in verse 18, going to the end. This is the word of the Lord for us. It's been the word of the Lord for us. It will be so tomorrow. Let's come and let's receive from our faithful God. Pray for us. For we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. 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.

3:38Through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. I appeal to you, brothers, therewith 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. Grace be with all of you. Pray with me. Lord, we come to you as a people eager for a blessing. And you are eager to give it.

4:22Help us to receive it, the particular blessings that you have for us. Here in this passage and as your people, help us to kneel before your word, expectant for you to be at work in us, bearing new fruit. Help us to live with that kind of faith. Lord, you have been teaching us and pointing us toward an enduring faith through the book of Hebrews. Thank you for the work that you've done. Continue it, Lord. Bless us in your name for your glory, for our good.

4:54In Jesus' name, amen. Enduring under blessing. God provides everything we need to keep following him. Hebrews wraps up with some typical elements of a New Testament letter. There's a request in verses 18 and 19. A benediction in 20 and 21. And then 22 through 24 is like a P.S. You ever write something and then you think, oh, there's something else I've got to say. Do a little postscript at the bottom, below your signature. That's what 22, 23, and 24 are.

5:38A little P.S. And then there's the concluding verse. Grace be with you all. The big heading for all of this is blessings. Three distinct blessings that God gives us so that we can endure in faith. So let's start with this. The blessing of relationships.

6:02We can be honest and admit that relationships with other Christians doesn't always feel like a blessing. Other people have different styles. They have idiosyncrasies. Other people are needy. Sometimes they get in our way of our plans, our schedules, our desires. Our natural tendency is to pull away. To pick and choose which relationships we form and which ones we don't. Which ones we nourish and strengthen and which ones we don't. We mainly choose to interact with people similar to us.

6:38People who agree with us most of the time. It's not a surprise that if you have been cultivating your own kind of relationships and saying no to others, wouldn't you know it? It's people that generally agree with you. People who have needs that you are fine with. People who don't ask too much. And yet, in Hebrews, God has consistently pushed us away from that mindset. We've been told so many different things about the whole community of faith. Exhort one another every day.

7:15Consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Strive for peace with everyone. Not just the people that you like, but everyone. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God. Yes, that person that you don't normally talk to that seems to be struggling. See to it that they don't fail to obtain the grace of God. Let brotherly love continue. Let sisterly love continue. Show hospitality. Do not neglect to meet together. Without close relationships with other Christians, you can't do any of those things.

7:51None of them. But if we only see relationships as an obligation, we're not going to get very far. So pay close attention to this passage because the topic of relationships comes up again, but it is cast as a blessing.

8:10Something to enjoy. Not something to resist. The relationships in this passage, they're marked by mutual prayer. Verses 20 and 21, the author gives this soaring, beautiful benediction. It's really a prayer. It's a heartfelt prayer invoking God's blessings on them. And we're going to get to the content of what he says in that benediction later. But notice that he starts by saying this, pray for us, him and whoever is with him. Pray for us. The author has been detained from them.

8:51He wants to be with them. But for some reason, he hasn't been able to. Maybe it's weather. Maybe he's gotten sick. Maybe he's been arrested. Whatever the reason, he wants to be with them and he wants their prayers. He urges them. I urge you to do this so that I can be with you sooner. Leaders need prayers too. To continue their ministry, to be strong spiritually. Literally, I know you all are praying for me and I am incredibly grateful and humbled.

9:23And I have to say, one of the people that's prayed for me the most has been Jacob. It's one of the first things I noticed about him when I was first getting to know him. After our first conversation, he texted me, how can I be praying for you today? He does that a lot. Maybe, I mean, I'm not, I mean, it's a lot. Nikki asked me a lot how she can pray for me. But Jacob also ranks pretty high up there. Thank you, brother. And I know that you all are praying for me.

9:59You tell me that. I believe you. And it really, thank you. It means I need it. I really do need it. I need you to pray for me. Let me be bold to ask you to pray for me even more, please.

10:15And pray for each other. Prayer is a gift that we can all offer each other. Let's keep doing it. And even more, I know that you are. And let me just encourage you, keep going that direction. Pray for each other.

10:32It's the time when you are isolated that you realize what a gift it is for somebody else to be interceding. Go into the Lord on your behalf. Go into the very throne room of God. For you. What a gift that is. Offer somebody that gift. Prayer is part of the blessing of relationship. Another blessing of the relationship is exhortation. Calling one another to seek the kingdom and to follow Christ. The sermon of Hebrews, the sermon that we have just finished in 27 Sundays, it was written to address a dire need in the congregation.

11:10They were tempted to fall away from Christ, to leave him, to go back to what they had been doing before. And it was a need that was not getting addressed among the community. Think about that. They were all blind to it. They had to have somebody else say it. Somebody who loves the Lord and somebody who loves them. Come alongside them and say, hey, I appeal to you, brothers. Bear with my word of exhortation. It's short. I made it short for you. This was one sermon.

11:44It comes out to almost 5,000 words in the Greek. That's about two and a half times the number of words that my sermons usually are, by the way. He's written to you briefly, he says. Bear with it, please. He's asking them to be humble, to be teachable, to listen. That's what we ought to do for one another. Bear with one another's word of exhortation. When somebody stirs you up to love and good works, listen to them. When they want you to not fail to obtain the grace of God, listen to them.

12:21Whether it is a word of encouragement or a word of correction, hear it from your brothers and sisters. One mark of a good friend to me is that they'll tell me when something's in my teeth.

12:38If I am having dinner with someone, lunch with a group, right, and I get to the car later and I look in the rearview mirror and I see a big green blob in my teeth, I'm like, why didn't someone tell me while we were eating? Why didn't someone tell me? Better a momentary awkwardness than to keep on going with that big green blob in your teeth, right? But the only way to know is for somebody else, somebody who sees you and cares, right? Cares enough to push through that awkwardness.

13:14Hey, this is a great story you're telling me. You've got something in your teeth. We don't eat lunch with mirrors in our hands. I hope you don't. Looking at yourself constantly, right? We need somebody else to be looking at us. In the same way, exhortation, it's a blessing to become aware of something that you need to deal with or some way that somebody needs to point out, hey, I see Jesus in you and doing something in you right now, right? It works both directions.

13:43Sometimes we're blind to those things too. Someone needs to say, hey, boy, that was amazing what I saw you do over there. Or I see you persevering and it is beautiful, right? It's not just exhortation about there's something in your teeth. It's like, boy, you look like Jesus today. We're not walking around with mirrors. We need to speak those things to each other. That's a blessing of relationship. Finally, the blessing of relationship includes partnership.

14:15It's one of the things that we're celebrating today. Though the Jacksons are going to a different church, our partnership continues. You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, the author says. That's good news. They know who Timothy is. This is an answer to prayer. Then he says, greet all your leaders and all the saints. There was a network of house churches around Rome. He's reminding them of that. You are networked with other Christians.

14:45Greet them for me. Then he says, those who come from Italy send their greetings. People who had come and who are with the author, people who had come from the same network that the original recipients were in. Then the author of Hebrews is saying, hey, they said hi. That is not just a tossed off phrase. None of these things are.

15:11They're given to remind the Hebrews that they are not alone in their journey. It's the moment when we are alone that we remember how good it is to not be alone. And we are not alone. You are not alone. Don't make yourself alone. Go the other direction. Receive this blessing of relationships. Listen, there are people far and wide, people that you haven't even met, some that I haven't even met, that are praying for you, for this church, for this new mission church.

15:48Right? They're praying for this. They're praying not just for me. They're praying for you. The work that you're doing in the community, in the church. They're praying. They're praying. Our partnership in the gospel, it extends beyond these four walls.

16:08Ephesians 4.25 says this, We are members of one another. This is true only because we're united in Christ. We only have this relationship with each other because we have been brought into a relationship with God, by God. The next time some Christian irritates you or a need that they have feels burdensome, remember, you're only related to them because God moved towards you in Christ Jesus and brought you to himself. Because it's the same thing. He brings you to him and with each other at the same time.

16:46You cannot separate those things. So take a deep breath in those moments when a relationship feels like a burden and obligation and say, I only am related to this person because Jesus is related to me. And that happened by grace. And so, Lord, thank you for this gift. Thank you for this blessing. Let me receive the blessing of relationship once again.

17:14Here's the second thing. The blessing of empowerment. Now, the word empowerment can mean a lot of things. I had trouble figuring out the right word here, so just hang with me. I'm going to make this understood, Lord willing. Thank you, Ms. Phyllis. The author of the book of Hebrews was not afraid to get in our faces, right? If you've been here for even some of these sermons, you know that. The author was not afraid to get in our faces. We've heard a lot of strong warnings and appeals for us to not give up, to keep going, to hold fast.

17:51It's definitely a book that pulls no punches, right? And yet, the final appeal goes to God. The last appeal in the book goes to God. In the great benediction, found in verses 20 and 21, the author calls on God to act. He says, now may the God of peace equip you with everything good. This is the blessing we need. If relationship is the blessing that we resist, empowerment is the blessing that we need. The Greek word translated equip, it's a word with a really deep meaning.

18:34First, it means to make something function, to put in order, or to restore. Now, that word to me is helpful. About 10 years ago, my dad bought a 57 Ford Thunderbird. It was a car that he wished that he could have afforded when he was young, but he bought one later in life when he could. It was old, it was authentic, but it didn't look like it did originally. Well, it actually did look like that, but it was restored. It had not been kept in a garage someplace.

19:08It had been through the paces. It had deteriorated. Somebody had put a lot of hard work and went to great lengths to restore that car. If you like old cars, you've seen cars that have been restored. Some of them, they really do look like they just rolled off the showroom floor. And you know that they haven't, but you can't tell. So meticulously restored they have been. They've been disassembled, cleaned. Any part that needed to be replaced, they went and they found it.

19:35They had it made. They had it fabricated. They scoured junkyards. They put it all back together again so that it could get out on the road and be driven short distances to other car shows. It seems like that's the main thing that they're driven for, right? Right. In the same way, God restores us. Meticulously, going through, painstakingly, repairing, healing, cleaning, putting you together, making us new, making us function. We're not like how He originally found us.

20:11He makes us ready. He makes us function again so that we can get out on the road. He equips us. But this Greek word equip, it also means to prepare for a purpose, to make ready or to outfit. Now that word I think is helpful too and it makes me think of camping. If you want to go camping and you want to not be miserable, you've got to be outfitted. You've got to be ready to get out there. You've got to have the proper clothing, the proper bedding.

20:45You've got to have ways to cook your food. Outfitted for that trip so that you are prepared for what's to come. And this is why I don't go camping because I don't have all that stuff. I'm not going to subject myself to the experience of when I'm not outfitted. Some of you are outfitted. You've made that investment. You have the stuff. You're ready to go. Right? But you have to be outfitted. God outfits you. He makes you ready and prepared for the journey that's to come.

21:17In verse 21, the prayer is for God to do all this, to restore you and to outfit you. For what purpose? Why? What is He doing this work for? Not so that you could do whatever you want, brothers and sisters. He is not equipping you to follow your dreams, but to follow Him. That's why He equips you. That you may do His will. Now, this might not sound like much, but it is really good news.

21:55If we take an honest look at ourselves, we see the weakness. We look in the mirror and we see ordinary, fallible people. Weak people. We hear about God's commands, His purposes, and sometimes we wonder, how can we ever do God's will? The answer is right here in Hebrews 13. From the blessing of God's empowerment. That's why the last appeal in this book has got to go to God. Not to us. Because God equips us to obey Him. He restores us to love other people.

22:34He outfits us for a purpose in His kingdom. A bird is made fit to fly. It's built that way. And you are made fit to do His will. And this empowerment means that God is working in us that which is pleasing in His sight. Some say that people can't change. That you are who you are and you'll never be any different. Well, I say that God's power is greater than people's sin.

23:11His strength is greater than our stubbornness. Greater than your stubbornness and mine. I say His redemption overcomes our deepest failures. And I say those things because they're true because God told me He told us in His Word. People can change. We can't change ourselves not at the deepest level but God can. And He does. His sanctifying work produces fruit which is pleasing in His sight. The fruit of a Christ-like character. The fruit of obedience.

23:46The fruit of a new devotion to Him. Of loving Him more than anything else. This is the blessing that we need. Because we read the calls, the commands of this book of Hebrews and we know that they're right. We know that that's the direction we ought to go. But we know that there is not enough willpower within us to overcome every hesitation. Right? There's not enough willpower to overcome the worry, the besetting sins, the fears. But praise God, we don't have to look within us and find some secret reservoir of willpower.

24:24Some hidden source of motivation. In order to do what's pleasing in His sight, in order to endure in faith, we have to call upon and rely upon the power of God.

24:38We should ask Him for this. We should ask others to ask Him to give us this. That's what He's doing here. May the God of peace do this for you, equip you to go to Him for whatever that we need. And the promise is that He will. God's promise is that He will. Paul tells us, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling and we think, oh no, I don't know, Paul. But then he says, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

25:23I don't believe that Paul wrote Hebrews, but the author of Hebrews and Paul are in strong agreement here, aren't they? Work out your own salvation, but remember it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. This is the blessing of empowerment.

25:43And this blessing doesn't come to us because we're good enough, because we've earned it, but by the blood of His eternal covenant. Jesus shed His blood and He did not shed His blood for nothing. He shed it to establish an eternal covenant because He is eternal. The last words of this letter are grace be with all of you. Boy, I tell you, that is way different than if He had said good luck to you. Good luck. Good luck out there. We don't need luck.

26:22We can't move forward on luck. But we have something better. We have the blessing, the power of God the grace of God, His unmerited favor and His kindness and His mighty love. That's how we endure.

26:42Now here's the last thing. The blessing of care. If relationship is the blessing we resist and empowerment is the blessing we need, then care is the blessing that we crave. Because there is so much in the world that unsettles us. Economic instability, estrangement and relationships, political discord, our own fragile health, anxiety and worry. Amidst all of this, the same question pops up. Will anyone care for me? Who? Who cares for me?

27:25So it's very tender. It's very kind for the letter to close by calling the Lord the God of peace. He knows that we need peace and He's the one who gives it to us. Because when we had our fists raised against Him, God took the initiative to make peace. His own Son went willingly and gladly to take the place of His enemies on the cross.

28:00And through His work those same enemies are changed. The fists are lowered. And in their place come holy hands lifted up, praising and worshiping our Father.

28:16Coming to Him not with resistance and hostility but repentance and faith. No longer fighting God but worshiping Him. We are at peace with God and we are at peace because He is the God who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus. God has life-changing power in His hands. Can the God who raised Jesus also care for us through economic hardship? Yes, He can. Can He care for us through health struggles? Yes, He can. Can He care for us in social turmoil?

28:53Can He care for us though the world hates us and disowns us? Yes, He can. He can and He will. He cares for us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now Hebrews has been all about exalting Jesus. He's been called a lot of things. He's been called the greater prophet, the greater word from God, the greater authority, the greater high priest, the greater sacrifice. We've seen that He's greater than all of the Old Testament figures. Moses, Melchizedek, everyone who served at the tent, everyone who served in the tabernacle, everyone who served in the temple.

29:35Jesus was greater than all of them. He is greater than all of them. Now that's all true and that's all necessary, but God knows that we need to hear one last thing. One last way that Jesus is great. Something new. He is the great shepherd of the sheep.

29:59God knows that people need someone to lead them, to protect them. Jesus knew this too. When He saw a large crowd one time, Mark tells us He had compassion on them for they were like sheep without a shepherd.

30:21Jesus sees this need and He fills it. He says, I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep know me. And I lay down my life for my sheep. He makes us lie down in green pastures and we can trust Him because He's already laid down His life for us. Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear nothing because He's already defeated death. That valley has nothing that can threaten us. We listen because He's the greater Word of God.

31:00We are forgiven because He's the greater sacrifice. We're brought to God because He's the greater High Priest. But we rest assured because He is the greater shepherd.

31:12This is the blessing that we crave. I crave it. Do you crave it? Lord, I trust You. Bring on Your rod and Your staff. He's calling to You now. Church. He's calling you by name. Do you know His voice? Can you hear it? Don't you want to follow Him no matter where He leads you? Hasn't He proved Himself faithful to you? Friends, we can follow without fear because of the blessing of care.

31:56Personal care. All of these blessings, the blessing of care, of empowerment, of relationships, they come to us through God. They come to us through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.

32:20God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. God bless you.