A Greater Shepherd
Jesus is Greater: An Exposition of Hebrews

Transcript

It's great seeing you here this morning. We're together on a significant day. It's the final sermon in this sermon series, sermon number 26. For 26 Sundays we've spent working through the book of Hebrews together. We started three years ago and we've worked on it in the Autumn season for three years and now finishing up before Thanksgiving.

And I have to admit that I'm a little sentimental about leaving it behind. I've been living here for several weeks and it's been a wonderful, wonderful journey. And as we stand at these final verses in chapter 13, I hope you feel as I do, that we don't have to end the journey. We can keep studying what we've learned. And my prayer is that we will carry the core truths that we've learned together from this book forward and continue to study this magnificent letter for the rest of our lives.

And there's really no other book like the book of Hebrews either in the New Testament or the Old Testament. Think about what we've learned. It contains the most significant and sophisticated Greek in all the New Testament. The New Testament's written in Koine Greek. Much of Hebrews is written in classical Greek.

It's very highly rhetorical, polished and it's structured like a sermon. It masterfully navigates Old Testament categories. We've referred to it as like the reader's digest version of the Old Testament. And it discusses the priesthood, the tabernacle, the sacrifices, the covenants, all to demonstrate one towering non negotiable truth. Jesus is greater.

It offers a unique theological voice introducing Jesus as the Melchizedek of priests, that he comes from the order of Melchizedek and shows us just how vast and glorious his office is. And this entire grand masterpiece has been distilled into one magnificent theme. Jesus is greater. He's greater. Yet we live in a world that's filled with anxiety, uncertainty and even spiritual drift among believers.

Many believers feel ill equipped to live a life fully pleasing to God. We often rely on our own strength or our own self help strategies or even religious routines. I asked someone recently, on a scale of 1 to 10, how are you doing with Jesus? And the person answered, something like three, I think is what I recall. And I thought, well, what's going on in your life?

Why are you feeling distant from Jesus today? And they begin to answer, as many of us do, maybe you've done this. I haven't been having a faithful quiet time. I haven't been reading my Bible, I haven't been praying. I’ve not been attending church as I should, or I haven't been going to my community group.

And they begin to list these outward things, these important things that may or may not be indicative of where you're at in your spiritual walk. But what I was really asking wasn't these outward things. I was asking, how are you and Jesus doing? Are you growing in love with him? Do you know him better today than you knew him yesterday?

Do you have an ongoing conversation with him? Do you find yourself empowered by his spirit? We're all tempted to drift back into religious things and self effort. It's the default of human nature. But this great book calls us to this greatest person, Jesus, as the one who is able to shepherd us.

And that's really what this final sermon is about. He's a great shepherd. He's the great shepherd of the sheep. And that's why this message is so important. As the author of Hebrews closes with some personal prayer requests, with an amazing benediction and finally a P.S. at the end, as most letters would require.

And so as we close this letter out, we will see how Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, offers us a way to equip us to please God. And I believe today that we can depend on, we can rely on this great shepherd to help us please God. And the text gives us three essential priorities that through Jesus the great shepherd, we can live lives pleasing to God. So let's dig in.

We're picking up at verse 18 through the end of the book. Hebrews 13:18-25 (ESV) 18 “Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. 19 I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner. 20 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, 21 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.

22 I appeal to you, brothers,[b] bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. 23 You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. 24 Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings.

25 Grace be with all of you.” This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three essential provisions that through our great shepherd Jesus we are equipped to please God. Here's the first:

1. We have His confident access to intercessory prayer.

We have his confident access to intercessory prayer. First of all, we can see that Jesus gives us this access to the Father. He indeed intercedes for us himself. And he also calls his people and energizes his people and enables his people to intercede for one another.

Well, let's look and see how the author of this book continues. He says, “Pray for us.” Do you see it in verse 18? “Pray for us.” Now, who is speaking here?

We're uncertain. The traditional view is this of the apostle Paul. Who is the author behind this book? It does sound like Paul. Paul would be well qualified to write such a book because of his great rabbinic background.

Having studied under Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem before he became a Christian, he was well versed in the Old Testament. However, all of Paul's other letters have his autograph. This letter is unique in that it has no autograph. It does close like a letter. And like most letters, it becomes very personal at the end.

Throughout the book we have 12 and almost all of 13 very propositional kinds of sermon-like doctrine being taught to us. But in only a couple of rare places in Hebrews do we see a reference to the first person language. But here we see it throughout. At the end we see we and I and us all first person, very personal. As we close out, who might this be speaking?

You've heard my thoughts on it. No one really knows. We know the Holy Spirit inspired it. It's a very important book in our Bible. But it seems to me, as I've studied it, that it's possibly written by Luke.

It's the handprint of Luke writing it, but the voice of Paul inspired by the Holy Spirit. And so when I think about who “us” is, “pray for us.” It's his team that is currently writing this book in Italy. Well, how do you see that? Well, as we see in the P.S.

at the end, verses 22 through 25 is kind of like a P.S. We see, 24 “Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings.” And this way of describing the place Italy sounds more like Luke to me than Paul.

Paul almost always refers to it as Rome. Luke refers to it almost always as Italy. There's only four times in the Bible that the word Italy occurs; three times in the book of Acts, which we know Luke wrote, and then here in the book of Hebrews. It's not enough to say Luke wrote it, but it seems to fit his high education, his Greek background, perhaps we see in Luke and in Acts this excellent kind of Greek, higher, more complex Greek. Anyway, enough on that.

You can see that I'm fairly thoroughly convinced personally that Luke might be the writer and Paul might be the voice. And in that way, I guess I cover all my bases for that. Enough said on that. As we conclude, who's “us?” It might be Paul, Luke.

It's some other members here. It's also found that he's praying for Timothy, who apparently has been imprisoned. We see in verse 23, “You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon.” He's praying, our brother Timothy has been released. You should know that. So he's been in prison and he's trying to get back with Timothy so they can travel together to be with these saints that he's writing to, these Jewish background saints.

And so pray for us. 18 “Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things.” That's an unusual kind of prayer request that includes that he's someone that they should be praying for. Why would he say that? I've been thinking about that.

The fact that Timothy's just getting out of lockup. It sounds like we know that Paul has been imprisoned many times. He might be concerned, as I'm asking you to pray for me. Don't worry about the fact that you've heard that I was locked up over there in Philippi, that I've been locked up in Rome, because it seems to me that the book of Hebrews may have been written between Paul's two imprisonments. The first imprisonment was really house arrest in Rome.

That's the one we have in the book of Acts. We know there's a later imprisonment, as in evidence, as he writes his second letter to Timothy where he's talking about asking for his outer garment and his books. And he's in a different state of mind there, which seems to show he was in chains, he was in a different situation. There appears to be two imprisonments. This one seems to be between the two,

the best I can determine, looking at it very closely. And so here he is. Pray for us, and don't be worried about what you've heard about us, because we've lived with a clean conscience and we've acted honorably in every way. In a way, he's maybe also saying, and pray for us that we're able to continue to do that, continue to act with a clean conscience and to continue to act honorably in all things. But then he gets to the real prayer request.

Pray for us. Here it is. Do what? Pray for us. “...for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things.”

For what reason?
19 “I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.”
That's his prayer request, so I can get back and be with you in fellowship. What a sweet prayer request. Pray that I can come and be with you.

Pray that my whole team can come and visit with you. That just shows the affection that our author has here for God's people. He wants to be with them. He's called to this. And so, as we think about this, as we think about this call for intercessory prayer, what would cause someone to ask for prayer?

Why can't he pray for himself? Well, he can. He can pray for himself. But we have the model of being asked to pray for others that he's modeling here. He's not above asking for prayer.

The author is writing, saying, 18 “Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. 19 I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.”
Pray for us that we can continue to be honorable and have a clear conscience. And most of all, pray for us that we can come and be with you and be reunited with you. We have this model from Jesus in Hebrews chapter 7. He is our great intercessor. It says, Hebrews 7:25 (ESV) “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”

Think about it like this. Every time you pray, you have Jesus repeating your words to the Father. He's opened up the door, but he's also agreeing with you and interceding for you that we have the Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, as an intercessor, praying to the Father on your behalf. And then here's the author of Hebrews saying, would you join with the great intercessor? And would you take advantage of this confident access we have through him to pray for us?

To pray for us. We see this in Hebrews chapter 10 as we speak of access. Hebrews 10:19-22 (ESV) “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, …and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…” We can draw near with confidence, with full assurance that when we pray, the Father hears us. Not because we pray better, not because we pray good, not because we pray a certain formula, not because we have a good life or we somehow are more righteous.

Well, he'll listen to me. Some people think if they come and ask me to pray for him, that I have a closer connection with God. Like if I pray, I feel like if the pastor prays, that's a clear misunderstanding. Can I tell you who has the greatest access to the Father? It's the great shepherd of the sheep, the Lord Jesus Christ, who intercedes for you.

And he has opened the way so that you can approach the Father by him, through him, and you can intercede for each other through him, for each other. There's just something about praying for each other that's important in God's house, that God made this provision through Jesus Christ that we have this powerful prayer life that we can intercede for one another. It says in Ephesians, Ephesians 6:18 (NIV) “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” There's something about someone not being present in your life for a season where you might forget to pray for them.

You know, out of sight, out of mind. You forget to pray for them because you haven't seen them for a while. Here's the author of Hebrews saying, pray for us. We want to get back with you soon. We sometimes forget to pray for our missionaries that are in foreign countries that used to be sitting in these chairs with us, that we saw them answer God's call and we laid hands on them on this stage and sent them out.

And then we forget them. We forget to pray for them, which is the most important thing we could do to intercede for them. We forget to support them in finances and in prayers and in going to visit them. But he says to pray for us, intercede for us. One of the most beautiful things that I've noticed in my community group lately, our community group's a year old now.

We started last fall, and we've really been growing, not just in numbers of people that are staying together in my community group every week, but in the way we pray. I remember when we first started praying together, everybody kind of prayed surface prayers. Those first few prayers, everybody's, like, praying for their grandma's cat, that kind of thing, you know, praying for surface prayers. And then people start trusting each other. Finally, someone is courageous enough to be authentic and transparent, which takes the whole group to a deeper level, because, well, if she can be transparent, maybe I can.

And then lately, our group's a year old, and the last few weeks, it has been amazing what's been going on in our small group, our community group, praying together, people confessing their sins. That's serious. They're talking about their weaknesses. They're not talking about something over there. They're opening up and revealing their hearts to each other.

And people are weeping and crying and praying and loving each other. Man, it's starting to look like the church is supposed to look, interceding for each other. Is that happening in your community group? Maybe you're the one that's supposed to be courageous enough to be authentic and not just praying these kind of surface prayers, but to get down there and pray some “booga booga” prayers, you know, get down in there and get real, you know, pray like that. Are you taking full advantage of this provision that Christ has given you, the power of having access to the Father, the God of all the universe, and the power we have to intercede for each other through Jesus, our great high priest and our great shepherd.

Let's take full advantage of this and let's remember to pray for our leaders and our fellow saints and for each other and for those that we haven't seen for a while, let's remember them in prayer too, because Jesus is interceding for us. Well, let's go to the second essential provision that we see in the text. We come now to verse 20 and 21. And what we have here is one of the most beautiful, powerful benedictions that I've seen in any of the letters in the New Testament. A beautiful benediction.

For one thing, it's amazing because it essentially summarizes all of Hebrews in two verses. It just kind of grabs all the threads that we've been learning and ties a bow in the whole book. It's beautiful, it's powerful, and it's really amazing. Benediction means a good word, a blessing. Notice how the author writes it.

2. We have His eternal covenant that perfectly equips us.

Here I'll give you my second essential provision as we dig in: We have his eternal covenant that perfectly equips us. Notice how the benediction begins. Verse 20, “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,

”Now may the God of peace…” That's a lot right there. Now may the God of shalom, of harmony, of unity, of wholeness, of health, of provision, of right relationship between God and one another. May the God of Shalom, the God of peace.

Let's just start there. How is it that we are able to even talk about the God of peace? When did you make peace with God? Have you ever heard someone say that? Are you ready to make peace with God?

Well, you can't make peace with God. You first have to admit that you're in rebellion with God before you can make peace with God. That means that you're a sinner, that you've chosen to live your own way instead of God's way, which is what all of us have done. But even so, we still can't make peace with God without a go between, a mediator, someone who could step between us. In order to have real peace with God, we need a savior who could stand before God on our behalf that we could put our faith in.

”Now may the God of peace…” how did he get to be the one that we're right with, that we have peace with? Well, he's going to explain it now. “...who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus…” Well, this speaks of his resurrection. You can't have Christianity without the resurrection.

It's an empty tomb. And Christianity rises or falls. Paul writes in the book of First Corinthians, chapter 15 on the resurrection. It's the only religion of all the religions that speak of this, that we serve a resurrected living Jesus. And so we see that he affirms the resurrection.

He's made peace with God by his resurrection, by his blood. And then it says, “...the great shepherd of the sheep.” Glad it finished with one more “great” word. We have a great high priest. We have a greater, greater, greater name.

And we have here a closing greater. He's the great shepherd, the great pastor, the great lover of our souls, the great shepherd of the sheep. He's the resurrected one.

“...by the blood” it says by the blood. You see, he's not only the resurrected one. In order to be the resurrected one, he had to be the one who died for our sins by the blood. The book of Hebrews is the “bloodiest” book in the New Testament. It has the word “blood” in it more times than any other New Testament book.

It's in here 21 times; by far more than any other book. Why is that? Because it's relating to all those sacrifices in the Old Testament and how they were without meaning until their fulfillment came in Jesus, who by his blood made for us the eternal covenant. That's what it says,

“...by the blood of the eternal covenant.” That's what the New Testament is. There's not going to be a new, improved Testament. There's not going to be another chapter. The New, New, New.

No. We have the former covenant, the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, which is fulfilled by the New Covenant, which is the eternal covenant. Eternal; that speaks of something that's everlasting, that's timeless. It certainly speaks of something that goes into the future forever.

But doesn't it also speak of something without beginning or end to say it's eternal? Well, how is this possible? The author John writes in the book of Revelation this, Revelation 13:8 (KJV) “ … the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.” What's this? That it was already in God's mind and already in God's heart before he even put Adam and Eve in the garden.

That he already had decided that it was his purpose to declare his glory more manifest and more fully by showing his sacrificial agape love by Jesus, giving His life on the cross. That he had decided that all the things he made in creation, the sun, the moon, the stars, the beauty of man and woman, the beauty of all of his creation, the beauty of a rising sun, of seeing an ocean or being in the mountains, all of these beautiful things that show his glory. But the most glorious thing of all that he showed us about his nature is how much he loves us. Demonstrated by Jesus on the cross. He decided before he made us.

I'm going to really show them my heart. This eternal covenant that all of these were looking forward to, but never saw it. It says in Hebrews 11 that they were waiting for us and waiting for Him. And now we've seen it. “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.”

There's not going to be another covenant. This is the final covenant. And it's impossible, by the way, to please him apart from faith. We found in Hebrews 11:6 (NLT) “And it is impossible to please God without faith.” But here we see in verse 21 that now that all these things are true through Jesus.

How does that relate to us? It says by the blood of this new covenant that God will equip you with everything good that you may do his will. So everything that you need to do good to please his will, to be obedient to him is now available to you, believer. It's all available to you now by the blood of this new covenant, this eternal covenant. Verse 21, it says, “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.”

It's all available to you now to do good through Jesus Christ. It's possible that you can do good, “...working in us…” Wow, so that's an “ing” word. So he has already done it. He's already paid for it.

He's already risen from the grave. It's a done deal. In fact, that word equip could be translated to perfect. It could be translated to perfect.

It could be translated to perfect you, which means complete. So there's this “already, not yet” thing happening here that Jesus, when he died on the cross and was raised from the grave and lives today, and he's interceding at the right hand of the Father even now when we by faith believe in him. Because faith requires an object. You can't just believe anything. You have to believe in him in order to receive this eternal covenant.

Now that this faith has taken hold of that you've already been perfected in terms of your position before the Father. This is called the doctrine of justification. Justification means “just as if I never sinned,” right? You're already counted just that. His righteousness has been given to you.

He took your sin. He offers his righteousness. And so now you're right with the Father. But there's a problem, right? Okay, I'm right with Him.

But I still struggle against temptation and sin in this life, in this experience. Experience of my life. So we have a positional truth and an experiential truth that are somewhat at odds. But this is being addressed in verse 21. I want you to listen again.

“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.” The blood of the eternal covenant will equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working. It's working. So we have the “already, not yet” of justifications already done, but sanctification is working.

It's happening. It's working in us right now. It's at work in us. So this new covenant, this faith in Jesus is working in us to do what? That which is pleasing in his sight.

That which is pleasing. You want to know how to please God? Follow Jesus. It's the only way. It's the only way to please God.

You want to make God happy with you? Remember what he said to Jesus at Jesus’ baptism, what he said over him? He said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. You want him to look at you and say, “This is my beloved child in whom I am well pleased.” Let him look at you and see Jesus in you.

To receive Jesus and to know him and to follow him. And he will be pleased with you. And you will have a new heart that wants to be obedient to him because he's equipping you in order to do his will. Then he just explodes into a gloria at the end “through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.

Amen.” He gets all the glory because he's the greatest. And so we have this beautiful, beautiful benediction. Look at Hebrews chapter 9. One of the things I'm trying to do is, as we're concluding here, is I'm trying to go back in earlier passages in Hebrew, Hebrews to remind us what we've learned.

Hebrews 9:11-12 (ESV) 11 “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.”

So this is the heavenly tabernacle into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. And so we have here what the conclusion and this benediction is talking about this eternal covenant, this eternal redemption, paid for by the blood that Jesus offers in the real tabernacle, the heavenly tabernacle. And he's done this how many times? How many times did he have to do it in order to save us? Did he have to do it over and over again, as we see in the Old Testament?

No. We see in Hebrews 10:14 “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time. Past tense, done deal, completed. Those who are being sanctified.

There's that “already, not yet” again. You see that he's already paid all that's necessary. He's already done it all. When you receive him, you receive a finished salvation.

There's no extra work for you to do to earn anything that's missing. It's all done. You receive it by faith. It's paid in full. Yet there's an outworking of it called sanctification.

Let me look at it with you again. “For by one offering, a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” Let me give you an example. When you're born, the Lord gives you a body. Aren't you glad you get a body?

But it doesn't know how to do anything. When it's first born, it knows a couple things. It knows how to cry and make a mess. Right? It knows how to do that.

Doesn't know how to talk, doesn't know how to walk, doesn't know how to feed itself. It has to grow. And so it's perfected in that all that's necessary is present, but it has to grow up into it.

We're talking about your first birth, your physical birth. I remember when our firstborn was born. My wife and I got in a competition to teach him to say mama or dada. And I wanted him to say dada.

And she wanted him to say mama. And so if I'd see him going, ma ma ma, I'd go, no, no, no, no, no. da da da, da da da. Like that. And then she would do the opposite

like that. And so I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure, Robin probably is claiming otherwise. You'll have to ask her. I'm pretty sure he said da da first, but he came out not knowing how to say anything.

I mean, we were amazed when he finally said something. Right. And so when you're born again, you're given all that's necessary through the eternal covenant by the blood of Jesus, who died for your sins and was buried and was raised again on the third day and ascended to the right hand of the Father, and who intercedes for you. You're given all that you need in the new birth to be perfected, whole, complete before God. But you have to grow up in it.

This is all right here. I should have just preached these two verses for the next few weeks, but, you know, we're trying to get through the book of Hebrews, but there's so much meat on the bone right here. It's so beautiful.

Have you been trying to live the Christian life in your own effort?

Have you been trying to keep a list of do's and don'ts? That's what he was warning the Jewish background believers about. It's not going back to law keeping. This is about grace. It's about Jesus.

It's about putting your faith in him and even trusting him to make you more like him as you pursue the knowledge of him and loving him and talking to him. Are you growing to be more like Jesus? Wake up and pray, Lord Jesus, equip me today so that I might do the Father's will and please him. Have you ever prayed like that in the morning? Lord, help me get through this day.

Lord, I have this problem with my boss. I have this test at school today. We have a laundry list. All of us do. But do you ever pray, Lord?

What do you want me to do today? What would please you for me to do today?

What a beautiful benediction. So we've heard two of these essential provisions. We've heard about intercessory prayer that's made possible because of Jesus. We've heard about this eternal covenant which is paid in full, all that's necessary for our

new life in Christ. Yet we have to grow up in it. And then we get to the P.S. of chapter 13, verses 22 through 25, where we come to our third and final essential provision. It's this:

3. We have His exhorting Word and gracious people.

I had to kind of work that point a little bit because as P.S. 's go, they tend to be kind of a list of things. I feel like it captures both items in this point, this essential provision. We have the exhorting word of Christ and we also have his people. These combined together encourage us to grow up in our life in Christ. Let's look at it.

Verse 22 says,
22 “I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly.” What does he appeal to?

Bear with my word of exhortation. What's he talking about? He's talking about this whole big letter here. He's talking about these 13 chapters of some of the heaviest reading that you'll read in the New Testament. If you don't know anything about the Old Testament, you won't be able to even understand the book of Hebrews because it is a book that's helping you understand the Old Testament.

So you have to keep flipping back and forth to see what he's talking about. He says, bear with. It was heavy. I know it was heavy. I know it was a heavy book.

So bear up under it. Bear with my word of exhortation. Exhortation could be encouragement. It kind of means encouragement with a little bit of Bible to it. Kind of a press on kind of encouragement like that.

Bear with it. And then there's this part that makes you kind of laugh a little bit because it's 13 chapters. For I have written to you briefly. It didn't feel brief.

It took 26 sermons and I could have easily done 52. It was easy enough because it's so deep and so wonderful, so amazing. I wrote to you briefly. I heard that one of our community groups this past week decided in lieu of their normal Bible study, they're just going to read all 13 chapters aloud. And I said, well, how'd that go?

They said, well, it took almost an hour. And then when we got to that verse and the person that was reading verse 22 when they got to the part, they said, “I've written to you briefly,” the whole room burst out laughing.

It didn't feel brief. Paul didn't feel brief. Luke, I don't know. But think of it like this. He just gave us an understanding of the whole of the Old Testament.

The Mosaic law, the histories, the prophets in 13 chapters. Pretty brief. He could have written a lot more, couldn't he? He could have put a lot more into it than what he did. And so we have here, he said, I've written to you briefly and I want you to bear up under this exhortation.

I want you to dig into it and don't just throw it to the side, but take it on. Take it on and bear up under it. It's his final exhortation in this book before he just gets into a list of things he wants, wants them to be praying about and thinking about. He says this in verse 23. He says, 23 “You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon.”

I want you to know something. Our brother Timothy has been released. Sounds like Timothy got locked up. You know, all the apostles suffered severe persecution. All the first century apostles, even John, the last living apostle, who is the only one who did not die by execution.

He was exiled to the isle of Patmos where he wrote the book of Revelation. It is said he was boiled in oil, but did not die, which would have been a terrible persecution, a terrible torture. But we see here that Timothy apparently had been imprisoned in some way. And so Paul is hearing that he's about to be released. And so he's saying, here, look, our team from Italy, probably Paul, Luke, Silas, some others that have been mentioned along the way from that area, they want to come and visit with these Jewish background believers.

And they're saying, we don't want to leave until Timothy gets with us because we want to bring him too, as Paul often referred to him as his spiritual son in the Lord. So he calls for this. And then he says in verse 24,”Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings.

Tell them. They said hello. And then he says, 25 “Grace be with all of you.” Not law, not judgment, but unmerited favor be with all of you. “Grace be to all of you.”

The great shepherd, he sustains us through his word that exhorts us, but also through his people, because iron sharpens iron. Notice what it says in Hebrews 3:13 (ESV) “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” And then we see again in Hebrews 10:24-25 (ESV) “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another…” So we have not only the word of God that exhorts us and encourages us and challenges us.

But we have one another. We have one another. Which is why it's so important to be regular in your church attendance and regular in your community groups. Because there's just something about it that's helping us learn to walk, talk the walk and talk of faith. Because we've been given a new spiritual life and it's all been paid for.

But we have to grow up in it. We have to grow up in it. You know, a shepherd's staff has something different on each end. On one end it has a crook and on the other end it has a sharp point. And on the end with the crook we see that the Lord, the great shepherd of the sheep, pulls us near and takes us in his arms and he leaves the 99 to go after the 1.

And he does this today through the church and through the fellow members of the church, that we're like the shepherd's crook at that point where we draw people in that may have strayed a little bit, may have forgotten their way, because sheep do love to wonder. But then there's a sharp point. Often it comes through the preaching of his word, through the study of his word. Sometimes it comes through the loving correction of a fellow saint who occasionally we need a little poke, we need a little reminder, and the shepherd uses both. So bear up under it.

Bear up under this word of exhortation as we close out this wonderful book. And I pray grace would be with all of you as he concludes. Today we conclude our journey through the book of Hebrews. We find the life-giving core of a God pleasing life is found in the great shepherd's three essential provisions. The first is his intercessory prayer and his access to the Father.

The second is his eternal covenant and finally his final grace through His Word and through other believers. The entire weight of this powerful letter rests on this one singular truth. Jesus is greater. He's greater than whatever you're facing today. He is the risen Lord.

He is the one we pray to, to him be glory forever and ever. Amen. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we do thank you for this wonderful book, the book of Hebrews and Lord, we pray for that one that may be here this morning, may be watching online, that you've never given your life to Jesus. We pray for you.

We intercede for you. Now would you be willing to talk to the Lord right now? Would you pray like this, asking him to save you? Pray like this. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner.

I've been in rebellion against you. But I want to make peace with the Father. I believe in you, Lord Jesus. I believe you died on the cross for my sins. That you were raised from the grave.

That you live today. Come and live in me. Adopt me into your family. I want to be a child of God. I want to follow you all the days of my life as my Lord and my Savior.

If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing he'll save you, that's why he came. He is the great shepherd of the sheep. If you're a believer, you've already realized this reality and you know it in your heart. But you've been straying a little bit. If someone asked you the question, how are you doing with Jesus?

You'd have to say, I'm not as close as I used to be. Would you today just recommit your life and say, lord, help me to live for you. Help me to live a life that's pleasing to you. Help me to elevate you to the first place in my life every day. I pray it all in Jesus' name, Amen.