1. "Prayer, if it does anything, adds to the total global goodness or happiness. This understanding of prayer is what our public media have been largely committed to for decades. From Oprah Winfrey to the Marvel comic universe, this is what we're being taught constantly."

2. "This imagined ubiquity of prayer sharply contrasts with what the Bible teaches, is prayer's utter impossibility. Begin to understand prayer's impossibility and you begin to refill Christmas cheer with real substance."

3. "Talking about Christmas or prayer without understanding the problem is like being told the punch line without ever hearing the joke. You can kind of know it, but you won't get it."

4. "So far are we from rightfully assuming our access into the presence of God, we should instead be assured of His judgment, as seen initially in the banishment from His presence of our first parents, and the flaming sword of the angel to prevent the re-entry."

5. "He who thinks lightly of sin thinks lightly of the Savior. That's true."

6. "You're not trying to have the constitutional monarchy of Jesus Christ, where he is the parent head, but there are a lot of limits on him. The kind of fake-o monarchies like you guys in Canada have. But it's a real monarchy, where he's the Lord of everything in your life."

7. "Friend, God never answers your prayers to better enable you to sin. That's not why He's answering your prayers."

8. "I always say to people, I carry around with me my most important book, my Bible. And in that I have my second most important book, my membership directory."

9. "I have always tried not to be a passive consumer of news, but rather to receive news from whatever source and turn and take it to the Lord in prayer. I want the news to force me to learn to pray about it."

10. "Misery is not ended by the mere passing of time."

Observation Questions

1. According to Hebrews 13:20, what three descriptions are given of Jesus in relation to God's action of raising Him from the dead?

2. In Hebrews 13:20-21, what is identified as the means by which God brought Jesus back from the dead, and what does the author call this covenant?

3. What two specific things does the author pray God will do for the readers in Hebrews 13:21?

4. In Hebrews 13:18-19, what reasons does the author give for asking the readers to pray for him?

5. According to Hebrews 13:24-25, who does the author instruct the readers to greet, and what final blessing does he pronounce over them?

6. In Hebrews 13:22, how does the author describe his letter, and what does he ask the readers to do with his "word of exhortation"?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that the passage describes God as "the God of peace" in the context of a prayer about access to Him through Christ's sacrifice? How does this title connect to the main argument of Hebrews?

2. The sermon emphasized that prayer is "utterly impossible" apart from Christ. How does the phrase "by the blood of the eternal covenant" in verse 20 explain how this impossibility is overcome?

3. What is the relationship between being "equipped with everything good" and doing God's will in verse 21? Why does the author connect these two ideas in his prayer?

4. The prayer in verses 20-21 moves from God's past action (raising Jesus) to His present work (equipping believers) to an eternal purpose (glory to Christ forever). What does this progression teach us about the nature and goal of Christian prayer?

5. Why would the author of Hebrews, after writing such a theologically rich letter about Christ's superior priesthood and sacrifice, conclude by both asking for prayer and sharing his prayers for the readers?

Application Questions

1. The sermon noted that many people today view prayer as "sending positive thoughts" to a generic higher power. How might you explain to a non-Christian friend or family member what makes Christian prayer different, based on what Hebrews teaches about access to God through Christ?

2. The author asked for prayer that he might "act honorably in all things" (v. 18). What specific area of your life—at work, home, or in relationships—do you most need others to pray for you to act honorably, and who could you ask to pray for you this week?

3. The sermon challenged listeners to pray through their church membership directory monthly. What practical step could you take this week to begin praying more consistently for other members of your church, including leaders you may not know personally?

4. Verse 21 prays that God would work in us "that which is pleasing in His sight." What is one desire or habit in your life that you sense is not yet conformed to what pleases God, and how might you pray specifically about it?

5. The sermon pointed out that information about Timothy's release (v. 23) was meant to fuel prayer. How do you typically respond to news—whether about your church, your community, or the world—and what would it look like to consistently turn the news you receive into prayer this coming week?

Additional Bible Reading

1. John 10:11-18 — This passage records Jesus declaring Himself the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep, which is directly referenced in Hebrews 13:20's description of Jesus as "the great shepherd."

2. Hebrews 10:11-22 — This earlier section of Hebrews explains how Christ's single sacrifice perfects believers and opens access to God, providing the theological foundation for the prayer and benediction in chapter 13.

3. Romans 5:1-11 — Paul explains how peace with God comes through justification by faith in Christ, reinforcing the sermon's emphasis on Christ-mediated access to the "God of peace."

4. Philippians 2:12-16 — This passage describes God working in believers "both to will and to work for His good pleasure," which the sermon directly connected to the prayer in Hebrews 13:21.

5. Exodus 34:5-9 — This passage reveals God's character as merciful yet not clearing the guilty, which the sermon used to explain how Christ's sacrifice resolves the tension between God's justice and His forgiveness.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Christmas Cheer and the Problem of Access to God

II. The Context of Prayer: Our Author's Own Need (Hebrews 13:18-19)

III. The One Prayed To: The God of Peace Who Raised Jesus (Hebrews 13:20)

IV. The Basis of Prayer: The Blood of the Eternal Covenant (Hebrews 13:20-21)

V. The Ones Prayed For: You and Us Together (Hebrews 13:21)

VI. The Substance of Prayer: Equipping for Good Works (Hebrews 13:21)

VII. The Purpose of Prayer: Doing God's Will and Glorifying Christ (Hebrews 13:21)

VIII. Sharing the Prayer: The Word of Exhortation (Hebrews 13:22)

IX. Information for Prayer: News About Timothy (Hebrews 13:23)

X. The Scope of Prayer: All Leaders and All Saints (Hebrews 13:24-25)

XI. The Final Prayer: Come, Lord Jesus

---

Detailed Sermon Outline

What exactly is Christmas cheer?

A drink?

The happiness that so many have when they think of the holiday's approach?

Or the society-wide uptick in smiles and charitable acts that we see this time of year?

The vague spirit of Christmas? Celebrated in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol in which love of God appears only as love of humans, Christmas acts as a mirror to show us what we understand of God and life in this world.

On the one hand, there are the people who see the Christmas spirit as another name for universal benevolence. And this is the default position today, I think.

So for instance, I'm pretty sure that prayer is more popular than God.

You know what I mean? I mean, ask people if they believe in God and you're going to have a spectrum of answers. But ask people if they mind if you pray for them, very few will object. People appreciate you mean it as something positive toward them. They think it's like sending positive thoughts, positive energy, good vibes.

It's like eco-friendly religion. You know, the old dirty religions are exclusive and cause conflicts, killings, even wars. But this universal understanding of prayer is clean. It leaves no social carbon footprint. You know, it kind of captures the good intentions of people of all religions or none and strips them down to their loving essence and shoots out without the rays of enduring benefit to all.

Or else it does nothing, and in that case, what does it really matter? It's harmless. But even in that case, what's lost? And most people seem sure that everybody can pray and whatever God is God enough to be there can hear and answer all their prayers. And somehow being in the role of God, God is obligated to.

Prayer, if it does anything, adds to the total global goodness or happiness. This understanding of prayer is what our public media have been largely committed to for decades. From Oprah Winfrey to the Marvel comic universe, this is what we're being taught constantly.

This imagined Ubiquity of prayer, and by ubiquity there, I mean it's everywhere, and you can pray anytime you want, anybody can pray about anything they want. This ubiquity of prayer, this imagined ubiquity of prayer, sharply contrasts with what the Bible teaches, is prayer's utter impossibility.

Begin to understand prayer's impossibility and you begin to refill Christmas cheer with real substance.

Joy becomes something you not merely sing but feel deeply. The birth of the Messiah 2,000 years ago becomes not an old faded picture of God's general kindness, but it becomes a kind of vivid, even shocking surprise, the kind that causes multitudes of angels to drop their cloaking devices and break their silence and appear in the delighted rapture of sky choirs.

It's the most unexpected, hilarious answer to a question that seemed unanswerable and bleak. And talking about Christmas or prayer without understanding the problem is like being told the punch line without ever hearing the joke. You can kind of know it, but you won't get it. Friends, what Hebrews has done for us this year, among many other things, is helped us to get Christmas in this sense. And it ends with the perfect summary example of this, the example of prayer.

What do prayer and Christmas and Hebrews all have to do with each other? One word, access, access. Hebrews teaches that access to God comes not through the annual repeated sacrifices of bulls and goats at the temple, but through the once forever sacrifice of Christ. Offered to his heavenly Father. Christmas is all about the joy of God's sudden provision for the greatest need we've had since our first parents expulsion from the Garden of Eden because of our sins.

We as a race, a human race, have been made in God's image but cast out of God's presence because of our sin. And it's often been observed that he who thinks lightly of sin thinks lightly of the Savior. That's true. The Bible teaches prayers complete and utter impossibility in the sense that between us and God there is a great gulf fixed. It is the space of our worlds and our own rebellion against Him.

So far are we from rightfully assuming our access into the presence of God, we should instead be assured of His judgment, as seen initially in the banishment from His presence of our first parents, and the flaming sword of the angel to prevent the re-entry.

What have we seen in Jesus' sacrifice according to this book of Hebrews? We've seen that Jesus is the true high priest, that he has presented to his heavenly Father the only sacrifice that can ever secure our holiness before God in standing and in living, in status and in practice, in law and in life. Only in Jesus can you and I be declared holy, declared okay by God, and made holy, can really change our lives, our Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays. Only in Jesus can we be welcomed back into the presence of God. And in this life, one of the chief places that access shows itself is in prayer.

How can people like you and me come to a completely good God and expect to receive anything, only by coming in the merits, the credit, the deservedness of somebody else. And the only someone else who's available to us, the only mediator between God and man, is the man Christ Jesus. Friends, that is why His coming is such a big deal. Both for this life and for the life to come forever. And that's why prayer is such an appropriate summary of the experiences of our newfound faith with God and the favor he gives us in Christ.

And that is why it is so sweet in God's superintending providence that our author closes this letter both asking for them to pray for him and sharing with them some of his prayers for them. He was exercising. The privilege of the very access that this whole letter has been written about, how sinners like you and me can come to God and be forgiven and be accepted and be loved by Him. I don't know what your vision of God was like when you walked in. Maybe you thought of God somehow as being able to forgive.

But if so, I'd just like to ask you, how can God forgive without declaring something okay, without being morally indifferent himself? The Christian gospel is about far more than forgiveness. The Christian gospel is about justification, about our being made right with God. Marcus Loane once put it this way to show how fully good justification is. He said, the voice that spells mere forgiveness will say, You may go.

You've been let off the penalty which your sins deserves.

But the verdict which means acceptance, justification, will say, you, may come. You are welcome to all my love and my presence.

And this is the kind of message that the author to the Hebrews has been bringing to us throughout this year-long study. This is what we've been seeing as we've been studying through Hebrews. It's at the very heart of Christmas cheer and all true prayer as well. So I want us to look now at the last six verses of Hebrews. You'll find it on page 1010 in the Bibles provided.

If you're not used to looking at a Bible, just grab one of them around there. If you don't have one you can read, take that one as a gift from our congregation to you. Page 1010, if you keep it open, you'll be able to pay attention better during this time. The large numbers are the chapter numbers, the small numbers are the verse numbers.

I want to lead us in considering what we can learn from this passage in Hebrews chapter 13 about how we can exercise this access to God, about how we can pray. There are so many good things from these few verses. That we can observe that I feel the excitement of a kind of real-life Santa Claus with a bag of gifts and not much time to give them in. So you're going to get a lot of them and they're going to be small, but they're great things come in small packages. So here we go.

Let me just read the passage first. Hebrews 13, beginning 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, equip you with every 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 have written 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. So friends, I pray that we will learn more from this about how to pray, how we can best experience this new access we have to God in Christ in this life right now. So follow me as I work through this passage. First, Mark, are you gonna give us an outline ahead of time?

No, it would take too long. And it would just scare you. It'll be better if I just point it out clearly as we go along. Just trust me. First, I want us to notice the context of this prayer.

It's the two verses right before what I just read you. We briefly considered these verses last week. Look there in chapter 13, verse 18. 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.

This is the context of the prayer. I wanted us to go back and notice that because he's just asked prayer for himself. His own sense of need, pray for us. This writer is aware that for him to act honorably in all things as he puts it here, without God's strength, he can't do it. So friends, you need to know that those of us who teach realize our own dependence on God and therefore our need for your prayers.

We find this in Paul's letters again and again. He writes to the Thessalonians, Brothers, pray for us in 1 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians, Brothers, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored as happened among you, and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. Those who can best teach us about how to pray for others are those who most sense their own need of prayer themselves. So pray for me.

Pray for the other elders here in the church. Pray for us especially to have God's help for us to act honorably in all things related to our own homes. Pray that God will give us wisdom to discern his ways and love to walk in them. Pray for our own consciences to be well instructed by God's word and for us to act in line with them. So the context of this prayer is our author having already understood himself as a fit object of prayer, you realize this pulpit is no badge of divinity.

It's no sign of some kind of faultlessness, some kind of sinless perfection. No, preachers here should be an example to us of what we saw back in chapter 10 verse 14. We are among those who are described there as by a single offering he that is Christ, has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. So we are those who have been perfected for all time by the work of Christ, and we are also still being sanctified. That job isn't done.

So when you notice one of us operating in a not entirely sanctified way, You might be right. You should pray for us in that. Pray for me in this. Anyone who teaches God's word knows that he can't do this alone in his own strength. And church family, let me just say at the beginning here, thank you for how much you do pray for me.

You consistently send me notes, make mentions verbally of how you do pray for me and Connie, and I just want you to know how much I appreciate it. A second and most basic matter about prayer we see right here in verse 20. Mark, are all the points going to be this short? Yes, they are. There are going to be a lot of points, Mark.

Yes, there are. So a second and most basic matter about prayer we see right here in verse 20, and that's the one who's prayed to. The one who's prayed to. Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus. So much of this in this letter has been made of the greatness of Jesus Christ, and well it should be, we should never miss that teaching.

John 10, in John 10 Jesus referred to laying down His life and taking it up again. But we should also understand about Jesus that He's not simply a divine being who played dead and then after three days broke these weak chains of death. Very often we talk about Jesus getting up from the dead or rising from the dead. That's true. But did you know the more dominant biblical language is like the language right here about God raising him from the dead, about God's great action here in verse 20.

He brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus because Jesus was really dead. Isn't this how Peter preached it with such power on the day of Pentecost? In Acts 232, he said, this Jesus, God raised up. And what has this great God done through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Exactly what this book of Hebrews has been all about.

This has been one of the most magnificent presentations of it in all the New Testament. Jesus has made peace through His holy self and sinners like us. Who would trust in Christ for our salvation. And of course, He is exactly who we should pray to. And in order to do that, we must teach in messages like this one.

Our prayers must be carefully considered. We must make it clear to whom we are praying so we don't mislead people by our prayers. Public praying is part of public teaching about who God is and what He's like. And so that we can and we should pray to Him. We begin each week by publicly proclaiming our amazement at God's holiness and His love in this.

So a second matter, the one prayed to. But we've got to keep moving though because there's so much to be observed here. A third matter about prayer is the basis of prayer. The basis of prayer. It's only we read here through Jesus Christ.

So we've noted God's great action, but let's note here in verse 20 the phrases that particularly highlight the work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity in this matter of our praying. Friends, it only looks simple for people like you and me to have access in prayer to a completely and utterly good God. It's not simple. So we see you and me here being told of Christ's work. It's referred to here by that phrase, the blood, by the blood of the eternal covenant.

This is referring to Jesus Christ being crucified and resurrected. And if you're here today with a friend over Christmas break, not normally at church, let me just make sure you understand basically what Christianity is. It is this idea. It is this blood of the eternal covenant. It's Jesus, the Son of God, making himself a sacrifice, taking the punishment that our sins have deserved, and then being raised, presenting that sacrifice to his heavenly Father.

And he then calls us to turn and accept his death as our own. His sacrifice for our sins so that we are made right with God. Friends, I don't know what that sounds like to you if you're not used to being in church. Let me encourage you to talk to a Christian friend that brought you, or someone you know here, one of the pastors at the door afterwards. This is the hope that we have.

This is why the hymns and carols at Christmas are so joyful, because we understand that God in Jesus has done something that no one else could do. Has done something uniquely that was so good we almost thought could never be done. Wait, but these five bad things, I really have done. In fact, we could probably say, I really do. And I know God is really completely good, so I guess I'm like on the outs with him forever.

And the answer to that is, yes, you are, because God is so good, except for Jesus. That's where you really want to understand Jesus. That's why everything in this church kind of drives you to try to understand Jesus. We drive you through that one sort of gap in the fence. All the cattle have to go through right there.

You know, we just want to make sure everything goes through, if nothing else, understand who Jesus is and what he's come to do. Because that is your best and only hope. It's through this eternal covenant that Christ became the Great Shepherd of the Sheep. He had announced in John 10 that He was that Shepherd. He says, I am the Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me. And here in our verses, in verse 20, He calls our Lord Jesus the Great Shepherd of the Sheep. So Jesus Christ was exalted to this office because He poured out His blood, a sacrifice for sins, to purchase His sheep, justify and sanctify His sheep for Himself, according to the covenant of grace that God had made with them and in Him with and for sinners.

Kids, I'm sure you understand a really basic part of this. If mom or dad are angry with you, you're not going to ask them for something right then. Is that right? I'm pretty sure you know that. Okay, that knowledge that kids seem to instinctively have is exactly what's going on with us and God.

When we know that we've done stuff we shouldn't have done, we intuit correctly that God will not look favorably upon our requests. But that isn't the whole story. There's more that's gone on. Here, this book of Hebrews is an explanation of how we could do wrong and yet God forgive us for our wrongs and so love us that he wants us to come to him with our requests. So the basis of our praying is always this covenant he mentions here, the blood of the eternal covenant.

This agreement between God and us that God has made and that is everlasting, it's unending. This means God's loving leadership of His own will not end in defeat and frustration without having achieved its end. He will lose none of His own. He has become our shepherd and been our shepherd by shedding His own blood and making and establishing this eternal covenant that the book of Hebrews explains to us. This is the basis for our prayers being heard by God.

This book explains how the radio set works. So if you want to think more about how is it that God can understand and heed my prayers, go back and study the book of Hebrews again that we've looked at this year. A fourth matter about prayer is to notice the ones prayed for. It's right there in verse 21. See if you can find who He prays for in verse 21.

Equip you, he says. But he goes on to include working in us.

So he would pray for those in this church or churches that he's writing to.

But his praying for them doesn't intend to include himself from those who are needing prayer. Friends, all Christians need to be prayed for because all Christians need God's help. It's as simple as that. If you look back through our membership directory, for example, which we give you really in many ways primarily as a tool for prayer, here is the membership directory. I always say to people, I carry around with me my most important book, my Bible.

And in that I have my second most important book, my membership directory. So here it is. In this membership directory, if you look through, you'll notice we have various special sections like former staff and interns, and elders, and members in area and unable to attend. But there is no special section for members who don't need prayer. None.

Because there are no members who don't need prayer. All the members need to be prayed for. And we encourage every member to try to build this discipline of praying for all the members into their own prayer life. You know, some people tend to just pray for themselves. They're busy, maybe they think in humility their prayers aren't worth much.

But friends, we pray not because we have merited God's favor and attention, but because Christ has done that for all of His own. And we participate in the love of God for His own by loving God and by loving those whom God has especially especially loved, and that is loving his own sheep. So if you claim to love the God whom you have not seen and do not love your brother whom you have seen, John says you lie and the truth is not in you.

I wonder who you consistently pray for.

The local church is composed of the you and the us here together. So I'll tell you in my own daily quiet time like I did this morning. I'll always read and meditate on the passage to be preached on this coming Lord's Day, regardless of who's preaching. And I will pray for myself and my family out of that passage. I'll pray through my schedule for the day and for various other friends around the country and around the world.

And I'll try to pray through two pages in our membership directory so that in this space of one month I can always have prayed through all of our members. It's a simple practice and I would encourage you to adopt that and make it your own practice. The fifth matter about how we pray that we can observe here is the substance of the prayer. Do you see specifically in our passage what he's praying for? It's there in verse 21.

See a couple of phrases that summarize what he was praying for them. First, you see the request that God equip you with everything good. So, friends, as we keep growing as Christians, we keep growing till we are fit for every good work. He shifts and changes our pleasures until they are conformed to His own.

He made us to be pleased by certain things. By nature, we're pleased by some of them disinterested in others, not pleased by soL others. The Holy Spirit works in us to bang us around and shift us and shape us until more and more our loves mirror God's own loves. That's what he's doing in us. Friend, if you're here today and you're not a Christian, I wonder if you can see in the lives of the Christians you do know an alternative to the life that you have.

Maybe you have a life that's painfully tethered to your own desires. Maybe you feel limited, even trapped, by decisions you've made. The Christian friends around you should help you see somebody of what life can be when you're living for God and you've given all your life over to him. And he can say anything he wants about any of it. You're not trying to have the constitutional monarchy of Jesus Christ.

You know, where he is the parent head, but there are a lot of limits on him. The kind of fake-o monarchies like you guys in Canada have, you know. But it's a real, he has a real monarchy, where he's the Lord of everything in your life. That's what we see presented in Scripture about being a Christian. Jesus Christ turns, calls us to turn from our sins and trust in him and He gives us the power to do that.

You might say, Mark, you say, Turn from your sins. I don't think I could do that if I tried. You say, Trust in Christ. I don't know how to create trust. Friends, I understand.

That's why you pray. You pray for it. You study, you read God's Word. Augustine famously prayed, Give what you command, and command what you will. It's a great prayer the longer you think of it.

Give what you command and command what you will. That's our situation as Christians.

Christian brothers and sisters, don't give up praying. Notice the other thing here in verse 21, he says he's praying about that God would be working in us that which is pleasing in His sight. Just think what power There must be in God to make us pleasing in His sight, to make our actions pleasing in His sight. Paul wrote to the Philippians explaining that it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Paul then admitted he wasn't already perfect, but he said, I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me His own.

God works in us by His Spirit to give us the new birth, but His work in us is not finished. When He gives us the new birth. Friends, sometimes I've seen Christians act as if this friend gets saved and then kind of things are done. Oh, no, things have just begun. I mean, when you become a Christian, when you've been born again, yes, your faith eternally has been secured.

That's true. But the journey from here to there has only begun. God continues to work in us, perfecting us by degrees through the various circumstances and days and times and trials that He calls us to live through. The sixth matter about prayer, sixth that we can see here in verse 21, and that's the purpose of prayer. Don't neglect to see that.

You see it on a couple of different levels. First, immediately, His purpose in asking God to equip you with everything good is, you see it there, verse 21, that you may do His will. Remember the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray included this prayer, you, will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And in Jesus' final command to His disciples, He charged His disciples with teaching those they would make disciples of and baptize to observe all that I have commanded you. Friend, God never answers your prayers to better enable you to sin.

That's not why He's answering your prayers. Some of you know the preaching of D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, famous preacher in London in the middle of the 20th century. What some people don't know about Martyn Lloyd-Jones is that he was first a doctor. And a very highly trained and celebrated doctor, apparently very good particularly at diagnosing what was going on. He was in practices that dealt with the royal family.

But Lloyd-Jones said that even as a celebrated young doctor, he just became tired of fixing people up to go out and sin.

He said again and again, his most successful cases, would fix them physically, and then they would just go back out and squander their lives. So he decided to change things up and just now work on their souls rather than their bodies.

We see that we are saved, prayers are answered, we are equipped so that you may do His will. Also though, God's purpose in answering our prayers through Christ Jesus ultimately is in that last phrase in verse 21, To whom be glory forever and ever. So the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is everlastingly honored through Jesus Christ, His remaking and reshaping of rebels in His renewed image. And this work done through the work of Christ magnifies God's own character of being merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

And yet at the same time, the substitutionary punishment of the son as the wrath bearer, the suffering servant in our place, showed that this God would by no means clear the guilty. God had said to Moses in Exodus 34 that he was like that, that he was both of those things. But then we don't see how he could be both of those things. In Jesus we see it. The book of Hebrews is laid it out at length.

God is displaying His holiness and His justice through Jesus. And so in us, as we are forgiven and changed into holy beings, we reflect glory and honor to God, and specifically, especially, to the Lord Jesus Christ. So our prayers for each other have in view both God's help in the immediate actions, obeying Him with His will and everything, and in God ultimately being glorified in Christ through all we do. It's as Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, that we pray that we and each other may live in such a way that others may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. It's a strange thing.

We would think if people see something good in us that God has worked, they'll glorify us. And that can happen in some ways, but it is amazing how often the Holy Spirit seems to work with the way He's made us all in the image of God so that when people see these certain things, it triggers them in a good sense. They realize something more is going on here than just You know, Tom's a really great guy. God is actually at work here. A seventh matter about prayer, a seventh matter, I think we can see in the author's example in verse 22 just the sharing of the prayer itself, his appeal to them.

Looking at verse 22, I appeal to you brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written you briefly. I think it's his way of saying thanks for listening. You know, he's written them this sermon-length letter, takes about 45 or 50 minutes to read out loud in English. Christians are hungry for good teaching. That's why they'd sit and listen for 45 minutes.

That's why you all sit and listen. So when he says briefly here, I don't really know what he means. And you can make a lot of jokes about me saying, I don't know what he means by briefly, but let me explain what I mean about this. Briefly, either he's being polite You know, thank me for letting me take your time. That could be.

Or it's a sober, there is so much more we can say about these matters. I have only communicated to you briefly. I mean, Bobby Jamieson can do a three-year Cambridge PhD on this.

True? True.

He calls his letter My Word of Exhortation. That's an interesting way to summarize Hebrews, isn't it? My Word of Exhortation. And you can see why, though, when you go back and you look through all the exhortations that he has given throughout this book. He has listed throughout some good works that would be especially appropriate to do.

So if you go back, literally turn back to chapter 2, verse 1, look at chapter 2, verse 1.

You'll see throughout the book he's laid out some of these good works that they're to do. We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard. Or remember the call to believe in chapter 3. Look there, verse 12. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

But exhort one another. There's exhortation. 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. Remember, we learned that sin lies to you, always lies. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

And then over there in chapter 6, verse 11, we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness, to have the full assurance of hope until the end so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. In chapter 10, he urged them to persevere in holiness. Chapter 11, he was exhorting them to have faith. Chapter 12, he was exhorting them not to refuse God's discipline. And then you see there toward the end of chapter 12 in verse 25, he gives out the warning, Do not refuse him who is speaking, for if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we escape if we escape him?

Who warns from heaven. So the author was now concluding this word of exhortation, and in this he's also sharing with them that he was praying for them and what he was praying for them.

So this sharing of this word of exhortation, which fills out really what he's praying for them, and then specifically telling them that he's praying for them, that's a normal part. And a healthy part of our prayer lives that we can share with others. You'll find this in Paul's letters as well. An eighth matter about how we can pray is, verse 23, is information for prayer, this news about Timothy. It's a little newsy bit right at the end, verse 23.

You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. It seems that Timothy had been released from prison. You might say, Mark, I didn't put two of these in prison. This is the only place we have it mentioned. Well, Mark, can you tell me more about it?

No, I can't. This is the only place we have it mentioned. You know. Well, so what else do we know about it? We don't know anything else about it.

This is the only place. You are now the world expert on Timothy's imprisonment. I mean, you have, at your fingertips, all of the information that I, with all of my degrees and years of experience, have. So if you have questions for me at the door, I'll simply refer you to verse 23 of chapter 13. Apparently Timothy was imprisoned.

We can assume it has something to do with his Christian faith, but the news is that he's been released. They evidently knew and cared about Timothy, so the author is letting them know that he's been released and that he is invited to come along to see them. Well, now that kind of information is part of the lifeblood of relationship between churches. And it's often personified in their workers, like when Paul and Barnabas are prayed for in Acts 13 and sent out to other churches. I mean, today we get news in so many ways.

We should do what I'm sure these Christians in Jerusalem did with this news. I'm sure they thanked God. I'm sure when these Christians read this, they praised God. They stopped and prayed about it. You know, when I became a Christian as a teenager, one thing that I did was to take the covers of Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report, those were prominent print news magazines in the 1970s, and use them as part of my prayer material for the week.

I have always tried not to be a passive consumer of news, but rather to receive news from whatever source and turn and take it to the Lord in prayer. I want the news to force me to learn to pray about it. So even in the pastoral prayers that you hear me pray in the morning service, you'll see me struggling to figure out how to pray about things I read. So do I read in the Washington Post about the teenage killings in our district having doubled over the number from last year? We've been reading about them all year long.

Yes. What do you do about that? It's a lot of stuff I don't know. But one thing you can do is pray. So you'll hear me struggling to pray about it, even in a few sentences.

Every week you'll hear me doing that. And you can be sure that's what I'm doing every day in my prayers. Brothers and sisters, I commend that to you. Don't be overburdened by the world. Take what you're learning and learn to go to God in prayer about it.

That's what I think. Is normal for us as Christians to take the information that we have and ask the Lord. So our Sunday evening services normally function to help us learn about our members and about various ministries, other churches and missionaries that we support so we can pray for them. So if your prayer life is not doing well and you don't come to our Sunday evening service, let me suggest New Year's resolution come to the Sunday evening prayer service and see if it doesn't affect your prayer life.

We pray about the things we hear shared. We give time to sharing on Sunday evening because then I assume that through the week when we're scattered we pray about these things. So Sunday evening, as Ben Lacy put it yesterday, it's our access party. You know, it's where we enjoy the fact that we have this access to God. And we get together and we celebrate it and we exercise it.

So for the Christian, information fuels our prayers. So through the semester, a lot of you have been praying for Sharif because he's been mentioned in sermons and on Sunday evenings. Well, Ryle will give us an update tonight about what we know now about Sharif's status and how we as a church might be able to help, how we can be praying for him. Maybe you can share some news with each other over lunch. That you can be praying about.

A ninth matter about prayer, a ninth matter about prayer. We see in these last couple of verses, and that's the scope of our prayers. You'll notice that in verses 24 and 25, Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings. Grace be with all of you.

So a few things to notice that I just verbally emphasized. He doesn't just ask for prayers for their pastor in the singular. Oh, that's Pastor Dever's church. Well, interesting. His language indicates that they have a plurality of leaders, more than one.

And he wants all your leaders prayed for comprehensively. So again, I thank you for praying for me. I also thank you for your prayers for our church's other rulers, as he puts it here, elders. That He's spoken of up in verse 17. In our case, that would be our other pastors along with me, the others who lead and guide our congregation.

Another thing to notice about the scope of his prayers here, it's just picking up something we've already noticed earlier. He wants all the saints to be greeted, just as he's been praying for all the saints. So we should be praying for all our members. You realize that every Christian is, like we were thinking back in chapter 10:14, is perfected and yet still being sanctified. So we're all established in Christ and yet there's still plenty of stuff in anybody's life here for you to fruitfully pray about.

None of us are like all out of prayer material. You know, it just doesn't exist. All of us have plenty of things we can have prayed for. And one last thing, their concern stretches across land and sea. It goes all over, including in this last example here in verse 24, Christians in Italy.

You know, as Christians, we're part of a worldwide family and we rejoice in seeing prosper and we groan when we hear that they suffer. You'll know this is part of the pastoral prayer on Sunday mornings. It's part of our role on Sunday nights as we pray for Christians in other parts of the world. When I have opportunity to go and speak elsewhere on your behalf, and I'm sure other brothers here who do this, some of the other elders do this as well, when Bobby or Matt or Ryan or others go elsewhere, we very often bring greetings from you to these other churches, letting them know that we've been praying for them. And friends, particularly in places where Christians are few in number, you would be surprised how moved they are to think that we here in Washington are actually praying for them.

Well, that's something of the wide scope of our prayers. Because we have gotten to that number which is a trinity of trinities, that number nine, we shall conclude.

Our author does here in verse 25. Verse 25 is very much like 2 Thessalonians 3:18, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Really, it's like almost all of Paul's benedictions. There's only one I can think of that's not like this. He almost always has a benediction just like this.

Paul knows himself to be the object of God's grace, and he expresses his desire for them and his prayer for all of them who had also known their need for God's grace and his provision of it. In fact, most of the books of the New Testament conclude with a prayer of some sort. And that makes sense given that they all join with the Hebrews in pointing us not to depend on ourselves or even on the religious acts that we can do, but on God and on His provision for us in Jesus Christ. Only He can end the impossibility of prayer and give us access into the presence of God Himself. With Christ's resurrection and ascension, Christ's reign has begun.

The kingdom's coming and power is underway, and you and I in this weekly meeting are a sign of this new world coming. So, friend, all the theology of Hebrews is embodied in our action of praying. You see how that acts is such a good summary of this access that's been gained now. It's been granted.

But still, there is sin and gloom and ignorance and division and misery, and the passing of years 2022 is now about done, and still these troubles and trials continue.

Misery is not ended by the mere passing of time. And that's because Jesus Himself told of another coming that He would have a final coming to finally put an end to every part of our alienation from God. So if you're here and you're not a Christian and you thought, Wait, I thought Christmas was all about Christ's coming. Well, it is. But Christ's first coming it was just a down payment for his second.

If you didn't know his second was coming, you really want to ask your Christian friend about that, because that coming is going to make Christmas look like nothing. That coming is going to complete all of the promises that he made. The last book in the Bible that talks about that, the book of Revelation, ends With a very similar benediction to this one, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all, Amen. Just like our benedictions here, every week are really a final prayer that we end with each Sunday. But right before Revelation 22 at the end, right there in verse 20, is the Bible's final prayer.

I wonder if you know what the Bible's final prayer is.

Come, Come, Lord Jesus.

Come, Lord Jesus.

John Mason Neale was born a little over 200 years ago, and in the 19th century this Anglican pastor translated many hymns from earlier ages of the church, and some of his translations are still in use today. In fact, we sang one today before the service began. Good Christian men rejoice. That was John Mason Neale translating, an older hymn. Another one is our final hymn.

You'll find it on page 15.

And it is built around the same sentiment as we find in this final prayer in the Bible, Come, Lord Jesus.

Before we sing a prayer together using this hymn, let me lead us in this access we have into the presence of the thrice holy God. Let's pray.

Lord God, by this sermon today, and indeed, Lord, by this series through the year of studies of the book of Hebrews, we are made more self-conscious of being in your presence and of you hearing and accepting us through Jesus Christ.

We have a renewed sense of privilege and of a privilege that's come to us at a great price.

We pray, Lord, that you would help us to make use of the access that yout give us through Christ. We pray, Lord, that we would come to reflect on and to appreciate more and more how it is that yout have reversed the curse. Lord, that yout have ended the exclusion, that yout have quenched the burning sword that kept us from youm presence. And through Christ's blood have drowned it so that we are now welcome. We pray, Lord, that yout would make us in the closing days of this year and in the new year to come frequent suitors at the throne of grace, coming in Jesus' name, asking and make us careful to note yout answers to these prayers.

Be glorified even as we notice youe goodness in having us in youn presence, in hearing and answering our prayers. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.