A sermon on Hebrews 13:20-25 “Prayer & Blessing”
The transcript of a sermon on Hebrews 13:20-25 has been lightly edited for ease of reading.
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We do have opportunity now to open God’s word, so if you have your copy of the Word of God, please take it up and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 13, and we will look at verses 20 through 25.
“May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will and may he work in us what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Brothers, I urge you to bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you only a short letter. I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been released. If he arrives soon, I will come with him to see you.
Greet all your letters, leaders, and all God’s people. Those from Italy send you their greetings. Grace be with you all.”
Let’s pray.
Gracious and merciful God, we know that we do not live by bread alone, but we are filled by every word that comes from your mouth. Lord, make us hungry for this heavenly food and fill us by your spirit with the preached word.
Teach us the ways of eternal life. We pray all this through Jesus Christ, the bread of heaven. Amen.
INTRODUCTION
We do come to the end of our series on the book of Hebrews, this great sermon on the supremacy of Christ. The supremacy is over all of the Old Testament rituals and offices. Those rituals and offices pointed forward to Jesus and are fulfilled in his person, in his life, in his work.
We no longer await the revelation from prophets because Jesus has come proclaiming to us a better word. We no longer await a high priest in the line of Aaron because Jesus is the perfect high priest who serves in the true most holy place, God’s throne room. There is no longer any need for the blood of sheep and goats because Jesus has offered the perfect atonement sacrifice that has truly and completely satisfied God’s holy justice.
And we need not worship angels for they are mere servants.
Jesus is the son of God, equal in substance, power, and authority to both the Father and the Holy Spirit. And so the author finishes his letter or, as he calls it, his word of exhortation to the Hebrews Christians with a prayer and a blessing, which we will spend some time looking at today.
But between this prayer and the blessing is a small collection of concluding remarks. The first is this encouragement, this exhortation to bear with the words that were written in this letter. We are to apply and to hear the words that are given to us in the scripture and that come from the pulpit when that pulpit is marked by God’s truth.
Sermons, Bible studies, teaching on the good news of the gospel, which is presented in both the Old and the New Testament, are not given to us merely to fill our minds. The Holy Spirit uses each of those to change our hearts, as we’ll see later, to equip us for every good work and also to work God’s will within us. A lifetime of sitting under the preached word should change how you worship, should change how you love, should change how you live.
The author also notes that he has written a short letter. In a world of social media posts, we often don’t think of the book of Hebrews as a quote “short letter.” But John and his gospel reminds us of a truth that is given to us.
He says in chapter 20, verses 30 and 31, he said, “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing in him, you might have life in his name.” John goes on in verse 25 of the next chapter to say that if everything was recorded, the world could not hold the number of books that would have been written on Jesus life.
Brothers and sisters, there are far more examples from the Old Testament that the author of Hebrews could have used to make his point. But he has given us everything under the inspiration of God, he has given us everything that we need to know for life in God’s presence.
Could he have written more? Yes. Did he need to? No, we have enough to believe and to be changed.
The author also gives us an update on a brother who was freed from his imprisonment, a man named Timothy, who may have been the Timothy that Paul wrote to. He may have been a different person as the name Timothy was one of the most common names during that time.
But he wanted to make sure that these friends of his had the joy of knowing that Timothy saw God’s faithfulness in being released from prison. And then the last concluding remark is a call to greet not only the leaders, but also all of God’s people, which in the original language is literally all of God’s saints. We have all been set apart by the Holy Spirit, by the work of Jesus.
We are all holy in God’s sight. We are all saints and we are called to greet one another, as we learned in the previous section, with brotherly love.
And so with these concluding remarks covered, let us now turn and look at the blessing of verses 20 and 21 or excuse me, the prayer of verses 20 and 21 and the final blessing of verse 25.
THE AUTHOR’S PRAYER
First, the prayer. In the previous section in verses 18 and 19. The author said, “Pray for us. We are sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way. I particularly urge you to pray so that I may be restored to you soon.”
After that call to prayer for himself, the author lets the people know how he has been praying for them.
And we’re going to look at this prayer to help us understand this prayer a little better. We’re going to look at it in three different categories. We’re going to look at how it describes God to us, both God the Father and God the Son. We’re going to look at the two petitions that are in this prayer, what he is praying for the people. And we are also going to look at the song of glory that wraps up the doxology that wraps up the prayer.
Well, first, the description of God beginning at the end, so to speak.
We see that God, the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, is described first as the Great Shepherd of the sheep. Now, who are the sheep? The sheep, in short, are the people of God who are set apart by and reconciled to God by the blood of Jesus.
We have had these sheep introduced to us before described in the book of Hebrews as heirs of salvation, children brought to glory, holy brothers and sisters, partakers of Christ and those who have received the kingdom that cannot be moved.
Have you put your hope in the power of the blood, the power of the blood that cleanses perfectly and completely from the guilt and the shame of sin? If you have put your hope in that power, in the life, in the work of Jesus, you are a sheep in God’s pasture. And Jesus is your great shepherd. Through much of the history of Israel, they were sheep without a shepherd.
In fact, in Ezekiel 24, God brings his case against those who are appointed to be shepherds of Israel. He brings his case against them because instead of feeding and protecting the sheep, they have feasted upon the sheep. And God says in verse 23 and 24 of Ezekiel 34, he says,
“I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them. He will tend them and be their shepherd. I, the Lord, their God and my servant, David, will be prince among them. I, the Lord, have spoken.”
And echoing those words from John chapter 10 that we read earlier, Jesus is that great shepherd, that Prince of David, whom God has appointed to be the shepherd of his sheep. What does he do for us as shepherd? Well, he rules over us as the great king. He rules and governs over his people as the great shepherd.
He guides and protects the sheep. Nothing in this world can hurt the people of God, not ultimately, not eternally, for we are guarded and guided by Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep.
We also see this in this passage, Jesus is described as the one who submitted to the power of death. Now, it is not openly declared in this passage, but you can only be brought back from the dead if you have first submitted yourself to death. What is death the wages for? It is the wages for sin.
Jesus was sinless. First Corinthians or Second Corinthians 5:21 says he who knew no sin was made sin for us. He suffered the wages, the penalty of sin.
What you and I have earned through our sin is death. And Jesus submitted himself to that death to free us from the penalty of sin.
He shed his blood as a victim. He shed his blood as an innocent one who provided the glorious atonement sacrifice that secured peace and reconciliation for God’s people. Part of Jesus’ perfect obedience was suffering the sting of death.
Well, not only is he the one who submitted himself to death, he is also the one who was brought back from the dead by the blood of a new and an eternal covenant.
We have to have both, brothers and sisters. We have to have both his death and his resurrection. If he died without being raised again, then he was just another man who maybe taught some good things, who maybe did some amazing things. But when he died, he did not have the power as he claimed to take his life back up again.
But God the Father, seeing that his life and his death, his ministry was worthy of what he came to do, God the Father, by the shed blood and the power of that blood, raised him to life. And that is where our hope is, is in the resurrection.
Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 argues that we have no hope if Jesus was not raised from the dead. We pursue holiness and righteousness as fools if Jesus was not raised from the dead. But the glorious truth is that he was.
Not only did he shed the blood, we see that his blood was worthy of our salvation, worthy of satisfying God’s glory and justice by him being raised from the dead.
And out of all this, we have the description that opens it up, the description of God, who is the God of peace, the God of shalom. Peace here is more than the absence of conflict.
In the Middle East, we have all kinds of wars going on. And there could be peace without true peace in the Middle East. They could stop shooting and firing rockets at each other, and we would call that peace.
But that is a peace without true peace, because the true peace that God brings is not only the ceasing of conflict, the stoppage of war. It is true reconciliation between the two parties who are at war. We are at war with God because of our sin.
But God is the God of peace because he has reconciled us to himself. He has said this is the price of peace between God and sinful humanity. And then he went and paid that price.
So that we might have peace, so that the great gulf that exists because of our sin and God’s justice against that sin might be bridged, so that God could then draw us across the bridge into his loving family. God cannot forgive without his justice being satisfied. And Jesus, the great shepherd whom God raised from the dead by the blood of the eternal covenant, has satisfied that justice so that we might have true peace with God.
Why is this important to be reminded of? Throughout the book of Hebrews, he has been addressing Christians who are tempted to turn their back on Jesus’ work as their only hope of salvation and to go back to the Old Testament rituals. The temple could not bring true peace between God and his people. The blood of bulls and sheep and goats could not bring true peace between God and his people.
Only the blood of Jesus could secure that true peace of reconciliation so that we can look at God and call him the God of peace. And if you turn your back on that, there is no peace between you and God. There is only eternal war and eternal conflict.
And you will lose that war and you will lose it for eternity. And so the author reminds once more for the last time, he reminds his hearers that the only hope for true peace from God lies in Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep.
And because of that, he prays two very specific things for the Hebrew Christians.
First, he prays that God would equip his readers with everything good for doing God’s will. Equip is a word that means to make fit for or to make able to accomplish. In Ephesians 2, chapter 10 or chapter 2, verse 10, after that great declaration that it is by grace that we have been saved, Paul says, you have been saved to do good works.
And it is God who enables us to do the work that he gives us to do. We do not do this work in our own power. The work of of setting sin aside, the work of loving our enemies, the work of serving our communities and serving our church is something that we cannot do in our own strength.
And God equips us and he enables us for that work. He does that through his word. He does that through the preaching and teaching of his word. He does that through the taking of the sacraments as we gather around the Lord’s table and as we witness baptisms. He equips us for every good work that he has given us to do.
And secondly, the author prays that the Holy Spirit would work in them what is pleasing to God through Jesus Christ in order to do outward work for God.
The Holy Spirit has to be working in us. What does the Holy Spirit have to be working in us? Well, first and foremost, in order to become a child of God, the Holy Spirit has to change our hearts to want to love God. But as we walk with God throughout our lives, from that moment of conversion into that moment that we meet him, there are still changes that need to be made.
We are holy before God, and yet the influence of sin still resides in our heart. The influence of our culture is still there. We have been we have been conditioned by our culture.
We have been conditioned by ourselves to ask the question repeatedly, “Did God really say?” Where was the first time that question was asked? It was in Genesis three, the serpent comes to Adam and Eve who had free unfettered access to God, who knew what true communion with God was. They had no reason to question God and the serpent came to them and said, did God really say that you couldn’t eat from any tree within the garden, questioning God’s word? Ever since the fall, humanity has been asking that question on their own. And we need that question cleansed from our hearts because we still struggle with the question, “Did God really say?”
Anytime you think “I know what the Bible says, but you know, that was written 2000 years ago, and we know so much more today and we’re so much more advanced, so I’m going to set that part aside.” You are asking the question, “Did God really say?”
And that has to be cleansed from us, brothers and sisters, that has to be taken from us by the work of the Holy Spirit in our heart. Yes, we still struggle with it, but the Holy Spirit softens our conscience. The Holy Spirit leads us to those places of loving discipline so that we can grow in our trust in God, in our trust in what he has called us to do.
And so not only does he pray that they would be empowered to do the work that God has given to them, he also prays that God would be at work inside them, conforming them day in and day out more and more into the image of that great shepherd, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And then he wraps up with this song of doxology. Let me ask you, brothers and sisters, do you ever just burst out in praise as you’re studying the word of God? The author does it here as he considers who Jesus is, as he considers who God is, as he considers what both of them are doing in conjunction with the work of the Holy Spirit.
He has moved to say to whom be glory forever and ever. Is it the God of peace who gets glory forever and ever? Is it Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep who gets glory forever and ever? Absolutely, yes. This is a point where the author is reminding us once again that Jesus is fully divine, fully God, truly God in addition to his human nature.
This is the author’s prayer for his audience. He prays that they would know the great shepherd, that they would know the peace that God offers through the great shepherd and that they would be changed by knowing the peace and the shepherd. It’s a prayer that you and I can and should pray for each other.
You are rooted in the work of God that has secured your salvation. And you and I are to pray for the continual work of God, for our sanctification, that process of being made holy throughout our lives. Not only are we utterly reliant upon, as we sang, the power of the blood for our salvation, we are completely dependent upon God and the power of the blood for our day-to-day walk in holiness.
God’s continued work of grace leads you and I to a growing holiness in our day-to-day lives. Pray that your brothers and sisters will grow in holiness through the grace of God.
THE AUTHOR’S BLESSING
And speaking of that grace of God, that is the blessing the author leaves his audience with.
Grace be with you all. How will the Hebrew Christians bear up under persecution? By the grace of God. How will the Hebrew Christians resist the temptation to walk away from Jesus? By the grace of God.
While this simple sentence closes the letter, it also leaves it open-ended. The benediction is a reminder that the work of God in our lives does not end when the sermon is over.
Your walk is a day-to-day, moment-by-moment walk toward holiness that is only empowered by the grace of God. The benediction pronounced over you at the end of the service is a reminder that your worship, this worship service, is merely the week-by-week beginning of your weekly walk in sanctification. The blessing is given to you to strengthen you for the walk for the other 167 hours of the week.
Showing up at worship is not all of the Christian walk. There is a pursuit of holiness to which you and I are called day in and day out. And we need the reminder that God’s grace is with every one of us as we walk through our daily lives.
You will be tempted to doubt, and you need God’s grace to sustain you through those doubts. You will be tempted to lie, to sin, and you need God’s grace to help you to avoid the temptation. You will be tempted to abandon your salvation because of suffering, and you need God’s grace to sustain you.
And the truth is, brothers and sisters, you have God’s grace to sustain you in each of those. So after the author prays for his church, he speaks a blessing over them as well.
CONCLUSION
Turn with me backwards just a couple pages to Hebrews chapter 4. In Hebrews chapter 4, verse 14, the author of Hebrews is beginning his talk, his discussion on Jesus being the great high priest, which will continue on until the end of chapter 10.
But he opens with this in verse 14 of chapter 4. Everything you need for salvation. Everything you need for that process of setting aside the sins that still so easily beset us. Everything you need to feel the love of God, even in the midst of discipline.
Everything you need to remain a child of God, you have in Jesus Christ. Stop trying to justify yourself. Stop trying to equip yourself for the work of sanctification.
Stop trying to secure glorification on your own. Approach God’s throne in boldness and in confidence. A boldness and a confidence of knowing that it is not dependent on anything you can do, nor is it dependent upon any earthly system of righteousness.
Jesus has approached God’s throne for you so that you can do so in his steps. Persecution will come. Struggle will hound you.
But your faithful high priest has defeated all of those things and draws you into the peace and security of God’s presence. Remember and apply these words to your walk. Run your race with endurance, knowing that the author and finisher of your faith has assured your arrival at the finish line.
Let’s pray.
What wonderful blessing, what wonderful prayer that we have, O God, recorded for us in this passage. What a wonderful letter we have to remind us that when we are tempted to turn our back on salvation, there is nothing greater than Jesus that can bring us safely to your presence.
When we are tempted to doubt, help us to flee to you. When we are tempted to sin, help us to rest upon your grace. When we are tempted to leave the faith, grab us by the power of the Holy Spirit so that we might remain firmly and safely in your arms.
Jesus is our great shepherd, and he told us that the Father will never let us go. Nothing can rip us from his hands. So by the power of the Holy Spirit, keep us close to you.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
As you go this week, take this blessing upon you.
May the God of peace, through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead, our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will.
And may he work in us what is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Grace be with you all.
He who testifies to these things says, yes, I am coming soon.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Thank you for reading this transcript of a sermon on Hebrews 13:20-25.
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