Prayer For Divine Preparation

Transcript

GR 1731
7/20/2014
Prayer for Divine Preparation
Hebrews 13:20-21
Gil Rugh

We're going to Hebrews 13, and the writer of the book of Hebrews does something under the direction of the Spirit that is not easy to do. We spent some time moving through the book of Hebrews, we sometimes find this book a little more difficult because it is rooted so much in the Old Testament, particularly in the practices of the Levitical priesthood and its sacrifices. But in verses 20-21 in one long sentence the writer really summarizes what he has said in this letter. So what we will be doing will be based on assuming some familiarity with what we have studied. Now you can appreciate when this letter would have been read to a congregation, they would have sat there and heard and read and this summary would come at the conclusion. But you can understand the difficulty of trying to grasp onto these things. So here the Spirit directs him to pull together in a concise way verses 20-21, one long sentence, the substance of what he has covered in the book of Hebrews.

He is going to present it in the context of a prayer for them, a prayer and a desire for them, if you will. He had encouraged them in verse 18, “pray for us,” and then he reinforced that in verse 19 saying, “I urge you to do this all the more, that I may be restored to you sooner.” We've noted the writer of this letter had a strong conviction of the importance and effectiveness of prayer and that God would respond to those prayers and it would result in his being able to be reunited with them.

As you would expect in the summary, it's going to just be an overview and we're just going to be highlighting some things, drawing in from other Scriptures. But if you have been here in Hebrews and have grasped on to some of these, you'll see how they tie together. Let's just read this one long sentence to get the flow of it. “Now the God of peace who brought up from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to 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.” That foundational opening, the God of peace, directs our attention to God the Father and His role as the author and the giver of peace. And that will tie us to the focus of the book because he will unfold here in this sentence, that peace is founded by the work that he has accomplished in the provision of His Son to be the high priest who offered the sacrifice of Himself to pay in full the penalty of sin so that we might be brought into a relationship of peace with God. Foundational concept—He is the God of peace, He is the God who is the author of peace and He is the One who gives His peace to His children through all the circumstances of life.

Much talk in the world and in the news and particularly in these days with wars and trouble going on, and people want to talk about peace. But there is only one source of peace, one place to go for peace, and it is to the God of peace. And that peace is only provided in the context of His Son Jesus Christ, recognizing that He is the God of peace, the source of peace. This expression is used half a dozen times in the New Testament (all in the epistles of Paul) that doesn't mean Paul wrote the letter to the Hebrews. Come back to Romans and we'll see how the Spirit directed Paul to constantly remind people He is the God of peace. We must keep it in mind as God's people. Sometimes we can even get caught up in the thinking of the world and think we will help improve the world, we will help resolve some of the problems in the world, help to improve people's lives and make the world just a better place to live. But you know God never said that is a ministry of His people. What we do is direct people to the God who gives peace. And to imply there is any other source of peace, any other way to have peace is a denial of the truths of the Gospel that we claim to believe.

Look in Romans 15 and you'll see the context is very similar to what we have in Hebrews where he urged them to pray for him. And note what he says in verse 30, “now I urge you, brethren, to strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be rescued from the disobedient” and so on. You see as we noted in our previous study, he believed that God would answer prayer. Then he goes on, verse 33 to summarize, “now may the God of peace be with you all.” And when he asks for the God of peace to be with them, that's his prayer, that's his desire, is that they as God's people not only would have been brought into a relationship of peace with Him, but now would be experiencing that in their walk with God. So when the God of peace is with you, He would be producing His peace in your life.

In Romans 16:20, and this is in the context of conflict and differences. Verse 17, “I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances, contrary to the teaching which you have learned.” And then he goes on and talks about their obedience in verse 19. “The God of peace,” verse 20, “will soon crush Satan under your feet.” The God who has established peace by the provision of His Son will ultimately bring peace to this world. The problem in the world today is it is under the authority of the god of this world, (small “g”). “The whole world lies in the evil one,”
I John 5 tells us. The ultimate crushing of Satan is a yet future event connected to the promise of an eternal city that we have studied about in the book of Hebrews, that time when Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace will reign over the world. Until then there will be no peace in the world.

Come over to 1 Corinthians 14, talking in a context of trouble in the church at Corinth. And anytime there is trouble and conflict, confusion in the church, something is wrong. So he reminds them, verse 33, “our God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” He is a God of peace, not of confusion. He's telling the Corinthian church that something is wrong. Where is the conflict, the dissension, the disorder coming from? It does not come from God. He is not a God of confusion, He is a God of peace. He is talking here among His people. We'll note that more clearly in just a few moments.

2 Corinthians 13, and he has written some strong things to the Corinthians. The Corinthian church was a church that had problems and so he remarks about the severity of some of what he has written in verse 10. Then in verse 11 he says, “finally, brethren, rejoice. Be made complete, be comforted, be likeminded, live in peace.” He's talking about their relationship together as God's people. And what's the next statement? “And the God of love and peace will be with you.” And joined together. You are to live in peace, the God of peace provides it. If we are truly God's people but we're not living in peace, we're fighting against God, resisting His will, if you will.

Just jot down Philippians 4:9, that's another passage on this subject. Come over to 1 Thessalonians 5. And you'll note the context. Verse 14, “we urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted.” Verse 15, “see that no one repays evil with evil. Seek after that which is good for the brethren and all people. Don't quench the Spirit,” verse 19. “Abstain from every form of evil,” verse 22. Then verse 23, “now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely.” That's going to come up in our section in Hebrews. This is what the God of peace is doing. He brings peace to our relationship we have with Him, now produces peace in our hearts and with one another as members of God's family so that we continue to grow in holiness, the word to be sanctified. The same basic word for holy, sanctify, saint, those set apart from sin to God and that process of being more and more conformed to God's character. “Sanctify you entirely so that we are without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And then 2 Thessalonians 3, again the context. Verse 14, “if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, don't associate with that person,” but remember he is a brother, a fellow Christian. “Now,” verse 16, “may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace.” You start out with peace with God and then you experience the peace of God in your life.

Come back to Hebrews. Seeing that repeated emphasis at the end of a number of letters which pull together what he has laid out in the letter. Now he shows that this peace that we're talking about that comes from God, the author of peace, is rooted and founded in what He accomplished in the finished work of Christ. He is “the God of peace who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord.” The God of peace is the One who raised up from the dead Jesus our Lord, the Great Shepherd. Interestingly, this is the only direct reference to the resurrection of Christ in the letter to the Hebrews. Now there are allusions to it that presuppose it because, remember, after His sacrifice He passed through the heavens into the very presence of God. He is seated at the right hand of God in heaven. But this is the only direct statement of His being raised from the dead. It summarizes the truth. Of course He was raised from the dead. That's why He could pass through the heavens and be seated at the right hand of the Father on high. So a reminder and a pulling together that Christ was raised from the dead and it's because of what He accomplished through the blood of the eternal covenant. Now remember the book of Hebrews talked about the covenant, the eternal covenant. It's His blood, the blood refers to His sacrifice. This came out in the sacrifice and the comparisons with the Levitical sacrifices and the sacrifice of Christ. And “the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin.” It took the blood of the Son of God, His death on the cross to satisfy the demands and requirements of God's holy and righteous character so He could cleanse sinners from their sin, bring them into a relationship of peace with Himself, and declare them righteous. He brought Him up from the dead and it was because He had shed His blood to establish the covenant.

Come back to Hebrews 8:6, “but now He has obtained a more excellent ministry,” referring to Christ. It's more excellent than the ministry of Moses, the priestly activity connected with the first covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, the Mosaic Law. “He has obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as He is the mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises.” It is superior in every way to what God had provided in the Law given to Moses. Then he goes on quoting extensively from Jeremiah 31, and we studied this. “The days are coming when I will affect a New Covenant,” promise of a future provision, preparing Israel for the time when God would make the ultimate sacrifice and provide for the forgiveness of their sins.

Come down to Hebrews 9. There they were reminded that the sacrifices under the Old Covenant, the animal sacrifices, the end of verse 9, “cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience.” And so Christ entered into heaven itself on the basis of having offered a final permanent sacrifice, verse 12, “not through the blood of goats and calves but through His own blood He entered the Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption,” a redemption that can cleanse us from within, cleanse us in our internal being. “It is the heart that is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things, from the heart proceeds all manner of evil,” Jesus said in Mark 7. You can't cleanse the heart by religious activity, you can't cleanse the heart by offering some kind of physical sacrifice. Only the Son of God could do that. So verse 15, “for this reason He is the Mediator of a New Covenant,” and it is by virtue of the sacrifice Christ made that those who believed in God under the old covenant could be saved. “He is the Mediator of a New Covenant since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, so that those who have called may receive the promise of an eternal inheritance.” In other words the foundation for God saving someone has always been the sacrifice of Christ. And when those saints that lived in the time prior to the coming of Christ responded in faith to what God promised and manifested their faith by obedience to Him, God could cleanse them not because they offered an animal sacrifice but because they placed their faith in God. And when they placed their faith in God, God could declare them righteous because He had planned to offer the sacrifice of His Son which would be the acceptable payment for their sin. So it's the blood of the covenant, the blood of the eternal covenant that provides, according to the end of verse 15, “an eternal inheritance,” a guarantee that believers will dwell in the presence of God for eternity.

Come back to Ezekiel 36 and see what God provided here in His promise for Israel. Now Israel is in the news. Ezekiel was writing 500 years before Christ, 2500 years later, I turned on the news this morning, what do they want to talk about? What Israel is doing in Gaza and what is happening with Israel and where this might go. And we know where it is all going and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better in the long term. God promises that He will restore Israel, but we're a little ways away from that, yet, at least seven years or more. But He promises, verse 24, “He will take them from the nations, gather you into your own land.” They are in the land and Ezekiel 37 says when they are gathered in the land they will initially be there as dry bones with no spiritual life. And that is indeed a picture of Israel in this day. But they are still the nation God has chosen that will ultimately realize His benefit. Then His ultimate promise is “He will sprinkle clean water on you, you will be clean.” Verse 26, “I will give you a new heart, put a new Spirit within you.” Verse 27, “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and you'll live in the land.” That's the future promise, that's part of the New Covenant and its provision for the nation Israel. The salvation provided in the New Covenant we benefit from, but the full provisions of the New Covenant will be fulfilled for the nation Israel when they enter into the salvation provision provided by Christ.

When you come over to Ezekiel 37, the first part of that is on the valley of the dry bones. Then come down to verse 14, “I will put My Spirit within you, you will come to life. I will place you in your land.” So that's a future promise, you'll note the connection—I will put My Spirit in you, what has happened to us as a result of the death and resurrection of Christ when we believe in Him. The Holy Spirit comes and dwells in us. We are not Israel but the salvation promised in the New Covenant promises an indwelling Spirit, the Holy Spirit. It goes on here, verse 24, “My servant David will be king over them. They will all have one shepherd.” Now you note the shepherd terminology because that's where we are going—“He raised out of the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep Jesus Christ.” But in the kingdom, David will serve as a shepherd, a resurrected David, under Christ. Verse 26, “I'll make a covenant of peace with them, a covenant of peace with them.” So see the connection, the God of peace, the One who brought Jesus out of the dead, the provision of being the blood of the New Covenant. And here you have the connection—this New Covenant is a covenant of peace established by the God of peace. Here is God making provision for sinful man to have a relationship of peace with Him. It's the only way for a person to have peace with God, but it's a way that is open to all who will believe in Him.

Come back to Hebrews 13. So the “God of peace who brought up from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant.” This is connection with the death that was required for the New Covenant to be implemented, a sacrifice that was so effective, so powerful that it could provide finally and forever forgiveness of sins, a cleansing. It was a sacrifice never to be repeated, it was a sacrifice that would never have anything added to it. That's been the emphasis of the book of Hebrews—by one sacrifice for sin He sat down at the right hand of the Father on high. It is done. We noted, it is finished. Now it requires a response on the part of people. That's what the book of Hebrews has been emphasizing.

We do have to go back to Romans and we'll come to the end of Romans 3. He talks about this provision of God. Romans starts out making clear that everyone is a sinner. Jesus said when the Holy Spirit came after His ascension, He would convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. And the beginning point of salvation is for a person to realize the reality of their own guilt and sin before God. That is the stumbling block. We have to tell people, you are a sinner cut off from any relationship with the living God. Some people say, I know I'm a sinner, that's why I go to church, that's why I partake of the sacraments, that's why I go to confession, that's why I was baptized. No, you don't understand, none of that does anything for you. There is only one sacrifice for sin, that's the sacrifice of Christ. That's what he is now telling them in Romans 3. After showing everyone is hopelessly sinful and guilty before God he says in verse 21, “now the righteousness of God has been manifested.” It's “the righteousness of God,” verse 22, “through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe.” And there is no distinction here. If you think you are an exception and you can be saved by going to church or by being baptized or by partaking of sacraments or by partaking of the mass or doing any other thing, you have been seriously deceived. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” There is no distinction here, from God's perspective we are all hopelessly defiled by our sin. “We are justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation,” a sacrifice, satisfied, turned away the wrath of God by satisfying the demands of righteousness, “in His blood through faith.” And if you've been in the study of Romans with us in past years, you probably have the word faith marked out. How many times it appears beginning in Romans 3:21, all the way down to the opening verses of Romans 5. This is what is required to believe.

You come down to Romans 4:24, for our sakes righteousness will be credited. He said Abraham was saved when he believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness. That was recorded 2000 years before Christ—Abraham believed God, God credited it to him as righteousness. When he believed God, God credited the sacrifice of Christ that would be provided in the plan of God to Abraham's account because he was trusting God and the promises of God. Now that was written so that you and I 4000 years after Abraham, it was “written for our sake to whom it will be credited as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered because of our transgression, was raised because of our justification.” That's why we're reminded in Hebrews that One who ascended through the heavens, was seated at the right hand of the Father, the God of peace had raised Him out of the dead because He had made the sacrifice necessary for the establishing of the New Covenant, providing salvation for all who believe. He was “delivered over because of our transgression, He was raised because of our justification,” meaning He was raised because all that was necessary to provide righteousness for sinful human beings had been accomplished.

“Therefore,” Romans 5 begins, “having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” So He is the God of peace. But you see the foundational peace—He is the God of peace because He has provided a way for us who are the enemies of God to be brought into a relationship of peace with Him. He had His Son die on the cross to pay the penalty for sin, the whole unfolding of what was presented in the book of Hebrews. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ because God who is the God of peace provided a sacrifice that could bring peace. Without that sacrifice every man, woman and child ever born into the human race would spend eternity in hell because we are sinners, born sinners, sinners by choice. But because of God's grace He has provided a sacrifice, that sacrifice has been shown to be accepted, pleasing to God, accomplishes what God intended and now forgiveness can be offered.

Come back to Hebrews 13. “Now the God of peace who brought up from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep.” He keeps expanding in this sentence—Jesus is the Great Shepherd of the sheep. Now these are Jewish believers, remember, in the book of Hebrews, a congregation of Jews who had become believers in Christ. They are familiar with the Old Testament. What is probably the most familiar chapter in all the Bible? “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” People who hardly go to church at least know the start of that psalm—”The Lord is my shepherd.” He is the God who watches over His people, who cares for His people. The psalmist could say that's his comfort—even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I don't have to fear any evil because You are with me. He is the God who provides green pastures, He meets my every need, He cares for me, He is my shepherd. Now the Son of God is presented here as the Great Shepherd.

We saw in Ezekiel 36 that there will come a time in the future kingdom when David will have been raised from the dead and will be a shepherd of God's people, but he is a shepherd under the Great Shepherd Jesus Christ who will rule and reign over all the earth. We've seen other passages in Peter where He is referred to as a shepherd or the Chief Shepherd, 1 Peter 2, 5. He brought out of the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep.

We do have to go back to John 10, a very familiar passage where Jesus compares Himself as it is recorded by John, to a shepherd, the good shepherd of the sheep. He uses two pictures here—He is the door of the sheep by which you must enter to belong to the flock of Christ, He is also the shepherd of the sheep. The end of verse 10, “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.” Verse 11, “I am the Good Shepherd, the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” Verse 14, “I am the Good Shepherd, I know My own, My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father. I lay down My life for the sheep.” Come down to verse 26, what's the problem? “But you do not believe in Me because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, I know them, they follow Me. I give eternal life to them, they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of My hand.” Life found in Christ, those who come through the door of Christ. “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by Me.” I am the Good Shepherd. In Hebrews we've had these comparisons showing He is superior. Moses was called the shepherd of God's people but now we have the One who is superior. He is the Great Shepherd, He is God who became man, who is the Great Shepherd of the sheep.

“He through,” back in Hebrews 13:20, “the blood of the eternal covenant Jesus our Lord.” Any doubt about whom we are talking? Jesus our Lord. He is not only the Great Shepherd, He is the Lord, He is the master, the sovereign. What the writer of Hebrews does here is express his prayer in the desire that he has. So now “the God of peace who brought up from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord.” This is what I desire and pray that He will be doing for you—“equip you in every good thing to do His will.” Equip you in every good thing to do His will, pulling together what we've seen in Hebrews. That word equip, some of you have taken some Greek classes, katartizo. It's used in the Gospels when it talks about the disciples mending their nets, those fishermen's nets, and they would make repairs and fix them so they would be rendered fit and ready and able to do what they are supposed to do—catch fish. It's used in Galatians 6:1 where believers when they see a fellow believer overtaken in sin, “you who are spiritual restore such a one.” That word translated restore, our same word here. Mend them, help with the repairs that need to be made, if you will. Begin to mold and shape. This comes out of, in the context of Hebrews, remember Hebrews 12 where he had to remind those believers that the suffering, the difficulties, the trials, the hardship that come into your life are part of God's disciplining process, child-training process to mold and shape us to partake of His holiness. That's what he is talking about here—that He might equip you, render you fit, prepare you in every way. In every good thing to do His will. It's His intention. It's God's preparation. This God of peace with the power that was demonstrated in bringing Jesus Christ out from the dead, having accomplished the plan of the sovereign God in providing redemption by His death on the cross Jesus our Lord.

This God will be rendering you fit, equipping you “in every good thing to do His will, working in that which is pleasing in His sight.” And you see the context here—equip you in every good thing, in all that He would have you do. He is the equipper, He is the enabler. “Equip you in every good thing to do His will.” Until you have come into a relationship with peace with the God of peace you can't do anything pleasing to God. Romans 8 says those that are in the flesh cannot please God. Nothing they do ever pleases Him. They never do it out of a heart of obedience to Him, that has been humbled before Him, that desires to give honor to Him. They are in constant rebellion against Him. But we are God's people, not because we are superior to them, we are sinners just like them. The difference is by God's grace we have believed in the Savior He provided and He has caused us to be born again. “If any man be in Christ He is a new creature, a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold new things have come,” Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5.

So it's God equipping these believers in every good thing to do His will. I want you to pick up something here. The word translated to do, to do His will, that's the same basic word translated working. To do His will, working. So you could say in every good thing to work His will, working in us. Same basic word, the infinitive to do translated there, but it's to work His will. Then the participle, working in us. We are to work because He is working in us. It's not that we consider ourselves as adequate as servants of the New Covenant, but He has made us adequate so our adequacy comes from Him. So we are working for our Lord and Savior and the God that has provided our redemption because He is working in us so that we can do that which is pleasing in His sight. And it's all done through Jesus Christ.

Important area here as you know, but sometimes the church of Jesus Christ begins to drift and float. We have some churches and some believers caught up in things they think we should be doing to improve the world, to deal with poverty, to try to stop crime. We should put a stop to sin and sinful practices. We shouldn't be practicing them, but God never calls His people to reform the world, that's a denial of the Gospel. The problem with our nation, to limit it to that, is not that they have denied the biblical truth concerning marriage, it's not that they practice the murder of babies in abortion, it's not that ‘fill in the blank.’ It's that they are at war with God because they have hearts that are deceitful and desperately wicked. Now we cannot imply that there is any other solution. We are called to carry the Gospel of peace.

Come back to Ephesians 6, talking about how God's people are to be prepared in the battle we have against the god of this world. Verse 12, “for our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, the powers, the world forces of this darkness, spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies,” Satan and his forces. You cannot clean up this world, God did not call us to clean up the world, make the world a better place, to try to deal with poverty, to try . . . That's not what He called us to do. That doesn't mean we never help somebody. That's not the mission that God has given to the church, to His people. Something more important here. It's down in verse 15, we are to “have our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace.” We come serving the Gospel of peace, the God of peace. We bring you the good news of peace. You can have peace with God, He has provided His Son to be the Savior. People don't want to hear that. Then you have to start and tell them “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” You are not righteous, you may be very religious but you are not righteous in God's sight. You are not a child of God because you've been baptized. You're not a child of God because you belong to a church. You're not a child of God because you teach Sunday School. You have to be born again. The church begins to go soft on the Gospel of peace because people don't want to hear that, but they'll say we are nice people, good people if we will help with problems. But they don't know the seriousness of their problem. The disease of sin has corrupted their entire being. You are hopeless and hopelessly lost apart from the grace of God that can bring peace. Remember Romans 5:1? Therefore on the basis of the sacrifice of Christ that pays the penalty for sin, and our faith in that sacrifice and that alone, we have peace with God. Why is there no peace in the world? Where do wars and fightings come from, James says. It comes from within the unrest of your own heart.

Come back to Isaiah 48, and we'll just look at one verse here and then move to another verse. Isaiah 48:22, do you have it marked in your Bible? If not, mark it. “There is no peace for the wicked, says the Lord.” That's it. Who are the wicked? “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous. There is none who does good, not even one. There is no peace, says my God, to the wicked.”

Come over to Isaiah 57. We want to see the context. You have the same verse but look at the verse before it, verse 20. “But the wicked are like the tossing sea, it cannot be quiet. Its waters toss up refuse and mud.” You see the churning of the sea and those waves and they are always stirring up the muck and debris and everything there. “There is no peace, says my God, for the wicked.” Do you know what the wicked are doing? They are always stirring up and the vileness, the refuse, the garbage, the sin, it just keeps churning. They are never at rest, they are never at peace. Why? “There is no peace, says my God, to the wicked.” Where does the world hear the message of God's peace when the church is caught up in sending people to counselors because they don't have any peace? Take a pill. We don't want them to feel better in their corrupted, sinful condition. What a terrible thing. A person has a disease that could kill them and you give them an aspirin to take care of the pain and don't tell them, you know there is a cure, there is a cure. They won't want to hear that, at least the aspirin will make them feel better. That's criminal. There is something far more serious at stake here. People are lost. They are cut off from the life of God. They are on their way to an eternal hell. You can be in that condition sitting here in this church. God never said, go to Indian Hills and that will make sure you are saved. You can even get baptized in the tank up here, that doesn't save you. How do you get saved? You have to come to recognize your sinful, lost, wretched condition, cast yourself on the mercy of God. God, I am hopeless, I am a sinner. I am religious, I look good, I am lost. I'm placing my faith in Your Son. And then by the grace of God the Spirit of God begins to work in your life, He has given you new life. Now God begins the work to equip you to do His will. That's why we gather together to study the Word, through the ministry of the Word we are equipped to do the ministry of service, using that same word—katartizo in Ephesians 4 so that we can grow to maturity as the body of Christ and honor Him.

So the finished work of Christ transforms us in every way, He has made us a new people. That's why we were encouraged in Hebrews 11 to live a life of faith, holding on to what God has promised when we will finally enter in to all that He has promised to those who love Him and dwell in the city (the New Jerusalem) that He has prepared for those who love Him.

Let's pray together. Thank You, Lord, for the riches of Your Word, the glory of the salvation that is found only in Christ. Lord, how blessed we are to know You as the God of peace. The enmity has been removed, we are no longer Your enemies, we are no longer children of the devil. We call you Father, we have the Great Shepherd who watches over us. You are the One at work in all the details of our lives, molding, shaping, bringing us into greater conformity that we might be partakers of Your holiness. We give You praise. In Christ's name, amen.