“Equipped By God” - Hebrews 13:17-25

All right, if you've got a Bible, go to Hebrews, and whatever Bible you're in,

go to the last page of Hebrews, Hebrews 13, 17 through 25, mainly towards the end of that today.

So as we come to close out this book, I just want to give you one more reminder

of kind of the context of it, so when you go back and study it for yourself, you won't forget.

So I know you're going to do that, right? Yes, we're all going to do that, yeah.

This is written to a group of Hebrews, a group of Israelites, you could call them.

And they're struggling with this idea, number one, that Jesus is God,

that he is God in the flesh, that he's greater than Moses and the angels,

he's greater than all of those things, number one, that's their first problem.

Number two, they're being persecuted and that's really what's causing them to

second guess that Jesus is who he says he is.

This is one of the hard things about being in East Texas is that we never really

have to worry about second guessing who Jesus is.

Most people, if you believe in Jesus, it's actually a net positive for your life, right?

For most people, if you're not a Christian, that's going to cause you way more

grief than if you are a Christian.

That's not so for these people. These people know that being a Christian is

going to cost them something.

It's not a matter of if it's going to, it's a matter of it already has,

and it's going to cost them more.

And so they need to know for sure that this Jesus is exactly who he says he is.

Because if he's not, then we're certainly not going to keep losing our homes for him.

We're certainly not going to get our kids taken from us. We're certainly not going to die for him.

So the writer of Hebrews, the whole point of this book is to say that,

listen, Jesus is better than you think he is. However good you think he is, he's better than that.

And no matter what he costs you, he is worth that. He is worth that.

But Jesus is not this pithy life coach to come to make your life a little better

and to give you some pointers on how you can be a better husband,

a better wife, a better kid, a better teenager, right? That's not Jesus's main concern.

Jesus's main concern is he is God in the flesh, come to save his people from death and destruction.

And that those who have believed in him, have been given the gift of faith,

will persevere to the end.

If you walk through this book, I just did a quick summary here.

In chapter one, verse two, he is the final word of God in these last days.

There's no more prophets, right? There's no more apostles writing scripture.

Jesus is the final word of God. In verses six through 10 of chapter one,

he's the creator of the heavens and earth whom the angels worship.

He's greater than the angels. In chapter two, he's the pioneer or the author

of our salvation who was made perfect through suffering.

Also in chapter two, he is one who became flesh that he might die in our place

and free us from the fear of death.

That's really important to a group of people that are facing death, right?

Chapter three, he's one superior to Moses as a son is superior to a servant.

In chapter four, he's a sympathetic high priest who opens the way to the throne of grace for his people.

In chapter seven, he's the one who saves for all time those who draw near to God through him.

In chapter 8, he's the mediator of a new covenant bought for by his own blood.

Secure that our sins will be forgiven, that the law will be written on our hearts,

and that God will be our God forever.

In chapter 9, he is the one who by his blood purifies our conscience from dead

works to serve the living God.

He's also the one to put an end to all sacrifices by putting away sin once for

all through the sacrifice of himself.

In chapters 10 through 12, he's the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

It says in chapter 12, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross,

despised the shame, and sat down at the right hand of God until all his enemies

are made a stool for his feet.

Earlier in chapter 13, we learned he is the one who suffered outside the gate

that he might sanctify the people by his own blood.

This week, we'll learn again that he is the one who will never leave us nor

forsake us, but will help us forever by the power of his life.

I want you to think in just that short summary, is that how you think of Jesus?

Is that how you think of Jesus? Or do you think of Jesus as kind of this long-haired

hippie guy walking around like just being nice to poor people?

We often joke at our house, like, do you think of Jesus as Jesus or VBS Jesus?

Or if you're of my age, VeggieTales, Jesus, or McGee and Me,

Jesus, whatever your thing was, left behind Jesus, right?

It's easy to look at those things and say, well, that must be what Jesus is

like because he's easy to know and he's easy for me to think about going to,

and he's just really easy to wrap my head around.

But the truth is, when you actually study who Jesus is, he's a lot harder to understand.

That's because Jesus is God and God will never be fully understood.

But let me encourage you just as we close Hebrews to do what the writer of Hebrews

has been asking us to do and to consider Jesus and who he says he is.

Not just what you've been told he is or what you've watched that he is, but who he really is.

That's what Hebrews has been inviting us into this whole time.

Because he is asking you for your life. Make no mistake about that.

He's not asking you for Sundays and Wednesdays. He's not asking you to just

make sure your kids get baptized.

He's not asking you to walk an aisle. He's not asking you to say a prayer.

He's asking you for every single second of your life.

And the only reason that would make sense, the only reason it'll ever make sense

is if you get to know who he is, if you see him for who he truly is.

I love this quote by Thomas Brooks.

It's in a book called Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices.

And I would just encourage you, If you're going through a time in your life

where you feel like Satan just has his thumb on you, man, let me know.

I will give you this book. I've probably got five copies at my house.

But it says, never let go out of your minds the thoughts of a crucified Christ.

Let these be food and drink unto you. Let them be your sweetness and consolation,

your honey and your desire, your reading and your meditation,

your life, death, and resurrections. Never let go out of your minds the thought of a crucified Christ.

Because as God has called you to live in certain ways and to do certain things,

he wants to do that with Christ in mind.

So let's close out Hebrews as that is in our brains.

We're going to do this in a, just kind of build our own sentence here,

build out what he's trying to say. Let me just read the end of this and then we'll jump into it.

It starts in verse 17. Obey your leaders and submit to them that they are keeping

watch over your soul as those who will give an account.

Let them do this with joy and not groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act

honorably in all things. I urge you that more earnestly to do this in order

that I may be restored to you sooner.

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 good that you may do his will, working in us,

that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation,

for I have written to you briefly.

That's the most pastoral thing you could say, right? It's 13 chapters.

That's a pretty long book. He's like, listen, this was as brief as I could possibly make it.

I've written to you briefly. You should know that our brother Timothy has been

released with whom I shall see you if he comes soon.

Greet all your leaders and all the saints, those who come from Italy,

send you greetings. Grace be with all of you.

Let me start by reading verse 17 one more time and kind of give you my quick

abbreviated part of it because I really want to get to the meat of this,

which is the benediction.

He says, obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls.

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning. So that would be of no advantage to you.

I hope that when you read a verse like that and you think of the leadership

at this church, you don't think of it as somebody that has your finger in your

face trying to get you to do what we tell you to do.

But certainly we have leaders at this church. We have people that are in charge, right?

And I hope you know that every one of us that is, is humbled to do that.

The fact that we're a small church doesn't make the weight of that any less.

If we had 10 people or we had a thousand people, each one of those people are

eternal souls to which those in leadership will give an account to God for.

An eternal soul to give an account for is not something to be taken lightly.

And I pray that you know we don't do that.

And I would say to this point, we have done that with joy and you have made that easy for us.

And I appreciate that because I've certainly been in situations where I had

no joy being in leadership at a church, none.

And so maybe just a moment for me to say, thank you for that.

And I pray that we can continue down that road.

He goes on in verse 18 to say, Pray for us that we are sure that we have a clear

conscience desiring to act honorably in all things.

Listen, that is the prayer that I hope you say for each and every one of us

in leadership every day.

What we want to do is act in a pure conscience towards you and towards what's going on.

There's decisions to make.

I've told some of the other guys in here that I feel like our church is about

to get to a point where we've got to make some decisions. We've got things we've got to do.

And my prayer is that we do that, number one, with a clear conscience,

but number two, desiring to act honorably in all things.

In other words, not just making decisions because we feel like we're supposed to.

Well, we've gotten this big, so now we've got to do this, or now we have this

money, so we have to do that.

We don't want to do that. We want a desire to make honorable decisions.

In other words, decisions that honor the Lord.

So that's how he starts this, but I really want to spend some time in this benediction.

So let's go ahead and jump there to verse 20.

Now may the god of peace the first thing he wants them to know is you have a god of peace,

And a life full of things that threaten your peace You have a god of peace Your

god and your father is a god of peace,

You know, one of the things that we learned in student ministry real quick is

that there's not many kids who have a father of peace,

Now, I think we're blessed in this church to have a lot of fathers that are

that I just know in the world we live in.

That's not always true And it's abundantly obvious when you're around kids and

teenagers who don't have that.

You don't have someone in their life that's able to bring them peace.

That when they're around, everything in your life can be in shambles.

But when this father shows up, when this father figure shows up, there is peace.

But for so many, when they think of their father, they think of tension and

stress and sadness and fear and uncertainty. There's no sweet,

happy relaxation that comes when you hear the word father.

And what he wants them to know is that, listen, you do have a God of peace.

You have a father of peace.

Whether you don't have one, whether he's left, whether he's no longer with us

because of death, whatever that is, you have a father of peace.

I would say this to somebody like me.

I have a great relationship with my dad, and he is certainly a dad of peace.

When dad walked in our house, it didn't matter what was happening.

There was an aura of peace.

Dad is here. He may bring peace in ways we don't like, but there will be peace,

right? There will be peace.

The problem is my dad didn't go to school with me.

And my dad didn't go to college with me. And when I got married and moved in

with me and Kareth, he didn't live with us, right?

None of that was true, but God did.

God did come with me. He's been with me every step of the way.

And he says, you have a God of peace. He wants them to know that.

Jesus says to his disciples in John 16, 33, famously, I've said these things

to you that you may have peace, right?

In Christ, you may have peace.

In the world, you will have tribulation, but take heart, I've overcome the world.

I realize what he says. He doesn't say, I will give you peace in the world.

He says, in me, you will have peace. In the world, you will never find it.

You will constantly find yourself fighting for peace, but take heart,

He has overcome the world.

You have a God of peace. Number two, he says, your shepherd is alive.

He says, now may the God of peace who brought you again from the dead, our Lord Jesus.

Nowhere in this book until this very moment has the writer called Christ the shepherd.

He has not used that word at all until right here. Which I thought was interesting.

It's like, as I close out, as I give you these final benedictions,

this final thing I want you to think about, don't forget.

He's a shepherd, right? Jesus is all of these things that we've talked about, but he is a shepherd.

He leads you, he protects you.

He's not just some random person that's come from the grave,

right? He's not just giving you this random offer of salvation. He is your shepherd.

He is raised from the dead and therefore cannot die again and cannot be defeated by death, right?

The great danger this book is written to warn against is that we would drift

away. You remember that?

Where he says, be careful lest you drift away. All right, now I'll be honest

with you, I'm not a shepherd.

I didn't grow up on a farm. I don't know how sheep work or cattle or any of that.

But I've been around enough that I know that when sheep run away,

they usually don't just take a direct right and take off. They drift.

So it is with Christians. They drift.

They don't wake up one day and decide they're going to leave their spouse,

leave their church, go start a new life, start up an old fling.

They don't wake up one day and decide to start watching things they shouldn't

watch or doing things they shouldn't do.

They don't wake up one day and say, you know, I'm just going to be bitter about my whole life.

I have never met anybody that wants to do that. However, I have met people that

just won't forgive the person in the past.

I have met people that just won't let go of what they think that they need.

And they drift. And what he wants them to know is, you have a shepherd that will keep you.

Psalm 1611 says, you make known to me the path of life.

In your presence, there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

In other words, you have a shepherd that will give you everything you will ever need.

You have a shepherd that is promised that at his right hand,

that next to him are pleasures forevermore.

Don't go chasing what the world has to offer.

Don't chase what the world has to offer. You have a shepherd who is alive. He continues.

He says that you have a great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant.

Right? You have a God of peace. Your shepherd is alive.

You are bound to God by a blood-bought eternal covenant.

Is a reference back to the covenant that he's mentioned multiple times in Hebrews.

In chapter 5, verse 9, he speaks of eternal salvation.

In chapter 9, verse 12, he says that you have eternal redemption.

In chapters 9, verse 15, he says you have an eternal inheritance.

But why do you have those things? Again, do you have those things because of

something you've done or you've accomplished because you're just strong enough,

or you're big and bad, or man, you've read enough verses.

No, he says you have those based on the blood of the son, the blood of your shepherd.

God swears on the blood of his son that not only will he keep his side of the

covenant, but he will keep your side as well.

That's an incredible encouragement for these people.

As he gives them warnings throughout the book. Be careful lest you fall away.

Be careful lest the world starts looking too appealing to you.

Be careful lest you think that the death on this side of heaven is worse than

the death on the other side of heaven. Be careful.

He gets to the end of the book and he says, but listen, if Christ has saved

you, if he has redeemed you, then you have eternal salvation,

redemption, and an inheritance that has been bought for you by the blood of

the Son, not by the sweat of your brow.

That is where Christians rest. In fact, I would argue when Christians refuse

to believe that, that's when they will find themselves drifting away.

More often, drifting away starts with legalism, starts with rules.

This is why you know of pastors and Sunday school teachers that are the most

rigorous, that will get in your face about the most minute details of your Christian life.

And they will badger you and hound you about doing this and don't do this and

make sure you're living this way and make sure you're dressing that way only

to find out later on that, oh, their life was in shambles behind closed doors. Why is that?

Because legalism does not treasure Christ. It uses Christ.

Legalism will never cause you to worship Christ. It'll cause you to use him

for your own means, to get people to act how you want them to act,

to get your kids in line, to get your spouse in line, to get your friends in

line, to make sure they look like

you and act like you, but it will never cause you to worship the Lord.

What will cause you to worship the Lord is reminding yourself often that I have

been eternally saved and redeemed.

I have an inheritance that is eternal because of the blood of Jesus Christ,

because of what Christ has done for me, that Christ's blood has secured for

me an eternal salvation, redemption, inheritance that no one can take from me, not even myself.

Fourth, you have a God who equips you to do his will. He equips you to do his

will. Listen to verse 21.

Says, we have a shepherd by the blood of an eternal covenant to equip you with

every good thing that you may do his will.

He's going to equip you. In other words, he knows that you're not equipped.

If I go to equip someone for something, the assumption that I'm making is you

don't have the tools to do this on your own.

You aren't inherently able to do what God has called you to do.

The same way that if I give my kids a task, chances are I'm going to have to

give them the tools to do that task.

Can't tell Bradley to mow the yard and not give him my mower.

I can't tell my kids to do the dishes and not let them use all of my stuff.

Every command that I give to my kids, I have to equip them to do it.

I have to. They're not able to do it.

In the beginning, they may not know how. And even once they know how,

they don't have the ability to take care of those things.

And God knows that about you. And listen, he knows your frame.

We read Psalm 103 earlier. This is where, if you continue to read, I love this.

Psalm 103, verse 13 and 14 says, as a father shows compassion to his children,

Psalms 103:13

so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him, for he knows our frame and

he remembers that we are but dust.

That's supposed to be encouraging.

It's encouraging that God looks at you and doesn't look at you and go,

why can't you get your act together? Why can't you figure this out?

Have you been struggling with the same sin over and over and over again.

You feel like you just can't get over the hump. You've just tried over and over

again to read your Bible and you cannot figure it out.

You've tried to pray every single morning and you make it Monday and Tuesday.

And then you look back on Friday and you go, man, I don't know why I didn't keep doing that.

And all of your religious pursuits, you realize over and over again,

man, I keep falling short of all these things.

And it's good to know that God looks down on you and goes, hey,

listen, I know you're dust.

I know you're framed. I know that you are weak. I know that you aren't strong.

I know who you are, and I've saved you anyway.

I've redeemed you anyway. I didn't save you because of who you were.

I saved you because of who I am, and I'm going to equip you to do the things

that I've called you to do.

He's given you whatever you need to do what you are called to do,

and our issue is often that we don't want to do what we're called to do.

We want to do what somebody else is called to do.

We want to look at other people and go, you know what I'd love to do? I would love to do that.

I can remember even when I was little, I've always wanted to sing.

I wish I could sing no matter how hard I try. Can't sing. Can't do it.

I got good enough that if I'm in a group of people, it's okay.

But if you were to give me a microphone, you'd be like, this is a bad idea.

We've all been in churches where someone has a microphone where it's a bad idea.

We've all experienced that. Some self-awareness goes a long way.

But that is often our issue is that we, instead of trying to figure out,

man, God, where do you want me to be faithful?

We just look around and go, I just want to do these other things.

God equips you for what he's called you to do.

And most often that is the things that you know to do, to love your neighbor

as yourself, to be kind and compassionate, to be courageous,

to be a good husband or wife, to be a good parent, to be a good employee,

to be a good student, to be a good kid.

All of these things are laid out so clearly in the Bible. And it's almost like

we go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't care about those things. I just want to go on a trip to Africa.

And you're going, you won't even talk to your neighbor.

He has equipped you to do every good work. Now, listen, the temptation here

is to say, yeah, he's given us, he's equipped us to do stuff and now we need to do stuff.

And if we don't do stuff, none of this is ever going to happen.

Have you ever heard that before?

Somebody said there is, if you don't go, who's going to go? If you don't come, who's going to come?

If you don't build it, who's going to build it? And instead of using Christ

as the motivation for you to do something.

They guilt you into doing something. And then you get three months into serving

in children's ministry and you go, I hate this because you never really were

called to do that. You were guilted into doing that.

So he says, in case that's how we think, he says that he's going to equip us

with every good work in verse 21, that you may do his will.

Working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom

be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Working in us, the Greek word there is literally to make or do.

That's the literal translation. You could read it this way.

He equips us with every good thing that you may do his will to make us do that

which is pleasing in his sight.

That's just what it says, to make us do it.

I love this quote. I don't even know where I got it from. I had it written down

in here. It says the gospel doesn't require obedience, it produces it.

Gospel of Jesus Christ does not require obedience, it produces it.

That when you believe the gospel, when Christ saves you, when Christ redeems

you, when he gives you a new heart, when he gives you new eyes and new ears,

when he gives you a new body, it produces in you the ability to obey.

It produces in you something that you didn't have before, which is the willingness,

the will to do what God asks you to do.

He says this in Philippians 2, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed,

so now, not only is in my presence, but much more in my absence,

work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Again, I could take that verse in and of itself, and I could terrify people,

right? If you're not going to work it out, what are you going to do?

You come in here lazy every week. God's mad at you. He doesn't care about you.

You think God cares that you're lazy every week. You think you didn't read your

Bible, what, five minutes this week, and God loves you. You really think that?

Why would God love you if that's all you're going to do? And yet they stopped

reading because in verse 13, it says this, for it is God who works in you.

Both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Now, the way the gospel works is, listen, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Work it out. And you can do it confidently. You can stumble along.

You can make mistake after mistake.

You can try and figure it out. You can try and work it out. You can pray and

not know how to pray. You can read your Bible and not know exactly what's going on.

Work this out. Put your hands to work. Put your mind to work.

But why should you do that?

Because God will work in you. He will do it. He will take care of it.

He has promised to do it.

Working out your salvation, doing what God has called you to do,

doing the will of God so often leads to exhausted and again,

legalistic Christians.

Exhausted because you realize you can't do it, legalistic because you think

you did it all on your own.

Both of these are not the intention of Christ. The intention is joyful Christians

who know they didn't do anything on their own.

Joyful Christians who know they didn't do anything on their own.

That as you work out your salvation, what you were called to do,

you realize that God works in you.

Is simply the promise of God being fulfilled from Ezekiel 36, 27.

He says about this new covenant that now the writer of Hebrews talks about in the present tense.

The writer of Ezekiel talks about is what future tense is going to happen.

He says, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.

I don't know how God could be any more clear. He doesn't say,

I will put my spirit within you and hope beyond hope and just beg you and call

you and do everything I can.

I'll be as nice to you as I can and just really hope that you'll do what I ask you to do.

No, God says, when I put my spirit within you, it's going to cause you to walk in my statues.

It's going to cause you to walk the way that I want you to walk.

It's going to cause you to do the things that I want you to do.

Listen, every good father, every good mom would love nothing more than to place

themselves inside of their kids and go everywhere they go so they can help them make good decisions.

Every single parent I've ever met that loves their kids would love nothing more than that.

The worst part about sending them out there is, you know, God,

you are going to make so many mistakes.

You are going to fail over and over again. And really the prayer,

I remember my dad telling me like, my prayer for you is not you won't make mistakes.

My prayer is that the mistakes you make won't ruin your life.

I was like, thanks, dad. Love you too. Like, it's a lot of trust.

But he knew that about me. I was a quote-unquote good kid. I went to church every Sunday.

I had good friends. Everything was great, but he knew that I was capable of

making terrible decisions,

and nothing would have made him happier than to crawl inside my body and in

those moments be able to guide me and to lead me in such a way that I wouldn't

have to make those decisions.

Yet this is exactly what the Father says he's doing to his kids.

He is placing his Spirit within us, and he will cause us to walk in his statutes.

Leave you alone. He will not say, all right, listen, I've given you the tools.

Now it's your job to figure it out.

He says, I will equip you and I will enable you and I will cause you to do what I cause you to do.

And so this is my only hope, even as I stand before you this morning,

I can study and I can grow and I can throw Greek words out at you and I can

read and I can sound smart,

but the truth is the only chance that I ever have of being truly faithful to

Christ is if he guides my heart, if he leads me to do what I've been called to do.

It's funny when you're young, you tend to push against things like this.

You tend to think you're strong and you can really figure it out.

And it's really up to me to do this.

I've joked before that Thursday night at church camp, you can talk kids into

doing anything and you can have them go down front and say,

I'm going to go to Germany for a month and I'm going to save 900 people and

I'm going to get into ministry and I'm going to save thousands of people and

I'm just going to do great things for the Lord.

And then you live just a little bit and you realize real quick,

I don't even know if I can pray.

I don't even know if I can make it to church on time.

I don't even know if I know anything about what I'm talking about.

You realize you're weak and you realize you can't bring to the table what you thought you could.

It's in those moments where you have to be reminded of things like what Hebrews is saying here.

Imagine again, you're one of these Hebrews and you've been kicked out of your

home and the threat of death is upon your head. What are you going to rest your head on?

Are you going to fight the Roman army? Is that what you're going to do?

Are you going to be able to protect your family from the Roman armory?

Is that what you're going to do?

Are you going to go to bed at night knowing, God, you have told me that you

will equip me, that you will cause me to do what you've asked me to do.

And all you've asked me to do is be faithful, to do what it is you've called

me to do at the time you've called me to do it, the day you've called me to do it.

And if that's not enough, he finishes by saying in verse 25, grace be with all of you.

The writer of Hebrews knows, even though he's given them this whole book,

all of these truths and axioms and ways for them to understand who Jesus is,

he knows his last words need to be, grace be with all of you,

because that is your only hope.

That is your only hope. That's your only chance at this.

There's nothing you can figure out. There's nothing secret formula that you might find.

That you need above all other things, grace.

Grace of divine peace. You need the grace of a deathless shepherd who guards and guides you.

You need the grace of an eternal covenant that secures an unbreakable relationship between you and God.

You need the grace of God's commitment to you, to equip you with all the resources

that you need to do his will.

You need the grace of God who will place his spirit within you to cause you

to do the things that he's equipped you to do.

And finally, lest any of his own ever be lost, the grace of God to work in us

what pleases God himself.

The book of Hebrews, I think, often is read in a way that tries to get people

to understand who Jesus is, but leaves out grace.

There's all these facts about Jesus, all these things that he's trying to get

you to understand, and that's incredibly important, and we've done that.

I don't even know how many sermons it's been. We've spent a long time in Hebrews

walking through how Jesus is greater than angels and greater than Moses.

He's a better high priest. He's better than Abraham.

He's better than the sacrifices you bring. He's better than the mediator you think you had.

He's better than all of those things. And yet it all comes down to what it always

comes down to, grace be with all of you.

That you need to understand that grace is the only thing that will keep you.

John Owen says this, there is one political maxim which comforts me. The Lord reigns.

His hand guides the storm. He knows those that are his.

He knows how to protect them, how to support them, and to deliver them on the

last day to eternal life with him.

I said it last week, but you are saved by a person, the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is not that you don't do anything. Of course you do something.

But he's made it clear today that the reason you do something is because you've

been given something that you didn't have.

Given a spirit that you didn't have, and that spirit has enabled you to do things

that you would not otherwise do.

So my encouragement to you is to do something. Do something you're scared to

do. Do something you haven't done before.

Again, I'm under no impression that everyone in here reads their Bible every

day. Man, let me encourage you, do that. Do that. Read your Bible every day.

Read one chapter a day. If you're

not reading at all, read one chapter a day. Pick a gospel and do it.

Maybe you don't pray very much, man. Pick 15 minutes and pray.

Do that. Maybe you've got a neighbor or somebody at your office that you just

feel like, man, I know I need to talk to that person about Jesus,

but I feel so unqualified. Guess what? You are unqualified.

You're incredibly unqualified.

That's why God's going to equip you to do it. Maybe it's someone even in the

church that you look around, you go, man, I haven't seen them in a minute.

I don't know where they are, and maybe I should reach out to them.

But who am I to reach out to them? Who am I to?

You are who God has equipped you to be.

And what thinking this way allows you to do is to do things that you feel incredibly

unequipped to do because you trust that God's grace will give you things that you don't have.

So step out and do something. Do something that you feel like you're supposed

to do. Do something that God's called you to do.

And when you fail, be reminded, he knows my frame. He knows I'm gonna fail.

He knows there's gonna be days I read my Bible and stand up from the table and

go, no idea what that was about, no clue.

He knows there's gonna be days where you try and pray and you're three minutes

in and you start thinking about everything but praying and you stand up 10 minutes

later and you realize, I didn't even pray. I just sat there and worried about everything.

Going to be times where you try and share the gospel with someone and you end

up talking about football or hunting or whatever else.

You walk away and you go, man, it's not at all what I wanted to do. That's okay.

You are but dust. He knows that.

But you keep pressing forward. You keep being faithful. You keep doing what God asked you to do.

And in his time and in his way, he will equip you and cause you to do what is pleasing in his sight.

All for grace. Let's pray.

Father, thank you again for this morning. Thank you for the chance to open your word.

God, as we close Hebrews this morning, may it again be a reminder that we're

a people of grace, that if we know you, if we have come to know you,

we know you because you've placed your spirit within us.

Not because we've earned the right to be here, not because we were smarter than

someone else or we simply made better decisions than someone else or we simply

grew up in a different family than someone else.

But God, if we know you, we know you because you have come down from heaven

and you have placed your spirit within us and you have caused us to be born again.

You've caused us to walk in your stature. You've caused us to do things that

we would not have normally done.

God, as we go out into the world and we try and share the gospel with people,

We're not hoping that we can convince them to believe in you.

We're hoping that the power of the gospel will do what it did for us.

We're hoping that the power of the gospel will go forth and that those whom

you call will be brought to life.

Not that we'll talk them into something they don't want to do,

but that your spirit will cause them to do something they would not have normally done.

And God, we'd be reminded that even in our frail attempts at following you at

times, when we feel weak, when we feel unworthy, when we feel unable to do what

you've asked us to do, that you've already told us you know our frame.

And that does not stop you from equipping us and causing us to do what will

bring you joy, what will bring you glory.

God, that's all we want to do as a church. We want to bring you glory.

We want to bring you praise. We want the people that come in this room to know

that above all things, we care deeply about who you are and what you've called

us to do. Stand and pray. Amen.