Doxologies 101

Father in heaven, thank you for this time where we can spend looking at your Word. You are certainly a God who is worthy to be praised, even if you didn't do anything, just for who you are, your nature and character, your holiness.

The Heavenly Vision and the Spirit’s Help in Praise

Think about heaven in Revelation chapter 4, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. Think about Isaiah when he saw your Son seated on the throne, whole earth is full of His glory. And tonight, Father, we would ask your help as we study this doctrine of praise, that you would loose our tongues, that we might be men and women who would speak well of you, that we wouldn't be afraid of other people as we extol your virtues and the virtues of your Son.

We're thankful tonight that we have your Spirit to help us understand the Scriptures. What would we do without your Holy Spirit? We wouldn't have any Scriptures at all and we wouldn't be able to understand the ones that we do.

But you're pleased to help us understand. And what a great Father you are. Everything we need, we have. All the resources pertaining to life and godliness, you haven't left us stranded, you have left us with everything that we need.

And even when Jesus left the disciples, then he left them another just like him, the Holy Spirit. We're thankful that he dwells within us and that we're sealed to the day of redemption. May Jesus Christ be praised in this place and may we at Bethlehem Bible Church be men and women who praise the Lord.

In his name we pray, Amen. Well, tonight we're gonna talk a little bit about some doxologies found in Scripture. We've been going through 1 Thessalonians a little bit on the Sunday nights, but tonight it's gonna be some exposition from passage to passage to passage, looking at doxologies.

These brief formulas at the end of sections, at the end of the books of certain Bibles that extol who God is. When you think of the word doxology, logy or ology, a logos is a word and dox is glory, a word of glory, giving a word of glory.

They're found in many contexts, some in the Psalms, some in the Epistles. Thomas Watson said, "'Praising God is one of the highest "'and purest acts of religion.'". And so how do we praise the Lord? When I grew up, the thing that I understood about praising the Lord was, I thought it was a TV show.

I thought it was a Christian show. Praise the Lord. I thought it was a name. I didn't really know what praise was and speaking well of, and how do we speak well of God? Spurgeon said, "'If I did not praise and bless Christ my Lord,'' listen, "'I should deserve to have my tongue "'torn out by its roots.

"'If I did not bless and magnify His name, "'I should deserve that every stone I tread on "'in the streets should rise up to curse my ingratitude, "'for I am a drowned debtor to the mercy of God.'". I wonder if you're a drowned debtor to the mercy of God.

Spurgeon said, "'Over head and ears to infinite love "'and boundless compassion, I am a debtor. "'Are you not the same?' Spurgeon said. "'Then I charge you by the love of Christ. "'Awake, awake your hearts now "'to magnify His glorious name.'".

And as we've talked about many times, we are praisers, we are boasters, and we know how to praise other people. We know how to praise sports teams. We know how to praise musicians. But what about when it comes to praising the Lord?

Remember back in the old days, they had those sandwich boards that you would put on men and women as they would walk the streets, and it would say sandwiches at Joe's place, and they would have the address on the back, and they would hire people to walk around with these advertisements on them.

And commentator Jowett said, "'A little while ago, "'I saw one half dozen sandwich men "'walking through the streets of London, "'looking thoroughly pinched and starved and wretched, "'and their boards carried the advertisement "'as to where the onlookers "'could get the best dinners in London.

"'Famished wretches advertising the best dinners.'". And then the punchline, "'Cheerless men and women "'advertising the joy of the Lord.'". When people listen to you, when people watch you, when people observe you, what are you saying about the Lord?

And so tonight we're gonna look at several doxologies that talk about praise so that you might, praise the Lord, so that you might speak well of God and you might do it in a biblical way. Doxologies aren't just songs that we sing, praise God from whom all blessings flow, but they're found in scripture as well.

So let's just go through several of these tonight and see how many we get through. Let's go to 1 Timothy 1 to start. We're going to look at biblical examples of praise so that you might praise God for the same thing and understand what God is saying in these passages.

So we're gonna do exposition, but within a topic so that we might express our thanksgiving and ascribe to God praise for his infinite nature, for his redemptive work, for his person and work found specifically in Christ Jesus.

1 Timothy 1, of course, whenever you go to a Bible passage, you say to yourself, this is a particular book, why is it written? We know this is a pastoral epistle. And here, Paul is going to praise God because he, a wretched sinner, is saved by God's free, sovereign, distinguishing mercy.

This is the kind of stuff that makes you raise your voice, makes you wanna shout, make you want to tell other people about who God is. Let's pick it up in verse 12, please. 1 Timothy 1. I'm gonna probably use some NAS tonight.

I'm not switching back to NAS, but once in a while on Sunday nights, I'm gonna preach from NAS. Why? I like the NAS, so I'm gonna preach from it sometimes. ESV is close enough. I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, 1 Timothy 1 .12, who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful, putting me in to service.

God decided to use Paul to do gospel ministry. And it says in verse 13, even though I was formerly... And look at how this triplet works. Lots of times Paul uses these trilogies, our triplets, with a rising scale, an ascending scale from bad to worse.

A blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent aggressor. That's what Paul used to be. That's his testimony. And yet I was shown mercy. Wasn't deserved. He didn't earn it. God was merciful and showed Paul mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief.

He didn't understand the gospel. He didn't understand the ins and outs of gospel ministry and who Jesus really was. He's not saying he's ignorant, therefore he's not to be blamed, but he just didn't understand it.

He acted in unbelief. He goes on to say in verse 14, and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant. Even though he was a blasphemer, that he was aggressively persecuting the church, grace was greater than all Paul's sin with the faith and love which are found in the Messiah Jesus, in Christ Jesus.

And now what Paul says is very common for him in the pastoral epistles and only the pastoral epistles. It is a trustworthy statement. This is a faithful saying. What does ESV say? Okay, not all at once.

This saying is trustworthy. He says this very regularly in the pastoral epistles. It's worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners among whom I am foremost of all. Just a quick side note here.

Are you a sinner? Most people are like, yeah, of course I am. Are you a saint? Which one are you? Like alt-tab back and forth, right? Most every time you see the word sinner in the Bible, it's not used of a Christian.

Remember, Jesus Christ came to save sinners. Sinner is a lifestyle. Sinner is a, like it's a category. A drunkard is known by getting drunk all the time. A sinner is known for sinning all the time. And so in our modern language of evangelicalism, I would say I'm a sinner and that's true, but positionally, I'm a saint.

This is one of the few times, maybe the only time a Christian calls himself a sinner. And Paul has not forgotten about how he would try to persecute the church. What I'm saying is it's okay to call yourself a sinner.

Paul does here, but most of the time when you read the gospels, the word sinner is talking about unbelievers. Certainly positionally in Christ, we're saints, we're holy ones, but we still sin. And here Paul recognizes that he came into the world to save sinners among whom I am foremost of all.

I'm chief, I'm first in line, I'm first in rank. Verse 16, and yet for this reason, I found mercy in order that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate his perfect patience. When God can save the worst, we realize how patient he is, how kind he is, how merciful he is as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life.

Just how bad do you sin? Can God forgive you of all your sins? Maybe I've out sinned God's grace, but you haven't out sinned Paul. And so Paul is the example. Paul is the pattern. Paul is the one in Scripture so that we realize as bad as you are, as bad as I am, God still saves bad sinners.

If in other words, God can save Paul, could he save you? The answer is yes. And now he just has to burst out. This is just one of those things. He's on his way to talk about other things in the pastoral epistles and should women speak?

Should men pray? How should they pray? Who are the leaders of the church? What's an elder? But he just can't stand it. And here's a doxology, doxology number one. Now to the King eternal. Remember Paul, the blasphemer, Paul, the persecutor, Paul, the violent man, he's now saved.

And Paul is an apostle. Paul is a teacher. Paul is an ambassador for Jesus the King. So he has to just praise the Lord. And he says, even though I'm the worst sinner, I'm the chief sinner. He says now to the King eternal, the eternal King, immortal, never dying, invisible, the only God, the honor and glory forever and ever, amen.

I hope that's a formula you like to use. When you think of your sin and when you think of what God has done for you, it should make you praise him. If you've ever been to the doctor and you sit on that table and it's got that weird kind of white thing on top of it, paper, and your knees are dragged over the edge or on the edge rather, and the doctor gets out a little hammer and the hammer's got a little triangle, rubber end to the mallet, to the handle, and he hits your knee and what do you do?

What's that thing called that you hit with? It's a reflex hammer is what it is. Sometimes I don't know the answers to my questions. So I ask you, this particular one, I know the answer. And so I never know what to do because when he hits you with the reflex hammer, I don't wanna just block it and use my quads to not move my leg, but I also don't wanna kick too hard because I don't wanna kick his face, but I also don't want him to think that my reflexes are overly stimulated.

And so you just try to relax. And I just think that's like, they use that in medieval times, don't they? Why would they use that today? But the reaction for the Christian is if you just stop for a minute and just think what you were before God saved you, where you were supposed to be going, what you had earned, if you had died one, if you had died and gone to, where would you go?

And then all of a sudden you think about what Jesus has done and where he's put you now and where you're going and who your hope is, who your father is. It should make people very, very happy, very, very joyful, spontaneously praising God because of his salvation.

So that's the first one. While we're in 1 Timothy, why don't we go to chapter six? While we should praise God in our lives because of our past sin, we should also take comfort in gospel ministry. There are leaders here in the church.

There's some elders here tonight and some deacons and people who serve behind the scenes, both men and women as they serve in ladies' ministries. And if you've served at all in a local church, you need to know this section here.

And Paul is gonna end with another doxology in 1 Timothy chapter six, verses 13 and following. If you've ever struggled in ministry, if you've ever had hard times in ministry, if there've been bad things that have happened, if you've been called names, I've been called everything from Hitler to, I don't think I've been called Idi Amin, but that's probably next.

What do you do and how do you handle ministry and trouble in ministry? 1 Timothy chapter six, verse 13. Here's another great doxology, a hymn of praise to God. I charge you in the presence of God, 1 Timothy 6 .13, who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate.

Jesus was a real man in front of Pilate, a real man. Of course, Jesus was more than a man, but he was a man in history, in time, that you keep the commandment without staying or reproach. He's talking to Timothy, gospel ministry, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Stay at your post until you're relieved. But you're going to be relieved, which he will bring about at the proper time. And then now here we go again. This is just life for Paul. He starts thinking about Jesus and then he has to say something great about him.

Oh, if only we were like this, if only we could be more like this. He who is blessed and only sovereign, King of kings, Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality. Didn't he just say this earlier?

And dwells in inapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to him be honor and dominion, eternal dominion, amen. Now that word sovereign in verse 16, it comes from a word group that means powerful.

If you need encouragement in gospel ministry, there's someone who loves the church more than you do and that's Christ, the sovereign one. And there's a God who's powerful, absolutely omnipotent. Satan can maybe affect the church, but he can't do anything that God wouldn't allow him to do.

And then it says there, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Here's the literal participial form, the King of those kinging and the Lord of those lording. Out of all the people that would say they're a king, he's the one King.

Out of all the people who say they're lords, he's the one Lord. And he just starts praising him for who he is. And then it says a couple of very interesting things. Who possesses alone immortality, the one having immortality, the one not dying, Thanatos's death, a Thanatos not dying, dwelling in unapproachable light, this hidden God as Luther would call him.

And then here's the one that I think we want to focus on just for a moment. Who is blessed, verse 16. What do you mean God's blessed? I thought God blesses you. The Polish people thought it was very interesting that when you would say goodbye, it was a contraction of God bless you.

God be with you. God be with you is God be with you, goodbye, contracted. That word blessed there means happy, or content, or fulfilled. God is not wringing his hands with frustration in the church. God is not unhappy in the church.

He's content, as one man said, satisfied, at peace, fulfilled, and perfectly joyful. While some things please him and others do not, nothing alters God's heavenly contentment. He controls everything to his own joyous end.

No frustration, no vexation, God is content. God is not sweating because of the local church problems. He's not wringing his hands. Everything's on target. Everything's the way it should be. And if you ever want to talk to a group of elders who struggle because they're sinful, they deal with sinful people, Satan's attacking the church, here's what you want to know.

God is still on the throne. God's still building the church. God is not wringing his hands and everything's on target. God is unperturbed when it comes to church ministry. How about Jude 24 and 25? Let's go to the next one, number three.

What we're doing tonight is just looking at doxologies. Many doxologies are written by people. These are ones that are all found in the scripture. The ones written by people are fine, they're nice, they're wonderful, they're Trinitarian many times, but these are the ones that are found in scripture.

And sometimes they're in the middle of things, sometimes at the end. And here, Jude, we have this at the very end. As Pastor Harry was talking about this morning, there's this tough letter written, contend earnestly.

And then at the end, after all this stuff about false teachers, what about who God is? Praising God in spite of all the false teachers and everything else because God is able to do great things. So Jude, of course, if you have a computer, it's Jude 1 .24, but it's really only Jude 24 and following.

But let's pick it up in verse 22, so we get some context. Jude 22, and have mercy on some who are doubting, save others, snatching them out of the fire, and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

And then he bursts out. He says, now, it's like a PS. It's like a reminder. It's a last impression. When you're walking away from the book of Jude, what are you gonna be stuck with? What are you gonna remember?

This is what you remember. This is the summary. If you forget this, you forget it all. People like to contend in gospel ministry. I contend, I got a discernment ministry. Well, don't forget this. Now, to Him who is able, no matter all the dangers found in verses 4 through 16, the needs, the duties, this is the God who is able, continually able is the context, is the Greek word.

He's the omnipotent One. He's the One who's able to save forever. He is the One able to keep you from stumbling. He is the One able to make you stand in His presence with great, excuse me, to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless with great joy.

When you take a look at that word, keep you from stumbling, that word was used for taking care of someone who was sick. You ever take care of somebody who's sick? This is a word for caring for someone who's ill.

This is a word that if you take care of sheep, this is a guardian, watchful thing, taking care of someone. Whenever I think of guardians, do they still exist, Steve? Guardian angels? Yeah, they do? Okay.

Here in Worcester? Okay, all right. This is the One who keeps you from stumbling. I love this verse in Psalm 37. The steps of a man are established by the Lord and He delights in His way. When He falls, He shall not be hurled headlong because the Lord is the One who, what?

Holds His hand. I don't know how many times if you're a dad, you hold the kid's hand or you're a mom, you're holding the kid's hand and the kid just trips and about falls and if you weren't be holding onto the kid's hand, down they would go.

But here, God is the One holding our hands in the midst of these false teachers, in the midst of difficulty, in the midst of turbulence in the world. God can preserve us and then we stand before Him. Now, how do you think you stand in front of a king?

I'll tell you how criminals are in front of TV cameras. What do they do? Holding things up over their head. I think, didn't that happen with the Hernandez football player? Didn't he try to pull his shirt up over his head?

Or no, maybe he didn't have a shirt on. You guys are all looking at me like I'm speaking Polish tonight. Yeah, would you please? Actually, you know, a really neat thing just to change it up here for a second.

My two translators were students of mine and they're very adept theologically and with the language and they always are studying English. And so, I didn't really feel like I was translated. Sometimes you say a word, then they say a word and you're trying to build and there's a cadence and a pitch and you're trying to build things to crescendo and then you've got a translator and you just lose it all.

But they were right on target. And it was so much fun. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. And I would say, God is holy, holy, holy. And then Roddick was right here and he'd do exactly what I would do.

And then I'd say, God is transcendent over all. And Roddick would hear, God is transcendent over all. By the way, there's another Polish word I know. It's transcendent. Just to let you know, transcendent means transcendent.

And it was great. See, this is rough tonight. It was just really one of these times where I thought I'm glad to have these translators who know. Well, anyway, we'll get back to the passage. Look at what the writer Jude says.

We are made to stand in His presence. Can you imagine, instead of groveling on our faces because of our sin, our sin is taken care of. If you want to bow down low and worship God, certainly that's the case.

But here you can stand in His presence. Why? Because you'll be blameless. Jesus takes our blame. Jesus has given us His righteousness and we stand with great joy. Now, some people think that's our joy.

You stand before God in the last days with joy. Now, that's true that you would have joy standing before God and you think, you know what? I can't believe I'm standing before God. You'll have joy. But many commentators think this joy is God's joy.

Make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless, with great joy. And if that's the case, look at verse 25. To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, and then now something happens.

Our text in English says, be glory. What's the ESV say? Be glory. No B's there. There's not a B here. No intransitive verb B. It just says glory. This is like, you know, 4th of July fireworks, some Roman candle thing.

Glory, which is doxa, where we get doxology. God's excellent majesty. The dignity God has. I think this is what we're gonna be thinking when we stand in His presence, if we're not saying it. Look at God's glory.

Look at God's majesty. Look at God's dominion. In His absolute power over everything, in His ultimate victory over everything, He wins, and His authority. He does what He wants, as He wants, as often as He wants, only as He wants.

Before all time, and now, and forever, and as we say in Czech, amen! That's how it is. Throughout the endless ages, year after year, eon after eon. I don't know, maybe you thought this way when you were a kid, I did when I was a kid.

What do you do in heaven your whole life? What do you do in heaven floating around on some clouds, and playing harps, and heaven's boring, and where will my friends be? In the presence of God, glory, majesty, dominion, authority, who could be so awesome that you would never get bored for all eternity?

Watching them, looking at them. I've met some pretty interesting people in my life, but probably after a while they get boring. After about 10 ,000 years, I'm kind of over you. I'm over people after 1 ,000 years.

But here before God, the praise for His divine person and worship, when I was younger, we had something brand new that came out, and it was a VHS video recorder with slow motion. Now everybody's got a phone, everybody's got everything, but when I got that slow motion, and it was frame by frame, I'll tell you what I did.

I got the frame by frame, and I would record, I'm sorry to say this to you, but I'll admit it, and Steve Kulik can back me up. I would record the Los Angeles Lakers games. Because in the 80s, the Lake, because in the 80s it was the Celtics and the Lakers, right?

That's when basketball was real basketball. You didn't know who was gonna win. I think the Lakers won five times in the 80s, Celtics four, but that's just a minor point. Oh, Celtics only won three times, but Lakers five.

You often want to know, people often ask me, why did you hire Steve Kulik? Now you know. But what I would do is I would slowly, frame by frame, go through those things. And Magic Johnson doing that sky hook over Parrish, remember that?

Steve does. But I'm seriously watching frame by frame, and what do you do? You're telling your buddy, check this out, wait, look, back up, you gotta see what he does, or Michael Jordan's dunking, or Larry Bird's shot if you'd like.

See how high Larry Bird jumps off the ground. Look at this, he's an inch off the ground. I admit he was a good player, allegedly. And it was just a rewind, because look at what this person did. Nobody ever told me how to praise, because I know how to do it.

I just don't know the right person to praise, and left to myself, I'm gonna be praising myself, praising others. And here in front of God, you can just see everything's converging. The only God, our Savior, in a world where everything's plurality, there's many ways to God, to the only God, our Savior.

And there's only one way to get to this God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Glory, majesty, dominion, authority, just like this machine gun of exclamatory praise. You don't even need a verb. Ezekiel falling on his face.

We don't have to, because we won't have any sin in heaven. Peter, James, and John on their face on the Mount of Transfiguration. We won't have to, because we won't have sin in heaven. The men in the boat, God is in the boat.

Luke tells about how they were frightfully afraid, greatly afraid on their faces. We won't have to be, because we have no sin in heaven. All right, let's keep going. We have time for a couple more, I guess, Revelation 1, please.

Revelation 1, it doesn't take John the Apostle very long to just have to say something great about God. And my challenge to you is this week, as you talk, instead of talking about limited atonement, that's a nice topic.

Instead of talking about unconditional election, that's a nice topic. Instead of talking about, does God still speak today? That's a nice topic. How about just some kind of exclamation of who God is and what the Son has done?

That might be good. You say, well, how do I pray? I don't know how to pray in front of people. Well, let's pray like this with these praises. Revelation 1, let's pick it up in verse 1 to see what the context is before we hit verse 5.

Revelation 1, 1, as we read a little bit this morning, the revelation of Jesus Christ, the uncovering, the revealing of Jesus the Messiah. This full disclosure. I like full disclosure. Here it comes. Which God gave him to show to his bondservants, the things which might shortly take place.

And he sent and communicated it by his angel to his bondservant, John. Instead of the words like in Daniel that are sealed up until the end of time, concealed and sealed, here we have the unveiling, which God gives as a reward for Jesus's perfect life, perfect submission, perfect atonement, perfect resurrection so that we could see.

And it goes from God to Christ, to the angels, to John, to us. And it's gonna happen soon. Once it starts, hold on. It's like going down the roller coaster. It's gonna happen shortly. It's gonna happen soon.

Verse 2, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. And now the beatitude is given. The blessing is given. I was reading this this morning thinking, I'd like to have a blessing from God and you'd like to have a blessing from God.

And it says, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and heed the things which are written in it for the time is near. This epic, this season is close by. And now look at the salutation, John to the seven churches that are in Asia.

Grace to you, that's the Greek blessing. Demerited favor from God. Because of Christ's work and peace, this whole shalom living Hebrew blessing. From him who is and who was and who is to come. Haven't met too many people who could be like that.

Certainly the eternal God who is and who was and who is to come. And from the seven spirits who are before his throne and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness. His ministry in eternity past, his ministry on earth, his ministry in heaven will all prove that he's faithful and true, trustworthy, reliable witness.

The firstborn of the dead. Out of everybody that's been raised from the dead, he stands in the front, he stands at the beginning. He's the best of the best who have been raised from the dead. Other people have been raised from the dead, but he has supremacy, he's at the beginning, the arche, the Greek word would be.

First importance, supreme authority. And the ruler of the kings of the earth. Whether that's Nero, the mission, current ones, Pontius Pilate. And now here it comes again. Here is a doxology, here's a word of praise.

Paul did this, Jude did this, now we see John doing this. And if I remember right, the only time I think there's a present tense verb for the love of Christ. Directly. To him that loves us all the time.

That's the literal. To Jesus who loves me all the time. He loves me, he loves me not. No, to him who loves me all the time. Now John isn't perfect when he says this, but to him who loves us all the time, over and over and over, always present tense, he loves us, the loving one.

And John is writing this from where? Carol, where were you six months ago? Patmos, standing there at Patmos. Remember, who do they put on Patmos? People that are rebels against the Caesar, rebels against the emperor, in persecution, in trials, in tribulations.

People thrown into jail, people killed. To him who loved us and released us from our sins by his blood. And so John just starts going off into this praise. To him who loves us and released us, past tense, from our sins by his blood.

And when you see that word blood, what do you think of? You think of a theological word that just is going to explode. Maybe I could put it this way. If I was a kid, I would love those things that you buy in the store, and they're these hard sponges that are super tight, maybe in a little capsule, and you put it in the water, and what happens?

That's right. What did they call them growing up? Do we know? I think the ones that I used when I was growing up were called, I hate to admit it and say it out loud in the Sunday night service, but Mario can take this out of the tape.

I think they're called grow beasts. You put the beast in the water and they grow. Is that right? Just trying to bring the kids into this. You adults are looking at me. I'm preaching to the kids too. By the way, it was really cool this morning when I was talking about Jesus said to the waves in the sea, and He said, be muzzled, be still, be quiet.

And I said, shut up is what He said. The kids came up to me afterwards and we had some visitors and one of the kids said, Jesus said shut up to the waves and they did. I said, yes, now you go try it. And then He said to me, hey, can you believe people have to chop out ice to get baptized in the middle of the winter?

I said, yeah, I know, that's obedience. And here John says to Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood. He's not talking about blood alone saves. Somebody who's in the hermeneutics class last Tuesday, what figure of speech is this word blood?

It's a word that is put in water and explodes, it grows, it's called a metonym. The vicious, vicarious, substitutionary death of Jesus Christ, penal substitution. He died in our place from our sins, not His sins and He made us to be a kingdom, priest to His God and Father.

To Him be the glory and dominion forever and ever, amen. You think the book was over, but it's not. To Him who loves us through distresses, through persecutions, continually caring for us and then one day kingdom of priest and a holy nation.

All right, how many do I have left? I have a lot left, but we're not gonna use them all. All right, let's go to Hebrews chapter 13, please. Hebrews 13, great doxology in Hebrews 13. How many chapters in Hebrews?

13, let me go through this quickly, all these exhortations and you can just feel this kind of building up, the pressure before the steam has to be let up. When I was a kid, I was frightened of many things, including, I hate to admit this, but I will, I was frightened of the pressure cooker in the kitchen.

Because my dad one time said to me, you don't play with that pressure cooker, it's like a hand grenade. That's all I need to know, dad, don't mess around. I remember mom would play with the hand grenade by putting like a fork up and under, kind of relieving the pressure early and I'm like, that's a hand grenade.

Be careful. But sooner or later, the kettle's got to whistle, the kettle's got to have some steam release and can't stand it, same thing here. Writer of Hebrews does this exact same thing. Why is it that Paul, that John, that Jude, that the writer of Hebrews, that David in the Psalms, they all have these doxologies?

I wonder if there's anything we could learn from that. He says in chapter 13, verse one, I'm not gonna do an exposition, a whole chapter, we'll just make it quick. He's got these 10 concluding exhortations.

Let love of the brethren continue. Give some Philadelphia love to the brothers. Verse two, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Yes, I just showed you that Jesus Christ is greater than the angels, he's greater than Aaron, he's greater than the old covenant, he's greater than Moses. And he's got some exhortations in light of that.

Some angels have been entertained without knowing it. So be hospitable. Don't be suspicious of strangers, be hospitable. Verse three, remember the prisoners as though in prison with them. Would you like to be visited in prison as those who are ill-treated since you yourselves also are in the body?

Verse four, let marriage be held in honor among all and let the marriage bed be undefiled for fornicators and adulterers will judge. Then he talks about don't covet in verse five. Let your character be free from the love of money, being content with what you have.

He himself said, I'll never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. So that we confidently say, the Lord is my helper. Well, not be afraid, what shall man do to me? Evaluate your leaders properly. Verse seven, remember those who led you, spoke the word of God to you, consider the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.

There's Christian sacrifice found in verse nine through 10, through 11, 12, 13. God-pleasing sacrifice is found in verse 15. Obeying leaders in verse 17. And it's all building up to what? It's building up to this final doxology.