Personal Notes

Psalm 37 and Philippians 1 as the Scripture Readings

Our Old Testament reading comes from the book of Psalm, Psalm 37, 37 -40. If you would please stand and honor the reading of God's word. Mark the blameless and behold the upright, for there is a future for the man of peace.

But transgressors shall be altogether destroyed. The future of the wicked shall be cut off. The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord. He is their stronghold in the time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them.

He delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in Him.

New Testament scripture is Philippians 1, beginning in the last part of verse 18, through verse 26. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out from my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I am hard-pressed between the two. My desire is to depart, to be with Christ, for that is far better.

But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.

You may be seated.

The Setting for Hebrews 13 and the Pastor's Personal Notes

Let's take our Bibles this morning and turn to Hebrews chapter 13. Hebrews 13. Just a word before we look at this text. Obviously my voice isn't what it should be, but I want to lay aside any kind of suspicions.

It is not because of wrestling yesterday that my voice is the way it is. And I have witnesses to that fact.

All right?

I didn't yell a lot yesterday. I found out I had a touch of pneumonia, and so hence my voice is not quite what it should be. Now having laid that aside, having saved my reputation, let's turn to the book of Hebrews chapter 13.

I'm going to be reading verses 18 through 25. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this, in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.

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 everything 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. 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 you all.

Let's pray.

Father, as we open the text of Scripture, our prayer is that it would change us. Father, we know that that requires us to listen, to understand, and to determine then, by your grace, to change. And so now I ask that you would grant that.

Help us to understand these words, for the purpose of changing, that we might glorify you even more. Thank you, in Jesus' name. Amen. The other day I walked through the kitchen, and I saw a stack of envelopes with addresses on them on the table.

My wife had taken the time to write a number of personal notes to some folks. These were not formal letters by any means. They were personal notes. They were expressions of well-wishes and encouragements and greetings and even gratitude for gifts that we had received.

And we all love personal notes. Something of the person comes through that doesn't normally come through in some kind of a formal letter. Well, as we come to the end of this magnificent epistle, this written sermon, our pastor writer includes a few personal notes as he draws all of this to a conclusion.

Now, I've chosen to deal with the personal notes before I deal with the prayer that's right in the middle of them all, verses 20 and 21. We're going to end our study of the book of Hebrews with verses 20 and 21, but you've got these personal notes on either side of that prayer.

And like all personal notes, they say something about the writer as well as what he desires for the recipients and what he desires from the recipients. There's some personal notes there that he has for them.

And as you read those notes, you get a sense of what Christian relationships maybe ought to be or what we ought to do. But what he does is essentially saying, what should you concern yourself with in these days of difficulty when believers are marginalized and sometimes even persecuted?

And so in these personal notes, he kind of addresses that. What should you be concerned with? He's talking to these people as he talks about some of the things that are going on in his life and what he hopes to happen.

He is essentially giving them an idea of what they ought to be concerned about. And so for us, we're going to ask the question, what should we be concerned about? What should we be concerned about as we end this great epistle?

Concern Yourself with Prayer

Well, here's the first thing he says in verses 18 and 19. Concern yourself with prayer. Concern yourself with prayer. Verses 18 and 19. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things.

I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you all the sooner. Concern yourself with prayer. Every congregation should devote itself to prayer. And you're saying right now, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know that.

Yeah, we get it. I mean, do you have to say it? Well, yeah, because that's the text for today. There's no surprise here. There's no surprise here in this. And our writer certainly asked for prayer from these folks.

But why?

Well, after all that he said in this epistle, one reason why is because we have the priestly duty as priests before God to intercede for others before Jesus' throne of grace. We have the responsibility of praying for one another.

Now, we do that, but have you ever thought of the fact that you have that duty which was purchased at the cost of Jesus' life? You know, no one could enter the presence of God before without sacrificing that once a year.

Now we can go to God's presence whenever we want because of the once-for-all sacrifice that Jesus made. And so we have a duty then to pray for one another. I don't know if you know, but sometimes prayer is the only thing we have.

It should be the thing we always do, but sometimes it's all that we have that we can use to help others. And so we have to pray. There was nothing they could do for their former pastor, it seems, but to pray for him.

He was gone. What could they do? Well, they could pray. But what are some things you need to pray for? Well, let's look at the circumstances of this request to kind of get an idea of what are the things we should pray for.

The one asking is obviously a leader. He's a leader in this congregation or was at one time. He has spent 13 chapters writing a sermon for them, right? He is, I believe, a pastor. It appears he was part of the congregation to whom he writes because he prays that God would restore him to them.

This implies that he had at one time ministered in the congregation. And we've seen in the rest of the book that he had detailed knowledge of what these people were going through. And so he's closely connected to them.

He's restored, gives you the idea of maybe that he was taken away. He has a clear conscience, he says, determined to do honorable things. Whatever he is or wherever he is, he feels the need to respond with a clear conscience and right actions to some sort of pressure.

In other words, he's praying that he would act in such a way that he doesn't bring reproach on the gospel. And quite possibly, you see the personal notes of a pastor who's maybe run afoul of the authorities.

He knows persecution. He even probably knows some of the people who have fallen away that he has warned about in this very epistle. For him, these are not just a theoretical falling away. He probably knows the people who have fallen away.

And he's written this epistle for the purpose of encouraging perseverance in the faith. The whole book is about that very theme, don't abandon Jesus. And now he's asking his congregation to pray for his faithfulness and his perseverance.

So he says, pray that your response to persecution will not bring reproach on the gospel. You know, we can respond to persecution in such a way that the gospel gets lost. You can respond to words of hate with hateful words.

The violence of abortion can be met with the violence of murder on someone else's part. Don't let your response to persecution bring reproach on the gospel. Be careful about that. He says he has a clear conscience.

He's not praying for a clear conscience. He says he has a clear conscience. Earlier, the pastor had referred to the cleansing of the conscience. He talked about that in this book. We've gone through the chapters where he talked about the fact that our consciences have been cleansed.

He's talking about the objective there, the objective cleansing of our conscience so that the defilement of sin has been removed so that we now have the right to approach God directly. We can now approach God directly.

Here he speaks now of the subjective transformation of the conscience. That is, the grace of God working over time to give you new desires and new motives and transformed ways of looking at things and speaking.

And so that's what he says here. I have a clear conscience. That is, I have a conscience that isn't accusing me. The apostle Paul says the same thing in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 12, if you want to look there.

2 Corinthians 1, verse 12, for our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom, but by the grace of God and supremely so toward you.

In other words, he's saying my conscience isn't accusing me. I believe I've done well in this ministry. And that's what our pastor is saying. And that conscience says to him, be careful so that you act towards your persecutors in ways that honor Jesus and do not bring reproach on the gospel.

I love the prayer requests that we heard in our New Testament reading this morning where the apostle Paul essentially says, pray that I'll have sufficient courage so that now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

I love that. I love that passage because he's saying, this is how I want you to pray, that if the emperor lets me go, people will see Jesus and pray that if he chops my head off, people will see Jesus.

I love that passage. And you've heard me mention, I've referenced it many times, and I'll probably reference it a hundred more times before I die. But I love that passage because he says, the only thing that matters is that Jesus is magnified.

That's it.

What happens to me is not the main issue. I am not the main player in this drama.

Jesus is.

And no matter what happens to me, I want him to be exalted. No matter what goes on in my life, whether good, he says, whether I live or whether I die, whatever the spectrum is, no matter what happens, I want people to see Jesus.

That's the only thing that matters to me. Not what happens to me, but the magnification of Jesus. And that's what our pastor is saying here. He's saying, look, pray. I have a clear conscience and I want to do what's right.

And so pray for me. So pray that you'll respond in supernatural ways that reflect a faithful conscience. That's what we need to be praying for. He says, pray that I'll be restored to you soon. He prefers face-to-face ministry to correspondence.

This is all that he has, but he prefers face-to-face ministry. He's talked to them earlier, right? About encouraging, exhorting one another daily. He's talked about that. He's talked about in chapter 10, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together so that you can help one another.

He says, I want to be a part of that. I want to be a part of that. I want to be with you face-to-face so I can minister to you. And so what does he tell us to do? He says, pray because it's your duty.

Pray because it's your duty. A duty that is yours because of the sacrifice of Jesus. Pray for your leaders, that they live in such a way that they will magnify Jesus and live lives that are worthy of imitation.

I hope you're praying that way. I hope you're praying that way. And then pray for one another, that you will persevere in a way that does not bring reproach on the gospel, that you will respond in gospel ways to people who hate the gospel.

So he says, concern yourself with prayer. In these days when we're marginalized and maybe even going to be persecuted, he says, concern yourself with prayer. Now, he also says, concern yourself with the preaching of God's word in verse 22.

Concern Yourself with the Preaching of God's Word

I appeal to you, brothers. I appeal to you, brothers. Bear with my word of exhortation for I've written to you briefly. He now appeals to them. Bear with my sermon, which was intended to exhort you since it is brief.

Now, I know when you read that verse, you're going, this is a brief sermon? If our pastor would get up and read this sermon, it would take us a couple hours, right? Well, be that as it may, maybe they're used to longer sermons than you are.

I don't know. But the point is, he says, bear with it or endure this sermon. Not endure it like I know it's boring. Not endure it like I know you got to sit here and listen. I think it has more of the sense of staying with it.

Don't let that sermon leave you. Bear with it. Endure it. Keep on it. You know, in Romans 15, the apostle Paul says that we have hope through the encouragement and endurance of the scriptures.

Okay?

So he means you get the sense that this, that you ought to stick with the sermon. Stay with it. Don't give up on it. Now, that, of course, gets me to ask the question, how do you approach sermons? I mean, I know how I approach sermons.

I know it from my end, but how about your end? How do you approach sermons? He's saying endure with it. Let it stick with you. You stick with it. You stay with it. Is that how you approach sermons? Is it just part of your weekly religious exercise?

Today is the day I hear a sermon. Okay? It's Sunday. Sermon day. Part of singing in sermons. That's what we do on Sunday. It's just part of our religious experience. If it's just what we do, those sermons will not have an effect on you.

They will not have an effect. Maybe you come anticipating or hoping for an interesting sermon, maybe even an entertaining one. You know, I remember when Chuck Swindoll was the guy on the radio. He was at the top of his game.

He was, everybody loved Chuck Swindoll. And I went to Grace Theological Seminary, and every year our seminary would have a Bible conference in the spring, and they would get these people to come in and speak, and it was open to the community as well.

And one year we had Chuck Swindoll. And I'm telling you, the community showed up in droves. I mean, they had cars parked on the grass on campus. I remember walking on campus and seeing all these cars.

Well, they were all there to hear Chuck. He was just a very popular preacher, but my question is why? I know one reason why is he's, the guy knows how to speak, right? But I wonder if that was part of it.

I just wonder, you know, oh right, this guy, he can speak. You know what? People approach preaching like they approach Ezekiel. If you look at Ezekiel 33, you see God speaking to Ezekiel, and he says this to him.

Now listen to what he says. As for you, son of man, your people are talking together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, saying to each other, come and hear the message that has come from the Lord.

Now that sounds good, doesn't it? Come and let's hear a message. This message has come from the Lord. My people come to you as they usually do and sit before you to hear your words, but they do not put them into practice.

Their mouths speak of love, but their hearts are greedy for unjust gain. Indeed, to them, you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words, but do not put them into practice.

Do you hear what he's saying? Ezekiel was a gifted speaker, and people loved to hear him preach. He was like a guy singing love songs and playing an instrument. Oh man, can he ever preach? Isn't that great?

I love that sermon, but they didn't do anything with it, right? Be careful. Be careful. If you're not interested in what God says, but how good the speaker was, you're gonna miss it, and you're not going to change, and you won't be equipped to persevere.

Maybe you come with a movie critic attitude. You know, Pastor Andrew is good, but Pastor Tim, he knows how to use the adjectives, and he's got lots of good stories. I love Pastor Tim, but Pastor Andrew brings a much needed youthful approach to the pulpit.

And you know what? I'm not so dumb as to think that you're not out there making comparisons.

Stop it.

Don't do that. Listen, if you major on the messenger,.

You lose the message.

Don't forget that.

Okay?

Whatever any four of us who get up here to preach have to say, don't major on the messenger. Don't do that. That will not equip you. That's not bearing with the sermon. It's not enduring it as he wants you to do.

He wants you to hear God, and that's what you need to do. You need to be concerned with the preaching of the word, and so you need to come to the word preach so that you will change. You need to come in here every Sunday with the idea, I'm going to change from what I hear.

It may not, it may be something you need to change in what you do. It may be to change your attitude. It may be just to change your knowledge that you get to know more of God that you didn't know before, whatever the case may be, but you need to walk in here every Sunday with the idea, no matter who's speaking and no matter what the message is, I've come here to change.

God expects me to grow and to change, not just to hear an interesting sermon. You need to come to the word preach so that you really hear and understand, especially with this epistle, you really hear and you understand the danger of falling away.

Over all these months of going through this book, you have to come with that idea. I've got to hear the danger of falling away. You also needed to come so you could fill your heart with the majesty of Jesus and the fact that he's a divine high priest and that he's a forever priest after the order of Melchizedek whose sacrifice purges you from all your sin and defilement with a once for all offering that never has to be offered again so your entire life, you are free to come to God and to lay your heart before him.

That's why you need to listen to these sermons and then you need to feed on the promises of God that he gives so that you can, by believing in those promises, be fueled to persevere when the pressure is on, when the heat comes.

You will know the promises of God and you will believe those promises and that will fuel your perseverance. Concern yourself with the preaching of God's word and the hard work of remaining faithful to Jesus, you need the preaching of the word of God.

Concern Yourself with the Fellowship of Believers

And then there's one other thing he says you need to be concerned about. He says, concern yourself with the fellowship of believers. Verses 23 and 24. 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. He says, be encouraged. I'm going to arrive with Timothy soon assuming that I can get home. I'm gonna be with Timothy.

Now this is a Timothy we know from the rest of the New Testament. And as you read the New Testament, you see his name popping up all the time. He was mentored by the apostle Paul, you recall. And Paul actually calls him a co-laborer and calls him my son in the faith.

They had a very close relationship. And he carried on the ministry of the gospel when the apostle Paul was gone. And this text indicates that like Paul and our Jewish pastor writer, that Timothy had also experienced some sort of imprisonment.

This is the only, this is the only reference to it at all in all of the Bible. But evidently Timothy had also experienced some imprisonment and he was released. And so our friend is saying, hey, I'm bringing Timothy with me to encourage you.

It would be like me saying to you, hey, I'm bringing home with me Lance Quinn. You remember Lance's ministry, right? Some of us can't forget it. I'm bringing home James Greer or I'm bringing with me Peter LaRuffa.

You all know those guys. You know those men, the depth of their ministries, their experiences. You've heard them minister the word of God. And so you anticipate great blessings in the fellowship of those men.

And so what he's trying to express to them is I wanna encourage you with this, that I'm bringing Timothy to fellowship with us. And then he says, look, I send my greetings to you as do all the believers with me, including our friends from Italy.

Often I'll be on the phone with a friend or I'll be with a co-laborer at a conference somewhere. And I'll often say to them, hey, greet your wife and your kids for me. When I'm on the phone with John Street or one of my dear friends, I'll say, hey, greet Janie and the kids for me.

What do I mean by that? Well, it goes much deeper than just say, hey, say hi to your family. That's not what I mean and I don't think that's what anybody says. I'm saying it because this brother and his wife and kids are dear friends.

I know them too. I'm trying to communicate with them. I know them. I want them to know I'm still thinking about them. I want them to know I value them. I want them to know that I think our relationship is a deep and genuine friendship and I want them to know that I value it.

And so I'll say, hey, greet your wife and kids for me, would you? That's what I'm trying to communicate. When I get up and preach in Dimuk I in the Dimuk Valley in Romania, whatever the churches are in the valley when I go out there and preach, almost invariably I get up and I say what?

I bring you greetings from LaRue Baptist Church. Now, you know, what do I mean by that? Well, I'm saying to them, God's people in LaRue have great affection for you and they know you and they think of you.

And they also hear, remember, we're all in this together, aren't we? There's a church thousands of miles away that's in the battle with you as well. And I bring you greetings from them. Now, what's interesting is the pastor singles out for greetings their leaders.

In all the New Testament epistles, that's not done. This is the only one where the leaders are singled out for greetings. He wants to encourage the leader. I believe he wants to encourage the leaders by letting them know that although he's been away, he holds them in great affection.

When I send greetings, I'm saying you're important to me. And that's what he's saying to them. I want to greet you guys. And he wants to encourage the congregation by doing that. He wants to encourage the congregation to hold their shepherds in high regard and to value their labors on their behalf.

In a way, he's speaking to the congregation and say, respect those guys. They're giving their life for you. Hold them in high regard for the labor they have. But he also greets all the saints as well.

He reminds them of the great affection that he has for them. Even though he's far away, he wants them to know that he has great affection for them and he wants them to know that they're not the only ones in the battle.

They're not the only ones in the battle. So concern yourself with the fellowship of believers. Concern yourself with the fellowship of believers so that in the battle for faithfulness, you're not alone.

You cannot stay true to Jesus by walking alone. You need one another. You need one another.

Okay?

We need one another. Not just in perseverance, but in tragedy and heartache. We need one another. So concern yourself with the fellowship of believers. Well, your heavenly father sent this epistle to you to encourage you to remain faithful to Jesus.

That's the message of this book. Abandon Jesus and you have no hope. But because of who Jesus is and because of what he promises, you can persevere. You can remain faithful. And now through this unknown pastor, he says, you can remain faithful as you devote yourself to prayer, as you devote yourself to the preaching of the word of God, as you devote yourself to the fellowship of the saints.

You need all of those things if you're going to persevere. So what changes do you need to make? I told you, you need to come in ready to change. What changes are you going to make? What do you need to do in terms of fellowship with other believers?

What do you need to do in terms of praying for one another? What about the fellowship, right? Where do you need to change? Ask God to reveal that to you. Prayerfully ask God to reveal that to you and then pray for the grace to make those changes.

Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for even these personal notes from someone we never know, we don't know. We thank you that by them, the spirit encourages us and helps us. Father, help us now to make the changes that we need to make in our prayer, in the way we feast on the word of God when it's preached, and in our fellowship with one another.

Help us, we pray. God, we don't want to be a stagnant people. We don't want to be a church on the corner where people just come on Sunday to do their thing. We want to be a church that's alive and vibrant and growing and changing and becoming more like Jesus as individuals and as a body.

Help us, Lord, to be that kind of a church that's alive and vibrant and effective. Help us, we pray. As we pray, as we listen, as we fellowship, help us to be that way and we'll thank you in Jesus' name, amen.