Final Exhortation

Good morning!

Here we are at our last message in the book of Hebrews.

This is the 50th message in this series and it has been a wonderful ride.

I have really enjoyed this series and I’m sad that it is over, but I am also excited about what God has for us next.

As we begin today, I want to take a moment to review what we discussed last week.

Last week we looked at verses seven through sixteen in Hebrews chapter thirteen.

In that section, the author challenges the church to look back to those that discipled them and founded the church.

He told them to carefully observe the outcome of their lives.

By carefully looking at their lives, we can see the results of obedience.

The goal isn’t to copy their lives, but to learn from what they experienced.

We talked about the difference between dead religion and an active relationship with God.

I shared with you that if we are doing anything for God that wasn’t initiated by God, that is dead religion.

There was a temptation for the churches in Rome to return to their old festivals in an effort to commune with their families and God.

However, those customs were created to point God’s people to the messiah.

To go back to those traditions wouldn’t bring them closer to God, but further away because it neglected the work that Jesus has done.

Religious activity and a relationship with God aren’t the same things.

We can be busy little bee’s and our lives be empty because our work is pushing us further from God not bringing us closer.

We identified what has motivated generations of people into religious activity and that is our desire to be pleasing to God.

If you think back over your life, there was much that you did in hopes that it would make God happy with you.

The sad reality is that all that God doesn’t want our works, all He wants for us to do is to trust in Jesus and abide in him.

God’s desire is not for us to be busy, but for us to join Him in the work that he is already doing.

When we are busy with what we think will please God, we miss the opportunities to join Him because we are focused on the wrong things.

It is only through abiding that we can come to know Jesus and therefore share Him with others.

As we learn to abide, it becomes a natural part of our lives.

God’s goal has always been to restore us to Himself and this is how He has chosen to do it.

This is our goal as a church, to know God, by experience as we abide in him daily.

Whether you have only been visiting for a while or you have been a member from the beginning of TGP West, the message has been the same, abide in Christ.

Today as we finish up this study, it is setting us up for what God has in store for us next.

We will talk about that next week.

But I want all of you to be aware, that just because we are finished with this study doesn’t mean we are done telling our stories.

Today, let’s read our final passage in Hebrews and dive into it.

Hebrews 13:17–19 CSB

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, since they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they can do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. 18 Pray for us, for we are convinced that we have a clear conscience, wanting to conduct ourselves honorably in everything. 19 And I urge you all the more to pray that I may be restored to you very soon.

Listen to your Elders.

I was talking with Carey yesterday morning, and I shared with him that this first point makes me feel a bit icky.

Throughout history, we see so many examples of Pastors taking advantage of people and citing passages like this one to justify the control they are wanting.

It wouldn’t take us long to come up with a pretty extensive list of men who have purposefully led people astray for personal gain.

Knowing all of that, I want to be careful of how I communicate this point.

In most of the cases of pastors abusing power, there was no one in those churches that had the authority to challenge the one in control.

This is not the case at TGP churches.

TGP churches are elder-led, as seen in the early church, and one of the many benefits of that model is that the pastor doesn’t have the final say.

The elders, as a group, pray and seek God’s word before making decisions.

The church as a whole can also find comfort in knowing that the elders were not appointed by a select few, but were affirmed by the whole congregation as those that God has called to that leadership role.

And to date, they have all been unanimous affirmations.

I felt that it was important to walk through that this morning as we consider what the author of Hebrews is telling the churches to do.

Look at verse 17 with me again.

Hebrews 13:17 CSB

17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, since they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they can do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.

God has placed elders in churches to guide and teach the members in matters of faith and spirituality.

It is our job to lead you in correct theology and application of that theology in your daily lives.

As we teach, the goal is that we would all become more like Christ as we learn to abide in Him.

I can say with 100% confidence that this is our only goal.

There is no other agenda.

I was thinking about this idea yesterday morning and God showed me something that I think all of us can benefit from.

I went on a trail run down the Glenn Emery Trail with Carey and a mutual friend, Andy.

As you guys know, Carey was a cross fit coach for years where he literally taught people how to work out.

When we met up yesterday morning, it was around 32 degrees.

I got out of the truck and Carey said something to the effect, “somebody looks like a runner.”

He was poking fun at me because I as decked out in all the running gear.

He made a comment that he was trying to decide on how many layers to wear so that he didn’t get too cold at the start, but not to hot at the end.

I was layered up and ignored his council. (first mistake)

I was thinking, “I’ve run in the cold before, I know what to wear.”

Right before we began, Carey and Andy were discussing the pace, and Carey’s suggestion was that we just run where we were comfortable.

I’m way too competitive for that. (second mistake)

So we take out on the run.

For the first mile and a half, I paced right behind Carey, but then I got fully winded and couldn’t keep up.

He waited for Andy and I at the turnaround point which was about two miles in.

When we stopped, I immediately began to remove layers of clothing.

After we caught our breath, we headed back down the trail to where we parked.

This time, I didn’t even try to keep up with Carey.

I felt like Andy was probably going to be more my pace.

As we were running, every now and then I would get a glimpse of Carey’s blue shirt through the trees and I would try to pick up my pace to catch him.

It didn’t work.

I would get winded again and have to walk for a bit to catch my breath.

Andy and I traded positions a few times, but I was really wanting to catch Carey.

As I was running, and getting more and more tired, I found myself looking way down the trail looking for Carey and in doing so, I took my eyes off the path and ended up rolling an ankle on the roots in the trail.

Not badly, but enough to make running less fun.

You would think that I would have learned my lesson, but no, I ended up rolling both ankles by the time we got done.

I’m sharing this story this morning as an example of what not to do.

I had a guy, who coaches for a living, give me two valuable pieces of advice and I ignored them.

The results of those decisions ended in discomfort.

About the last half a mile, I was talking to God about today’s message on Hebrews and He showed me what I had just done.

God had put a person in my life who was more than qualified to lead me and I ignored his input because of my pride.

Carey’s intention was not to hold me back but to set me up to be as successful as possible.

He gave me solid advice that he has learned over his career and I disregarded it because I thought I knew better.

As I look at this first verse in our passage for today, I want us to see the parallel.

God has placed elders in our lives so that they can guide us.

As a side note, Ben and Carey are my elders as well, we don’t outrank each other.

I want you to all have the confidence that when it comes to matters of church life, spiritual life, or just life life, our commitment as Elders is to join you in seeking God for direction.

We don’t have all the answers, but we do have past experiences with God that we can share.

More importantly, our desire is not to be good advice-givers, but to see all of you experience God for yourselves.

As you experience God for yourself, you learn about who He is and His desire to know you personally.

That is far better than even the best advice.

In the second half of verse seventeen, the author says that you should “obey and submit with joy, not grief, for that would be unprofitable for you.”

When I didn’t take Carey’s instructions yesterday, it was unprofitable for me.

Thankfully, there have been very few times in my eldership that I have had to deal with someone who was causing grief.

However, I know that all of us have a tendency to want to do life on our own.

God is constantly challenging me and as I learn, I pass those challenges to you as God leads.

It is at those times that all of us have to decide how we are going to respond.

Will we receive with joy or with grief?

If you have never worked on a church staff, let me tell you, it can be quite challenging at times.

Through conversation this week, I was reminded of some past leadership roles I had at other churches and how difficult the people were to deal with.

The call to leadership in a church is not a cushy job.

Church life can often get messy, but it is my goal and that of our elders, that we can walk together through the good and bad in a way that glorifies God and teaches all of us.

Because of the difficulty that comes with the job, the author asks the church to pray for them.

Pray for your Elders.

Hebrews 13:18–19 CSB

18 Pray for us, for we are convinced that we have a clear conscience, wanting to conduct ourselves honorably in everything. 19 And I urge you all the more to pray that I may be restored to you very soon.

Pray for us daily.

Please.

If the elders are not on your daily prayer list, add us.

This is both selfishly and unselfishly motivated.

I want your prayers because I need God to be the one guiding me.

We, like everyone else, struggle with our flesh.

Your prayers are to our benefit and yours!

We want to lead you as we are led by God, and we need the Holy Spirit’s constant guidance to accomplish that goal.

This is not a request to pray for us when you happen to think about it.

This is a request that you intentionally pray for your elders every day.

In every church experience that I have had that didn’t go well, it was because those that were in control were leading from their own wisdom and were not seeking God.

We have all experienced life outside of abiding in God and know the results of that kind of living.

Pray for us that our desire to walk with God increases every day and that the inclination to lead from our own wisdom would decrease every day.

If we are leading from our knowledge and wisdom, the church will fail to be a church.

There are plenty of social clubs out there that have good leaders and that are doing good things.

That is not our goal.

Our goal is to know God, by experience, and then share that with others so that they can have their own experiences with God.

As we abide in Christ, He will lead us to the people and the places that He is working and we will be able to join Him.

One of my greatest fears as a pastor is that I may miss God and lead you in the wrong direction.

Pray for the other elders and me, that God would create in us more desire every day to know Him.

Verse nineteen is one of the reasons that many scholars believe that the author was in jail when he wrote this letter.

This request for prayer is in the present tense and communicates that we should “keep on praying”.

The author tells us in verse seventeen that, as leaders, we are going to be held accountable for those under our leadership.

This should be a sobering thought for all of us in leadership in the church, not just the elders.

James 3:1 CSB

1 Not many should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we will receive a stricter judgment.

God has placed a call on our life to watch over and care for others.

When we stand before God, we will have to account for how we led.

Pray for us as we endeavor to lead the church as God leads us.

Over the past year, God has had a particular goal for us.

While we have been learning what it looks and feels like, He has been working in our lives and the lives of people around us.

However, the job is not done.

We are to continue to share our stories.

Your story is a story worth sharing.

The author has spent a significant amount of time detailing the theology of being a Christ-follower, showing that Jesus was who he said that he was

Jesus was the son of God.

He took the time to show that in so many different ways so that there could be no doubt in the minds of the believers where they stood.

Over the last year, we have diligently walked through this book so that we could see ourselves in the proper perspective.

We have come to see how God has been working from the beginning to restore OUR relationship with Himself.

The redemptive history of God’s people is our redemptive story.

All that God has done in your life is your story.

That could range from the impact someone else’s story had on your life, to your salvation, you hearing God speak into your life for the first time, to seeing God do miraculous things in your life.

We all have a story to tell and that story is never done.

Each new day is an opportunity for God to work in our lives and an opportunity for us to share that with someone else.

Your story won’t be complete until you return to heaven.

As we abide in Christ and we see him work in our lives, we have stories, and those stories are worth sharing.

They are the stories of God redeeming us and drawing us to Himself.

They are stories of God loving us when we thought we were unlovable.

They are stories of God being right with us through pain, sorrow, healing, and joy.

You may look at your own life and feel like it has nothing of value to offer the world and I would counter that with a resounding no!

Your story has the power to introduce a broken world to healing God.

At the end of this letter, we find the formal benediction.

Benedictions are something that we use very often in Baptist churches, but they are a powerful way of closing up a service.

The author of Hebrews uses these last few words to bless and encourage the church as he closes out his message.

I’d like to read this over you as we begin to close out our service today.

Receive it this morning as the blessing that it is to us all.

Hebrews 13:20–25 CSB

20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. 22 Brothers and sisters, I urge you to receive this message of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. 23 Be aware that our brother Timothy has been released. If he comes soon enough, he will be with me when I see you. 24 Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who are from Italy send you greetings. 25 Grace be with you all.

Pray.