Dennis Tuuri

Psalm 110 is critical for understanding what the sermon to the Hebrews is all about. And as you’ll notice, if you have the handout for today, the outline, again, I put the overall structure of I think the way the sermon works itself out. And at the very center of that is Jesus Christ, a priest like Melchizedek, high priest of good things to come. And Jesus is described at the heart of the sermon to the Hebrews in terms from Psalm 110 where he is the priest.

He’s been talked about in the section leading up to this as a priest, faithful and having endurance and compassion, but he’s also a king. He’s a priest who’s a king. And he’s a king who is executing his wrath against his enemies. And so the Hebrews are warned, you know, that we don’t have here, you know, a passive ruler. We have one who is actively ruling in the midst of the world. The very prologue to the whole sermon had right at the center the bright shining of Jesus the fourth day sun moon and stars rulers and Jesus rules and in that rule he destroys his enemies and he’s about as our sermon to the Hebrews is written to destroy the enemies who claim to be pious followers of the Old Testament to be the circumcised to have privilege because of their reception of the sacrament.

So we come now to kind of the summation of what it’s all about. Long sermon, wonderful material, and we’re reaching the end now. And after this, there’s a short personal request for prayer that I’ll talk on next week. And then the great benediction at the end, which is not, you know, instruction to us again, but rather it’s a benediction that God would empower us to do what we’re supposed to do. And then some more personal stuff at the end and closing off.

So this is sort of the end of the sermon formally leading up to the benediction to enable us to achieve this. So it has this, you know, this is the culmination of the sermon in terms of what’s our proper response to the gospel that we’ve heard in this sermon to the Hebrews.

So today’s text is found in chapter 13, verses 15 and 16, and it’s just a wonderful summation. Please stand as we read these two verses, Hebrews 13:15 and 16.

Therefore by him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. But do not forget to do good and to share. For with such sacrifices, God is well pleased.

Let’s pray. Lord God, it is our desire to please you in our lives. It is a remarkable thing, Father, that you tell us that we can be found well pleasing in your sight. Something we do can bring you pleasure and joy. And you say that you have this great love and blessing toward us as we do these things. So help us Lord God today by the power of your Holy Spirit to hear the words of our Savior. What’s the implications of all this great doctrine? Comes down to these simple things father. So help us to understand what is that acceptable sacrifice. What is bringing offerings to the altar that we have that those who are outside of Christ don’t have?

What is it that we’ve been sanctified set apart as priests to accomplish in the context of bringing you sacrifices. Help us to understand that now in Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

I think we’ve been in Hebrews 13 since January or maybe earlier, I don’t remember. And the reason for that is that there’s much material in the concluding chapter that is basically exhortation. Now, there’s been calls to respond to the gospel throughout this epistle, this sermon. One of the reasons why people find it difficult to outline is that it doesn’t follow the normal sort of epistle where you’ve got credenda agenda—things you’re supposed to believe and then things you’re supposed to do. Interspersed throughout this sermon we’ve seen exhortations and we saw we sang Psalm 95 because this is one of the first exhortations to the Hebrews and to us. But having said that, now we do reach this point where the whole point of everything that’s been said so far comes to this tremendous climax in this concluding chapter.

And once more, I provided you the overall view, one view of how that entire chapter looks. And you know, so what I’m trying to say here is that the two verses we just read, they’re sort of the climax of the whole book. Therefore, by him, by the one who has been, you know, executed in this text who’s been described, you know, the one who is the final word from God, the first section of the book, right?

The one who is who has the name higher than angels, the second section of the book, Son of God and son of man, and as a result mediates between heaven and earth, so that we can have the prayer fulfilled that thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus is superior to all the other revelations of God, the prophets, the Old Testament, the priests, the angels. He’s a superior priest of the Old Testament.

So through him, that is who this sermon has told us who he is. Through this great high priest who is able definitively to sanctify his people, to present them as able to bring these sort of offerings and sacrifices we read in today’s text about continually before God as priest. He’s done that. He’s had compassion upon us and he’s faithful to God at the same time. And we’re supposed to be faithful and compassionate as priests under the great priest Jesus.

And then at the very center section, through him, that is through this greater Melchizedek priest, yes, but also king and conquering king whose gospel will conquer the whole world. Psalm 110 we should know it. We should know versions of it. We should sing it in our homes. The most oft repeated, oft quoted psalm in the New Testament. And if all we did, if all we accomplished as a church was to teach our children to sing and recite Psalm 110, it would radically alter the Christianity of this nation because it is a psalm that shows the king of kings leading forth his people, his children by way of analogy into victory.

So that’s the Christ through him, through this Jesus. Okay? And then we got to the second part, into chapter five or the fifth section rather. And we’re supposed to be faithful and enduring like Jesus is. And now we’re in the sixth section. We’re supposed to work to fulfill God’s heavenly kingdom here on earth to make it manifest. And so all that leads up to this through him as exposited through 12 or 12 and a half chapters now of this sermon. This is now coming into its completion and what we’re told to do here.

So there’s this culmination to it and this double statement, our obligation to God and our obligation to man. In addition, the whole section of course can be seen as culmination prior to the great benediction at the end, the seventh section. And in this whole section, one way to look at the section we’re in, and I’ve got this, I’ve had this several times in a handout at the top of chapter 13, I got verses 28 and 29 from chapter 12. How do we engage in the sort of sacrifices that are acceptable to God? Let us serve God acceptably, we were told at the beginning of this whole chapter. And now we come to the end and we see what is that acceptable service that’s well pleasing to God.

So this whole thing has been kind of bracketed with trying to understand how do we engage in the sort of sacrifices that are well pleasing to God. How do we serve this God who is a consuming fire acceptably? So it’s bracketing that too. And then of course it’s bracketing this smaller section. We have an altar that they have no right to eat from. What is that altar? Well, it’s matched in the structure of the handout I gave you that matches up. What is that altar. Well, what do we do? What’s the sacrifice we bring at that altar? This verse tells us, you see, so verses 10 to 14 have been preliminary to this final exhortation in verses 15 and 16.

So once more, the climactic nature of these two verses is very important to see. This is what God has prepared us to do. We have an altar. What is it? What sacrifices do we bring to this altar? At the center of this little mini subsection, we saw Jesus outside the gates, outside the city doing what? Sanctifying a people. Bringing them into priestly ability to serve, definitively washing us with his blood that we might come forward boldly as his priests to minister, to bring sacrifices to him. The altar’s been established. The priesthood has been established, the blood of Jesus. And now we’re told what we are to do as these priests. What is the sacrifice? That’s to characterize all of our lives.

And which you know amazingly and incomprehensibly things that we do are well pleasing, not just pleasing but well pleasing to God. So we have this great climactic couple of verses here and as I say on the handout it would be hard to overestimate the importance of this. If you’ve slept through half of these sermons okay they’ve confused you okay today shouldn’t confuse you. The Christian life is really fairly simple. It’s a little different than how we perceive it, but it is simple.

The great climactic verse says there’s three things we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to sing, sing praises to God. We are supposed to serve man and we are supposed to be generous and share our resources with others. It’s that simple and yet it’s that profound as well. These are the sacrifices that we have been equipped. Jesus died and shed his blood to sanctify a priesthood. We are that priesthood. And if Jesus paid the great price of his blood to enable us as priests to do something, then we had best attend to it.

Yes. And these verses tell us what sort of priests and what sort of sacrifices are the ones who are exercising the right to the altar. And by implication, these verses are telling us that if we are not these sorts of priests, then we’re priests at a different altar. Then we’re not acceptable to God. We’re not well pleasing and in fact we stink in his nostrils. So very important text here. Cannot overestimate the importance of it.

We have an altar. Matthew Henry said let us make right use of this altar. You see we have this altar. That’s the whole thing about Hebrews. And so how do we make right use of this altar? This verse tells us as I said on the outline verses 10 to 14 are a setup for verses 15 and 16. And from one perspective through him the rest of the sermon is a setup to this. You see, it’s that great climactic statement that is so profound and yet so simple.

I quote from a commentator on your outline under point number one under notes. These verses constitute the theological and practical synthesis of Hebrews. The theological and practical synthesis of Hebrews through Jesus and explaining what that theology is all about. And then we’re to do these things practically. It’s a if you want to know a summary statement of Hebrews here it is. Jesus has prepared us to do this sort of service and it is acceptable to him and it involves practical obligations.

All right. Secondly, terms of the notes from this text. So notice by the way the structure of this. Let’s look at that briefly. Look at verses 15 and 16. On the handout on the first page, I’ve got a little simple chiastic structure. A B B A. What is it? Well, if you look at verse 15, by him therefore, now I know the King James, New King James says, therefore, by him, but really the by him is the emphatic statement here.

By him, therefore, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God. And that matches up with the end with such sacrifices well pleased is God. And again, the original word order ends with God. You see, the same way the first phrase ends with God. Sacrifice of praise to God. The second matching section. This is the sacrifices which are well pleasing to God. So we’ve got the repeated emphasis of sacrifice in those matching terms.

This is our sacrifice. We have the matching up of offering. We offer these sacrifices and this is well pleasing. So this is what we do and this is the effect. We offer these sacrifices and God then is well pleased by our offering these things. And then at the very middle of this we have what is, what’s the what is this the sacrifice that we’re to offer to God? Well, it’s the sacrifice of praise that is the fruit of his, of our lips giving thanks to his name, but do not forget to do good and to share.

So at the very heart of this little structure, how do we offer acceptable sacrifices? What’s the point of all of this? Why did Jesus come? Why do we have an understanding of him as articulated in this sermon? To the end that we would sing praises to God, that we would serve, do good to others, and that we would be generous as generous people sharing with those who have need. That’s the whole point of the Christian walk according to this sermon and that is well pleasing to God.

All right. Now let’s talk a little bit, note number two. The necessary precondition for today’s mission is the work of Jesus as articulated in this sermon to the Hebrews—gospel response. So this is mostly response to what has been preached but it begins by saying through him. So we have the gospel preached to us one more time in this little short phrase through Jesus we are to do these things in response to the wonderful news about who Jesus is.

Our response is what happens here. So you know there are a lot of people out there who are generous. Warren Buffett just gave $30 billion or in the process of doing it over a number of years to Bill and Linda Gates and Bill and Linda Gates are generous. They want to help, you know, the poor. They really are generous and they’re trying to do good, right? They’re trying to, you know, make people healthy and all that sort of stuff.

But that’s not the point of the text. The point of the text is that we’re to do good and we are to be generous through Jesus. And apart from Jesus Christ, the so-called generosity, the sharing, the serving of others, the doing of good is a stench in God’s nose. Don’t misunderstand. Yes, there’s a lifestyle called forth from here, called for us here, but it is a lifestyle that is preconditioned to be acceptable and well pleasing to God.

It must be through the merits of Jesus Christ alone. Not through our own effort, our own work, not through Buddha, not through, you know, whoever it might be, not through some moon or whichever the latest cultic figure is, not through the old religion now of Muhammad. No, even if Islam can produce service to others and generosity, and I’d say that’s a hard thing unless it is a Christianized version of Islam.

But even if it could, it would not be acceptable to God. It would be a stench because it wasn’t done through this Jesus. Now, he’s another Jesus. He’s another prophet. And this text says through this Jesus, through him, him who, him who this sermon has articulated in the book of Hebrews who is the Son of God. Jesus is God. The Son of God. The second person of the Godhead. That Jesus died for our sins. Not so that we could save ourselves, but he saved us through the unconditional election of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He has brought us to himself. That’s the Jesus that’s talked about here. Through the Jesus who died on the cross for our sins, perfecting a people for himself, through a Jesus of atonement, of death and blood atonement, through that Jesus. You see, that’s the necessary precondition. I don’t want you walking out just thinking we got to do these things. No, we do these things through the Jesus that’s been presented to us here.

Lots of people do good, are generous, and even, you know, sing praises to whoever God is, the brotherhood of man. That is not acceptable. If you have friends who do these kinds of things, things through some other vehicle through some other mechanism other than the Lord Jesus Christ as articulated in Hebrews, don’t think that is pleasing to God. It is not. It is a stench in his nostrils. It is self-righteousness.

You see, it’s a rejection. Everybody knows that the Lord Jesus has come, particularly in this country. And when they reject Jesus and still want to pretend like they’re like Jesus or like his followers, God doesn’t like that at all. Now, in verse 11 of Hebrews 13, we read, “For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest.” Okay? So through the high priest, same word that’s translated through by Jesus.

You see? So they’re doing it through a high priest. We’re doing it through the great high priest, Jesus. And that makes all the difference in the world, you see. And to hold on to a system of sacrifice the way the Jews did after the high priest and to think they’re going through a different high priest through any other mediator, in other words, this is a rejection of Jesus Christ and a rejection of the claims of this verse on your life.

Jesus is contrasted with the high priest here. He’s the fulfillment of that. He is the great high priest. In Hebrews 7:27 we read, “Who does not need daily, who does not need daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the peoples, for this he did once for all when he offered up himself.” We’re talking about what praises, what sacrifices we offer up to God. Well, they have to be preceded by the offering up from Jesus of himself.

And they must be connected to that, you see, or they’re not acceptable to God. So Jesus offered up himself. And then again in Hebrews, it says that Jesus was offered once to bear the sins of many. This is the Jesus that’s the necessary precondition for following through. There’s a parallel verse to our verse today in 1 Peter 2:5. “You also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. It’s what Jesus came to accomplish. For what purpose? To offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.”

So that’s the same thing we’re talking about here. What are those spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God? What is our proper priestly responsibility? And then 1 Peter 2:5 goes on to say acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Never leave out that little qualifier. What we’re talking about here is through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So this distinguishes Christian lifestyle from those who seek to imitate or impersonate Christian good deeds. They’re not good deeds in the sight of God. The good deeds we’re talking about today have a necessary precondition of a belief and a union with the Lord Jesus Christ who was offered up once for all and therefore our offerings of these things are acceptable to him.

Three, at the heart of this text is the kind of ongoing sacrifices which is well pleasing to God. So I’ve said this already but it’s very important to see that the middle of this climactic text—how do we offer up sacrifices that are well pleasing to God?

And four, well this kind of sacrifice consists of actions toward two recipients. Our mission today the scriptures always send us on a mission with the word, the command word of God. Our mission is toward God and it’s also toward men. We have an obligation to do certain things relative to God and certain things relative to men. There’s a it’s two parts here. And even though the second part dealing with man can be articulated in two ways, it’s really two parts. We have obligations through Jesus to have right relationship to God and right relationship to one another.

Now it’s interesting. I was thinking about Mark Driscoll’s book Radical Reformation and how he says some churches stress theology and some stress the church and body life and community and others stress mission. Okay, so those are the three things and you can think about them in terms of the trinity, you know, theology and community and then mission to the world. Well, there is no missional aspect here, is there really? It’s kind of interesting to me as I think about this stuff and we haven’t really seen much in the context of Hebrews.

Now, I don’t think God is not interested in mission. Clearly Psalm 110, the links show us that he is. But I think what this is saying, and you can correct me maybe if I’m wrong. I’m not positive about this, but I think that in terms of if we get this down, if we become the kind of people who sacrifices of praise to God are conformed to what this teaches and who are being doing good to others and being generous toward them, that produces mission in the world. You see, I think that’s what’s implied here that these two actions, these two responses will produce that sense of mission and understanding of the context of the world.

Now, so five, our duty to God is summed up here in singing praises and thanksgiving to him. Yeah. What great thing do we have to do for God? Do we have to cut our wrists and put blood down before him? Do we have to, you know, dedicate everything we have and give it all up and turn it over to the institutional church, everything we have? Do we have to do a long pilgrimage couple of times, once a year, once a lifetime?

We got to, you know, crawl on our knees. I’ve seen people do this. I was at the great shrine to Mary in Katowice, Poland. People walk across the whole country. They get there and then the final little leg, they go down on their knees and squirm around to their knees, bruising them up as they go around this black Madonna icon of Mary that is a complete idolatry. You know, what do we have to do? What great thing is Pastor Tuuri going to tell us I got to do today?

You got to sing. That’s hard, huh? No, what a God we have. The summation of our responsibilities to God is to enter into singing his praises. That’s what this says here. That’s what this terminology is all about. Very simple. Hard for some of us though, hard it is to sing but it’s simple. What a wonderful God. Go to family camp every year and remember that God commands us to use part of our tithe to get rejoice in his presence.

God commands us to sing here at the at the culmination, the pinnacle, the climax of our obligations. And we’d certainly say our obligations to God are more important than to man. At least they come first. What is it? Sing it. It’s interesting to me. Very interesting. I’ve got some notes here on the specific phrases that are used.

Offer the sacrifice of praise. Psalm 50, verses 13 and 14. “Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? This is God talking. Offer to God thanksgiving. Pay your vows to the most high.” So this is terminology that is not completely discontinuous with what God always expected. Yeah, there were animal sacrifices that picture the coming of Jesus who would offer himself and be offered up to cleanse our sins. But ultimately, you know, what God wanted was those sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to him. And that’s what he calls on us to do, to offer the sacrifice of praise.

Now, he says we’re supposed to do this continually. What does it mean? Well, on your handouts there, I make mention here of Psalm 50:8. “Psalm 50:8 says, ‘I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices or for your burnt offerings which are continually before me.’” Well, how are burnt offerings continually before God? Well, there were morning and evening sacrifices. And in the morning and evening, you’ve comprised the whole day.

So, it doesn’t mean that they were always offering animals on the altar, but they were required to do a morning and an evening sacrifice. And that’s described in this psalm as being continually before God. And then I have this reference to what do I have the reference to? Numbers 28:10 through 29:14. This word appears 14 times. Now you know the LXX, the Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Old Testament. So if we’re looking at Greek words in the New Testament, it’s interesting, it can be quite helpful to understand what God is saying to understand which Old Testament phrases were interpreted the same way in the Septuagint.

Now, the Septuagint isn’t inspired. It doesn’t bind us to anything, but it’s a useful tool that you should know about. And in the Septuagint in Numbers, it’s talking about the daily morning and evening sacrifices. And this word continually is used 14 times. 14 times. Pretty important word. So, when it says that our job is to offer this singing praise to God, and that’s what it’s talking about continually, it means of course, as we’ve seen throughout Hebrews that this is referring to corporate worship.

It’s today you’re supposed to sing. Today. That’s what you come forward to do is to sing praises to God, right? And but you know that isn’t continually. We’re supposed to sing praises continually. And I think that this would make a strong case for morning and evening family worship times. Not family worship in some long thing where the dad, you know, is trying to, you know, teach little children, you know, doctrinal content for half an hour.

No. Yet the family together if possible sometime in the morning sometime in the evening sing a simple song of thanksgiving to God, that’s what this is talking about. You know, some of the Continental Reformed churches this is a big deal. On Sunday you got to go to the double hitter. You got to go to the morning. You got to do the evening. You got to double dip because the rationale for that, you probably have wondered—we don’t do that—the rationale is morning and evening sacrifices. And so they have this kind of sense that the praise of God that we’re to offer that Hebrews says Jesus has prepared us to do happens in the morning, happens in the evening in connection to the morning and evening sacrifices.

Now, I don’t think that’s right. I think it’s all summed up in the one service of Christian Lord’s Day. But the thought behind it is good and that is to say there’s more to it than just what we do on Sunday or once on Sunday morning. And what I would say is the proper application of this is as I said, try to encourage our families, try to raise our children, try to have our homes built such a way as a couple of times of the day we’re singing praise to God.

Now that produces an attitude. You’re prepared for that in singing the praises of God here. You can take these things home, sing them at home or you can sing other songs, but we set the tone here. We set the mode. We set the whole routine here through singing praises to God. And that moves into the week. And then the day is also marked off hopefully by morning and evening singing of praises to God like sacrifices.

And that sets a tone of thankfulness that permeates all of our lives. So, I’m not saying that we can work around this continually thing just by doing it occasionally, but it then informs us. It’s as if there was continual burnt offerings going up to God when they did it twice a day. And it’s as if there’s continual praises and thanksgiving going before God from our hearts. If we do it, if we sing forth loudly, verbally, couple of times a day, it produces an attitude that then is kind of linked up with this continualness that’s talked about in our verse.

Fruit of our lips. That is the fruit of our lips. Well, this is a reference to Hosea 14:2. We read in verses 1 and 2 of Hosea 14, “Oh Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you. Return to the Lord. Say to him, take away all iniquity. Receive us graciously, for we will offer the sacrifices of our lips.” The sacrifices of our lips. And I got some references there in Proverbs.

The fruit of the lips is another, it’s a Hebrew way of saying what we say or what we sing. It’s kind of an important way to say it. I’ve mentioned this before, but Hebrews 13, that chapter, I think, has as its theme, the reversal of the sin in the garden. And we read in verse 2 of Hebrews 13, “A man shall eat well by the fruit of his mouth, but the soul of the unfaithful feeds on violence.”

So, you know, there’s some interesting imagery going on here of the fruit of our lips, the fruit of our mouth being not what we’re eating so much now, but what we’re saying to God. We sinned by eating things, by bringing fruit into our mouth in Adam. Now, we—the reversal of that is Jesus has prepared us to offer singing to him. And so, we have that great image. That’s what we do. We’re to sing praises, to sing out praises to God. That is the acceptable service that is well pleasing to him.

Now we read also in 2 Maccabees 10:7. Now this is not an inspired book but it’s a picture of something I think that kind of goes along with this. We read in 2 Maccabees 10, “Therefore they brought branches and fair boughs and palms and sang psalms unto him that had given them good success in cleansing his place. They ordained also by a common statute and decree that every year those days should be kept of the whole nation of the Jews.” And this was the end of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Brothers and sisters, if a contemplation of the death, the throwing off of Antiochus Epiphanes, a mere human ruler that ruled for but a season, would bring forth grown men, warrior men who had helped to defeat this king, this wicked king. If it brings them forward with the sacrifice of praise, singing psalms to God on ordained days of praise. What is our excuse if we do not enter into the praise of God in the worship of Jesus who has defeated sin, death, hell, Satan, all enemies of us. The end of Antiochus Epiphanes is sort of tied here to the praise of God’s people because that’s the only thing that delivered them ultimately.

Yeah, there’s work to be done. There’s bows to be shot. There’s swords to be used. But ultimately, it’s the praise of God that affects the victory. That’s the end. Do we want the end of the modern manifestations of our Antiochus Epiphanes? Sing praises to God and sing praises knowing that Jesus Christ has definitively redeemed us from sin and death and hell if they would usher forth praise to him based on that. What is our excuse if we come to Lord’s day worship and do not actively seek to enter into the songs of the church?

From one perspective, that’s the only thing that’s important in your life. Do you come here and just sit, sort of go through the motions, move your lips a little bit, or do you come here entering into the corporate worship and praise of Jesus Christ who has defeated the greater Antiochus? And the answer to that question tells you whether your life, at least the beginning part of it on the Lord’s day, is acceptable to God or not.

All the doctrine in the world unaccompanied by the singing of praises to him is hypocrisy. It’s got it all wrong. This text tells us what we’re supposed to do is sing praises to God. This is the acceptable sacrifice. A pre-Christian book called the Psalms of Solomon. It’s a light sort of thing, almost as if the author of the sermon to the Hebrews undoubtedly knew this. This was common among Jews, the use of this Psalms of Solomon.

And this is what it said. “For who is strong except the one who praises you in truth? What person is powerful except the one who acknowledges your name? A new psalm with song from a happy heart, the fruit of lips from the well-tuned instrument of the tongue, the first fruits of the lips from a devout and righteous heart. Praise God.” That’s what this verse is talking about. And that says that strong men conquer and rejoice in the definitive conquering of all things through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus is a singing champion. He is a singing conqueror. What do you mean he sings? Well, Hebrews—we read this earlier many months ago. Hebrews 2:12 says, “I will declare Jesus.” This is talking about Jesus fulfilling Psalm 22 with that great crying out to God in the middle and then the declaration of God’s salvation. And Jesus publishes it. Jesus says, “I will declare your name to my brethren in the midst of the assembly. I will sing praise to you.” You want to join with Jesus today, then join in his singing of praise to the Father. You see, Jesus is a singing champion, a singing warrior, a singing King of Kings.

And the only people that are Christians from one perspective, from the perspective of this text, are those who join him in singing these praises. That’s his army. That’s the acceptable sacrifice. Hebrews 13:6, so we may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me?” And if you do a study on that phrase there, it seems almost surely that text again is referring not to just boldly saying, but to singing forth this truth. Hebrews has already told us in a couple of verses that Jesus sings and we as Christians are to sing forth his praises boldly, loudly extolling the praises of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He breaks into song and a consideration of the gospel of Jesus Christ means we should break into song as well. The proper response of the covenant people of God to the revelation of the grace of God, the proper response to the gospel is this acceptable service sacrifice that well pleases God. It is singing forth his praises. At the same time, this text, I think, tells us that this is the decisive condition for the sustaining of covenant faithfulness. Do you want to know how to maintain children generation to generation?

I want to know it. I want to know how come some of our kids drift away and some don’t. Don’t you? I do. Well, I think that this text tells us. I think the kids that boldly sing forth the praises of Jesus on the Lord’s day don’t tend to fall away at the edges. And I think those children, those young men and women who do tend to kind of mumble or not join in or sing the praises of Christ, they tend to fade off.

It’s the proper response and it is also I believe an important part of the sanctification of the church. This is the acceptable praise of God. This is the acceptable sacrifice—singing—the sacrifice of praise. And then secondly, the sacrifice of love to people. That’s the other dimension that we move to.

Now verbal praise, the kind that comes out of your mouth as the fruit and overflow of your heart is talked about here. But now we talk as well as we move to the next portion of the text to the kind of love and service to others that flows out of your fingertips and out of your wallets as well to help other people. Our duty to man is summed up in the text in two activities. First, doing good. Serving. In the alliterated outline, singing, serving—doing good to others. This is the only place this particular word is used—to do good.

But that’s just what it means to do good. It means acts of kindness, acts of helping people out, doing things that are useful to other people. In this text, remember the placement here are at the end of chapter 13. And how did chapter 13 begin? “Let brotherly love continue. Be hospitable. Help those who are suffering. Do good in the context of marriage. Those are all doing good. See those are all that what is what is summarized now in doing good and sharing.

What was the other admonition earlier in the chapter? Don’t be greedy. Don’t be covetous. Share. So we’re repeating the same thing here in summarized form. We’re to do good. Christian servants, formal and informal. There’s a book you’ve heard me talk about it before by Cotton Mather. Those of you that have read it have enjoyed it tremendously. Most of you haven’t read it. That’s okay. It’s called Bonifacius. And that’s kind of what this is—this Greek word is the root of this—beneficence—and it means doing good.

Mather thought well if our obligation as Christians toward God is to sing his praises, okay, but to man—to do good—then he wrote a book on how we do good. And he said, this is how you do good if you’re an employer. This is how you do good if you’re a magistrate. This is how you do good as a father. This is how you do good in various stages of life. That’s something we want to know, right? I want you to think about that today.

You little children, when was the last time you did—you do something good? Did you do a good deed, something good to brother or sister, mom or dad? Today, this morning, getting ready yesterday. Did you? And if you didn’t do something good yesterday or today, you probably need to commit yourselves today okay to doing better. We’re supposed to seek out ways to do good for other people. This is the summary duty. This is the sacrifice is acceptable to God and more than that is well pleasing to him. Doing good.

Now that means there are things in the church. If you don’t have some kind of way you’re doing good in the context of the institutional church, I think you ought to think about what I ought to do. I think if you don’t put an hour or so in volunteer labor to help other people in the church through what Jesse does or Dan does, come in and take care of the library. There’s a million things that most of you are doing in this church. But if you’re not one doing that, if all you’re doing is coming here and occupying space as a part to serving the body with doing good deeds, you had better reassess things, my friend.

You had better reassess things. You know, doing good involves a lot of truths. You can do good to others by helping them not to sin. You know, we were going to have a little talk today. We were then at the end of today’s service, the elders were going to come forward and ask everybody to stick around. And we were going to talk to the young people. Why? Well, it’s summer and the young people, you know, 13 and up, they’re getting together frequently without adult supervision.

And they’re tempted. They’re tempted to do things inappropriately. They’re tempted not to honor the Lord’s day. They’re tempted to use the wrong sort of speech. In a church like ours, you know, that tries to think through how we evaluate our culture from a biblical perspective, it’s awful easy for our young people who aren’t thinking very soundly yet to get sucked into a lot of that stuff and then they get together in their get-togethers and they may use inappropriate speech toward each other, foul language, coarse language.

Listen teens, listen to me. Don’t do that. That is not doing good to your brothers and sisters. This church has a covenant that says that this whole day, not just the hour and a half or two hours or if I go along, three hours of worship is to be honored. This church believes that the entire day is set aside for God. Now we recreation’s great part of it. Go to the river today. But do not sin there against each other.

Young men, young women, don’t do it. Do good to one another. Don’t, you know, violate the obligations of this church relative to the Sabbath. If you see somebody with a McDonald’s cup in their hand, your job is to do good to them to tell them, “No, we’re not supposed to do that today. It’s set apart today.” Not in the mean condemnment way, in a nice way. That’s doing good to somebody. If you hear somebody swearing or being mean-spirited or making fun of somebody at the river today, and some of you guys are back today, Kelly and Sean, I don’t know what you’re going to do.

I think there’s a baptism party. I don’t know. But if you’re apart from the adults, pretend they’re there still. I know you guys are adults too already. But you know what I’m saying? Do good to one another. Don’t do bad. And doing good includes encouraging each other. We had a discussion at my house at the open house a week and a half ago. We were talking about topics we can talk about for the next couple of months.

And one young man said, “How about how to avoid peer pressure?” That’s a great topic. You know, how do we avoid doing something sinful? But another side of that is we should embrace the proper sorts of peer pressure and we should be part of that pressure to our peers. And that’s a godly pressure and that’s doing good to your brothers and sisters to kindly nicely, you know. Now, if they rebel, of course, it ratchets up, but it is doing good to speak to one another at the river or whatever it is and say, “Let’s be a witness of the Lord Jesus Christ as we’re out recreating today.

Let’s remember that we’re recreating through Jesus today and let’s not sin against each other.” That’s doing good to bring positive peer pressure to young men and women. There are other kinds of doing good. Matt’s going to have opportunities for us to help old ladies or older people get their houses straightened up. You know, people that are somewhat infirm like me, you know, not me. They’re not going to do anything for me, but there are people in Oregon City who need help.

The young men and women do good. It’s an opportunity. You should be looking every day. What can I do good for somebody today? And if Matt sends out an email or I send out an email with Matt’s help, say, “Here’s something you can do week from Saturday. Show up at this gal’s house and mow a lawn or paint a roof or paint a ceiling, whatever it is, do it. Look for opportunities to do good. And parents, let’s let our words be accompanied by our examples of doing good for others.

Now, I know I’m mostly preaching to the choir here, but you see, it is so important. And I want what I want is for all of us as a church community here to bind together in this kind of commitment to one another. The elders agree on all this stuff. We’re going to do whatever we can to exhort those who might be a little fringy at times or the young people who may at times be tempted apart from the presence of adults to sin in these ways.

We’re going to be there. We’re going to do all we can to help you and encourage you because we know that this doing good, the sanctifying of the Lord’s day, working through Jesus Christ, even in our recreation, this is the Christian calling. This is what we’re to do. So, doing good. And of course, then the text goes on. Oh, Dan Prentice, I wanted to mention, he did good. He wrote up a synopsis of how we handle death.

And I have not done good. I have not taken this to the elders and made it an agenda item yet, but it should be. We had a discussion about death out at the Rogers house. They did good by letting us have the meeting there. Encourage members, Dan says, to pre-plan their own funerals. Sounds odd, but it’s a great idea. Provide resources as a church to help us get ready for the funerals that are coming as we continue to age in a godly way that brings hope and encouragement as well as sadness.

We’re not lost. I won’t go through the whole thing, but see Dan did good. He led the discussion and then he took the time to write up, you know, salient features of that discussion and give them to the elders and say, “Let’s try to encourage these things, doing good.” And then secondly, this text also on the other side of our doing, of our service to man is being generous. Being generous. And I’ve got some scripture references for you there.

We’re not going to turn to them, but this word koinonia or fellowship, the particular way it’s used here is almost universally agreed upon by commentators that it’s talking about money. There’s a sharing that we have in each other. We can give we can be generous with our time, generous with our friendships, but this is specifically talking about money. And again, it’s in opposition to the covetousness that have been marked in the early part of the church, early part of the sermon here in chapter 13.

So God says that our lips singing praises to him are part of acceptable sacrifice. God says that our hands doing good or our lips encouraging people is part of this acceptable sacrifice that’s well pleasing to God. And God says that for men, okay, back here, this can be a place where we’re to have acceptable sacrifice to God by pulling out the wallet, pulling out the checkbook, the credit card, whatever it is, and being generous when needs are brought before you.

Either, you know, corporately through the church, you find out needs yourselves. We’re to be a generous people. We’re to be a generous people. Poland this Sunday, the second of two Sundays of offerings that are going to help fly people from Poland to the Siri Presbyterian meeting. It’s an impoverished country. They have to have two incomes, most of them, just to keep a roof over their heads. They can’t afford to fly over here and to enter into these sorts of convocations.

We need to help them. The next two Sundays, not today, but the next two, the offerings will be taken up, the undesignated mission offerings, the benevolence offerings that go in these buckets, that’ll be taken up for Russia because Blake needs to buy some land to establish the seminary. He’s doing great stuff. Now, here’s two great ways, here’s two areas that you can do good and you can be generous. I know you’re generous and I’m not talking about the use of your tithe here.

The tithe is the tax God says you’re obligated to do, but this text is saying be generous with offerings, with giving people money apart from your tithe. We took an offering last week for Poland to buy these air tickets. For two guys we took in $550 and I was a little disappointed. I don’t want to put guilt on them, but I know where a hundred of that came. $100 of that came from a guy who, you know, who bought his house late, so he’s got big house payments.

Who has a child in braces, that costs a lot of money. Who’s sending the child to private school, that’s expensive. I know a hundred of that came from a guy who’s kind of strapped a lot of the times. But it’s there because he’s attempting to help these people generously. I would encourage you today to be generous in your giving to help bring these men over from Poland. I’m not—you’ve done great over the years.

It’s wonderful. I’m preaching to the choir for the most part, but some of you I’m not. Some of you are not part of the choir yet. Some of you are at the edges of this activity too. Your money is seen as, you know, your own recreation. Building up what you’ve got, doing this, that, and the other thing. Recreation is great. Leisure is great. But the Christian lifestyle is characterized by a sacrifice to God that’s well pleasing, consistent of generosity with the blessings that the Lord God has given us.

Now, it’s a wonderful thing. Point number seven. These are very encouraging and reassuring words to us. I hope they are to you. Serve God acceptably. Not only is it acceptable, it’s well pleasing if we just sing praises to him, do good things toward each other and are generous with our time and money. Not only is it acceptable, it’s well pleasing. Praise God. What a wonderful message this is. What a wonderful sort of capstone before we see the benediction of God.

Even the benediction, he’s going to empower us to do this. That’s what the end of the sermon is. It’s very reassuring, but it’s also a little troubling for some of us. You know, Federal Vision—baptized the baby, brought into the church, Christian now, takes the supper, everything’s great. That’s the source of assurance. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I think it is an important source of assurance, but you know, these Jews were faithful in their observances of the legal requirements of the sacrificial system.

And Paul makes it quite clear in his epistle to the Romans that the Jews thought they had privilege. They had natural privilege. R.J. Rushdoony, he calls it in his wonderful commentary on Romans. They had natural privilege because they were marked out as the special people of God and we’re born into this church and we become part of this church and we can sort of think we’ve got natural privileges with God.

Yeah, there is a bit of that in this whole immigration debate. Now, I know it’s a complex issue, right? But we—God doesn’t owe us anything, you know, because we’re white Americans. He owes us nothing because of that. And he owes us nothing just because we come and warm a pew or sit in the congregation or even if we tithe or even if you know we partake of communion and don’t aren’t committing adultery the week before. God is not obliged. That’s not what’s found as acceptable sacrifice here.

The culmination of this sermon, the culmination of this sermon is that if you’re not enjoying entering into, having a heart to praise Jesus for what he did—he is so good, he’s so great, he saved you from hell. There is a real hell and that’s where you were going, apart from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Eternal torment, eternal fire and damnation. Jesus saved you from that. More than that, he’s indicated that he saved us in a way that is so beautiful by the giving of himself. This is the nature of God. This is the God that we worship and we become like him.

If we understand that Jesus sings praises to God, we’re going to become like him. And if we don’t come here with the desire to serve Jesus acceptably, through just praising his name and having joy in that praising, God says, “Be a little troubled by this text if you don’t do that.” And if you’re someone who is not given to doing good deeds for others and don’t have, you know, not necessarily in the context of the institutional church, but usually it starts there.

You try to think of ways to help the community God’s placed you in. Starts at the family, moves out to the church, then the community. If you’re not somebody that’s doing good deeds and if you haven’t used your wallet to be generous to people for a while, then these tremendously reassuring words of the simplicity of the Christian life and the joy that’s at the heart of it and the wonder of it—that this is actually pleases God, our heavenly Father.

Not just pleases him, it’s well pleasing to him. That wonderful truth becomes troubling if we’re not doing these very simple yet profound things. This is a message of gospel through Jesus. But it’s a message that says that if we believe this gospel, if we have faith in this Jesus articulated to us in this sermon, this will be the acceptable praise that we’ll offer up to him. Singing, serving, and sharing.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the wonderful truth of telling us in a sense how easy it is to please you, our heavenly Father. And we know that’s the way it is with our children as well. So forgive us, Lord God, for thinking anything other than that. Thank you that through Jesus today, you find our songs to you pleasing, well pleasing. Thank you that you also want us to encourage each other to do good deeds for each other and to be generous with our time and our money and with our persons, who we are.

We pray that as we come forward today, we would come forward with renewed commitment and joy to do the simple things that mark the Christian life at the great culmination and climax of this sermon. Help us, Lord God, to be a people dedicated once more to singing your praises, toward serving fellow image bearers, and being generous and sharing when needs occur. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.