Dennis Tuuri

A blessing from thy store upon us. God will readily pour. The Lord God is inclined to hear us, to answer yes to our requests. Our sermon text today is found in Hebrews chapter 13. This is really the last formal command before we get to the benediction. There are a few things at the end that have some words of instruction, but this is really the last formal command—verses 18 and 19 of Hebrews 13.

I see the lights are off back there. Do not sleep. I will try to speak loudly and energetically to keep you awake, away from the allurement of the dark. If you’re having trouble seeing your lyrics, please let us know. We want to try to keep this place as cool as possible. I think we’re in for a hot one next Sunday. But if it’s giving you trouble seeing the lyrics, please let myself or one of the elders or deacons know and we’ll bring the lights up next week.

Also, I might just mention in terms of singing. Of course, this was one of the application points from last week’s sermon—really, the main one, I suppose. God’s people are a singing people. We serve a singing Savior. I encourage you to sing out loudly, energetically, and enthusiastically. If you’re having trouble with the words, if you’re getting older like some of us, we have available every week now in the rack in the foyer large print versions of the songs and responsive readings.

Now, it doesn’t have the music on them, so you have to know the tune, but many of you probably do know these tunes. And it might be a little easier for you to sing lustily and enthusiastically praises to our God and prayers as well if you can see the lyrics clearly. All right, please stand for the reading of God’s scripture text for today’s sermon. Pray for us. Hebrews 13:18 and 19. “Pray for us, for we are confident that we have a good conscience in all things, desiring to live honorably. But I especially urge you to do this that I may be restored to you the sooner.”

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you that we can immediately make application of this command to pray. Help us, Father, to understand this piece of text here. Help us, Lord God, to see it in the context of this sermon to the Hebrews. Give us, Father, an understanding of the Savior by the gift of your Holy Spirit, illumining this text for understanding to the end that we may open our mouths this week as we did somewhat this last week, singing praises to you morning and evening.

Help us, Lord God, to the end that we may indeed be transformed by the power of the spirit and be those who pray to you with our mouths as well this week each day. In Jesus’ name we ask it and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen. Please be seated.

Sorry, I don’t have a fill-in-the-blank handout for the younger children. I do have a coloring picture though, and well, this really has a lot to do with what I’ll be saying about prayer. Pray for us. Pray expectantly. Pray with hands up, ready to receive God’s blessing. Pray as a confident, strong people.

But I want to set the table a little bit for a specific discussion of these two verses. I’ll draw out some implications for them—a few implications of the text apart from the prayer command and then deal specifically with prayer for a few minutes in the sermon. But first, as I say, I want to set the table for this.

We are about ready next Lord’s day to move into the seventh and climactic little portion of Hebrews, the great benediction. And so what we have here is the very end, the tail end of the sixth section instructing us on how to live heavenly lives here on earth, how to work out what we pray for—that God might be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And I think this outline has been—I know it’s been very helpful to me over the years. I would strongly encourage heads of households to make sure that their families have this outline of Hebrews. You may have a better one that you have, but it’s good for our children to know kind of the flow of a big book like this specifically. And so that’s where we’re at—we’re at the very tail end of this sixth section ready to move into the great benediction.

Now, those of you who have the handouts will be in advantage for this next brief overview of chapter 13, again placing this text in its proper context. On the handout, you’ll remember that last week we talked about how this is really the second half of the sixth section, but this half of the sixth section began with an exhortation to serve God acceptably. Now, I’ve got that underlined and bolded, and that matches up with underlining and bolding at the conclusion in the benediction—that which is well pleasing to him.

But also in verse 18, having a good conscience. So we’re to serve God acceptably. There is a good conscience that is relative to that service. And these things sort of match up together. And so really, again, as we said last week, this last couple of verses is quite important for understanding this entire section.

You’ll see in verse 5 of the handout that the word conduct I have bolded and that matches up with conduct in verse 7. Now remember verse 7 begins another section of this larger section with admonitions about rulers, right? And we’re to obey rulers seeing their conduct. And before this, the word conduct was stressed at the beginning—that we had a series of exhortations about things to do: brotherly love, prisoners, the family and marriage, etc. And this has to do with our conduct, our walk.

And we’re supposed to be able to observe in our ecclesiastical authorities—elders, we would say—their conduct. And so here at the end of this sermon, the person, the author of the sermon, is citing his conduct as well—how he has lived his life and how he has a good conscience. So there is this connection back up to the section.

So we have these two bracketing sections of our obligations to the elders of the church. And in the context of that, we have then a return to the idea of good conscience and this living in such a way that is honorable—that gives him this good conscience. So his life, his conduct, you see, is what he’s commending on his own, and the confidence that he has then brings confidence in prayer and encouraging them to pray for him.

Additionally, in verses 7 and 17 there are some italicized words. You see in verse 7, remember follow. And then dropping down to 17, obey, be submissive. See, these are italicized to show you that there are a series of instructions about your obligation to elders. And this verse 18 begins with an italicized word in the handout I give you as well: Pray for us.

So this is really the last in the sequence of specific requirements, commands that this sermon gives to those people who are under the authority of elders. This is part of their obligation toward those elders. So this last command has to do with that. Pray—it follows up all these others—to remember and to follow their faith and to be submissive and to obey them and to pray for them. You see, it’s another command in this string of commands relative that you have toward those who are over you in the Lord in the context of the church specifically.

And then just before we move now to a specific discussion of the text, notice on the handout I’ve provided verses 20 and 21, the last section, this benediction. This is the seventh section of the whole sermon, but I’ve got it here on your handout after a line distinguishing it. And I draw your attention to it because this will be the subject of my sermon next Lord’s day.

And I believe that this is a wonderful structure for these two sentences. I just came upon it this week in my studies. I’ve tried different things, but we’ll see that at the heart of this benediction is this blood of the everlasting covenant. So next week when you hear us singing songs about blood and the shepherd who is Jesus, you’ll see its connection to this benediction that I’ll talk about next Lord’s day.

There’s the work prior to that blood. There’s the work of God in bringing up Jesus and then in the end of that, the other side of that section is the working in us which is well pleasing. So we have these two things going on: the work of God in Christ and the work of God in us, and the connecting point in the middle is this blood of the everlasting covenant.

So that’ll prepare you for next week’s sermon in Lord’s day as he brings us together to hear the word of the Savior. So that could be, if you would like, that would be a real useful thing to do—to review in your family worship in preparation for this coming Sunday. As well, I think very appropriately in family worship times or personal Bible times to review again these—this singing, this serving, this sharing, and now this praying—supplicating, if we wanted to make a fourth word out of it: prayers of supplication for other people, intercession. This praying that’s to characterize our lives on the basis of what this entire long sermon is telling us about who Jesus is. That’s the basis for it. And this is the application of it.

So moving on to the notes, specifically on the text. And as I said, I want to make a couple of comments not having to do with prayer, but I don’t want to just blow through this text and just talk about prayer. The word of God is tremendously layered and has implications to what it tells us that go beyond what we don’t necessarily see in a first reading.

So just a couple of comments. First of all, there is to be a comradeship amongst ecclesiastical authorities and amongst them and the church. Now, what do I mean here? Well, you know, this moves on to a new line: Pray for us. But in a way, it’s key because he says “pray for us,” not “pray for me.”

I think the us is not referring to him and his troop, but him and the ecclesiastical authorities that he just told them to be obeying and submissive to. So, you know, there were two bracketed sections of this whole long section here that had to do with our obligations toward rulers—maybe those in the past and then those in the present. And so the author of this sermon identifies himself, I believe, by using this “pray for us” with those ecclesiastical authorities in the context of the church that he’s addressing, this church of the Hebrews.

So there’s a unity whether it’s talking about him in relationship to the rulers, the elders at the church that he’s addressing, or whether it’s talking about him and the other men that were with him. Still, there’s a unity amongst the elders of the church. And this last command, at least by implication, binds the author of this sermon to those ecclesiastical rulers and repeats—or rather states—a diaconal obligation, and that is: pray for us.

So he uses us. That’s the point. And in using us, he binds himself together with the men who rule in the context of Hebrews, and he demonstrates this unity and fellowship, comradeship, communion that rulers are to have in the context of each other. So there’s a comradeship among ecclesiastical authorities.

Well, if that’s to be the case, and that’s the way God’s established it, then that would be a good thing to pray for. You know, when you get around to praying specifically for us the rulers, the elders in the context of the church, then what one thing you should be praying for is that unity and that growth together and comradeship. So in a particular local church, in the context of our confederation and broader than that with other pastors as well here in Oregon City, pray for that.

There’s to be a comradeship amongst ecclesiastical authorities and also amongst them and the congregation. So he puts this in the context of unity and the obligations to obey those who rule over you. But he also says then it gets around to him specifically. He asks specifically that he be prayed for—that he could come to the church quickly, that he could return to them. So there is, by way of implication in these verses, a unity amongst the authorities that we should pray for and a unity between those who are actually ruling and giving the word of God and ruling through God’s word and the congregation as well.

He’s praying for unity—a physical unity that he would have with them—that he could get to them. One other application here: you know, one of the things that I’ve been pastoring a long time, and one of the things that I’ve seen over and over again, is that when people want to get contentious in the context of the local church, and when they want to do something other than obey and be submissive and follow the example of the elders, what they will typically do is take one elder and split them off from the rest. They’ll try to create disunity in the context of the session or the group of elders.

And this is just something that happens. You know, it’s any elder that’s been around for very long understands this and is sort of prepared for it. But see, it shows again the importance of bringing people to repentance and of exercising a loving unity in the context of the church—of the elders themselves having unity together in this comradeship.

Second note: once more, we see the importance of a good conscience. Cannot stress that too much. Our duty to seek and actually have one. Now, this—you know, the verse here says that “pray for us. We are confident.” Why are we confident? Why are we assured that your prayers will be answered and this will be a good thing? We’re confident because we have a good conscience.

Well, it’s a little audacious, isn’t it? But Paul—perhaps not the author of this sermon, but Paul—uses the same sort of language in other texts in the New Testament. He boasts in the Lord, as it were. You know, it’s a reminder, we’ve talked about this before, but in Hebrews, you know, from one perspective, we’ve had several verses that have told us that what Jesus has done—the great Christological work of our Savior in his life and in his death and his suffering and his resurrection and his ascension—what he’s done is perfected our consciences.

Hebrews 9:9—he says that: “It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. So when Jesus comes, now his once-for-all offering can perfect our consciences in a definitive way.” So our conscience has been an important thing—our sensitivity to God and desire to serve him and actually serving him.

Hebrews 9:14: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience—your conscience. You see, so if Jesus has come to cleanse our consciences, may we not be those who allow them to become defiled.”

Hebrews 10:2: “And by the way, that he cleanses our consciences from dead works to serve the living God. Remember, service, drawing near—a household servant of God is what we’re called to be. We draw near to Christ’s house now that he’s the builder of, and he’s the perfector of. And so we have been cleansed from a bad conscience. We been cleansed specifically of turning back to dead works and instead we’re supposed to serve God with that cleanness of conscience.”

Hebrews 10:2 then: “Would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshippers once purified would have had no more consciousness of sins. So again there’s something unable to affect the pure conscience in the Old Testament prior to the actual work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Quite important.”

Hebrews 10:22, with an application to prayer we can make certainly and will: “Let us draw near. The whole point of Hebrews is we can draw near. Now, it’s kind of a parallel book to Leviticus. How do you draw near? Well, we draw near through Christ. Let us draw near. And how do we draw near? With a true heart in full assurance of faith, having a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. The conscience is important. And this author can state that he is confident of having a good conscience.”

Turn if you will to 2 Corinthians 1:11 and 12. It’s kind of interesting. It makes this point again, but it also shows you a parallel text to what we have here. And I suppose you could use this to make a claim for Pauline authorship of Hebrews. I don’t know that’s true or not. I tend to think no. But 2 Corinthians 1:11 and 12.

And you’ll see in verse 11 the immediate application of what we’re doing here: “You also helping together in prayer for us that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.” You’re talking about special offering for the needs of the saints in Jerusalem. But you’re helping together in prayer for us.

Verse 12: “For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God and more abundantly toward you.” This is a parallel text, right? You’re praying with us. You’re helping us out. We’re confident that this prayer is good and effective and things will go well. Why? Because we boast. Because we can boast. Because the testimony of our conscience is that we have conducted ourselves, we have lived honorably.

In the words of the Hebrews text, we have conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity. So we can—we must—strive to keep this conscience that’s been definitively cleansed by the Lord Jesus Christ clean by not sinning, by not doing those things that would defile our conscience.

Now, you’ll say this is a description that we have a definitively cleansed conscience, but the application to keep it cleansed is important. Acts 24:16: “This being so, I myself always strive. I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and man. Do you strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and man?”

You know, I love to repent. I have just come to rejoice in it. If I didn’t have the joy of repentance, I would not know what to do with my life. I’d be afraid to do much of anything. But there is this wonderful truth that sins are forgiven by God and placed behind us. And so we’re to strive to have a good conscience first and by trying hard not to sin.

But brothers and sisters, you know, we will sin. And when we sin, we’re to be quick to repent of that sin and offer words of sorrow, repentance to those we’ve sinned against. And this is part of striving to have a good conscience. So this text reminds us again that we’re to strive hard to do what this great man did: have a good conscience toward God.

Matthew Henry put it this way: “We trust we have a good conscience—an enlightened and well-informed conscience, a clean and a pure conscience, a tender and faithful conscience, a conscience testifying for us, not against us—a good conscience in all things in the duties both of the first and second table: towards God and towards men, and especially in all things pertaining to our ministry.”

So we’re to strive to do this. And men and women, boys and girls, the tremendous truth is—and this is so important for us—grab a hold of it: we can do it. He doesn’t just say here, I’m confident because I’m working hard to have a good conscience. He says, I’m confident because I’ve got a good conscience. It is not supposed to be an unusual thing to live out a week in essential obedience to the will of God.

We don’t want to get so overcome with, you know, the grace of Christ that somehow we think that we can’t do anything. No, God says not only can we, we’re supposed to have good consciences. You know, John Frame—I remember years ago on the BH mailing list, he questioned whether we should have this repentance for sin at the beginning of the worship service. I thought about that today as we were confessing our sins.

I think we should. I think it’s good and it’s proper. But don’t think because we start that way each week that you’re supposed to come here with a whole truckload of guilt. You shouldn’t. You should have mostly lived your lives having a good conscience toward God. Brothers and sisters, boys and girls, men and women, this is not supposed to be unusual. This is what we’re supposed to do. Church of Jesus Christ is a church of strong men and women, strong boys and girls who are living in essential conformity to the will of God through the power of the spirit because of the work of Jesus.

Not only can we strive toward this, or should we—we can actually accomplish a good conscience. Now, notice he’s got a good conscience. He’s lived honorably, but he’s still asking for their prayers. Okay, so this is not the kind of good conscience and living honorably that somehow fills him up with pride about his abilities. He recognizes that all that aside—that he’s got a good conscience, he’s living honorably, he’s doing—he’s trying to please God every day, he’s mostly doing it. He still knows that he needs the prayers of the saints and he needs his own prayers and God’s word as well.

But still, strive to attain a good conscience.

Third: Living honorably. He says the means of having a good conscience is that living honorably. Then it is the means of having a good conscience. This sums up the sixth section of the sermon. So he says, “I’ve got a good conscience in all things desiring to live honorably.” See, see again, the bolded italic word in the handout ties this back to all this other stuff.

How do you live honorably? Well, you know, you have brotherly love. You exercise proper marital relationships and build a family upon honor in the marriage bed. You have grace and kindness to other people. You’re generous. You’re singing songs to God. You live honorably.

See, this word honorably is interesting. Our word honest, you know, honest just means telling the truth and not telling a lie—today, speaking the truth. Well, that’s not really what honest means. The root of the word honest is a Latin term that’s the same root as honorable. And to have an honest life means to have an honorable life, okay? There’s a connotation of beauty almost in this obedience and goodness of the life that’s lived honorably in all things.

We’re supposed to be, you know, men and women, boys and girls that can stand upright and have a good conscience toward God and who are striving to live in it—not just in a truthful way, but in an honorable way before God. Let’s do that this week. Let’s go into the week confident and bold, knowing that we’re to strive to live honorably—and not just on Sunday and not just at family worship or not just in your vocation or this or that in relationship to your wife. You’re to strive to live honorably.

This man says, “In all things, in all things, striving to live honorably.” Living honorably, as they say, sums up this sixth section of the sermon. This is what we were created to be. Adam didn’t do it. He was dishonorable and disgraceful. Jesus has recovered us, and now we can live lives honorably as the image bearers of God that we’re called to do.

The author of this sermon says, “You can observe our conduct. You can observe their conduct.” What is that conduct? It’s a conduct of a life striving to live honorably and as a result having a good conscience. All right.

So and then specifically, of course—oh, by the way, Clement wrote of this good conscience: “The most high is the defender and protector of those who serve his excellent name with a pure conscience.” That’s great. That’s right too. Don’t think that if you’ve got a defiled conscience and you sin all week and then you raise up a prayer to God that everything’s going to work out. We pray dependently upon God, but we pray on the foundation of lives lived in good conscience toward God.

And that’s wrapped up into this command to pray for God’s ministers.

And so with this good conscience, with this striving, we come to the actual task—the last command of the sermon. Point number four in your notes: The last command of the sermon indicates a concluding obligation for churchmen: praying for those in ecclesiastical authority.

Now we’re to have lives of prayer and make that application here. But very specifically, the concluding obligation before we get to the benediction to empower them to these things is this obligation to pray for those in ecclesiastical authority. Pray for them as a group and for them individually. He says “pray for us”—group of elders—and “pray that I may be reunited to you.” Pray for us corporately. Pray for us individually as well.

I think that when this happens, this is kind of the capstone to trying to create a sense of unity. Remember, this is a divided church. There’s problems. There are sinful tensions going on. There are people who are about ready to flake out. And the last thing he tells them—well, not quite the last, but the last thing in preparation for the benediction is this prayer for your authorities.

If you have proper relationships to the authorities of the church, if the elders are doing their job and you’re praying for them, there’s a wonderful sense of community and bondedness together in the local church that results from this. So there’s this wonderful sense that will come about through the proper application of this prayer.

Pray corporately, pray individually. And then secondly, pray generally and pray specifically. So when he says “pray for us,” there’s nothing really specific attached to that. And it’s perfectly fine and proper and good to do this week by praying for us, the session of the church, the elders of the church, other men as well who are pastors in other churches. And you can pray for us generally.

That’s what he says: “Pray for us.” So there’s a general application of this. Pray, Lord God, that they would do their job well. I pray that you would encourage them in their work. Pray that they not be discouraged with things they got to deal with. Pray for those who are working full-time that they might not be too overwhelmed with what they’re doing at church. There’s general stuff you can pray for the pastors or elders of the church.

But then he also puts a specific request in for himself. I want to be returned to you soon. So this praying specifically is also given to us in this nice little beautiful summary and summation verse—this capstone verse. Pray specifically.

You know, pray for the elders of Reformation Covenant Church. Pray for Doug H. and John S. who will be filling the pulpit a lot in TRC and in Salem over the next couple of months until we find them a pastor. There are obvious prayer requests that you should be engaged with for those men specific to their lives. You know, Elder S., pray for his, you know, employment now that he’s working, that Jonathan’s working with him. There are specific things there in terms of his vocation. Doug, you know, he tends to get real busy. He’s doing lots of stuff at the sermons and the Sunday school, etc. You know, pray for him in terms of all that—that he gets things done quickly and wisely and doesn’t get jammed up on this or that issue. Pray for Chris W.

You know, he’s had a couple of weddings this summer. You know, pray that he—I know he’s doing this, but pray that he gets time to spend with his kids this summer and continues to work on that. Wisdom in guiding his kids into the various degrees of education that they’re going into. Now, I mean, there are all kinds of specific things you can be praying for us for, and we’ll try to do a good job of communicating that to you.

Now, today most prayer groups are meeting, I think, and this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to pray for each other generally and then you’re going to be praying for each other specifically as well. And so this should characterize the prayers that are this capstone to this sermon.

C. Pray confidently. That’s why I got that picture of that guy. You know, yeah, give me, Lord God’s stuff. I’m, you know, I’m doing work for you. I’ve lived life for you. I want to serve you more. Help me, Lord God. And he’s confident. He’s happy. He’s got his hands lifted up ready to receive the gift.

You know, we’re having a discussion in the context of the church. How often should our hands be up when we pray here in front of you? Peter Leithart’s church are having their hands up all the time. Some people have them down. You know, I know that posture in prayer is a little—you know, there’s nothing commanding us. Although there are actually a number of biblical commands to pray with hands uplifted.

So there are some times at least when we’re supposed to do that. But the idea is whether you’re being, you know, respecting and reverencing God, that’s good. Or whether the idea is to remind yourself that you’re praying to someone who controls all of this reality around you and is going to give you blessings from it. Either way, hey, we’re to pray confidently.

Why can we be confident? Well, Jesus ever lives to make intercession. This great theme that we preached on several months ago: Hebrews 7:25. “Therefore, he is also able to save to the uttermost—wonderful words—save to the uttermost those who come to God through him. Through Jesus. Through Jesus. Through Jesus. That’s what it’s all about. Since he, this is Jesus, always lives to make intercession for them.”

And you could almost interpret this verse. You could almost say that this is now the reason why Jesus remains alive. He ever lives to do this thing, at least in this verse. This is the focus of what Jesus is doing. Now he’s waiting for all his enemies he puts to other things. But he ever lives for the specific purpose of making intercession for us.

Now, that should give us confidence. Our prayers go to the Father through the Son, who ever lives for this very reason to take our prayers, as it were, and carry them along, making intercession to the Father.

Secondly, we’ve been definitively sanctified for this priestly task. I’ve got some scriptures there before you. This, as we’ve said, is another one of these big themes throughout Hebrews. Jesus went outside the gates. Why? To sanctify a people. Well, in the context of Hebrews, that means prepare a priesthood. And it kind of, you know, we get a little jammed up about this. What does it mean, this priesthood thing?

Well, the priest in Hebrews has made this abundantly clear: the priest has house access, right? Moses built a house. It’s Christ’s house. Jesus brings us into this house. We can go into the very inner sanctuary of this house. We’ve been definitively sanctified for the purpose of serving—as serving, rather—as servants in Yahweh’s house. Well, that’s the priest. Jesus—you know, God lived here. I mean, he’s ever present, omnipresent. They knew that. But it’s his particular presence here in the temple or in the tabernacle.

And the priests were the guys that, you know, were part of God’s house. They would, you know, come in. They would do the table. They would get the lamps lit. They would make sure it was clean. They’d get everything ready. When people, guests, were going to come to the house, they’d make sure they did it properly. This is who they were. They were house servants. This is who we are now. House servants, you see.

Well, a house servant—he’s the one that has the ear of the house master. You know, he’s not just some laborer. He’s a man who’s been entrusted to more, higher responsibilities than servants outside of the house in the field. And because of that, he has dialogue. He has conversation with the ruler. He has to, because the ruler of the house is telling him how he wants things done. But it’s a two-way street.

And what we see in the Old Testament are the priests speaking for God and speaking with God, bringing requests before the master of the house who has the ability to answer them. So you know, we have been definitively sanctified as a priesthood to God. This is the very reason this text is made clear in Hebrews 13: that Jesus went outside the camp bearing reproach. He did it to sanctify us as a priesthood. Good, and a priesthood are those who, among other things, bring requests to the ruler of the house so that he’ll answer them.

So you know, Jesus ever lives to make intercession, and God tells us that he has—you know, the whole point of Hebrews is we can draw near into the living room and the dining room of God into communication and fellowship and dialogue with him, and we can bring him our assessment of what’s going on in the field and he’ll then do things relative to that field. So we’ve been set up for this very purpose: to pray to God, to bring before him our intercessions.

The household servant has this kind of relationship.

Third, we are to exercise boldness. We’re specifically told that we’re to have boldness approaching this throne of grace. And I read this verse earlier, but Hebrews 10:19-22: “Therefore, brethren, having boldness—see, we’re to pray confidently. We have boldness to enter into this relationship with God, to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil, that is his flesh.

And having a high priest over the house of God, see—high priest over the house. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. We’re to draw near. We’re to go to the throne of grace.

And not only are we supposed to do it—you know, not in kind of a fearful way—no, we’re not confident—no, we’re to have boldness to go to the throne of grace. This is the very reason Jesus did his work. This is why he ever lives to make intercession. He wants you doing this and he wants you confident in your doing of this. That’s what this text tells us. So we’re to have confidence, expecting victory.

D. We’re to pray expectantly. Victory is indeed coming. You know, we probably should have sung this Psalm 3 when Mark—I didn’t find out his text until a couple of days before he preached for us. But of course, he preached on Psalm 3 a couple of weeks ago. And I dug out that old Genevan Psalm version of it. And you know, the lions—I know probably lots of families take home the family camp books from camp to do their family worship. Many of you could take home these orders of worship.

If you want to sing in the morning and evening, great way to do it. This Psalm 3, this Genevan version, is a lot of fun once you get to know it and can sing it quickly. Children like it. I like it a lot. “Go, arise and save me, Lord, for thou hast smitten hard the jaws of them that hate me. Yay, thou dost fearfully break, for me thy servant’s sake, the teeth of the ungodly. Praise God, huh?”

It’s a confident song. It expects victory. And as Mark taught us when he taught on Psalm 3, at the middle of this psalm—now, remember, remember what I’ve taught you about the Psalms. So those of you who are visitors understand this. There are five books in the Psalms very explicitly marked by doxology. Not making this up. It’s very clear to anybody who reads their Bible and thinks about a little bit about the structure of the book.

The first two Psalms are an introduction to the whole book. You know, there are variant readings referring to Psalm 2 as Psalm 1 in the New Testament. Why? How can somebody make such a stupid mistake? Only if they considered one and two as a single psalm. And we know that traditionally they were looked at that way. Now, I’m not saying it’s not okay to have them separate, but they were looked at as a block of two as an introduction to the entire five books, you see.

So Psalm 3 is the beginning of the first book. And at the very heart, the middle of the first book, is Psalm 22. And it has the same dynamic movement as Psalm 3 has: from oppression and difficulties to crying out to God and then God answering and giving us victory. We’re to pray confidently and expectantly of victory. That’s what it says in Psalm 3.

Verse 4: “I cry to the Lord of my voice. He heard me from his holy will. So he cries out and then God hears him and starts smashing the teeth of the ungodly. That’s the sort of God we serve. He hears our prayers and responds giving us victory.”

Psalm 22—remember that the—that’s the great psalm we frequently recite on Resurrection Sunday because it has all those references to the crucifixion of Jesus. And that sets us up for great victory at the end. But the way you get from the suffering and the difficulties to the victory is a crying out to God.

Verse 20: “Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen. He prays. He cries out to God. And he knows that victory will come. The very next phrase: ‘You have answered me. I will declare your name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly, I will praise you.’”

He sings praises to the Father in the midst of the assembly. But see, that’s in response to the answered prayers of God. He cries out to God. God hears him. And that means that victory now is what’s happening. Victory is on its way.

And so Psalm 22 goes on to say that “all the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.” There’s this great movement in the first book of the Psalms, teaching us how to pray, teaching us how to sing prayers. And the movement is: difficulties, crying out to God in prayer expectantly and confidently because he then brings victory to his people.

Turn, if you will, to 2 Kings 20, story of Hezekiah. Remarkable text. I heard Peter Leithart preach on this a couple months ago and wanted to work it in as quickly as I could. And this is the right place. 2 Kings 20:1-11.

You know, this is the deal where Hezekiah is dying and Isaiah goes to him and gives him the bad news. He’s going to die. But then Hezekiah gets an extension of life.

Well, verse 1: “In these days, Hezekiah was sick and near death. And Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, went unto him and said to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, he’s going to get the word of the Lord. Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.’” Over. Done. Finish. You’re dying.

What’s Hezekiah’s response? He doesn’t get his house in order in the sense of making out a will and okay, I’m going. That’s it. Verse 2: “He turned his face toward the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, ‘Remember now, O Lord, I pray. How I have walked before you in truth and with a loyal heart.’” Sounds like our sermon writer to Hebrews, doesn’t it? I’ve got a good conscience. I’ve lived honorably. He’s doing that stuff. We should be able to do that.

“‘Remember how I’ve walked honorably before you in truth and with a loyal heart. Wouldn’t have done what was good in your sight.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly. He gets the word of the Lord. He weeps and cries out to God. He prays.

Look at verse 4: “And it happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle court—you see, I mean, God answers this prayer—the word of the Lord came to him again, saying, ‘Return and tell Hezekiah, the leader of my people, thus says the Lord, the God of David your father. I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Surely I will heal you. On the third day, you shall go up to the house of the Lord.’”

Wait, whoa, wait. Whoa. What’s going on here? God said he’s dying now. God changes his mind. That’s right. From our perspective, from a covenantal perspective, we know this is eternally decreed by God. There’s no lack of sovereignty going on. But from a covenantal perspective, God hears our prayers. They change things. The psalmist cries out, God starts smashing the teeth of the ungodly. Jesus cries out. God hears him and begins the transformation of the entire created order. Hezekiah cries out. God says, “Well, yeah, I was going to kill you, but now you’re going to get an extension of life. As it turns out, you’re going to be raised up in three days.”

See, so crying out to God—interesting story because then he’s healed by—Isaiah says, “I’ll deliver you and this city from the hand of the Assyrians.” And then in verse 7: “Then Isaiah said, ‘Take a lump of figs.’ They took and laid it on the boil and he recovered.”

And then he asked for a sign, which is confusing. I think Peter really did a good job on this—that what he’s asking for is not a sign of his own recovery from death. It’s a sign that he can go up on the third day and go to the temple because he’s unclean otherwise. He’s—when you get a boil, a skin lesion, you can’t go to God. And so the sign is that he’ll be able to be purified in these three days.

So anyway, we’ll get back to that when we go to the communion table. But understand that Hezekiah cries out to God and that’s what turns this whole thing forward.

Now turn, if you will, to Hebrews 5, beginning at verse 6. You know, we got all these pictures from the Old Covenant and now we’ll see them confirmed in a wonderful way here in the life of the Savior. And we preached on this, of course, before, but reminding you again of these themes.

Verse 6, Hebrews 5: “He also says in another place, ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’” So, of course, that’s why we’re singing Psalm 110 and—big deal in this sermon to the Hebrews. Important for us to understand Jesus as king and priest and different from the ironic priesthood.

Anyway: “Who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and was heard because of his godly fear. Though he was the Son, yet he learned obedience for the things which he suffered. And having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation.”

Jesus, like Hezekiah, like David in Psalm 22, like the psalmist in Psalm 3, in his day cried out to God with tears and supplications, praying. And because of his godly fear, because of this cry—crying out—this text tells us God hears him and allows him then, or moves him to becoming the author of eternal salvation. So the very—you know, the very work of Jesus, the resurrection, the ascension of Jesus, portrayed in Psalm 22, but now given to us very explicitly in factual terms about the Savior—the hinge point for all of that are prayers to God.

We can pray confidently. We can pray expectantly. Now it doesn’t mean we’re not experiencing the sorrows, right? Jesus cries, weeps tears. He’s a singing Savior. He’s a weeping Savior. Hezekiah cried out to God, wept bitterly. It tells us. Not wrong to do that in prayer. But when you do that, understand that you can be expectant and confident that the Lord God is answering your prayers. Just like that—in Hezekiah’s case, the word goes out. Jesus prays and then immediately, you know, he’s heard me. All the world will be saved, and in Hebrews he cries out and weeps to God and as a result becomes the author of eternal salvation.

So we can pray confidently. We should also pray—and I don’t want to make a big deal of this. If you’re interested, all the sermons are now on the website by year. You can go to each year, look at the anti-abortion Day of the Lord sermon for that Lord’s day—you know, around January 15th to 22nd somewhere in there—each year I preach a sermon. Almost all those sermons have had instruction and impreaction. Don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but I do want to make a deal out of it because Psalm 3 reminds us that what we’re praying for is what God will accomplish: that he’d break the teeth of the ungodly, smash their jaws.

Now, I think maybe we can see in that a reference to their words, right? Words. But still, there are teeth being spoken of. It’s not wrong to pray that the army of the Lord Jesus Christ and the army that’s now present in some form, exercising God’s justice against godless, wicked, evil men who cut off heads of living people and who hate the Lord Jesus Christ when he’s preached as supremacy to all their mediation—it is not bad to pray imprecatorily toward those men in the Middle East who are so bloodthirsty and such an opponent to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it’s not bad. In fact, it’s required, I think, to pray imprecatorily. What does imprecatory mean? Sorry, I didn’t explain that. To pray that God would bring judgments—impreations—that he would imprecate, bring judgments, physical temporal judgments to men to hopefully lead them to repentance and if not, to kill them, take them out of the way. It’s not bad to pray imprecatorily in that way for enemies of the church.

And you know, if you’re involved with church very long, you get to realize that the church, an effective church, raises up enemies against itself. And there are some pretty vocal enemies. And I prayed imprecatorily against a man named Peter Kershaw a couple of weeks ago, and I believe those prayers are being answered. I continue to pray that God would bring judgments upon this man till he either repents or be taken out of having any influence as he tries to disturb and trouble various local churches including CRC churches and others.

It’s not wrong. I did this two weeks ago too: to pray that when a governor—as our governor did a couple or a month or two ago now by executive order—affected what we didn’t want affected, the practical advantages of marriage for sodomites and for same-sex couples, when he ordered a total review of all the administrative rules in the state so that whatever he could do by executive order to make that happen, to give them these rights of marriage he would do.

It’s not wrong, and I think it’s almost required of us when a man so attacks marriage—that we are duty bound according to Hebrews to defend. I don’t think it’s wrong to pray that God to bring his temporal judgments upon that man and remove him from office. Pray imprecatorily. Pray that God would smash the teeth of the ungodly.

You know, life is a real deal. There are real enemies, and God has promised that he will hear the prayers of his people and act in real ways, you know, to smite them, to remove their effectiveness.

And then finally: Keep praying. When it says “pray for us,” actually, it’s in a tense that indicates that they’re already doing it. I know you already do it. You’re praying for us. You’re praying for other pastors. You’re praying for many of the situations I’ve told you. But it’s good for you to hear the admonition and exhortation to keep praying. Keep praying. Do it this week. Pray for the session. Pray for us individually. Pray for these matters we’ve talked about. Pray confidently. Pray expecting God’s victory to come to his people and to his church. Keep doing it. Continue on praying in this way.

You know, you’re really confessing your faith when you pray in this way before your children who hear you pray. If you pray out loud, we acknowledge in prayer the absolute sovereignty. We can have the best conscience. We’re doing all the right stuff. We’re trying to take care of all the enemies we’ve got. We’re doing everything right. So is this guy. And he said, “I need your prayers.” Why? Because God is sovereign. We’re not. And we know that no matter what we’re doing in the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, God has said that he has chosen. He delights in hearing our prayers and answering them to demonstrate that sovereignty to us.

So the sovereignty of God is confessed by you when you go to him in prayer. As is your responsibility, when you teach your children that this is what prayer is—a good conscience crying out to God for relief from enemies, and God hearing those things or bringing people that are distant together. You’re confessing not only that God is sovereign but that you are responsible. You’ve got things you’re supposed to do. You’re not just sitting there with a bunch of cheap grace in your living room. You’re living a life self-consciously striving to do all things honorably. And you’ve got a good conscience about that. And God says that you’re responsible to bring these prayers.

God changes Hezekiah’s lifespan. He changes his word about that. You see, he changes from external difficulties for the psalmist to victory based on the prayers of his people. He’s not less sovereign. He’s more sovereign. He says, “I’m sovereign. Here’s the way I’m going to change things when you come to me, when you take up your responsibility as my image bearers and speak to me your words, looking for the expansion, the manifestation of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is when I will hear and answer this. You can be confident of this very thing that God is hearing and answering these prayers.”

God delights to hear the prayers of his people. It’s an affirmation of his sovereignty, our responsibility, and his control over human history. Praying in this manner is a demonstration of praying according to God’s love, our theonomic leanings. It’s a demonstration of our postmillennialism. We pray expectantly, confidently—not just trying to get through this mess until we can go home to be with Jesus, but we pray that Jesus might be manifest here in the context of this country and in our lives specifically. God hears those prayers. He delights to hear them and he delights to answer them.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for your wondrous gifts to us. We thank you for this beautiful picture in the Lord Jesus crying out to you, Father. You hearing those prayers, that you heard the prayers of Hezekiah. Make us this week a praying people.

For those people here, Lord God, dear saints who are regular in their prayers to you in this way, encourage them by today’s sermon that they would continue to pray in this way. For those, Lord God, who have not prayed, convict them of their need to pray and of a need to live their lives with a good conscience to you and to begin to articulate prayers to you as well.

And to those who are praying but infrequently, make them, Lord God, a people of prayer on a regular basis, knowing that this great capstone is how we bear the image of your creatures redeemed through Jesus’ work. In his name we ask it. Amen.