Dennis Tuuri

# Hebrews 13:20-21

We will actually be dealing primarily today with the first half of verse 20, but we’ll read the entire benediction. Now, may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you what is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this wondrous picture of benediction and blessing to us in it. We pray that your holy spirit, Lord God, would be amongst us. That you would write this word upon our hearts. Cause our lives to be ones of joyful life in the power of the spirit. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. There was a book many years ago by a man named Magnus Verbrugi who I think was the son-in-law of Herman Dooyeweerd if I remember correctly. The book was published by Ross House. I think it was called Alive, an inquiry into the meaning and origin of life and it’s a very good book. I recommend it to you. It’s not the sort of thing you’d read typically, the kind of things that he talks about in terms of life and what it is. One of the things he talks about is that what we try to do is we take living things and then try to split them up and understand life by looking at the constituent parts of what a living organism is.

So we take a frog and dissect it and try to figure out the life mechanism. And of course what he says is as soon as we try to tear it apart we kill it. So what we’re really analyzing is something that’s dead trying to find the meaning of life.

We are looking at this wonderful benediction, a wonderful flower, a beautiful orchid, I don’t know, this wonderful culmination of this sermon to the Hebrews. A sermon, by the way, that some commentators have called a liturgical sermon. And here at the end, we have this benediction that is obvious that this is to be read in the context of the churches. This sermon was read to the church at Hebrews. It has a liturgical flow to it and that culminates in this wonderful benediction.

This benediction has been used in the churches of course for two millennia and not infrequently on resurrection Sunday or Easter.

So we have remember at the beginning of the book in Hebrews 1:1-4 we had this wonderful piece of text about the supremacy of Christ and how God has talked revealed himself through him now as the culmination or capstone of all revelation. And this is a text that’s frequently exposited read, sung during the season of Advent, you know, for obvious reasons. So the liturgical sermon to Hebrews kind of begins at Advent and ends at resurrection Sunday.

One of the reasons this benediction is read on resurrection Sunday is that this is the first explicit mention of the resurrection, the bringing again from the dead of the Lord Jesus throughout the whole sermon to the Hebrews. Hebrews has focused on the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ with implications that he is alive of course and gone into heaven and all that stuff. But here we have an explicit text speaking of the resurrection.

So we have this beautiful flower and I want to spend several weeks looking at the constituent parts. And now I hope that the end result of this is not that we rip the flower apart and look at each petal and don’t and miss somehow the beauty of the entire benediction, but I hope what it does is we look at a living flower. We sort of look at it in context and we come to appreciate the beauty of this great capstone of this wonderful sermon that we’ve spent a year and a half or so on.

So that’s what we want to do. This is the crowning glory is this final passage of great blessing and benediction. And this is this crowning glory of the sermon we want to spend a couple of weeks on. And so that’s why we’ve got it broken up on the on the handout in the particular phrases we do. And I’ve given you a number of verses there for each phrase. And we’ll be looking at most of those verses in the next couple of weeks as we discuss this benediction.

It begins of course by identifying the one who speaks the benediction as the God of peace. The God of peace. God loves peace. And God, you know, when if we’re thinking about the advent of Jesus, of course, that announcement is, you know, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill to men. So the advent moves to the purposes of establishing and causing this peace of God to flow out into all the world.

And so the God of peace is he who is the source and giver of this peace. And it is the very purpose of the coming of Jesus to bring peace to us.

The text really as I’ve said before in a couple of weeks ago, we have two parts to this benediction. The first part describes what God has done relative to Jesus. He’s brought from the dead by means of the blood of the everlasting covenant. And then the second part is the benediction placed upon the people that God will do things for us.

So he will equip us unto every good work. If you look at if you look at the handout, the first phrase, may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant. So that’s the first step. This is what God has accomplished in Jesus. And that sets us up for the second half. Make you then complete in every good work to do his will.

So there’s a perfection and a completion in doing works of God that are well pleasing to him. And remember we said that this entire section begins at the last couple of verses in chapter 12 that announces the acceptable service of God. And that’s what this culminates in. And so that God, the benediction makes us look at an action of God in the past, the raising up of Jesus from the dead. and then says on the basis of that God will equip us for every good work.

So there’s two aspects of this benediction what God has accomplished in Jesus is then the foundation and the confidence we have for the second part of it. We all want to be equipped to every good work. We all want to be made perfect. We all want to come to our eschatological fulfillment. And God says you can anticipate that is the case. That God will empower you to that. Because you look at what God has done raising up Jesus from the dead.

And the point I’m going to make is that raising up Jesus from the dead is not simply restricted to a deliverance of us from what we think of as death. But he raises him out of the realm or domain of death. And on the basis of that, he says that it doesn’t just equip us for heaven. He equips us now to do the good work of God.

Now, the word equip here means to fix something, to restore it back to usefulness. We’ll see when we get to that in a couple of weeks. We’ll spend more time on this, but something’s been broken and it needs to be fixed to be of service again. It’s used specifically, for instance, of mending fishing nets in the gospel, making the net use for the purpose again. Mankind is broken in the fall, but mankind has been redeemed not just to go to heaven. There’s certainly that, but redeemed so that he is fixed.

And God equips us. He gives us everything necessary. He gives us a backpack, if you will, filled with all the good gifts that we need to do every good work that he has called us to do.

So, we have this flow and on the handouts, there’s a couple of bolded texts in the under in the overview part. Isaiah 63:11 and Zechariah 9:11. Both of these two texts are woven together in the first half of this benediction, and they’re kind of the preeminent texts to look at and prepare yourself for over the next couple of weeks. But these other texts, you can look at them as well and prepare for sermons.

So, this is the great benediction. It’s composed of two parts. It causes us to cast our confidence for being equipped to every good work on the historical fact that God has raised up Christ from the dead.

I’ve worn this tie today because as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three nights and three days, so Jesus was in death the same way. What does that mean? And what as we get to the conclusion of the sermon, we’ll flesh that out a little bit and say it has more to do has something more to do with than just what we think of as death.

So, and another corollary of this if we understand this flow is that God identifies himself as the God of peace and then he’s accomplished this thing with Jesus and then he’s going to equip us in every good work. Well, I think that what we can infer from this is that peace is essential to the equipment of who we are to every good work. So, we can look at it as even though the first half is talking about what God has accomplished in Christ, it gives us a clue to the first equipping thing that God does to restore us, he restores us to peace.

And so peace is absolutely essential, I think, for accomplishing what God has given us to do in this life and to enjoying it. So God is the God of peace. God raised Jesus from the dead. God will equip us for the works that he has called us to do. God is the God of peace and the God of life. And in the first half of this benediction, the statement about what God has accomplished in Christ. Those are the two great truths. The God of peace has also is also the God of life. He has raised Jesus from the realm of death and is in other words the giver of life.

It’s interesting. I was down in Sacramento and I was meditating on I gave the sermon there looking at the obligation of rulers and those ruled in the church from Hebrews 13. and you may not remember, but that’s set in the context of a series of positive statements that you’re supposed to show hospitality, that you’re supposed to honor the marriage bed, and you’re supposed to be content with whatever things you have.

And I was meditating as I was trying to get to sleep in the motel room. That’s one of the advantages of motel rooms. You can meditate. So, you can’t sleep as good as you do at home. So, I’m meditating on it. And it’s interesting that it seems to follow the second tablet, the first three commandments of the second tablet of the law. What are we told there? We’re told that we’re not supposed to kill. We’re not supposed to commit adultery. And we’re not supposed to steal. All negative formulations. What you’re not supposed to do.

And in Hebrews, we turn to the lifegiving aspects of those things to the positive aspects of them. Instead of killing, we’re supposed to be those who minister life through charitable service, hospitality, visiting people who are distressed, etc. We’re givers of life. We’re not just commanded not to kill anybody. As Christians, we are positively encouraged at the conclusion of Hebrews to be those who give life to other people, right?

And instead of just not committing adultery, we’re told to actually have the marriage bed in honor. We’re to positively build solid marriages and solid families instead of just abstaining from something. You see, and instead of just not stealing, he says we’re supposed to be content with whatever we have. The positive statement of commandments 6, 7, and 8 are given to us as the book comes to its conclusion.

And this benediction sort of fulfills that same thing. God is the God of life. He brought us up out of the realm of death. And now we don’t just have negative things, we have positive things we’re supposed to be doing. And so there is this emphasis on God as lifegiving and peace giving. And that’s what happens here. God is a God of peace. He identifies himself with that in the very first section.

So God is the God of peace. God is the God of life. The two parts of this of verse 20. And as the God of peace, he is moving to bring peace to the world. He is the God of peace. He sent forth Jesus to bring peace. And that is an essential part of the works that we’re called to do to extend that peace. So peace is essential to our calling as Christians.

And even such that here in the New Testament, God is referred to as the God of peace. Now in Romans 15:33 we read the same thing. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. This designation of God as the God of peace is not found in the Old Testament. There’s some inferences, but there’s nothing that says that God is the God of peace. But we do have this in the New Testament. And again, I would argue that’s because this is what the culmination of the revelation is in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And now we can identify God explicitly as the God of peace, the source and the giver of peace as well.

Now, while that’s not used in the Old Testament, this term peace, of course, is one of the most important terms used in the Old Testament. The word that’s translated peace is shalom. You know, we have Salem, Oregon. Shalom, Oregon. Peace is the name of the capital of our state. And that’s a good name for a capital.

And this word shalom, you know, that you’ve probably heard used as a blessing in various movies. You know, shalom is a blessing given to one another. Peace is what it means. This word shalom is used some 250 times in 213 different verses in the Old Testament. It’s a big deal. Peace. Shalom.

What does it mean? Well, the root of it has the idea of completion and fulfillment. Completion and fulfillment, and entering into a state of wholeness and unity, a restored relationship. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I look at what I want, what my heart desires more than anything else, it is that sense of wholeness, completion, entering into fulfillment of the task, restored relationships with people. That’s what I want. I want that kind of rejoicing fellowship that the Old Testament characterizes in my particular word, shalom or peace.

And so, you know, as we come to this text, we come to this beautiful blossom in the first couple of petals of it. And I hope that if nothing else, you leave here by understanding that the God of peace has accomplished has given us a picture of who Jesus is and accomplished our salvation, not just to get us into heaven, but to make us a peaceful people in the context even of the sort of world we live in today, a world that knows no peace.

So peace is what God extends to us. And I hope that today when you go home, you understand, you believe. We’re tempted not to believe that God is a God of peace who gives us peace. And I hope that as a result of these texts we’re going to be looking at, you go home with a renewed assurance that the Lord God is a God of peace and he’s not stingy with it. It is flowing to you and it is to characterize your life and it’s a gift of God.

You see it’s a gift of God this completion and wholeness.

Now in the New Testament there’s at least three different words or groups of words that are used that are translated peace at times. One is the root of soteria, salvation. This is one of the ways that the Septuagint translates the word shalom or peace. Another is the word we have here, irene. Good night, Irene. Good night, peace. Irene is a name that means peace. Irenical is a peaceable person, right? That’s a word that we should know if we’re hopefully irenic. That’s what we’re to be a peaceable people and has that context of it. And then also telos the end result or fulfillment of a thing, the completion of a thing.

And so you can see that there are various Greek words that are used to translate this single Old Testament word because it has these constituent elements to it. Okay, it has this idea of completion or telos. It has this idea of being saved, soteria, and it has this idea of being calm and peaceable.

Now the Greek idea of peace was irene, irenical, irene. And this was a peace that was not connected to being saved, victory over enemies or any of that stuff. It just meant a calmness. But in the in the scriptures, if we look at the Old Testament. The picture of peace is far broader than just irene. It has to do with being saved, having victory. It has to do with completion of our purpose and a calmness as well.

So in the Bible, in the New Testament, there’s a broadening of the Greek idea of peace to include the Old Testament ideas of growth and prosperity being brought to completion, growth, prosperity, and blessing. It can mean the absence of strife, but and it’s used that way a number of times but that is not complete the idea of peace. Peace means the kind of absence of strife that’s talked about or described as peace in the Old Testament is what happens when you win the war and when your enemies are defeated and when the land is subdued. You see this is what peace is. So peace has a context of victory to it over enemies as well.

And hence we see that throughout this sermon to the Hebrews Jesus is the great warrior who has conquered death and conquered all of our enemies. Completeness, wholeness, harmony, fulfillment. These are close to the meaning of elements again of this comprehensive meaning of peace given to us in the Bible. Unimpaired relationships with others. Fulfillment in one’s undertakings. This is peace. This is the stuff that God says he is the source of. We’re made in his image. We desire it. And he is great. granting it now to us because of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so this is this is the Old Testament designation of peace. And now God is actually called the God of peace. Peace is the result of God’s activity in the covenant here in the Old Testament. This is true that the covenant blessings given to Abraham for instance are said to be peace. You go to your grave in peace. So peace is a is a result of the covenant that God has established and fulfilled in Christ.

And of course, we see that in this benediction as well. The God of peace brought up the dead, brought up Jesus from the dead by the blood of the everlasting covenant. And this then becomes the beginning stage of our equipment for the work that God has given us to do. The presence of God is to bring forth peace and the presence of God is found in covenant. And so there’s a various citations in Numbers, Isaiah and Ezekiel, where the covenant itself is called the covenant of peace.

So the whole covenant has as its purpose, its kind of embodiment is this idea of peace, calmness, rest, fulfillment, growth, prosperity, victory over enemies, etc. That’s what the covenant is. So if we’re covenant theologians, we’re peace theologians. We can’t talk about the covenant really without talking about peace because it is the covenant of peace. And as I say, not just the peace of forgiven sins. That’s part of it. So peace is to characterize our lives.

God extends peace to the people in Psalm 85:8. He speaks shalom. He speaks peace to us. Remember we said two weeks ago, God’s word doesn’t fall to the ground. He speaks peace to us. The culmination of the great benediction we looked at two weeks ago. Peace is the end result of the blessings and benediction of God. He speaks peace to us. He will at the end of this service again. And at as we hear that, we’re to understand that his word is effectual and produces peace in us.

So it has calmness and rest and quietness, but it also has this idea of men who have been blessed, guarded, and treated graciously as in the irenic benediction. We’re guarded treated graciously by God and blessed by him. This is what culminates in this idea of peace. Jesus is the prince of peace. Of course, the prince of peace is the one who brings fulfillment and righteousness to the earth and causes peace to flow.

Now, let’s look at a couple of specific texts and you don’t have to turn to these, but just listen. In Isaiah 52:7, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Yahweh, “Your God reigns.” So, an element of peace is certainly the forgiveness of our sins. The gospel is about Jesus dying for our sins, giving us eternal salvation. And so peace with God, having the problem that we have with God taken out of the way our sins through the forgiveness of Jesus. This is certainly an aspect of peace.

So peace involves forgiveness of sins. But the good news that’s being spoken of here, of course, is much broader than that. The culmination of the message of peace is your God reigns. So you know peace is theocratic. Peace says that the Lord God reigns in the earth. And it’s not something we want to attain. We’re not trying to establish a theocracy from this sense of the term. We’re to acknowledge that the good news is that the Lord God has brought Jesus up from the dead and that the that Jesus has ascended to the right hand of the Father and he’s king of kings and lord of lords. We are living in a theocracy whether we care to acknowledge it or not.

Now, we want to see the manifestation of that in various ways, but God reigns. That’s the gospel. The gospel is God reigns and that gospel is the proclamation of peace.

Romans 16:17 and 20 says, “I urge you brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. For your obedience has become known to all. Therefore, I am glad on your behalf. But I want you to be wise in what is good and simple concerning evil.”

So he’s saying he’s giving instructions here that you are to not hang out with people that are heretics or whose lifestyle is somehow against the lifestyle of Jesus Christ. If they either deny God in their relationship with God in terms of doctrine and theology and what they teach or in their life practices given over to sinfulness, the Bible says you’re supposed to note those people.

Now, why am I talking about that because the very next verse says, “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.” See, we take that verse out of context, right? It’s a great verse for postmillennialism and an activist church and all that stuff. God crushes the head of Satan under our feet. Jesus doesn’t come back to accomplish it. The church does its task. And as the church fulfills its life, the God of peace is accomplishing peace through victory over enemies.

And specifically, this involves proper judging on the part of God’s people. Evaluating the sorts of people we should hang out with and the sorts of people we shouldn’t hang out with. Now, this doesn’t say, you know, that you need formal action by the church. It says you’re supposed to be kind of wise folks. You’re supposed to be noting people with differences of doctrine and you’re supposed to avoid them. Okay?

So, victory is part of peace. I mean, we’re talking about God telling us, don’t just be peaceful at all men in terms of the absence of conflict. He’s saying just the reverse. As the God of peace, I’m telling you to be at war, so to speak, with particular kinds of people. And as you do that, God will establish peace by crushing the serpent under your heads.

I was watching a movie this last week. Won’t tell you what it was, but at one point in the movie, we’re about two-thirds of the way through, and the plot is becoming obvious now and there’s a good woman and a bad guy. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? So, there’s a good woman, a bad guy. And I turn to my wife and I say, “You know, I just love these movies where the woman crushes the head of the evil man.” And I turn back to the screen. The Lord is my witness. This is true. I turn back to the screen after making that comment. And within two seconds, this woman is picking up a heavy object as the guy walks in the door and hits him right in the head at the object and knocks him down. I love it. God gave that to me to give it to you.

This is what we do. This is what the church of Jesus Christ is. This is peacefulness is waring effectively, making proper judgments and having victory over our enemies. That’s what this benediction implies. The God of peace, the God of victory over enemies is going to be with us so that we can crush the head of the serpent and of men who serve that serpent. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all is how that ends and that’s how we accomplish these things for the grace of God.

Now 1 Corinthians 14 tells us some more stuff about peace. He says, “How is it then, brethren, whenever you come together, each one of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.” This is such a great verse. If you were at family camp, you heard this from James B. Jordan. He said it quickly. Maybe you don’t remember it, but if you weren’t at camp, understand this. There are people who don’t like the kind of worship that we do informed by all 66 books of the Bible. They say, “No, no, no, no, no, no. We’re New Testament church. We should do New Testament worship.” And you say, “Well, where is that worship?” And the only verse they usually, though, the verse they almost always point to is this one.

Well, New Testament worship is coming together. Everybody should have a psalm. Everybody has a teaching. Everybody has a tongue. Everybody has a revelation because that’s what happened when Paul went to Corinth. Well, there were a lot of things going on in Corinth that Paul was writing to correct. And I think Jordan is right. This is one of them. This isn’t good. How is it, brother? What are you doing here? He’s saying, he says, you’re doing all this stuff in chaos, but let all things be done for edification.

And then he brings instructions for how these things should be done in the context of worship. He brings laws and commands to them in terms of how to order their worship. So, he’s not commending that to us. It’s just the opposite, it seems to me. He’s critiquing it for us. And he says, “That’s what you shouldn’t be doing.” He goes on to say that in this instruction you can all prophecy one by one that all may learn and all may be encouraged.

He says well have if you have a thing have an interpreter tongue and have an interpreter. And then verse 32 the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets for God is not the author of confusion but of peace as in all the churches of the saints. So you see God is the God of peace and peace results from victory over enemies who would have attacked the church and peace also results from a right ordering of things in the context of the church specifically worship but we can extend it out to the community life of the church as well the right ordering of community is an essential aspect of peace that’s what God’s going to equip us to do is this good work of warfare against heretics but also of having our churches ordered correctly so order in the church.

1 Thessalonians 5:12, we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labor among you, who are over you in the Lord and admonish you, to esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. Be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, etc.

So now he says the same thing. To be at peace, the God of peace is going to grant us peace in the right ordering of the church community. And he tells them very explicitly, for that to happen, you have to honor and love those that the Lord has placed in the position as your pastors and elders. The right ordering of community involves a proper submission. More than that, an honoring and a love for those that God has placed to minister peace to you. And the implication is that if you’re at war with your elders, you’re not happy with them. You’re not going to have peace in the context of that church.

So, what you should do is get your mind straight and trust God for the men that God has given you to teach you the word etc. And you’re to then build upon that and that will create peace in the context of the church.

That same text from 1 Thessalonians 5 goes on to say, “Don’t quench the spirit. Don’t despise prophecies. Test all things. Hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Now the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.” So peace is related to the sanctification, not just the salvation of his people, but their sanctification and that sanctification very explicitly in these texts is tied to the right ordering of community and very explicitly it’s tied to a proper relationship to rulers.

Now there are those who think that’s why this particular kind of benediction is given here that’s why he starts with the God of peace. What’s he just been talking about? Do you remember where does this benediction come after? Well, it comes after that big section that dealt with 13:7 to 13:17 and then the prayer for Paul that follows the prayer for the person who wrote this sermon following it. It follows the section dealing with rulers, right?

And he tells him twice, you know, obey your rulers, submit to them, those who teach and rule in the context of the church who taught you the word of God. Be at peace with your pastors. He’s saying, and so that’s why I think it’s perfectly correct when commentators say that now the God of peace is going to bless you in this stuff. And he and that’s following his admonitions to them to apply themselves correctly to loving their pastors and that is a way of accomplishing peace in the context of the community.

And so peace is not individualized. There is that there is a peace you have with God as an individual. There’s a calmness of your spirit. But that is that is you know it’s not like there’s that plus this that is tied to your experience and your social relationships in the context of the church. And if you don’t have peace in the church, you’re not going to have peace in your soul. That’s the way God’s intended it to be. He’s restored all these things through Christ. And so this sort of peace is what God is giving us, granting us in this benediction, the peace of God.

Now, there is this internal. So, we’ve talked about, you know, there’s salvation from sins, there’s relationship with God, there’s peace with him, there’s peace with one another in the community of Christ, there’s peace in the context of sanctification, and then there’s this internal idea of peace as well. You say, “Well, Dennis, I understand that stuff. I’m fine with that. You know, I worry a lot. I don’t have peace in my soul. I get up anxious every morning or I get up with something less than those songs of praise I’m supposed to sing to God. You know, my heart is troubled. I don’t have peace.”

Well, the Bible talks about that, too. It talks about internal peace. And of course, Philippians 4 is where this is found.

He says in verse four, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing. In every by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”

When I was down in Sacramento, John S. was sharing a book by C.S. Lewis, and I don’t know, maybe it’s Mere Christianity, and I haven’t read that in a long, long time, but John said at the end of whatever the C.S. Lewis book was, C.S. Lewis says, “Well, you know, if you don’t believe in God, just pretend like you do. Just pretend like you believe God and that what he said in the Bible is true and start acting like that.” And you know, this is scandalous to many people, but I don’t think it’s so scandalous. I think Lewis was probably on to something there.

Before he tells you not to be anxious, he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Again, I say, “Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to all men.” And then he says, “Be anxious for nothing.” He says, “Pretend that everything is okay. It doesn’t seem that way to you, but pretend that it is true.”

You remember over and over again in the New Testament, you’re supposed to imitate Paul, imitate your rulers, right? Imitate them. Pretend you’re like them. Ask yourself, What would Roger do? That’s what I do a lot of the time. What would Deacon Payne do? What would this or that person do? How can I imitate them? I’ll act like them. I’ll pretend I’m in a play and I’m acting like Roger. That is not a bad thing to do. Some kind of strange thing we have in our day and age, this idea of authenticism or something that’s only from the depths of my heart that I can know myself. But the Bible says you can’t know yourself. And here we’re told explicitly that the one of the ways that the God of peace equips you to be peaceable is he commands you to rejoice. Pretend like it’s a thing of joy and not a thing of anxiety.

And you know what? You start to do that and the anxiety goes away because you’re not pretending. You’re really pretending when you’re not rejoicing because pretending means doing something that is unreal or irrational. And irrationality is anxiety in the midst of a sovereign God who loves you, who is rightly ordering the world and bringing things to peace. So, you’re pretending, you’re actually believing and acting on the basis of the belief that God says you can rejoice in the midst of your anxieties.

Try it. You tell me, “Well, I’ve been anxious for many years and I’ve tried all kind.” Well, try this one. Before you start being anxious or as you start to get anxious, rejoice. Thank God. Pretend that anxiety is not required. And then he says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Talk to God about it and give him thanks for whatever it is you’re anxious over.

I saw another movie I don’t think most of you would see this. I don’t recommend it. There were only two good things in it. It was called Freedom Land. And I won’t give away the storyline, but about a woman who, you know, loses her son, a four-year-old son, and Samuel L. Jackson is the detective. And he says, “Well, you know, you got to remember that God wills all this stuff. The good, the bad. God has decided this is the way it’s going to be. And I’ve had hard things as a detective. I’ve seen bad things, but I got to keep telling myself that God has willed all this stuff.”

Well, that’s absolutely right. You see, and then later, he talks about the grace of God and how even if you mess up with your own child, he says God’s grace is retroactive and you can always be kind and gracious and a better father to the other kids that come into your life. God doesn’t give up on you. In other words, it’s not a matter of works. It’s a matter of grace from a sovereign God. Well, that’s right. You see, God has decreed all this stuff. So, we really can give him thanks in the midst of things that would give us anxiety otherwise.

And the peace of God, this text says, will then fill you. It goes on to say, “Be anxious for nothing. Everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” So, it’s okay to request things. It’s okay when God’s decreed this horrible thing up to now, but you can say, “Lord God, change it.” That’s okay with thanksgiving and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Well, how do you get that peace with God? You get it by acting. By pretending what’s really true is really true. By believing, being thankful, being anxious for nothing, going to God with thanksgiving in the midst of all things that he’s decreed. Understanding you can ask for change to things. But this is the key to this peace of God. This is how the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the Lord and giver of life. Now God is the God of peace and he brought up from the realm of death Jesus. In other words, he’s the God of life and these things are related.

The God of peace calms you and removes your anxiety as you don’t grieve the spirit of life. He’s a life-giving spirit. And as you do what the spirit says you should be doing, giving thanks to God in the midst of everything, but also noting things that should be changed in your world and going to him, rejoicing all the way through it.

Goes on again to say the same thing again. He says it twice in this chapter. Verse 8. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, and if there’s anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Think about that. Think about what God has accomplished in your life. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do imitate me. He says again, you saw the way I acted. Act that way. Meditate on these wonderful things that God has accomplished.

Don’t fill your mind with anxieties. Don’t watch the 6:00 news. If you’re trying to become calm, once you meditate on what’s good and proper, you can look at what God’s doing on the 6:00 news. We should be involved in this world. We want the right order of the world. We want victory over enemies, you see. But he says, meditate on what God is positively accomplishing. And then imitate me and the God of peace will be with you. This is the way to peace. The peace that flows to us flows in this way.

So there is this peace of spirit. Isaiah 57:15, I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Verse 19, I create the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near, says the Lord, and I will heal him. God speaks peace to his people. Those words don’t fall to the ground.

But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest. Whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, God says, for the wicked. So peace is a gift of God. It flows to you, but you can sure take that gift and throw it away and end up troubled and anxious. We tend to do that. God says that our sanctification is directly tied to the peace of God abiding in our soul.

So don’t sin all week and then tell me you got a problem sleeping. You’re supposed to. You’re not supposed to have peace when you’re wicked. You know, you go to the Oregon coast, there’s that Devil’s Punchbowl, right? This area that was all churned up all churning, churning, churning, throwing all the dirt up. That’s what the imagery here is. The wicked, they don’t have peace. Everything’s troubled and toiling, rolling and boiling about. The Devil’s Punchbowl is a picture of what it’s like when we don’t walk in the power and obedience of the Holy Spirit and we move away from peace.

So God says he’s the God of peace. Psalm 29 says, “Give to the Lord, ye mighty ones, give to the Lord glory and strength.” It says this over and over again. It describes the greatness of God. The voice of the Lord, verse 9, makes the deer give birth and strips the forest bare. In his temple, everything says glory. The Lord sits enthroned, sat enthroned with the flood and the Lord sits as king forever. The Lord will give strength to his people. The Lord will bless his people with peace.

Culmination of that wonderful psalm of glory to God. God says he will give his people peace. He will give us peace. May he grant us this week to appropriate this peace that he gives us in the power of the Holy Spirit.

God is the source and giver of peace. The name of Oregon’s capital is Salem, which means peace. It’s a reminder to us every time we see Salem, we’re going to see it a lot in the next six months of peace and what we’re supposed to be working toward. Peace means to win the war. Peace also means the right order of the world.

So, you know, the coloring sheet is a room, a bedroom for the little kids today. And it’s not peaceful. It’s not rightly ordered. Toys are left out. Things are hanging around where they shouldn’t be. You children can be peacemakers because God says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” If peace is this culmination of rightness, the right ordering of the world, you see, then what you can do, what we’re supposed to do to make a peaceable effect here in the church is to get along with each other. And more than that, to love each other. And what you’re supposed to do, kids, when you go home, you can be a peacemaker by bringing God’s order to your bedrooms, cleaning them up, making the bed.

That really, if you do that, and you think about the fact that God says, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” then this will establish your adult life. You’ll know that being a peacemaker is extending God’s order to our world. You see, extending God’s order to our world. So God is a God of order and he wants us to see this order in the world. God’s word says that peace means the right order of the world. You can be a peacemaker by making your bed.

Jesus forgives us, giving us peace with God, forgiveness of our sins. Peace also means to be calm and at rest. And we get there by, you know, believing what God says, his sovereignty, his well-being for us. Peace comes through judging others correctly, using proper judgment, judging well. Peace comes by honoring our rulers. You can’t have peace in a church if people don’t honor their pastors. Peace is the opposite of death. Peace is life. And that’s what the text goes on to say.

Not only is God the God of peace, he’s the God of life. Because the text goes on to tell us that this God of peace has brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead. God is a God of life. Peace is integrally in it’s integrated with this concept that God is a God of peace, but he’s also the God of life. So that’s the second phrase we’re going to talk about here.

Now, here I’ve got a text Isaiah 63:11. Unlike Paul, whoever wrote this sermon to the Hebrews in this benediction in verse 20, he blends together Septuagent, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, statements from both Isaiah 63 and then Zechariah, which I’ve noted on your outline as well. And so in this text, the Zechariah text talks about the blood of the everlasting covenant. But bringing up Jesus from the dead has to do with Isaiah 63:11.

Now, let me read it to you. Isaiah 63 starting at verse 9. He said, “Surely they are my people, children who will not lie.” So, a designation of you as a person of God. If you want peace, you’re not to lie. Satan is the author of lies. He was a liar and a murderer from the beginning. To lie is to create unpeace for yourself and it leads to murder, which is death instead of life. But in any event, he says he became their savior. In their affliction, he was afflicted and the angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his pity. He redeemed them after he bore them and carried them all the days of old.

But they rebelled and grieved his holy spirit. So he turned himself against them as an enemy and he fought against them. Then he remembered the days of old. Moses and his people sang. And here’s the quotation. Where is he who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? Where is he who put his holy spirit within them.

So, see, this is the text that the author is kind of going off of to talk about God bringing up Jesus from the dead. And here it says, “Where is he who brought them up out of the sea?” With the shepherd of his flock, who does God bring up from the dead, the great shepherd of the sheep. You see, so the both those two phrases are coming off of this particular this particular section of the Septuagint of the Old Testament.

Now, listen. Listen to the Septuagint version. A little bit different stresses something a little different than the actual Old Testament. And this is what the author of this sermon to the Hebrews is explicitly citing in this benediction. Here’s what it says in verses and I’ll read the relevant portions. Talked about the Lord God who brought up out of the land. It says land instead of sea and the Septuagint. I don’t understand why. Who brought up out of the land the shepherd of the sheep.

See, that’s what it says in the Septuagint. And that’s why people say what he’s doing here is citing that the shepherd of the sheep. He brought up out of death the great shepherd of the sheep. You see, so it’s really a citation of the Septuagint version of Isaiah 63, but referring to Jesus. He brought up out of the land the shepherd of the sheep who he led forth, Moses. He led them. Thus, you led your people to make for yourself a glorious name.

Now you see the emphasis in the Septuagint version and the emphasis in what our author is saying in this benediction is that Jesus is like Moses but he’s the great shepherd of the sheep. Moses was a shepherd of the sheep. Jesus is the great shepherd. God raised up Moses out of the land and in Isaiah 63 in the in the inspired version raised up them out of the sea. So he raises up Moses, the shepherd of the sheep. And Moses then leads his people in coming out of the land or coming out of the sea. Okay?

So there’s sequential action. He raises up Moses and then he raises up God’s people to follow the shepherd. So the idea here is that the Father has raised up the greater Moses out of the sea, out of the land. Burial imagery right the sea is death the place of unknownness all you know terrors are there etc raises Jesus out of the sea slash death he raises him out of the land out of his burial place and he now is the shepherd of the sheep who will lead his people out of the sea out of the land out of the realm of death.

Now, there’s lots of citations to this same basic truth throughout the scriptures. Isaiah 20:2, God brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Exodus 33:12, God told Moses to bring up this people. And God says, “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” See, so the presence of God’s going to be with Moses, raising him up. Then he’s going to raise up the people and to move into the land of life.

Psalm 30 I will extol you, oh Lord, for you have lifted me up. Have not let my foes rejoice over me. Verse three, oh Lord, you brought my soul up from the grave, up from the land, up from death, up from the sea. In Psalm 30, you have brought my soul up from the grave. And therefore, in verse four, I’ll sing praises to you.

Psalm 71, you brought me up again from the depths of the earth. Okay, same thing we’ve been talking about here. You will increase my greatness and comfort me on every side. He brings them up out of death so that they can experience the peace of God comforting him on every side to you. I will sing with the harp. That’s the way this text moves, right? God has brought us up so that we can have peace. We’re equipped at that priest. And at the end of the benediction is a doxology. To you, Lord God, I will sing praises.

So the singing of praises is based upon this whole one of Israel bringing us up out of the sea, out of the grave, out of the land, out of Egypt, out of slavery, out of being oppressed by those that would have victory over us. God brings us up from all those things. And finally, in Psalm 86:13, great is your mercy toward me. You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. This is the habitation of the dead. This is where the dead are. It’s the realm of the dead. Sheol. And God has brought us out of the realm of the dead.

Now kids, I know in your handout that’s a word you maybe don’t know. Realm. R E A L M. It’s an important word to understand here.

Jesus was three days in the belly of the whale, right? In death. Three nights, three days. How is this? And there’s been a discussion of this lately and I’ve thought about it over the years and there was an excellent suggestion made in some conversations I was reading on the biblical horizons list. Jesus, the sign is Jonah. Three nights, three days. Jesus will be like Jonah, three nights, three days. But Jesus is crucified on Good Friday and he resurrects on Ascension Sunday, two nights.

Now, you can get around the three days because the way the days were worked and Jesus, you know, were parts of three days were involved. But how do you get around three nights? Bible doesn’t lie. Problem isn’t the Bible’s problem is ours in understanding the Bible. And I think our problem with understanding is thinking of death just as the cessation of life in terms of somebody dying on the cross. But Jesus was in the realm of death.

You see, he was in the belly of the whale when he was taken by the leaders of apostate Israel in that garden the night before all this happened. That’s when Jesus, who had not been subject to these people the entire time before them, he was in life land. He was dispensing life and now he comes under captivity to the death realm of the apostate Jewish nation and he becomes subject to death in the context of his arrest in the garden.

I think we need to have that kind of broader understanding of death. To understand the implications of this benediction to us, we have to understand that all these verses I read in the Old Testament, death is not just the cessation of life in the sense of our bodies lying down and having no spirit of them. Death is living apart from the life-giving spirit of God. Death is walking around in this body thinking we have life when we’re dead men walking.

And the world is full of death. It’s full of death now. It’s filled with people who are the walking dead. That’s what we were before the Lord God granted us life through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Right? Dead men walking. That’s what we were. It’s a demonstration. It’s one of the proofs we use to talk about the necessity of Calvinism and the sovereignty of God. We have no ability. Dead men can’t do a thing.

Well, they can. What dead men can do is stink. They can stink it up and they can create more death. And the Bible says that death flowed after the fall of Adam. When you touched a dead thing in the Old Testament, it became dead. It was a realm of death. The old creation was dead. It was characterized by death. Now, there were aspects of life to it, God’s grace, the covenant people. But now, you see, now the benediction says, now God is the God of peace.

Now, God has brought up the world through the Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd, out of the realm of death into the realm of life. And that means that we as Christians are following that greater shepherd than Moses as we move out of death, enslavement, bondage, sin in the context of the newness of life that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for us. You see, death here brought him up from the dead.

Death here is the realm of death. This is important for us because again, the problem in the world today in many churches is that salvation is about going to heaven. And it’s about getting a new body. And the Bible says salvation is about peace flowing into the world and life flowing in that peace. When you go out these doors, you can embrace life in the context of a brother or sister in the Lord, obeying the lifegiving spirit, not grieving the life-giving spirit because when he goes away, you’re dying again.

The other thing you can do when you walk out of here is you can embrace death. You can embrace the ideas of the fallen culture. Now, that are those are being conquered. The world is changing. Interesting article recently on how we think that the millions that were killed by Stalin and Hitler were bad. Well, if you do a study of primitive man after the fall of Adam, if you do a study of primitive man, you’ll find out that death was a lot more prevalent back then.

People couldn’t get along at all. This idea of the great natural primeval people in the forest who are neat and pure is just a bunch of bunk. If you look at the data, we would have had billions killed in the 21st century and the 20th century if we would have had death going on at the same rate as in primitive tribes who tried to exterminate each other routinely. You see, Jesus is rolling that stuff back.

Less people die in conflicts now because Christianity is filling the world. But there is a death culture that we can embrace. You know, there was a there was a book years ago about homosexuality and AIDS and it I think it was called death style as opposed to lifestyle. And the idea was that homosexuality is a death style instead of a lifestyle. And that’s true. And God has certainly given us that in, you know, I mean, it takes a blind man not to see the messages that God writes on homosexuality in terms of the plague of AIDS, among other things, sexual sin in general, adultery.

God has always cursed sexual sin with all kinds of physical plagues. It’s a death. And that’s true, but it’s not broad enough. You know, in the Bible, we read that the harlot in verse 34 of chapter 8, foolishness, right? This is talking about foolishness. Blessed is the man who listens to wisdom, watching daily at my gates. You’re going to go out every day and you’re going to embrace wisdom or you going to embrace folly. And folly is a death style. Whoever finds me wisdom finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. But he who sins against me, wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death.

Now, now this is talking about a lifestyle. This is not talking about pointed salvation. This is saying you get up and you go through the gates of your house. You go into the gate of the city and you’re going to embrace wisdom. You embrace folly. And when you embrace wisdom, you’re embracing the lifegiving force of the Holy Spirit. And when you embrace folly, you’re embracing a dead thing. And you become dead. You become, you know, not I’m not saying you lose salvation, but you begin to be in the context of the realm of death as opposed to the realm of life.

Again, Proverbs has this over and over again comparing folly to death. Death is what happens when we move away from the wisdom of God. God delivered Jesus and us from the realm of death. When we sin, we hold on to death. He wants us to move forward following the great shepherd who has been raised out of the realm of death into the realm of life. And he wants us to do that.

We tend to hold on to dead stuff, thinking through our unbelief that it’s going to give us life. And God says it gives you death. The wicked know no peace. And as a result, they love death.

I like that Devil’s Punchbowl again that I mentioned before.

Now, I’ve got a quote at the bottom of your handout, and it probably reminds you that it’s that time of year again when I’m working on voters guides. One of the great disappointments of my life in the last 20 years is that we have done nothing. I don’t think we’ve accomplished anything in terms of rolling back public education. Now we have in this church. Everybody here is committed to Christian education, but overall the Republican party has come, it almost seems like they’re more in favor of public schools now than ever before. And that’s a sad thing.

This is a quote from a professor at Princeton from 1823 and his he died in 1886. I don’t know. I’ve heard that these were lectures. I’ve heard that these were letters. I heard that these were testimony before United States Congress. I don’t know exactly where this quote comes from. There is a book called Popular Lectures on Theological Themes published in 1889. It’s in that. But this quote is fairly well known amongst people 20 years ago. And this is how it reads and it’s on your handout.

I am as sure as I am of Christ’s reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education separated from religion as is now commonly proposed would prove the most appalling engine for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief and of antisocial nihilistic ethics, real death style individual social and political which the sin-rent world has ever seen.

Well, that may be going a little too far because the sin world saw really horrible things before the coming of Jesus, but certainly since the coming of Jesus, I think his statement is accurate.

Why do I bring it up? Because the public schools are probably one of the greatest sources, maybe the greatest source of a death style. When we move away from seeing education’s purpose as worshiping God for it and thanking God for what we learn, and we strip God out of the intellectual endeavor and go to these public schools that train our children at the littlest times, the littlest ages that God is irrelevant. What we’re doing is clothing them with death every day they’re there. Death. Because apart from God there’s no life and we strip off the spirit of God and make a death producing school as a result.

And what has it produced in our culture? It’s produced the kind of sexual immorality. Yeah I sound like an oldfashioned guy now but that’s what it’s done as an example it’s produced the death style of homosexuality. And more and more that is becoming accepted because the schools teach it. And before they taught that, they taught that it was okay to commit fornication or adultery, sexual activity, death, death, death.

When we’re tempted toward these sort of sins or any sort of sin against God, remember that we’re being tempted to embrace and engage in the realm of death once more. Jesus has led us out of that. Jesus has brought us out of a death style. May we not return to it.

This author is absolutely right. I believe that one of the most horrible things that’s happened in our world to produce the advancing stages of death and that’s what our culture is in these days. This came from the public schools of our land. And he went on to say how this happens.

He says the tendency for those who promote public education is to hold that this system must be altogether secular. The atheistic doctrine is gaining currency even among professed Christians and even among some bewildered Christian ministers that an education provided by the common government should be entirely emptied of all religious character. The Protestants object to the government schools being used for the purpose of inculcating the doctrines of the Catholic Church. The Romanists object to the use of the Protestant version of the Bible and to the inculcation of the peculiar doctrines of the Protestant churches. The Jews protest against the schools being used to inculcate Christianity in any form. And the atheist and agnostics protest against any teaching that implies the existence and moral government of God.

It is capable of exact demonstration. He wrote this, you know, over a hundred years ago. And think how true it is. It is capable of exact demonstration that if every party in the state has the right of excluding from the public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least. And then he that believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing.

No matter in how small a minority the atheists or the agnostics may be. That’s exactly what’s happened. It is self-evident that on this scheme it is consistently and persistently carried out in all parts of the country. The United States system of national popular education will be the most efficient and wide instrument for the propagation of atheism which the world has ever seen. And that is exactly right.

Christianity a perception of God has been taken off center stage, put back in private homes to the narrow edges of our lives. And that’s the world we live in. That’s how most of us were raised. That’s how most of us think when we go out of doors, when we go into the marketplace, when we go into the place of commerce, when we go into the public, we see all vestiges of God stripped away. And it reinforces this idea of secularism.

And what I’m saying is that’s why we don’t have peace. We embrace it. We embrace the death of our culture all too readily.

Young people, listen to me. You move away from an explicitly Christian position on your education, on your morality, on your personal ethics, on what you should be doing in life, in your sense of vocation, and you move to death. You move to death. You’re embracing death when you do those things.

Next time you’re tempted to tell a lie or to look at the wrong sorts of material or to do the wrong sort of things. Think in your mind skull and crossbones. Think death. That’s what you’re embracing. God says that Jesus has come to bring us out of the realm of death. We see it all around us. God says he’s led us forth from that into life.

On the converse, when you look for good deeds to do in the power of the spirit, when you take the law of God and try to make it your own and meditate upon it, thinking about those verses in Hebrews going to commandments 6, 7, and 8. You all about be thinking about that stuff. When you meditate on the word of God and how it informs your daily life, then you’re embracing life. Then the life that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished through us in the power of the spirit comes forward.

The Bible says, “Blessed are those who walk not in the counsel of the ungodly and who don’t stand in the path of sinners and don’t sit in the seat of the scornful. Why are they blessed? Because they eschew a death style. May look good. The wisdom of the world, the actions that might be fun and pleasant for the moment, the scoffing at those who are holier than thou supposed, the Christers. But that is death. That is a death style.

The Lord Jesus has come. He’s been led forth from the dead, from the realm of the dead to bring us life. And in that life, the God of peace gives us this wonderful gift of peace with him, peace in our souls, peace in our churches, and ultimately we’ll see the manifestations of that peace in the context of our world.

Again, let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the wonderful gift of peace and life given to us. We thank you for this wondrous benediction, Father, that you’ve accomplished this tremendous shift from the old creation to the new world in Jesus, our savior. Forgive us, Father, for clinging on to the old creation. Forgive us, Father, for clinging on to the death style of our culture. We pray, Lord God, that you would turn our culture back.

Use whatever means, Father, is necessary to strike at the enemies of you in the context of our world because they pervade death to our children, death to our wives, death to our husbands. Lord God, may we be a people of life this week. May we embrace the lifestyle that you’ve given us by the power of the Holy Spirit. And may in that lifestyle, we find peace. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.