Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Uh, those of you who are familiar with the book of Hebrews or have been here as part of the sermon series for the last year and a half or two will remember, I hope, that the Psalms we’ve sung so far this morning—Psalm 2, Psalm 110, Psalm 95—are prominent Psalms in the sermon to the Hebrews that we’ve been finding ourselves in for the last year or two. We’ll also be singing Psalm 8 later on, also an important part of Hebrews.

We’re continuing with the benediction today found in Hebrews 13:20-21. So if you would stand please for the reading of God’s word. Hebrews 13:20-21: “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. Lord God, we thank you for this wonderful text and we thank you for your Spirit. We thank you for bringing us together to have peace proclaimed to us. We thank you that every week your benediction of peace is placed upon us through the work of our Savior Jesus. We thank you for him, Lord God. We thank you for his word and we thank you that the Spirit now brings Jesus’s word to us, uniting us to him in heaven by way of this wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit given to us.

We thank you for that. Now, Lord God, transform us by your word. Help us to take great hope in this wonderful message of this glorious benediction and also be moved to enhanced obedience to our King. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

One of the aspects of Hebrews—this sermon that we’ve been talking about—is that there is a purpose for you. You know, what is your purpose in life? Why are you here? Why did God make you? Why did God redeem you? And this benediction helps us to find our purpose.

I read a post this last week about demons, and I think it’s pertinent to this purpose that’s laid out for us in this text before us. You know, our Savior tells the story of the man who had a demon and the demon was cast out of him. But then seven others, worse, came back in. And then this post I read connected that up with Jesus saying to those who said, “We cast out demons in your name”—you know, “Depart. I never knew you.” And the indictment is they didn’t serve. You know, cup of cold water in my name, helping those who were distressed.

So the analogy—if we can draw one—is that as we’re brought into the kingdom, we’re cleansed of a demon. But if we think somehow that is our purpose, just to be saved and to have, you know, fire insurance for eternity, without seeing that we’re saved for another purpose, then we’re going to have seven worse come back in. Our second state will be worse than our first state. If we think that somehow our salvation, our purpose, is just to be fitted out for heaven—we’re geared up for something. There’s no doubt about that. But for what? Just for heaven? I think not.

And this sermon to the Hebrews helps us to correct that and tells us that indeed there is a purpose to our lives. We’ve seen in this benediction the great message of the God of peace. Well, what’s peace? Words are everything in reading the scriptures. And if we bring in our meaning to these terms, then we’re going to mess up really bad and our second state will be worse than our first. We’ll have denied the meaning of the scriptures.

The scriptures define peace in a much broader sense than just personal peace with God through the work of Jesus. Peace is a comprehensive, worldwide manifestation of the presence of God and his blessings to us. So that’s what God is. God is a God of peace. And so God is working out his purpose to bring peace to the earth, to all of his creation, right?

Well, then how does he do that? Let’s assume that’s the case. Well, so often in evangelicalism today, how he does that is through a gospel that saves some people out of it, and then he just comes back and destroys everybody else, and that’s peace. But what we’re told immediately in the benediction is that the God of peace brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep. So peace is accomplished through the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace is accomplished through his blood, through his self-sacrificial service. Through the great shepherd—not, you know, crushing everybody’s head—ultimately there is that portion of what happens as we read about in or sang through in Psalm 2—but ultimately, the act demonstrating how God will effect peace is the act of the self-sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross, two thousand years ago.

God is revealed to be a God not ultimately who effects peace through the imposition of power on people, but rather effects peace through service, self-sacrificial service.

Now, a heresy is any truth of Scripture that’s taken and made ultimate over other truths. And we certainly want to remember—and if we sing the Psalms we will remember—that God certainly does use an iron rod. And if the nations won’t kiss his feet, he’ll certainly bring judgment against them. So we’re not denying any of that. We’re not denying, you know, that David, who is the great shepherd, for instance, engaged in a lot of battles and was praised by God and given God’s success by God in them. But it’s so important, you know, that we understand that the nature of peace and its accomplishment is a comprehensive peace that is established through substitutionary atonement and resurrection.

I thought about, you know, this basic pattern. It’s so important. He’s the great shepherd of the sheep and we’re following him and we follow him into death. The scriptures make that clear that “after we have suffered a while, may God establish and strengthen us,” right? So we’re taken through, you know, sufferings and afflictions; we’re following the Savior in his path. And when we go through the valley of the shadow of death or any manifestation of it, we must remember that the God of peace has brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep.

He is bringing us down, that he’s humbling us, that we might be exalted. He’s causing us to suffer and go through trials so that he might bring us up more glorious. Same way in the creation days, the world goes dark and when it comes back, it’s better. It’s more beautiful. It’s more advanced and mature. So the maturity that is certainly our purpose—in what this benediction talks about—is accomplished by the very things that we think are evidence that God isn’t with us.

I mean, when we go through the troughs, you know, that’s when we’re tending to doubt. But if we remember this benediction—that God is accomplishing peace, his blessing and manifestation of orderliness and blessedness to our lives—through the very sufferings that we doubt his well-being, his well-intentions toward us, and that the end result of this is our establishment in glory, then you see, we’ll keep doing the right thing. We’ll fulfill the rest of this benediction. That’s an important part of this.

Now, he’s raised up the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant. The name of our church is Reformation Covenant Church. And we chose Reformation because we expect that God will effect a new reformation in our day, similar to the Protestant Reformation. And we think we called our name Reformation Covenant because it seems like the concept, the idea, the reality—let’s say, let’s not say an idea—the reality of covenant is essential in that reformation. And we’re in the beginning movements of this reformation in America today.

Whatever you have to say about the Federal Vision, and there’s lots of things to say about it, the thing that should be positive of it is that it’s bringing back a covenantal perspective. Now there probably are a lot of things being written by the proponents that are wrong, and you know, it’s not the end of the discussion, but it is certainly the discussion to be having. The covenantal God works in the context of his people, as the church, and without—I think that’s one of the great areas of theological development, which means reformational development, in our day and age—covenant. The blood of the everlasting covenant. Reformation is accomplished not, you know, through lording it over people, but through service, through sacrifice, through humility, not violence ultimately.

So this is what the benediction has talked about to us up to now. We know that God has a purpose for us. We know that God wants us to work for peace in this world, to bring peace to the world. Jesus died for us, and when we serve others, God loves us. Remember that: as the great shepherd, he said, “I laid down my life, and that’s why God loves me.” He said, “So God loves it when his people lay down their lives for someone else, where they sacrifice for someone else.”

God loves parents, you know, if they’re doing their job right. They’re laying down their life for their kids. And God loves that. And parents, shepherds of any stripe variety, they need to remember that. It’s hard for us to remember that as we go through difficulty serving people and laying down our lives, but that’s how it works.

All right, today’s text—and I have a bit of a review for you at the top of this. We didn’t have an outline next last week. I know that some of you really like those. So the great shepherd of the sheep is what we began to speak about last week, and we have the references to “great.” He was a great high priest, great priest. Compassion and faithfulness are the two marks of the priest in this sermon to the Hebrews. Moses, of course, is the shepherd—from Isaiah 63:11—where this benediction, this portion of benediction, is taken from. Moses is a shepherd of the flock of real sheep before God then calls him to deliver his people out of Egypt. Very significant. Same with David: he’s tending his father’s sheep before he goes out and destroys his father’s enemy, Goliath. You see, even Saul originally becomes a new man, it says. And Saul is out taking care, looking for his father’s lost animals.

So in the Bible, preparation for being a shepherd-king is to be a shepherd of sheep. And Moses was that as well. And in fact, of course, Moses’ career begins with Zipporah when he beats off the false shepherds from attacking women there in Zipporah’s land. Isaiah 63:11-14 is another reference to this: that the shepherd leads his flock as a flock out of death.

And I wanted to emphasize that for just a minute. I’ll do it more throughout this sermon, but I was listening to some Christian music last night, just dialing, you know, scanning and listening. I listened to three songs—modern contemporary Christian music. And I’m not, you know, I’m happy for people that do that kind of work. I never know exactly who it is they are, but that’s okay. I assume they’re sincere. But so much—all three songs that I listened to—were all about people being alone with God and God whispering to them through the rain. And this is good. We are alone a lot. I was alone when I was listening to this music. And it is good to remember that God is with us.

But when the Bible talks about the great shepherd, he’s leading a flock corporately. And again, this is very important. American Christianity has tended to become completely isolated. Peter Leithart’s book “Against Christianity: For the Church”—you see, the idea is that we want to focus on the fact that we’re members of a flock, and as members of that flock, this is how the shepherd leads us. Now he leads us individually—certainly nobody’s denying that. We don’t want to go in the other ditch. But understand that, you know, when Jesus discusses himself as shepherd, he’s a shepherd over the flock of sheep. So we’re banded together, and we’ll see that’s important as we go on today.

Great shepherd is under-shepherds. The shepherd leads the sheep into victory. I wanted to read a text from 2 Samuel 5. I talked about this last week—that Jesus leads the sheep in and out in John 10. And if we don’t have a whole Bible approach, again, and just bring our own meaning into that, well, he takes them out, he feeds them, he goes back. But in 2 Samuel 5, we read that all the tribes of Israel—this is when David’s finally becoming king—came to David at Hebron and spoke saying, “Indeed, we are your bone and your flesh. Covenant. There’s a picture of Jesus bone and flesh here. Also, in the times past when Saul was king over us, you were the one who led Israel out and brought them in. And the Lord said to you, ‘You shall shepherd my people Israel and be ruler over Israel.’”

What you know, what they’re saying is that in the time of Saul, David was the greater warrior. He’s the one that led God’s people into victory. First Goliath, then various other enemies. And David, you know, conquers all these Philistines. He leads the people out and in. And it’s an idiom, it’s a phrase that means going out into battle and coming back into pasture. So the great shepherd is not somebody who just takes care of the sheep and everything’s great and we have a good life and just, you know, sit around in the pasture all the time.

Now, these sheep are warrior sheep, and the great shepherd is a warrior shepherd. He was a shepherd-king like David was. That confuses us. All these kings in the Old Testament referred to as shepherds. Well, this is why: because the shepherd leads the sheep into victory, which means into battle. So, you know, we gather together in pasture today on the Lord’s day. And God reminds us that we’re his sheep. He pastures us. He feeds us. He makes us rest, right?

But we’re not supposed to stay here. You know, there’s demon-possessed children at the base of the Mount of Transfiguration. We have to go. It’s fun. It’s great. But you know, God says at the end, “The nuclei, now get out of here. And I mean it. You got work to do. I’m going to lead you out and lead you back in next Lord’s day.”

So this is very important for rearranging what we think about the shepherd and what we think about the flock. This is, you know, kind of root stuff—identifying who we are. And to have a proper image of who we are going into our week, I think, is very important.

Shepherd gives his life for the sheep. Self-sacrifice. I mentioned shepherd is loved by the Father. I mentioned that already.

Next on your outline: The shepherd feeds the flock with words. We didn’t talk about this much last week. Let me just read a couple of scriptures. Proverbs 10:21: “The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of wisdom.”

So now I’m trying to combat here the idea that the shepherd feeds us just by kind of making us feel good. Because that’s like these three songs I listened to last night. The word of God, the scriptures, doctrine, statutes, law have nothing to do with any of these songs. The shepherd fed them just by, you know, speaking to them softly through the rain, “that I’m with you.” Well, that’s good. I’m not, you know, but it’s certainly not a full picture.

In Jeremiah 3:14-15, we read, “Return, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married to you. I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion, and I will give you shepherds according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.”

So, okay, these are shepherds according to God’s heart. What does it characterize them as? Who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. So true shepherds feed their flocks with knowledge and understanding, with the word of God. So the shepherd feeds the flock with the word. It’s the word that is equipping us for good work.

The shepherd makes the sheep rest in unity. I mentioned this last week when I read a couple of scriptures. Song of Songs: “Tell me, O you whom I love, where you feed your flock, where you make it rest at noon.” Make it rest, cause it to rest.

Jeremiah 33:12: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘In the place which is desolate, without man and without beast, and in all its cities, there shall again be a dwelling place of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.’”

You know, wonderful stuff. The Lord God, we come here anxious. We come here with problems. We come in with difficulties, and the Lord God says, “I’m going to make you rest. You need rest. You need this one day out of seven to lay the burden down and to believe that the Lord God has provided everything necessary for us.” We come here, we’re fed in his word. We’re fed in his sacrament. He causes us to rest.

This is the great shepherd at work amongst us every Lord’s day. He makes us rest because we don’t know. We don’t know that we’re supposed to rest. We’re sheep, and left to ourselves, we won’t rest and we’ll wear ourselves out.

Okay, so the shepherd also rules the flock as kind of a summary text here—two of them—and they live in covenant peace. Turn to Micah chapter 5 and let’s look at that for a couple of minutes. This will begin to prepare us also for our Christmas program. We’re going to have kind of a Screwtape Christmas, I guess. But Micah 5:1-6.

This is a great picture of shepherding. So we read verse one: “Now gather yourself in troops, O daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Israel with the rod on the cheek.”

Well, that’s what always happens. It’s a reference to Jesus ultimately, but you know, that’s what happens. I mean, you know, pastors are lightning rods, and fathers are lightning rods, and bosses are lightning rods. That’s the way it works. So don’t be surprised, and don’t complain, and don’t poor-me. Don’t go and self. That’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re prepared to be a lightning rod. You’re rooted in the Lord Jesus Christ in the rock, right? So you can take the charge.

So anyway, so “strike the judge of Israel with the rod on the cheek. But you, Bethlehem, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose going forth are from of old, from everlasting.”

The great text. Of course, this is the Old Testament text that identifies Bethlehem. We think of this text or its New Testament quotations every Christmas. So what is Christmas about? One comes forth to be a ruler. “The world loves Christmas because it thinks of little baby Jesus. Well, let’s see what happens to little baby Jesus as he grows up.

“Therefore, he shall give them up until the time that she who is in labor is given birth. Then the remnant of his brethren shall return to the children of Israel. Then verse four: ‘And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord.’”

Okay. So we have—now he’s grown up in the incarnation—but he comes to be a shepherd. So he’s going to feed his flock in the strength of the Lord. Not in the comfort of the Lord. There’s that involved with it. But he’s strengthening these sheep to lead them out and lead them back in. You see?

“But the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord, is God. And they shall abide. They shall abide. Wonderful. That’d be a nice song to build a line around. ‘They shall abide, and you shall abide.’ The Lord feeds you today. You shall abide. I know that things happen in our lives. We don’t know if we’re going to make it or not. You shall abide.

“For now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. Comprehensive peace. ‘This one shall be peace.’ You see, he’s great to the ends of the earth. He shall be peace. Peace isn’t the absence of hostility ultimately. It’s hostilities [through] the preaching of the gospel that conquered the world. And then there’s the blessedness of all the world. ‘This one shall be peace.’

“When the Assyrian comes into our land, when he treads in our palaces, then we will raise up against him seven shepherds and eight principal men, under-shepherds, fullness of them, or princely men rather. They shall waste with the sword the land of Assyria and the land of Nimrod at its entrances. Thus he shall deliver us from the Assyrians when he comes into our land and when he treads within our borders.”

The shepherd is a devouring shepherd who leads his troops into battle in order to provide them rest from conquering his enemies.

Turn to Ezekiel 37. Another sort of summary passage on this shepherd concept. What is the shepherd? Turn to Ezekiel 37, please, verses 24 and following.

“Verse 24: ‘David, my shepherd, shall be king over them. So you see, again, shepherd-king. David is the ultimate picture of the shepherd, but David is also the ultimate picture of the king. And so David’s shepherding is the immediate prelude to his defeat of Goliath and is leading the people of God in and out.

“He shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall also walk in my judgments, observe my statutes, and do them. So the what is the shepherd? Feed the flock, judgments, statutes, the law of God. You see, these are very technical phrases about the actual ordinances, the punishment for violation of the law. This is what the great shepherd feeds them. This is what Jesus feeds us—his law.

“‘If you love me, keep my commandments,’ he says. And the end result of this: ‘Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob, my servant, where your fathers dwelt. And they shall dwell there, they and their children, and their children’s children forever. And my servant David shall be their prince forever.’

“So the establishment of peace is a result of statutes and judgments applied in the context of the world. This is how peace and establishment happens.

“And then verse 26: ‘Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. By the blood of the everlasting covenant, the God of peace brought up the dead Lord Jesus, you then fits us out for the work he’s given us to do as members of the flock. This is the covenant of peace.

“‘I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them. Indeed, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.’

“So, part of the witness of the church to the nations—that causes them to be taken captive, trophies of grace, by the preaching of the gospel—is the sanctification of God’s people. Say the nations see that we’re sanctified, and if we’re not sanctified, and if the church rejects the commandment of God, and the church doesn’t really care much about the idea or the truth of covenant, and if the church rejects the idea that our job as church is to go in and out, there’s no sanctification, there’s no eschatology, and there’s no witness to the nations. And we end up with the sort of world we’re ending up with right now.

So, you know, the concept of being a shepherd, our Savior is a shepherd, is so important to everything that will drive who we are—identification of: we are a militant lamb, as it were, to the flock; the law of God and its importance, the scriptures. This is how he feeds us, and the eschatology of that is peace and the establishment of peace—all accomplished through the blood of the everlasting covenant.

One final scripture about shepherds. And don’t turn there, but I just love the expression in Zechariah 11:7. He says, Jesus says, “I took for myself two staffs. Well, actually, first we’ll begin saying, ‘So I fed the flock for slaughter, in particular the poor of the flock.’ So he’s feeding the flock. ‘And I took for myself two staffs. The one I called Beauty and the other I called Bands or Bonds in the New King James Version. And I fed the flock.’

The Lord Jesus binds us together. There’s a banding, a binding. There’s a covenantal relationship defined by his word. But there is a beauty to that arrangement as well. This is—there used to be a church in Southern California that Doug H. and I knew about, and this was on their business cards. They had “Beauty and Bands” as the motto or theme or vision of their church. Beauty and Bands—lovely picture of who Jesus is as our shepherd.

So shepherds are to lead sheep. Sheep are part of a flock. Jesus has two staffs: Beauty and Bands. That’d be a great topic for a sermon—”Beauty and Bands.” David was a shepherd even when he was a king. Very important.

And now we get to the next section of the benediction. So having established what all this is, then we get to the next portion that we’ve talked about a little bit in the past: the blood of the everlasting covenant.

And I’ve got some references on your outline. Our Lord Jesus—we talked about that last week. Again, it’s a reminder that Jesus, our Savior, is our Lord who commands us and who will be victorious King of Kings, et cetera.

And then the third part of your outline: “Through the blood of the everlasting covenant.” The blood of the covenant is mentioned in various texts of the sermon to the Hebrews. I mentioned that a couple of weeks ago when we started the benediction, but the particular text that’s being talked about here is in Zechariah 9:10-17. So let’s turn there. This is the—you know, Isaiah 63 and Zechariah 9 are the two texts that this benediction are bringing together to tell us what the summary statement of this sermon to the Hebrews is. So it’s important that we know it.

Turn to Zechariah chapter 9, verses 10 to 17. Now, you know, as you’re turning, you know the context for this, of course, is the reestablishment, the restoration covenant. God’s people are restored back from exile in the land. But there’s enemies. There’s Greeks to the north and Greeks to the south. And the Greeks to the north and south—Antiochus and Tommy—they’re going to war over Israel for quite a long time.

So the problem is they’re restored back, but in a very threatened state, like us. You know, sort of think of Israel today with people on either side that want to destroy them. Or think about the Christian church increasingly in this country where the distinctively Christian message of law, eschatology, and salvation through the blood of Jesus is increasingly frowned upon. And so we have the same sort of sorry state of affairs.

There’s the same reason for us to grow hopeless as we read the newspapers, as we see the drift of our culture toward the kind of abominations that happen. So this is the context, and so that’s the background for what’s happening here. Israel is tremendously distressed. John Calvin says that the Jews were filled with terror on seeing themselves surrounded on every side by violent and strong enemies to whom they were very unequal in strength.

Well, that’s what we are. We’re surrounded by enemies unequal. We’re unequal to them in strength. And we could talk about that in a wide variety of ways. But listen to what God tells these people in Zechariah 9, beginning at verse 10:

“‘I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem. The battle bow shall be cut off. He shall speak peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.’”

Wow, this is the same basic “free from the waterless pit” that we saw in Isaiah 63—”raises Jesus up from the dead.” So we have tremendous words of comfort to people surrounded on every side by those whom they are unequal to in the eyes of man, the eyes of sight, and the arm of the flesh—unequal to do anything about. And God brings them tremendous comfort that all the nations will be—actually not just destroyed but converted—is what he says. And then he tells them, “Because of the blood of the covenant I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

“Return to the stronghold you prisoners of hope. So the message of the benediction of Hebrews is hope. It’s the reestablishment of hope to a people who, without this message, find themselves drifting into hopelessness.

“Even today I declare that I will restore double to you. For I have bent Judah, my bow, fitted the bow with Ephraim, and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece.’”

Well, wonderful text again, just filled with importance for us. Number one, you know, it’s not our bow. If it was our bow against the bows of the enemies round about us, we lose. But it’s God’s bow, and we are arrows in his quiver, you see. So all we have on our side, they have all the strength, all the dominion, all the ability to do this, that, and the other thing. And all we have is God—the Creator and most, you know, the Creator of the universe, the Sovereign, the omnipotent God. That’s all we have. Well, it’s enough, clearly.

And it’s his bow that will strike to bring his people into salvation.

And secondly, notice that he has bent both Judah, and he’s filled the bow with Ephraim. Judah and Ephraim, who had been separated and divisive—tribe against tribe—are brought back into unity. Remember I mentioned that we’re a flock, and you know, God wants unity in the flock in order to accomplish his purposes. God will change the world. He’ll repair the world, but he’ll do it through a unified people, unified church. And so this is what he does. He brings Judah and Ephraim together.

And then what is the purpose? What are we? What are they geared up for? What are we geared up for? We’re going to see in the next phrase of the benediction: we’re made perfect or completed for a particular task. Well, we have a summary statement of that task right here: “I’ve raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece.”

Now, there is a specific, you know, historical reference. Greece is to the north and south. The Greeks were. But there’s a reference that is so important for our day and age, because, as I’ve said many times in this pulpit, for two thousand years the Christian church has been blended with Greek thought. You know, we think that heaven is disembodied spirits. That’s not what the Bible teaches. We don’t want to get away from our bodies. We love our bodies. I do. I mean, it’s not “I’ll get a new body,” but it’ll be a body. We like bodies. Bodies are good. God created good things when he made bodies. They’re not bad, you see?

Well, to the Greeks, they were. And to this form of Greek thought that infiltrated the church from its earliest days, we just got all messed up on everything because of Greek thought forms. And God said, says he wants to raise up sons of Zion. Who are sons of Zion? Remember, Zion is the tabernacle of David. That’s what was on Mount Zion. Zion’s where we go in the worship service. That’s Mount Zion. We don’t go to Mount Mariah, the temple. I mean, in a way, this is the reconstruction of the temple, the body of Christ, of course. But when the Bible, including the New Testament, wants to tell us what’s going on, it says that in worship we’re going to Zion. And in Acts, it says, “I’m going to raise up the tabernacle of David.” That’s at Zion. That’s where David took the ark. That’s where he created singing and praise and musical instruments in the worship of God. And that which was later blended into temple worship—well, it’s that Zion worship.

Sons of Zion are men and women. “Sons” is used for the whole here—who are raised up as warriors through the worship of God on Zion, through the songs of praise. Why do we sing these Psalms? You find me a better version. You want a more contemporary song? Great. Find a better version if you can or would like for Psalm 2, and we’ll sing it. But we’re going to sing Psalm 2, and we’re going to sing Psalm 110, and we’re going to sing Psalm 8, particularly in this sermon series. And we’re going to sing Psalm 95, and we’re going to sing the rest of the Psalms. We hope our goal is to sing all the Psalms and learn a version of every one of them, eventually, so that our grandchildren will be able to sing every Psalm—because those Psalms of praise form us up.

We’re sons of Zion then. Now, we’re not restricted to the Psalms. We sing gospel hymns, et cetera. That’s great. Other portions of Scripture. And I’m not talking about the style. I’m talking about the content. And in fact, I sort of am talking about the style, because the Psalter has lots of styles in it. And we’re just beginning, as a church after two thousand years, to understand sort of what they’re about. And we don’t know much about what they’re about so far.

So, you know, it isn’t so much about style, but it is about singing and praising God with the Psalter, forming us up as the sort of people we’re supposed to be. We’re sons of Zion then. And then we’re equipped to go out in battle because of that worship on Zion. We get together and worship, and that prepares us to go in and out, you see, following the shepherd into the world and by the power of the Holy Spirit, doing everything we do, taking it under subjection.

You know, Jesus dying on the cross is a pretty small thing. It sounds horrible from one angle, but look: if you were to ask people what were the really important marks of history, what were the great things that happened that determined the flow of history, well, people would think about big, huge inventions. They think about big battles. They’d think about big stuff—stuff that was on the news, right? Well, when Jesus died, I don’t think it was on the six o’clock news. It was a death. Now, it was some interesting phenomena around it that they probably tried to ignore, but it was a death. It was a death. It was a small thing.

And as we go through life doing the small things, sacrificial things—serving those that God has called us to serve, leading those that God has called us to lead—doing that cup of cold water in my name, you see, that’s what we’re equipped to do. That’s why God drove the demon out of us, the idolatry out of us, and brought us into relationship with him through Jesus, so that we could do these small, seemingly insignificant acts at work, at business, in our homes, in our recreation, in our civil matters. And you see, that changes the world now.

So we’re equipped as the sons of Zion to go forth against. See, there’s an “against” here. There’s an antithesis built into the world. The sons of Greece are opposed to us, and we’re opposed to them, and we shouldn’t embrace their philosophy.

In the context of what this was written, this is a pro—you know, the prophetic period of the Old Testament, and the prophets were counterbalanced on the other side. The false prophets were the Greek philosophers. The sons of Zion would follow the prophets in the worship of God at the rebuilt temple. But the Greeks, you see, they worshiped at a different mountain. They worshiped at a different temple. They worshiped ideas, abstractions. They worshiped their philosophies—lovers of wisdom, so-called “philosophia,” lovers of wisdom. Not an incarnate wisdom like the Proverbs talk about, but a disembodied wisdom, you see.

Blood. This is not a nice thing for Greeks. But this is what, at the center of the benediction, is what drives everything: the blood of the everlasting covenant. We’re incarnational. [This year] celebrate Anselm’s work on incarnation and substitutional atonement—very important. This is not some abstract doctrine. It tethers our faith to this world that God has created. It tethers our actions, and our actions are out there against people who are engaged in philosophies, disembodied spirits, philosophical forms.

We have it in our government. God raises up sons of Zion to combat the sons of Greece, who are Romans. I mean, the Romans just took Greek philosophy and the Romans is where we got our governmental structures from. Yeah, there’s some stuff we could trace back to the Bible, and they were sort of informed by that, but they were really influenced—our founders—by a Roman view of law and a Roman view of statehood. I mean, it’s going to take, you know, a long time to root this stuff out. But that’s our job. We’re to critique forms of business, forms of politics, forms of recreation, forms of service. The Greeks thought service was just the worst thing you could do—is to serve somebody. And Jesus says it’s the ultimate thing. It’s what God does. It’s to be a God-bearer. It’s to display the image of God, to serve others self-sacrificially, laying down your life and taking up your cross.

We combat our world system today—philosophically, governmentally—by being sent forth as sons of Zion against the sons of Greece, you see, and every implication of it. And those sons of Greece still inhabit our culture. Our culture is still primarily Greek or Roman. Whether you’re talking about philosophy or the state, we still need to, as sons of Zion, leave this place committed to the truth of the word and thus combating the heresies of the false prophets, the philosophers who were Greeks, who, by the way, of course, gave us homosexuality too, for all and various sexual perversions.

“‘He’ll make you like the sword of a mighty man. Verse 13. Verse 14: ‘Then the Lord will be seen over them. His arrow will go forth like lightning. Like you know the battles of the Exodus. The Lord God will blow the trumpet.’”

Trumpet, you know, I think piano. You know, whenever we hear that little ding, couple of times early in the service, that’s supposed to be like a trumpet blast. You know, the trumpet blows and tells us you’re forgiven. Sing forth loudly, you see, praise God’s name. God blows the trumpet in Zion on the Lord’s day. And it’s a trumpet that summons us to rest today, but to go out warring for King Jesus in what we do.

“‘The Lord God will blow the trumpet and go with whirlwinds from the south. The Lord of hosts will defend them. Great shepherd of the sheep will lead us into that. They shall devour and subdue with slingstones.’”

So slingstones, right, against mighty arrows and stuff. You know, the picture of this is Iraq. We go in with, you know, awe and thunder, whatever it was, shock and awe or whatever it was. And the technology is astonishing that we had when we went into Iraq, but you know, guys with slingstones, so to speak—with IEDs, improvised explosive devices—that are not technically sophisticated, for the most part. Some are, but you know, it doesn’t. A guerrilla war can be fought with slingstones, so to speak. David did it with Goliath. Goliath, what a stupid kid, come out with a sling stone. Well, we have slingstones, you see. And it seems like, in our mind, that it’s not up to the task. But God says it is up to the task.

“‘They shall devour and subdue with slingstones. They shall drink and roar as with wine. That’s what we’re supposed to be like when we do what’s right in the workplace, when we do what’s right at home, when we defeat the enemies of God by proclaiming forth that we’re sons of Zion and not sons of Greece. We’re roaring as with wine.

“‘They shall be filled with blood like basins, like the corners of the altar. The Lord their God will save them in that day as the flock of his people.’”

Back to the shepherd motif. So Isaiah 63, Zechariah, the blood of the everlasting covenant, where he’s creating a flock, but it’s a flock who will be sons of Zion to war, into warfare with sons of Greece.

“‘They shall be like the jewels of a crown, lifted like a banner over the land. For how great is its goodness and how great its beauty. Grain shall make the young men thrive and new wine the young women.’”

So the blood of the everlasting covenant, the shepherd of the sheep, equipping us, making us a people of hope, but reminding us that we’re to be a people who obediently go forth as sons of Zion, not compromising with the sons of Greece, but now being self-conscious in our rejection of Greek philosophy, Greek sexual patterns, Greek government, et cetera. God raises up the sons of Zion against the sons of Greece.

I put two answers, number nine, for you young kids, because I want you to understand both those things. We’re sons of Zion, and the opponents are referred to in this text as sons of Greece. Zion was a place of worship and song. So we—that’s how we’re trained up—to enter into this battle: worship and song. We’re sons of Zion.

Now, I’ve got some references to the everlasting covenant. I’ve given you references to the Noaic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, restoration, and new covenant—all these various texts. You know, it’s the eternal, the blood of the everlasting covenant is the eternal covenant that God has made, of which there are various manifestations. In Ephesians 2:12, we’re told that we were “aliens to the covenants plural of promise.” So all those covenants, there weren’t covenants of law and covenants of grace. No, no, they were all covenants of promise, which is to say they were all covenants of grace. So we have continuity with the demonstration of God’s covenants in the Old Testament.

And then the next part of the benediction: “Make you complete in every good work to do his will.” This is another important topic, and we’ll just begin a discussion of it today and finish it in two weeks. Next week I’ll be down in Salem.

So remember: there’s two things going on in this benediction. What God has done with Jesus—raised him from the dead through the blood of the everlasting covenant—and then what he’s going to do for us. The benediction is a prayer, but it’s an optimistic prayer that this is what God’s going to do. And to us, now, this side of it, begins with the statement in verse 21 that God would make you complete in every good work to do his will.

Will—you know, I just love this benediction. Those of you that have been here a long time will remember that back in the old days, before we came to this church, when we had communion after our meal—the communion service—nearly always was concluded with this benediction. So you know, Erotic benediction and then at the end of our second half of our formal worship service, this benediction from Hebrews. I love this benediction, and I suppose that’s why I’m taking so much time on it. But I think it’s a way to remember everything that this book of Hebrews has told us as well.

And benedictions have a wonderful summarizing effect to what it is, what this Christian life is, what is the purpose. The benediction of God is related to our very purpose for who we are. Well, our purpose is that we might be made complete in every good work to do his will.

Now, this word “complete,” “perfect.” Now, why do these kids have this fisherman with the net to color today? And maybe some of you adults are coloring them by now, too. I don’t know why. Well, because this is the same word that’s used, for instance, in Matthew 4:21: “Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee, John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets”—completing, perfecting their nets. Same word.

And next time I preach, in two weeks, we’ll look at various occurrences of this word in the New Testament. But in summary fashion, what we’re going to see is, in various details, that what this word “complete” means—it has several connotations to it—but basically it means geared up, fitted out, kitted up. English commentators said, “ready to go,” “put into place.” It has the idea of fixing what was defective, like in the net, if it broke, you got to fix it. It also has the connotation of providing what has been lost, restoring what’s been lost.

So there’s a corrective element, and we see, in two weeks, that some of these terms for perfection—you know, it says in Galatians 6:1, “You that are spiritual, if someone’s overtaken in a default, correct him”—well, it means it’s the same word here: perfect him, you see. So perfection happens through confession of sin and a turning to righteousness. We all sin. The question is: are we going to be perfected, completed, kitted up to move on from that sin? Are we going to repent of it and be restored, fixed, mended, you know, the defective thing put in place?

Additionally, as I said, it means to restore what’s lost. Well, in a general sense, you know, we lost everything at the fall, and the Lord God is restoring things to us. And so, as you grow up in life, it’s referring to the church, and we can think of it that way, but it refers to each of us individually. You know, as kids grow up, God is perfecting you. He’s maturing you by working with you in terms of your sin. But not just that—by also building up abilities in you so that you can do things for him, restoring what was lost in the fall.

See, it also has the context of binding things together like a net that is woven together. And in Hebrews, a very important aspect of them being fitted out, geared up to do work for Jesus is their unity again. Because they’ve been striving with each other, they’re battling with the leaders like everybody does when things go bad. They’re doing that kind of stuff. As a result, they don’t have peace in the congregation. And this word—and we’ll see it more in detail in a couple of weeks—but another way it’s used is to bring parties together, to mend them together, you see. And so really, that’s what Hebrews is about. The theme of Hebrews, Hebrews 6:1: “Let us go on to maturity, to perfection. Let’s grow up. Okay? Let’s onward Christian soldiers, rise up. Men of God, let’s be fitted out, kitted up, geared up—not just to have, you know, be saved and be baptized—and not to add in positive elements of service to Jesus. Then we end up demon-possessed worse at the first.

The Christian is saved for a purpose. The purpose is to be geared up, kitted up, to be sons of Zion, to combat the sons of Greece. That’s our purpose. That’s why we’re geared up. And very importantly, these three elements have been seen in Hebrews: we’re geared up as we’re fitted together to one another. It’s not an individual deal. I mean, it is individual, but there’s a corporate element to it. Very importantly, we’re brought together. And secondly, we’re brought to confession of our sins—our sins of wanting to be immature.

R.J. Rushdoony has a book, “Revolt Against Maturity.” Wonderful book. That’s what our culture is all about. Who wants to grow up? Revolt against maturity. God says, “No, move forward. Repent of your sins. Put aside childish things. Be perfected and established and strengthened. Don’t come together and pretend like your little kids singing little kitty chorus as a church. Sing grown-up songs, you know, war songs of the Prince of Peace. That’s what we do here because that’s the sort of Christian we think the Bible is all about. Mature Christian men and women moving forward, being perfected, being completed.

Because if you send immature people, sinful people, and people that haven’t taken the time to build up positive Christian virtues in their life against the sons of Greece, they’re going to lose. Because the Lord God is in control, and he doesn’t want immaturity to be blessed. He wants it to be defeated. He wants a mature people following the great shepherd of the sheep.

We’re supposed to be fitted out. It’s a word that’s a powerful word here. It means that we’re to be equipped for service. We’re supposed to be doing something with our lives for Jesus. And in fact, what it means is that every good work, everything that we do, requires the equipment, the gearing up of God to accomplish. And he gears us up for whatever we’re called to do this week.

So at the end, at the middle in the second part of this benediction: what’s God doing in terms of our purpose? He’s gearing us up for what? Just to tread water till heaven? No, he’s gearing us up to be mighty arrows, to be shot forth out of the worship service on the Lord’s day, to go and do the very simple yet profound things—obedience to Christ, rooting out Greek thought forms, Greek ideas of what we are and who we are, and becoming the sons of Zion that we live out in a very positive sense here in the context of worship every Lord’s day. That’s what we’re geared up to do.

We’re geared up to be a flock that’s led out and led back in. We’re geared up to be a flock that goes out devouring God’s enemies. There’s this phrase on the kids handout: “Tikkum olam.” I’m not probably not saying that right. It’s a Hebrew phrase, “Tikkum olam.” It’s one of the questions. What does it mean? It means “repairing the world.” And in Jewish writers talk about this. If you go on the internet and do a search on “tikkum olam,” you’ll find that’s what it means. It’s a Hebrew phrase meaning “to repair the world.”

And that’s very biblical truth. God says he’s reconciling all things to himself through Jesus Christ. God’s repairing. He’s completing. He’s perfecting the world, and he completes, he perfects, he repairs the world by repairing people—you and I. And as we apply ourselves in the power of the Holy Spirit to be sons of Zion going forth to serve him, then we go out as those who are accomplishing the task of tikkum olam, repairing the world for the Lord Jesus Christ.

God’s purpose is to make us complete. The same Greek word means to mend, officially. At it means to fix what is broken, to restore what is lost. Tikkum olam is Hebrew for “repairing the world.” God is reconciling all things to himself. He’ll accomplish this reconciliation through his people, through his people.

The good news is that everything, this is the gospel, the good news is that everything is being fixed. You know, Bob Dylan had that song, “Everything is broken.” Well, that’s right. After the fall, everything’s broken. But the good news is that God is fixing everything, reconciling all things, accomplishing tikkum olam.

The good news is that everything is being fixed. And this includes me. God’s fixing me. He’s forgiven my sins. He’s mending the holes that I tear in myself. And he’s more than that—he’s providing me with things that I never knew I had, gifts and abilities to go forth and, as a son of Zion, against the sons of Greece.

The Lord God is preparing me and he’s equipping me. He’s gearing me up to do the simple tasks this week of accomplishing the work of God, whether it’s in my business, my home life, my children, whatever it may be. The Lord God—this is wonderful news. And it’s wonderful news that he’s preparing us to repair the world.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you that we are indeed those mature men and women you’re causing us to be. And we do pray that you, and as we bring forward our tithes and offerings to you, bless us, Lord God. We see at the heart of this benediction tremendous gifts from you, but that these gifts also remind us that we’re called to live lives of obedience to our Savior as he leads us out and brings us back in.

We thank you for compelling us to rest today. We thank you for feeding us, Lord God, with your word and with the sacrament. We thank you for bringing us to Zion where we can sing the songs of Zion and be arrayed up as your army and your people. And we thank you for reminding us that this army goes forth primarily accomplishing the will of the Savior through deeds of love and kindness. Help us, Father, to be an honest, industrious, gracious people this week. Make us that, Lord God, by the power of your Spirit. Transform us to become the image of our Savior, the great shepherd of the sheep. In his name we ask it. Amen.