Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript
## Hebrews 13:20-21
### Pastor Dennis Tuuri

Wonderful psalm and incredible words that we just recited and sang—that the Lord God has magnified his word above his very name. Awesome statement. True. And he will perfect that which concerns us. And that, of course, is the topic of at least a portion of the benediction found at the end of Hebrews 13:20 and 21, our scripture text. Again, we’re going to be focusing on God perfecting that which concerns us.

Please stand for the reading of Hebrews 13:20 and 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 that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Let’s pray. Father, we desire to be fed by your word, to be challenged by it, but to be built up by it and nurtured by it, to be transformed, Lord God, by your Holy Spirit, taking this word and changing who we are through it. We thank you, Lord God, that this book is unlike any other book. And we pray that your Holy Spirit would do his particular work of taking these words and writing them upon our hearts and making us new men and women as it were. We pray indeed that this would be part, Father, of your perfecting that which concerns us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, we continue to work our way through this benediction. Today we’ll be focusing on verse 21, that God might make us perfect in every good work to do his will. And next Lord’s day, our plan—at least Lord willing—is to speak on what is well pleasing in God’s sight, so we’ll be looking at some New Testament texts that tell us how to do things that are well pleasing in the sight of God, making God happy with our actions—and in fact, very happy—well pleasing. And then the next sermon we do through this benediction will be on the final phrase, that Jesus Christ—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—receives the glory. That is the conclusion of this benediction.

So today we’ll be continuing on with verse 21. We began this somewhat last week, and what we said is that in this benediction, the writer of this sermon to the Hebrews is really citing from Isaiah 63 in terms of “the great shepherd,” and also from Zechariah regarding “the blood of the everlasting covenant.” And God does not have ploce. Remember, ploce is what we’ve talked about—that Christians have these ideas. We take verses out of their context, put them up on a wall, and don’t understand that there’s a context for that particular verse.

I mean, it’s good to memorize verses, but it’s very important to memorize, you know, even better to memorize the context of a verse, or at least to know it so that we don’t get confused. But when God cites in his inspired way—in the New Testament, Old Testament passages—he’s humming a bar of the tune, and he expects us to fill in the rest of the song from those passages. So we spent some time trying to fill in the rest of the tune from Isaiah 63 and looking at other references to being brought up out of the land, or out of the sea, out of the realm of death, and the implications of that.

And then last week we tried to learn a little bit of the tune from Zechariah chapter 9 that’s cited here. If you turn to Zechariah 9, let’s do that. Let’s kind of cement this tune. We don’t know our Old Testaments very well, particularly the minor prophets. Zechariah 9. And I’ll read verses 10 and following. He says:

“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.”

So when we look at the rest of the tune of the citation of “the blood of the everlasting covenant,” we see that God speaking peace is a peace to the nations. It’s not just a piece of personal salvation. It’s very comprehensive. The blood of the everlasting covenant is the means by which peace is proclaimed and preached to the nations. And that is not—you know, God’s words don’t fall to the ground. The dominion of Jesus Christ shall be from sea to sea, so we have this eschatological optimism based upon the work of the blood of the everlasting covenant in order to bring that part of the song into our consideration of this benediction found in Hebrews.

“And from the river to the ends of the earth. Verse 11: ‘As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.’”

So again, here this is like what Isaiah 63 said. We are brought out of the realms of death—not just once for all, but in an ongoing way. We’re delivered from the realm of death of the old creation. We’re to put off the old man, put on the new man that’s newly created in Christ. So brought out of the waterless pit.

“Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope, even to…”

We’re hopeful because God is delivering us out of the realms of death, and he’s converting the whole world based upon the blood of the covenant. This is what we celebrate every Lord’s day at the Lord’s supper.

And then he says in verse 13:

“I have bent Judah my bow, fitted the bow with Ephraim, and raised up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece.”

So the full song of Zechariah 9—of the text that’s cited—reminds us of the eschatological optimism. The blood of the everlasting covenant is assuring that the kingdom of God is going to grow to fill the whole earth. And the way this is going to be accomplished is that God is going to raise up the sons of Zion against the sons of Greece.

Very dramatically, this was true in a literal way because when God restored his people back to the promised land in the time of the minor prophets, it was Greece—specifically, northern and southern aspects of the breakdown of Alexander’s kingdom—that would do war against Israel as they went back and forth fighting each other.

But I think that in a general sense as well, this is saying that when God brings this text into Hebrews and says the purpose of the benediction is this—that when we think about what we’re perfected to do, what we’re restored to do—it’s to be those sons of Zion who do battle with the sons of Greece. That’s what we’re about.

Now, it isn’t sons of Moriah. Moriah is the temple mount, and it’s not sons of the synagogue—that’s where the word, where the instruction of the word went forth. But it’s sons of Zion. And Zion was that mountain, David’s tabernacle of praise—not the Old Testament tabernacle, not the Levitical tabernacle, not the temple that would happen later. But David brought the ark of the covenant onto Mount Zion in Jerusalem and created the sort of worship that really was a picture of New Testament worship.

We’ve talked about this before. And in Acts, it says explicitly that what God is doing after Jesus has done his work, based upon the blood of the everlasting covenant, is—we could say God is building back, restoring—and it says this very explicitly—the tabernacle of David. That’s another name we could say the tabernacle of David. We could say Zion. They mean the same thing because the tabernacle of David was erected on Zion. It was a worshiping facility in the presence of God. The ark was there. No blood was shed after the once-for-all initiation, just like New Testament worship. It’s bloodless. It’s a worship that included song and musical instruments because the king has come.

And so when the king comes—Jesus comes—the blood of the everlasting covenant, the new world is created. It’s a world that sings. It’s a world that, you know, are essentially described as sons of Zion, singing warriors for the Lord Jesus Christ.

We’ve made that point several times in this sermon series. So the sons of Zion are doing battle against the sons of Greece. What we’re perfected to do is to go into battle against the sons of Greece—the sons of, you know, blatant, raw, factual education, the sons of philosophers who love wisdom apart from the source of true wisdom, God, and as a result mess it all up.

So the Bible has this antithesis built in between two armies. This is what’s happening since the blood of the everlasting covenant has brought about the new creation. The sons of Zion are doing battle against the sons of Greece. And we’re supposed to explicitly understand that. That’s part of what we do and who we are.

So the full tune includes that Acts 17 shows the sons of Zion doing battle with the sons of Greece. It shows Paul on Mars Hill in Athens—the place of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and Alexander. And so we have, you know, the penultimate center of the sons of Greece. And Paul, a son of Zion, enters into the fray on Mars Hill. And what happens? Well, he only gets two converts. But the first of those two converts is named for us. And it’s a pretty important name.

You know, names mean something. It’s important because it’s the root of my name, Dennis. That’s not why it’s important. It’s important because Dionysius was one of the main, maybe the main god. If you ever saw Fantasia, you saw Dionysus, the Bacchanal feast guy. And he’s like, you know, the guy that the Greeks were really into. We could look at it that way. He’s emblematic of all the false gods and idolatry that Paul saw in Athens and, you know, was stirred about. And Dionysius is converted by the son of Zion. Dionysius comes—he changes sides from being a son of Greece to becoming a son of Zion.

And then Damaris—a woman we know nothing about. Her name doesn’t mean a whole lot. Probably not an important woman we would say in terms of status or structure of the society. And of course, that’s emblematic as well. We see the women, unnamed women at the grave at the end of the gospel accounts, you know, who carry the future with them, not the strong, mighty conspirators. And so the same thing in terms of what happens at Mars Hill is a prolepsis.

What’s prolepsis? Reading from a definition of prolepsis: “the assigning of a person, event, etc. to a period earlier than the actual one. The representation of something in the future as if it already existed or had occurred.” Prochronism is another word. Or the use of a descriptive word in anticipation of its becoming applicable.

Well, so the conversion of Dionysius, the penultimate—we could say—son of Greece, is a prolepsis of what would happen in the future when the Lord God would transform the world and the sons of Zion would bring the sons of Greece to submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. So again, this is what we’re called to do. This is the job of the church—to convert Dionysius, to convert the sons of Greece, or to see God’s judgments against them to the end that they become moved off the face of the earth.

There’s a battle going on. It’s an antithetical battle. In Revelation 16:12 and 13, we read that after the sixth bowl is poured out—of blood. So the judgments of God are in the earth. To what end? So that the way can be made—the sea dries up so that the way can be made for the kings of the east, so translated in King James Bible, can come forward.

Well, the word “east” literally means “sun-rising.” So the kings of the sunrise, rising. You know, Jesus comes like the sun from the east, and we’re the ones—we’re the kings who follow in the train of Jesus. We are provided by God to come forward and meet somebody. And the thing we meet is, it’s like a seven-nation army, you know. So it’s like a three-demon army. It’s a three-frog demon army, but I always think of it when I hear that song, “Seven Nation Army.”

These three frogs come up, and they’re demons, and they are, you know, they’re powerful demonic beasts—these three frogs. And so you have this battle that ensues as God’s judgments fill the world, based upon the blood that’s being poured out of the everlasting covenant. The two armies come forward. We got the kings of the sun-rising—beautiful picture—and we got these three-demon frog-army guys—horrible description. And they come out and they do battle. You know, sons of Zion, sons of Greece, homeschoolers, homosexuals, you can go on. But this is what happens.

The homeschoolers and the homosexuals are the forward troops of, you know, the culture war that probably isn’t a culture war yet. We hope it becomes a culture war because so far it’s just a cultural appeasement primarily to the three-frog demon army. But our job is to engage in cultural warfare.

And now we engage in that as sons of Zion—as singing the praises of Jesus and having the worship of God transform how we live our lives. And as we live out our lives of simple obedience, like the unnamed woman like Damaris, we become more powerful in the providence of God through simple acts of simple obedience, praising God as we go. And that’s how the army of God destroys the sons of Greece—converting them or removing them. And that’s how the kings of the sun-rising bring the joy of Jesus and sunrise and all that stuff into the fray and do battle.

So this is the song that we should remember as we come to this benediction. So the benediction is not a benediction just giving you personal peace and affluence or getting you ready for heaven. The benediction, in Numbers, as we said at the beginning of this series on benedictions, was placed upon an army of God. It followed the Nazarite warrior stipulation, and that followed the numbering of the army in the book of Numbers to go forward into battle.

The benediction is never a “personal peace and affluence, just get us to heaven” sort of thing. The benediction is always an empowerment to the sons and daughters of Zion to go forth in battle. And to do it not as the world battles, but to do it through worship, to do it through small acts of obedience. And of course, as we just read in Psalm 138, to speak the word of God. The kings of the earth—the sons of Greece who rule the earth right now—will praise God’s name when they hear the words of his mouth.

And the problem is that the church keeps her mouth shut, not speaking Christ’s words into the political arena, as an example. And as a result, the kings don’t praise God. So our job is simple. It’s proclamatory. It’s worship-oriented. It’s thankfulness-oriented. It’s joy. We’re joyous warriors. And it’s done in simple acts of obedience.

And the scriptures want you to know—they want God wants us, I am sure—to get this image down in our heart and soul identifying who we are, to have a good body map, they say, of who you are as a Christian and why the benediction is placed upon you at the end of the convocation together of the host of God, the army of God.

So we have this as what precedes us into a little discussion today of this specific term: that God might make us complete, or might perfect us. Okay. So today’s text we’re going to focus on is that God—the purpose. So we have the benediction in two parts. The hinge point at the middle is the blood of the everlasting covenant. Because of that, he’s raised up Jesus from the dead. And because of that, he’s going to make us perfect in every good work to do his will.

So we look at the actions of God in Jesus, and we have hope and confidence that what the other side of the benediction promises, based upon the covenant, is indeed going to come to pass. It’s not a prayer that we hope this might happen. This is what God will accomplish to his people. That God might indeed make you complete in every good work to do his will.

We talked about this word last week a little bit. This word “to make complete,” “to bring to perfection,” “to make perfect.” The basic idea of it means to equip somebody for service. To equip you for service. The benediction is that the Lord God might make you perfect, might equip you for service to do good works that are well pleasing to him.

And so we’re going to look at this word as it’s used in other places in the New Testament. There are nuances. The basic meaning is to equip for service. So it’s not to just get us out of here. It’s not defensive. It’s not to equip us so that we can withstand things. It’s to equip us for positive service. To be the sons of Zion, to be the kings of the sun-rising. We’re equipped for service.

And the nuances of this particular term, as we’ll see some of these in a minute, include: to adjust something, to put it in order, to restore it, to mend it, as in the fishing nets from last time we talked about this; to recommission something; to furnish something, equip it; to make it good; to prepare it for a particular task. And this is the meaning of this word.

So we could say that God is going to put us into proper condition in every good work to do his will. We are trained up. This word means that God in the benediction will train us up, will kit us out, so to speak, will give us the tools necessary—in terms of character and in other things. He’ll kit us out. He’ll gear us up as the sons of Zion.

Ultimately, this is something that God does in us then, right? So he prepares us in his own particular way.

Now, last time I preached on this text—two weeks ago, maybe—your children remember. Probably you won’t. What does tikkun olam mean? Tikkun olam. Remember, that was on the little handout sheet you’re supposed to fill in the blank. This was a common phrase—is still a common phrase among Jewish people—that God is doing this tikkun olam work. What does it mean? Well, it means to repair the world. So the world has fallen. There’s effects of man’s fall in the world, and God is in the process of repairing the world, doing tikkun olam to the world.

And the way God repairs this world—he’s reconciling all things to himself—is by repairing us, his people. So God accomplishes the repairing of the world by the repairing, preparing for service, restoring, mending, kitting up, gearing up for action, his people. And so that’s what we are. The benediction implies for us.

Now, we said last week, just to remind you of this, that according to Westcott, this term means three things—this is how he looked at it. The harmonious combination of different powers. So one thing that “to prepare” means is to bring into unity together. We’re going to see this in a couple minutes when we turn to the text. But to bring together into unity different powers, you know, we started a Sunday school class. We all have different ideas. We all have different powers. And God prepares us corporately by bringing together diverse powers or abilities.

And in the case of the church, synergy happens. One plus one plus one equals four. Three Christians together come up with better ideas than any of them would have come up with—better strategies to accomplish God’s purpose to repair the world—than three of them would have done on their own. So there’s a synergy that happens.

And so one of the things that this word means in classical Greek, according to Westcott, is this combining together of different powers. And we must be committed to that. We must be committed to distinguishing between our purpose and our strategy to obtain the purpose. Frequently we end up arguing in crucial conversations about strategy. And what we really want to do is get back to or find our common purpose, restate our common purpose, and then we can talk about different strategies that allow liberty. So God wants us to unite together.

Part of the way we’re repaired as a church to repair the world is bringing together of different forces.

Secondly, Westcott said: the supply of what is defective. The supply of what is defective. So we’re missing stuff. And the benediction says God’s going to give us gifts. You know, God gives us glory, knowledge, life, and those things are all imitated in a lot of different ways. We can look at the spiritual gifts. We can look at the lists of the evidences of the spirit. There’s all kinds of stuff we need to do the task that God has called us to do.

So part of preparing you is to give you what’s missing. Okay? We have glory missing. God restores our glory. If you feel like you’re not glorious, you’re not going to accomplish much for the kingdom of God. The soldier who doesn’t think he’s equipped to do something—if he’s got a bad image of who he is in the providence of God, if he’s so taken up with his sin that he feels disempowered—you know, that’s bad.

Part of the problem with indebtedness, part of the problem with administrative rules and the violations of laws in America—I’m not saying there were some people that conspired to do this—but the fact is that an indebted people is a disempowered people because they don’t feel glorious. You don’t have to have money to feel glorious, but glory is way it’s a coin. And if to the extent that you’re diminished of that, you’re going to feel like you don’t have what you need to do the work God’s called you to do.

If you’re a law-breaker, you feel guilty. And when you feel guilty, you’re not feeling glorious. And you need to have glory restored to you by being—understanding the atonement of Jesus Christ has covered your sins. You’ve repented of them and receive the glory of God. So what are the problems with administrative rules? Hundreds of thousands of administrative rules. Everybody’s doing something wrong. I have no doubt that our agape feast is breaking some administrative rule. Is it a law? Well, I don’t know. Are they going to punish it? I don’t know.

But the point is that the modern world is so filled with administrative rules by various bureaucratic agencies that they’ve got the goods on everybody. And the end result of that is that people feel disempowered. They don’t feel strong enough to go out there and live their life for Christ. So to restore what’s missing—okay, that’s what this word means.

And third, Westcott said it means to repair what’s defective. We use the—you know, it’s not our illustration. It’s the gospel illustration. They’re mending nets. The disciples are, you know, God didn’t have to tell us that they were mending nets. Why does he tell us that? And not just in one gospel account, but in two—Matthew and Mark. Because it’s significant for understanding this benediction ultimately.

And it’s to understand that, you know, we are fishermen. We are netting the world. We are going to repair the world. We are bringing people into the dominion of Christ. 153 great fish, the triangular of 17. Seven times 10 is 70, plus 10 is 17. Whether you buy all that or not, the point is you just heard from Zechariah he’s going to be king of all the nations. And those nations are represented by fish in the scriptures.

And so our job is tikkun olam—to repair the world. And so God gives us two instances where part of that is repairing what’s defective. It’s not that there’s a nest missing—in this case, the net is broken. We have sin, real sin that’s affected us. And God repairs what is defective.

And in a way then, these three illustrations all come together in the context of this particular book. In a single word—”may the Lord God”—you know, that God will perfect you. Perfect. In that single word, the author provides the solution to all the problems within the church. The prayer is that all the members may be equipped with all the necessary means which will enable them to do God’s will. The will of God for them at that time was to go forth to Jesus outside the camp. They were to make a definite break with Jewish traditions and Jewish nationalism. We’re sons of Zion, the heavenly city, and that’s what God calls us to do as well.

So these are some of the implications. Let’s look now at some specific texts that use this word. We don’t—I’ll have us turn to a few of them, but Matthew 4:20—when we read it last week—this is the mending of the nets. And then in Matthew 21:16, the idea here is—here’s the context: the triumphal entry, and children—maybe teenage boys is what John MacArthur says in his commentary. I don’t know. But children of some sort are singing forth praises to Jesus. “Hosanna aloud! Hosanna!” as the little children sing. We sing that song on the Sunday before Easter. Triumphant procession. And then the Pharisees say, “Why are you doing that?” And Jesus says to them:

“Yes, have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have perfected praise.’

Same word. You’ve restored praise. You’ve corrected praise. You’ve provided praise. You have perfected praise. Now, he’s quoting from Psalm 8. And there it actually says, “babes, nursing babes and little children.” So, you know, this is what Jesus is alluding to. And there it says that God has ordained praise even from nursing babes. So part of tikkun olam—repairing the world—is the perfecting of praise that God is accomplishing through man.

Psalm 8: “What is man that thou hast put him in charge of everything?” The man comes, the man perfects praise. And we see that praise of the new creation being sung out in the context of the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ, the procession forth in the power of the spirit to the city. And that is where the praises of God change things.

Remember, it’s sort of the reverse of what you think of the triumphal entry. The real place of spirit empowerment is out on the Mount of Olives. That’s where Jesus is staying. He’s not in the temple anymore. And so he’s going into a city to correct it, just like we go out of this place. We’re at the Mount of Olives, we could say. And the spirit empowerment—spirit, you know—moves and transforms us. And then we triumphally leave here, process into the city tomorrow morning. And we go in the power of Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit. And that procession is associated with a perfection of praise.

So God is about restoring proper praise to him, and that’s an element of what this perfection means. You’re perfected to become part of the praising community that will go forth from here in triumphal procession into the city.

Luke 6:40 says:

“A disciple is not above his master or teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.”

Perfection—the way God chooses to do it. Wouldn’t have to be this way, but God has chosen to perfect you through training. That’s what this text is telling us. Same word. We’re going to repair the world by becoming perfected. Things are being restored. Things are being fixed. This is happening in unity with other people. And God will train us toward that end. God uses training tactics. The wilderness, which is a big theme in Hebrews. He trained the army that was going to go in and conquer by drill. He trained them just by having them march around in useless directions.

If you look at one of those maps, right, of the wilderness wanderings, oh, they’re going all over the place. You know, there’s no sense to it. What’s the sense? You know, if we’re results-oriented folks, we don’t quite get it. If we want it right now, 38 years of walking around in a circle would not be the way we would train an army. God is not like us. But that’s what he’s doing. He’s perfecting the sons of Zion to go in and do combat with the sons of Greece.

How do they do it? By the way, the very first proléptic conquering of the land happens with the falling down of the walls in response to—no, in response to the praise of God’s people. They’re sons of Zion going against the sons of Greece. But they’re trained for that for 38 years by marching around in a circle.

Young people, don’t, you know, don’t chafe against your parents if they tell you to move the wood pile here and then move the wood pile there. They’re taking what Jesus says here. They want you to be perfected as a son of Zion to be able to enter into the fray in your adult life in a powerful, victorious way. And they’re going to train you to that end. And you may not understand the training boot camp. You never understand what’s happening there, I’m told. I never went through it. But it’s training people. That’s how God perfects us—is through training of his people.

In a way, this is the training day. This is boot camp every first day of the week. It’s training because we come together and we live life the way it’s supposed to be lived. We put on our nicest clothes, our nicest attitudes. We try to be nice. We try hard not to sin today. We try to get together and have a meal together and rejoice together. We sing together. You see, this is training of the army of God to go into the world.

Now, we got to disperse. Can’t stay here. There’s demon-possessed kids at the bottom of the mountain. We got to go do our work. We got to process into the city. But we’re trained for that through the worship of the church.

Now, we’re warned that on the other hand, Romans 9:22 says:

“What if God, wanting to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?”

You have to understand that while we’re being perfected to do good works, there are a certain number of people out there—there are certain people that God is preparing for destruction. He’s preparing us to be sons of Zion, but he’s preparing some people to be sons of Greece. He’s preparing for destruction. And it should be a warning to us. You know, there’s two types of preparation going on. We’re both fitting us out. And if we’re not with the program, God wants us to be really careful that we’re not part of those vessels fitted for destruction.

1 Corinthians 1:10 says:

“Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind in the same judgment.”

Well, this is what we said earlier—that part of this word “perfection,” in classical Greek, and here’s the biblical citation, means that perfection is accomplished in the context of the body, unity of people. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God—male and female. He created—the man. Part of the image of God is community. And so our communities, our unity together, specifically here in the context of the church, we cannot be prepared. We can’t be perfected to do this work of being a son of Zion against the sons of Greece in isolation from the growing development and unity of the church of Jesus Christ. This is what Paul says—that we’d be perfectly joined together.

Part of our maturation is focusing on common goals, common purpose, while engaging in a diversity of strategies or procedures. Okay. Now, you know, most arguments that people get into is about the 5 to 10% of things they disagree about. That’s just the way it is. And if you think of the last time you and your wife didn’t—maybe you don’t argue, you don’t throw things, but you misunderstand yourself. Usually, if you get right down to it, if you retrace your steps back to find your common purpose, you’ll find out that what you’re disagreeing about usually is the 5 to 10% that you’re nearly not in agreement on. And you’re not supposed to be in agreement on everything.

But the point is that we’re supposed to go back to mutual purpose and develop this unity, the synergy of the body of Christ, as part of the way God perfects us and prepares us to do this job of being the sons of Zion.

So there’s a perfection, a training together, a development and equipping, a giving us back unity in the context of the church. Very important truth.

2 Corinthians 13:11. I had—and now on your outline, I think on the outline last week, maybe this week too, I had incorrectly put 1 Corinthians 13:11. But 2 Corinthians 13:11 says:

“Finally, brethren, farewell, become complete.”

So this is the word “complete,” “perfect.” In addition to God placing this as a benediction upon us, he’s doing this. He urges us to work toward it. Become complete. Have this as your goal. This perfection, maturation, moving forward, and not being childlike.

“Comfort, become complete. Be of good comfort. Be of one mind. Live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.”

Everlasting covenant—God proclaims peace. That’s what it’s about. How is peace accomplished? By making it a goal to become mature, kitted out, geared up for particular things, and to do that in the context of becoming of one mind in the context of the church. And then verse 12:

“Greet one another with the holy kiss.”

So God says again that this perfection is accomplished through a growing unity of the body of Christ.

By the way, 1 Corinthians 13:11 is not a bad verse to use. It doesn’t have this word “perfect” in it, but it does say this. It was an error on my part. It was supposed to be 2 Corinthians 13:11. But 1 Corinthians 13:11 says:

“When I was a child, I spake as a child. I understood as a child. I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

Have you? You know, more and more so-called men in America don’t put away childish things. Manhood is a time to exercise what you always wanted to do as a kid. I remember, you know, if you look at today, men are worshiping God. Children are out there recreating away from their families, away from their children. I call them children, you know, I mean, grown men. They’re out there doing their own thing, ignoring their family responsibilities, the responsibilities to God because they’re acting like foolish little children.

Don’t do that. You young teenage boys, I don’t know what it is, you know? I mean, the teenage girls just seem to—I don’t know what it is. There’s something that goes on there that I don’t understand. But teenage boys, understand: you are becoming men. Make it your goal. Maturity. Don’t act foolish. Be careful what you say in groups. Be careful how you act. Don’t lapse into immaturity. You’re becoming men. Put away childish things. This is what the benediction is.

The whole thing of Hebrews comes down to this benediction—that we be mature, prepared, putting away foolish things, childish things, which are okay when you’re kids, but don’t do them when you’re an adult.

You know, get myself in trouble. But if you think about things that younger children do and they enjoy doing—games, video things, that kind of stuff—if men, if that’s what they’re primarily doing with their leisure time instead of improving themselves, improving their family. Now, I know, you know, time off is good. Jesus went away, all that stuff. But I’m saying, man, if what you’re doing with a significant part of your time are those kind of recreational pastimes that characterize childhood, apply this verse. Put them away. We’ve got work to do. Okay?

This culture isn’t getting better. It’s getting worse. A lot worse. That should be obvious. And it’s our fault. Jesus isn’t going to blame them. Judgment begins where? At Athens. No. Judgment begins at Zion. Judgment begins at the church of God with God’s people because we’re responsible. We got work to do. Let’s put away childish things. Let’s attend to maturity. Let’s make it our goal.

R.J. Rushdoony’s book, Revolt Against Maturity. You know, if you read it, you’ll see yourself in it because that’s the culture we live in. A culture in revolt against maturity. Foolish.

So I’m glad I made the mistake to bring up that verse.

Forgiveness of sins is part of this. Galatians 6:1:

“Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore, perfect—same word—complete such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.”

You know, you could be tempted to do the sin he’s doing, or you could be tempted to be self-righteous. Somebody wrote a prayer once: “Lord God, give me the grace to forgive other people for the sins that I don’t do.” In other words, you know, I know the ones I do and I’m tolerant of those. I forgive myself, and I forgive those. But if they do something that I’m not doing, I tend not to forgive it.

So we can be tempted to fall into the sin of somebody we’re counseling. But probably more often, we’re tempted to be self-righteous about it and not handle it correctly and not repair our brother. So here we’ve got a broken net. When we sin, our net gets broken. We become less effective as sons of Zion, as the kings of the sun-rising, bringing in the fish, and the three-frog demon people get away and the sons of Greece go out the holes in the net when we sin.

And we have an obligation. Part of this perfection—in other words, God prepares us, he equips us. We do it in unity. We do it through worship. But a big part of it is he teaches us to confess our sins and to be restored and to restore one another. This is a huge problem, again, this class.

You know, we’re teaching in Sunday school class. Good companies—the boss finally does something about somebody that is screwing up at work. Bad companies—nobody does nothing and the company just goes downhill. Good companies—they finally fire them or transfer them or something. The best of companies—they’re doing this stuff. They’re trying to say, “Look, this isn’t very efficient. Or maybe you’re stealing from the employer.” And they try to go about doing that in a winsome way. They want to—they want to go about that conversation correctly. But they’re going to go about the conversation. They’re not going to wait for the boss to do it. You see?

Well, that’s what the body of Christ is supposed to be like. Brethren, this isn’t written to the elders. It’s written to you. If a man is overtaken in a trespass, you who are spiritual—perfect him. Be part of the process of what this benediction says God is going to do to us to perfect us. Gear him up. Kit him out. Get him prepared for service again. Because when he’s in that sin, he’s not equipped for service. You got one less guy on the front lines with you, whether you know it or not. That’s the spiritual reality of it. And you’re suffering; the church is suffering, etc.

You need to restore such a one. So part of this perfection has to do with properly doing the ABCs of the Christian life. If you sin, repent. If you see somebody that sins, that doesn’t repent, don’t just let it slide. If it’s significant, work with them yourself. Don’t talk to the elders. I mean, I don’t mind if you talk to them. But usually I’ll encourage you to go talk to the other person. That’s okay. I don’t mind doing that. That’s a good thing. But you know what we should be doing is understanding that this perfection and maturity, the effectiveness of the army of Jesus Christ, happens as a result of doing the simple ABCs of the Christian life that we just don’t do anymore.

I don’t mean we as a church necessarily, but the Christian culture in America—the sword. I was having a conversation with a pastor this last week about something that was rather obviously quite sinful that a person was doing. And I mean, it was like I was using profanity to use the sword. Is it sin? Well, I didn’t use that word when talking to this guy. Is it sin? Do you think it’s sin? Well, maybe it’s sin. I mean, we are just so strange about this whole thing. Okay, so I’ve belabored that point enough.

The ABCs. Part of perfection is forgiveness of sins and working with one another to mend their nets. Mend each other’s net. You see a hole in somebody’s net. Don’t just walk away.

Ephesians 4:11 and 12:

“Now he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying, for the perfection of the body of Christ.”

So here it’s explicitly the officers of the church’s job to mend nets of sinful people, to provide what people are lacking, to build the unity of the church. Those three aspects—you see? This is the job of the elders of the church. The gifts that God has given to you is to equip you and perfect you. So there’s a role of the institutional church in this context.

2 Thessalonians 3:10:

“We, night and day, he says, I pray exceedingly that we may see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith.”

So here it’s a restoring what’s lacking. It’s not a fixing what’s broken. We should want to encourage one another. This is elder talk primarily, but one-to-one. Paul said he wanted to go to Romans to see the Romans in the first chapter, that they may be mutually encouraged in the faith of Jesus Christ. Faith is lacking, and so he needs to build it up. Part of the perfection of the saints is us being a mutual encouragement to each other in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ—to perfect what is lacking in each other’s faith.

And then finally, 1 Peter 5:10:

“May the God of all grace, who called us to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, after he has trained you, after he has done his job of training you, perfect you. He’s trained you as a disciple through suffering. Then may he indeed perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.”

Strengthen you to do the combat, settle you in the promised land as you go about doing that combat. So this is the theme of Hebrews, as I said last week—this perfection. Hebrews 6:1:

“Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection. Let us be mature. Don’t be stupid children. Don’t act like a child. Put away childish things. Move to maturity.”

That is the theme, really, of the book of Hebrews—is this drive toward maturity.

Philippians 2:13 reminds us:

“To God be the glory. It is God who works in you both to will and to do for his own good pleasure.”

Again, in Ephesians 3:20:

“Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. To him be glory.”

God is perfecting that which concerns us. While we’ve got things to do for ourselves and for others, ultimately it’s God working through us. To him be all the glory. So God is reconciling. He’s doing tikkun olam by repairing us in these various aspects. And God expects us to understand that when the benediction is placed upon us.

Now, we’re called to do good works. And so we’re perfected to a particular task—to do good work. And there’s a little debate here in terms of the Greek. Well, does this mean you’re perfected to do good work, or you’re perfected with goodness? Either way, we know in point of fact we are being perfected to accomplish works for the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Hebrews, it immediately goes on to say: perfected unto every good work to do that which is well pleasing. So there is an action step past that statement of perfection, in terms of doing good works. So I’m going to use the traditional way of thinking of this—that we’re being perfected to do good works.

And here’s just a brief comment that this word “and work” comes together. In 2 Thessalonians 2:16, we read this:

“May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and our God and father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts, establish you.”

So the idea—it’s not the same word, but the idea—perfect you in every good word and work. Word first, work second. And this is one of the reasons we’re doing Crucial Conversations in Sunday school—is because much of our work is accomplished by our words. To do good work most of the time involves the use of good words. And there’s this connection that’s made between this in 2 Thessalonians 2.

Again, earlier in Hebrews—you may remember that in Hebrews 10:5, Jesus says:

“Therefore, when he came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared, and you’ll remember.’”

So the idea is that Jesus has been equipped to do things. And we’re Christians, and he doesn’t just get us out of here. He prepares us to do with our body good works. But remember that Jesus is citing a Psalm here. And back in the original Psalm, it says that God has given him an ear—has opened up his ear. Okay, that’s what Jesus—the Septuagint version says: “a body you have prepared for me.” But back in the original Psalm, it says:

“Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire, but you’ve opened my ears to do your work—hearing words.”

You see, so good work is connected both to speaking words and to hearing words—as a very important part of what these good works are.

And then he goes on in Hebrews 10 to say:

“I’ve come to do your will, oh God.”

So the whole point is that Jesus has come to do the will of the Father. And we, as restored in Christ’s image now, have come to do the will of the Father—to be the sons of Zion combating the sons of Greece.

Alright. And then finally, we’re perfected to do good work according to his will. And Ezekiel 37 says—and we read this a couple of weeks ago. David, in verse 26, it says:

“Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant.”

So this is one of those cross-references in Hebrews—the blood of the everlasting covenant. What does it mean? We go back to Ezekiel, and there’s a discussion of the everlasting covenant, a covenant of peace. And it says that what will happen is that David will be my king. Well, it’s the greater David, the Lord Jesus Christ. But anyway, verse 24 of Ezekiel 37 says:

“David, my servant, shall be king over them. They shall all have one shepherd.”

So again, in this text, we’ve got the shepherd illustration, description from Isaiah 63. We’ve got the everlasting covenant from Zechariah 9. We’ve got the Hebrews benediction really kind of singing this part of the Old Testament song as well.

“They’ll have one shepherd. They shall also walk in my judgments, observe my statutes, and do them.”

The will of God is revealed in the law of God—in his statutes and judgments—not just in the moral law, but in the law relative to how civil government and ecclesiastical governance and family governance is to be carried out. And so to do God’s will means being in the old term theonomic, or in the new term we might use theocratic. We’re being perfected to be theocrats—to desire to accomplish and to obey God’s law certainly, but his judgments and his statutes.

That’s a verse about the coming of the greater David, the new covenant times. It’s not a verse about Levitical covenant, Mosaic covenant. It’s a verse about what our time is of. And so when we read that we’re to be perfected to do his will, that means we have to understand that will is reflected in his statutes and judgments. Do we know them? I don’t know. Some of us do, some of us don’t.

Isaiah 8:20 says:

“To the law and to the testimony, they don’t speak according to this word. It’s because there’s no light in them.”

The only light we have, if we’re kings of the sun-rising, the only light we have is from the law of God, the word of God, which is a law word and a grace word to us at the same time. But we’ve got to know it. We’ve got to know the word of God, the statutes, the judgments, the laws, all of it. Because apart from that, when we enter into a discussion with people, if we don’t ultimately base what we’re doing and bring them face to face with the law of God, then there’s no light in the conversation. It’s darkness conversing with darkness.

So we’re being perfected to accomplish, to obey, and to work out the law of God in the context of our lives.

Now, I’ve got four brief application points at the end here.

So what’s today’s mission? Remember that glory, knowledge, and life can be restated as mission, discipleship, and community. We’re restored to glory. We’re given back—through forgiveness of sins. God gives us weightiness. We’re given Aaron’s rod for a purpose—to go on mission for Jesus. Okay? That mission is informed by our restored knowledge, the preaching of the word. We accomplish the mission with the word, and that word is discipleship, then. So we have mission and discipleship, and we—that results in community rejoicing, community. We go through forgiveness of sins to the preaching of the word to community at the Lord’s supper.

We’re given glory. We’re given knowledge. We’re given life. And in terms of how that works itself out, we’re given a mission every Lord’s day. We’re given renewed knowledge to accomplish that and disciple the nations. And we’re given the presence of Christ and the sure word that community will increase.

Well, what’s the mission that this word of God—that this worship service takes us out on? Well, the mission is this overarching term of perfection. But I wanted to mention some specific ways. We’re geared up for rebuilding—what part of the wall? The cover has Nehemiah rebuilding the wall. What are we doing? What are we kitted up, restored to do? And I would say that these are some things—at least the Lord laid on my heart this last week—that we should be applying ourselves to. And maybe over the next century or so. I mean, these are big tasks.

One: the perfection of praise. We’ve talked about that. But the raising up of the tabernacle of David. We start with God. We glorify God and enjoy him forever. So we start with glorifying God. The proper worship of God. Our greatest desire should be to become perfected, repaired in the—in the abysmal worship of God that’s characterized much of Christianity in this country for the last hundred years. And what we want to do is restore focus upon the worship of the church that produces a model for what we do in the world.

We’re sons of Zion. God is perfecting praise. He’s raising up the tabernacle of David. And this is a focus. This is an important focus of who we are. And it’s an important focus of this church and what we’re wanting to do. October 22nd, please pray. I think that we’re going to have the first of quarterly Oregon city-wide prayer and praise services, and we’re going to have it here. And the different churches that host it, in the evening, Sunday evening, we’ll be doing their style of worship and their songs, etc. Now, we’ll try to use some of the other pastors and things that they sing too. But you know, it’ll be an opportunity to take what we think is the gift of this idea—repairing, perfecting the praise and worship of God—and bringing it to the broader community. And that’s been going on for the last couple of years anyway, just through my interaction with these men. So that’s certainly a focal point of what we’re supposed to do.

And I know every well—you get into church-oriented, worship-oriented. Well, you know, I don’t think we can focus too much on glorifying God. And I think to the extent that we don’t glorify God, we’re not going to enjoy him very much. I don’t think we’re going to do much in the week if we don’t focus on being sons of Zion. I don’t think we’re going to get to go out and conquer the land if we don’t start with the worship that brings down the walls of the city, you see? So that is an important goal.

Secondly, turning the hearts of the fathers to the children. This was an important verse for us early on. You know, that’s the end of the Old Covenant, the beginning of the New Covenant revelation. Revelation stopped after this declaration that God was going to bring someone to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. And that New Testament revelation—that revelation picks up again when John the Baptist’s birth is foretold—and it’s put in this language. So it’s pretty important stuff—knitting together the two times of revelation from God in terms of the Old and New Testaments. And this is what our job is.

As I said, men today want to be children. Children are a you know, a secondary concern. And one of the most important things we can do is a generational deal. We’re all messed up, us older folks. The adults are all screwed up. We didn’t grow up in a context of seeing proper modeling of any of this stuff. We’ve been all over the map. So we got to do this with humility. But it’s the job we have to do—to raise up a generation of children who are more faithful than us.

Read Psalm 78. I’ll come back to it into next week. Psalm 78. It’s our job. Do our children know the covenant? And will they use the covenant? The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. At least they were armed. At least they knew the covenant, the statutes, the judgments, the word of God. Do our children know the word of God? We’ve been at it 22 years. Ask yourself that. Ask them what they know about the Bible.

We’re having these discussions on Friday evenings, you know, how do you interact with folks at Clackamas or in the workplace, or how do you watch movies, and all this stuff. And they’re all good, proper discussions. I love it. It’s a great time. But, you know, if young adults don’t—if they are not armed with the covenant, the word of God, the statutes and judgments, the knowledge of the Bible—I mean, reading it through all the time, as simple as that. How are they possibly to have the opportunity to turn back in the day of battle? They won’t be able to engage the battle at all. You see?

So parents, dads, grab a hold of your families. Michael L. sent me an email, you know, asking what resources to do for family planning. We used to do this. I did some talks at family camp many years ago. And dads are supposed to self-consciously have an understanding of what it is to be a Christian householder—economically, in terms of the physical structure, in terms of the children, in terms of vocation, in terms of worship, teaching those kids worship. I mean, there’s various—not all kinds—there’s a fairly small group of tasks, lots of subtasks.

Have you systematically tried to think through what you’re doing? And not—you know, I’m not saying it’s sin if you don’t use a particular method. But if you’re using no method, and if you’re not doing periods of evaluation about how well you’re training them up and how well you’re maturing your household—well, you know what can I tell you? You’ve just missed the boat.

Now, the wonderful thing about sin is it can be forgiven, and you can be restored and you can be empowered. The benediction will empower you. But it won’t empower you if you don’t want to take up the task.

Christian education. You know, there’s no way I’m going to allow fights about strategies here. We’re going to focus upon the fact that we have a common purpose—to raise up a generation that are more faithful than us, that know the Bible better than us, that can worship better than us, and that are better prepared for vocation than us. That’s the purpose. And there’s lots of tasks on how to get there. But if we’re not getting there, no matter what method you’re using, I don’t care. If you’re not getting there, you have sinned. You’ve fallen short.

This is one of the most important. If we’re going to worship God and then enjoy him forever, if we’re going to start on Sunday, if it doesn’t go to Monday through Friday, if the family, if the communion altar doesn’t take—doesn’t move into the family altar. If this table doesn’t set up something in terms of our own tables during the week, then we’ve messed up the whole thing. And we are more judged than any other people because we know we’re supposed to be doing it. We know we’re not treading water. We know we’re not waiting for the rapture. We know we’re supposed to be sons of God, sons of Zion, raised up against the sons of Greece.

May God grant us forgiveness. May he grant us renewed efforts to do these things.

Matt Lion’s upcoming home school meeting. What’s the vision of your home school? We did this vision stuff for the church. Kings Academy is thinking about doing it. Some of you think it’s silly. It’s a government thing. It’s a business thing. I don’t know. Corporate thing. No, it’s not. It’s just saying that we have obligations to repair certain portions of the wall that have been broken down. And our families, our households, are absolutely essential to that. And we’ve got to get about doing it—preparing, making steps, making evaluations, preparing our children, preparing them vocationally, preparing them as worshiping kids.

Third, equipping the craftsmen. Tribute offering is a tremendous step this way. But we have to restore vocation calling. This is what the Protestant Reformation did. This is what turned the world around to a large extent—is the way men work. And if we become so oriented to the family that we’re not maturing what we’re doing at work, we’ve missed the boat. And if we’re so working on our work that we haven’t taken our responsibilities in terms of the family correctly, men I’m talking to now, heads of households, then we’ve missed the boat.

But we need tools. What does it mean to be a Christian businessman? This tool, Crucial Conversations, this book that Steve Sykes loaned to me—and then started a bunch of thoughts going off in my head about—yeah, this is important. I’m developing a bibliography of Christian books on approach to business. Jeff Meyer’s church, they’re going to do a Sunday school class where different men lead a discussion of the Bible in business. And so they’re gathering bibliographies. I’ll try to build from them. But this is absolutely crucial.

This is one of those century-long tasks—is preparing—because it’s the craftsmen. Remember the craftsman in earlier in Zechariah. It’s the craftsmen who successfully make war against the four horns, the power culture, the ones who want to exercise control and power over people. No, we get there through being craftsmen, through being singers, and being craftsmen, worshiping God, exercising vocation, building in the family substrate—children that can do those two things effectively, or wives who can equip their husbands in a better way to do vocation.

So that is, I think, one of the big goals in terms of how we carry out the mission—from today to attend to vocation.

And then finally, the destruction of the flesh that souls might be saved. That’s a weird thing, isn’t it? What am I talking about there? Well, you know, I’m not sure I’d put this in the same category as the first three. It’s a little fuzzier to me. But I do think that I want to end here where we started this set of four aspects of the wall. We started with God, and then the implications of the worship of God in terms of our families and our vocations. And I want to go back to God now.

That we got to glorify God in order to enjoy him forever. God is God. The glory of God is more important than the physical welfare of a person who is sinning. It just is. This is a phrase of course taken from—taken from Paul’s—second epistle—the first epistle to Corinthians. He has turned over a rebellious sinning Christian to Satan for the destruction of his flesh that his soul might be saved.

If necessary—and it wasn’t in this man’s case in Corinthians, apparently—but if necessary to bring a man to conversion by having him go face to face with his executioner, that is not a bad trade-off. That’s a good trade-off. We need to be able to put the glory of God above the well-being of people. That’s what it comes down to—prioritize things correctly.

Now, the end result will be the well-being of people more. But not all of them. Some you’re going to have to execute. We live in a world that has almost universally rejected the death penalty. Why? Because it’s a humanistic world. Because the only thing that ultimately is important is the well-being of each individual person. But our goal is to glorify God. And we’re warned by God not to have such compassion that we break his law in terms of those that are subject to the death penalty. And that goes right to the church.

Why don’t we have the death penalty? Because nobody’s getting excommunicated in the churches. Elders—I always talk to elders when we’re training and evaluating. Are you willing to squeeze off the round? Can you do it? Can you say, “Yeah, this guy should be excommunicated. He’s sinning. He won’t repent. He’s troubling the church. He’s contentious. He’s doing something God hates. Many ought to be, you know, disciplined immediately, suspended, if necessary, excommunicated.” We don’t do that.

We put, somehow, what we think the well-being is. And we have, we got better ideas than God about how to restore somebody. And we’re saying, “Well, yeah, maybe what God says, but you know, that just doesn’t work too good. We’re going to use other methods.” Well, we’re not smarter than God. And the end result of that is a culture that has turned completely away from the death penalty.

And now, when some single guy moves in next to you, middle-aged single guy—at least if you’re me, the first thing I’m thinking is: I got a teenage daughter. I better check the state database. Is he a sexual offender or not? Is he some guy that should have been executed 10 years ago? That’s the world we’re living in now. And we live in that world because we fail to put the glory of God above the well-being of people. And we don’t excommunicate people. And as a result, the culture follows the church.

The sons of Greece. Not only do we not defeat the sons of Greece, they learn our bad habits. We’re the sons of Greece now. And we teach them: oh, you don’t want to do anything final. You want to do something that’s really—boy, it’s really a strong thing to do. No, you always want to have hope. We’re not against the sinner. It’s just the sin, yada, yada. And we put—we destroy the glory of God. And as a result, we bring his judgments upon us.

So those are some aspects of the wall that I think God will prepare us to do.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you for your forgiveness. We thank you, Lord God, for calling us to be people that are geared up, kitted out, equipped to do this battle that you’ve called us to do. Forgive us, Lord God, when we men have been armed with bows and yet turned back in days of battle. And forgive us, Lord God, that we have failed so often to even give our children the bows of the covenant, the word of God, the law of God, and the knowledge of it. Forgive our older children to the extent that they have failed to learn how to use that bow, what it is, what the covenant is all about.

And forgive us, Lord God, for both turning back and failing to equip ourselves and our children to these battles. Prepare us, Lord God. Perfect us. Train us. Forgive us. Restore us, Father. Mend us individually and as a church that we may effectively press forth the battle as kings of the rising sun. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.