Dennis Tuuri

Well, we finally conclude the book of Hebrews today. Today’s sermon is on the last couple of verses. Hebrews 13:23-25, the last three verses. We sang Psalm 95 and Psalm 8 today because those are two of the major Psalms of this book. And today we’ll finish with verses 23 to 25. Please stand for the reading of Hebrews 13:23-25. Liturgical churches, this is Christ the King’s Day. This is the word of the king to his subjects.

It always is, but we remember that today particularly on the celebration of Christ the King, the last Sunday before Advent. So it kind of completes the whole movement of the church here, Jesus as king. All right. Hebrews 13:23-25. “Know that our brother Timothy has been set free with whom I shall see you if he comes shortly. Greet all those who rule over you and all the saints. Those from Italy greet you. Grace be with you all. Amen.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for these few short verses here at the end of this wonderful, magnificent book, the statement of the new creation through the work of the new covenant and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray now that you would indeed open this scripture to our understanding. Help us, Father, to understand why it is that several of these books in the New Testament conclude with these personal greetings that seem so different from the rest of what we find here.

Bless us, Lord God, and by your Holy Spirit transform us by the power of this word. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated. At the top of your outlines, I’ve given for the last time the seven-part structure. I’m convinced that the book of Hebrews falls very naturally—we could say, once you see the pointers in the text and meditate upon the flow of this book—into this seven-part outline. I don’t think it’s arbitrary, and for the most part, this outline is very clearly indicated, as we’ve said all along, by statements at the end of one section leading to the next section.

There are hinges throughout this structure. So it flows out into this sevenfold pattern quite easily and naturally. And I wanted to remind you that this sevenfold pattern—I don’t think it’s just a nice way to remember it. I do believe that many of the books of the New Testament have as their theme the new creation in Christ and how that’s effected by the new covenant. And I think that’s the theme of Hebrews.

And so it’s laid out in this seven-part structure that connects with the seven days of creation. So in the first creation, we had “let there be light.” And in the first part of Hebrews, we have the bright shining light. We have this tremendous, wonderful set of verses with their own structure and beauty and profundity to them. But they talk about the Lord Jesus Christ, the bright shining refulgence of the Father’s glory, that brightness shining out.

And then the firmament dividing the waters from above and the waters from below. And what we have in the second section of Hebrews is a restatement of how Jesus is the firmament. He is mediating the heavenly realities to earth. He’s the Son of God and the Son of Man. He brings together earth and heaven. And he’s the mediator that accomplishes this in the new creation. He’s the firstfruits as well. He’s a priest, a better high priest, source of faithfulness and rest and compassion. And as we get to the matching element, number five, we’re supposed to be that same way. He’s the firstfruits, beginning with his office of being a priest, one who does the will of the Father.

At the very center then of the structure is day four: a priest like Melchizedek, high priest of good things to come. Now Melchizedek is a priest, but he’s also a king. His name means “king of righteousness.” So we move from the priestly to the kingly office of the Lord Jesus Christ with him being compared to Melchizedek. And then in the very center, I think of the entire book, is that he’s the high priest like Melchizedek, a priest-king of good things to come. They’re on the cusp. They’re on the verge. Psalm 95 reminds them you’re going to enter the promised land a little bit here.

This new creation will take place definitively in a couple of years with the destruction of the old creation in Jerusalem in AD 70. So don’t you know, wimp out now. Follow through. There’s good things coming. The fullness of the new creation. And we have sun, moon, and stars as the reflected light of the Shekinah glory. We have the kingly rule of the Lord Jesus Christ ruling over the entire creation here at the center of this book.

Now, I didn’t give you the structure, but if you have the old handouts or you could get access to them online, when we talk about that large central section, it really focuses on the new covenant and it says how the old covenant was passing away. The new covenant is established. The old covenant was powerless really to affect everything that the new creation would do. It was of the old creation. And so the very heart of the book, the good things to come, is because the Lord Jesus has come and linked up heaven and earth again.

That’s also in the middle of the book. Heavenly worship is going on and we go to heaven and worship. Those things match up at the center of the book and this fourth section. And so really the marvelous nature of the new creation through the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is described at the center in covenantal terms. And so that’s what’s brought this new creation to pass. So we have this wonderful picture, this restatement of creation because of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Great things are coming in the future because we now live in the new creation. No longer the time of anticipation, but the time of fulfillment. So that’s at the very center. And then we become like Jesus. We’re priests like he is. We should live with faith and endurance. Chapter 11 has all those people talked about. And that, by the way, is the only occurrence in this section of the word “prophet” or “the prophets.”

So we sort of move from Jesus’ priestly to his kingly to then the prophetic office. And we are now Christians who are faithful like Jesus is faithful and compassionate as he has been compassionate. And we have endurance. So we’re the teeming mass of things, you know, the number of people multiplying now after the image of the firstborn, the firstfruits, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the sixth position in the book, we live in heavenly community on earth.

We had all those practical instructions we would say working this new creation out. How do we live in heavenly community here on earth? And that was day six. And then finally at the end, we had this wonderful coming of God to us in the benediction to empower us, to give us completeness unto every good work, and it’s in this last section, of course, that we’re in. And the last few verses conclude that.

So that’s its place. That’s the arc of the book. And it’s interesting if we think of the arc of the book beginning with the prophets replaced by Jesus. And then at the end of the book, Jesus has been raised by God, but then God places a benediction on us. And now personal greetings are passed, personal relationships are emphasized at the very conclusion of the book. So like so many of these books in the New Testament, we begin with Jesus and we end with the bride.

We begin with Jesus and we end with the image bearer of Christ, the Christian church. In Revelation, we have the bright shining Jesus at the end, the city of God, the church of God. We have that kind of movement here. It ends with personal stuff, but that balances out this movement of all these books. The good things to come is that we can be these wonderful creatures now that God has intended us to be. And I think that these verses here at the end tell us something about what that is all about.

They’re odd verses though, right? Why do we have personal greetings? They’re very common. Now, Hebrews is not an epistle, I don’t think, because it doesn’t have an addressing at the beginning of it. It reads much like a sermon as opposed to an epistle or letter. It’s unlike the other letters. And yet it closes with the same kind of personal greetings. Let me read you a few of these to get home to you how often this happens.

And I won’t read all of them, but in Romans 16:21-24, the way this book ends: “Timothy, my fellow worker, and Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my countrymen, greet you. I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, my host and the host of the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, greets you, and Quartus, a brother. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” Fuller more names, but the same thing, right? Greet, greet. The grace of God be with you. Ephesians 6:

“But that you also may know my affairs and how I am doing, Tychicus, a beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make all things known to you, whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our affairs, and that he may comfort your hearts. Peace to the brethren, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen.”

Personal messenger, Tychicus, named here at the end of that book. And then the grace of Christ with us. 2 Timothy 4: “Eubulus greets you, as well as Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brethren. The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you. Amen.” Personal information and personal greetings. Do your utmost to come before winter.

Titus 3:15: “All who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Amen.” Colossians is a long one. I’ll end with this one as another example. It’s very long, beginning in verse 7, we have twelve verses here at the end of Colossians, only four chapters long and most of the fourth chapter is taken up with this sort of stuff.

“Tychicus, a beloved brother, faithful minister, and fellow servant in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me. I’m sending him to you for this very purpose that he may know your circumstances and comfort your hearts with Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They will make known to you all things which are happening here. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you with Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, about whom you received instructions. If he comes to you, welcome him. And Jesus, who is called Justus, these are my only fellow workers for the kingdom of God, who are of the circumcision.

They have proved to be a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has a great zeal for you and those who are in Laodicea and those in Hierapolis. Luke the beloved physician and Demas greet you. Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and Nymphas and the church that is in his house.

Now, when this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, ‘Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.’ This salutation by my own hand, Paul. Remember my chains. Grace be with you. Amen.”

Well, you read through the New Testament, or you’re a guy like me and you’re preaching through epistles or portions of the New Testament and you get to these last couple of verses and you say, “Why? Why is this stuff that’s ancient history?” Now, we don’t know any of these guys. Most of them were. Why are these things here? And I’m going to try to tease out some meaning as to why this is here for us. And you know what I want to do is I want to encourage us to treat the ends of these New Testament books just like we treat the rest of it. It’s material to be exegeted, to be understood.

It has gospel. Every one of them ends with grace, right? The gospel of God. But it has a response that’s kind of hinted at and you know recommended or sometimes commanded. But that response is very personal. And I think that’s very important to us. So let’s just walk through the outline: five elements of this text.

First of all, I think that this text here in Hebrews tells us that we should desire to know our brother’s state. So he begins by saying in verse 23, “Know that our brother Timothy has been set free with whom I shall see you if he comes shortly.” Now this probably is the same Timothy that was Paul’s protégé. The fact that he calls him “brother”—Timothy, some people say well Paul almost always calls him “son,” so this probably wasn’t Paul. We’re not going to be able to get at with certainty some of that stuff from these verses.

There’s just not enough there to help us to figure it out. But I want us to focus on the plain stuff. We don’t know why Timothy was imprisoned. This is the only record of it in the New Testament. But we know that he was. And we know that whoever wrote this sermon to the Hebrews at the end of it wants them to have some personal information, some personal data about one that’s called a brother. He says, “Our brother,” probably collectively, “your brother, my brother, Timothy.”

We should desire to know the state of our brothers. And that very term “brother,” we’ve seen this used various points of time throughout this sermon, right? “Bear up under this word of exhortation.” And he calls them “brother” over and over again. What does that tell us? Exhortation and admonishments to one another should be accompanied by statements of brotherhood and love. That’s the context for the exhortations. He reminds them that they’re brothers.

I mentioned this before, but Calvin said that the early church would use the term “brother” so-and-so, “brother Brad, brother Don, sister Bonnie.” And Calvin said, “That’s a good practice, and we ought to get back to it.” Well, here’s the common usage of it again, reminding us that’s a good thing to do. Here’s our brother Timothy, and here’s what happened to him. He was in jail, but he’s out now. We should desire to know the state of other people.

Now, as soon as we hear this imprisonment, we’re sure that this was for the faith. Of course, he didn’t, you know, rob somebody. And we’re reminded that earlier in this same chapter, in how to live heavenly lives on earth, we’re to have concern for those that are in prison for the faith that was given to us earlier in Hebrews 13. We should particularly want to know about people that are being persecuted and suffering for the faith. We haven’t done a good job of this. I haven’t done a good job. I’ll lay it at my own feet.

I was talking this morning in the crucial conversation class about documenting decisions. I’ve got to document this decision that we do a little better job of preparation for International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. I think Elder Shaw prayed last week and did a great job of praying for them, and we do work it in, but my sermon wasn’t about it. Well, there’s lots of New Testament evidence that we’re supposed to want to know about people and particularly brothers who are in prison for the faith and what’s going on, and we should pray for them. We should have compassion for them. That’s what he’s given us earlier in this epistle.

So in a very specific sense, you know, a way to apply this is to remember on a regular basis—and of course the number is growing with the march of Islam in persecution of Christians—the number of persecuted Christians in the world who are being imprisoned, beaten, burned, whatever it is—growing. We should remember them in prayer frequently.

On a more direct note, we should desire to know our brother’s states in the context of our church. You know, one of the questions we’re asking ourselves right now is as the church grows here, do we know each other anymore? You know, people here? Do you know their state, how they’re doing? We’re having a discussion amongst the elders about the prayer meetings. We have a purpose for them. We want to get to know the state of each other better than we do. And that can probably more effectively happen in small groups.

And in those small groups, the confession of sin, sharing of personal information that maybe should not go anywhere outside of that room—with the people that you trust. You should desire to know other people’s states. You shouldn’t come here anonymously. I went to a leadership lab put on by a group—a multisite, small church, multilocational church—interesting kind of a franchise approach to the church. Many things to discern to us, but there were a few things they said that were interesting, and they really stress building new churches. And when they do it, they say to people, “You got to be part of a small group in the midst of the week. You got to go to a small group meeting.”

As soon as somebody comes to their worship service to where the pastor knows their first name, he tries to direct them into a small group. Now, it’s not top down. A small group could be, you know, a group of people getting together, playing some kind of video game, but they’re going to begin their meeting together with prayer, maybe some talking about how their lives are going, held accountable, read a little scripture, and then recreate together. That’s a small group. And their philosophy is that if you can only make one of the two meetings—worship on Sunday or small group—small group is their answer.

Shocking to us, right? But if you look at worship the way many of these churches do where what you do is you come to a lecture hall or a place where you’re going to have a service, and their services are limited to one hour. The sermon is limited to twenty minutes—easy in, easy out. They don’t want to make it intimidating for people in their worship services. Basically what you do is you come there as an individual and you look at the back of somebody’s head and then you go home.

And if that’s the model of church you can see why they’d stress small group because you need accountability. We should desire to know each other’s state, what how people are doing, what struggles they’re dealing with, what victories. He’s out of prison now, Timothy, he’s your brother. We should want to do that. We should want to know that sort of stuff. And a small group is a way to do it.

Now, we’ve tried to say worship is different than that. Our whole model is different. And this begins everything else. If all you have is accountability without the gifts of God being given to you in worship and without forming up as a community correctly here and building ourselves together, then it’s not going to work. But the point is small groups—we should desire to know the state of each other. And this is over and over again in those ones I read and the ones I didn’t read. You know, the writer of these books is passing on personal information.

It’s not, I guess my point is—you say, “Well, so what?” My point is this isn’t some sort of secondary or tertiary aspect of the faith. This is the conclusion of the book. And at the conclusion of the book, there’s an expectation that we’re going to know things about each other and we’re going to treat each other like brothers and sisters. You got brothers and sisters, biological ones—you want to know what they’re doing. You know, as you get older, maybe that drifts apart some, but particularly early on, you want to know what you’re doing. And so we have a real interesting point made here with all this sharing of personal information.

We should desire to know the state of our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Secondly, we should desire to be with one another in person. See, the writer of this says in the second half of this verse that Timothy has been set free, with whom “I shall see you if he comes shortly.” So the writer of this wants to go to see this church and he wants to badly enough to where he’s not going to sit around and wait if Timothy’s delayed somehow. He’s coming anyway. And we can read into that he has a desire to be with them face to face.

And I think this is so important. I’ve got on the outline here “blips versus countenance.” That’s what’s gone on. Email is great. Wonderful tool. Will never replace face-to-face meetings. These letters inspired by the Holy Spirit. Still, the author says, “I want to come to see you.” We read that over and over again, don’t we? In the epistles, a little bit of personal information shared by Paul. Usually, “I want to get there. I want to see you.”

We should desire to see each other’s countenance, our face, face to face, present. Great blessing today. Agatha is here from Poland. You know, we I’ve met her several years ago in Poland. Saw her over the course of my six trips there. I got greetings from her through André when he was here. Some of you have heard about Agatha and you know, now married to Bert kind of. I don’t know what that is—got married in Poland and getting married again in Prairie City International. She’s here today. Praise God. So good to see her face.

You see, nice to get email. Nice to hear things, nice to get greetings sent on, but we, you know, face to face, countenance, appearance. You know, one of the ways that big problems happen is when we overrely—I run into this all the time—over rely on emails. And my emails particularly, you know, I’m blind, so I got twenty-four as my font size that I use in my emails. Somebody gets an email from me and I try—I’m trying to start to remember to tone it down, cut it down to eighteen or something—but somebody gets an email, they immediately think I’m yelling at them, prints huge, you know, and you know, my style in email, I’m trying to use it for certain things, get work done, churning it out. I might write fifty, sixty emails in a day. It’s not unusual for me, all kinds of stuff going on. Great, good tool. Praise God, we thank God for technology. But that technology can be such a problem for us because we can’t hear a nuance like we could over a telephone conversation.

I had a discipline case years ago and we just couldn’t communicate. Everything was being done by fax and email and you know, fax is better than email. You got a lot of letter written out, but still it’s white on black and it’s so hard. When you talk to people, you know, you can hear the nuances of the voice over the phone. I actually finally hand wrote a letter to this person. I told him, “Look, see how lousy I make these letters. I’m trying to write well but I’m sloppy. I make errors. I scratch things out. That’s who I am. See?” We want to remind each other who we are by whenever possible getting face to face with people because then you don’t just hear the nuance of the voice. You see the facial features and you can tell a little better if they’re getting uncomfortable with you, if they’re warming up, how things are going.

This is so important, I think, that we should want and desire to be with one another in person. Why it’s important—having people over to your house. Again, the small group thing—people see better. We communicate in so many mysterious and hidden ways, person to person. And I just think it’s exceedingly important for us to remember that. Again, we’re told these things and he wants to go see them. We’re told it over and over again in the New Testament.

This should mean something to us. This is a spirit-filled, inspired word of God guy who’s moving in the elements, moving in the power of the Holy Spirit. And the spirit drives him to want to be with someone. Not just writing a letter to him, but to be with them in person. So important.

I heard of another church situation recently. Big problem between some churches. Whole thing is done via email and then finally letters. And I’m like, “No, no.” Particularly when things get tough, you want to be in people’s homes. You want to be with them. You want to meet with them.

You know, another problem that happens—I heard another pastor wrote to me. These are all different stories involving a lot of pastors these days. But a pastor wrote to me: got a person who has struggled with sin, repented of sin, no longer at church, doesn’t desire to be at church, lives in the same city with pastor guy. And I’m telling pastor guy, “Go see. Go see this person. Go see him every week for a while.” Don’t command him to come back to church or, “We’re going to excommunicate you,” sort of stuff. I used to fall into that. Go see them because when people—particularly people under discipline—when they don’t see you, okay, they’re not around you and we all do this. We construct an image of each other. And when problems, if you’re going sideways, whether it’s church discipline or personal relationship, the image we start to construct of each other is no longer accurate.

And I told this pastor, you know, that person’s going to forget who you are. And if she’s tending towards sin, she’s going to start thinking of you in less than favorable ways. But if she sees your face and you smile at her and you embrace her and give her greetings and love, see, then she kind of, “Oh yeah, that’s who this guy is. He’s not just some cold elder who’s going to discipline me. He’s a pastor who cares about me and wants to be in my presence.” You see? So personal greetings, you know, seems like just an off-hand comment here, but I don’t think so. I think we’re supposed to think about this.

Third, by example, we are to greet one another. So now we get to greetings. And again, if you go through some of those ones I read, “greet, greet, greet, greet, greet, greet, greet.” It’s all it is—greeting. This word for greet doesn’t mean to say hello. It means to draw close to somebody. And usually it means to embrace. Now, it was kind of a formalized term that was used at the time. That’s why in the King James you’ll see “salute.” It’s kind of a special term and it’s a special Greek word.

And it came into prominence during the time of Augustus where they’d have kind of more like, you know, Augustus was the big—you know, restoring the family of Rome and “we’re brothers and sisters and we salute each other and we embrace and everything is great.” And of course, in reality, horrible things were going on. But it was the counterfeit kingdom with Caesar, right? You’ve seen all these illustrations between Augustus and Jesus, I suppose. Well, this is the same sort of thing. It was God sort of preparing us for the right use of this term because it’s used over and over and over again in the New Testament.

You know that holy kiss thing that some of you guys from Moscow, some of you young men and women who go over there, the holy kiss thing—this word is always used in connection with that. You’re to greet one another with a holy kiss. And so whenever holy kiss is used, I think greet is always used. Now, that’s not true in reverse. Greet doesn’t have to include a holy kiss, but it gives you a sense of what the term means. In the Greek, it’s from a word to draw close to, to draw near, and then it’s an emphatic form. So the idea is to embrace somebody, to hug them—that’s what it means basically. Okay, it can mean to greet—that’s okay, “hello, how you doing?”—that’s great. But to embrace, you see. And by illustration or by example here, I think that we’re told to embrace people, we’re told to hug each other.

And you know, want to be careful and you don’t want to do something that’s weird to you and all that, but I don’t know what it is but the older I get the more that’s what I want to do. And I don’t even think about it like, “Oh yeah, the Bible says I’m supposed to embrace people,” but that’s kind of what I want to do. And I think that the Bible says this is, you know, moving in the spirit again. It’s good to embrace each other, to hug each other.

I hope that doesn’t bother you. It’s what the Bible says. I didn’t say it. Says it right here. Not only does it say it here, says it over and over and over and over and over again. Must be important. You know, we’ve got this wonderful exposition of Jesus as king, priest, and all the relationship of heavenly worship and earthly worship at the very center of this new creation sermon. And when it gets right down to it, when we’re doing Sabbath day sort of stuff, Lord’s day culmination sort of stuff, it’s as simple as having a heart to want to be around people, want to hear about people, and want to embrace people.

I think that’s very significant. Very significant.

Now, they’re told to embrace all of the leaders. You see that in verse 24. “Greet all those who rule over you.” Talked about this a little bit in Sunday school class too. More modern translations say “lead.” All your leaders, not “who rule over you.” And that’s probably there are words that can indicate that focus on rule and authority and command structure. This is not that word. This is a word for your leaders. Now, remember that in Hebrews 13, both in verse 7 and I think was it verse 17 or 24—verse 17, I think—we had those didactic statements about the importance of the elders of the local church.

We know the leaders are rulers. Both terms are used in that section about those who taught you the word of God. So it’s talking about the elders. So you know, in a general sense, leaders are important, but here it’s specifically the leaders of the church, the elders of the session, whatever you want to call them. And it could be more than just this church. We don’t know where this church was that got this sermon.

And you know, it says here at the end, “those from Italy greet you.” More greetings. Those from Italy. Well, we don’t even know what that means. You could say, “Oh, okay. So it must have been written from Italy. Must have been from Rome. Probably Paul.” No, by this time, by the time of the writing of this, it seems like Paul might have actually been dead. We don’t know. But it doesn’t mean that this epistle, this sermon is coming from Italy necessarily.

The only other place this specific phrase is used is talking about Aquila and Priscilla, who were outside of Italy. Remember at certain point the Romans said, “If you’re a Jew, you got to get out of here,” and they kicked out Christians and Jews. So they were from Italy. Some people think the right way to read this is “those from Italy”—who used to live in Italy but are no longer in Italy but are here with me where I’m writing this—they greet you. In which case this house church could have been in Rome, you know. Rome is one of the big candidates for potentially where this thing was written to.

Don’t know for sure. We do know that in Rome, based on Paul’s epistle to the Romans, there were several house churches that he knew of there. Church to meet in this person’s house, that person’s house. There were several churches. So he for sure wants them to embrace all of their elders in their local church, in their home church, whatever it was. And maybe he’s stressing greeting all the elders in all the city—you see, all the three or four or five home churches.

But the point is, he’s done this several times in this epistle. This is a pastoral matter he’s addressing. There are indications several points in this sermon that there’s some dissatisfaction, an alienation between some of the congregation and some of their leaders. And he several times now has stressed the unity of all the leaders. And he’s doing it again here. He could have just said, “Greet the leaders.” But he says, “Greet all of your leaders.” And so he’s telling them to greet certain kinds of people and specifically he tells them to greet all of your elders.

Now, what that means is today—don’t do this necessarily—but you should be of a mind to embrace Doug, John, Chris, and myself, all your elders. I know that some of us are more readily understood with others. Well, you know, actually, it’s kind of nice. I think all four of us are here today and we were last week. Praise God. By the way, I want to extend my thanks to the other three men who have done such yeoman’s work going down to Salem and filling that pulpit. We’re very close to the end of that process. Praise God. Thank you for your prayers. Continue the prayers. Let’s be finishers on this thing. We got a guy called. He’s in the process of whether he’s going to accept it or not. But praise God for these men and that’s why they’re not here a lot. But you know, last Sunday, today we got a guest preacher guy down there, and so we’re all here. You could do this—greet all your leaders. But the point is there’s to be a love and appreciation for all of your leaders as a unit. And then maybe even in the broader setting of the city.

So there by example at least we’re supposed to greet one another. And he specifically tells them to greet all your leaders. And then he says also to greet all the saints. So not only is he trying to pastorally heal what could be potentially division—and let me just say here before I move on to the next one—that we’ve seen this in several epistles and this sermon as well that he’s admonished them in different epistles, the Holy Spirit has, to not let breaches grow between you and certain of your leaders. Don’t become of “this person or that person.” No desire to follow and love the men that God has called as your pastors. And when you do that, you’ll have a better church. You’ll have a better relationship with everybody. So he’s preaching to what is almost always a need for some people to hear: that you need to have good relationships with all your leaders.

But then he says secondly, “Greet all the saints.” Right? So he says “greet all those who rule over you,” and that really means “leaders,” those who lead you, and “greet all the saints.” And again here, “greet the saints”—no, he goes out of his way to include another word. And we can say the Holy Spirit by, you know, divine inspiration wants to make sure this word “all” is in here. They need to hear it. They need to hear that they’re supposed to greet everybody else. There’s to be no divisions in the context of the church. There’s not supposed to be hurt feelings that aren’t being worked on somehow.

Sometimes time is good, but you know, you’re supposed to be of a mind set to embrace everybody when you come to church. And if you’re not, well, then you got to get that fixed. And like I said last week, you know, I like that Bruce Springsteen thing. You know, our philosophy is to get their rear ends moving and their spirit will follow. Well, here it’s the same thing. You’re going to move in the elements, the power of the Holy Spirit when you do these things that God tells you to do. He doesn’t say wait and work up a good feeling towards somebody and then embrace them. Now, he says, “Embrace them and be amazed at what that’ll do in terms of healing, you know, hurts and wounds out there that have caused us to come apart.”

So, “greet all the saints.” By the way, this tells us what our identity is, right? We’re saints. We’re holy ones. We’re set apart, consecrated. Our lives are to be evident in their being set apart or consecrated for God. And so a reminder of that to them here—you’re supposed to be saints. Our identity is to be holy, set apart, sanctified to God’s word, not involved in evil or bad things. “Greet all the saints.”

And here I’ve got another note: isolation, the multisite church movement, and body parts. And I’ve mentioned that a little bit already. But again, our tendency is to move in terms of isolation. That’s always true. He always has to urge them throughout the Bible. The Spirit does to all the saints, not just some, to be part of the church, not pull back, not isolate. And I think that’s true much more these days in the context of America because America is so individualistic. And you know, there’s good things about that. I mean, it’s you know, self-directing and all that stuff is good. But it’s like anything, you know, there’s a ditch that you want to avoid falling into—the ditch of isolation.

“I can do it on my own. No, you can’t. You just can’t. You have need of the hand, the foot, the eye, the shoulder, the knee, whatever it is. See? The Go—God says you have need of one another. And so to greet all the saints, to embrace each other in the context of this command from the Holy Spirit, is to reinforce moving away from isolation into community. And as I said, you know, this idea of small groups, this multisite church seminar I went to is a very sound one.

Early on in our church’s history, we heard several of us heard a talk many years ago by Jay Grimstead. Some of you know who Jay Grimstead is. And I think he’s still around and still doing work. He did a lot of neat stuff early on in the history of this church. You know, and when we got involved in this stuff, guys like Jay Grimstead were quite important. He did a thing called Coalition on Revival, I think, something like that. But anyway, Grimstead said one of the big, one of the notable declines—we talked about the decline of American Christianity with the loss of the Lord’s Day. And that’s certainly true. Statistics we talked about last week. But another notable decline in Christians being really Christians and working for the kingdom to make it manifest and all that stuff was the loss of this Methodist cell movement.

The Methodist church, one of the things they really had going for them was this idea of cells. Everybody had to be part of a cell. Every week you had to get together with some other Christians, a handful of them in a home, and confess sins. That was their big deal. Biggest reason you’re there is to confess your sins to one another and then to pray, of course, and be an encouragement to each other. But they knew that, you know, our sins stay hidden and we don’t get help and they just get worse and worse. And you know, Christians are supposed to be able to share, confess their sins one to the other.

And so this idea of doing that’s what prompted our early prayer meeting things. Well, want to get together and confess sins and you know, so we use this tool—the purpose was accountability, small group structures, confession of sin, prayer for one another, embracing folks—to bring us out of our American individualism and isolation. The tool we used was prayer group meetings originally midweek and then they became Sunday and that’s what they’ve been now. And now we’re thinking, well, is that the right tool anymore? Maybe not. We’re going to have some discussions about that. I hope to have some just this afternoon with some folks I meet in my house. Maybe you can talk about it too.

So there’s the purpose: to break out of this isolation, to have community, to have confession to sin, to encourage each other, hold one another accountable in terms of what we’re doing. One of the most discouraging things is to go to prayer meeting after prayer meeting. People share the same struggles with sin. You never hear what they’ve done about it. There’s no holding them accountable. Sometimes we have in our groups, but sometimes they just tend to digress into something else.

All right. Self-pity versus brother pity. I thought about this after last week’s sermon. You know, there’s some talk that Jack Feld maybe published this book on the seven deadly sins that various people contributed to. My chapter was on anger. There’s a couple chapters by Rushdoony, Otto Scott, et cetera. And I remember very well when I preached for the seven deadly sins. I think that all the seven deadly sins are perversions of something that’s good and useful. And take anger. There’s a godly anger. The problem when we engage in sinful anger is it’s wrong. Plus, I think it tends to then take that tool out of our handbag of things to help situations with.

If we’re used to exercising sinful anger, we probably aren’t going to be able to exercise righteous anger any very well. You see what I’m saying? It’s a tool. And when we misuse the tool so badly by sitting with it, it’s probably not in very good shape anymore to use for the right purposes. Self-pity is a perversion of a good thing. Pity is good. Okay? Pity is good. The Bible says that over and over again. The problem is when we turn it into ourselves. You know, Job felt bad for himself, but he asked other people to pity him. See, that’s a little different.

We should have pity for others. What the writer of this sermon does by saying, “Greet your leaders. Greet all the saints,” is he puts them to work. You see, he gets them moving. He gets them focusing outward instead of focusing inward. We’re feeling bad about something in our lives—focus outward. See who you can show compassion to. And sometimes Job’s the example—it’s okay. Look, man, I’m really struggling. Please pray for me. And you know, you’re making fun of me, but this really hurts. This is very difficult for me what I’m going through. Please don’t laugh. It’s okay to do that. But this point here is that we’re to move out of our isolation. It gets us in practical action serving other people. And so we use the proper tool in the right way to serve other people instead of focusing inward on ourselves.

So we’re commanded, we’re given examples to greet other people and we’re specifically told to greet other people as well.

By command, we are to pass on greetings. So not we don’t just greet the leaders and greet all the saints and embrace them and have a mindset of wanting to be with them. We also by command are told to pass on greetings. This is kind of interesting. I think I mean this is a command, right? “Greet.” Doesn’t say think about it. He commands them: greet all those who rule over you, all the saints. And then he says those from Italy or greet all the saints.

And it seems like what he’s saying here is to pass on his greetings to those who rule over you and to other people. And then he tells them specifically that greetings are passed on from him to them. Those from Italy greet you. So this greeting thing is not just you greeting other people. It’s a passing on greetings from—you know, whoever is writing these inspired books and which one we want to choose—to pass on their greetings to other people. And the Holy Spirit is using the writer of this sermon to pass on greetings to them from those who were or maybe presently are or at least used to be in Italy.

Okay. So there’s this—there’s first, second, and third person greetings going on. Okay. You’re supposed to greet some people. Me to you: I can tell you please greet so-and-so for me. Please greet your wife. I’ve just had a meeting with some guy. I’ve talked to him on the phone: greet your wife. We’re supposed to pass on me. I give you greetings to pass on to somebody else. And somebody else can give me greetings to pass on to you. It’s all this greeting thing going on, right? In three ways: first, second, and third person greetings and tactile succession.

Well, what do I mean by that? Well, if these greetings are embraces, there’s a succession of administration of the Holy Spirit to each other. That’s tactile, you know, tactile succession. It’s this technical doctrine about where’s the true church. Well, some Anglicans think that there’s a succession of the laying on of hands. So Paul laid hands on people, they laid hands on other presbyters, they laid hands on other presbyters. And so you got to trace: was this guy that’s ordained, did he get hands laid on him by someone who had hands laid on him, who had some hands laid on him all the way back to Paul. So that’s the idea of tactile succession.

Apostolic succession means there’s a succession of truth and doctrine from the apostles. Tactile succession is another level that says it’s actually passed on by physical manipulation of hands. And you know, I don’t think that’s true. But I do think it’s true here that in terms of body life, there’s a tactile succession. You know, so the people in Italy greet the guy that’s writing the sermon. He says to the other people, they greet you through me, and you should greet one another through this mechanism. I give you greetings to give to them, and ideally the greetings are embraces. And so there’s this—there’s this tactile succession of acceptance and glory and love and one another, one another, that happens in the context of these greetings or embraces. That’s what the word means.

So all this is going on, and then finally, so we’re to greet each other. We’re to pass on greetings or to give people greetings to pass on to others, et cetera. All that stuff—first, second, and third person—are all going on in this text. And then finally, by example, we are to receive greetings. He says, “Those from Italy greet you.” So that means by implication that the people that get this, they’re not supposed to say we don’t know if Italy is greeting us or not. They were to receive the greeting. This is really important.

I mean it’s not enough to give a greeting. You have to be able to receive a greeting. Okay, so by example at least we have to receive greetings. That Acts 18:2 is the reference to Aquila and Priscilla being from Italy. So that’s not important here. That’s my point was that we don’t know if the people that received this sermon were in Rome, Jerusalem, wherever they were. So we don’t have much. The Italy thing does not help us in terms of identifying where this church was, but it does help us in what the author intends to help us with, and that is to be encouraged to receive greetings from those who either are in Italy or used to be in Italy.

And here on your outlines, I’ve got “paracesis and the self-giving nature of God,” giving and receiving. You know, we’ve talked about this paracesis, big fifty-cent word. It just means the inner penetration of one another’s lives in the context of the Trinity. The Father indwells the Son, the Son, the Spirit, the Spirit, the Father, the Son, the Father. There’s an indwelling of each other’s lives that happens in the context of the Trinity. And we could almost think of it with this greeting thing, you know, there’s like a—you could draw a little Trinitarian, Irish, uh, triangle out of it where you’ve got these greetings going on one to the other.

And the Trinity, their lives are involved in each other. And this is the model. That’s what Jesus prayed for us for in John 17: that we might be one. That we might interpenetrate each other’s lives. That we be part of each other’s circles. For each circle, we’re interpenetrating circles were linked together. And this is the nature of God to have this embracing going on. You see? And it’s the nature of God to give and to embrace and to receive embracing. Jesus because not in spite of existing in the form of God—because he existed in the form of God—you know, bore our sins on the cross.

Philippians says it doesn’t mean “in” it—it means that’s Jesus. In John, the great climax is the cross. The cross is an exegesis not just of the Son but of the Father and the Spirit. It is of the nature of God to give to somebody else. And it’s our—you know, here at the end of this epistle, or this sermon rather, the way we ultimately live out heavenly realities in this new creation, the new creation is a place of giving and receiving greetings, embraces, hugs, concern, personal, face to face. That’s what it’s about. That’s what the new creation is, is this thing comes to a conclusion.

In order for that to happen, you got to be able to receive them. I remember hearing Jeff Meyers’ lecture up in Moscow on this paracesis and the self-sacrificial nature of God. And I thought, well, for a minute, I got the picture of the Trinity at the door of the church. “You go first. No, you go first. No, you go first. No, you go first. No, you go first.” If it’s all giving, you never get anywhere. But we have to be able to receive. The Son receives the gifts from the Father and the Spirit and the Father receives things from the Son and the Spirit.

So our being made in the image of God means our lives are to interpenetrate one another. And this is not secondary or tertiary. This is not a side element. This is at the end of the whole sermon on the new creation. This is how you live it out. Oh, there’s rules. There’s governing things. There’s stuff he’s given us to do early in this chapter. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, it’s having a heart and a mindset of being willing to receive from others, to be embraced, and to embrace others with our lives.

Now, I hope I’m not pushing it, but to me, we have this pattern that I read about earlier. We have this pattern that these other epistles that I read have these greetings and then at the end, this conclusion statement about grace in various forms written in various ways. Here’s one of the shortest ways. The last verse in this epistle is “grace be with you all. Amen.” Amen. So truly, “grace be with you all.”

Now, we could take that in the sense of affirming, you know, this is what Reformed stuff is all about. It’s the grace of God—only the grace of God. Charles Hodge in his systematic theology talks about grace and he says: “The gospel is a system of grace. All of its blessings and are gratuitously bestowed upon us. All is so ordered that in every step of the process or progress of redemption and in its consummation the grace or undeserved love of God is conspicuously displayed. Nothing is given or promised on the ground of merit. Everything is undeserved favor—that salvation was provided at all as a matter of grace and not of debt.”

So we can look at this concluding statement, “grace be with you all. Amen,” is that it’s the capstone. It’s what everything’s about—is that you know, we’re doing better than we deserve. God is being gracious to us. And I’m sure that’s true. I’m sure that’s one of the tones or elements of the conclusion of this sermon.

We have this wonderful picture of the new creation and the seven days and the new world that’s opened up. And it’s a wonderful thing. And it’s all God’s grace to us. It’s all his love. It’s all gospel, right? And I think that’s true. But I also think—I hope this isn’t going too far—but as I look at the structure of these New Testament books, it seems like grace is placed immediately in the context of those personal greetings. How is grace extended to us? Well, you know, certainly in worship, certainly by God graciously giving us things. All that’s true. But I think that what we have here is yet one more affirmation that God distributes his gifts personally. That God distributes his grace to each other personally.

Do this: greet each other. Desire to be with each other, to see each other’s face, to know about how each other is doing, to engage in body life. You know, I meant to make this point earlier. We’re none of us complete unto ourselves. And this church isn’t complete unto itself. You know, the hand and foot illustration means we have need of all the other Christians in this area. It was addressed to Ephesus, a city, and in the city we have all those things. We’re to embrace Christians not just in our own church.

So all this greeting, all this paracetic indwelling of each other’s lives, all of this giving and being willing to receive the gift of embracing love, concern, care, personal relationships—that’s all, you know, tied off here at the end with “grace be with you all. Amen.” Amen. This is the way. This is one of the most important ways. This is the capstone way in this sermon that grace is yours by receiving it through the mediation of image-bearers, Christians who bear the name of Jesus, who grant grace to one another by loving them and by treating them in a way that is different from what they deserve—by treating them graciously, lovingly, and together.

Remember I said that the arc is the arc of the book. That’s what it is. We start with the prophets and then comes Jesus. And as we come to the end, the benediction is placed upon Christians and we’re now prophets in a new sense of the term. We are now Christians who bear the name of our Savior. We are now those who bring the reality of the incarnated Lord Jesus Christ to one another in our person, personal relationships, in our greetings. Simple thing, greeting.

So I think that’s what it is. I think that what we’re being told here is that this personal greeting stuff isn’t just tacked on and a little thing at the end to sort of tie the book off. It’s not like, “Oh yeah, all the rest was inspired and all they got these greetings going back and forth, which doesn’t really mean anything to us.” If we slow down a little bit, as we did today, and look at just two or three verses with content about greetings, I think it’s very instructive to us that this will be how the grace of God will continue to flow in the context of this church, our families, the small groups, and in the broader church of the Lord Jesus Christ—through the simple act of giving each other a hug.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the simplicity of the Christian life here at the end of it. Thank you, Lord God, for the wonder of the new creation. Thank you for the great gospel that Jesus has come and graciously provided our regeneration, our new creation. And we pray you would help us, Lord God, to live lives imaging your Trinitarian life together in our life. We thank you for this coming season, the advent of Christ.

May it also be the advent of get-togethers and cookie exchanges and caroling parties and family greeting times and getting together and people coming together over the joy of the Christmas season and giving each other gifts. Bless us, Lord God, as we attempt one another and one another and thus have the grace of God flow as we greet each other. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.