Hebrews may end like a typical letter with some final greetings and appeal, but it didn't begin like a normal letter. Are you familiar with the beginning of Hebrews? It doesn't open with a mention of an author. It doesn't mention a particular church that it's heading to. There's no grace and peace prayer. There's no opening thanksgiving or blessing. It just launches right into this. Long ago at many times in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. It's unusual, it's an unusual opening considering what the New Testament letters typically begin with. But it ends like a typical letter would. It ends with this appeal, some closing greetings, a final grace statement. It might even remind you of some of the ways Paul would talk. In fact, lo and behold, we even have the mention of Timothy here. which has been one of the several factors that has led people over the years to maybe speculate that it was written by Paul. I'm not persuaded of that myself, but people have held that throughout the years. I don't think we can know for certain who wrote the letter of Hebrews. But I do think it had to have been well-versed into the Jewish background, probably a Jewish Christian, unlike Luke, who would have been a Gentile. And they would have been very well-versed into considering the depth of Old Testament knowledge that you see just pulsing throughout the book. He does write at the end here some closing greetings that seem to be very stocked in how they're written. And what I mean by that is, they're expected. It's expected in a New Testament letter, or at least one written during the Greco-Roman period, that you would end with some sort of appeal, some sort of closing greeting. It was very standard. It's important, though, that in the New Testament, when they follow these very standard greetings, they fill it with very wonderful theology. A typical statement of greetings is transformed in the New Testament letters when it's filled with the word grace. It means something very special to believers because it's grace that has saved them. It's the grace of Christ. It's the grace of the New Covenant. So all of a sudden, what was a very standard way of writing or ending a letter in the first century, took on a very important and significant depth, unlike just a typical greeting. And in this letter, we see four parts and each of them have a verse. In the first verse tonight, in verse 22, there's a final appeal. In verse 23, there's a final report. In verse 24, there are final greetings. And then verse 25, the final words. Final appeal, final report, final greetings, final words. The writer intends to take this stock standard way of ending a letter and encourage his readers, challenge them, especially with the opening verse tonight, and then end with a word of grace to them, which given the scope of the letter, and given the focus on the cross, and the focus on the death of Christ, given the focus of his sacrifice for our sins that was once and for all unfinished in its atoning work, the idea of grace being with them is really what they need to hear more than anything else. And so in verse 22, here's his appeal. He says to them, I appeal to you, brothers, It's a reminder of their kinship with him in the family of God. While he may be a Jew, while he may be writing to people who formerly were Jews by practice and faith only, these may be now Jewish Christians, he's not appealing to them based on his Jewish kinship, because brother and sister language in these New Testament letters denotes almost every, on every occasion, the family of God language. And it's important for us just to observe that together we can be mindful of the fact that we are a family as believers. We are a family, and Christ in Hebrews is our brother. That language is coming from Hebrews 2, where the writer says this. In verse 12, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In verse 11, he's not ashamed to call them brothers. We are children of the Father and a brother of Christ, if you will, in union with Him. Does that seem like strange language to you? It's the language of the New Testament. And we should think of ourselves in that way. Christ is our Savior, He is our Redeemer, and He is our brother in the sense that we are the Father's child in union with Him. And it's appropriate that we think of ourselves as children because of God's spiritual adoption of us. We've been alienated because of our sin, adopted together, and J.I. Packer says that the metaphor of adoption is one of the most crucial to understand about our identity as Christians, that we are adopted. We are not born children of God, we are born rebels of God, and he has brought us into his fold. It's a miracle, the miracle of adoption. And in verse 22, he's appealing to them with this relationship in view. This means that even though he has given them strong warnings, even though he has given them very dire warnings about falling away, he is confident at bottom, it seems, that they will persevere. And he addresses them as brothers, confident enough, it seems he is, to address them this way, that they are believers. I argue this morning, from verse 19, that since He wants to be restored to them, that He knows them. So He's not giving them platitudes. He's not trying to address them in ways that flatter them. In ways that maybe they're brothers because He maybe hopes that they are. I think because he is familiar with them and knows them, and now is for a time separated from them, but hopes to be restored to them. He speaks with personal experience, knowing these people, that they are brothers in Christ. And it's on that basis he appeals to them, brothers. And then he says, here's his appeal in verse 22. It's the content of it. His appeal is that they bear. OK, the verb is to bear with. And I think it has a picture of listening carefully, attuning oneself to this, that they give themselves to whatever he's about to say next. What is he asking for them to bear with and to heed and to tune into? Well, he says his word of exhortation. The word there is literally message or word. It means the same thing. But I think what it has in view is the whole letter. I think it has to be the whole letter. And it's because the verse ends the way it does that I think we can say that with just basic certainty. He says, for I have written to you briefly. Well, I think he's talking about then his writing, his whole 13 chapters. This is a word. In the first century, the idea of the word or message of exhortation was something you gave like a sermon. The word is used in Acts 13 where Paul gives one at a synagogue, he gives a word of exhortation to them. And other scholars have described Hebrews this way, and I think it's rightly thought of this way, that it's a sermon. A sermon. And if you think about what a sermon would mean, you know, a sermon in that day would have been preached, and it would be really, really emphasizing the fulfillment of Christ in light of all the stuff that had happened. This was the big deal, that what Christ had done had come to fulfill. And if you look through the chapters of Hebrews, that seems to be its theme. That Christ is better than the angels, and he's better than Moses, and he's better than this, and he's better than that. He's the great high priest, he's the great sacrifice, the bringer of the new covenant. He's the one who's once and for all brought him into the temple functions. Again and again and again, it seems to pick up these Old Testament themes and sum them up in Christ. It's as if his whole sermon was to say to them, Jesus is better and you should hold to Jesus. And he's saying to them here in verse 22, here's my last appeal. My appeal is that you heed everything I have just told you. One function of a letter in that day was to substitute for the presence of the author. You'll often find the writers at the end of letters saying, boy, I wish I was there with you and boy, I'm planning on coming and I can't wait to get there with you. But until then, it seems like this letter was to serve us as authority. And since this letter is inspired of the Spirit of God, this is the authority of Christ himself that the writer writes in. And this writer is giving this letter to substitute for his presence. He plans to be there. In fact, he hopes Timothy is going to join him. So he plans to be among them. But until then, they need to heed his words. They need to bear with his word of exhortation. The entire book is exhortation. And notice that exhorting someone isn't only encouraging them. Exhorting someone, if you look at the contents of the letter, apparently also includes warning them. So, warning someone is not teaching to exhort them, and warning them isn't being mean. The writer isn't writing to them with meanness. He knows the tendencies of sinful man, and he knows that if we forsake the Word of God and cease to take Christ seriously, what results can happen, and maybe he has seen that. The writer then wants to exhort them, but he knows that exhorting people often will include hard words. And that's if you look through Hebrews, there are some hard words that are here. Hebrews is one of the most challenging letters in the whole New Testament. It's very thick and dense at places with theology. No doubt we've experienced that at points as we've transitioned through it, almost transgressed through it. That's not quite the word I was looking for. Transition through it, or trest. Maybe transgress was right. But either way, he wants him to bear with his exhortation, and the last phrase there in verse 22 is weird, because he says, I've written to you briefly. And you might think a brief letter would have been something like, believe him, or even something like, second Peter, or second John. And a 13 chapter letter, I know this may seem strange to you, but there were longer letters in the 1st century. And by some accounts, if you compared it with other letters that would have been written in the 1st century, this wasn't the longest. And so I don't think he's being sarcastic necessarily, or simply trying to be funny there at the very end. Though perhaps, that's something that wouldn't have been lost on the rhetoric of that day. But it's not as long as 1st Corinthians. It's not as long as Romans. And so compared to those letters, it's not as long. But in verse 22, what we need to get, in verse 22, this final appeal is that they heed His word. They should be encouraged, and they should receive the warnings. And I think those are important words for believers. We need to be encouraged and we need to be warned. We don't need to say, well, you know what? I really like the one versus the other. So I really want more encouragement. The Bible has warnings for us and we need to heed both so that we're rightly exhorted, so that there's a balance of what we're challenging and giving to our soul. We don't only want to give our soul all of the blessings and promises and encouragements that the word provides, but all of the warnings that are there as well. Hebrews has a number of them. So that's the final appeal. He gives in verse 23 a final report. It's about Timothy, and I don't think this is any Timothy other than the one that you see pervasive in the New Testament letters of Paul and you see appearing in the book of Acts. I think this is Timothy who is the famous co-worker of Paul. Not only is he a co-worker of Paul, he was a co-author or at least co-sender of a number of letters, and he was the recipient of two named letters in the New Testament. First and Second Timothy, of course, are named after him. So Paul, his co-worker Timothy is the one I think is in view here, and the writer of Hebrews seems to know him. And I want you to note very carefully the language. First of all, he says, our brother Timothy. Now he's just called them brothers, and now he calls Timothy brother. It's just to acknowledge that even though Timothy isn't there with them, and even though the writer is not there with them, they're all related in the gospel. The gospel is this wonderful unifying factor that makes us all related to one another. The gospel does that. Upon conversion, we are related to one another, and that's just a tremendous blessing. the family of God. And in verse 23, Timothy is our brother, and he wants them to know something. That's the language here. You should know. This is a report, then, that seems, according to the writer, will be meaningful to them. They know Timothy. The writer doesn't seem to have in view that they've heard of this famous guy, Timothy, who's been traveling, and I want to give you an update on this guy that maybe you've heard about. They know him. The writer says in verse 23 that he hopes he's going to join, since Timothy's been released, that he's going to join him when they make the trip to see the readers. Not only then does the writer seem to have been involved in some way in this community, so was Timothy involved in this community. Timothy being released is the report. What should they know? That our brother Timothy has been released, and I think released from prison, is what's in view. That was a very common way to describe in the passive here to be let go from prison, to have been released. I think it's appropriate that imprisonment is in view because that's not the first time something like that's been mentioned in Hebrews. If you remember in Hebrews 10, he says you need to recall in verse 34 that you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property when you had compassion on those who were in prison. So you have that reference. And then in the very chapter that we've been in, Hebrews 13 and verse 3, remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. So I think it's, I feel very comfortable saying that it is most likely the case, Timothy has been in prison. Now, what's the state of the writer to Timothy? This is what's debated. Was the writer in prison also? Maybe. Maybe. That's very possible. In fact, that may explain his emphasis in a couple of the places in these closing chapters on believers in prison. That they remember that they pay the cost of being in prison and that they themselves should continue to remember those in prison. What is the case here is he doesn't seem to be in prison at the moment, if he was ever at all. He may not have been, but he seems to have freedom of travel. He's making plans and back to travel. In verse 23, he's hoping that since Timothy's been released, he will be able to accompany him, the writer, so that they can see the readers. So he's making travel plans. I don't think we should understand him writing this from prison. You know, sometimes Paul wrote letters from prison. And there are reasons to think that in Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon, because of certain phrases he uses, that he's in prison when he writes them. But you don't see indications in this letter that the writer is that. So I take it to be that he's free, that he's making travel plans, he may not have ever been in prison, but our brother Timothy was. Now, here is what I think a reasonable scenario is. I want you to look in 2 Timothy with me for a moment. And I'm going to engage in a probability of why the writer and Timothy are in this situation. In 2 Timothy chapter 4, you have the final letter of Paul. So I want you to track with me. This is a really important little section here that I think may provide some insight into our chapter. In 2 Timothy 4, Paul is writing this letter near death. This is his second Roman imprisonment. This is after the book of Acts ends. In Acts 28, Paul is under house arrest and he's going to be released. This is around AD 67 now, when Paul is writing 2 Timothy, and he believes he's going to die. He describes himself as being poured out like a drink offering. And he describes himself as fighting the good fight in verse 7, finishing the race, kept the faith. There's laid up for me a crown of righteousness. In verse 9, he says to Timothy, do your best to come to me soon. So this is around AD 67. Timothy is not where Paul is. So it's important to ask, where is Paul when he's writing this letter? Paul is in Rome. Okay? So Paul's in Rome. His missionary journeys have been completed. It's his second Roman imprisonment. Nero is in power. Paul is in prison. And he is going to die. He dies under Nero. He is beheaded. And he says to Timothy, come to me, come to Rome. What's Timothy going to do? He says in verse 13, when you come, here's what you're to bring. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and also the books, and above all, the parchments. He says in verse 16, in my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them. Sounds just like Jesus. Forgive them. Hold it not against them. They know not what they do kind of language. But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. Paul doesn't think martyrdom is the Lord failing to rescue him. Paul says I'm going to be brought into the kingdom. There's not a better rescue than that. So here's Paul saying, come to me to Rome. So Timothy's going to come to Rome. I think it's very likely that the letter of Hebrews was written around this time, before 70 AD. Timothy goes to Rome. And I think in some way, under some circumstance, Timothy becomes imprisoned in Rome. It's three prior to that. Comes to Rome at the summoning of Paul in 2 Timothy. Fast forward in Hebrews 13. In verse 23, Timothy has now been released. I think the temple is still standing. I think Nero is still in power. Timothy is out of prison. And he says, you should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. Verse 24, here are the final greetings. Listen to this. Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings. Now, where is Rome located? Rome is located in Italy. Now, in verse 24, he's giving this set of greetings. I think the writer is likely in Rome, knowing Timothy, who has been imprisoned. Why did Timothy end up in Rome? Because Paul said, come to Rome. And Paul dies. So I'm reconstructing for you what I think a likely timeline is for this. That's how Timothy ended up in Rome and Timothy ends up in prison. After all, showing compassion on someone in prison, which Timothy would have shown to Paul, can sometimes wind you up in prison yourself, which is what Hebrews 10 was about. Hebrews 10.34, you had compassion on those in prison, and then you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property. So in other words, their compassion to those in prison resulted in loss themselves. So I think Paul says, Timothy, come to Rome. Timothy does. And around this same time, the writer of Hebrews is reporting, or shortly after that rather, that Timothy has now been released, and the writer is planning to make a visit from Rome to the readers of this letter. Now the question is, where are these readers located? Nobody knows for certain. Maybe Jerusalem, maybe somewhere outside Jerusalem. It seems that it's at least outside Rome. But he says in verse 24, greet all your leaders and all the saints and then those from Italy send you greetings. So I think this is a way of saying those with me in Italy, maybe Rome is what's in view there, send you greetings. In verse 24, I think we should recognize he's got a larger circle and then a smaller circle. circle in view. He opens up with a smaller circle. Greet all your leaders. This is what was in view this morning, wasn't it? When we saw in verse 17, obey your leaders and submit to them. These are those who have been set apart. I think it's synonymous with the elders, pastors, overseers, language, and Paul's letters. These leaders are then expanded to the larger group here. Greet all the saints. The writer knows them, may have been one of the leaders himself, and wants to pass on greetings. We do this all the time, right? If we're on the phone with someone and we're not talking to everybody who is located at the place of the person we're talking to, we'll say, tell so-and-so that I said hi. Okay? Greet them for me. Oh, tell him I said hello, I can't wait to see him. We do this all the time. This is the first century way of tell so-and-so I said hello. Okay? This is greeting them. And greeting all your leaders and all the saints. Verse 24 ends with saying those, so not only is he sending his own greetings, he's going to send greetings from others who are with him. So Paul's got things to say to the leaders and everyone there, and then he's saying, then those who come from Italy send you greetings. And I think that it is very likely that the writer is in Rome. Now, the reconstruction that I offered a moment ago is not 100%. This isn't something I think anyone can know for certain. I think, though, that given the timeline, it's the most likely scenario of why Timothy ended up in Rome, then in prison, and then the writer writing about his release and how they're now going to leave Rome and head to the readers. Verse 25, he gives the final closing praise. This is so common in Paul's letters, isn't it? Grace be with all of you. Very standard way of sending greetings. And the word grace here, he's saying is with all of you, every one of them, he wants a grace for them. I mean, this is what they need. They need Christ. They need to endure. What do they need in looking to Christ as they endure in the faith? Well, they need His grace. They need it from the beginning and they need it all the way to the end. And he's praying God's grace for them. God's grace here has a very special weight given the 13 chapters of Hebrews. J.I. Packer, in his book Knowing God, says these words about grace. I love this quote. Packer says, The grace of God is love freely shown toward guilty sinners, contrary to their merit and in defiance of their demerit. It's God showing goodness to persons who deserve only severity and had no reason to expect anything but severity. Given what's contrary to what we deserve that we have received, we call it grace. We call it grace. That's the Bible's word for God's favor when we deserve something else. God showed us grace. Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon once called Sin and Grace. And in this sermon, he has this line about grace, or these lines about grace. Spurgeon says, Grace is the free favor of God. The undeserved bounty of the ever gracious creator against whom we've offended, the generous pardon, the infinite spontaneous loving kindness of the God who's been provoked and angered by our sin, but who, delighting in mercy and grieving to smite the creatures whom he's made, is ever ready now to pass by transgression, iniquity, and sin and save his people. from all the evil consequences of their guilt. As Spurgeon says, that's what grace is for our Creator, who is ever gracious and bountiful with it. We need what these readers need. We are called to endure. We are exhorted with encouragement and warnings in this letter. And if we're looking to Christ, we need nothing less than grace. Grace that will not only save us, but sustain us to the end. This grace is not an abstract reality. It's not some sort of ethereal thing that is not connected to a person. This is connected to Christ. If they turn away and fall away from Christ, they have no saving grace to save them or sustain them or grant them entrance into the kingdom. It's God's grace connected to Christ. This means they need to hold to him. And what the writer has been hammering again and again is that the new covenant work of God's grace shown in Christ is what they need. And not only is it what they need, that's all they need. They don't need all these other practices and all these other institutions and all these other regulations. Christ has come and they have been summed up in Him. When they have Christ, they have everything.