Amen. What a great hymn to sing as we come to our text for today and to consider. I am so thankful for all these songs we've been singing this morning and thankful that you're here and singing them with us. And we come back to Hebrews 13. And this really we're in our last few weeks of this journey that's been quite a long journey, but so much in this letter that we need to consider. And as we come to this last stretch, we've been considering the unshakable kingdom, which into which we've been placed by the grace of God, a kingdom of love and covenant and stability. And this is a reminder that we have a stability in this kingdom and in this covenant, which is not available anywhere else. And I think we can recognize in the events of the last few days how important that stability is to know that whatever happens in this world, it is well with my soul because of Christ. And so as we think about this today, we want to recognize that it's a kingdom that we enter not by our own work, but based on the work of another. And that is the gracious nature of this covenant. As we've been speaking about the gospel, that's what makes it good news. It's not something that you have to earn. You can't earn it. It's something that is given to you as a gift. by Christ in His perfect obedience. And so we recognize here that if if there's some way we'd want to wrap our minds around the New Covenant and the glories of the New Covenant, it is in that. That's the very thing that Paul says in Romans, right? That the nature, if you will, of the old covenant and law is do this and live. Perfect obedience leads to life. And yet we find as men in Adam there is no way to be perfectly obedient. There is no way to attain for ourselves life and the fullness of what is held out for us, if you will, in the old covenant. And yet what we find in the nature of the new covenant is the very things that we need, God gives us. That's the gracious and glorious nature of the new covenant. You need righteousness, You don't have it? Praise God, Christ does. You need life? You don't have it? Praise God, Christ does. You need a new heart so that you can obey the commands of God? You don't have it? Praise God, He can give it to you. And so all the things that we see in the new covenant that are required, God supplies. He supplies all our needs. In fact, we have a song, right? My shepherd shall supply all my needs. And so we recognize that this is true and important, and it is why the gospel is good news. And so as we come to the end of this, we've been seeing this. because there's been a temptation to add back to the Gospel that which formerly seemed to be behind us which was the works of the law. And so we have a group here that are not necessarily saying that they reject Christ but they're saying we're going to hold on to Christ and go back to the temple system or to the law or to Moses. And the problem with the Gospel is you can't add anything to it and keep it what it is. Any addition to the gospel says the gospel is not sufficient. Christ is not enough. Christ cannot give me all I need. My shepherd cannot supply all my needs. And my friends, that is not the message of scripture. And so you're preaching another gospel. This is the very point of Paul in Galatians. There is the preaching of a gospel that is no gospel at all because it's a gospel plus works. and works always undo us, our own works anyway. Praise God the person and work of Christ doesn't undo us, but our own works undo us. And so my friends, as we realize that we're coming to the end of this, there's a message here to simply believe the gospel first preached to them. It's the same message as Galatians in that regard. Remember what was first brought to you. Oh, it's also the message of first Thessalonians. Remember the message first preached to you. It's also the message of Colossians we're looking at in Sunday school. Remember the gospel first preached to you. It doesn't need any modifications, any alterations. It doesn't need any additions. Don't be too wise. In fact, too wise by half, right? Don't add to that which robs the gospel of its power and for you its saving effectiveness. And so my friends, realize here this message, nothing salvific need be added to this message. If there's a desire to offer to God that which is fitting, then do so. But it doesn't add to your salvation. It doesn't justify you before God. And so Arthur talks about things that you can do. If you want to offer fitting sacrifices unto the Lord, what are those things? Give Him thanksgiving. Give Him praise. Serve your fellow man. Do these things which are for God's glory and for man's good. Do all these things. And what you will find is this is a fitting offering unto the Lord. This is something that will please the Lord. And so, my friends, that's what we are called to do, to offer these sacrifices of praise, to love one another, and that these things born of faith please God. And notice we must say, born of faith. It doesn't matter if you serve your fellow man. Out of the goodness of your heart, if it's not born of faith, If you offer praises to God but it's not of faith, it doesn't please God. The letter to Hebrews tells us this, that only that which is born of faith pleases God, for outside of faith it is impossible to please Him. And so we recognize the author is saying faith is at the heart of everything I've been talking about. He devoted the entire 11th chapter to speaking about faith and its importance in the Christian life. And so we must see here the importance of living by faith, walking by faith, and then offering up the sacrifice of praise and service by faith. Do good do it of faith, serve God, serve Him by faith. All these things are what's being said. But now we come to the close of the letter, really the last little section of the letter we begin today. And we see that there's something like a prayerful doxology or a doxological prayer or a doxological praying invocation, something like this is being offered here. And it's important to think about because it it's one of the high points of this letter. And I think something of the focus of all that he's been working to is really building to what he says here. And so we want to look at this. In fact, we're going to look at it both today and next Sunday to really consider what's said here. And as we do that, I want to read the text one more time. Now may the God of peace, who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. As we look at this text today I want us to look at three points. First of all, our great God. Second of all, our great shepherd. And third, our great equipping. And as we begin with the idea of our great God we notice that's where our author begins, immediately speaking of our Heavenly Father. In fact I pray as you look at this text you notice there's a grandeur, a glory to this It's one of the texts that we use for our benedictions and our rotation of benedictions, because it's such an amazing and and glorious text. And it has many things that can be said about it. One of the things that you can say it is a doxology, right? I mean, what is a doxology except a glorious word? doxa, glory, logos, word, a word of glorious things. And it is. It speaks of the Gospel. It speaks of the work of God. It speaks about Christ's work upon the cross, this new covenant, covenant of grace work that has been done. And it speaks of our equipping for the ministry to which God has called us. It speaks of all the work of our Trinitarian God in this glorious salvation. So it's certainly a doxology. It's also a prayer. It's also a prayer. Notice he's just asked for prayer. The author has said, pray for us. Remember us in prayer, pray especially that I'll be restored to you, which is my heart's desire. And then he says, now I'm going to pray for you. And he offers up this prayer that the God of peace might do this amazing work in their hearts. even finishes it with an amen so we know it's an official prayer. But we recognize here that there's a prayer here, something being said on behalf of the people that he's writing this letter to. But there's also here something of a benediction. It's often titled a benediction in your Bibles. And we also can see that because benediction is just Latin for good word, right? A good word, a word well spoken over the people. Often when we close our services with a benediction we're saying this is a word that's spoken in favor, on behalf of the people of God gathered here. And He's doing that here, He's speaking what is good for them, what is on their behalf. And so we recognize here there's in this way all of these things brought together as we see this. And the inspired language itself is obviously significant. And as we look at this text, I think we recognize the Trinitarian nature of this text, which is how I've broken down this outline. We want to look at what it says of God, the Father, what it says of God, the Son, and what it says of our equipping, which is done through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And so we recognize in this a Trinitarian nature to this text. Now, our focus begins where author's focus begins. That just makes sense. It begins by focusing on our Heavenly Father. And it says here, may the God of peace. So there's a reference here immediately to God and terming him as the God of peace. That's an interesting thing to consider, because certainly it makes sense to focus on God as the giver of peace, the bringer of peace, one who himself is peace. It's an attribute, if you will, if you want to think of it this way. He supplies it to us. In the context of this letter, we recognize that there is a need of peace. There is a need to reference the God who is the God of peace. Because this is a people who need peace badly. It's interesting as you read the commentaries many people said well there must be some things going on in this church that we know not of, some things that are going on, some challenges and conflicts and that must be the reason that it's addressed to the God of peace. I don't see the need for that. I think He's told us the context of the letter in which we can understand why there would be a prayer for peace in this church. Because this church, I think, would be characterized by a lack of peace. Well, what do we mean by that? Well, that word, eirene, in Greek, means more than just an absence of war. And certainly to this Hebrew crowd, it would be reminiscent in their minds of something like shalom, which is a call for wholeness, a call for something that they are looking for, for comfort. One of the lexicons says of this word, eirene, the word for peace, it is a set of favorable and tranquil circumstances. Peace is not just being in tranquility but being in a state of favorability and that would remind us very much of the meaning of shalom, being in wholeness and peace before the face of God. And so I think we can understand here this idea of needing peace, of needing a comfortable standing and right circumstances before the face of God is something that we do not see in this letter. Now maybe there are some in the church. In fact, I dare say there are some in the church that have that personally. But again, to begin immediately thinking, well, this must be some conflict going on in the church that we don't know about, I think is missing the mark. Because first of all, we see throughout this text a lack of this peace in the hearts of the people that are in the church. Why do I say that? They're thinking of leaving the church. They're thinking of leaving the church and going back to Moses. They have found in some sense through persecution and difficulty that they need something they think they are lacking. Now, the entire point of this letter is to say, if you understood what you've received in the gospel, you're lacking in nothing. but they feel that they're lacking in something. There's a feeling that somehow this hasn't panned out the way they expected to. And I think if you follow the argument of the letter, which we don't have time to go all through again, but just let me say this, I think a lot of it has to do with their circumstances. They think if the new covenant is the end that we've been promised, it should all be wonderful and easy. It should be comfortable. It should be, what did we just read a moment ago? Favorable and tranquil circumstances. And yet we're looking out and saying we don't have favorable and tranquil circumstances. Everywhere we go, we're encountering problems and difficulties and persecution. Our jobs are in jeopardy. Nothing seems tranquil or favorable to us. And we look back at the people we used to worship with, And they have a lot more tranquility than we do. And they seem to have a whole lot more favorability than we do in this culture. So why don't we just pack Jesus up into our briefcase and we'll just walk back there. Try to bring Him with us, but we'll go back there and worship with those people and say, listen, you know, we've gone through this a million times. It's given by God too. Why can't we do that? And when you're thinking about this for a moment, it seems like there is some need that they feel. You know, we modern-day Baptists love our felt needs, you know. There's some need that they feel. And they're looking for a way to satisfy it. But the letter is arguing you're not going to satisfy it there. What you need, you already have. You just haven't fully understood it. So listen for a moment. Listen for a moment as I walk through, I mean what have we looked at? All these types of the Old Testament saying they pointed to this. There's nothing back there except a giant flashing road sign that says go there, go to the Gospel. And so you're not going to find anything there. But there's this element I think of a lack of peace in many of the people in this church that he's addressing here. And I believe that's brought a lack of peace to the congregation because what they're seeing is people leaving and people not understanding and people not hearing. And now we're reading about in the text even breaks in fellowship to the sense in which certain Christians don't want to associate with other Christians because it might not be comfortable. Before, I would have had them in my house, but I'm not going to now. Before, I would have spoken in the market, but I'm not going to now. Before, I would have allowed them to stay at my house. if they needed it, but I'm not going to now because it's too dangerous for me. It associates me too much with them. My friends, you can imagine a fellowship that once was so tight and close and loving, this is rocking to it. And so I do think there's a lack of peace, even in the congregation that isn't coming from every member of the congregation, but from this great tumult within the congregation that we're seeing evidence by people who are walking away and going back to Moses. And what this author is boldly saying is what you're really looking for is this peace. This place of of being right, this place of being whole, this place before the face of God that gives you favorability and tranquility. And you already have that. You just haven't understood it. Because what you thought was that which has been given to you in your soul must necessitate an outward condition in this world. And that has not been promised to you. You've not been promised a lack of trials and tribulations. In fact, I think if we were to walk through the gospel carefully, we'd find just the opposite. What does Christ offer us but our own cross to carry? He says, in this world you will have tribulation, but rejoice, I have overcome the world. The problem is not the absence of trial and tribulation, but an overcoming of all that in Christ and His glorious gospel. Now, this is exactly what this letter has tried to teach us, isn't it? The entire 12th chapter went through an illustration of being an athlete and saying, what does the athlete need? Ease and comfort? Not if he wants greatness. If he wants to just go tie his racing shoes and run around the track leisurely, yes, ease and comfort are nice. But if he wants to be a champion, that won't get him there. That will not get him there. What will get him there? Hard work, difficulty, sacrifice, pain. That's what will get him there. Just like if you want to be a great student, you know what that means. Now, maybe some people are so exceptionally gifted it doesn't mean that. But for most of us, it means hours and hours of hard work. Hard work. Studying, memorizing, going back over, did I do this right? Did I memorize this rightly? Do I understand this? And if you have a tutor that's like, don't worry about it. Your parents have paid me. We can go over here in the next two hours and just watch a movie. You would love that in the moment as a teenager or a kid. You'd love it. But it's going to fail you, isn't it? It's going to fail you. And I think in some way what the author is trying to tell us through these illustrations is that God recognizes this, too, right? If we recognize it, he recognizes it because he's obviously perfectly brilliant and we are not. It is not for our good to have ease all the time. This Christian race that we are running does not require ease. In fact, it often requires disease. Unease. Difficulty. Trial. Because that's what sharpens and improves our faith. That's what makes us depend more upon Christ. You know, if you just live on the mountaintops, maybe you've been there at some time in your life, it's very easy to have Christ sink way back on the back burner. Because, hey, why do I need to go to my shepherd for what I need when I already have everything I need? I'm making my house payments. I'm making my car payments. My marriage is good. My kids are good. I get along at work. Everything is good. Why would I ever really need to even think about Christ? Oh, man, a humbling's coming, isn't it? When that happens, a humbling is coming. That's why we say you're either in the storm or it's on its way. Because when we think we stand, that's when we find we're down on the ground. Very soon. Very soon. And those circumstances are not then for our bad. They draw us near to Christ. To realize our need of Him. To realize that He alone can bring us the peace that we need. And that peace is not in the things we once thought they were. There's a time in our life where we think peace is in a nice house and a nice car. And those things are nice. But they don't bring you peace. How many people have saved up for decades to have the homes and cars they had last Thursday? They don't have them today. You find out very quick, those things can be taken from you like that. Like that. If your peace is dependent on those sorts of things, it's not lasting. How many people don't have a job to go to this week because their business was destroyed? Again, if my work, if my ability to go into work tomorrow is what brings me peace, it's shattered. Now, are those things important? Yes, we have to have somewhere to live. This modern world, it's kind of important to have a car to get around. And we should have a job, those kinds of things, right? If we're of working age and that sort of thing. But again, we recognize that doesn't give us peace. Those things can be removed. Those things can be lost. Those are not where we find peace. And what the gospel tells us is there is a peace that goes above and beyond any of those earthly things. Those are good things. But there is a peace that we can have in Christ that's not dependent on these things. We can lose our home, we can lose our car, we can lose our job, and we can still have an abiding peace in Christ. Might have been good for us to have thought to sing, it is well with our soul today, well with my soul today. That's a song very much about that, a man who loses everything, his family largely, and can still say, despite that, it is well with my soul because I belong to Christ. I am His and He is mine. So my friends, we recognize what it's saying here. There is a glorious thing here. We come to this peace and part of that peace is recognizing as its author is calling us to do that God is sovereign. That is far from scary or should be, but is actually a source of peace to us. Because through these storms, through these trials and tribulations, through all the things that we've seen over this last few days, it is not outside of God's control. And not only that, but he promises he's using all of it for good. How? I don't know. I'm not God. But He is, and I can trust that somehow He's using all this for His good and for our good as His people. As difficult as these circumstances are, and when you get a grasp of the glory of God and His providence and His sovereignty, you can have a peace you can't have without it. Because you can say, my God tells me that all things that happen, He's going to work for good. I can't always understand it. I can't understand it hardly ever. But I trust Him. I trust Him. And so my friends, again, we find peace in that, that God is working in this way. And my friends, that doesn't mean there's an absence of difficulty. That's what I'm trying to say throughout this entire first point. Oftentimes that peace is experienced in the midst of difficulty. How do I know this? How about Philippians? Paul says, be anxious for nothing. Now, The anecdote to that, of course, he goes on to say, with prayer and thanksgiving, supplication, make your requests be known to God. But notice that first phrase, don't skip over it. Be anxious for nothing. That means you have reason for anxiety. There are things going on that you could be anxious about. God doesn't say you'll never have anxiety. What He says is He's given us a way to combat that anxiety. When we feel the rise of anxiety within us, we pray about it. We take it to the throne of grace. We take it to the one who holds all things in His hands. That's the proper place to put it. And then what does He say? That if we do that, that we will have His peace, a peace that surpasses all understanding. Again, not outside the midst of difficulties and anxieties. But in the midst of those difficulties and anxieties, He will give us a peace that we can't even understand. My friends, that's been seen in our community the last few days. People lose their houses, they lose their cars, and they're going to their local church and saying, what can we do? How can we serve? It's like, you know, that's an amazing thing to think about. You know, because they're dealing with their own issues. As in some of these communities, almost everyone is. And so we need to think for a moment about how important this is. But we're taught over and over again in the scriptures that peace is a gift that God gives us. As in what Paul says in Romans 5, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. My friends, there's a message here. God is offering us peace in the gospel, a peace that was never offered in the law. In fact, how quickly could the law steal any idea of peace? Well, anytime you thought about it and you thought, I'm not able to keep this law, peace taken away under the glory of God. And the reason Paul can say that the end of the law is Christ Jesus is, all those times that I look at the law and I cannot keep the law, it's a reminder what I need is someone who will keep it for me. And that's what Jesus does. And so my friends, these believers need peace, this church needs peace, but what our author is saying is it's not gonna be found in Moses or the law, that's no hiding place. Another song we sing, but it's found in the gospel, it's found in Jesus Christ. And so turn to Him, remember the Gospel. Which brings us to our second point this morning because we cannot avoid the doxology here and that it makes much of Jesus. First of all, even in the part about God the Father it says, He brought up our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. That's an essential element of the Gospel. It might surprise you to learn Or to remember, that's the first time he's mentioned the resurrection in this entire letter. It's kind of amazing, isn't it? Because the resurrection is so spoken about in the New Testament. Rightly so. I think the reason I've said this along the way, our author doesn't mention the resurrection so much, is he wants you to focus on the ascension at large. You know, when we speak about the humiliation of Christ, We're speaking about His coming into the world, taking on flesh, living under the law, being born of woman, being under the law of His going to Calvary, to death, of His being buried, all that's in the humiliation of Christ. And in the same way, His ascension encompasses more than just simply His resurrection. but His resurrection, His ascension into glory, His placement at the right hand of the majesty of the glory of God enthroned there, and of His installment as our High Priest, the High Priest of His people, in that glorious heavenly tabernacle. All that's the ascension, and oftentimes the authors of the New Testament speak about his death and his resurrection. And they're doing this to use shorthand to speak about his humiliation and his ascension. And our author wants us to recognize that by saying, let's speak more directly about his ascension, his enthronement, his high priesthood, all these things that are essential to the gospel. We've said this many times. We often err sometimes in summarizing in the same way to say that he died on the cross. As if if that's all he did, that would be enough. But it doesn't tell the full story, does it? Because again, if He didn't come and take on flesh as the God-man, and if He didn't live a perfectly sinless life, His death on the cross means nothing to us. It's just another person who was crucified or executed by the state. It means nothing. If He's not buried, if He doesn't rise on the third day, it's all meaningless. If He dies and remains in the tomb, we are without hope. Don't take my word for it, take St. Paul's word for it in the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians. He must rise. He must rise. But if He rises and stays here on earth walking around forevermore, guess what? He still didn't complete the mission given to Him by His Father. which is to what? Be the messianic king and priest. He's got to ascend into glory, offer the sacrifice there that Hebrews speaks of. He must be the high priest of his people and the king of his people, enthroned in glory. All that must happen. Our author says, don't forget all of those details. If he is to be our king and priest, he must do all those things. What happens if he atones for us and rises again, But he never intercedes for us. I think Hebrews told you this is not going to work, right? This does not work. He must fulfill all these callings, all these ministries. It's in doing all these things and ascending. The first chapter tells us that he's given a name that is greater than the name of the angels, that he's given a position and a title greater than that of the angels. And we say, wait a minute, he's always greater than the angels. As the second person of the Trinity, yes. But not as the God-man Christ who came into the world to complete a mission. It's only through that mission that He now has a name as our Messianic King and Priest that is greater. This is what it says when it says, he learned obedience by the things that he suffered. There were things that he must do in this mission, that if they are left undone, he is not suited to be our king and priest. All this, I believe, is why our author emphasizes so much the ascension of Christ. But here he mentions the resurrection of Christ. Because we know it's important, right? We have Easter that we celebrate every year to say this is a pretty important event in the life of the church. Why? Because if he doesn't rise, there is no church. If he doesn't rise, there is no salvation. If he doesn't rise, there is no hope. We have to have this. He must rise again. And my friends, it's important to realize that God's role in rising him or raising him from the dead is tantamount to telling us that the sacrifice that Christ made upon the tree was acceptable to God. It was an acceptable sacrifice. And so Christ is raised from the dead. Paul gets at this and says in Romans that Jesus was delivered up because of our offenses. wasn't his offenses. He was sinless. It was for our sins, our offenses that he was delivered up and he was raised for our justification. I've heard many people struggle with that phrase because they think, no, he died for our justification. No, Paul's telling you if he doesn't rise, there is no justification. There must be the resurrection for us to have justification because if he stays in that tomb, he isn't who he said he was and his death is meaningless. or just another historical curiosity like the hundreds of thousands of people who were crucified to death. So again, we recognize the importance of these events. Yet there's something else that's said here about him. That's our second point, the entitle, which is that he is the great shepherd of the sheep. You know, this text is over this chapter told us the importance of shepherds. of respecting our shepherds, respecting the men that God has raised up by his grace in the church to pastor us. But they're under shepherds. They are not the great shepherd. There is one who is above all of them, who's above all of us, the great shepherd of the sheep. That title is held by Christ alone. Rome can't steal it. Christ alone holds it. He is the great shepherd. And notice it's saying that here. It's not saying Peter, the great shepherd, is representative and vicar here on earth. He's saying Jesus, our great shepherd of the sheep, the one who watches over us and protects us and loves us and laid down his life for us. This isn't theoretical for Christ. He did it. He did that very thing. And so we recognize here the importance of it. He is the one who leads his people to life and to hope and to glory and to peace. And whatever we need, he supplies. Whatever we need, he supplies. And he does it all through the new covenant made in his glorious blood. That's what our text says. And we're going to reserve that for next Sunday because that's what our sermon next Sunday is going to be. It's going to be on the everlasting covenant. And so I invite you back for that. But I want you to think here just for a moment that in this covenant of grace, He has given us everything that we need graciously, which will bring us to our third point, because the text ends with one of the things that's been given to us. Our third point is called a great equipping. And if you just look at the end of that text, you'll see it because it not only says that the God of peace who raised our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, but he says he makes you complete, complete. Now this word can mean fit. It can mean perfect, although we often, when it says perfect, like in the King James, we'll say, well, it means complete or mature, right? In other words, what it means is He gives us what we need. He brings us to that state to which He desires us to be. And when you look at this doxology, it's about that. Look at it. He says here, that He will make us complete in every good work to do His will, God's will, working in us what is well-pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ. We want to make sure we understand this. This is really speaking about a work of the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is the one who transforms our heart. He is the one who pours out these gifts from Christ. He's the one who mediates every blessing in the heavenly places to us. The Holy Spirit's ministry is profound and important. We need to realize that, remember it, preach it. The Holy Spirit is glorious. He's God. Right. But notice it says, through Jesus Christ. And I think this is important language because the Bible often words it this way. At the nursing home, we're preaching through John's gospel. And there we've gone through this section where Jesus is talking about, I'm going away, I'm leaving you. And surprise, it's better that I do that, which seems impossible, right, to imagine. But it's better because I will not leave you alone. But if I depart here, if I leave here, I will send the comforter to you. And we can go through that whole upper room discourse and everything that Jesus says about this. But what he says is, greater works you will do, empowered by this paraclete, than has been done now in my ministry. Well, you think even that's hard to imagine. Except the Holy Spirit is working in millions of people around this world today. As we gather here, he's not just here. He's in churches all over this country and around this world, ministering and working and doing glorious and amazing things. How many hearts will be today transformed by God's grace? That's a ministry of the Holy Spirit. How many hearts will be called to repentance of things they need to repent of? That's of the work of the Holy Spirit. How many people will be built up in God's Word? That's a ministry of the Holy Spirit. All these things are glorious things, not attributable to any man, but to the work of God through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He is the one who is doing this. And Jesus says, I will abide with you. Remain in me, abide in me, and I in you, and these glorious things you will bring forward. I think Jesus is using a similar language that we see here. In me you receive this gift of the Spirit and all the spiritual gifts that He gives to you. all the working of God in this way you receive. And so again, when we look at this text and we say, we'll be made complete in every good work to do His will, this is about sanctification, isn't it? We've already spoken about justification, now we're talking about sanctification. God will bring us through a working of the Spirit to increase, if you will, in terms of our fruitfulness. Again, John's Gospel, bring forth fruit, more fruit, much fruit. For God desires that we bring forth much fruit. Again, this is not a work that is in our own strength. It's capable by the working of the Holy Spirit. And so what I want you to think about here for a moment is he's talking about how this happens, that we will bring forth fruit that is pleasing to God. How is it pleasing? Circle back to the very beginning of the sermon by faith, by faith. This whole letter comes full circle many, many times by faith. Do the things that God has called you to do, but praise God, recognize in this everlasting covenant, it's not even by your own strength, but by the equipping of God, by his transformation of your heart and mind and soul, by his transformation and giving you gifts. This is how you will do this thing. You see, even that faith is a gift of God. Everything. It's like Spurgeon had that sermon years ago. It's all of grace, right? It's all of grace. And that gives us reason to give praise and glory to our father. Now I want you to look here just at this very last text that I wanted to come back to it next week. I want us to look just at the everlasting covenant next week and think about what it's telling us. I want to close just by simply saying that it ends with this doxological word of to whom be glory forever and ever. Are we called to give glory to God? Yes. Right. What's our first catechism question? What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever. To bring God glory is our calling. And so the author simply reminding us as he equips us, as he gives us the ability, what we are called to do is to bring glory to God. Now there's some debate on what this modifies as saying bring God the Father glory or God the Son glory. Don't worry about that, right? Don't worry about that. Give God glory. But I can tell you this, you'll never offend the Father by giving glory to the Son because we've been reading in Colossians it says, it pleased God that in all things He should have the preeminence. That means it pleases God for Christ to be praised and to give Him glory. And so, my friends, feel free, feel free to give Christ glory all the time. If you want to give glory to our Heavenly Father, nothing more than to give glory to the Holy Spirit. We glorify our God. He is great and greatly to be praised. And so, my friends, as we think about this, recognize God has saved us. God has transformed us. He has equipped us. He is sanctifying us. and all of it that we might glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. My friends, that is a glorious truth and the glory of the gospel and why it's such good news.