We come back to Hebrews chapter 13 for one final visit. This has been kind of daunting for me. I don't know if I've ever had one of those times where I felt like I'm leaving an old friend. We've been here for quite a long time, and it's been an important book to me. I hope it has been to you as well. But we come back to this journey, and I think we come to some of the highest points toward the end of this letter. And there are many high points in this letter, but when you think of what we've looked at over the last few weeks, the last several weeks, in fact, we've seen this word of a glorious benediction or doxology, however you want to word that. It's a prayer as well in which the triune God is glorified and we see the work of salvation being a work of our triune God. And that what God said in motion in eternity past, Christ carried out in His earthly mission and the Holy Spirit applies to us as believers It is truly a work of God, and it's staggering to think about. And our author closes with this point, to think about all that God has done throughout all eternity, leading to this salvation that we have in Christ. And then he wants us to recognize that it's a work of grace in the blood of Christ, that this happens because of what Christ did for us, that it is through the blood of the everlasting covenant. And so, without the blood of Christ, there is no hope for man. Without the covenant that was established before time began in which Christ came into the world to accomplish this mission, there is no hope for man. Hope for man is summarized, if you will, in these few verses as we come to the end of this great letter and we see here a word of glory. As we come into the finish line, I believe this week, we're going to see a few more great and glorious things. It's really a postscript to the letter, and it's easy to just kind of skip over those. It's kind of just the end of something or a little personal note attached, but I think there's some important things said here that we want to look at today, we want to consider today, we want to think about, and I think it's particularly important as we come to the Lord's table today. that this letter is being written to a congregation that this author loves and knows, and that he is eager to get back to, to fellowship with them, to commune with them, to, yes, go to the Lord's table together, I believe, and that he's looking forward to that day. And so as we come to the Lord's table, we need to think about the importance of this table, the sustenance that we receive at this table by God's grace, I was thinking this week of what Luther writes in his longer catechism in which he says this. He reminds us of the essential truth of coming to the Lord's table as a necessity for us to be sustained for the day-to-day war that we're in, the spiritual battle. Luther says this. It, meaning the table, is given for sustenance, that faith may refresh and strengthen itself so as not to fall back in such a battle, but become ever stronger and stronger. For the new life must be so regulated that it continually increase and progress. but it must suffer much opposition. For the devil is such a furious enemy that when he sees that we oppose him and attack the old man, and that he cannot topple us over by force, he prowls and moves about on all sides, tries all devices, and does not desist until he finally wearies us. so that we either renounce our faith or yield hands and feet and become listless or impatient. Now to this end, the consolation is here given, when the heart feels that the burden is becoming too heavy, that it may here in this table obtain new power and refreshment. My friends, Luther is reminding us that we need this table. It's not just something that we come to occasionally that has no significance for the life of Christians. But as you read our confession, you'll see that this is a moment of blessing for the people of God. And so we need to come to this eagerly and desiring what the Lord offers us here. And in fact, it is our King's table. He is inviting us to come to this table this morning. So I want us to consider those things as we think about the end of our letter today, the end of our journey through this great letter and what our author says. I want to read the text one more time so it's fresh in our mind. And I appeal to you, brethren, bear with the word of exhortation, for I have written to you in few words. 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. As we think about this text, I want us to look at three points today. First of all, an appeal to acceptance. Second of all, a desire for fellowship. And lastly, a word of grace. So beginning with an appeal to acceptance and with the help of God, I hope that we see immediately as we return to our text that we counter an appeal to the original recipients of the letter. In fact, he makes this clear right off the bat, I appeal to you. It couldn't be more plain in the text that he's making an appeal. But we might think for a moment to what is he appealing or for what is he appealing? As we think here for a moment, we want to return to what we said in our introduction a moment ago, that this is something like a postscript. And so these are the final touches that he wants to put on this letter to the recipients. And he's saying something to them, and I believe to us as well, primarily obviously to them, but by God's grace and through the canon of Scripture also to us. He appeals to them as a personal note to bear with and accept this letter. And I think he means the content of this letter, the teaching of this letter, the doctrine of this letter, the theology of this letter. All this letter calls you to, he says, bear with it. Bear with it. And when you think about this for a moment, I think he's saying bear with it even when it's difficult. I guess there was nothing difficult there. There wouldn't be much to bear with. But there are texts or parts of this letter that are very difficult to bear or to deal with. In fact, oftentimes we hesitate to preach some of those texts because they are so difficult. These warning passages throughout Hebrews in which grave warnings are given that if you walk away there is no hope for you. If you walk away from what's been revealed to you, if you walk away, then how can you come back having full knowledge of the gospel and all that it entails? And we often, throughout this letter, have dealt with those passages and wrestled with the understanding of them. Is this something where you can lose your salvation? We say no. He's warning them what it would say about their salvation if they walked away. It would say they never had it. They were never amongst the people of God. They went out from us because they were not among us. He would reveal that they were frauds. And over and again our author has made this clear because he follows those texts up by saying, I don't believe this about you. But I consider better things about you, our author says. And several times refers to them as brothers. And I think that's an important designation we'll see again today. I think when we think about all these warnings that we find in the text that are serious and frightening, I think Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones had it right. We've quoted him before on this when he said, it's like a doctor who has warned a patient over and over again and they're not listening. And sooner or later, they want to grab you by the lapels of your jacket and shake you and say, if you do not listen to me, you're going to die. And I think what Lloyd-Jones was getting to was the ministers have been warning for quite some time, you can't go back to Moses. You can't go back to the law. You can't go back to the synagogue. You must stay with the people of God. In the church you must recognize that Christ and Him alone is the means by which we are set right with God. And therefore, they haven't listened and they've continued to flirt with going back. And so finally, this is the equivalent, as Dr. Jones said, being a medical doctor himself, he knew something of this, of grabbing and shaking and saying, you need to listen. It's serious what I'm telling you here. So as we think about this, we see all these things that they've been asked to listen to and heed and think through and much theology in between, right? Much teaching and doctrine and theology. And we've made this point, type and anti-type and shadow and substance along the way to fill out this argument to let them see the glories of what they're being offered in Christ and how it is everything that the Old Testament pointed to. It's all here. The meal you've been waiting for is before you. There's nothing else to go back to. And so as he comes to this moment, he's asking them to bear with all this teaching and to not reject it, to not just summarily just say, no, I'm not going to listen, but to think it through and to hear the Word of God and to consider its teachings and even its warnings. Now clearly this is to a people who are in dire need of hearing it in their moment, but God has also given this to us through the Word. This letter could have been to them and then lost forever, but God intended for it to be in the canon of Scripture for our benefit as well. So there are warnings here for us to remember. If you have come to know Christ, if you have heard the gospel, if you've made a public profession, you've been in the church for years, how can you walk away and say you ever knew Christ? I've made this point about myself. I've been a pastor for 14 years. I've preached a good chunk of the Scriptures. And what am I going to say one day if I were to walk away? I didn't know? What part of the Scriptures have I not read? What part of the Scriptures have I not taught on in some place? Sunday school, nursing home, here, Sunday night, Wednesday night. There's no part at some point or another I've not taught. So what am I going to say I didn't understand? This is the message the author is getting at. It would show that I never understood it to begin with. I never had a changed heart. I never had a circumcised heart. And so my friends, there is a serious warning here that he says, bear with and think through and hear, don't just summarily dismiss it. Now, when you think about this, you see that he's saying, this message I've sent you, I appeal to you, bear with this word of exhortation. This word of exhortation. It's interesting, this word for bear is parakaleo, it means to be called alongside. And what he's really saying is when he says, I exhort you or I urge you, he's saying, come walk with me. That's more or less what he's saying. Come walk with me in this way. Don't separate from me. Don't separate from the people of God. Don't separate from your brothers and sisters. Come walk with us. And walk in what? This word of exhortation, this word of paraclete or something like paracaleo again. It's a form of that word, this word of exhortation, this word of calling you alongside. Walk alongside in this word of walking alongside. In these words I've given you, these words which are for your edification and for your assurance. Walk with me in them and bear with them. Why? Well, because I've done them in few words. Now, we might look at this letter and say, 13 chapters, what are you talking about few words? Few words. The great commentator John Brown said, you know, few is a relative term, isn't it? We recognize that. Preachers tend to think they preach a lot shorter than they do. But this, but John Brown was saying, you know, one of the interesting things about this text is it's few compared to what? That is at the heart of what he's saying here. These are a few words. You can preach this sermon in an hour. If you just read it straight through, it takes about an hour to read all 13 chapters of the letter to the Hebrews. So that's not brief in one sense, but I would ask you, what's in this letter? I would argue there's an entire body of divinity in this letter. There's something of a summary of the entire scriptures in this letter. Just think for a moment of what we're given. We're given the heights of biblical theology, covenant theology, systematic theology, theology proper, Christology, Hamartiology. Go through all theologies you want to. They're here. I think there's no other book in the New Testament that probably even comes close to what all's in this other than maybe Romans, maybe Ephesians, but just a couple of books. that have as much as this letter has, and I argue that no book of the New Testament would help us to understand the Old Testament better than this book. In fact, it's not just in the, if you will, covenant theological aspects of the Old Testament that this book helps shine light, but even many stories of the Old Testament we would not have fully understood, like Abraham offering up Isaac. We would never have fully understood why Abraham did that if it weren't for what we're told in this letter that he believed he would receive him back by resurrection because God promised that through this son his seed should come. My friends, this book is glorious. An entire body of divinity. And so when you think about from eternity past in this book, to creation in this book, to the patriarchs in this book, to the covenants in this book, to the nation of Israel in this book, to the covenant that was made with them in this book, to Christ coming as the fullness of all those things in this book. He summarized the gospel and the entire redemptive storyline of the Bible in 13 chapters. I do think that's quite an accomplishment to be honest with you. And when he thinks about this, he can say few words because to gain all that he's told us in these 13 chapters, you have to read the other 65 books. which you should do. But He's given you this glorious summary. And so my friends, when He sits here and has us think for a moment about these few words, they are relatively few. And what John Brown wanted us to think about in that is to say, they are few indeed and glorious words. And so He has spoken with some conciseness here. In fact, there's a couple of times in this letter where he says, I could go on more. Chapter 9 and chapter 11 he says, I could go on further on these things. Chapter 11 he says, but time restrains me. Time restrains me. Let me get to the point where the letter's a little too lengthy, a little too bulky, and then maybe you won't heed all the things that it says. And so, again, he says there's a point here at which we've come to a happy medium. All that is intended to be in this book is here. If there's things you need to learn beyond that, use this as your guide back into the Scriptures. Go back and read more of God's dealings with Israel, of His dealings with the patriarchs, of His dealings with David, of all these promises given throughout the Old Testament that have come to fruition in Christ. He is the one we've been waiting on. So why would you go back? That's the summary of the text. Why would you go back to signs that were pointing forward to Christ all along? So my friends, as we think about, this is a letter that takes its riches out of old and new and brings them together for us. And though I think we've preached, this will be sermon 97 in this journey, and yet you could preach a thousand sermons and never exhaust the text. of the book of Hebrews. And so my friends, we need to recognize the glories that are given to us here and that when he says few words, it's fair to say. But as we think about this, I want to come to our second point this morning because there is a desire for fellowship here. I think we see it in the text. Right after that introduction there to this conclusion, he says, he says, know that our brother Timothy has been set free. Now, it's an interesting thing to think about. Obviously, Timothy is the Timothy we know from Scripture because he doesn't have to explain who he is to these people. They know who Timothy is. Timothy is a well-known Timothy, and we know of one such Timothy in the New Testament. And so, he's saying to them, this Timothy has been in some way restrained. Now I say it that way because it seems clear to us that he's been set free from an arrest. And we read nowhere else in the New Testament of this arrest. And I think given the context of the New Testament church and what it dealt with, it's arrest. He's been incarcerated somewhere. And a lot of scholars who have dealt with this book have reconstructed exactly how that might have happened, depending on when Paul wrote this book. Maybe he was in prison. Timothy came to visit him, if you accept Paul as the author. And as he gets there, he also is arrested and held, and Paul is released at some point, but Timothy's held behind. All kinds of constructions, and we're just guessing. But this could also mean that Timothy's just been bound up in a job. And he's been freed up from that. But I don't think so. I don't think most commentators think that's the sensible approach here. Because he's giving them news here. He's saying, I want you to hear something that you probably don't know. Timothy is no longer bound. He's no longer under arrest. He's no longer imprisoned. This is something that you need to be made aware of. That I'm telling you in this letter. Something you need to hear. The ESV carries this point a little bit better in this wording. It says, you should know that our brother Timothy has been released. You need to know this. You should know this. The great commentator on Hebrews, Philip Hughes, says that Gnosko here, which is Gnoskite, that it would be better to say something like a more forceful thing in the context of this letter would be to say something like, I have news for you brothers. Timothy, our brother, has been released. I have news for you. There's something you need to know, something you need to hear. Timothy has been released. Whatever the case and whoever our author is, they know who Timothy is and they'll be glad to hear that he's no longer incarcerated, he's no longer bound up in prison. But notice that our author has in mind something here even more glorious than giving just simple news. He's hoping himself to be reunited with Timothy soon. and both of them together to be reunited with this congregation soon after that. Whatever the case, we recognize that Timothy is a little further away than the author and they're both a little far away from this church. And so he says here, know that our brother Timothy has been set free with whom I will see you if he comes shortly. I get the idea the author here is planning on coming one way or the other. He's hoping Timothy gets there first and they'll just come together. What a reunion that would be. It's amazing when we see in the Gospels and in the early church age the fellowship of the believers. How much they loved one another. I think often about Paul and the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20 and how they come to this moment and Paul calls them out to come and meet with him and he talks to them and spends that afternoon with them. And then as the time is drawing near that he's going to have to leave, and he tells them that they won't see him again, they weep together. They weep together. I heard just this past week, one night, I was watching Jeff Thomas, maybe some of you know who that is, he's a Baptist minister. And he was talking about in his early days, getting to know Martin Lloyd-Jones. And he was talking about the last time he ever got to hear Dr. Jones preach. He said, we went there and he said, nobody wanted to leave. He was old and he was frail. After a sermon, they brought a chair out, he said, and put in front of the pulpit so everybody could come through and greet him, because he couldn't stand for very long. And he said, no one wanted to leave there that night. He said, we all had a suspicion it'd be the last time we'd see him. And he said, it was. It was the last time we ever saw him. My friends, I think when you see that kind of love, that's the love you see in the New Testament, the believers had for one another. They love to be together. They love to fellowship. They love to gather. They love to come around the Lord's table together. They love to worship together. And we see here that he's saying, listen, there's good news. Timothy is free and we're coming to see you. We're coming to spend some time with you, to fellowship with you, to commune with you, and to partake of the Lord's table together. That's what the believers did. They gathered for worship and the Lord's table. And so my friends, I believe here He's saying, we're longing for this. We're looking forward to this. We're eager for this. We can't wait to be together again. You can see also that warmness and fellowship in the greetings that are there. Greet all those who rule over you. We've dealt with that phraseology throughout this 13th chapter. Those who rule over you, that gives the idea. It's not the word episkopos, the word for bishop, but it gives the idea of the bishops of the church, those who rule the church. This would be your elders, your pastors, that he's saying, tell your pastors, greet them for us. Give them a warm word of greeting. Tell them that we said hello. Tell them that we love them and we'll be there soon. But it's not just for the leaders, is it? Greet all the saints. Greet the fellowship of the believers that meet there. Greet everyone. It's not just the pastors we want to rub elbows with or be around. We want to be around the community of the people of Christ. That'll be our heart's desire. To be with our people. to be here and together and worshiping and fellowshipping and encouraging one another, exhorting one another. This is what we ought to desire to do. And notice as he speaks of this word of greeting that he says, that those from Italy greet you. This is a tiny little note at the end of the text that has perplexed scholars for years. In the Greek it really says, those of Italy greet you. And so there's a debate that's supposed to help us or not help us as to understand who the recipients of this letter are. Because if it is the saints from Italy greet you, then it could mean what? That he's writing the letter from Italy to people away and he's saying all the saints here in Italy greet you? Or it could be that he's writing back to Italy and he's in a place where there are a community of expatriates from Italy and he's saying all those people of Italy who are here that you know, they're greeting you. And in the end we don't know. So we just simply say, as Origen did when he wrote of this letter, God alone knows who the author of this letter is and who the recipients of this letter is. But we can recognize again as a note of fellowship, of greeting, of love, of caring about one another, that this letter is not going to come to you without a greeting from our side as well. I'm greeting your elders. I'm greeting your members. And the people here who you know, they're greeting you as well. They're greeting you as well. My friends, it is a word of love and a word of, I think, a fellowship intended for us in this text. And that brings us to our third and final point this morning as we close this letter, which is a word of grace. It's how the letter closes, isn't it? with a benediction, with a good word here that we're given, a word of grace. Grace be with you all. Amen. That word grace is a word that we read all the time. It's often at the end of letters or at the beginning of letters. Paul will say, grace and peace be with you or something like this. There's various constructions, but grace is always a word to the people of God. And the reason for that is we can't be the people of God without grace. It's by grace that we are saved through faith. It is by grace that we are made a people. It is by the grace of God that we have everything that we have. It is all of grace and all given to us by God's kindness. You think about this for a moment. We've spoken about this as a letter, a body of divinity given to the people of God, and this displays really the glories of Scripture and the ultimate message of this letter, which is the grace of God. The grace of God has been set before you. Christ came on a mission that is itself gracious. That by grace He came. By grace, born of woman, born under the law. By grace, fulfilled the law. By grace, went to a death. By grace, even the death of the cross. By God's grace and affirmation of His claims, He is risen from the dead. And by grace toward us He ascends to the right hand of the Father to be our King and Priest again. Grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. The Christian life and story is a story of grace. And as we think about this for a moment, the gospel itself is a word of grace. We see it here clearly in this closing word, grace be with you. Haris, this word that means the absolute free expression of the loving kindness of God toward men. That's what one lexicon defined this word as. The absolute free expression of the loving kindness of God to men. That is the gospel. And ultimately it's what the letter of the Hebrews is all about. It's what the entire scriptures are about. A revelation of the grace of God. We've talked about this often in covenant theology. God didn't have to create anything. He didn't have to create men. He chose to create man. He didn't have to give Adam any kind of covenant. He could have kept Adam as anything he wanted to. But by grace, He gave Adam a covenant of works that had Adam obeyed, it would have redounded to his good. Adam didn't keep it. At that point, God could have said, well, I warned him. Judgment. And that's all that's left. Judgment. And God would have been just to do that. For we had no right to claim anything. Or guess what? It's not grace. If you think at any point at the end of what happened at the fall of Adam, we had any claim that God owed us anything, it's not grace. It has to be unmerited favor because we don't merit it. We don't deserve it. It isn't necessary that it be offered to us. And yet God, who is rich in mercy, offers it to us. From the very beginning, He sets in plan a motion. Actually, even before the fall of Adam, the plan is set in motion, but it's revealed in the garden. The Proto-Evangelium, the first gospel revealed there of grace. And then further explained throughout all the Scriptures as we've looked at in this and other journeys that we've taken, expressed and explained and further laid out for us throughout the pages of Scripture so that as we come to Jesus, we ought to recognize exactly what is going on Let me park there just a second. Is that not the exact argument of this letter? If you understood the scriptures, you'd understand that Jesus is the one to whom all this pointed. You've just missed it somehow. Go back and read more carefully and you would see all of it always pointed to Him. The tabernacle, you're going to think you're going to go back to the tabernacle? It pointed to Jesus. In fact, it's a copy of a heavenly tabernacle. It's not even the end in itself. And the sacrifices of the temple, they point forward to Him as well. It all points to Him. That's the entire purpose of this letter. And so, my friends, as we come to this and think through it, we recognize here that it's a message of grace, a message of God's goodness to us, though we did not merit it, though we do not deserve it. It's a word that tells us over and over again this in the pages of Scripture. While we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. Not for a righteous people. The righteous one died for an unrighteous people. A people who had no claim. No place at this table. Christ died for them. He died to give us a place at this table. So this letter really is a message of the gospel, a message of the grace of God. And my friends, as we come to the close of this long journey through this letter, we come to this table. And what is this table except a portrait before us of the glorious grace of God? That what we need is life in Christ, which He has supplied us. Unless we eat His body and drink His blood, we cannot abide in Him. We cannot have life in Him. He has provided it for us in what He has done on Calvary's cross. And this table is a reminder that we need Him. We need the sustenance that He alone gives. And as we come to this table, we come as a people who realize, first of all, that all of our hope is in Him. That it is totally of His grace. And in fact I say this every time, I know you get tired of hearing it, but it needs to be remembered. What earthly king could you kick his doors in and put yourself at his table? None. If you cannot sit at an earthly king's table by your own invitation, you're not sitting at this glorious king of kings table without his invitation. So my friends, as we come to this table, we come recognizing that it is by His grace and by His invitation for His people, and we come and partake in thanksgiving. In fact, if I'm just trying to think about it in terms of this letter, we want to come in the exhortations of the scriptures, in the fellowship of the saints, and in the grace of the gospel, and come partake of this together as Christ's people.