Please take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Hebrews, the last chapter, chapter 13. We're coming very close to the end of our exposition of this New Testament book. This morning, our text is in chapter 13, Hebrews 13, and we'll be considering together verses 18 and 19. Hebrews 13, verses 18 and 19. Pray for us, for we trust we have a good conscience and all things willing to live honestly. But I beseech you, the rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. Pride and prayer are incompatible. And they are incompatible because prayer in its very essence expresses humble dependence. There is no true prayer that is proud. In prayer, we are saying we need We're crying out in expressions of that need, that we need a sight of God, that we need to sanctify His name, that we need the spread of His kingdom and all of our temporal and all of our spiritual cares with it. We need something from the Lord, help from heaven. This is why prayer is often called the breath of the Christian. It's rightly called the breath of the Christian. We pray like we breathe. Everything in our life requires prayer. We need the Lord's presence, the Lord's blessing on the smallest minutiae, as well as the greatest weights and burdens that we bear before the Lord. And so it is the breath of the Christian from the first cry of faith in the believing soul to the last sigh and departing from this world at death. Prayer suffuses the whole of the Christian life. So we come in Hebrews 13, and we have this catalog of exhortations which are brought one after another, taking the glorious doctrines of the person and work of Christ that have preceded it in the earlier chapters and applying them to very concrete, particular areas of the Christian life. And here, in verse 18, Paul calls for prayer. Prayer for himself. This is another duty. In chapter, excuse me, in verse 17, it said to obey and submit to those who have the rule over you. Well, now he adds another duty. and saying, you must also pray. Pray for us. And so he gives us something by way of help through the ministry of the Holy Spirit regarding profitable prayer. We're going to note three elements of this in the two verses that lie open in our laps this morning. Three things. First of all, for pastors and elders. So prayer for pastors and elders. He says, pray for us. Elias goes back to verse 17, those that have the rule over you. They've been given a responsibility for you, and they have been given a charge. to watch over you. And you have been given benefits that accrue from them and their labors. And therefore you must pray for them." And that represents two things, that brief three words, pray for us, it represents on one hand, an acute need, and on the other hand, an insistent duty. Both of these are found here, both a need as well as an obligation or a duty. You think about this. Here is the apostle Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, the author of more epistles in the New Testament than any other, the one who is heralded as one of the great lights of the New Testament church. And Paul, with all of his accomplishment, with all of his remarkable gifts, with all of the grace that he's been endowed with and the holiness which characterizes his life. Nevertheless, the Apostle Paul is needy. And he's saying, I need prayer. And it's so evident that it actually pours out everywhere he writes in all of his epistles. So let me highlight a few examples for you. when he's writing to the church at Rome. In chapter 15, verse 30, Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me. that I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judea, and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints." Just note there, he's praying both, he wants prayer both for himself as well as for his ministry. We saw it as well in Colossians 4, which we read a moment ago. In verse 3, with all praying also for us. that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak." He says. Well, you get the same thing in 1 Thessalonians. Chapter 5, verse 25, you get it in 2 Thessalonians. Chapter 3, notice there in verse 1, Finally, brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified, even as it is with you. And we could go on. You'll note in these requests for prayer, he's asking prayer both for the man and his ministry, both for the preacher and his preaching. Both elements are found in most of the places that we just cited, saying that the believing people of God have a responsibility to pray for men, for their leaders, for the pastor and elders, for example, for their person. Notice that he's saying in some of what I cited there, pray for protection, pray for spiritual protection, pray for physical protection, pray for deliverance from evil. I mean, you see this in many, many places. For example, you go to the book of Acts chapter 12, and there is an example of an apostolic prayer meeting, and the church is gathered together expressly for the purpose of prayer, and were told that they prayed continually, they prayed earnestly for Peter, who at that moment was locked up in prison. The Lord, of course, heard their prayers. God sent an angel, sprung him from prison, brought him back to them, restored him to them. But the point is to pray for both what is within and what is without. And you think of, you know, even if you limited yourself to, let's say, the last dozen years, you think of all of the examples that we have within Reformed and Presbyterian churches, just within Reformed and Presbyterian churches, all of the scandals. all of the foes. I mean, in some cases we've seen severe attacks of wicked men upon godly men and the damage that's caused. We've seen some of that. But we've also seen the colossal damage that's been brought through scandal due to leaders' sins, ministers' sins, and others. It's overwhelming when you begin to start to enumerate all of the examples, whether it's moral failures or whether it's theological failures. It's breathtaking. And so here is the Apostle Paul and he's saying, pray. Pray for spiritual vitality. Pray for holiness. Pray that men will be kept. You know the words of McShane when he's writing to one of his colleagues and he says, your people need your holiness. It's true. The people of God need the holiness of their leaders. And if that's true, and it is, then we need to pray for that holiness to abound. And so there's praying for the man. There's also praying for the ministry. He says, pray that I'll have an open door. There are doors that have to be opened that only the Lord himself can open. That no man, however gifted and graced he might be, is incapable of taking a spiritual crowbar and somehow prying it open. that falls to the Lord who has the keys of even hell and death in His hands. He's the one who's able to open and no man can shut. And so He's saying, ask the one who can open. Pray that we'll be given an open door for the Word. Pray that the Word would have free course and be glorified. Pray that we would be able to preach boldly, to preach with courage. Pray that we'll be able to preach plainly, with clarity, convincingly, persuasively, Pray, in other words, for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus taught us, ask the Father for the Spirit and He will give it. And with the Spirit comes all of the fruit that follow in His wake, the wake of His presence. Pray that the Spirit would be given with power. Now that's true in preaching, that we have to pray for preaching. It's also true for all of the other functions of those that have rule over you. Prayer for grace and help and light and wisdom in shepherding souls. For skill in governance and rule. We need prayer for these things. And so it's expressive of a need, but it's also expressive of a duty. It's expressive of an obligation. That, in fact, this is laid upon all of us as a matter of conscience. It's a non-negotiable. It's an imperative. And so we are conscience-bound to pray for those that have rule over us. But of course, it's not a bare duty. It's accompanied with all sorts of easy motivation. It's accompanied with desire to pray. It's accompanied with love, love for those who care for us, love for the Lord himself, love for the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. All of this accompanies the duty. But it underlines something that I think is far too often overlooked. And that is that there is a reciprocal relationship between leaders in the church and the people, under shepherds and shepherds. There's actually a reciprocal relation. We tend to think too often one way. You know, a minister has an evident and obvious influence upon his congregation. And over years and decades, congregations begin to reflect something of a similar character. And it's in part due to the gifts and graces of a particular pastor, and so on. And there's all sorts of things that one could say, sure, those things are true. They're somewhat obvious that they're true. But it's a reciprocal relationship, and at many, many different levels. There is influence from the people upon the leaders as well. There is. There is a, you know, you think of, well, you know, some of the great preachers of history, and you think, well, look at the great congregations that they had. And we think, well, that's because they were under such godly and gifted ministers. But that's only half the story. Great congregations are part of what contribute to making great ministers. There's no denying this. Congregations make ministers. And this is one thing, by way of counsel, I'd like to say to congregations who are calling a newly ordained minister, a student who's graduated and been ordained and so on, say to those congregations, you have a remarkable privilege. because you are going to contribute to the shaping and molding of a man whose ministry will extend over many years if the Lord spares him. And you need to own that, understand that, and contribute to that. When you have a congregation that's spiritually exercised, a congregation that's hungry, that actually feeds those who care for them. It draws them out. It has an influence upon them. Their example has an influence. The example of the people has an influence. When you think of someone who's cooking in the kitchen, And they may have a remarkable ability and gifts at cooking. They may be furnished with all the tools that are necessary and good ingredients and so on and so forth. But those who are coming to eat make a huge difference on the meal. Because if you're coming to those who aren't hungry, who have no appetite or appreciation for good food and so on, it has an influence. the making of that meal, whereas when you know you have people who love good food and are starving to death and so on, that too has an influence. There's mutual support and encouragement and loyalty in the Lord and shared co-labor together. All of that is so intricate and so complicated And it touches so many different points in terms of that reciprocal element and relationship between one another. But it's obviously true here. It's true with regards to prayer. It goes both ways. You expect that your pastor and elders pray for you. You're grateful that you have pastors and elders who do sincerely pray for you with specificity in the secret place. But it's also true that you are obligated to pray for them earnestly in the secret place. And what happens is the prayers of one is actually fueling the prayers of the other, and the prayers of the other is then fueling the first, and it goes back and forth, and there's an exponential increase that comes as a result of it. Everybody knows the story with regards to Spurgeon. You know, the group that come to him and say, well, Mr. Spurgeon, tell us the secret of your preaching and the secret of the success of your ministry and so on. And he says, come with me. And then he takes them through the auditorium, down the back stairs, into the basement, and then points through a door that is cracked open where there is a group of people assembled praying. And he points in there and he says, that is the secret. I have a praying people. We all know that. We all acknowledge it. And it's very warm and so on. But it's true. It's absolutely true. It's absolutely the case. And so there's this reciprocal relationship. I want to give a note of encouragement here, sincere note of encouragement. I tell guest ministers who come into this pulpit, the elders will bear witness to the fact that I do this. I tell ministers that come into this pulpit, I say, you will find them very easy to preach to. You'll find them very easy to preach to. They're hungry. They love the word. They love the preaching of the gospel. They love the truth. And ministers can feel it. You know, you get in the pulpit when you're in different places, and you can sense the resistance. You read it, you see it, you feel it. And it's very different in other places where the heart's drawn out. And so there's this reciprocal relationship. But you'll notice that when he says, pray for us, prayer also builds anticipation and expectation, doesn't it? Prayer builds anticipation and expectation. Because if you're praying for something, so for example, you're praying for the preaching of the word on a given Sabbath. You actually come looking for answers to that prayer. You come expectant. How is the Lord going to answer? How is the Lord going to do what I have have sought? Well, that anticipation and expectation has all sorts of benefit. Not benefit to you immediately, but also benefit to others. And you're actually able to carry away from the service the fact that you have contributed by God's grace, through His blessing, to the eternal good of others. Other souls whom the Lord came and spoke to and fed and addressed, perhaps converted, perhaps encouraged and strengthened or supplied help in one form or another. It wasn't just the one laboring in the pulpit. It was those laboring in the pew that the Lord used to bring that to pass and come looking for it. You can see at times even in the preaching itself. I'll give you a personal example. My wife, of course, knows me better than anyone. She can read me like a book. And so she's watching a sermon, watching the preaching of the word, and she can tell. She's there and she's like, Lord, he's struggling right now. I can see it. He's struggling. Help! Send help to him. You know, give help in this portion of the sermon or whatever. And no doubt there are times when you can actually see the change with the Lord's answering prayers, bringing things to pass. There's a fluidity to this. This is the Lord. There's a dynamism in terms of spiritual exercise in worship. We see the differences that the Lord brings in answer to prayer, whether it's not just in preaching, but in shepherding, in the government of the church, and in all of these sorts of things. You have a personal contribution to make for your own benefit and the benefit of others. I know at least one example within our own congregation right here. of someone praying during an evangelistic sermon for a specific person who was sitting in the congregation who was converted in that sermon. I mention that because Wind in your sails, that these things are things that are essential. This is not a passing thing. We're to pray for our general assembly when it meets. We're to pray for our presbytery, pray for our session and so on, deacons court meeting. We're to pray for these things, to bathe them in prayer. These three words, pray for us, are not throwaway words. They're words that need to be embedded in our hearts. They're a command. There's something we must make a priority. We love that those who lead us pray for us. We need to do the same in praying for them. So that's first, praying for pastors and elders. Secondly, preserving conscience. So you notice this, if you're reading carefully, you may raise your eyebrows. Pray for us for we trust we have a good conscience and all things willing to live honestly. He says, pray for us for, or we could say for this reason. Be stirred up to pray for us because those that have rule over you have a conscience aimed at performing their duty for their people's good." He's saying, knowing that those that have rule are exercising their conscience to fulfill what God has laid upon them, that ought to be a reason to fuel your prayers. He says, for we trust We have a good conscience. Here, it's translated elsewhere in our Bibles as persuaded. So we're persuaded that we have a good conscience. And what is the conscience, children? What is the conscience? Conscience is that little voice inside of you, which is part of you, that makes you aware of what's good and bad. So the word conscience, both in the English and the Greek and the Latin, are comprised of two parts. The word con for in English, which means with, and then science, which means knowledge. So conscience literally means with knowledge, with knowledge, or knowledge with, we might say. It is a knowledge that exists between God, who knows all. He knows the deepest, darkest secrets within us, and everything about us, coupled with our knowledge of ourselves. We know our own secret thoughts, and so on. And so conscience is one of the faculties of the soul that many have referred to as God's vice regent, that he buries in your bosom. His own witness that testifies to us. That inner witness that can do two things. It can either accuse us or it can excuse us. It can either accuse us of wrongdoing or excuse us of wrongdoing. We're not actually doing what is wrong, we're doing what is right. And that results in either a troubled conscience, if it's accusing us, or it results in a peaceful, quiet conscience, if in fact our actions, attitudes, ambitions, whatever, are in keeping with God's Word. And so a good conscience is the testimony of a heart that what we're doing is in conformity to God's will, that we're doing what God wants. Well, that's true in the believing heart because the conscience is renovated in Christ Jesus. So, does the unbeliever have a conscience? Absolutely, they have a conscience. But can they have a good conscience? No, they can't. The believer has a good conscience in Christ by faith. We don't even have to leave Hebrews to remember this. In chapter 9, verse 14, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? The blood of Christ through the Spirit purges the believing conscience. If you flip over to page chapter 10, verse 22, we draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. And so by faith in Christ, through the ministry of the Spirit, the believer is able to have a conscience void of offense, as the Bible says elsewhere. To have a good conscience. A bad conscience is a conscience that's loaded with guilt. And it can get worse. You can have a seared conscience. You can have a numb conscience. You can have a cold and calloused conscience. You can have a hardened heart. And that is sinning over and over against known wrong that the conscience is bearing witness against until it's muffled, until its edge is worn down. We're to be aware of that. we are to strive to keep a good conscience before God and men, a tender conscience, a conscience that is sensitive to the things of God, a conscience that is bound and tied to the Word of God. We acknowledge, and our confession even says, Christ is lord of the conscience. He alone is the lord of the conscience. No one else is given that prerogative. We're not allowed to be lord. We're not allowed to let other people become lord of our conscience. He alone must be lord of the conscience. And the conscience, just like the mind and the will and the affections and so on, the conscience must be sanctified. It must be sanctified. You have a mind. Does the believer have a mind? Unbeliever have a mind? Yes. Does the believer have a mind? Yes. Does that mind need to be sanctified? Very much so. So too with the conscience. We're not to be sinning against our consciences. We're also not to have our consciences hijacked with what is overly scrupulous and not in keeping with the Word of God. And the fact is we're guilty of both at different times and at different levels. Either doing, accepting what is wrong and displeasing to the Lord. Or scrupling over what is not wrong before the Lord. And so he says, listen, pray for us. Pray for us for we were persuaded we have a good conscience and all things willing to live honestly. Willing to live. Could be translated desirous to live. The most godly person, Paul himself and others, fail even at their best. But they desire, they're willing to live in all things honestly before the Lord. To live honestly or to live well. It's broader than just truth and falsehood kind of honesty. It's the same word that's translated in reference to Christ about him doing all things well. He does all things well. doing what is pleasing before the Lord. So prayer is prompted by this mutual pursuit of a good conscience before the Lord. The Lord gives us those who have a conscience and a desire to do what is pleasing to Him. We ourselves, who are in grace, have a conscience to please the Lord as well, and there's this cooperative labor that is carried out in prayer. But for those who are unconverted here this morning, it puts you in a pickle. You have a conscience. That conscience, as I speak, is loaded with guilt. Now you may seek to excuse yourself. You may seek to engage in blame shifting. You may seek to redefine things. You may play all sorts of games in your head about what's important and not important, et cetera. But at the end of the day, you've got that voice that the Lord has created you with that testifies against you. And this is interesting in terms of our experience. Because you have something outside you that is coming to you. God is coming to you in his word. And the Lord in his word confronts you. The Lord brings his law and the spiritual nature of that law. And it's penetrating application. And it's brought to the quick of your conscience. And you're exposed, and you're, as it were, spiritually naked before the Lord. And you're being confronted with your wrongdoing, with your shortcoming, with your rebellion, with your unbelief, with your disobedience, with your pride and selfishness, and all that comes with those things. All of that's coming to you through a voice in the preaching of the Word. But what's interesting is this. that that voice from outside corresponds to a voice within you that echoes what you're hearing, so that your conscience resonates with what you're hearing. Your conscience is a double witness against you. You have a testimony in yourself, as part of yourself, that is witnessing against yourself. All is not well. with you. And so you're double-damned, both from within and without. And when facing the music with honesty, you acknowledge the guilt that lays upon you. It is, in Pilgrim's Progress, Christians' great burden. Which he's lugging around like a great weight upon his back a load of sins for which he must answer What are you to do this morning in such a predicament well, we've already heard the answer haven't we It is only through the blood of Jesus Christ that the conscience can be sprinkled, that the conscience can be purged, that the conscience can be cleansed. And a person can have a guilty conscience before the Lord in their unbelieving state. And you can run out and say, I'm going to start doing all sorts of nice things. I'm going to stop yelling at people. I'm going to stop driving people off the road. I'm going to stop being lazy. I'm going to work hard. I'm going to be kind. I'm going to be charitable. I'm going to do all these sorts of things. I'll read my Bible more. I'll go make sure that I attend church more consistently. I'll pray for this. I'll pray for that. And there's this flurry of activity. What has it done for you? Where has it taken you? It just increases the load of guilt. You can't wiggle out of it. You can't work your way out of it. But there is a fountain that has been opened for sin and uncleanness, and it is found in Christ himself who is the fountain. Here we can be plunged and purged. The Lord Jesus Christ, when he died upon the cross of Calvary, was dying for those who have evil consciences. He was dying in order to pay the punishment that was deserved for those whose consciences were wracked with guilt. He was bearing the sins themselves. bearing them away on behalf of hopeless sinners. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is set before us, and we, the blood of Jesus Christ, which represents the atoning work of Jesus Christ, in order to answer sin, in order to satisfy the wrath of God, in order to remove guilt, this is where we must flee, to be sprinkled, as it were, with his own blood. And the consequence is peace of conscience. Among many other things, peace of conscience. Peace of conscience that flows from peace with God, having been reconciled to Him, having been befriended, enmity having been removed, sin having been forgiven. The conscience is made quiet before the Lord. And so the Lord calls you in the context of your own guilt and the conscience that testifies against you. It is a prod that is pushing you toward the Redeemer, driving you to look away, to come, to flee, to lay hold of, to rest and rely upon the person and work of Jesus Christ himself. For those of you who are believers, you know that whatever is not of faith is sin. Whatever is not of faith is sin. The believer recognizes the conscience is so precious and so important. I must care for my conscience. My source of peace is not in outward circumstances. But it is in my conscience being quieted before the Lord. I've made this point before. Many people feel enormous stress. They come to a decision that they have to make and they're vexed, they are blitzed, they are stressed out about the consequences. What am I to do in this particular situation? Because if I do this, all these consequences are going to happen. And if I do this, all these consequences are going to happen. There's a mixture. And if I take different avenues, I'm stressed out. What's going to give me the fewest consequences? The answer is easy. And that is to transfer your stress. The stress ought not to be over the consequences. You should rather place all of the stress on getting clear in your own mind and conscience what the Lord wants. What does the Lord require? To be stressed out over that is appropriate. It's energy, it's fuel. I gotta dig, I gotta think, I gotta read, I gotta pray and ask the Lord for light. I've gotta go back to the Word. Lord, what is your will? What does your Word say? What do you want? This is what I have to have. But once you get it, that stress has led you and now you know for certain this is the Lord's will. Zero stress. You don't care anymore, because all you were stressed about is following Him. And once you know what it means to follow Him in this particular situation, you could care less what the consequences are. It doesn't matter one hoot what comes from it. I know I'm walking in the way of the Lord. I know I'm pleasing the Lord. I have His blessing. I have His presence. I have His grace. I have His promises. And so the conscience has to be kept, has to be cared for. that it's being conformed to the will and word of God. Paul's saying, for we are persuaded that we have a good conscience, that in all things we are desirous to live honestly before the Lord. This is a prompt to prayer. We're praying for those whom we know are sober and serious about seeking what glorifies the Lord. Thirdly, we have personal fellowship. Thirdly, there's personal fellowship, verse 19. But I beseech you, the rather, to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. Interesting, he said pray for us, but now he's actually calling for an increase in fervency. He's saying, I beseech you, I'm begging you, pleading with you, rather to pray that I might be more speedily brought back to you. Paul recognizes that what he's asking will be accomplished by prayer. He's not saying, you know, help me figure out the logistics, you know, help send resources that will enable this to be brought to pass. He's conscious that this restoration of personal fellowship is accomplished by prayer. That the continuance of his ministry to them is in fact dependent upon their prayers. That if he is to continue to minister to them, among them, with them, it hangs on their prayers. This came out in some of the other requests for prayer that I cited at the beginning. I'll give you one of them. The first one was Romans 15. And he says, I beseech you there as well. I beseech you. Strive together with me in your prayers. We read verse 31. I didn't read verse 32, because it continues in verse 32. That I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be refreshed. Strive earnestly together with me in prayers, because I desire to come to be with you with joy that we would be refreshed together. The point is this, if I can put it succinctly, communion in prayer produces communion in person. Communion in prayer produces communion in person. There's actually an underlying connection between these two things that surfaces in this and other passages. Now, verse 19 reflects his desire, and it reflects their desire. In other words, there is a mutual attachment. I beseech you rather to do this, that I may be restored to you the sooner. There's a mutual attachment that feeds their fellowship together. They're praying, in other words, that the bonds might be strengthened. And that's necessary because we need it. It's necessary because the devil is never tired of seeking to tear these bonds asunder. The devil is constantly working in subtle ways and in sneaky ways and in behind-the-scenes ways in order to somehow tear the fabric of the communion of the saints, to alienate individual Christians from one another, for suspicions to be raised and then nursed and cultivated. you know, thinking evil, you know, being prickly with one another, whatever it is, to somehow fracture the body of Jesus Christ. That is also true between the people and their leaders. To somehow rip that fabric. The devil knows if he can undermine confidence and trust wrongly, sinfully, if he can disrupt those bonds, it will wreak havoc on everything. That the way a person hears preaching will be totally different because of the underlying damage that the devil has created in that relationship. The way in which they're able to receive care and nurture and love in shepherding or a word of exhortation and reproof. It'll all be affected. as a result of this. So the devil is constantly seeking to tear and tear and rip and draw asunder. Paul's saying, no, we need to pray. We need to pray for these things. And Paul believed it. Paul believed that the Lord would hear such prayers. You know, there's, in Paul, there's something of a homesickness. I think I'm, I don't know for sure, but I think I tend to be more homesick than most people from when I gather. I miss my congregation, I miss my wife and children when I'm gone, and so on. But there should be, there must be some element of that spiritually in us. You know, I hear ministers speak sometimes, colleagues, and they love to preach elsewhere. And they find, oh, so much more liberty and stuff when they're preaching elsewhere. And for me, it's sort of puzzling. I get it in one sense, okay. Maybe there's a freshness because the audience is different or something. But in most senses, I don't get it. Like, to be home. There's no place like home. And to preach to your own people. There should never, in one sense, be greater liberty than when you're preaching to your own people. Because there is a true, real, substantial, spiritual, God-given bond between a minister and his own people that doesn't exist anywhere else on the planet. And there's all the attending implications that come with it. You know one another. I know who I'm preaching to. I know their lives, their history, their experience, and their needs, and so on. You know your minister. I can say things to my own congregation I can't say elsewhere because they don't know me. They won't understand it. They won't get it. I'll have to take 10 minutes to explain things. It's different when you're home. And it's true not only in the pulpit, it's true shepherding wise, right? Your elders have a special connection and attachment. They have to give an account for you. They don't have to give an account for people in other congregations elsewhere on the last day. And they know you and pray for you and think about you and serve you and you know them and trust them in ways. You're not gonna trust a stranger who comes in and tells you X, Y, and Z. These are, what's being described here is something significant. He desires for the Hebrews, he desires for them to receive a benefit. You know, this is why he's saying in Romans 15, that I can come unto you with joy, that I may with you be refreshed. Not that I may be refreshed, Refreshed not that you may be refreshed but that together we might be refreshed a benefit that is to be received for them He's saying it's not good enough. You know to be writing you from a distance to be sending word through my Emissaries and fellow servants and so on and so forth to hear back from them on how you're doing all that's wonderful But he says I got to be there personal fellowship in the personal presence, interfacing face-to-face with one another. He's saying pray for it. Pray that it would be so. Pray that we would be together in these things. It's a prayer for unity, isn't it? As we sing in Psalm 133, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It's a prayer for peace and for felicity as we sing in Psalm 122. It's a prayer for vibrant, real, concrete union and communion within the house of God. I beseech you that rather to do this, to pray that I may be restored to you the sooner, to be together, to be one, to be engaged in the communion with one another, the giving and receiving that the Lord has designed his church to carry out. So Paul is saying, pray for the purpose of personal fellowship. Paul's not just wrapping up a lengthy epistle with a few little niceties that need to be tacked on toward the end. He is delivering substantial points of exhortation that are inextricably tied to all that has come out of the Doctrines with regards to the glory and supremacy of the Lord Jesus Christ, so he says pray for us We trust we have a good conscience and all things willing to live honestly, but I beseech you the rather to do this That I may be restored to you the sooner stand for prayer Almighty God the prayer hearing prayer-answering God. Indeed, O Lord, thou art the prayer-producing God, who has sent forth the Spirit, the third person of the Godhead, that we might be enabled to pray in the Spirit, and that the Spirit might enable us to pray as we ought, in keeping with thy will. Let us hear them. Let us help us in them. Let us answer them. O Lord, grant that we would be, in every sense, a house of prayer, publicly and privately, a people laboring in the secret place. O Lord, we serve a great, a gracious, a powerful, a good God. Grant, O Lord, that we would be those who come begging and asking and seeking and longing and looking for thy presence and power among us. Hear our cries, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.