Hebrews chapter 13, once again, I want us to read verses 20 and verse 21 of Hebrews chapter 13. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Last week we began to consider just the first point of a three-point outline of these two verses, which is, in reality, the pastoral prayer of the apostle for these Hebrew saints. That outline being, number one, the point that we considered last week the potentate or the God of His prayer, and He is displayed before us in verse 20. You see the words concerning Him directly. He is the God of peace. The God of peace. Number two, the second point of this outline of this passage is the petition of His prayer, and then number three would be the praise of His prayer. But as we begin this morning, I want to make sure we understand something. These are the closing words of this letter from the apostle to these Hebrew saints. In this letter, he has set before them, he has declared before them, and even given infallible proofs. He has proved before them this great, primary, foundational, essential doctrine of the superiority of the Son of God, the superiority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and also along with that, the true, real, saving faith that is in Him and that is of Him. He has set before us and proven this doctrine and then, as well, He has noted many examples of real people and their real lives that in themselves confirm the reality, the living reality of the superiority of this faith that is in Christ Jesus. And then lastly in this letter, He has concluded by spelling out the real life applications to these truths. But we should see here, the apostle knew, he knew by verses 20 and verse 21, he knew that even this was not enough. as great as these doctrines are, as magnanimous as these examples are, as direct and even logical as His imperatives and commands of application were, He knew that this was not enough. He knew that it was not enough for these weak, wavering Hebrew saints, and so now He prays for His readers. Now he prays to the God of peace and for his power. And listen, we spoke of the pastoral heart of this missionary apostle. And the language here, he did own that heart. He does own that heart. The language here in these two verses really bears it out because actually in verse 21, the first sentence of that verse, the verb, it doesn't look like it in your translation there, but the verb is actually the word perfect. And it is in a very rare ancient mood. in the Greek language. It is what is called an optative mood, and basically what that means, I'm telling you all this to tell you this, this is a pleading position. petition. This is something, this mood represents for us as we seek to learn the language here spoken. This mood represents that this is something that what he is praying here for is something that the apostle longs for with strong, earnest desire. We would say that he longs for this, what he is praying to the God of peace for, he longs for this with all of his heart. He is pleading with the Lord. He is pleading to the Lord on behalf of His readers. And He is pleading with the Lord to make the doctrines and these examples that He has shown us through this letter and the application of this letter. He's saying, O Lord, O God, please work a miracle for these people through this letter. Work a miracle in the lives of these people through what I have set before them. And just so we are all fully aware, the doctrine, the examples, the application of this glorious letter was not enough for these Hebrew saints and it is not enough for us either. Not just that. It's not enough and I'm going to prove it to us. Over the past year and a half, we have traveled slowly but at lightning speed. through this letter. We, too, have seen the glorious superiority of the Lord Jesus Christ in this letter. I'm going to tell you, if you have not seen the superiority of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the book of Hebrews, you have not been here. Now, you might have been sitting in that pew, but you've not been here. You've not. You've not heard what we have taught. Not what we have taught, what God has taught. I've just been the herald of the message that is here. That's all. It's what God has taught and He has taught and proven and given us infallible proofs of the glorious superiority of the Lord Jesus Christ. And at the same time, because of His superiority, He has expressed to us in His Word the futility The absolute nonsense, if you will, of just vain, empty religion. We too also have seen the examples of the lives of saints of old lived through Christ, lived truly before the Lord. We've seen them. Most of us have heard about these people since we were just little children. They are heroes. of the faith. We've seen these examples and they are heroes of the faith because they own the true, living, saving faith that is in and only in Jesus Christ. We too also have studied the clear, even logical applications that He's given us here in the 13th chapter. Real life applications. to being taught and knowing and understanding these truths. What these truths should really produce in our lives. But look, notice at the phrase in verse 21 here. In His sight. In God's sight. Yes, we've spent much time in this glorious book. I pray that when When you come to this place, it's not just to punch your religious time card, but you understand that we're here to learn the Word of God. The Word of God. The glorious, infallible, inerrant, breathe-out-from-God, perfect, complete Word of God. It is the Word of your God, by His grace, that you will hear when you come to this place. It is the Word of your God. The eternal Word of your God. I pray the Lord would instill it in our heart to understand that when we come to this place, we come with a promise of His presence. We're looking for His presence. We are longing for His presence. And we want to praise Him. And we want to worship Him because He is worthy of praise and worship. And we want to learn of Him. We want to soak it in. We want to drink of the fountain of living water. That's why we come. That's why we gather together. Because He's promised His church to be here. He's promised us that this would be the place where His Word is proclaimed. This would be the place, the gathering of His symbol, where His Son, the Superior One, would find the preeminence that is His. This is the place. This is not a place to punch your religious time card. This is serious. It's so much more than that. This, right here, today, has eternal bearing upon it. Eternal consequences. Eternal implications. Serious. Oh, that God would give us the reality, the understanding, This prayer that the apostle is begging would come true. That's really what it is. He says here, He speaks of this being in His sight, doing that which is pleasing in His sight. We've spent time in this book. It tells us so plainly and emphatically about the reality of our God and the reality of our lives and the reality of sin. And then also, by His grace, the reality of grace salvation through the Lord Jesus and the reality of a real life, a life worth living. But truthfully, I mean truthfully in your heart, how many of us even this week have considered this truth? Even this week that our lives are actually really lived before the Lord. Right now, right today, our lives are lived in His sight. in His sight. Your life is lived in the sight of your God. Proverbs 15.3 says, The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. How many of us have considered this just once? Just once this past week? let alone what the reality of these truths and the examples that we have seen and the application of this letter should really provoke in us, that we be constantly and ever aware that our lives are in His sight. You see how desperately we need God to answer this prayer for us as well. That we be constantly aware every step, every movement, every decision, every day, every hour, every minute. We live in the realization and the acknowledgement that we are living, breathing before our God. That the God who is our God, that He not just be some religious notion, some religious tradition, that we do something that we do once or twice a week, but that we know to the depths of our soul that He is real, the God of this Bible is God, and He exists, and He is real, and we are ever before Him, and we are ever responsible to Him, and we are ever utterly dependent Oh yes, we need this petition too. Desperately. First, this morning, we need the perfecting work of this petition. You and I as saints, these Hebrew saints, they need it and we do too. We need the perfecting work of this petition. I mentioned that optative verb in verse 21, perfect. It's interesting how the King James Version translators translated it here. When I first saw this as I was studying the language, I said, now that's strange. They actually duplicated the verb in your translation. When it's broke down and you can see what Greek words are under it, if you will, They actually, the translators, duplicated the verb, which does define the meaning pretty well, but ironically not necessarily as we have it rendered here today. I don't know that it really... We read verse 21, those first few words there, make you perfect in every good work. I don't know that we really understand by that, today at least, exactly what that's getting at. Because it would actually be better understood according to the full meaning of the word perfect if it was rendered this, perfect you perfect. Perfect you perfect. God, He's praying, perfect them perfect unto every good work. The word here, perfect, literally means to mend, to fit, to restore, to prepare, to frame, to adjust, to shape, or several translations have it, equip. This word is used of the disciples for mending their nets. That word, mending. This word is used for God as He prepared, preparing a body for Christ. preparing a body for Christ. And also, it is used for God framing, that word framing, framing the world by His almighty Word. In reality, this speaks of God transforming us. It speaks of God fashioning us. It speaks of God molding us. It really speaks of this right here. Like Him molding us in His hand. And notice it says in every good Word, perfect them perfect in every good work. So can you hear it? What the apostle is praying for is the reality of the truth of Ephesians 2 verse 10. For we are His workmanship. We are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. You see, the apostle knew that for these Hebrew saints to hear these truths, the truths of this letter, even for it to be confirmed by the cloud of many witnesses and the infallible proofs that he set before them, he knew that it was not enough. They needed the molding, transforming hands of the Almighty God. They had to have. That's the reason he's pleading so intensely. They had to have the molding hand of God. And so do we. So that, he prays, we may do, notice, good works. Perfect and perfect in every good work. Now what's that? Well, the passage tells us what the good works are. Which, by the way, explains the transforming hand of God as well. The good works that He's asking God to equip us, to transform us, to mold us for is, look, to do His will. It is to do, the good works are to do the will of God. That's what it is. Good works are to do the will of God. To do the will of God. And so we go to our prayer closet. And we ask the Lord, show us Your will. Show us Your will. Then we wait there silently until we hear a voice in our ear, right? We don't hear anything, so even more intensely we wait and listen until we kind of get a feeling. Or a goose-bumpy, tingling sensation. Lord, show us Your will. I'm waiting for the feeling. I'm waiting for the sensation. That's probably your legs falling asleep. No, it's right here. The apostle in essence is pleading, Lord, equip them, transform them, make them a people of Your Word. Make them a people of Your Word. Speak effectually to them through Your Word. That's what the apostle just said. As a matter of fact, if you understand the doctrine, the examples, and the application, what is it? It's the Word of God. So he's asking God, take your Word, God, take it to the heart, just hearing it, just being reminded of the examples and hearing the imperatives of the application. I can't do it, Lord. You're going to have to take your Word and transform them with it. Your Word. Make them a people of Your Word. You know that Christ prayed this very same prayer in John 17. He said of His disciples, He said, I have given them Your Word. Sanctify them through Your Word. Your Word is true. Child of God, Saint of God, don't you want to be transformed? by your perfect, perfecting Father. Don't you want His molding, His transforming hand upon your life? Don't you want His mind and His character and the life that He says is abundant? Don't you want His will? Don't you want to do God's will? Your God's will? Don't you want to know and to do the will of God? Then you must become a student of His Word. You must become a student of this book. Well, that's work. Yes, it's work, but it's worth it. There's nothing in this world more worth it. There's no time that can be spent of any more value than becoming a prayerful student of God's Word, of this book that we hold in our hands. If we want our lives transformed, if we want a life of power and abundance, if we want a transformed life, living in the will, the perfect will of God, we must become students of this book. We must. You know, when Christ the Rabbi came to His disciples, and that's all of us saints, when Christ the Rabbi came to us and said, follow Me, He wasn't saying to them or to us, follow Me from this place to this other place. No, He was saying, walk with Me. Stay with me. Abide with me. Hear my teaching. See my life. Learn of me and serve me by serving my interests. That's what Christ, when He went to John and James on Zebedee's boat and said, follow me. When He went to Peter, follow me. They didn't understand this as just going down here to Capernaum a little ways with Him. Going down to the street for... No. He was calling them out for them to be followers of Him, in every sense of the word. And we can do absolutely zero of that, absolutely zero of that, without knowledge of His Word. That's the reason Christ said in John 8 and 31, He said, if you continue in My Word, If you continue in My Word, then are you My disciples indeed. Not just if you know My Word, you know a few verses out of My Word, and you know, that's a good book. No, He's not talking about that. If you continue in My Word, if you study, love, live My Word, you are My disciples indeed. If you read and learn and know to do God's Word. May the Lord help us. And I know this is an inclination of ours. May the Lord help us to understand that the reading of God's Word is not to be approached with a mere religiosity. I read through the Bible five times this year. If you did it for you, you just got all that you're going to get. All you're going to get. We cannot approach the reading of God's Word, the study of God's Word with a mere religiosity. It must be approached with a knowledge that you need God to transform you through His Word. You will not be transformed any other way. We need the perfection of this petition. We need it. Only God can grant it unto us. There's more, speaking of that. We need the perfection, but the perfection without, number two, the power of this petition is nothing but vain, lifeless religion. So we need the power of this petition as well. Look, it continues in verse 21. Make you perfect in every good work to do His will, now watch, working in you, which is well-pleasing in His Son. Working in you. So yes, these Hebrew saints and we as well, we need the external perfections of the good works of the will of God, but even more, better said first, they and we, we need the internal power and presence of God. We need God, Him, working in us. We must have the indwelling Spirit of God. You see how far removed this is from religion? We must have the Holy Spirit, God the Spirit, living, dwelling, abiding within us. Do you see how far removed this is from anything that man has the power to do? Do you see how supernatural this is? God must work in us. He must be in us. He must be abiding within us. Without the blessing of the grace of God, without this blessing, it is all useless. It is all just religious vanity and vexation is all it is, and it will all add up to our eternal curse. And here's why. Here's why. We need God working in us. But in Ephesians 2 and verse 1, it says, And you, speaking to his people, you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses Listen, where in times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. Who is that? Satan. In times past, you've been made alive now, is what he's saying, but remember, in times past, you walked according to Satan. And listen to what else he says. The spirit that now worketh in, in the children of disobedience. Here's the reality. All of us have a spirit abiding within us. That's what Scripture reveals. You have one of the two. You have Satan or you have God. The spirit of Satan or the spirit of God. That's what it says. We must have God abiding within us. And listen, let us be reminded, and this truth confirmed in our minds by these very Hebrew saints and those of their own number who had actually returned to the ways of their religion. Remember that's what we saw at the beginning of the book. The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience has always been and will always be, until he's finally destroyed, he is a spirit of religion. He is a spirit of religious works, but it's false religion. It's idolatrous religion, but I'm going to tell you, be you warned, people, it is a deceiving spirit. Deceiving religiousness. I've said it before. You know where I stand on this. I am persuaded that church buildings are full, absolutely full and running over with people who have been deceived who actually own the spirit of Satan, they've been deceived by a vain religiosity that is going through religious motions. This is not about religion. This book, the whole book, the crux of it is that. It's not religion. It's Christ. It's Christ. He's superior to all of it. If God's own religion cannot save you, that being His law, No religion that man or spirit has ever formed can save you either. Christ. Christ alone. We must have the Spirit of God living within us. We must be, as the Lord told Nicodemus, you must be born again. We must be born again of the Spirit of God. Listen to what God the Son said. John 15, verse 5, I am the vine. Ye are the branches." Now we know that picture, right? Go out to the tree and look. I'm the trunk, is basically what he says, and you're the branches. Okay? We know. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. But what's going to happen if you cut the branch off and throw it over in the pile? You going to get any apples off that branch? No, because Christ said, following, for without Me you can do nothing. Now, you might have a few leaves left on the branch, it might take a few days to wither away, but it's not bearing any fruit. It's nothing. It's to be gathered up and burnt in the fire, is what it is. I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abideth in Me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, Because without Me, you can do nothing. You can be religious, but you'll be lost. You can do things to gain the praise of men and even the praise of your own self, but you will not do one single thing to gain the praise of God, and we must gain His praise. It is as someone has said, there cannot and will not be conformity to the will of God in the life until there be to him in heart. We must be born again. We have to be given by the sovereign grace and power of God a new heart. A heart from a bone. We must be born of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ must abide within us. This is the only way we can do the will of God. It is the only way that we can be pleasing in His sight. All else is futile. And the Apostle, under the inspiration of the Spirit of Truth here, he knew this. And so he pleads before God for these saints. the saints of all ages, even us, for God to give us His power, for God to give us His Spirit unto this perfection. Yes, absolutely. We need this prayer. Can you see how you need the power and perfection of this petition? Can you see how you need God's power to do the will of your God to be well-pleasing before His sight. If you know anything about yourself, if you truly know anything about yourself out of this book and out of the spirit of this book, you know that you are totally incapable totally, absolutely incapable of doing the will of God and being pleasing in His sight. You know you fail and you know that you continue to fail and you know in the depths of your soul you need the power of the Spirit of God. You need God dwelling in you and moving you and fashioning you and molding you. into the image of Christ. You know that if you know anything about this book and the God of this book. That is what the prayer of this, the apostles petition is pleading to God for on behalf of these saints on our own behalf as we become the inheritors of his word. Something else though that we should know thirdly, something else that we need as well And we actually see this in our third point. And I don't want to confuse you, but I try to keep it together a little bit. We've seen the first. Some of us saw the potentate of the prayer last week. We won't go any further than that. Some of us did. And then we've just looked at the petition of his prayer. Now we want to see, number three, the praise of the apostle's prayer. These Hebrew saints needed And yet still today, saints, we also need the perfection and the power of the petition. We also need, number three, the priority of this petition. Notice the end of verse 21. Please, Lord, grant this perfecting, this equipping, this transformation through Your power, through Your Spirit within us. And then notice, through Jesus Christ, But don't stop there. And then he says, through Jesus Christ to Him, to whom or to Him be glory forever and ever. Amen. So the priority of this petition and the praise of the apostles' prayer is through Jesus to Jesus. through Jesus to Jesus. God mold us. God make us. God perfect us perfect by Your presence and Your power, Your Spirit within us through Jesus Christ for this great end to the eternal praise and glory of Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ to Jesus Christ. Now that might be a little confusing, even preposterous to some. But if you have really learned what we've been studying over these past months, if you have truly learned the doctrine of this letter, if its true life examples have been really, really made a profit to you, if you've reckoned in your own life its commands of application, then through Jesus, to Jesus, makes all the sense in the world. And the one that comes as well. Because if we pull it all down, this letter, its doctrine, its examples, its application, it tells us and proves to us this. If you haven't heard anything else, hear this this morning. It tells us and proves to us that in the mind of God, in the mind of our God, your God, the one true and only God, in His mind, His Son, Jesus Christ is everything. In the mind of God, His Son, Jesus Christ, is everything. He always has been and He always will be. The reason that Jesus Christ is indeed superior is that He is superior, and especially so in the eyes of His Father. In the eyes of the God who owns all knowledge, and wisdom. In the eyes of the God who is absolutely, totally righteous, holy in righteousness. In the eyes of the God and Father who looks and sees upon the heart and upon the soul, in His eyes, in His mind, the Lord Jesus Christ is everything. Because He is so far superior to everything and anyone else. But that being the case, and we saints, being His, that God's children, His offspring, if you will, spiritually speaking, being His Spirit indwelling within us, that God's Spirit who sees and knows Jesus to be everything. If His Spirit dwells in us and we are His children, Well, should He not, should not Jesus Christ also be superior in our eyes as well? Will He not then, if the Spirit of this God abides within us, will not Jesus Christ, the person of Jesus Christ, will He not be our all in all and our everything as well? Oh, that we would see and love Christ, that we would think about and value the Lord Jesus Christ like our Father. Like our God. Now that's a desire to have. That you would see Him and know Him and marvel in Him and glory in Him. Like your Father that is in heaven. Do you have that desire? That Jesus Christ, really, you would see Him and love Him like His Father loves Him. Do you have that desire? Saints, understand that if this prayer of the Apostle is answered in your life, this will be a reality in your life because this is at the very heart. This is the priority of the prayer. It's through Jesus, to Jesus. That's what the prayer, that's what He's pleading in essence when it's all boiled down, mold them, make them God, transform them, I beg you. through Jesus to His glory, to Jesus. That's the priority and the praise of the prayer. Can I plead with our hearts for a moment this morning? Can I plead with us? Can I plead, if I could use that optative mood, Can I plead and beg with us this morning to get over ourselves? I'm standing at the head of the line, okay? Get over yourself. Get over ourselves. Can I beg and plead with us this morning to put down the carnal desires of our flesh? Can I beg and plead with us this morning to lay aside the temporary temporary things of this world and to earnestly and fervently look and see and desire the superior, excelling, surpassing glory and beauty and splendor of the Lord Jesus Christ. Can I plead with you this morning that you would beg God for a desire in your own heart and in your own mind to desire Christ as God the Father desires. To love Him as God the Father loves Him. To see Him and to know Him, the Apostle Paul said. Just let me know Him. Everything else is as a downhill. Just let me know Christ. Let me know Him. Oh, that that would be our desire. But that we would have a desire Can I plead with you to consider and to desire the very lover of our soul? Of the lover of our eternal souls over anything and anyone that this world has to offer? Can I plead with you to have our hearts and our minds and our lives consumed and ravished by Him as His love? And why would we not? Why would we not? Why would we hold out for the temporal dust of this world when we can have the all-supporting Why would we not desire Him? Why would we not desire to know Him and to love Him and to lay everything aside for the One who laid His life freely down for us without a cause? There was nothing in you or me that moved Christ to lay His life down unto death. Nothing! Not one single thing! If He acted justly towards us, He would have turned His back on us forever! No, this superior, excelling Christ, this glorious Savior, the lover of your eternal soul that wasn't worth loving, you see. No, He laid His life down and died for you to save you from the eternal wrath of your sin that you deserve and that I deserve. But He died in my place. That high criminal cross. The one right there, smack dab in the middle. Murderer, the insurrectionist cross. That was mine. It was yours. And this Christ said, no, I'll take the cross. I'll take it. I'll take it. So they don't have to. I'll take it so he don't have to, so she don't have to. This one, this glorious Christ, He became sin, the Scripture says. He was defiled with your sin, though He knew no sin, though He knew not one single sin, but He became defiled with your sin. God imputed our sin, your sin and my sin upon Him and judged Him. Instead of, so that why? So that we might be the righteousness of God in Him. We might be the children of God. We might be the apple of God's eye. Instead of the defiling stench of sin in His non-scriptures. So that we might be the Christ at death for you. He is the one who justifies you right now before the throne of God, makes you judicially perfect in the sight of God by His own righteousness and His sin-cleansing blood so that you can be acceptable. I know the world thinks that God has to accept them. No, He does not. No, He won't. No, He will not depart. apart from the justifying perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ. God does not own, oh man, anything, nothing, especially not His love and not His favor, especially not the blood of His Christ, but He has given it to us so that we might be acceptable in the sight of God, our what? Our Father. He's the one who right now, right now, this moment, sits there right in the name of God. Whoever liveth to make intercession, not generic intercession. No, he makes it for you, saints. For me, child of God, He makes it for you. He's your advocate. He's your surety. He's your perfection. He's your great high priest. He does so because He loves us with an unsearchable, everlasting love that could never, never, never come from what we are, but only what we are in Him. That's who I'm talking about. He's the one. Would you desire? Would you long for? Would you hunger and thirst for Him? Would you long for or really want? Could I plead with you to really desire a heart that its single desire and single focus would be to praise and honor and glorify Him and everything else praise, honor, glorify Him. Could that be your desire? Could you have such a life as that? We've got to get over ourselves to do it. We've got to get over ourselves and we've got to stop living our lives for us. and the things of this world, and the people of its world, and really, mostly though, it's us. Then, then yes, it's possible. It's possible to have the mind of our God in measure. We own His spirit. We have His spirit in measure. It's possible Because that is really what this petition is all about. That is what the Apostle is pleading for. Matter of fact, I want you to see just one more thing here. It really goes back to our first point that we dealt with last week. Potentate the God of the Apostle's prayer. Because the Apostle prays, he earnestly desires here, he pleads for the transforming work of the indwelling Spirit of God upon the lives of these Hebrew saints and us as well. Through and to the praise and glory of the Lord Jesus. But remember, now get this. Get this, don't miss this. The apostle, he is praying for this glorious thing. He is praying for this glorious life in these saints. And he is praying to who? The God of peace. He is praying to the God of peace who desires peace, which means He desires reconciliation. He desires salvation. He is the God of salvation who actually desires His redeemed saints that they have such a life as is described and prayed for in verse 21. And not only is He a God who desires this, but He is a God who has acted. with almighty sovereign power to declare, to elect, to predestinate and bring forth a Savior. Verse 20, the shepherd of the sheep, the great one. and then has brought Him to this earth as the spotless Lamb of God. And then He has offered His soul as a substitutionary sacrifice for sin on the cross. And He's offered His soul, offered Him as a scapegoat for sin in the grave. He loosed Him from the grave by His perfect righteousness, by His ability, His merit, His just deserve. He loosed Him where we talked about that phrase last week. He unfurled the sail of His eternal glory exalted in the heavens. This God, the God of peace, the one to whom the Apostle is praying for, too, did this. This is the God, the Almighty God of grace and mercy and salvation. The very God who is all in for Christ. He's all in for Christ. The very same Christ that the Apostle is pleading that God calls us to be all in for Christ. You see the argument of the Apostle's prayer? You see, he's praying to the God who is all in for Christ. The God of peace, the God of salvation, who does everything for the glory of his precious son, he's praying to that God, God, make them your people. All in for him. You see the motivation for God to answer the prayer. He has the supreme motivation of answering that prayer, why? For the glory of His Son. I just can't have a life like that, like what you're describing. So God won't answer a prayer? God the Father won't answer a prayer to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ in your life? I don't think so. He's pleading that this God transform the lives of His people and our lives and work in us for the glory and eternal praise of that very same Christ that He is all in for Himself. So absolutely, this prayer can be answered. This life can be known by you and by me. Here it is. Here it is. What was true for the Hebrew saints then is just as true for us today. The only thing, the only thing that hinders this reality in our lives, saints, lives truly live in the will of God. Lives truly live pleasing in the eyes of our God. Lives live for what they were created for. praise and the glory of our God and His Son, Jesus Christ. That's why we were created. That's why we have breath and life. The only thing that hinders that today is us. It's you. And it's me. That's a hard saying, isn't it? Let me get a little harder. It's you and it's me. And I'm just going to say this. This might not be a nice word, but it's our stiff-necked stupidity is what it is. That's what it is. It's our hard-heartedness. It's our rebellious, wicked, sinful flesh. That's what hinders it. That's the reason that just the glory We ought to be able to sit down and read this book and be transformed just by reading it. Because it's Jesus Christ and Him superior to everything. And Him being the God-supplied Savior of human beings like us. We ought to be transformed just to read on an intellectual level. No. There's this flesh. how easily he's deceived. Yes, Satan snatches the word away, but we're deceived by Satan's devices too. We let him in, we let him get close to the word in our own lives, snatch it away. We so often, and me too, not prepared, not prepared for the preaching and receiving of God's word. It's us, it's you, and it's me. But what a wonderful coincidence, look, coincidence, before us today. In a little while, we will have great glorious privilege of observing the God-given ordinance of the Lord's Supper. And God gave that ordinance to us to remind us of the unsearchable glory of Jesus Christ and what he's done for us. This supper, It's through Christ to Christ. That's what it is. At the same time, though, he's called us and warned us to examine ourselves, to repent, to repent from sin, to repent of self. What a convenient time for a clean start. What a convenient time to confess our sins before God, maybe before others, I don't know, you know. What a convenient time God has placed in our midst to confess our sins and to repent and turn to Christ. Turn to Christ and live for him. This one who is superior to everything and everyone. This one who gave himself for you so that you might know the glory of his salvation and the glory of his father. To live for him, solely, solely for him. To live through him, to him. May the Lord grant us grace to hear his word this morning. that this prayer be answered. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.