Turn with me and your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 13 Hebrews chapter 13. This is our last Sunday in our 30 days of praise and we're praising God for This is many ways in which he's blessed our church and what's stimulated all of this was the opportunity to buy five acres of the farm land next door and By the way, there's still time to to give towards the fund there Looks like the closing date. I believe this can be somewhere around the 19th or so of of April so there's still plenty of time and And so you can be looking at way God provides I know for many of you tax time is not the ideal time if you're like like me as a ministering because of tax season I'm self-employed and so so you know April 15th is always Wait and pay as little as I can throughout the year so that April 15th. I get this humongous bill and And so always makes finances interesting in the month of April but God provided in an interesting way for our family to be able to give this year The seminary is for formerly a logical seminary where with some of our staff is in school up the road They needed someone to come and critique first year students in their preaching and you know, I like being critical and so And getting paid to be critical was you know, it sounds like a lot of fun and so Had the opportunity to go into to teach and then you think about you know, what we could do with that We we moved to a home back in the fall and we thought well, you know, maybe we can actually put curtains up or something like that and But then it turns out that it's just it's just almost exactly the amount of money that we're asking you know different families to contribute And so God in a way we didn't know how he would provide for us to be a part is providing a way for the base family to participate So God made me be providing unique ways for you all to get involved as well, but it really is exciting I it's me. It's exciting just to see our congregation rally for a cause and And to pull together for it and you look at the the goalmer at somewhere around 70,000 only 230,000 to go and You think oh boy, but for me it really is exciting to see everyone chipping in and being apart and And so we're still praying that God will provide so that we can pay for cash and if not Citizens Bank of Obedo it is there and that our goals pay cash So with that we're turning to Hebrews chapter 13 as we continue to praise God and this morning we'll be praising God for being our Equipment our Equipment and with that in mind, let's go to the Lord and prayer. Let's pray Our Father, we do thank you that you are gracious and that you have provided so richly for us We come here this morning We came in cars that you provided we come and we are are not hungry because you've provided food We come and we are clothed because you've provided clothing and we come before you and we can worship you and Praise you this morning and you can accept our praise because you've equipped us and provided for us to praise you And so Lord now as we turn our attention to your word and we see how you have prepared us for good works We pray that we might praise you for this as well. We pray that it's in Christ name. Amen In her essay an expedition to the pole any dealer describes the provisions carried along by some 19th century explorers as they went in search of the North Pole And here's what she writes she writes each sailing vessel carried it and an auxiliary steam engine and a 12-day supply of coal For the entire project entire projected two or three year voyage Get that 12 days of coal for a two to three year voyage Well, they also brought instead of bringing along extra coal. They brought each ship had a 1200 volume library a Hand organ playing 50 tunes China place settings for officer and men cut glass of wine goblets and sterling silver flatware The expedition carried no special clothing for the Arctic only the uniforms of her Majesty's Navy A few years later Semesco most came across their frozen bodies and Dragging behind them they've been carrying was a life raft full of silver and chocolate Sometimes not sometimes but almost always the success or failure of any venture depends on being properly equipped Sometimes if you have silver and chocolate when you need parkos and coal, you know, you're dim to failure. I mean it seems rather obvious No amount of effort desire or energy will suffice You can't just rally yourself with positive thinking saying you know, I'm gonna do it I'm gonna get it done if you don't have what it takes you're not gonna get there no matter how positively you think about it You have to have the right equipment you have to be prepared Well, what if you find That you're an address uniform when you need a parkum and you have a bunch of chocolate when you actually need a pile of coal And it's too late to turn back what if you find you're in a situation where you're called to do something and you don't have what it takes to do if you're not properly equipped Well the Hebrews chapter 13 Tells us where we go when we find that we're not equipped when we're not prepared to do something that we actually need to do So with that term with me to Hebrews chapter 13 versus 20 to 21. This is the end of the book of Hebrews The book of Hebrews we don't know exactly who wrote it there are many people who who've made guesses but Really that's all that they are the Bible doesn't tell us who wrote the book of Hebrews and he's summing up much of the Of the thought of the book of Hebrews here in these last two verses and here's Here's God's word May they got a piece who threw the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus that great shepherd of the sheep Equipped you with everything good for doing his will and may he work in us What is pleasing to him through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and ever amen? Well as we look at this this morning We're going to look at two points for which we can praise God there are many things in here which we could praise God for But we're only going to look at two because of our time and the first one is that we praise God for his power in the resurrection His power in the resurrection These verses are benediction a blessing that that the writer of Hebrews pronounces on his readers and In fact, it's a benediction that we've been using for the past month and use quite often in our church and he begins with the words may May the Lord equip you may they got a piece equip you now the way we use the word may in English is Often the equipment of I hope I hope the God equips you I hope that you're okay. I hope that they make that you make it but here. It's really it's that's not how it's being used It's not a wishful thought. It's something certain that is going to happen He's calling upon the blessings of God and these blessings will come into your life These are is praying praying for God to do what God has promised to do so may God equip you And so that's the focus of the verse the focus of the verses found in the of the passages kind of verse 21 That the God will equip you to do everything good with everything good for doing his will That's the focus but to understand that focus to believe that God will equip you with everything good for doing his will You first have to understand where that power comes from and that's what verse 28 concentrates on Which is the power of the resurrection the power of the resurrection The resurrection the same power that brought Jesus back in the dead is the power that's at work in your life as a Christian the whole Christian life Rest on the blood and on the resurrection Everything about the Christian faith hinges on the blood of Christ and the resurrection the apostle Paul said this He said if Jesus Christ is not raised from the dead our faith is in vain in other words our religion is worthless He said Jesus Christ is not raised from the dead Then we are to be pitted among all people where the most pathetic creatures on earth if we put our hope in Jesus Christ And he's not raised from the dead. That's he's saying. It's absolutely essential the resurrection is not Just an appendage to a appendix to Christianity. It is the at the core of it if it is not true the Christianity is false Christianity cannot be simply a good religion Christianity either it is true which means only through Jesus Christ does anyone find favor with God or it is false Which means it is deceitful it is misleading While back I was talking with the family that had been visiting our church and In the great family wonderful people and they're talking about how much they like our church That's why I say they're wonderful people because they like our church and So it doesn't like our church in their mind. So I'm talking to them. They're going. You know, I love the church I love the music. I You know the people are so nice and you're preaching and I'm saying oh, hopefully stop No, really come on. No, it's more or say more time but we're going on. They're telling me about how much they love the church and the guys If I have one problem You know, I really have trouble believing that Jesus Christ is really God and I really have a hard time believing that Jesus rose from the dead And so you know I'm hung up on this and I and he said I really want to believe that I have a hard time believing these things are true And so I you know as a train professional I went through all the reasons why you should believe in the resurrection and He said well, I'm not convinced. Well, you know, I was that was it. I had I've used every bullet in my gun belt at that point I had nothing more to say and he obviously was not convinced it was true and he said this because but you know I really I really think what you guys are doing up there at university Presbyterian is great. I think you know what you're doing Mark up there is wonderful and how it's helping so many people I said how can you say that? He said you said you said you don't believe what we teach is true. How come then what we are doing be good? If what I'm teaching is false and you said well everybody's so nice and they're moral. They love their kids a good family So I said so what if we're telling people teaching people just to be moral and we're telling them the reason To love your kids as we're giving them this hope of a God who loves you and forgives your sins But that's all lie then we're just deceiving people. We're deluding people. We're not good. We're evil If if the resurrection is not true Then we fall into the same category as Jim Jones and David Karech and the Uganda cult We're just a bunch of deceivers with giving people a pipe dream of hope where we're deluding everyone including ourselves It's not good what we're doing here church is an evil thing if the resurrection is not true That's what the Apostle Paul says first Corinthians 15. It's pathetic. We're pitiful if the resurrection is not true but It is true It is true and that's his whole point. He says because the resurrection is true We know that the power of God is real God did raise Jesus from the dead and it says he raised him through the dead through the blood of the eternal covenant Through the blood of the eternal covenant now that's around the strange language blood of the eternal covenant What's he talking about? Let's first talk about covenant covenant are things that we're familiar with today If you're married you entered into a married marriage covenant if you live in a neighborhood You probably have a neighborhood covenant some of you know first hand about the neighborhood covenant because when you've broken it You've gotten a little letter in your box, right? Neighborhood covenant is like all covenants all covenants have certain things in common They have stipulations which you must follow and then they have blessings if you keep them and curses if you don't and so for example Your neighborhood covenant usually says something like I will not modify my house in such a way it looks ugly I will not paint it fluorescent pink or orange I will do these things no certain things you have to do now the blessings are this if you keep the covenant Then the covenant stays in force and the neighborhood stays attractive and your home retains its resale value But if you break the covenant then they're going to put a leaning against your house They're going to send attorneys and you send you notes and they're going to they're going to harass you to the day you die And so you have it's blessings and you have it's curses Well God established a covenant first with the son that he was going to redeem a people for himself and then Establish this covenant repeats in the Old Testament with to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob and he has this covenant The covenant is this God says I will be your God and you're going to be my people now here are the stipulations Here's the law and you're to be holy and pure and righteous The problem was that the people could not keep the law they could not keep the covenant And so God says I'm going to give you a new covenant now. He says a new covenant He doesn't mean new as in changing the old it means the new and improved the old covenant always pointed towards a new covenant They're all one and the same it said the new covenant is not different from the old one It's like new and improved you go to the store and you go down the laundry to church and aisle you'll see new tide Now now I thought tide had been a lot around for a long time now the new tide what's the difference? Well, it's new and improved Well the same thing with a new covenant new covenant means it's the old covenant but it's Still enforcement's new and improved how's it improved and this is what the old covenant had pointed at all along Was that God was going to fulfill the covenant himself the God and the person of Jesus Christ was going to come and Take the curses of the covenant upon himself That's why he says that Jesus was raised from the dead by the blood of the eternal covenant It was Christ blood that was shed that brings the covenant into effect He endured the curse and he earned the blessings for us through his own life So he he kept the covenant In earlier in Hebrews it talks about this covenant and it says it's a new and a better covenant He quotes from Jeremiah 31 and he says the reason it's new and better is because the covenant includes All the blessings of the old covenant now there's all the promises to Abraham Isaac Jacob all the promises to the nation of Israel are Hours in Jesus Christ and it's better because God is fulfilling the curse through Jesus Christ and it's better because God is not simply giving the law But he's also changing our hearts. He's renewing us He gives us a new heart and the Holy Spirit which empowers us to live lives. They're pleasing to him and so He does this and so Jesus Christ shed his blood to fulfill the covenant covenant He endured the curse of the covenant and it's because he shed his blood because the covenant has been fulfilled That Jesus himself receives all the blessings of the covenant which are that he would is the Son of God Raise to the right hand of God the Father that he receives the inheritance of the Father and so when we look and we see the power of God in The resurrection what it tells us is that the covenant is enforced Explain this way the question is how do you know your sins are forgiven you say well? Jesus Christ died for my sins Well, how do you know the payment of Jesus was enough to forgive you over your sins? How do you know it's true? How do you know God accepted that sacrifice the reason we know is because Jesus rose from the dead If Jesus had not risen from the dead then his blood would not have been a worthy sacrifice But because he did rise from the dead we say then through his blood He has been raised and therefore is through the blood of the eternal covenant that we have salvation the resurrection proves the power of God it proves That all that we believe about Jesus Christ is real and is true and so we praise God where's power in the resurrection Well, secondly, we praise God for his power in our lives his power in our lives The prayer is the the God of peace will equip you with everything good for doing his will The God of peace will equip you with everything good for doing his will now. That's pretty remarkable The God is equipping you you are being equipped and powered with everything good for doing his will in other words You have the capability are empowered to do the will of God you are God is working you that which is pleasing to him How do you know that's true? The reason we know that's true is because we see the resurrection of Jesus Christ So the writer Hebrews is praying That the God of peace will equip you then with everything good for doing his will Now what that means then is that we need to be equipped to do the will of God on our own we cannot do the will of God Here is a I think the fundamental difference between Christianity and much of modern thought that much modern scientific thought and that Modern thought not most people, but at least your elites would say that we are all here by chance By chance there was this big bang by chance the explosion happened at just the right pace so that it created our solar system By chance the earth was just the right distance from the Sun to sustain human life by chance the earth had just the right Chemical so that life could be formed by chance those chemicals got together and and out of the primordial ooze Crawled this life by chance that life evolved into human beings by chance your parents met one another by chance Your parents did what parents do and you are here today and by chance we're all sitting here now think about that You're nothing but a cosmic accident Well, you're not just one accident you're a series of accidents. You are I mean you're not just everything about your life is an accident Which means what purpose does your life have? Why are you here? Well, you have no purpose you're an accident accidents don't have purposes if they're just by chance You have there's no meaning of purpose to your life whatsoever and you can say well my life does meaning because I want it to Fine want to do whatever you want to but if you're just an accident you're just an accident your life has no purpose And there's a sense in which we feel the emptiness of that The Christianity is radically different. It says this didn't all happen by chance So God created the universe and God created the earth and God created the human race and God created you And he created you for a purpose And his purpose was in creating you and in every human being his purpose when creating you Was that you might bring honor and glory to him and that you might enjoy him forever That's your purpose. That's why God made you and there's a sense in which all of us feel a sense of emptiness because we can't fulfill our purpose We can't do it Why why do we and everybody wants to live for a purpose nobody wants to live a meaningless life And yet we find ourselves Unable to do the purpose for which we were created the reason is because Adam and Eve our father and mother Rebelled against God and when they sinned against God They became disabled They no longer were able to bring glory to the father They no longer had the ability to do the will of God They were they were damaged in the system they were disabled in this gene of just this ability has been passed on to us So to speak so that all in the human race are unable to do the will of the father throughout the book of Romans it talks about this and Corinthians the unspeakable man cannot understand spiritual things Those with the out Jesus Christ cannot please the father and Hebrews without faith that is impossible to please God And how there is a sense which we are all Unable to do the will of God we are in a sense we are we are broken and Unable to do that which for which we are created to do and what this does is create a sense of frustration in our lines You are made for a purpose, but you can't fulfill your purpose You're made to glorify God, but you can't do it and there's a tension which we feel it's like It's like if you're an athlete and and you know there your team is in the championship game But you you know broke your leg and you're watching you're thrilled that your team's in the championship game But it's killing you that you can't be out there helping with your team. You can't do what you're there to do And we all feel that way because we cannot bring glory to the father the way that we were designed to do And so here's where the blood of the covenant comes in it says That through the blood of the covenant that brought back our Jesus or Jesus from the dead They got equipped us with everything good for doing his will He equips us We're being equipped with everything good for doing the will of God the word equipped to mean that different things in English For example, you can talk about equipping someone to play football That means they put on their shoulder pads in their helmet and they get ready then they're equipped or equip a soldier for battle and in their day You've given a shield and an armor and a sword and he'd be equipped Well, this word equipped means something a little bit different. It means more like repair or restore It's to take something which is broken and to fix it so that it can be usable And so what he's saying is God takes those lives which are broken I'm able to bring glory to himself I'm able to do the will of God and by the blood of the eternal covenant he restores those broken lives so that they can live with their purpose So that they can fulfill what they were made to fulfill So there's a sense in which We're about to crack pots right Or crack pots and I crack pots right crack pots Pots that can't hold water Pots that they cannot do what they were designed to do and God takes these crack pots and Restores them and makes them whole so that they can hold water so they can serve a purpose and be useful And God is doing that in our lives through Jesus Christ There's some of you you're you know, I just know I mean we all struggle with this thinking do I have purpose in my life Do I have any use to anyone as there anything good about me is that anything I can contribute and you look at your life You see the damage that sin has done the damage that you have done the damage that others have done to you And there's a sense in which you you'll believe that you have no purpose that you have no use that you cannot do anything with your life And God says no, I take broken lives lives have been damaged that look like they're beyond repair lives that were useless And I take them and I make them useful I take lives that they cannot do anything good and I restore them So that they can do the will of God You can be used by God and God it through Jesus Christ has given you everything you need Equipped you with every good thing for doing the will of God now. That's remarkable It's that really true. Yes, if the God is powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead Then he's powerful enough to restore you and me that's that's where a whole faith hinges If he's powerful enough to restore Jesus from the dead is powerful enough to restore you and me and Going off of that and he says he's working in us that which is pleasing to him think of the word pleasing Pleasing to him sounds sort of pleasing Pleasant but also another word that besides pleasure that comes from pleasing is pleasure God is working you in you that which brings pleasure to him in other words You weren't created simply to enjoy God the God created you so that he might enjoy you so that he might find his pleasure in you And again, this is a concept that probably many have difficulty with God enjoys me Some of you here have been through divorce some of you here have been through the pain and rejection and marriage and you're thinking Our friendship or been had a serious dating relationship where you they've dumped you and you're saying you're thinking Here's a person who knows me better than anyone else and they don't find any pleasure in me and yet they're Just a human being now. How can God the God of the universe find pleasure in me when nobody else does? I mean what is pleasurable about me and God says I'm a work in your life and make your thing a beauty. I'm a work in your life to make you an object of my pleasure Well, I'll delight in you and we say to that can't be and we say oh, yes, it can that's right If God is powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead. He's powerful enough to restore my life as well This morning we come before the Lord's table and the reason we come before the Lord's table Because we're reminded of that which is restoring us and making us beautiful We cannot equip ourselves We cannot you know, we're it's like we're we're in the Arctic Circle And we've got our life raft of chocolate and silver when we really need to coal and park us And we say where are we gonna get equipped to endure to do what we're what we came here to do How are we gonna survive and God says you can't do it yourself? You can only be equipped through Jesus Christ the blood of the eternal covenant It's the blood of Christ which makes us holy it's the blood of Christ That restores us and so we come before the Lord's table this morning to So we take of that juice to remember that the blood of Christ was shed for us and because his blood was shed for us We are cleansed. We are holy. We are beautiful before God and we know that's true because of the resurrection And we protect the bread of Christ because we as we protect the bread And we remember that Christ in his body earned the blessings of the covenant and so that those blessings are ours And we know that because of the resurrection so this morning is we come to the Lord's table and invite you To remember who you are in Jesus Christ that you're a one who's being restored that you're a one who's being equipped And it's all happening in the power of his blood. Let's pray our Lord Jesus Christ We do thank you and praise you that we can come and worship you The very fact that we can worship you is only because you have equipped us to do so The fact that we can come and praise your name is because you've equipped our hearts to praise you But we pray straight in our faith our tendency is to believe The message of the world that we are worthless that we are useless that we have no value our Tendencies to look at our sin and to see our weakness and to think that we are ugly and useless Well, we pray that today you'd help us to believe the gospel That even though we are simple that even though we are broken that you are restoring us You are making us objects of beauty not by our strength or our efforts But through the blood of the eternal covenant through Jesus Christ our Lord Well, we pray now as we come to the table strengthen our faith We pray that it's in Christ name, you know