Well, we come today to Hebrews chapter 13, Hebrews chapter 13 in our study of the book of Hebrews with just two sermons left, and next week we will conclude the book by looking at this great benediction in the book, but today we come to Hebrews chapter 13, found on page 1197. And we will be looking at verses 15 through 19. Let's give our attention this morning to the Holy Word of the Lord, beginning at verse 15. Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner. And there we'll end the reading of God's Word this morning. Well, the title of the message today is Praise Music That Pleases God, and I'm sure some of you thought, oh no, Pastor Gordon's going to go against all the music that's going on out there, and I'm not really interested in doing that, so you can calm down. The title is not aimed at that. What I plan to do here, I have a much bigger concern, actually, than that. I have a much more important concern than that. It has to do with inspiring you to a calling that is far more comprehensive than the very limited discussions we get into when it comes to church music. in a way that looks at the big picture about the use of praise in our lives. And I don't want to think just merely about offering just in a moment on Sunday a few songs of praise. I want to think about the whole life of praise that incorporates this, of course, but to look at the Christian life of praise. But this has always been a great challenge, understanding response to the gospel, understanding how we are to live, thankfully, in light of all that Christ has done for us. But imagine the situation in the first century. He's already been concerned that these Christians are on milk, remember. They've not progressed in the faith. They've not grown in the faith. They're, as we looked at last time, lightweight Christians. And here's what they were saying. You know, we've looked at the challenges in the book of Hebrews and the many things that they were facing. And they were looking at old covenant worship. That was familiar to us culturally. That was better for us. It's what we grew up with. Imagine that. It's what we grew up with. Have you read Psalm 150 and all the list of instruments there? Why aren't we getting all that? Why, what is this worship in the spirit stuff? It's not connecting. It's not connecting for me. I'm not feeling it. I want to go back to what I knew. It would be like some saying, I just want to go back to the, not so much for the content, but I just want to go back to the hymns because I used to sing the hymns. That kind of stuff. I want the old experience back. I want to feel in this. I want something more in this. If this were a scenario, it wouldn't sound a lot different from today. The depth of Christianity on these sort of issues is pretty surface. I mean, it's tied to pace. The connections to Christianity is tied to the pace of music, the experience, the performance. I think we get to a test today of an offering that truly pleases the Lord. Aside from all those discussions, what is the offering? What is the worship? What is the praise that truly pleases the Lord? That transcends all these discussions, doesn't it? Let me be very clear here. God is interested in your singing, most certainly. God is interested in how you sing to him. God is interested in the way you sing out to him. He is interested in what comes out of your lips. The challenge, however, is not so much the sound of music, but the sound of the words. And that's what we're going to look at today from this really marvelous passage. What we're looking at today is after all this gospel to us, after all this good news, how do we order our lives to praise God? What does that look like? That's the question that I think the author has turned to. And remember, he's demonstrating how to truly praise the Lord with an understanding of the gospel in our lives. Anything that we do in this life that is a response comes with understanding, as we looked at a moment ago. I want you to remember the problem here, and then you'll kind of see where he goes with this. The problem were the Jews were saying, you have no altar. It's all about worship, he's been wrestling with. You have no altar to go to. You have no sacrifices to perform. Remember? and because of that, you're not truly getting access to God. You're not truly getting your hearts established in power. I remember what he said last time. No, no, your hearts are established by grace. Grace comes down from heaven to you. You're not really, though, they said, you don't have the feasts. You don't have all these wonderful things that we did in the Old Covenant to bring you close to God. And the author responded by saying, that is not true. That is not true. We have an altar. Oh, we do have an altar. That altar is Golgotha. That altar is when Jesus went outside the camp, by the way. And by the way, that's the calling for us as Christians is to go outside the camp of popularity, outside the camp of respectability, and bear his reproach since he died in shame for us. Well, you have to leave that and come to the only sacrifice that reconciles you to God. Now imagine the discussion after that. Well, okay, okay, you say you have an altar, but you don't have any sacrifices to bring to God. The whole Testament's full of this. Where are your sacrifices? What are you bringing? They were commanded Thanksgiving offerings. And remember, we would offer to God bread and cakes and all these things and song. Where are your sacrifices? Haven't you read Psalm 150? All the instruments listed, those are sacrifices. Those are sacrifices. Why don't we get that? It's really an important point. Notice again how everything is in contrast to New Covenant worship here. Everything in the Old Covenant had to be touched. Everything had to be handled. Everything was experienced in a certain kind of way. They touched bread. We touch bread, don't we? They touched bread. They baked bread. They made cakes. They were interested in the physical sacrifices. They were so trained this way. Why do we have such little emphasis on that in the new? I'm not saying these things are necessarily wrong. What I'm saying is, is that everything in the new covenant, when he talks about sacrifice and worship of God, comes and is labeled and is designated as spiritual worship. I mean, this is Romans 12. Therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, present your bodies as a living sacrifice. You're not shedding blood anymore. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. See, you're physical creatures. We're not Gnostics. But we take our bodies and we offer spiritual sacrifices, spiritual worship to God. So the answer to this sort of first century charge was, where are your sacrifices? The author would say, oh, we have sacrifices too. Sure, we have sacrifices. Let's talk about some of those sacrifices. And that's exactly what he mentions here. He mentions two of them using the very word of sacrifice, doesn't he? So notice verse 15 carefully to answer this great charge. You don't have an altar. You don't have sacrifices. Yes, we do. Here it is. Therefore, by him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, he says. That verse profoundly affected me this week. You know where it's taken from? It's taken from the book of Hosea, chapter 14. I want you to listen to Hosea 14 too carefully. Where the author was looking and where he pulled this from to make the application to this. Listen carefully to Hosea 14.2. O Israel, return to the Lord your God. For you've stumbled because of your iniquity. How do we return to the Lord? Here is how. Take words with you. And return to the Lord. Say to him, take away all our iniquity. Receive us graciously. For we will then offer to you the calves of our lips. That's where he grabbed it. You see what he's saying? Christianity is not confined to a moment of praise. I think that's been part of the problem. I think that's been a real big part of the problem. We've confined it to a moment on Sunday. Praise that Christianity that offers praise that is true and authentic and in real are living every day expressing how grateful we are that God has taken away our sins by His grace and the proof is real in our lives because we are offering back to God a sacrifice of the calves of our lips, a sacrifice of our lips to God. That's an acknowledgement of Him. That's an acknowledgement of grace. That's an acknowledgement of the marvel that, Lord, You would forgive someone like me? That's the response of somebody who's truly understanding the sacrifice of Christ for them, Who truly, when they come and say, Lord, forgive my sins. And the Lord says, I will take away all your iniquity and I will receive you with grace. And you say, that requires thanksgiving from my lips. Let's start there. When I held up that liturgy today, did you notice that the praise was in the category of our response? our response to God for the grace given. It's not something that's worked up. You can't sort of work up people into sort of an ecstatic stupor or an ecstatic experience to sort of get God through a better and lifting up experience. That's like drug use. You come down from that. That's not how it works. It's a response to grace. The mind has to be informed by grace to have a proper response in the lips. And I'm going to challenge us here. We should be absolutely first and foremost when we come together as God's people lifting up our voice in song to him when you see the structure of this. Are some of us just mumbling? It's not a good witness. you know what preaching is, right? It's not really regular speech. I don't walk around speaking like this usually to you in public, do I know? I don't do this to you because you couldn't handle it in regular speech. You know, it just seems like, look, get away from me. I lift up my voice to you. I lift up my voice because God has commanded me to come to be a bearer of good news to you. And I lift up my voice as the, what is the voice of God to you from the scriptures. So we're called to lift up our voices so that what you hear is God bearing his burden to forgive your sins and love you. What's the music? The response to that. If you can barely move your lips to him, you haven't heard him. I just preached in the American Reformed Church a few weeks ago. And I only raise this because some say it depends on the music. They were singing the old Genevan hymns, I mean psalms, to the old Genevan tunes. The whole place thundered. I'd never heard anything like it. They had been so taught in the home, and they were thundering these things out in worship. I think it would be a shock to us, you know. It was a shock to me. I want to challenge us with this. That's not a comparison. It's a challenge with this. If a neighbor walked in here, somebody walked in here off the street, would they see in us joyful response of people who understand the gospel? I want to challenge us with that. so important. There is a witness in our singing, most certainly. Lifting up our voices in response to how the Lord has lifted up his voice to announce forgiveness is a right response. Also in your homes. Sometimes I think we have so confined singing in our tradition to the hymn book on Sunday. What a wonderful thing if we pulled it back out in the home. And we sang with our children, and I'm convicted about that, to do that. It goes farther than that, doesn't it? What's the second way? Notice what he says. He defines it. Therefore, by him, through him, let us continually offer up the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. You understand it goes a whole lot farther than music, doesn't it? It goes a full lot farther than just music. Someone could say, I love to come to church for the music and have the experience, but in their lives they never once open up their lips to ever acknowledge the name of Christ. What would we call someone like that who only comes to church for Sunday for the music, but never once, makes a big deal about that, but never once opens up their mouth in public to acknowledge Christ? What would you call someone who only made their Christianity confined to one hour on Sunday? A hypocrite. Same thing. What he's saying is, when you understand the gospel and all that's done for you, what begins to happen is it begins to overtake your lips in telling others, in concern for others. I don't know. There's good examples that I think you were encouraged to follow in life. You know, I still can't get Pete DeYoung out of my head when it came to this, you know. You could never leave the conversation apart from Pete without a sense of how great his sin was And how much mercy God had given him that he would forgive him as a great sinner and how he never deserved it and how you always had a sense that he wanted you through those lips to know this. I think that's why Paul says, look at those who are great examples to us and emulate them. Follow that pattern. Maybe for too much in our tradition we've just gone along with, we don't talk about our faith. That is so counter to what biblical Christianity is. This is who we are. This is what we do. Is that easy? No. But that's why the ministry of the gospel is so important. Because as the Lord works in our hearts, it stirs up the lips. And you can also say, prayer, isn't it? You know, prayer is such an important way to offer lips of sacrifice to God. What are we doing in prayer? What should be primary in prayer? Praise. Praise. Look at all the things we have to acknowledge. You can acknowledge the wonders of His creation. You can acknowledge the wonders of His power, of His providence, of His help, of His care. of his salvation. That might be the greatest test of true Christianity because that's done in the closet, isn't it? Pray. That's what he calls us to. Offering the sacrifice of our lips to God. That's what he says. That's how, this is a way of sanctification, not a way of justification. Let me make that clear. It's not putting us back under the law and saying you're not a Christian if. We're saying these are the responses that demonstrate true faith. The second that he mentions here, the second sacrifice is what? Well, we're not just loving in word, right? That's always been a problem, but we're loving in deed. And that's what he says here. But do not forget, verse 16, to do good and to share, for such sacrifices are well-pleasing to God. That's a really encouraging verse, isn't it? Focus on the latter part of that for a minute. Do you know you can actually please God? That's something we have to pause and think about. You can please God. I think sometimes we've so emphasized sin and misery. That is absolutely true. That we forget that as his redeemed creatures, God is no longer angry with us. His wrath has been appeased. His wrath has been propitiated. his wrath has passed over. And he is inspiring us as his children now. You can please me. Here's how. I know I just was at the GRN conference with Kevin DeYoung, and he used this great illustration, and I think it's effective. But he used, and this is a common experience to all of us dads, but imagine my daughter, when I was little, she used to come and she used to draw pictures of me, you know. And she would come and she would give me these pictures. And, you know, some of those pictures, I was fat and I had two hairs, you know. And I didn't look anything like me. How would I respond to that? How dare you? How dare you draw me like that? What kind of dad would I be if I did that? Sure, that picture's not perfect of me. My daughter worked hard on that picture out of love. I still have some of those pictures, you know. Is God ready to strike us for the least infraction? God wants you to know that he's well-pleased with certain sacrifices. What are the sacrifices? Sacrifices of lips that praise him in the way we talked. And he says, doing good and sharing with those in need. We don't just love in word, but in deed. And you see, look at how much is given to us freely of grace. Look at the patience. Look at the long-suffering. Look at the forbearance. All this goodness in life that we enjoy from the Lord. There's a lot of goodness that we enjoy from the Lord every day. We can imitate that provision and care and care about those who have needs. And that pleases God. That's a sacrifice to him of praise. What an encouragement. Well, there's one more briefly of an imperative he gives here to the community. And it's not called a sacrifice, but it follows from the same spirit of sacrifice. So I designate it as that, and I think it's a very important one in verse 17 to remember. Obey those who rule over you. Did you notice that? Obey leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do so. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. That there was a new generation of pastors coming and they were not being received in the Christian communities with respect and submission as the apostles were dying out. The author's concerned about this. You know, I remember first going into ministry at 27 years old. I was preaching, I'll never forget, and Lyndon, she's gone now, but she was 93. Her name was Dora. And I would preach to Dora at 27 years old. And, you know, no man could ever set this up. Dora here speaks. She's a dear old saint. And she would receive that word with such respect and submission because she believed that word came from the Lord. Do you know the onus that put on me to be faithful because I give an account? If I'm telling you lies, expose it. If I'm preaching falsehood, expose it. But if I'm preaching you the word of God, fear and tremble. Because that's God blessing you. You see? Only the Lord could set this up. The Lord is greatly concerned in our times that his ministry be received with great honor and respect. It's not roast pastor at Sunday lunch. I say that because I know that's the history of what's been done, and I get it, because sometimes pastors deserve to be roasted. However, it may be for my own mistakes, or it may be for a pastor's own quirks, or it may be for foolish things that he's done, but if he's spoken the Word of God to you, that should come with great respect and great honor. That's what he's saying. It's serious business because, well, did you notice there? We leaders watch out for your souls as those who have to give an account. That's serious. This is why Paul said, I didn't shun to preach the whole counsel of God to you. I preached the difficult stuff, and I preached the gospel, and I preached the law, and I preached everything that God's counsel revealed so that I would have a clear conscience because I give an account, and I care about the people I preach to. If we sought to please men, if we sought to ear tickle people, we would not be bond servants of Jesus Christ. That means our job is to preach the counsel in a way that pleases God, but he really wants you to remember that it's important to reverently receive it and obey the instruction. One pastor said, without a doubt, the single greatest discouragement any pastor faces is a congregation that will not believe what he's teaching from the Word of God. This is what wears a minister down, not hard hours of labor, but frustration with a hard-hearted flock, let me say in a clear conscience right now, I'm so thankful I don't serve a flock like that. I don't. I praise God for you. The greatest gift a Christian can give to a spiritual leader is readiness to believe, not me, but the Word of God. And so he makes an important connection here. Let us do this with joy. Let us do our work with joy and not with grief for that would be unprofitable for you. You know that principle. If you're always attacking leaders and you're always attacking, even in the civil realm, we see this. If leaders are always under pressure and they're always attacked, does that make them want to lead in love to the people? No, it turns around in harshness on them. So there's a reciprocal beauty in this that when there's respect and honor, there's a flow of deep benefit to you as a clear conscience is able to be given in the preaching of the gospel. I think it's a great encouragement in verse 18. That's why the author here asks for prayer. Did you notice that? Pray for us, that we have a good conscience and then all things that desiring to live honorably. We need prayer. We need a lot of prayer from you. And I encourage you to pray for your pastors and your elders and your deacons. That connection here is a sacrifice of praise. You can use your lips to speak to Christ of others and acknowledge his names. You can use your goods and your lives to give and generously help others. And I think the author is saying here, there's another thing you can do. You can use your lips to pray for your pastors. That in our ministries we would have a good conscience, we'd be kept, any pastor can fall, any pastor can fall. That we'd be kept from sin, that we would not fall into it, that we would have a good testimony, that we would live honorably, that there's so much spiritual attack right here on this that you don't even realize is going on. Pray for us, he says. That's a crucial way we're kept is your prayers. So you see that? We give an account, but a crucial way we're kept is your prayers for us. That we would live godly. How much hypocrisy has there been in the church? Pray for this for us, he says. Pray for this. This is the kind of response to the gospel that pleases the Lord. Yes, you can please Him as recipients of grace. It's a remarkable epistle that has blessed us with showing us the indescribable gift of God's Son for us. That's what He's done the whole time. This gift of His Son in a ministry of the Word. And so He's giving us, in response at the end here, how we can offer, we have an altar we can run to, we have Christ we can come to, and how then we can actually present sacrifices in our lives as they were being criticized, they didn't have, you've got it. Here's how the sacrifices that please God. Use your lips to acknowledge him in the ways we talked about. Use your goods to bless others and receive his ministry with great respect and pray for your pastors. Isn't it wonderful that this ends by saying such sacrifices, says the Lord, are well-pleasing to me. well-pleasing to me. I hope that's encouraged you today. Next time we have this great benediction of what Christ's blood has covered us with and that we're able to go on in strength. But I pray this blesses you today to offer in your lives the sacrifice, the calves of lips that acknowledge his wonderful name. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for a blessed section of Scripture to encourage us and to help us. Of course, we ask for forgiveness, for we have certainly not, O Lord, used our lips or goods or even prayed and receive your ministry with utmost respect. But we ask as we consider the marvel of having our hearts established by grace through the cross of Christ, that these things would be more characteristic of us and we ask for your holy spirit that they might be characteristic in our lives that true praise would flow from us and that it would encompass all of our lives not just on sunday throughout the whole course of our weeks thank you lord for hearing your word today for the privilege of this may we all fear and tremble that the lord our god has met with us today and spoke in his holy word. May we respond in faith. In Jesus' name, amen.