Equipped by the One who 
Raised the Great Shepherd
Special Messages Part 78
Hebrews 13:20-21    4-4-10

Summary: Our souls “need work” (actually they are totaled – wrong desires, affections, etc.), so the request is that we will be equipped and worked on by God (which is what the Christian life is all about – God working in us) to give us everything we need to do His will and please Him – the purpose of our existence. But God’s will is hard. But the Benefactor is the God of peace (source of all wellbeing), and power isn’t a problem (resurrection), and He is bound to do it because He bound Himself by the blood of His Son. And the One He raised who brokers this deal is the great Shepherd, and intercessor so the likelihood of God blessing us is tied to Him glorifying His Son.

The Benefit
Working in you
The measure of a soul – love and desire
The Christian life is God working
Equip
God’s Will
Our purpose for existence
Nothing better than God’s will
The Benefactor
He is the determining factor on how good your life is
The Resurrection
Power
The Broker

Hebrews 13:20-21 May the God of peace, who through (en) the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, working in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The Benefit
May He equip you for His will and pleasure
Working in you
If you have ever shopped for a used vehicle in the classified ads, or Craigslist, every once in a while you will see an ad that gives the year, make, and model of the car and then just says, “needs work” and no other information. That is code language. It means exactly the same thing as, “piece of junk.” If the vehicle just needs one, specific repair they will say that – “needs new clutch or brakes.” But if they just say, “needs work,” that means, “This car is a piece of junk and I don’t even know what all is wrong with it.”
Imagine for a moment that you were for sale on EBay. Thankfully we do not buy and sell human beings in this country, but if we did – and you were for sale on Craigslist, if the seller were honest would he have to say, “needs work” in your ad? I think most people in our culture would answer that question by saying, “Absolutely not! I’m not a jalopy. I may have a little cosmetic damage around the fenders here and there – but when it comes to the soundness of my soul, the ad should read, “Works fine” not “needs work.”
We are the culture of self-esteem. I have heard that when they test students in the United States in mathematics and compare the scores with students from other countries around the world, our students score among the lowest when it comes to getting the answers right, but have the highest level of confidence in their knowledge of math. The self-esteem movement has not improved us as a people, but it has caused us to be very impressed with ourselves. We are basically a nation of jalopies who think we are brand new Beamers. 

The measure of a soul – love and desire
But if we can lift up out of the fog of the self-esteem charade for a moment, it really does not take much to realize that if our souls were for sale on Craigslist the ad really should not only say, “needs work,” but also, “salvage title.” A salvage title means the vehicle has been totaled, which means to repair it would cost more than the vehicle is even worth. How wrecked is your soul? You judge a car by how well it runs and drives and how nice it looks. You judge a soul by what it desires and what it loves. If the Craigslist ad for your soul said, “Works perfect” that would mean you love and desire only what is good, and not what is evil. And the better something is, the more you love it and the more desire you have for it; and the more evil something is the less desire you have for it. That is the measure of whether your soul is working properly or messed up.
What you desire and what you love is a far more accurate measure of value and worth and soundness of your soul than even your actions, because you can be an evil person even if you don’t engage in a lot of evil actions. For example, if there were a person who loved seeing little children tortured and killed, and it just filled his heart with delight when he heard about women being abused or raped – we would say a man like that is severely messed up even if he keeps his actions in check because he is afraid of getting in trouble. You can tell how healthy or how sick your soul is by what you love and desire.
So if we step out of the fog of self-esteem for a minute, and honestly ask, “What is the condition of my soul?” the answer comes from examining our desires and our loves. The better something is – the more beautiful, the more noble, the more righteous, the more perfect it is, the more we should love it and desire it and prefer it above lesser things. Helping a poor, needy person is good and beautiful. So what does it mean if I prefer sitting on my couch and watching some worthless thing on TV above helping some needy person? Even if I somehow force myself to get off the couch and go help the needy person, if my heart loves and desires the lesser thing more than the greater thing, then that means my soul is sick.
So what is the greatest, most beautiful thing of all? God. God is perfect in every way – morally perfect, perfect in beauty, in power, in wisdom – absolute, unblemished perfection. So what does it say about my soul if I prefer some lesser good above spending time with God? It means I am sick. It means the ad for my soul should say, “needs work.”
What does it say about my soul if I prefer some worthless thing above God? Then I am really messed up. And what does it say about my soul when I get so messed up that I prefer some evil thing over God’s perfect ways? Then I am totaled. When a soul prefers sin over God – evil over perfect goodness, that soul is twisted and perverted and destroyed and demolished and totaled and it would take more to repair it than that soul is even worth. If a person would rather rub his face in excrement than eat a steak dinner we would say that person has lost his mind. But if a soul delights more in some sin than in God – that is a million times worse. So it is no small thing when we read…

John 3:19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

That is the epitome of a ruined soul.
So have you ever preferred some lesser thing over God? Has there ever been a time when contemplating God seemed boring and unappealing, but watching a football game was greatly appealing? Have you ever had a moment when seeking God in prayer seemed burdensome and undesirable, but some sin seemed almost irresistible? Has there ever been a time when you knew God’s will was one thing, but you preferred some other thing – even to the point of choosing that other thing? Isn’t it true that things like that have happened not just once or twice in your life, but millions of times? Every hour of every day we prove the extensiveness of the damage of our souls. When the Bible says that we must be honest and confess our sin, it is not talking about saying, “Yeah, I guess I’m not perfect” or “I have made some mistakes over the years,” but rather, “My soul is totaled. It is perverse and twisted and beyond repair.”
And if you think the “beyond repair” part is going too far, you are kidding yourself. We cannot repair what is wrong with our soul any more than a totaled vehicle can restore itself. Where have all the self-help books gotten us? Nowhere. The solutions to our problems are not inside us. There is one Mechanic who knows how to do the necessary repairs, and that is our Creator.
And if this sermon is starting to sound a little on the negative side to you, don’t worry – the negative part is over. The whole rest of the sermon will be great news. I just needed to start with the hard news first so we could appreciate how great the good news is. The bad news is your soul needs work. The good news is God is willing and able to do that work.

Hebrews 13:20 May the God of peace …21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, working in us …

He is asking that the Lord would work inside us.
This passage is a benediction. A benediction is like a wonderful thing. It is a way to wish someone well that is also a prayer at the same time. When you say something like, “The Lord bless you,” you say it to a person, but it is really a prayer to God, isn’t it? You are asking God to bless the person – that makes it a prayer, but you are telling that to the person – that makes it a benediction.
There are two key ingredients to this benediction. One is the benefit that is being requested, and the other is the Benefactor who is being asked to supply that benefit. He tells us what he is asking God to do for us, and he also reminds us what sort of God he is asking this of. What I would like to do this morning is look first at the benefit in verse 21, and then move back to verse 20 and focus on the Benefactor. First we will look at the gift, and then the Giver.
The gift, or the benefit, is God working on your totaled soul. That is what we need more than anything. God could give us lists of rules all day long, but none of it will do any good if something drastic does not happen inside us. If something does not happen to change my desires, and my inclinations, and my moods, and my feelings, and my cravings and longings and drives and attitudes; if something is not done to fundamentally change me on the inside so I fear different things and love different things and delight in different things than I do now, and am repulsed by different things than I am now there is no hope of any real change in my life, and I will remain worthless.

The Christian life is God working
So the writer calls upon God to work. I hope that is the way you think about the Christian life. I hope you do not think of the Christian life as a matter of God just providing you with the tools and resources and then leaving it completely up to you to sink or swim. The Christian life is a matter of God rolling up His sleeves and working hard.
That is not to say we are passive. There are definite things we can do to either resist His work or submit to it. We can seek Him in a way that places us in a position to be worked on, or we can forfeit the benefits that would come from God’s work. So we are not passive in the process. However, when it is all said and done it is clear that the changes were brought about not by our work, but by God’s.

1 Corinthians 15:10 I worked harder than all of them --yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

Paul worked hard, but even that hard work was the product of God’s work in his heart.

Philippians 2:13 it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

So the tow truck pulls in to the garage dragging behind it the twisted wreckage of your soul, and the mechanic sees it and says, “Oh, brother – this would take a miracle. This is a job for God alone.” The writer sees that and says, “God, I’m praying that You would roll up Your sleeves and go to work on this wreckage.” So we look to Him to go to work on our souls.

Equip
But what sort of work is God going to do? 

Hebrews 13:20 May the God of peace… 21 equip you 

That word equip means to make something fit for a task. Very often it means to repair. It is used in the Gospels of mending the fishing nets – making them fit for fishing. It was used of resetting a dislocated limb – making it fit for use. It is used of the creation of the world – God making the world fit for human beings and for all His purposes. It is used of furnishing a room. It is used in Galatians 6:1 for restoring someone who has fallen into sin – making him fit for further service to God. So “may He equip you” means “May He make you what you are supposed to be – fit for the task for which you exist.” So what the writer is saying here is this, “May the God of peace roll up His sleeves, go to work on your soul, and make it so that the ad for your soul can read, ‘works great’.” 
But what does that look like in real life? What does a soul that works great – a soul that is all fixed up, and restored and fit for its purpose look like? A fishing net that is fit for use is one that the fish cannot swim out of. A car that is fit for use is one that will drive well. What is a soul that is fit for use? To answer that we have to know what the purpose of a soul is. If you want to know how well suited your soul is for its purpose, you have to know what its purpose is. The purpose of a hammer is to drive a nail, the purpose of a microphone is to amplify sound, the purpose of a light bulb is to dispel darkness – what is the purpose of a soul? If we need to be fixed up, what is it that we need to be fixed up for?
Most people have no idea how messed up their soul is because they do not even know what their soul is for. What is it for? This work that needs to be done on your soul – is it for the purpose of making you more successful at your job? No. A person could be successful at his job and be a wicked, worthless person. Is it to make you a better father? Or wife? Or whatever role you have in your family? No. You could be a solid family man and still fall short of your reason for existing. What is the goal of all this work? What is God equipping us for?

God’s Will
Our purpose for existence

Hebrews 13:20 May the God of peace … 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, working in us what is pleasing to him

That is what a soul is for. Hammers are made for driving nails, souls are made for doing what is pleasing to God. Doing His will means doing what God wants. And doing what is pleasing to Him means doing that which makes God happy with you. So both phrases refer to pretty much the same thing. The purpose of a human soul is to do what God wants and likes.
Nothing better than God’s will
There is no higher aspiration. Doing what God likes is a higher achievement than finding a cure for cancer. Pleasing God is a greater, nobler achievement than ending world hunger. Doing what He wants is more beneficial to mankind than curing AIDS or bringing about world peace. God is a perfect being with infinite wisdom and perfect love, and so what He wants is the best thing there is. If there were something better, then God would want that. God knows all things – He knows all the options and all the potential things that could happen, and He knows which of those scenarios is ultimately best, and that is what He wants. So there is nothing better than to do what God wants. There is nothing that benefits mankind more, there is nothing that is more beneficial to you, and there is nothing that pleases Him more. Doing God’s will is best for your family, best for your friends, best for your enemies, best for the country, best for the world, best for you, and best for God’s kingdom.
There is never a disconnect between what is most pleasing to God and what is most beneficial to you.

Hebrews 10:9 Then [Jesus] said, "Here I am, I have come to do your will." … 10 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

God’s will is always the most beneficial of all possible things for you.
Nothing in the universe is more wonderful or beautiful or beneficial than God’s will. And you can tell how far along the repairs on your soul are coming by how thrilling it is to you when you are doing something that you know for sure that God is pleased with. You can tell how progress is coming in your restoration by how terrifying the thought of drifting outside of God’s will is to you. Learn from the greatest human being who ever lived – Jesus Christ, who is God in human flesh.

John 4:31 Jesus’ disciples urged him, "Rabbi, eat something." 32 But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about. … 34 My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” 

Doing the will of God is food to the soul. It is satisfying, it is life-giving, it is nourishing, it is pleasurable, it is delightful; it is what keeps you going in life.
Let’s face it – your job is not enough to fulfill you. Neither is your family – or anything else in this world. God never created a soul so small that it could be satisfied with earthly things. God has given us a massive appetite for meaning and fulfillment and significance, and nothing in this world can fulfill that. And so you have two options – either find fulfillment and satisfaction in the one thing that can provide it (doing God’s will), or take the route most people take and just numb your soul and distract yourself with the cheap little thrills of this world enough so that you forget about your most profound hunger and ignore the starvation of your own soul. And you might be able to convince yourself that you are not really all that miserable – for a while.
But it is only when you are doing God’s will that you can be perfectly at rest. God’s will is an incredible place to be, and the heart that is alert to reality loves it there. You are safe, and you have nothing to fear.
You are in your car, driving to work, and you are happy – not because you love driving or work is fun, but because you think, “Right now I know for sure I am doing exactly what God wants me to be doing. He did not want me to sleep in, He does not want me to go to a movie or take a walk or go camping – He wants me right here driving this car going to work to earn a living.”
Once in a while we hit a hard decision where we struggle to discern God’s will, but the vast majority of the time it is obvious. You are at home changing a diaper, and you smile and think, “The Creator of the Universe who is all powerful and controls destiny and knows all things and only desires the absolute best things and never makes any kind of mistake wants me changing this diaper right here, right now.” The student can say, “Sitting here in this class right now is exactly what God wants for me right now, so I am in the perfect place at the perfect time”. Moments like that are delightful because you can absolutely never go wrong doing God’s will.
God’s will is hard
The problem is, very often God’s will is hard. Even when we love it, in this fallen world it is hard because it involves suffering. We know it is God’s will to get out of bed but the flesh keeps screaming, “Five more minutes!!” We know it is God’s will that we take out the garbage but we pretend not to notice that it is full and hope someone else will get it. We know it is God’s will that we forgive someone who has really hurt us, but we just cannot seem to get ourselves to do it. We know it is God’s will that we spend some time seeking after Him in prayer and in His Word, and more than that we know it is His will that we desire to do so – and yet we just don’t. I could go on and on and on with examples of God’s will being hard – or seemingly impossible in many cases.
So what can be done about that? The only path to joy and fulfillment is doing the will of God, and yet the path to all that is completely blocked by the fact that you just do not want to do it. And even when you have some desire to do it, you might not have the strength. And even if you have the desire and the strength, you might not have the wisdom to know how. And even if you have the desire and strength and wisdom, you might lack the diligence. 
How do you overcome all that? I will tell you how – what you need is for the God of peace to roll up His sleeves and go to work inside you in order to equip you with everything you need to do His will. The writer is not shy about what he requests here.

Hebrews 13:20 May the God of peace, … 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will

He is not just asking that we be equipped a little bit. He is asking for everything we need for doing God’s will! And by the way – that is everything you need. Everything you need to do His will is everything you need. There is nothing else that can be called a need.
Sometimes people debate about what things are needs and what things are just luxuries. And usually they say, “Needs are those thing you have to have to stay alive.” That is not correct. Did God supply Jesus Christ with everything He needed? Yes. Did Jesus stay alive? No. He was brutally murdered.
Needs are not the things you have to have to stay alive. Needs are the things you have to have to do God’s will. If you need some money to do God’s will, God will supply money. If you need a wife to do God’s will, He will give you a wife. If you need a house or a car or some clothes or a plane ticket or anything else to do God’s will, He will supply it. And if it is His will for you to die in a way that brings Him glory, He will supply everything you need to do to die.

The Benefactor
That is the benefit that is being requested. But now let’s turn our attention to the Benefactor. My favorite topic to preach about or think about is God, which is why I love verse 20 even more than verse 21. Verse 21 tells me what God will do for me, but verse 20 tells me about God Himself.
And I think we can learn from what the writer does here. When we try to encourage one another, I think we would do well to not just remind each other of the promises God has made, but also remind each other of the kind of God who made those promises. Or when you tell someone you are praying for him, remind him also of the God you are praying to. It would not do much good to ask a weak, impotent god to do something great – or to ask a cruel, uncaring god to do something kind. And even if you are asking a God who is all powerful and perfectly loving, for the person to be encouraged by that you need to call that to their attention when you give the benediction. And that is what the writer does in verse 20.

He is the God of Peace
He is the determining factor on how good your life is
He begins, May the God of peace… The term “peace” in the New Testament calls to mind both the Greek concept of tranquility and lack of conflict, and the Hebrew idea of SHALOM, which refers to wholeness and general wellbeing. And so right off the bat the writer wants to remind us that this God he is asking this benefit from is the source of all that – calmness and tranquility as well as wholeness and wellbeing.
Most people (including, no doubt, some who are in this room right now) think of God as not really being very relevant to how life turns out. You ask, “Do you believe in God,” and they say, “Well sure, I believe there is some higher power up there somewhere. But I don’t really think of Him as having any real impact on my life. He doesn’t interfere in human affairs, or maybe He does – but even if He does – He’s going to do whatever He’s going to do, and I can’t do anything to change that. God helps those who help themselves.” (Which usually means something like, “God helps those who just completely ignore Him and live as though He doesn’t even exist”). God’s will is just not a factor in their lives.
And it is not because they do not care about peace and joy and happiness and wellbeing. They want all that just as much as the next guy – they just do not think God is the Source of it. They think career or recreation or relationships or alcohol or doing as you please is the source of peace. But they are dead wrong. God is the God of peace, which means He is the one and only source of wellbeing. 
He does not grant peace to everyone, but He does grant it to those He has forgiven.

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

Forgiveness includes full reconciliation and restoration of intimacy. Sometimes people will tell you, “I forgive you for what you did to me,” but then after that you still kind of get the cold shoulder from that person. That is not real forgiveness. The essential core of forgiveness is the restoration of closeness of the relationship. That is not an optional add-on to forgiveness – it is right at the center. So forgiveness plus the cold shoulder is non-forgiveness. God does not ever do that. Some Christians think of God as perpetually giving them the cold shoulder because they assume God has the same kind of lame conceptions of forgiveness that they have. He doesn’t. To be forgiven by God means to be at peace with Him. And that peace guards and protects us.

Philippians 4:6 in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

So what the writer is saying here in Hebrews 10 is, “I pray that God will work on your soul and fix it up and make it fit for its purpose – and by the way – the God I am asking happens to be the God of peace and the source of all wellbeing. It is not like I am asking for something that goes against what He normally does. What I am asking for is right up His alley, it is part of His very nature, and so He is highly motivated to answer this prayer. He is the God of taking what is broken and making it whole. He is the God who is all about restoring junkers from salvage.”
He raised the Great Shepherd in the blood of the eternal covenant
OK, it is good to know that God is the God of peace, and that He is eager to fix what is broken. But what about the problem of my lack of power?

The Resurrection 
That is where the Easter part of this text comes in – the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Who is this God who is going to equip me with absolutely everything I need to do His will?

Hebrews 13:20 the God of peace, who because of the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus

If you are despairing because you are lacking the power necessary to be able to do God’s will, remind yourself that the God who is offering to supply all that you need to do His will is the God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Power is not a problem.
Power
What an awesome display of power the resurrection of Jesus Christ was! It was not just making a body alive. That requires divine power. But God does that all the time. Every time He creates another human being in a womb He does that. 
But resurrection is different. God did not just resuscitate Jesus and get His heart started again. He gave Him an eternal, glorified body. He raised Him with a body that is not subject to the curse, not subject to decay, does not wear down, does not break down, and that is suited for both heaven and earth, and that will exist forever.
And beyond that, think for a minute why Jesus was dead. If you want to know how much power it takes to raise someone from a certain condition, you need to know how powerful the force is that put him in that condition. What was the force that put Jesus into the condition of being dead? It was the wrath of God over all the sins of all of humanity for all time – which is one hundred percent of God’s wrath. There have been times in history when God has dipped His little finger in the reservoirs of His infinite wrath and let a drop or two fall down onto the earth. He did that in Noah’s day and wiped out all of humanity. He did it once on Sodom and Gomorrah and annihilated those entire cultures with fire from heaven. Those were tiny samplings of God’s wrath. But the force that made Jesus dead was one hundred percent of God’s wrath. How much power did it take to raise Jesus from the dead? It required power enough to overcome the weight of all the guilt of all the sin of every human being throughout all time. Jesus was dead because He took all that guilt upon Himself, and so to raise Him required power beyond imagination.
And beyond that, it was even a greater display of power because of what God was accomplishing in the resurrection. On top of bringing Jesus back to life, God the Father was setting into place the glorious exaltation of the Son of God. It took infinite, divine power to not just raise Him, but raise Him in exactly the way that would fulfill all of prophecy. He raised Him at the right time, on the third day, in the right manner, with all the right circumstances, and eye-witness verification, and every other detail necessary for bringing to fruition all of His perfect redemptive plan and purposes for creating the universe. He did it in a way that glorified Him and glorified the Son and saved His people and condemned the wicked. It was a display not only of infinite power, but of infinite wisdom. So if you look at the wreckage of your soul and are fretting over your lack of power – power is not a problem. This God who is so motivated to restore you because He is the God of peace, also has power beyond what language or imagination can even begin to contemplate. 
Because of the blood of the eternal covenant 
And that is not all. The writer wants us to understand one more thing about the God who is going to supply us with everything we need to do His will. He wants us to think about the reason why God raised Jesus from the dead.

Hebrews 13:20 the God of peace, who because of the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus 

Your Bible probably says “through” or “by,” and that Greek word can be used that way, but I do not think that is the right translation here. That word can also mean with reference to, or because of,and I think that is most likely the sense in which the writer is using this word. The point is not that God raised Jesus by means of Jesus’ blood. I cannot imagine what that would even mean. Jesus was raised not by means of blood, but because of it, because it was the blood of the Covenant. You see, in those days when a covenant was made and then sealed with the blood of a sacrifice, it was a done deal. That sealed it – even more so than today when we sign our name on a legal contract. The reason a covenant was sealed with blood was to symbolize the fact that the only way out of the contract was death. If you want out of the contract, you must forfeit your life.
One of the points the writer has been making throughout the book of Hebrews is the fact that the New Covenant – this new contract between God and us, is a deal in which God promises to do some things. And one of those things He promises is to roll up His sleeves and work to fix our totaled hearts.

Ezekiel 36:26-27 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Jeremiah 31:33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. 

That was the promise in the Old Testament, and throughout the book of Hebrews the writer has been making the point that the Old Covenant did not have that benefit. It could not solve the problem of my wrecked soul. But God was promising that someday He would make a new covenant with His people in which He would promise to repair and restore their ruined hearts. And the night before Jesus died He said

Luke 22:20 This cup is the new covenant in my blood

In other words, the promised New Covenant was about to be sealed with blood, and the blood would be none other than the very blood of the Son of God Himself. And so Jesus gave His life, and died on the cross, and sealed that covenant forever.
Now remember, to back out of a blood-sealed covenant meant you would have to die. And so we can no sooner talk about God reneging on His promise than we can talk about God dying. God made promises to fix our broken souls, and Jesus sealed the deal with His own blood, and so the chances that God is going to follow through on this promise are one hundred percent. So if you look at your messed up soul and think, This benediction in Hebrews 13 is nice, but will God actually answer the prayer?.. – the answer is nothing is more certain in the entire universe. The writer is reminding us, “This God I am praying this to is the God who bound Himself by the blood of His own Son to do this.”
And he reminds us that it is an eternal covenant. That was the promise in the Old Testament.

Jeremiah 32:40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.

The Broker
So, what is the benefit? A restored heart that is fully equipped with absolutely everything needed to do that which pleases God. Who is the Benefactor? The God of peace, the Source of all wellbeing, who demonstrated how serious He is about all this in the staggering display of power in raising Jesus from the dead, and who did so on the basis of the blood of the eternal Covenant to which He bound Himself forever by the blood of His own Son. That is the Benefactor who promises this benefit. But there is one more aspect to all this that we need to understand. Not just the benefit and the Benefactor, but also what I will call the Broker of the deal – the Lord Jesus Christ.
When God gives us this benefit, He does not give it to us directly. He wanted to use a middle-Man.

Hebrews 13:20 May the God of peace … 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, working in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

The whole thing happens only through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our Intercessor
God has set things up so that every good thing God ever does for us comes only as a favor to His Son. God has tied our good to honoring His Son. Every good thing God ever does for us is done as a favor to His Son. And that is an incredibly fantastic truth. Do you realize what that means?
For one thing it brings great honor to Jesus Christ. God never has to decide between doing something good for you or honoring His Son. He has set it up so that they are one and the same. Since God has tied our well-being to His Son’s glory, and He only does good things for us in response to Jesus intercession on our behalf (Jesus praying for us), thus every time God does something good for us it honors His Son. Which means the more God loves His Son the more eager He is to bless us.
And on top of that, another reason why it is a wonderful system is that not only does it bring great glory and honor to Jesus Christ, but it also makes it an absolute guarantee that God will heap blessings and benefits upon you. If God did good things for you based on how much He loved you as part of His creation, that would make it somewhat likely that He would give you good things. But if His eagerness to give you good things is based on how much He loves His Son, that makes it the most certain reality there is!
The Great Shepherd
And as if the whole thing were not already certain enough – we get one more description that comforts our hearts.

Hebrews 13:20 May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep

The writer borrows language here from Isaiah 63 where Moses was called “the shepherd of the sheep” when he rescued the people from Egypt.

Isaiah 63:11 where is he who brought them up from the sea, with the shepherd of the sheep? 

There have been many wonderful shepherds of God’s flock, but Jesus is the Great Shepherd. 
•	Moses was the shepherd who led God’s people out of bondage into the Promised Land.
o	Jesus leads us out of spiritual bondage into heaven.
•	David was called by God from the sheep folds to shepherd the nation of Israel, and he led them to victory over their enemies until he died. 
o	Christ leads us to ultimate victory and He will never die.
•	Joseph was the shepherd who ruled Egypt for the sake of Israel and provided food for the people in the midst of the famine.
o	Jesus will rule the nations with an iron scepter and He Himself is the bread of life and a spring of living water who supplies us with everlasting life and safety and satisfaction.
•	Abel was a shepherd whose blood was spilled because of how pleasing his sacrifice was to God.
o	Jesus’ blood can make even better claims than that. He died not only as an innocent man who was pleasing to God, but His sacrifice accomplished redemption for all the elect.
•	The Prophets spoke the word of God to the people and called them to repentance.
o	But Jesus is the Word of God and He works repentance in our hearts.
•	The Priests of old prayed to God on the people’s behalf, and to the degree they had favor with God He listened to them.
o	But Jesus is our great High Priest and He has perfect favor with God and so when He intercedes for us the Father listens to Him one hundred percent.
How sure is this blessing? It comes from the God of peace who has the power to raise Christ from the dead, and who bound Himself to fulfill His promise by the blood of His Son. How certain is it that He will tend our souls? This one He raised is none other than the Great Shepherd of the sheep. And He made Him our intercessor, so that our wellbeing is tied forever to the glory and honor of the Son. 

Benediction: Hebrews 13:20-21 May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip 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 for ever and ever. Amen.