Pray With Confidence

Well, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning, we just got two verses, Hebrews 13, 18 through 19. Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. I think you might need some coffee. Nope. I woke up at something like 530, 540, something like that. 530. Went down to wake you up and you were already awake taking a shower. Who took a shower? Grandma might have but uh, I'm just saying you've been up a long time already boy. Yeah, you sure you don't need any coffee to wake up.
No Okay, let's go ahead and pray. God, thank you so much for this day. Thank you for your word. God, we pray that as we read your word, that your Holy Spirit would work in our hearts. Lord, that you would encourage us. Lord, that we would be humble, and we would trust you, and that we would stand in your presence, trusting and waiting in you, in Jesus's name, amen.
All right, so we are at Hebrews chapter 13, verses 18 through 19. This is the second to last coffee and devotions. Well, in this. Yeah, in this, exactly. We're almost done with this chapter. It's never the last coffee and devotions. Well, maybe someday I'll finish. Maybe someday I'll die.
You think I signed up for this for life? Do you think so? You don't think I could ever just let it go? Interesting. You know, I like doing it with you guys. All right, let's go ahead and you wanna read verses 18 and 19? Sure. Pray for us, for we are confident that we have a good conscience in all things desiring to live honorably. But I especially urge you to do this, that I may be restored to you sooner.
Okay, so we got three questions, A, What is this about? B. What is... Wait, what are we? B, what is the... You sure you don't need some coffee?
Best for us to sunrise and see what we call to do. Alright, so notice this is all one big thing. That's what this is about. What is this one big thing these two verses are about? Prayer requested. Okay. So the author of Hebrews is requesting prayer. So what are the things he's requesting prayer for?
That we are confident, good conscience. Well, notice this is not so much a prayer request in verse 18, what it starts with. What does it start with? that we are designed to live honorably. Okay, yeah, so the author of Hebrews is saying, right, they have a pure conscience, right, meaning they don't have hidden things in their hearts from God, they can walk with clean conscience knowing that their high priest understands them, cares for them, right, they don't have to hide their imperfections or something, and they try to live an honorable life. Right. So they know that their prayers are going to be heard because they're truly praying as Christians.
And so what does he especially ask of them? That I may be restored to you soon. What do you think he means by that, that I may be restored to you the sooner? Wait, did he say that sooner? Yeah, the sooner. I have no idea. Yeah, right. This is a similar way as right when daddy is overseas doing missionary type work. Do you guys pray that daddy gets home soon? Yep. Why would you pray that? Because we want to be with you. Yeah, right.
He wants to be with Elm. But he wants them to come to him or he wants to go to them. Everybody's saying, please pray that I'll be able to return to you the sooner. I want to get to you soon. I want to be able to travel and I want to be able to get to you. It's the same way that daddy, when I'm overseas or when I'm gone for presbytery or Senate or something like that, I'm like, man, Lord, please let me get home safe.
I really want to go see the kids. I really want to go spend time with Olivia. So he says, I'm trying to live honorably. I got a clean conscience. There's reason for God to actually be able to hear my prayers, right? It seems like I've got true faith. And there's one thing I really desire. What's the main thing that the author of Hebrews is desiring? To go. Yeah. Well, is that helpful? Well, to go to them, right?
We don't actually know for 100% certain who wrote the book of Hebrews. And who is that? Whatever church he's writing to. And we don't know who that is either. Yeah, so there's a few interesting things here, right? There's a number of church fathers who believe that this is Peter who's been preaching this or writing this. Other church fathers think that this, in the early church, thought that this was Paul who was writing it. And so it seems most likely that it was an apostle. We don't know exactly which one. But then also, the main thing that we know about is that about who it was being written to was to a Hebrew audience, right? Because of all the temple and tabernacle and sacrifice language, Hebrews, exactly.
So actually, I wonder, let me grab out my... Oh, dad, do you know why? It's, do you know in the coffee it says that men should drink coffee in the Bible? No, don't do this. It says it does. Oh, come on. You're too young to be a dad. Yes, it is. It says that men should drink coffee. You're just too young to be a dad, man. Don't do this. Don't do it. Come on, man. Alright, so I've got my Greek Bible here, and if I turn in my Greek Bible, the Greek Bible is organized differently than the English Bible, at least in this version of it I have.
And after Philemon's comes Bros Ibraeus. So to the Hebrews, but it's coming after Paul's letters, right? So in some of the ancient codexes, it was Hebrews after. So like it would have gone the Gospels and then Acts and then James or Jacob, Jacobu epistole. So the epistle of James. And then Peter's writings and then John's letters John's epistles then Jude's Then all of Paul's writings and the ends of Paul's writings is To the Hebrews and then lastly revelation our apocalypse of John That's the book of Revelation that's what we call Revelation Yeah. Oh, so it was Paul's book, but Paul's letters. But John, it was John. No, no, no. John, John wrote his apocalypse. The apocalypse of John is revelation. I don't know why I keep thinking that's Paul. It's John who wrote that.
So all that to say, right, it could be Paul, it could be Peter, but they're definitely writing to a Hebraic people. So a lot of Hebrew churches. Yeah, right. So we don't know if it's to Jerusalem or maybe to a church in Galilee, maybe at Bethsaida. Maybe it's up in, you know, further north of that, you know, because we know the Jews were dispersed throughout. Or maybe this was a general letter. We know that there are other general letters written to not to a specific church, but to churches.
To the churches, good. It's kind of just like an official document, like the last minute of confession. Yeah, write a general document, good. Yeah, so what's these two verses about then? Because we kind of got on a rabbit trail there. I pray that I can go to you quickly. Good, wonderful. Yeah, so maybe I would underline the very first part of 18, pray for us. Is it pray for me? Nope. Proof of us. Us. So it's not just me. I keep just freaking out more webtoons.
Yeah, so it could be that there's a group of people who are included, right? So sometimes you'll pick up like the book of Philippians. It's Paul writing, but it's also, we find out that Timothy is there, and Epaphras as well. There's many letters that have multiple people, including Ephesians, similarly. So sometimes it's the us, and sometimes the us is because there's somebody who's speaking, and there's an Emanueus.
Do you know what that is? So it's somebody who's actually writing it down. Emanuensis, sorry. So somebody who's actually writing it down, right? the main speaker, but there's somebody writing it down too. And sometimes they'll say, Oh, and by the way, I say hi. Right? So sometimes it's us, but really it was the main speaker. Okay. Another rabbit trail.
Uh, best first I have the very first part of 18 and 19 is what I would underline. I actually don't have it underlined. 18 and You're horrible Who is your father? This feels like What we normally do is like we'd have all this stuff, and you're trying to like walk through what? Like what is more important? Oh? And Hebrews just takes it and it like takes all those sentences. And instead of us doing it, it just kind of smashes it into two. Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and talk about seed calling.
What do we call it to do? This is a very time bound prayer. He wants them to pray or they want them to pray for something very specific. But how do you think this applies to your life and how do you think that this might lead you to Jesus Christ or the covenant of grace?
Yeah, we can always pray. Yeah, we can pray, right? We can pray with and for others, right? Our Father who is in heaven, right? God is our, right? Our Father, willing and able to help us, right? So we are able to pray with and for other people. So, good. And we know that our prayers are heard because of who is our high priest? Jesus. Jesus. There we go, pointed to Jesus. Boom. All right, would you like to pray or you want me to pray? Okay.
Lord, we thank you so much that you do hear our prayers. Lord, we do pray for those who are homesick. Lord, we pray that you would please return them safely. We pray for those who are missionaries, that you would please, as they travel, please return them home in your good timing. Lord, we pray for those who are homesick in an eternal way, who long to go and join the assembly of the heavenly saints. Father, we pray that you would please comfort them in their time of sojourning and pilgrimage here upon the earth. Lord, we pray that you would please bless us, that we would be ready to pray with and for others, and that we would be honest with others about the prayers that we need, Lord.
Father, I pray for one of my friends who his wife was having surgery today. We pray that she would heal. Pray also for a man that we know and are well familiar with who's in the hospital now, who we were worried was coding yesterday. Lord, we pray that you would care for him and his wife and their young children. Lord, please watch over each and every one of us. Please protect us and let us walk in your ways. In Jesus' name, amen. May God bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. May you long for your eternal home with Jesus. And I'll see you next time. Say bye-bye. Bye-bye. Adios.