PJ: So we are coming up on, believe it or not, six years since COVID-19
hit not to, you know, discourage everybody here this morning to have
PTSD flashbacks of what that was like.
But, uh, man, I, I tell you what, I remember the, the first time
I had Popeye's chicken sandwich was, it is connected to, to COVID.
It didn't gimme COVID.
I.
Um, I don't think, I don't know.
I never took a COVID test, so do without what you will, but, uh, yeah, it, it
was a time when we were in California and, and Governor Newsom had in, in all
of his divine wisdom, said, Hey, um, church, you guys can't hang out together.
In fact, nobody can hang out together.
You can only hang out with your family.
And so we had our twins who, uh, let's see.
20.
20, they were born, hold on.
This is putting me on the spot.
They were three at the time.
Yes.
Got it.
Right.
She gave me a head nod up front here.
So our twins were three.
My middle son Luke was four.
And in hanging out at home when mom and dad just permanently was not
going well with them, so we decided, hey, let's get together with some
of the families in the church.
But what we'll do is we'll just, we'll go to the church and we'll, we'll, we'll pick
up food along the way, hence the Popeyes.
And, and we'll space apart from each other.
So we had a, a lane that went down and we had parking spots on either side of
the, the lane, as you might imagine.
And so we parked on one side and they parked like we had three or four families.
And we, this was early on when they were like, everybody's gonna die from this.
And so we didn't know what was going on.
So we sat in the back of our car, we popped open the, the tailgate, and
we talked across like 10 feet to each other while our kids just all hung
out together in the, in the middle.
Um.
Man, COVID was so bad, wasn't it?
And, and, you know, I don't know where you were for it, but when,
when we were out in California, I, I just remember, man, this is not what
the church is supposed to be like.
And, and that was just a picture of it.
We're, we're sitting in this parking lot eating questionable chicken
and, um, and hollering across a, a parking lot to each other.
And, and you just miss the simple things like walking into
church and giving somebody a hug.
You miss the simple things about being in, in, in community with each other and,
and that's not what it's supposed to be.
And, and, and yet for all of the ills, no pun intended of, of COVID,
one of the things that I appreciated about it was that when we got back.
Together as the church and, and, and reconvened after we kind of figured
out what was going on and what we could do, we, we, we came back in
and, and specifically when we got back inside together, and that, that was
fellowship that was sweeter than any that I had, I had ever experienced.
And, and it wasn't that anything dynamically had changed.
I mean, we, we still, same leadership, same people, but we had been apart
from each other in our community, had been interrupted for so long
that when we got back in, in the presence of, of one another.
It was that reminder of like, this is what it's supposed to be.
This is so sweet.
And I guess one of my concerns is now that we're six years beyond all of
that, that maybe we're falling back into that sense of taking things for granted
for what we have here in the church.
The the church is, as we're talking about in this series, comes from a
Greek word that means to be called out, and we are called out from the world.
But in being called out from the world, we are called into a community together
of brothers and sisters in Christ.
And I think there's a lot of times that, that we can be lulled into a sense
of taking things for granted in what we have here in this room together.
There's a lot of reasons for that.
Some of these reasons are, for example, we're, we're not facing
persecution, and so we don't feel the urgency to depend upon each other.
Maybe the way that the church has in times in the past.
There's other causes for this.
We, we live in a generally affluent area.
We don't experience a whole lot in the way of, of need, and we certainly live in
an area that talks about, you know, the, the American ideal of being independent
and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and taking care of ourselves.
And it's seen as a weakness to have to go to somebody and say,
Hey, could you help me in this?
I think another detriment to us is just the, the busyness of the
culture in which we find ourselves.
All of us have full calendars.
You talk to somebody during the, the week and you say, Hey, how's your week going?
You're gonna hear good and busy.
Right?
That's just indicative of, of the community, of the culture that we live in.
Another thing that we're up against that the early church benefited from is
they lived in close-knit communities.
The church was in the, the community where everybody lived and, and so
some of you may live closer to here than others, but we don't necessarily
live next to the people that we're meant to, to do community with,
to have life with in the church.
We also live in a, a society that, that values our privacy.
You probably have LifeLock or Experian or something like that and, and maybe
even sometimes when the church says, Hey, would you sign up for this and
give us your information on this?
You're going, well, hold on a second.
I don't know if I'm comfortable with that.
We live in a society that's elevated and, and idolized the family such that they've
taken the family and made the family something that compete against the church.
We've turned church in, in a lot of ways, into a spectator sport.
Hey, show up and, and be entertained.
You show up to church sometimes you think, well, what do you have for me?
What am I gonna get from this?
What am I gonna benefit from?
I think that even goes back to the nineties era of the Secret,
secret sensitive Church, which was built on that model that let's make
church as frictionless as possible for as many people as possible.
Let's water things down.
Let's make it something that everybody wants to be at.
And then finally, I think a big challenge for us in, in understanding
the community of the church the way that we should, is that there is
just a plethora of church options.
Y'all.
I know that if I stand up here and preach a sermon that maybe you don't like,
you've got a million other options around us that you could just say, I'm gonna
go check out one of the other churches.
And so that hinders us from committing to and being part of the community
the way that God has called us to be a part of the community.
And, and we just show up and we kind of go through the motions
together week in and week out.
And, and it's, it's easy for us to take for granted the, the joy and
the, the preciousness of what we have through gathering, being called
out from the world and called into community what we have together
as brothers and sisters in Christ.
This is such a good thing that we have such a good thing that we have.
And, and again, that's one of the things that I re remember about COVID is just
thinking to myself, man, it's so good to just be able to be back together.
To sing together, to hug each other, to be with each other, and to be a part of the
community of the bride of Christ together.
One of the things that I hope that we're gonna see in our passage
this morning from Hebrews chapter 10 is this, we need each other.
Guys.
I need you.
And you need me.
I need you in my life.
You need me in your life.
We need each other as the body of Christ.
We need the sense of community as the body of Christ.
This is what the church is called to do.
This is who the church is called to be, and I hope to show us
that in Hebrews chapter 10.
So take your Bibles if you're not there already, and open up to
Hebrews chapter 10, verses 24 and 25.
We just recited them earlier as part of our memory verses here.
But Hebrews 10 24 says this, let the, let us consider how to stir up one another
to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some.
But encouraging one another in all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Now we're gonna start in verse 25, so I know some of you don't like that.
That's okay.
Some of you are like, this is out of order and that's gonna
bother me the whole sermon.
So that's why I'm telling you ahead of time.
I know it's out of order.
If you're out there and you're going, he forgot verse 24, something is wrong.
We're gonna get to verse 24, I promise you.
Hold on, bear with me.
We'll get there.
But I want us to start in verse 25 and here's why.
Last week we talked about the fact that the church has been called out
to what To congregate to gather.
To show up together.
Right?
And so this is the bridge here in verse 25, where he says that the
church should not neglect to meet together as is the habit of some.
We talked about one component of meeting together last week.
And that's what we're doing right now.
We, we gather together as the church, we're the called out ones.
We are called out from the world to gather together as the bride of Christ.
And we sit under the preaching of the word of God, that the authority of the
church is God's word, and that he's given pastors to be able to teach and ex expose
the word of God to be able to equip the church, to do the work of the ministry,
and then also to be able to have the.
Ultimate goal of us as a church growing up into the head,
into him, who is Christ right?
That our goal is to be more like Jesus, and so we gather corporately
together to worship towards that end.
That's part of it.
Church is not less than that, but church is more than that.
Church is so much more than that.
And so when the writer says, not neglecting to meet together, as is
the habit of some, this is what I want us to focus on this morning is what
does it really mean to meet together?
Are we doing it right now?
Yeah, we're doing it right now in part.
Like I just said, it's more than this.
It's more than than showing up for two hours a week and sitting
under the sermon and then going about the rest of your life.
Showing up together is such a crucial part about what this looks like.
So just being here is a huge first step.
Just being here, setting your alarm, getting outta bed when it's
ungodly cold outside this morning, instead of staying home and saying,
no, we're gonna show up at church.
We're gonna get outta bed.
We're gonna get our family together.
We're gonna show up at church.
We're gonna be here because why?
Because the church gathers to exalt Jesus as we gather every single Sunday.
So that's part of it, and that's huge.
That's a first step.
But being a part of the body of Christ doesn't end with simply showing up.
We show up because we show up because we need each other.
We show up because we need to be together.
We show up because I need you when you need me.
And so as we gather, I want us to think about when we show up.
You may go to church for all kinds of different reasons, but one of
the main reasons that we should be here is for the good of our
brothers and sisters in Christ.
Point number one this morning, along those lines is this show up for
each other, show up for each other.
There's a lot of reasons why people would say, I, I don't
feel like going to church today.
I don't, I don't really wanna be there.
I don't wanna show up today.
Here's some of them that I just thought about this week as I was
preparing this is maybe you just had a, a really stressful work week, and
you think, man, I just, I just need a, an extra day to just decompress.
Being a church, being around other people right now is, is probably not good.
I, I'm, I'm short-tempered.
Sometimes we, we don't wanna show up because of sickness.
Now, not all of these reasons are illegitimate.
If you're sick, you can love your brothers and sisters in Christ by, by not showing
up at church, maybe marital strife, right?
Maybe your relationship is, is just on the rocks right now, and, and you feel a sense
of hypocrisy and showing up at church.
And so you're thinking to yourself, I, I, I don't want to go with my wife and
put on this show, or I don't want to go with my husband and put on this show.
So I don't, I don't think I want to go to church today.
Rebellious kids.
Maybe you and your kids had a knockdown drag out fight about
something as simple as bedtime the night before, or cleaning their rooms.
Or maybe with some, some of your older kids, maybe they're rebelling against
the gospel in Jesus Christ, and, and you're just discouraged and you just
don't feel like showing up at church.
Maybe it's just not your favorite passage.
You know what the pastor's gonna be preaching on, and
you're going, you know what?
This isn't my favorite passage.
It's not my favorite series.
I don't, I don't really feel like being there today.
Maybe I'll, I'll podcast the pastor that I really like in, in, in the
series that he's going through.
Maybe it's, uh, well, we're about to leave for vacation.
It's, it's Sunday.
We're leaving for vacation on Monday, and so we're, we're just not gonna show up.
We're gonna take Sunday, just pack and make sure we're ready for vacation.
Or maybe it's, we just got back from vacation on Saturday and it's like,
well, we just got back from vacation, so we're gonna take Sunday just to regather
together as a family and, and then we'll just get back to church next week.
Or maybe you just think, man, I'm just too tired.
I'm just too tired to show up.
Or you think I, I I don't wanna see this person that I've got
conflict with, I've got strife with.
Or you think I, I don't wanna be convicted by the preaching.
I don't want to serve.
I, I just, I just don't want to.
I just don't want to.
These are reasons why sometimes people would say, I, I'm,
I'm not gonna go to church.
I'm not gonna gather together.
There's equally, there's there's reasons why we do show up at church that
aren't always the best either, right?
Like maybe it's just routine.
I'm gonna show up to church because you know what?
I, I just always have shown up at church.
And so it's like you're on autopilot on Sundays, you're just there, or you
show up to church because of guilt.
You think to yourself, man, I'm, I'm gonna feel guilty if I'm
not there and I don't wanna feel guilty, so I'm just gonna be there.
Maybe you just show up at church 'cause you're thinking to yourself,
man, I, I just, I want more knowledge.
I'm gonna show up because I, I want to dive into the word of God.
I want more knowledge and I just want to, to learn more.
I want my intellect to be stimulated.
Or maybe you show up at church just because of obligation.
Your loved one, your spouse, your, your, your kids expect you to be there.
And so you think, okay, I'm gonna be there.
Maybe you show up at church because you've got this perception of Christian Karma.
Maybe as a, a businessman or, or woman, you've got a meeting this week that's key.
And you're thinking to yourself, man, I don't think that meeting's gonna go
well if I'm not at church this weekend.
So I'm gonna show up at church so that I get something positive out of it.
The next week.
Maybe you show up.
Just out of curiosity, what's it gonna say about this?
What's this series gonna be about?
Maybe you show up to maintain appearance.
'cause you've got a fear of man that says, well, if I'm not there, this
person's gonna think less of me.
Or maybe you just show up at church because of a pride self-righteousness
that says that, that I need to show up at church because I'm a good Christian.
And that's what good Christians do.
It's always gonna be better to show up at church than not show up at church.
But there are good reasons and there are bad reasons to be here this morning.
One of the best reasons for you to be here this morning
is to be here for one another.
To be here for each other, to be here for the building up of the body of Christ.
And, and the the truth of it is, is our body suffers without you here.
Just like when, when we were back in COVID and we were going through the,
all the, the routines and regulations and meeting outside and everything else
like that, man, our worship suffered.
It just wasn't as good.
It wasn't as sweet.
Our fellowship suffered, our joy suffered, but then when we came back together, it
was that breath of fresh air to be like, yes, this is what I've been missing.
And so when you're not here, when I don't show up, when you don't show
up, it, it hurts the body of Christ.
Now, let me give the caveat.
I know there are legitimate reasons for missing church.
If you're on vacation, you're, we don't expect you to, to FaceTime in
with us and, and sit in the back with somebody holding up the phone, right?
We don't expect you to be here.
You've got a work trip.
We don't expect you to be.
You're sick.
You've got, you've just had a baby, you've got inclement.
Whether you can't, there are legitimate reasons not to be here.
What I'm talking about though is, is the reasons that have more
to do with myself than it does.
You know, whether or not this is a legitimate reason not to be there.
Some of those reasons that we talked about earlier, and what I hope to
convey this morning is I want you to feel that your presence is necessary
for us, for what we're doing here.
We need you to be a part of this.
In fact, the the word for neglecting in the text back in our passage
here, not neglecting to meet together, it's the Greek word that
also means abandoning or forsaking.
And so the writer is using a word that has relational impact here to
say why we should show up at church.
It's not just about the attendance, it's not just about counting heads.
It's about the relationships that exist here.
The legacy standard Bible translates it as forsaking, not forsaking the gathering.
When we don't show up, there is a component to where we are forsaking.
We are abandoning our brothers and sisters who need us.
Again, we need each other, and I need you.
You need me.
We need one another in this thing called Christianity, in
this pursuit of christlikeness.
And so I want you here on Sunday mornings, but I more than that, I, I want you to
show up for, for not just because I'm saying I want you here, but I want you
to show up because you love one another.
I want you to show up because of the community of the body of Christ
that's here and the, the, the love that we have for each other.
Because when we choose not to show up for our brothers and sisters in Christ,
there's something that we are, are, are doing that hurts them and that hurts us.
It hurts them because they're not benefiting from our presence
here, and it hurts us because we're not benefiting from theirs.
Maybe you're a little skeptical still.
Look at the context of our passage again.
Look at verse 19 in Hebrews.
Hebrews chapter 10 19 Notice.
Therefore, brothers, you can read that as brothers and sisters.
Verse 19 B, since we have confidence, verse 20, he opened for us.
Verse 21.
Since we have a great high priest, verse 22, let us draw near 22 again
and our hearts sprinkled clean.
Verse 22, our bodies washed.
Verse 23.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope.
Verse 24, let us consider how to stir one another up.
Verse 25, not neglecting to meet together, verse 25, but encouraging one another.
Do you see that the first person plurals, that are all over the
the address here from the writer.
And, and this is just flowing out of him because this is what the church is.
He doesn't say Here, therefore, Christian, since you have confidence
in what he opened for you and since you have a great high priest, let you,
you should draw near with your heart, sprinkled clean, and your body washed.
And, and you should hold fast the confession of your hope.
And, and you know what?
You should be stirred up within yourself and, and, and you should worship God
alone and, and you should be encouraged by the word of God, by yourself.
See, that's not what he's saying because that's not what the church is.
He's using this language, even the pronouns, even to convey that the
church is about this, it's about the room, it's about the people here.
It's about the body of Christ gathering together.
And so from passages like this one, we see that the life of the
Christian was designed and intended by God to be lived in the context of
the community of the local church.
There's close to 61 another commands in the New Testament.
Those are hard to obey without this.
I would say they're impossible to obey without this.
To love one another, to be in the, the presence of the body of Christ together.
Consider the picture of the, the early church.
We read it during our scripture reading.
Again, acts chapter two, verses 42 through 47.
They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching into fellowship,
to the breaking of bread.
And the prayers and awe came upon every soul and many wonders and
signs were being done through the apostles and all who believed were
together and had all things in common.
And they were selling their possessions and distributing the
proceeds to all as anyone had need.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in
their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.
Praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added to their number
day by day, those who were being saved.
See, the, the, the early church, I, I, I, I, granted we're in a different context.
There's things that we're gonna do differently based on where we are
just in history from where they were.
But that sense of love for one another, that sense shouldn't change because
that's a product of the gospel.
That's a product of what Jesus Christ has done in saving us and bringing
us into the, the body of Christ.
That's true whether you're part of the early church, part of the
Middle Ages church or part of the church today, or part of the church.
If Jesus doesn't come back before then in the year 4,000, this
is what the church should be.
It should be brothers and sisters in Christ loving each other.
Should be, the community should be showing up for each other.
And the problem is, in so many ways, for so many Christians, churches become
a luxury rather than the lifeline.
It is like, well, yeah, church is there and it's a luxury for me to be able to,
to, to go to a church that I can choose what service I want to attend and what
I, I feel like being involved in what I don't feel like being involved in and what
fits my schedule and my family's schedule.
Our sending pastor around the year 2000, Y 2K, if you remember back there.
We've hit COD in Y 2K.
I don't know what else I've got in store for you, but, um, he.
I had a, the, the church got a bunch of of water tanks and they, they
filled up the water tanks and just massive water tanks and not knowing
what was gonna happen during the year 2000, he told the church body, he
said, here's what I want you to do.
We don't know exactly what's gonna happen, but if things go bad, I
want you to come to the church.
I want you to come here.
And, and that was his message, not just then, but he said
that many times after that.
Why?
Because he wanted us to see that this body, this, this group that we
are a part of is a lifeline for us.
That if the heat gets turned up politically and we start facing
persecution, we're gonna need each other.
And that switch is not just gonna flip.
We have to build into those relationships now.
And so when we show up, I want us to show up because we want to be
present together as the body of Christ to sit under the teaching.
Yes.
But also because we wanna say, man, I wanna show up for Tim and Matt and
Jason and Heidi and Angela and Steve.
I wanna show up for the people that I love.
Think about your, your family holidays.
Sometimes you gather together as a family and, and maybe one year
somebody's not able to make it.
And it's not that the whole thing isn't just awesome.
It's not that you sit there and you're like, man, this is miserable
because this person's not here.
But you do feel their absence, don't you?
It's not the same when they're not there and you sit there and you think,
man, it'd be sweeter if they were here.
That's the body of Christ every single Sunday.
For us to be able to say, man, it'd be sweeter if all of us were here, and
so we should show up for each other.
We're gonna get practical about what that looks like next, but for now,
I just want us to see and agree upon the, the importance of, of being here.
We need each other.
I need you.
You need me.
That's what the body of Christ is, and part of the reason why is 'cause
we need each other to stay on task.
So look back in verse 25 with me, if you will.
He says, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but here he
goes, encouraging one another and all the more, as you see the day drawing
near it, it, it's like this showing up is like taking the field, right?
If you've played sports, you take your position on the field, but
you're not done at that point, right?
No team is expected to just say, Hey, we just want a warm body that's out there.
It doesn't matter who it's, it doesn't matter if they know
what they're supposed to do.
Just a warm body out there.
At, at, at some point you reach a level of athletics where you're expected
to do your part when you do show up.
So showing up is the first part, but then you've gotta actually show up and, and
it's not just that you show up, but it's how you show up and it's why you show up.
And that's what we're beginning to get into in the rest of verse 25.
Here, I want you to notice the opposite of not neglecting to meet together.
Here.
He says not neglecting to meet together is, is that habit of some, but.
And so there's our contrast in the verse, and he's gonna contrast not
meeting together with something else.
What does he contrast it with?
Just showing up, no showing up and encouraging each other, showing up and,
and being active in one another's lives, showing up and encouraging one another.
In all the mores you see the day drawing near that word encouraging
is from a Greek word parato, that means to call alongside and, and
you can even get the picture there.
It's a, it's a discipleship word, isn't it?
I'm gonna call you alongside of me and we're gonna do this together.
That's the body of Christ.
And so we are meant to show up in order to encourage, to exhort, to implore.
It can also even carry at at times the idea of, of reproof and correction.
It's a broad word that has a lot of applications.
So what is it that we're encouraging?
Well, the writer of Hebrews was encouraging his audience.
They needed to be staying faithful.
There were some in their midst that were tempted to abandon
and walk away from Christianity.
So they needed the body of Christ to encourage them to stay faithful, to
be encouraged, to remember the truth of God's word and not drift from it.
To be encouraged to persevere through trials and difficulties, to fear the evils
of sin, to love one another well, and to keep our eyes focused on the, the goal.
And that's where the writer goes next.
He says, encouraging one, one another, and all the more as
you see the day drawing near.
Y'all.
This is, is clutch.
This is so key for us because the, the church is, is here for now, but there's
a day that Jesus is coming back for us.
You guys heard that, that Forrest Frank song, Jesus is coming
back soon with Josiah Queen.
It's real simple.
It's not, it's not challenging the Gettys for profundity by any stretch of the
imagination, but I love when it gets stuck in my head because that, though it's
not a, a profound or though it is not a complex truth, it is a profound truth.
Jesus is coming back soon.
The day is drawing near and we need to be encouraging each other
because the day is drawing near.
I don't know when the rapture is gonna happen.
That's not what we're about here.
I'm not setting dates and times.
'cause the Bible says no one knows the hour or the day except the father.
Right.
What I do know is that he is coming back and, and listen if he comes back in
your lifetime, praise God my lifetime.
Praise God if he doesn't.
At some point, we're all going to be called home to go be with him, aren't we?
And no matter what you and I today are one day closer to either the return of
Christ for the bride or us departing this world to go be with Jesus.
You have one day less to live today than you did yesterday.
And so one of the things that we need each other to be encouraging us about
is how to live in light of that reality.
Pastor Rod preaching on this a few weeks ago, Psalm 90 teach us to
number our days, and I need you to encourage me to live my life.
Well, to say, pastor pj, the time that you've got left is, is, is limited.
You're one day closer to that time that you're gonna go meet
Jesus than you were yesterday.
And, and I need to be doing that with you.
And, and we need to be doing this in such a way that, that we're helping each other
live differently in light of that reality.
Peter talks about this in second Peter, chapter three.
Verses 11 through 13.
He says this, since all these things are thus to be dissolved, he's
talking about the world at this point.
The heavenly bodies are gonna be burnt up, things like that.
All these things are thus to be dissolved.
He says, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?
This is what he's talking about.
Since the day is drawn near, what sort of life should we live?
He asked to before.
Francis Chan, Francis Chan, Francis Schaeffer.
Hmm.
Francis Shaffer asked the question, how should we then live?
Peter asked the question first, and in light of the fact that Jesus is coming
back in light of the fact that all this is gonna burn, how should we then live?
What sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness waiting
for and hastening the coming day of God?
Because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved in
the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn, but according to
his promise, here it is, y'all.
We are waiting for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
That's what we're encouraging each other with.
Wh when you're walking through a trial, you need the church to
encourage you about the fact that you've got a date with Jesus coming.
You've got a date with your savior where there's no more pain, no more
sickness, no more sorrow anymore.
When you're battling temptation, you've gotta have somebody come
alongside you and say, Hey, you, you, you've got a date with Jesus coming.
You've got an appointment with the beam of seed of Christ coming.
See, we're not here forever.
And so while we're here, we should wanna make the best use
of the time that we have, the brevity of the life that we have.
And so that's another major reason why I need you, and you need me in your life.
We're meant to be here, not just to show up, but it's, it's how
we show up and why we show up.
And one of the key reasons we show up is to encourage each other in
light of the fact that one day we are all going to go and meet Jesus.
Point number two this morning is this, help each other live, ready to meet Jesus.
When we show up to church, we wanna help each other live ready to meet Jesus.
There's two aspects of this encouragement that I think we need from each other.
Two ways that we can help each other live ready to meet Jesus.
The first is we need to encourage each other to stay
busy while we wait His return.
We got work to do.
Sometimes you'll, you'll fly with people that fly more than, than, than I do,
and they've got access or they've got the credit card that's better than mine
so they can get in the lounge, right?
And the lounge.
What's the, the lounge in the airport meant to do?
It's meant to make you as comfortable as possible until you wait.
Your, your departure flight, Hey, come be here.
You don't have to, to sit with all the plebeians out there and all the people
that might have COVID come in here into the, the airport lounge and, and
be, be comfortable with us in here.
That somehow, sometimes that mentality can can creep into the church that
this place is the Delta Lounge and we're just here to be as comfortable
as we possibly can be until our departure flight to go be with Jesus.
That's not it.
In fact, next week we're gonna talk about this because the church is not
only called out to congregate and called out into community, but we've been
called out and commissioned, and so I need you and you need me to remind us
that hey, there's work to be done here.
Hey, there, there, there's a mission for the bride of Christ here.
Hey, you've been saved by Grace alone through Faith Alone and Christ alone.
Amen.
But right after that, in Ephesians two 10, it says, you've been created by God
for to be his, his good workmanship.
He's prepared good works for you to walk in them.
And so we gotta be busy about those things.
Matthew 24.
Jesus tells a a parable.
He says this.
At the end of it, he says, therefore, you must also be ready for the
son of man is coming at an hour.
You do not expect.
He says, who then is the faithful and wise servant whom his master
has said over his household to give them their food at the proper time?
Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.
Y'all.
We need to be together such that we are encouraging each other to
say, Hey, are you living ready to meet Jesus at any minute?
There is nothing on the prophetic landscape that we are waiting to happen
until Jesus comes back for his bride.
It's all been done.
So the next thing on the redemptive history timeline of God as the
return of Jesus for the the church.
And, and when he's gonna return for the churches is when the last soul is saved.
The last soul that he has called to be his is going to be saved.
Our sending pastor used to put it as, as filling up the bus.
When the last seat in the bus is is full, then Christ is
gonna come back for his church.
And it's a sobering thought to think that right now somewhere somebody might
be sharing the gospel with the last person that's ever gonna bow the knee
in faith and repentance to Jesus Christ before he comes back for the bride.
And are you ready for that?
Am I ready for that?
This is why we need each other.
We need each other encouraging us to live a life ready for that.
We need each other.
Spurring one another on encouraging each other, pressing each other on
holding ourselves accountable to be ready for the return of Christ.
Again, my life is, is limited.
I don't know what time I have left here on this earth.
I want you in my kitchen saying, what are you doing with your life?
I want you saying, how are you using your time?
I want you, if you find out, man, pastor PJ's playing video games
for two and three hours a night.
I'm not.
But if I was, I want you to be.
What are you doing, bro,
pastor bro?
Is that really what you wanna be found doing when Jesus comes back?
I, I need you in my life.
I need you knowing.
Hey, are you loving your wife well?
Are you treating her the way that God has called you to treat her?
If Christ comes back, as you're having a, a, a conversation with your wife, are you
going to be honoring Jesus when he does?
Are you grumbling and, and complaining about your circumstances?
I want you in my kitchen such that if I start grumbling about my life, my
circumstances, I want you to say, Hey man, your, your, your hope is not here
and now your comfort's not about here and now it's about then and there.
Redirect your focus.
Redirect your gaze.
One of the ways that we can encourage each other is, again, that way to,
to encourage each other to say, Hey, I want you to, to use your time.
Well, stay busy and be ready when Christ comes back.
The second way though, we do this, is as we encourage each other to,
to have the right perspective as we remember our ultimate destination.
That, that this world is not our home.
This goes back to our study in one Peter, which we're gonna
get back to in a few weeks here.
But remember, Peter's addressing his audience as aliens
and strangers, as exiles.
And they were literally, but they were also that spiritually speaking.
And all of us in, in this room are spiritual exiles in this world.
This world is not our home.
So I need you to encourage me to press on during the trial because this trial
is, is ultimately gonna be shown to be a light momentary affliction in light of
the eternal weight of glory that's being prepared for me when Jesus comes back.
I need you to encourage me and exhort me to stay the course when tempted
by worldliness to say, you know what?
It's, it's not worth it.
Because anything this world offers you pales in comparison to the pleasures that
are there forevermore at the right hand of God where there's fullness of joy.
Fight sin.
Don't give into the, the, the lures and temptations of this world when you
have something so much better there.
Stay the course.
I need that from you.
I need you to encourage me when I'm discouraged by the headlines of the
day or by what's going on politically.
I need to be reminded of the one who is the true and ultimate sovereign.
And the fact that he's moving everything towards the culmination
of his plan for mankind.
And to be reminded of that day that Jesus is gonna sit
on the throne, never to leave.
That he's the king of kings.
That He's the Lord of lords.
I need you to remind me and encourage me of those things.
I need to be encouraged by you when I'm disheartened by my sin, so that you would
remind me and say, look, repent and look forward to the day when sin will be.
No more.
Don't give up.
Don't sideline yourself.
We need each other.
I need you and you need me.
We need the body of Christ involved in our lives.
Your, your church needs you to show up for them this way, and you need
them to show up for you this way.
And here's the thing, y'all, this necessarily implies and requires a need
for relationships that, that are deeper than anything that can be formed in two
hours a week here on Sunday morning.
Imagine for a second how successful or, or rather unsuccessful a
football team would be if all the players just showed up on Sundays.
If they didn't show up any other time, they're like,
coach, I'll be there on Sunday.
I, but I don't wanna practice, I don't wanna have meetings
with my, my, my position coach.
I don't wanna get to know the other guys on my team coach.
I, I, I don't, I don't really wanna study the playbook.
I'll study the playbook on Sundays.
I'll give you my time on Sundays, but don't ask for anything else from me.
How successful would that team be, y'all?
Accomplishing the mission, not very.
Or imagine a marriage.
Imagine if you got married and, and at some point in your marriage you
sit down to tell your spouse that you wanna spend about two hours with them
on Sunday, but you, you're really not interested in hanging out with
them after that special occasions.
Yeah, you'll hang out birthdays.
Anniversaries, you'll give them some extra time, but aside from that, you,
you really think your marriage can be intact and can be good and and strong.
If, if you're just gonna hang out together for a couple hours a week,
how good is that marriage going to be?
Again, I said it earlier, showing up is like taking the field.
But you need the relationships with your other teammates.
To go back to that football analogy, you need the time on the practice field.
You need to know the playbook.
You need to be held accountable and you need to hold others accountable.
And you can't do that if all we're doing is just showing up on game days,
y'all.
This is one of the reasons why here at our church, we push community groups so much.
I know other churches do things differently.
There's adult Bible fellowship, there's Sunday school, and those things are
fine and and we may even implement something like that at some point here.
But when we planted this church, we knew for sure that this body, if it
was gonna be successful, was gonna need this type of relationship that we're
talking about here in Hebrew Chapter 10.
We're gonna need that life on life sharpening of one another,
that encouragement of one another.
That en that building up, that holding accountable, that saying, Hey, I need you
to, to encourage me as the de John deer.
I, I need you to help me live ready for the return of Jesus.
And I knew that I can't do that for you in only two hours a week.
You need one another.
I need you.
We need these relationships.
We push community groups because that's really where that's gonna take place.
That's really where that's gonna happen.
You're gonna build those relationships in the context of meeting with
other Christians, of taking this room and shrinking it down to
your group, your community group, and saying, these are my people.
I know them and they know me.
I know that they're gonna be in my kitchen if my marriage starts going haywire.
I know that they're gonna be with me if I get a diagnosis.
I know they're gonna support me when times are tough and I know that I'm
gonna do the same thing for them.
That's the church.
And again, I go back to all those reasons why that I started with
the introduction of why we keep the church in arms length in our culture.
But I think if we give an honest reading of the New Testament, an honest reading
of the Bible, I don't think we can justify anything in the, the pages of
scripture that say that that church looks like two hours on a on a Sunday.
And that's the only thing that I do with the church.
I I'm preaching largely to the choir here because I, I'm, I'm so thankful
for this body of believers here because I see so many of you out there that,
that get it and, and that are doing it.
And I would just say to you, as the apostle Paul would say to the, the
church in Thessalonika Excel still more, let's, let's maintain, let's keep going.
Let's not rest on our laurels.
I if, if you're here though this morning, and, and I know I've seen
some new faces out there this morning,
you're kind of getting a picture of what church looks like for us here.
But if you've been with us for a while and, and community groups, just not
something that you've prioritized, I, I just wanna gently say, I, I would
encourage you to again, consider the picture of the New Testament
Church and say is are we doing it?
Can I say that, that I'm doing what God has has designed the church to, to be.
And I, and I would really encourage you to, to think about prayerfully
taking that next step to, to commit with one of our community groups.
You can find 'em, they're on our, our community groups page, on our website.
And, and I'm not plugging that be, I don't, I don't gain any monetary
benefit from you joining a community group or anything else like that.
I'm not boasting with, with people about we've got this number of community groups.
I want that because I want you to have this kind of a relationship with
other people in the church and, and if you have this kind of a relationship
with other people in the church, it's gonna strengthen our church.
We'll all be better for it.
So we need not just to show up, but to show up for one another in a huge way.
We do that is by encouraging each other to maintain this perspective, that, man,
we're gonna stand before Jesus someday.
Am I ready?
We need those kind of relationships with one another.
Finally, verse 24, I told you I'd get there.
Verse 24, he starts and he says, and let us consider how to stir one
another up towards love and good works.
I, I love this verse.
There's some fun concepts, some fun words that are in here.
But first, the thing that I, I want you to see is this word consider.
What that tells us is that all of this that I've been talking
about this morning takes work.
It doesn't come naturally.
What comes naturally is taking care of us, right?
What comes naturally is taking care of the, the ones closest to us, our loved
ones, our family members, ourselves.
And then we give anything beyond that kind of the whatever leftovers we have,
what we're being called to this love for the bride of Christ doesn't come
naturally, and that's why the author says, let us consider, it's a word that means
to give careful thought to something.
Jesus used it in Luke chapter 12 when he said, consider the
ravens, consider the lilies.
Think about these things as he's then making a point about God's
concern and care for the person.
In Hebrews three, one, the author says, consider Jesus to consider, to
give careful thought to something.
You don't have to consider how to brush your teeth in the morning.
I trust that.
Right?
You've been doing it for a while now.
A few decades, hopefully.
Most of us in the room, you just do it.
You're not giving much careful thought to that and including, especially now
with our idiot proof toothbrushes that are like, we're gonna give you a timer.
Um.
I'm 41.
Can I be trusted to know what two minutes is?
Nope.
We're gonna give you a timer and it's gonna buzz every 30 seconds to tell you
when to move to another part, part of your mouth, and it's gonna glow green
when you're okay and red when you're not.
Okay.
I'm not giving a whole lot of brain power to brushing my
teeth in the morning these days.
You also don't really give much thought to putting on your shoes, my guess.
Right?
But you do have to consider something like if you're going on vacation,
what's the route that we're gonna drive?
You're gonna stop and go, okay, I need to think about this.
You are gonna give thought to man, do I wanna make any adjustments to my
stock portfolio this year, or my 401k?
You are gonna give some careful thought to that.
Or if you say, man, I wanna set out to learn a new skill, you are gonna
give some careful thought to that.
If we're gonna show up for each other the way that God is calling us to
show up for each other in the church, we have to be ready to work at it.
We have to give intentional thought to.
The second thing we see here is that we're, we're called to
consider how we might stir one another up, stir one another up.
It it, it's the words to stir up.
It's the word that was used by Luke in Acts when he writes about the
sharp disagreement that took place between Paul and Barnabas about
whether or not to take John Mark on the missionary journey with them.
Uh, Paul and Barnabas were stirred up, provoked against one another
that led to their separation.
Our writer in Hebrews takes it and redeems it for a positive sense.
He says, I, I want you to stir one another up, which is a word that can mean
to provoke and, and even to be a, a, a sanctified irritant in somebody's life.
And he says, I want you to do that in order to provoke somebody, not to anger
or irritation, but to christlikeness
that christlikeness.
We see in the, the next part of this verse when he says to, to love and good works.
Consider how we may stir one another up to love and good works.
And, and that's our goal.
That's our aim.
That's what we're doing.
And this is another reason why I need you.
When you need me, I need you to stir me up to love and good works.
We need to help each other live a life.
The, the word good works there.
The word good.
In the Greek, it's colos.
It means beautiful.
I need you to stir me up, to provoke me to live a life that's
beautiful in the sight of God.
And so that's my goal when I show up at church.
We're considering who can I encourage this morning, when I'm here, when I'm
going to community group, when I'm seeing other believers throughout the week, I
need to give careful thought to you guys, how can I love this person this morning?
How can I serve this person this morning?
How can I encourage this person this morning?
How can I stir this person up?
How can I provoke them towards greater christlikeness?
We need each other to be those sanctified irritants in one another's lives
so that we will be more like Jesus.
Final point this morning is this, push each other to greater christlikeness.
Push each other to greater christlikeness.
This is what the community looks like.
How is your presence this morning?
Pushing other believers in this room to love God more
and to increase in doing good.
That's what the writer said.
We're here to do.
Stir one another up to love in good deeds.
Once again, the, the primary outworking of this isn't just this morning.
It's not just these two hours.
Can you stir one another up to loving good deeds on Sunday morning?
Amen.
Yes, you can.
A hundred percent.
I, I pray that we are, as we gather together, as we sing together, as we
fellowship together, as you eat donuts together, yeah, you can stir one another
up to towards love and good deeds.
But, but again, it's, it's so much more than what we are
doing right now and right here.
It, it's, it's the body life.
It's the commitment to those relationships that I was just
talking about a minute ago.
And, and I love this because it gives us permission to be sanctifyingly
annoying in each other's lives.
We need that.
If you grew up with siblings, you need that, but for good, right?
I, I was an only child, so I didn't grow up with siblings, so
God was like, here's five kids.
And, and I, I see them be not sanctifyingly annoying in each
other's lives on a regular basis.
They know how to be unsanctified irritants with the best of
them as spiritual siblings.
We need to be sanctified irritants that, that cause that
friction in one another's lives.
That make us say, I don't like that.
In the way to get rid of that is to be more like Jesus,
the burr in the saddle, the pebble in the shoe.
And again, he's saying Be intentional about this.
Back in California, I, my office window looked out on some mountains in the
distance and I always loved winter because it would clear up and you could
look out and see them and they were the, you could see the, the caps of snow on
them and it was just, it was beautiful.
It was distracting.
I wouldn't get work done 'cause I just sat there and looked out my window at these
mountains with snow and just the gorgeous Southern California environment out there.
It was amazing to, to behold.
Our presence in the life of other believers should cause them to be
more beautiful in the sight of God because of how we love each other.
God wants you church to help your brothers and sisters in
Christ live a life like that.
You say, well, what does that look like?
How do I do that?
Praying for each other is a great place to start praying with each other.
That's a great place to stir one another up to loving good deeds is to pray that
the spirit in dwelling your brother or sister in Christ would, would provoke
them towards godliness in christlikeness.
Another way to do it is is taking someone through partners, our
one-on-one discipleship program.
If you've been through partners and, and, and you've gone through with somebody that
says, Hey, I think you'd be great and, and taking somebody else through this, that's
another way that you can help somebody grow in their walk with Christ as well.
Bringing a meal to somebody is a way to stir one another up
to towards love and good deeds.
If you think about that, love stirring one another up towards love.
Go back to John 13 when Jesus says love one another, as I have
loved you by this, will all people know that you are my disciples
if you have love for one another?
So as we love one another sacrificially that way, we are conveying that
love of Christ towards one another.
We are causing them to say, I wanna love like I've been loved, and you're
reminding me by bringing me this meal that I've been loved even greater
by Jesus who died for me, and that's making me wanna love Christ more.
Confronting somebody in sin.
That's another way to be that sanctified irritant in somebody's life.
Galatians chapter six says, if anyone is caught in a trespass, you
who are spiritual should seek to restore that person in a spirit of
gentleness that we love one another.
Not to let unconfessed unrepentant sin just fester in somebody's life.
Offering accountability is another way for you to be that stirring
up presence in somebody's life.
Following up, man, this one's huge.
Following up with somebody I know, oftentimes to my own shame,
I'll, I'll talk with somebody and somebody will say, Hey, can you
be, be praying for me about this?
And, and I'll say, sure.
And, and I, I'll pray for them there, and then I'll, I'll pray for them
during the week, but I'm not very good at following up with that person.
Which is a way to stir up somebody towards love and good deeds to cost
somebody to say, man, I, my love for Jesus increases because of your love for me.
That you cared enough about me and what's going on.
To say, Hey, how'd that interview go?
Hey, how'd the the results come back from the test that you had done?
Hey, how's your marriage doing?
We were praying for you not grumbling in complaining.
That's a way to stir one another up towards love and good deeds,
to to be a, a, a source of positivity in each other's lives.
Thinking about it, I'm, I'm, I'm reading in our, our Old Testament
reading, I'm, I'm ahead for the, the podcast purposes, but we're in Exodus
and, and just the Israel is just grumbling against Moses all the time.
If your heart is one that is predisposed towards grumbling and complaining, and
you are a negative presence in the life of the body of Christ, here, you are not
stirring up your brothers and sisters.
So loving good deeds,
not being a divisive person.
Should be self-explanatory there.
Yeah.
These are all ways that we can stir one another up towards loving good deeds.
And, and, and then beyond that, it looks like we've, what we've already talked
about this morning, in fact, verse 24 is dependent upon, or verse 25 rather,
is, is, is dependent upon verse 24.
'cause the grammar in verse 25 explains how we do verse 24.
We do verse 24, by not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but
stirring, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near.
And so everything that we've talked about fits under this banner as well.
But the point of it all is this.
You and I need one another.
I need you and you need me.
I need you to be that, that source, that that impetus in my life that's
pushing me to be more like Jesus.
And you need me for that too.
And this is a start, but it's more than this.
It's gotta be more than this.
And if you, you're here and, and this is what you're doing
every single week, I would say.
I, I don't want you to go away.
I want you here.
It's, it's, it's good to be here, but I just want to let you
know that I think you're, you're leaving something on the shelf.
You're leaving something on the shelf, and it is so good.
Not just are you leaving something on the shelf from what would benefit you,
but you're leaving something on the shelf that you have to offer to benefit
your brothers and sisters in Christ in this room, in true community as well.
Again, i, I love our church.
I think our church is doing this really, really well.
So again, the message is Excel still more.
Let's keep going.
Let's press on in this.
There's no shortcuts to biblical community.
We can't rest back on our laurels and say, man, we're, we're, we're good.
Let's keep pressing on and keep going.
The church needs you and you need the church.
That's how God designed us.
And I know sometimes it's hard to feel like that, especially in, in north
Texas where we don't face the trials and the persecution and the opposition
the way that it does in, in some of the, the world, but still the word of God
and the design of God remains the same today as it did for the early church.
God's design for the church here is the same as God's design for the church in
Nigeria, where Christians are facing the threat of, of terrorists coming in and
kidnapping pastors and killing people.
He wants us to be the community as much here as he wants them to be.
The community there,
it's probably hard for us to, to think about that and conceive of
that, but we have to come back to that reality, that fundamental reality,
that to be called out from the world is to be called into community.
And it's a community that has to say at the end of the day, man, I need
the church, and the church needs me.
We need each other.
Let's pray.
Father God, we thank you for the gift of the church that you didn't save us.
And, and just to isolate us, save us as, as lone ranger
Christians, and just say good luck.
But you saved us to have relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ
who are also indwelled by your spirit, who can cause us to be more like Jesus.
Push us to be more like Jesus, cause us to love him more.
And so God, I pray that we would continue to thrive as a church and grow as a church
where we are not just interested in, in adding this to a, a calendar as an event
for a couple hours a week, but that we would be here to have true community,
true relationships with each other as we seek to follow Jesus with our lives.
And so we thank you so much for this morning, and we thank you for
the gift of the bride of Christ, and we can't wait to be with Jesus.
Until then, help us be found faithful.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen