to read together from Hebrews chapter 10 and consider one of the commands here to stir one another up to good works and to love that's given to us in Hebrews chapter 10. Now I know our time is a little bit compressed here before the start of the prayer service and so I'll jump in quickly. Our goal this morning is going to be to start out by considering just briefly the broader argument of the author of the book of Hebrews. We're going to think a little bit about how this passage, starting in verse 19, fits into that larger narrative that he's painting throughout the book. And eventually we'll find ourselves honing in on that command to stir one another up to love and good deeds in Hebrews chapter 10. So I invite you to turn there with me. We're going to read beginning in verse 19, and we will read through the end of that section in verse 25. The author says, therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter into the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love in good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Father, we ask for your help this morning. You have inspired and preserved and given us your word. forbid that we would take it for granted, but instead write its truth in our hearts, in Christ's name, amen. It's certainly a oversimplification and a common one, but the book of Hebrews might be summarized with the statement that Christ is better. Let me give you a few examples of this. Jesus is presented to us as the final revelation, presented in and by God's Son, a revelation after which we would need no other. In chapter one he is called superior to the angels and we are told there that he has inherited a name that is better than theirs. In chapter three he is presented as a prophet who is greater than Moses and he's also presented as a more faithful son than rebellious Israel was who suffered in the wilderness and hardened their hearts against the word of God. In chapter 4, we are told that we have a great high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, who was tempted in all ways as we are and yet was without sin. And in chapter 8, the author strains toward his primary argument that Jesus is the perfect mediator of a new and better covenant. a saving and atoning covenant that God has made with his people whereby he will forgive their sins and he will redeem this people eternally for himself. Particularly important for understanding our passage in verses 19 through 25 is thinking about the argument that the author makes earlier in chapter 10. the argument that Christ has provided a better sacrifice for his people, and that this sacrifice goes beyond that which any priest would do in the tabernacle or in the temple under the old covenant. Earlier in the chapter, the author says this, every priest stands daily at his services, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who were being sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us, for after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them in those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law on their hearts and write them on their minds. He adds that I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. He concludes where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin. Now in the passage before us we see a shift in the letter that should be familiar to most of us. It is a shift from explanation and theological truth to exhortation. You're used to seeing this even if you don't know it because you sit under the faithful preaching and teaching of the men at GBC every Sunday and you see this consistent pattern of giving you theological truth to which you are called to respond. This is common in other New Testament letters, and it's what we see in the very passage that we read this morning. There's a need to confront men with truth. That truth has to be grounded in the revelation that we have in God's word. But this truth has to be accompanied by an exhortation or a call to act, and one or the other simply will not do. A presentation of truth only may be informative or interesting, But if we sit under that truth and we learn, but it doesn't affect change in our lives, then what value is that truth for us? At the same time, exhortations to act without grounding in biblical truth are shallow and misleading. You can modify your behavior in a variety of ways. You can give up bad habits and start practicing good ones, but without faith, we are told it is impossible to please God. You can try to be a better husband or father or wife or mother, but without an understanding of these things that is grounded in biblical truth, we can never truly fulfill those roles. We can act in all the ways that seem pleasing to God. Going to church, giving up sinful habits. supporting the ministry financially, serving others, but your relationship with God must be anchored in the truth of your sinful condition, and the truth of what God has done for you in Christ, and that that hope is appropriated only by faith in him. So it's not enough for the author of Hebrews, and it's not enough in our teaching and preaching here, to have only truth or only exhortation, we must have both. And the author of Hebrews has made the argument that Christ is superior to the angels, that he's inherited a better name, that he's the perfect mediator of a better covenant, that he's a greater prophet than Moses, and that he himself has made a perfect sacrifice, a final sacrifice for our sins, better than was ever presented on a burnt altar. And because of that, we are commanded to act and respond. This passage that begins in verse 19 represents the marriage of that truth and is followed by a series of three exhortations. Number one, the people who are reading this, by extension, we also are called to come confidently into the presence of God. Number two, we're called to be uncompromising about our hope in Jesus. And number three, we are to encourage and hold one another accountable to our life in Christ. The first couple verses that we read say, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, we are to respond. The author of Hebrews doesn't just take his audience into the courtyard of the tabernacle. And he doesn't just take them inside the building itself with the lamp stands and the other golden objects there. He takes them all the way behind the heavy double-layered curtain into the most holy place, something that would have been utterly unthinkable and certainly would have been punishable by death for them to actually attempt to do. And yet he bids them to come in. And he says, enter into the most holy place and enter in here without fear and trembling and trepidation to this place where the presence of God is manifested in a special way on the earth. You can come in and access God directly by the blood of Jesus and by this new and living way that he has opened up in the curtain, that is by his flesh. He invites them to come in and do this unthinkable thing because Christ has made them a new and living way. In other words, he says, come into the presence of God and come in here with confidence because you are soaked in the blood of Jesus and his body has been broken for you and now you can enter into the presence of the Father. We see here, of course, a reference to Christ's death. His blood makes us ceremonially clean to approach God where we would otherwise never think to do such a thing. And his body is presented to us as that broken curtain by which we enter into the holy place. Unlike the rituals of the old covenant, we are told this is a new and living way. That is to say it stands forever. That access to God upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ remains unchanging and available for all those who seek him. Christ as the great high priest stands forever as the mediator who guarantees that you and I and those who read the letter of Hebrews could enter confidently into the presence of God. So this is an invitation. And he tells them Christ has made a way for you. And not only has he made a way for you, this mediator stands and guarantees your access in perpetuity to the presence of God. Amen. What a beautiful thing to know we can come to him. So in light of this, the author sets out on a series of exhortations. I want to point out to you that these aren't just commands, but they actually express the desire of the author of Hebrews for the people to whom he is writing. Christians are frequently given these kinds of invitations. And I think it's important to reflect on this as being an extension and an expression of the actual heart of this author for the people who are living there, who are calling themselves after the name of Christ. Now, there are three of them. We only have time in the most brief way to look at the first two, and we especially want to focus on the third of these exhortations to stir up one another to love and good works. In verse 22, he says, let us draw near. And let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts being sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. That's exhortation number one. Number two, he says, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering because he who has promised is faithful. First of all, because Christ has made a way to God, we are able to come boldly into his presence. The question is, how can a person approach God with the kind of confidence that the author is exhibiting? The answer is that he must do so with genuine faith and with a clean conscience. So the author is extending this invitation to those who hear and read his letter, that if you have full confidence in God's promises to save, if you have a conscience that has been made clean because you have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus, If you have entered into his death and his resurrection, then don't stand far off from the Father, but come directly into his presence, because Christ has made a way for you. His second exhortation is that because Christ has made a way to God, we should be uncompromising about our hope in Jesus. Now when I say uncompromising, you probably think about uncompromising in the sense of saying things you otherwise would not say or not saying things that you would say if you had the opportunity. We often take compromise as being synonymous with external pressure. And so we think about uncompromising when we think about our relationship to a government or to an employer or to a friend or to a family member. and that person or that body might challenge our commitment to Christ. And so there's this pressure externally to compromise. And sometimes that pressure is overt. It's under threat of penalty. We don't proselytize here. We don't talk about religion here. We don't bring up religion and church at Thanksgiving dinner. We don't talk about those kinds of things here. We agree to disagree. It's overt compromise. We want you to say something you wouldn't otherwise say, that this isn't as important to me as you might think it is, or to be silent when we ought to speak up. Other times, compromise is more subtle. And we're discouraged from sharing our hope because of a person's hostility or because of a person's loud and well-known disagreements with our faith. Interestingly, here in Hebrews 10, I think that compromise is not compromise to external pressure but it's compromised with ourselves. How often are we tempted to forget how precious God's promises to us really are? How often does sudden and unexpected tragedy strike and we are tempted to question God's promises and faithfulness to us? The author of Hebrews exhorts those who hear him. And he invites them to cling to the confession of their hope, that is the gospel. And he does this not because of the quality of their faith. Don't come into the presence of God. Don't cling unwaveringly to your hope in Christ because of the quality of your faith, but because of the object of it. because he who has promised good things to you, he who has promised that you can come into his presence, he who has promised that you will be forgiven of your sins, this one is faithful. And it grounds the argument of the second exhortation. These two are well known and they make perfect sense to Christians. No one is surprised to hear that because Christ has made a way to God, we should come boldly into his presence. and be uncompromising about our faith in Jesus. But what about the third exhortation there? This is where we find our one another statement. Because Christ has made a way to God, we should encourage and hold one another accountable to our life in Christ. He says, 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 and all the more as you see the day approaching. This third exhortation is a call to effect change in one another's lives. Most of you and I this morning are reading from the English Standard Version. The words stir up there in verse 24 reflect a word that is used only twice in the New Testament. And looking at translations shows us that there's some ambiguity here. For instance, the King James Version and the New Revised Standard Version read, provoke one another. Where the New American Standard Bible says stimulate one another. And the New English translation and NIV say spur one another. And the New Living Translation I think actually helpfully captures the idea here says motivate one another to love and to good works. The only other place in the New Testament we actually find this word is in Acts 15. where you have Barnabas and Paul arguing about whether or not John Mark should be allowed to continue with them in their missionary work. And there it's translated not as stimulate or provoke or stir up or motivate, it's translated as a sharp disagreement. What does this teach us? Well, that this particular term is neither positive or negative. But instead, it communicates the idea of affecting change. And either the change is gonna be that we have a great disagreement that we can't rectify, and we're gonna go our separate ways, or we're going to find a way to motivate one another, to stir one another up, to provoke one another to good works. And the idea here is we are going to affect change in one another's lives. Shame on us if our lives are unaffected by the people in this building today. and shame on us if we have no effect on the people sitting around us. The author's exhortation is first to encourage and hold one another accountable to good works. We often think of this also in a negative sense when we talk about accountability. That's to give an account for wrongdoing. So here's what somebody did and we hold them accountable and we practice church discipline and those kinds of things. But we're not only to correct a brother or sister that we see in error, we are to motivate them. to serve others, to be involved in the critical life of the body of Christ. Holding one another accountable and encouraging one another is not only about correction, but it's about desiring the very best among God's people and desiring that we would be the ones that bring it about. There's a practical application of this that comes to mind. That many of us are involved in the lives, not just in the Sunday mornings of our fellow church members, So we gather together in care groups, and we meet one another's needs, and we serve one another. But we should go beyond gathering together and serving one another to encouraging the whole body to do the same thing. The argument that the author of Hebrews is making here is that your life with Christ is not just about how you relate to him. And it's not just about how you serve His body, and how you minister to the body, and how you give, and how you are invested, but you should be about the work of encouraging the rest of the body to move with you as well. So it's a good thing to be involved in care group, and it's a good thing to meet needs and to serve one another, but we do not only that, we encourage one another to do the same. There should never be a member of Grace Bible Church who isn't invested in the well-being of the whole body, who isn't in a care group, who isn't critically involved in the lives of their brothers and sisters to whom they are joined here in this life and with whom they will spend eternity in heaven. Maybe we would ask ourselves this question, if we do not hold one another accountable, if we don't encourage one another, if we don't motivate one another to good works, Who is going to do it? Also notice that this exhortation hinges on the assembling of ourselves together, or our being with one another. It should be a warning to us that the author of Hebrews says, and I'm paraphrasing here, that because Christ has made a way to God, we should encourage and hold one another accountable to our life in Christ. And the best example of how not to do this is to neglect being together with one another. The things that the author of Hebrews in verses 19 through 25 has encouraged his people to do or has encouraged the people of God to do, he's saying the best example of how not to do these things The best example of how not to encourage one another to good works, the best example of how not to hold without compromise to your faith in Jesus, the best example of forsaking the presence of God himself is the neglecting to assemble yourselves together and to be together. This should stand as a warning to us. It's unthinkable, to put that same thing another way, that we would stay away from the presence of God. Putting aside those times of spiritual warfare in our lives, where we have our most shameful and dark days, it would be unthinkable that we would say, I don't want to read God's Word, I don't want to see a Bible, I don't want to hear the name of Christ, I don't want to pray, I don't want to think about the things of God, I don't want to be close to His people. It's unconscionable that we would respond in such a way. And it's unthinkable that we would be wavering in the confession of our hope. I think Jesus will save, but I'm not sure. How unthinkable should it be that I'm going to live this life in isolation? I'm going to live this life online. I'm going to live this life privately. It's impossible in this passage in Hebrews to think of such a thing. Simply put, an essential part of encouraging and holding one another accountable in the Christian life is the gathering together for worship. This is an essential function. This is an essential duty for us to be together, to encourage one another, to hold one another accountable, and to build one another up. I'm encouraged when I come to Grace Bible Church on the Lord's Day and I see all of you worshiping together. I'm encouraged when I hear, as we will in just a minute, the prayers of the saints. I'm encouraged that I'm not the only one who sometimes prays desperately, pleading with the Lord to hear. I'm encouraged when I see needs in this congregation voiced and those needs being met. I'm encouraged when I hear the walls of this building tremble under the congregational singing. I'm encouraged when I hear the faithful teaching and preaching of the elders of this church. I'm encouraged when I see the body and blood of Christ in the elements of communion. I'm encouraged when I see Pastor Jeff baptize a believer and we see and are reminded again of the promise of the washing away of our sins of our death and burial with Christ and our resurrection to walk in newness of life with him. I'm encouraged when I see the new member class stretch all the way around the piano, around the pulpit, down the side, down the steps, sometimes onto the first row. And I'm encouraged by that because I'm reminded that you and I are not alone, that God is calling his people out of this world unto himself. And he hasn't quit calling them. He hasn't quit saving them. The promises of the gospel are as sweet now as they've been for the last 2000 years. And God is still drawing people to himself. I'm encouraged when I'm here because I'm reminded that I'm not alone, that you are not alone, but we together are assembled as the body of Christ. Let us never neglect to stir one another up to good works and to love. Let us never neglect the assembling of ourselves together. As I said earlier, I want to remind you this, that these exhortations in Hebrews 10 are not just commands, but they are in fact invitations. You notice that these are even written in the first person. Let us do these things. We don't just have a command. to enter the presence of God, we have an invitation from God Himself to come. There's a huge difference in being told to come and being invited in. We have an invitation to hold fast to this confession, clinging to it in life and death, our hope in Jesus. And there's a big difference in being told you have to hold to this confession and being invited to come in and hold to this confession. And it's one thing to be commanded, to be told that you must stir one another up to good works. But isn't it beautiful to be given the invitation to do those things? Because Christ has made a way for us to God. We have the opportunity to encourage and hold one another accountable to our life in Christ. Amen. Let's pray. Father, help us all the more as we see the day of Christ return in judgment and in glory approaching to stir one another, to provoke, to motivate, to stimulate one another, to love and to good works. May we never neglect by the help of your spirit, by the power of your grace, the assembling of ourselves together, May you put deep in our hearts that we would rather die than not be here together. Thank you for the beautiful body that you have given to us in Grace Bible Church. May you continue to call more to yourself. May you minister your gospel by the power of your spirit to a lost world who is in desperate and dire need of one who would forgive their sins, who would redeem them to you and would declare them righteous in your sight. We pray these things humbly. In your son's name, amen.