If you would open your Bibles with me this evening to the book of Hebrews, chapter 10. Page 1283 in the Bibles in the seats. And when Matt asked if I could preach a few times, as he planned a vacation so that he could get COVID or something like that, I thought that I might, in a little way, try to tie these three sermons together. I don't know that I mentioned it this morning. I mentioned it last week, and the key word is live. And so last Lord's Day evening, we looked at the call to live well, and beyond that, to die well, to mourn well, to bury well. This morning, to live as worthy citizens. And this evening, we're gonna consider the call to live together. And so that's what we're gonna look at in Luke. One more time, in Hebrews chapter 10. A movie of our generation, at the peak of the action, the drama, one of the leading women in the movie said something like this, I couldn't tell you the truth. And then I didn't want to tell you the truth because the truth was that I fell in love with you, all of you. I went from being all alone to being a fiance, a daughter, a granddaughter, a sister, a friend. You allowed me to be part of this family and I hadn't had that in a really long time and I just didn't want to let it go. That longing for family, some of you are figuring out what movie, that longing for community ought to be reflected in the church all the time. And let's read about that in Hebrews 10 verses 19 through 25. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy place 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 and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encourage one another, encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. As we've heard from God in his word, we've sung his word and now we've read it, let's seek him together in prayer. Please join me as I lead us in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we do ask that you would cause us to draw near as we were called to worship this morning to your very throne of grace, and as we're called to in this text, that we would come together, let us come together to your word and let us be taught by you that we might know you better and make you known. We ask for your help in Jesus name. Amen. You're familiar, I suspect, with the book of Hebrews. Many think it was probably a sermon that was then written and distributed to the churches. In many ways, it reads like a sermon. It speaks to his hearers. We don't have time to say certain things. And I think that's very likely the case. But what's it about? It's about Christ. It's about the excellency of Christ. It's written to Hebrew Christians, that is Jewish Christians, who it appears are struggling with wanting to go back to the Old Testament ways. And the author of Hebrews continues to hold up Christ to them and the glory of Christ and call them to see and appreciate the excellency and the glory of Christ. And that continues here in our text before us. And the text before us has a statement of truth and a call to respond to that statement of truth, as is often the case in the Word of God. It's often the pattern in the scripture. Because this is true, then this is what you are to do in response to that. And so we have that in our text. We have this instruction as we began in verse 19, since we have. Since we have. And then he goes and describes that. In following that, he said, let us then, let us then. Well, what is it that we have? What is it that the author of Hebrews, God himself, the human author is debated and not known for certain, but God has written this by his Holy Spirit. And he says, we have boldness to enter the holiest by Jesus. We have boldness to enter the holiest by Jesus. We're told we can enter. But not just that we can enter, we can enter boldly. And not just that we can enter boldly, but we can enter the most holy place. And remember, these were Hebrew Christians. These were Christians who knew their Old Testament. They knew the pattern of God in the Old Testament. And there was the holy place in the tabernacle and then the temple and there was the most holy place. And only once a year could the high priest with blood go into that most holy place. The place was so holy that even its furnishings were holy. And if the people of God mishandled them, especially in those days when there wasn't a temple, but a tabernacle and they moved from place to place, if they mishandled, The furnishings of the most holy place, they were struck dead. And the author of Hebrews says, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, to enter boldly into those most holy place. And we think, how in the world is that possible? How can we enter this most holy place? Well, he tells us how we can. We can do it by Jesus blood. Our one time perfect sacrifice that results if you are in Christ, in your sin, truly being forgiven. And so the question is, are you forgiven? Are you trusting? in Christ? Do you have the blood of Christ on your behalf? And if so, praise God. Praise God. I think at times we get used to our salvation and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but let us never forget the wonder that we who are once far off have now been brought near. We have been given boldness to enter the holiest place. And that is done by Jesus' blood. It's done, as it goes on to say, by a new and a living way. Now, when I go from point A to point B, I often go different ways. When I was a student at seminary in the years gone by, years before GPSs, I was at point A and wanted to go to point B, and I grew up in Indiana. It's a grid, it's as square as can be, and you can go this way, or you can go this way, or you can go this way. And more than once, I tried a new way in Pittsburgh to get from point A to point B, and I ended up over here and realized later when I looked at the map that point B was way over there, because there aren't any straight roads. And my family would usually put up with my picking a new way as long as we got there. But when we didn't, my wife found it frustrating. And I say that not to criticize her, but to criticize me. I just like to go new ways. And we ought not to think that Jesus is like that. He didn't go a new way. He didn't provide a new way on a whim. The eternal God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit determined that there would be a way in the Old Testament that was, and I think for us New Testament Christians, we have to remember this, it was a very good way, but it wasn't good enough. And so Jesus, by a new and living way, made a way for us to fully accomplish and fully receive what the Old Testament could only promise. And he did that through the veil of his flesh. We think about the account of the crucifixion and that veil that separated the holy place from the most holy place in the temple was torn from top to bottom. And I have wondered, just as a curiosity, I certainly wouldn't get into a theological debate on this because the scripture gives us no information. But I wonder if the Jews tried to repair that torn curtain. There's a sense in which that's what these Hebrew Christians are doing. They're trying to repair the torn curtain and go back to the old way, and the author of Hebrews is holding out the new way in Christ. This new way that Christ made by his flesh. Did they try to put together what God had separated or did they come As the author of Hebrews was encouraging them to see that they could come only through this new way, only through Christ. And do we? Do we try to come our own way to Christ? I'll do it my way. That's the song of our of our age. I'll do what I want to do. No, we come with boldness through Christ. And the author goes on to tell us more about Christ, really a restatement, just slightly different details. He tells us that this Jesus who has given us access into the holy place is a high priest over God's house. A high priest over God's house. And again, it's foreign ideas to us unless we're steeped in the scripture, we're steeped in the Old Testament. We understand the work of the high priest. And the high priest is not a high priest for individuals. If you think that that's a good idea, maybe you should read Judges 17 and 18 and find out that it's not a good idea. A priest serves the house of God. The community of the people of God, and that's what we're looking at as we focus on this text this evening, we are. We are not merely individuals in relationship with God through Christ, as amazing and as wonderful as that is, we can say I can say you can say if you're in Christ, I have been crucified with Christ. And it's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Absolutely, you can say that, but. It's too small a task for Christ to save merely you, merely me. Christ died for his church. Christ saved his church. Christ is a high priest over the house of God. And we live in an individualistic age and we have something great to offer to the world. And that is to be part of the household of God. Now, you've all, at least at some point in your life, been involved in a household, just the way it works. And you know that households can be messy. And sometimes it can be hard to be a member of a house. Sometimes kids want to just grow up and move away. And sometimes they don't even wait to grow up. They just want to move away. And sometimes parents want to encourage them to grow up and move away. until they do it, and then we weep. But we are called to be part of the house of God. We have a high priest who is over the house of God, and that's the way it ought to be in the church. The congregation that was sent out, I grew up in Second Indianapolis Congregation, and when I was about 19, the South Side Congregation was started, and we were part of that congregation before seminary and then after I had pastored for 10 years, we went back. And as we were part of that congregation, there was an older single woman in the congregation named Maxine. And the congregation was having a birthday party for Maxine. And she had been single her whole life. She had one brother, but she said at this birthday party, I think it was her 70th, I forget things. She said, this is my family. And isn't that the way it should be? That you and I would say of the church of which we are part, this is my family. Not my family in terms that I own it, it's God's family, it's God's house. And over this family, over this house, Jesus is a high priest. Since we have, well, that demands a question. Do you have it? Do you have this boldness because of Jesus? Well, if you're in Christ, you do. Do you have Jesus as a high priest, not just over you individually, but over you as part of the house of God? Have you trusted him? Have you repented of your sin? Have you come to be a part of his church? As Dave prayed, those who have confessed Christ, who have come together to be part of the church, to say Jesus is high priest over our house. Well, if you have, and since we have, then let us. There's always in scripture the what and the so what. Since you have, this boldness, then let us. And the author here gives us three particular lettuces, if you will. The first of these is let us draw near. And you might say, well, why does he have to tell us to draw near when he's told us we have the boldness to draw near? Because the Christian life is not merely doctrine. It's not theoretical in and of itself. It's practice. It's experience. Since you have boldness to enter the most holy place through Jesus, then draw near through Jesus. Let us draw near. And again, it's community all the way. Let us, let us, let us. We're going to sing that in Psalm 122. We heard it in the call to worship. Let us go to the house of the Lord, they said to me. That's the call from God to his people. Let us draw near. drawn near to God with a genuine heart. Oh, that could be a problem. How genuine is your heart? Well, left to yourself, it's not very genuine. It's desperately wicked. It's full of deceit. But in Christ, your heart has been changed. And that was the promise for the Old Testament. And the reality is that it's here when David set up Solomon to take over the kingdom. He said this to him, as for you, my son, Solomon, know the Lord of your father and serve him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind for the Lord searches all the hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you. But if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever. The promises of God in the Old Testament are that he would give his people a true, a genuine heart. David prayed when confessing his sin before his God, creating me a clean heart. And renew a steadfast spirit within me, the prophet Jeremiah speaks of God's promise, I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord and they shall be my people and I will be their God. For they shall return to me with their whole heart, a promise that God has given that is now full in Christ, it's fulfilled in Christ. And you and I are to take hold of that, to draw near, to draw near with a genuine heart and full assurance of faith, not in faith in you, in faith in Christ. We will always find room to doubt ourselves. But may we never find room to doubt Christ, to doubt what he has accomplished. He who is the author and the finisher of our faith, he who began a good work in us and will bring it to completion in the day of Jesus Christ. And the author in illustrating this point, the preacher in illustrating this point uses two illustrations. And let me illustrate his illustrations. If you can, imagine a time when you were dirtier than you had ever been. Now, for you kids, it might not be that hard, because kids get dirty all the time. But we get a little older, we get dignified, and we try to stay clean. But imagine it's a day, it's a hot summer day, maybe you long for that in these cold winter days. You've been out working in the heat, perhaps. Or perhaps it's a time when you've Had a crawl under the house and you've gotten filthy? Or if you're a mom or a nurse, perhaps it's a time when you're covered with bodily fluids of someone else other than you. Whatever it is, just imagine that filth, that dirt. And now imagine it's time to go to some kind of a wonderful function. Maybe it's a wedding. Maybe it's a party in your honor. can use your imagination to think what is that kind of an event that I would like to go to. Would you go the way you are? Would you go in that dirty, smelly, stained, stinky way? Of course not. And then you think about what you're like and you think about the call to draw near to God. And you feel a little bit like maybe that imagination, like, how can I in these dirty clothes and this stain and stench, how can I go boldly before God? And of course, if you were going to this wonderful event, you'd clean up or you do your best to do that. But imagine that your best wasn't good enough, that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't get the smell off of you. No matter how hard you tried to clean your clothes, they were stained. And you couldn't make them clean again. And you'd think, I can't go, I can't go to this wonderful event, I can't be appropriately clothed and prepared. But the picture here from the word of God all throughout, but here as well, is that someone else makes you clean. Someone else launders your clothing so that it's white and pure and acceptable. Or as the author, the preacher here puts it, you have hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. You have bodies washed with pure water. And again, remember these Old Testament saints, these New Testament saints who knew the Old Testament, they knew that the promises of God were such as this, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. And the preacher is saying that time has come. That work has been done in Christ. Christ has made you clean. And so because you've been made clean, you can draw near, not just you individually, but you collectively. Let us draw near since we have been cleansed. That's the first. The second call, the second because of this, then that is let us hold fast. Let us hold fast our confession. What is our confession? It's that Jesus Christ is Lord. But it's more than that, it's that Jesus Christ is my Lord. And it's more than that, it's that Jesus Christ is our Lord. There are times that it's vital that we make our confession a confession of our common belief, of our community belief. Let us together hold fast to our confession. Jesus Christ is our Lord. He who promised is faithful. We can hold on to the confession of our hope. We hope for a better place. We hope for a full sanctification through and through. And we hope for that with confidence because the one who promised is faithful. And then thirdly, in verse 24, let us consider one another. Let us consider one another. You see, one of the benefits of Christianity is that it doesn't just make you more acceptable to God. That's, of course, the ultimate benefit. In Christ, you are acceptable to God. In Christ, you are cleansed. In Christ, you can draw near. But it also makes you a better neighbor and a better father and a better mother and a better mate, a better friend, a better servant for those around you. And so the call is, let us consider one another. Christianity changes you and makes you a better person to be around other people as it puts you in this community. And let us consider one another to stir up to love and good works. I've been called a stirrer before. I don't know if that's an American expression or if it's an Australian expression, but I think either place, it's not a good expression. When someone says you're a stirrer, they don't generally mean that as a positive compliment. And we know what it means. The sense is you are one who stirs up trouble constantly. How many of you kids stir up trouble? No, don't raise your hand. Don't raise your hand. Your parents can tell me later. But we're called here to be stirrers, but in a completely positive sense. to encourage one another, to stir one another up to love and good works, to provoke one another to love and good works. Oh, she provokes me. To love. What a testimony that would be. She provokes me, he provokes me to good works. Are you a stirrer in that way? Do you stir others up to do good? Do you provoke others up to do good? Sometimes by your words and sometimes by your own doing good. Sometimes by your own kindness. As you show kindness to others, they are encouraged to show kindness to you and to others as well. Consider one another to stir one another up to love and good works. And then consider one another, and here we have the only negative of these three, to not neglect assembling. Stir one another up, consider one another to not neglect assembling, to not neglect assembling together. See, we're going to be together in heaven. And unfortunately, sometimes here in the family of God, which is a family, Not yet perfected. We live in such a way that one could imagine, if it were possible, that when we get to heaven and are together for eternity, we won't really like it much. Now we know that's not possible, because in heaven we'll be perfected, and the people that stir us the wrong way won't stir us the wrong way anymore, and the people that we stir the wrong way, well, we'll quit stirring the wrong way. The call, the reminder of believers is that we will be together and so don't neglect being together now. And usually that togetherness is going to be expressed most often in relationship with one another in your congregation. That's where that togetherness is going to be most often expressed. To be sure it's going to be expressed in worship. You come together to worship, you assemble together and don't neglect it. But there are other times as well that you are called to not neglect being together, to not neglect assembling together. If you don't spend time with others in the congregation of which you are a part, then you make a mockery of the visible church. And if you make a mockery of the visible church, then you make a mockery of Christ. There is the call to worship. Don't neglect assembling for worship. Now, we haven't come through. We're still in a very strange, difficult time with COVID. It's a little freer now than it has been. Many debated, what do we do when we can't gather together? Should we gather together anyway? There can be a longing, and that longing is good, and we have to wrestle with those realities. But the call is to assemble together and worship. Others have likened online worship because of COVID as like what happened when the people of God were in exile. It's not what we want. It's not ideal. I think it is worship. I think it's genuine worship, but it's not what we really want. We want to be together. We want to be together face to face. And so come together to worship. And you say, why would I tell you that? You're here to worship. I'm preaching to the choir. But that's okay. It's good to be reminded because maybe you're not always here and maybe I'm not always here. We need to be reminded of this. Why might we miss assembling together? Well, obviously sickness. We don't look with some kind of criticism at your pastor and his family who are quarantining at home because of COVID. We say, well, they're sick. And sickness is legitimate reason to miss worship, but I had a friend who more than once would say, well, I felt a little sickness coming on, so I stayed home on the Lord's Day so that I could make it to work on Monday. And something about that just didn't seem quite right, which was more important, which was more valuable. Maybe you'll miss worship because of a weariness, but you need to remember that you're called to find rest in God. Maybe you're tempted to miss worship because you're discouraged and yet you need to remember that it's in the endurance and the encouragement of scripture that we find hope. Maybe you don't want to come to worship because you're divided with others in the congregation. Well, God tells us over and over, resolve it quickly. Maybe you have little ones and you can't come to worship when they're too little or too noisy. We had some friends and their Christian culture experience was that New moms and new babies wouldn't come to church until the babies were about three years old. Well, Nancy and I calculated she would have missed church from 1987 to 1998 if we had done that. But maybe those of us who don't have little kids need to come alongside those who do have little kids and say, hey, can I keep a child or two for you in the church service today? We were encouraged when we visited our daughter and son-in-law. Our son-in-law is the pastor of the church in Lisbon, Garrett Mann. And there are those in the congregation who help charity with their six children so that she can come to worship, she can be there with six little ones. So help each other, consider how to stir each other up, to be involved with one another, to not neglect assembly, but it's not just worship. We see in the book of Acts that the believers were together every day, every day, and you have opportunities to do that, whether it's prayer meeting, whether it's Bible study, whether it's meals together, whether it's witnessing together, ministry together, don't neglect it like some do, that's the call here. to live your Christian life together with each other, assembled together. And sometimes you can do that by just including others in the things that you're already doing. You don't have to add new activities. I don't suppose many of us feel like we have enough time to add a bunch of new things to our life. But if you're having a non-Christian friend over, invite a Christian family from the church over and together you can be involved in this ministry and witnessing. Sometimes we face a choice. We can be busy with other things or we can be busy with corporate Christianity, that is, assembling together. So there's a call to confess, consider one another, stir up to love and good works, consider one another to not neglect assembling, and lastly, consider one another to encourage or exhort one another, to help, to come alongside, to act in the way that the Holy Spirit does for us, he is the helper, the paraclete. And the call here is to be those who encourage one another in your words, in your actions, in your life together. Now in chapter three, Paul tells, I'm not sure Paul wrote Hebrews, that was not an intentional saying who the author was. He may have been, I just don't know. But the author, the preacher in chapter three, tells the saints to encourage each other every day. You only have to encourage each other, exhort one another on days of the week that end with Y. But it's interesting, here, several chapters in, he says, do it more and more. Maybe once a day is not enough. The call, he's not giving a number, but the call is to continue to encourage one another. Like we saw in David and Jonathan, Jonathan came and strengthened David's heart in the Lord. He encouraged him in the Lord. And you know that there are times when you need encouragement and there are times when you need to be an encourager. Sometimes they're the same time, but other times you so are in need of encouragement that until someone encourages you, then you can encourage others with the encouragement that you have received. And that's the call. To exhort, to encourage one another all the more As you see the day drawing near. Christianity is community. Christ gathered you in. He gave his flesh and blood in order to save you. His salvation gives you boldness to come into his presence. And so come with one another, living the community for which Christ died. Please pray with me. Our father in heaven. May this description of your people be a description of us. May it be that others who read your word and then observe our lives, particularly the lives of this year congregation together, they would say, that's what God is doing in them. Lord, help us to stir each other up, help us to live in community, help us to exhort and encourage each other more and more. And when we do, we'll be blessed, but you will be glorified, which is even more important. And so hear our prayer and do this work in us, in Jesus' name, amen.