Gospel Community

It's great to see all of you here. This morning, thank you, for choosing to, worship with us today. we do have a few announcements or, or items to, bring to your, attention before we get underway with looking at, the word this morning. first of all, some good news, Juliana Van Barcel.

was born to Josh and Sarah Van Barcel on September 2nd. She came into the world weighing 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and 19 inches long. So let's rejoice with them over this precious gift of life and pray for them as they seek to bring their daughter up in the nurture and the discipline. of the Lord Jesus Christ.

also, a few weeks ago, Brandon Whittaker was baptized. And, there we go. And so we just rejoice in the willingness of this young man. to publicly identify himself as a follower of Jesus Christ and to obey the Lord in this important ordinance of water baptism.

Let's be praying for him that God will continue to grow him strong and raise him up to be used of God to influence many others to become followers of Jesus Christ, as well. also, just an update, we announced last Sunday that Marlene Brugge, one of our church members had gone home to be with the Lord, a couple of weeks ago, and, we told you that we would let when the memorial service, will be held, and we have that information for you. We'll remind you again next week. but her memorial service will be held September 23rd.

At 11 in the morning here, at, at the church. So that's September 23rd at 11 a.m. here at the church. And if you're able to be here for that service, we would love to have you, to join us as we celebrate, Marlene, celebrate her life, and celebrate her Lord and our Lord as well.

Well, let me invite you, to turn in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter. 10, Hebrews chapter 10 for our time of study in God's word, this morning. By the way, while you're turning, just wanna let the guys know that our man forum that meets on Tuesday mornings, yes, we are meeting Tuesday morning, but instead of meeting over here in the alcove or the man Cove, we will, we're gonna try meeting in room 104 this Tuesday. So that's for all of our men.

we would love to have you join us for this hour and 5 minute time together of just, encouraging one another in the calling that God has given to us. And also on Tuesday morning at 9 and at 69 in the morning, 6 in the evening, our men's leadership meeting. It started this past week, but you, we would love to have you join us even if you weren't able to last week as we're studying through the second half of Romans 8. I am so looking forward to just teaching the men that show up through this part of Romans 8, and we had a wonderful time this past Tuesday and look forward to pressing further.

This Tuesday and in the weeks to come. Anyway, Hebrews chapter 10, I want us to look this morning at verses 14 through 25. If you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be Gospel Community or Gospel Driven. Community One of the things that is clear from the New Testament as well as from church history is that the Church of Jesus Christ in the first few centuries was a distinctive community that was radically different from the world around it.

The world thought of the Christians beliefs as foolishness, but they also could not help but notice the love. that the Christians had for one another. In the 3rd century, the North African Christian church father Tertullian said that he would often hear the Romans say, oh, how they love one another when describing the Christian community. The Romans did not love one another like the Christians did.

they especially did not love the sick and the needy among them the way that the Christians did. Alvin Schmidt in his book, How Christianity Changed the World, says that in Roman society during the first century, there was the cultural belief that the sick and the dying were not worthy of humanitarian help. That was just part of the basic ethic of the people of this culture. Charity as we know it today, did not exist.

Dionysius, a third century bishop of the church, describes what happened when a plague struck the city of Alexandria in 250 AD. He says that the citizens thrust aside anyone who began to be sick and kept aloof even from their dearest friends and cast sufferers out upon the public roads half dead and left them unburied and treated them with utter contempt when they had died. But the Christians were different. They did not behave the way that the world did toward the sick and toward the needy.

In 252 AD, a plague struck the city of Carthage. Roman citizens who were in good health, were abandoning the city, fleeing the city and leaving the sick behind to die. But Cyprian, who was the bishop, of Carthage gathered the Christians to the center of the city of Carthage, and he spoke these words to them. He said to them, if we are going to do what Jesus did, so that through his poverty, we might become rich, I call you to give personal and financial aid, care and comfort to all according to their need, not their faith.

The Christians gave heed to that call and cared for the sick and the dying who had been left behind in Carthage, even at risk of their own health and lives. Roman society was left utterly baffled by the sacrificial charity of these early Christians. The sacrificial love and the good deeds of these Christians exposed the bankruptcy of Roman religion. And cause more and more people throughout the Roman Empire to embrace Christ as their Lord and Savior.

In fact, the last pagan emperor of Rome was Flavius Claudius Julianus, who reigned until 363 AD. He hated Christianity and he made it his ambition to take Rome back to its pagan roots, but his efforts were to no avail. In a letter to a friend, Julianus wrote this complaint about the Christians. He said, while the pagan priests, those are the priests of Roman religion, neglect the poor, the hated Galileans, that's the name for the Christians, devote themselves to works of charity.

These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also. Welcoming them into their agape. They attract them. Near the end of his life, Julius saw the writing on the wall and knew that Christianity would prevail after his death.

Historians tell us that among his dying words were the words, you have won, Galilean. Referring to Jesus. Without firing a shot, Christianity overpowered the religion of Rome through the gospel message that the Christians preached, combined with the sacrificial love and the good deeds of the Christian community. These are good reminders, I think for us today in our culture.

In June of last year, I heard George Scipione. say that recent cultural developments in America, this was right after the Supreme Court decision regarding gay marriage. He was commenting that recent cultural developments in America present the church in America with both bad news and good news. He said, the bad news is that our society has never been closer to ancient Rome than it is now.

The good news is that our society has never been closer to ancient Rome than it is now. His point was that the Church of Jesus Christ was able to wield a mighty influence for the gospel in ancient Rome. And the church has the same opportunity. To do so today by remaining true to the gospel and by living lives of sacrificial love and good deeds.

This morning, I want to take a look at Hebrews 10:14-25. The writer of Hebrews does something really wonderful, that's a great example for us. He provides a synopsis of some important aspects of gospel truth and then he exhorts us to engage in the kinds of behaviors. that are a fitting response to these gospel truths that he's given.

He teaches us that if we engage in these behaviors, motivated by the gospel, they will contribute to a flourishing of agape love. And good deeds in our midst, and that's what we want, right? As a church, we want to advance in love and good deeds, and it's the gospel that motivates us to do so. First, the writer of Hebrews presents some gospel truths in verses 14 through 18.

Let's just read through this presentation of gospel in these verses. In verse 14, He says, for by one offering, he, Christ has perfected for all time those who are sanctified, and the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after saying, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws upon their heart, and upon their mind, I will write them. He then says, and their sins and their lawless deeds, I will remember no more.

Now where there is forgiveness of these things, there is no longer any offering for sin or any need for an offering for sin. We don't have time this morning to analyze the details of this passage, but from a bird's eye view, we can see several gospel truths that are being presented here. We see first of all, that Christ has offered himself as a sacrificial offering. We also see that through this offering of Himself, Christ has perfected all of us.

who have been set apart for salvation. In other words, Christ has rendered us forever fit to enter into God's presence. And thereby Christ accomplished something in one sacrifice that millions of sacrifices throughout Israel's history failed to achieve. Another truth we see here is that God has written his laws upon our hearts and our minds.

And the summation of this law is to love God with all of our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves, and God is writing these upon our hearts, the hearts of those whom he has saved. But we also See here that God no longer remembers our sins against us, when we fall short. And we also see here that being forgiven of our sins, based on Christ's sacrifice, we no longer need any additional savior, any additional sacrifice to complete what Christ has done. These are but a few of the gospel truths that the writer of Hebrews encourages us with in the book.

of Hebrews, and there's so many more. Take, take some time to read through this wonderful book. But what I love about what he does in this passage. is that he presents gospel truths, and then he begins to reason from the basis of these gospel truths, and he delivers exhortations to us as a church, identifying for us five things that we should be doing to not only Give expression to the gospel, but also to move our church toward a lifestyle of greater agape love and good deeds.

These five exhortations are very appropriate for us today. So let's look at them. 5 gospel motivated exhortations that we find in this passage to behave in ways that will advance us and grow us in love and Good deeds. How many of you would say, Pastor Milton, I am just nailing it when it comes to agape love and good deeds?

I'd give myself an A plus plus. OK, one, I see one hand. We all can grow in this area. I know that I can, and this passage will help us with that.

Exhortation number one. Let's be drawing near to God through Christ. Let's be drawing near to God through Christ. Verse 19, the writer says, since, therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh.

And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart. In full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. We see the words since we have twice in verses 19 through 21, we see these words at the beginning of verse 19 and again, at the beginning of verse 21. Basically, there are two things that he points out that we have.

And the first of these things is that we have the right now. To confident access. Into the Holy of Holies where God Himself is through a new and a living way that Jesus inaugurated for us. This path into the presence of God is not inaugurated by us, nor is it paved by us and our works.

This way to God, this path to God is inaugurated by Jesus. Through the cross and it is paved with His blood. And so the writer of Hebrews literally is saying, let us be continually drawing near. And the clear implication is, let us be continually drawing near to God by this new and living way inaugurated by Jesus.

Please understand that this passage is not simply a call to draw near to God. There are many people who are trying to draw near to God today. This in this passage is a call to draw near to God. On the path that Christ inaugurated through his death on the cross.

And Christians who understand the gospel, don't just make it their habit to try to draw near to God, they make it their habit to draw near to God, only on the path that Christ inaugurated, to draw near to God only through Christ and his work on the cross. Back in August, August 12th actually. This year, Donald Trump was Speaking to Christian leaders in Orlando, Florida. And to them, he spoke these words.

He said, this will be the most important election that our country has ever had. And once I get in, I will do my thing that I do very well. And I figure it is probably maybe the only way I'm going to get to heaven, so I better do a good job. Apparently, Donald Trump views his good performance as president as possibly the only way that he will get into heaven and ultimately draw near.

To God. He's confident though. Because once he's inaugurated, his strategy is to do my thing that I do very well. So what's the fear?

What Donald Trump doesn't realize is that Jesus Christ and his perfect righteousness already trumps all the things that we think we might do well. Amen. Jesus has already done what we all failed to do, and he did it very well. He lived the perfect life of love and good deeds, and he died on the cross for our sins.

And Christians who understand the gospel, repeatedly are drawing near to God through Christ, and through him alone. On their worst days, they're not afraid to draw near to God on the basis of Jesus Christ and His righteousness. and sacrifice. On their best days of holiness and service, they draw near to God, not on the basis of the fact that they've been performing well lately, but solely on the basis of Christ.

And his work alone. You may be here today thinking, Pastor Milton, my, my sins, in fact, I feel the opposite of Donald Trump. My sins are more numerous than I can count. My sins weigh heavy upon me and make me want to shrink away from God rather than draw near to him.

I'm not qualified to draw near to God. But to you, I would say this is the time of all times in your life to draw near to God in repentance and in faith in Jesus Christ. Draw near to God. On the path that runs right through the torn flesh of Jesus on the cross.

The path that is paved with his blood. The promise of the Bible is that if you draw near to God on this path, God will draw near to you. He will never cast anyone out who draws near to him on this path that Jesus inaugurated. He will receive you, and he will not just forgive you of your sins.

If you call upon the name of Jesus, he will be pleasured to forgive you. of all of your sins. So if you've never drawn near to God on the path that Jesus inaugurated, I plead with you to draw near to God today and be saved. Why can the writer of Hebrews deliver this call to us as God's people who have been saved through Jesus to draw near to God with such confidence?

Is it because we're great people who engage in great behavior? No. As he says in verse 21, it's because, or since we have a high priest, a great priest who is over the house of God, that's Jesus. He was tempted in all points like as we are and yet without sin.

He offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins. He was raised from the dead. And has passed through the heavens where he is right now at the right hand of God. And yet even from that position, he can still sympathize with us in our weaknesses.

This is the priest, the great priest who is now over the house of God. And who regulates who can come into God's presence and has made the way possible for us to enter into His presence through his death on the cross. And I ask you, what more could you ever want in a priest? It's because of him.

And his greatness and his authority over the house of God that we can draw near to a holy God as people saved through Jesus. This is why the writer of Hebrews tells us that we can draw near with a true heart. We don't have to fake it, meaning a heart that is open and truthful in its confessions rather than deceptive and Concealing, it's knowing that we have this salvation and forgiveness and this great priest over the house of God. That we can lay down all of our pretense and come to God with a heart that is genuine and open and truthful, rather than deceptive and hiding.

We can also draw near to God with full assurance, he says, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The sprinkling that he talks about here of our consciences is by the shed blood of Jesus that brings pardon. To our conscience. And the reference to our bodies being washed with pure water, at the very least, is simply a way of saying that our whole being is made ceremonially clean and fit to come into God's presence.

Having been forgiven and rendered clean by Jesus, we can now come into God's presence and we can repent boldly before Him of our sins, and we can pray to Him and worship Him. Knowing that we are always loved. And welcomed by him. Is that good news?

It's interesting to me to note that the writer of Hebrews is going to, as the passage unfolds, talk to us about ministering to one another and, provoking one another to love and good deeds, but before he even gets to that, he first calls us to be drawing near to God. In prayer and in worship. Before we will ever be a people who thrive in love and in good works, we must be a people who thrive in the practice of drawing near to God in prayer. And then worship The writer of Hebrews, I love this, says, let us be drawing nearer.

He's inviting us to join with him and to join with one another in drawing near to God, even corporately. And let's accept that invitation. Let's be motivated by the gospel to be drawing near to God in prayer and in worship. Let's be a praying people who pray boldly to God and obtain grace and mercy to help us in the areas where we have need.

Let's be a people whose acts of service for one another and toward others emerge from the fountain of our relationship with God as we repeatedly and habitually draw near to him. Both individually. And corporately in all of our gatherings. There's another gospel motivated exhortation in this passage, and this leads us to our next point.

We want our behavior to be shaped by the gospel and if we want to engage in behavior that advances us in Agape love and good deeds, then we would want to give heed to the second exhortation, and that is, let's word it this way, let's be holding fast. Let's be holding fast to our confession of hope. In Christ Let's be holding fast to our confession of hope in Christ. He says in verse 23, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Notice the exhortation to hold fast. If I handed you a rope today and said to you, now hold on to this really tight. You would probably assume that things are about to happen. That will challenge your hold on that rope, right?

And the same is true here. The fact that the writer of Hebrews is telling us to hold fast to our confession of hope without wavering means that our hold on this confession is going to be challenged. Challenged so severely that if you do not intentionally hold on to it tightly, you will allow it to slip from your grasp. The expression confession of our hope speaks of Christ and the gospel truth about him that we confessed to believing on the day of our conversion.

And the writer of Hebrews is telling us to hold fast to that confession, despite all the challenges that may come our way. Notice the language of the command again, he says, let us hold fast. He's saying, I'm holding fast and I'm urging you to join me in holding fast to our confession of faith. Let's do this together.

His language implies that holding fast to our confession of faith is something that we each do individually. It's an individual responsibility, yet it's something that we do in community with each other. We hold fast best when we hold fast together. In community with each other.

To hold fast to this confession of hope, we also need to be students of it and to seek to know it thoroughly so that we know what it is that we're holding fast to. This is why we make such a priority of the preaching and the teaching of scripture. And the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ here at Cornerstone. This is why the reading.

And the teaching and the study of God's word is central in all of our ministries because we want you to know the content of your confession of hope in Christ. We want you to know the basis of that content and be able to give an answer to anyone who's asking you for the reason for the hope that resides within you. This is a timely challenge for us, the call to hold fast to our confession of hope. that he gives to us here is so appropriate for today.

Our world today is applying pressure on us to let go of our confession. of Christ as the only hope and is pressuring us to abandon the scriptural worldview. That goes with belief in Christ. In our increasingly secular age, our Christian beliefs are being increasingly viewed as weird.

And bizarre by the world around us. This is only gonna get worse. And the truth is, guys, our beliefs are weird. And as Russell Moore says, it's time we embrace the weirdness of it all as Christians.

Think about it, we believe that God became flesh and dwelt among us. We believe that Christ was born of a virgin. We believe he died on a cross and then was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven. We celebrate the Lord's supper in which we eat the bread and drink the cup which represents eating and drinking the body and the blood of our Lord.

We believe in a gospel in which our good works contribute nothing to our salvation. And we believe that our only hope of salvation comes through a savior who was publicly humiliated and hanged upon a cross, the ultimate symbol of shame. In the first century Roman world. In Paul's day, these beliefs were moronic foolishness.

And in our world today, these beliefs are increasingly strange and will grow even stranger. And that's not all. Russell Moore. was talking not too long ago to a lesbian activist.

And she told him that she found Christianity's sexual ethics to be impossibly weird. And Russell Moore replied by saying yes. And we believe even stranger things than that. We believe a previously dead man is going to show up in the sky on a horse.

That is what we believe. All of these things. The world will count as strange and say that we are behind the times, that we are unevolved. They will call upon us to abandon our confession of hope in Christ and to embrace the new orthodoxies of this generation.

But we need to hold fast to Christ. And hold fast to his word and make no compromise. With the world, that the people of this generation say what they want to say. We know that Christ is returning.

And when he does, all will know that we were on the right side of history if we hold fast to our confession of hope in Him. We don't enhance our church's ministry by loosening our grip. On our confession of hope in Christ, we enhance the very impact that God wants us to make by holding fast without wavering to the one true gospel of Jesus Christ. It's what true Christians do and true Christians hold fast because he who promised is faithful.

There's another gospel motivated exhortation that the writer of Hebrews gives us here in this passage. We must be a people who are drawing near to God, motivated by the gospel to do so. We must be a people who are holding fast to our confession of hope in Christ. There's something else we must do if we want our church to advance in agape love and good deeds.

And we find this in verse 34. Let's word it this way, let's be thoughtfully provoking one another to love and good deeds. Let's be thoughtfully provoking one another to love and good deeds. He says in verse 24, and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.

Let's reason through the verse in this way. Clearly implied in this verse is the fact that we are all called to live a life of love and good deeds, right? I'm called to that, you're called to that. We are all called to live a life of loving God with all of our being and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

We're also called to a life of good deeds. This speaks of deeds that are good, as opposed to bad. It also speaks of deeds that are beneficial to others as opposed to deeds that are harmful or worthless. It speaks of deeds that are morally good, but it also speaks of deeds that are attractive and beautiful, showing forth the beauty of Christ in all of these ways, we are called to live a life.

of love and of good deeds. This verse, in this verse, the writer of Hebrews calls us to stimulate one another or to provoke one another to these, this love and good deeds. This means that God has gifted you with the capacity to stimulate your brothers and sisters to a lifestyle of holiness. And service.

And it also means that he's put within your brothers and sisters the capacity to stimulate you to love and good deeds. So it goes without saying that it is when we live in relationship with each other, that we experience the fullest stimulation to a life of love and good works. But this verse doesn't just call upon us to do love and good deeds, doesn't just call upon us to provoke or stimulate one another to love and good deeds. This verse calls upon us to consider how We should go about doing that effectively in each other's lives.

It's a call to think about how to do this. Apparently this ministry of provoking godliness in each other is something that we have to think about. If we don't think about it, and if we don't premeditate on it, then we run the risk of not doing it at all. Or we run the risk of doing it in the wrong way, or we run the risk of doing it in a way that ends up being counterproductive.

We don't think about it and premeditate on it. We just show up at church or we show up at our care groups, and we're not blessing anybody, stimulating anybody to love and good deeds. At the bottom of this exhortation is a concern in the heart of the writer of Hebrews that we as a church, not ever let ourselves grow complacent. And to prevent this complacency, we are all to be engaging in the ministry of thoughtfully provoking one another to love and good deeds.

By the way, if you want to ponder how to effectively provoke your brothers to love and good deeds, read the book of Hebrews and observe how the writer of Hebrews does this provoking. One of his key purposes is to provoke his readers to this goal, love and good works and faith in Christ, and how does he do that? Well, at one point, he rebukes them and even says, I got stuff to say to you, but you can't even hear what I have to say right now because you're dull of hearing. At some points he delivers stern warnings to them.

In Hebrews 6 and in Hebrews 10. At another point, he spends an entire chapter reminding them of the example of saints throughout Old Testament history. And the faith that they had in God. And their examples in Hebrews 11 are designed to provoke his readers to faith in Christ and to loving good deeds.

At an earlier point, he cites the example of the Israelites. Read chapter 3 and 4 who rebelled against God in the wilderness and they were judged. And then he challenges his readers to be careful that they not become like The Israelites and fall under the same judgment and fall short of the rest. That God has promised to His people.

The writer of Hebrews does all of these things, but for the most part, if you read through the book of Hebrews, You'll notice that he spends the bulk of the book rehearsing gospel truth. In amazing detail, starting at the very beginning, pointing to Jesus Christ and directing his readers' attention to the glory of Christ, pointing to the cross and to the blessings and the superior privileges that we now have in Christ. And then the writer of Hebrews repeatedly calls us and his readers.

to certain actions on the basis of these gospel truths that he has put before them.

And that's exactly what he's doing in this passage today, because he knows the motivational and the life shaping, provoking power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So if we think about it, You say, I wanna think about this and I want to be a person who is stimulating my brothers and sisters, provoking them to love and good deeds. How do I do that? Well, sometimes we have to admonish, sometimes we have to warn, sometimes we may have to say hard things, sometimes we inspire by our example.

or by pointing to the example of others, but at the bottom of all of that, we need to be good at preaching the gospel to each other and appealing to one another on the basis of gospel truth. The gospel is the most powerful stimulant to love and good deeds. And that is why we want to keep the gospel central here at Cornerstone in our ministry of provoking one another to love and good deeds. Again, this ministry of stimulating others to love and good deeds is something we do in community with each other.

The writer of Hebrews says, let us, let us consider How to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. What he's saying is I'm doing this. And I invite you to join me in thinking about How to do this. Let's do this thinking together and then executing together.

We do our best thinking. Along these lines when we do so together in community with others. Our care group ministry, just as an example, was launched. About 11 years ago here at Cornerstone, and it was launched as a product of 3 years of consideration and thinking by the elders and people in this congregation about how to provoke ourselves as a congregation to greater love and greater good works.

Prior to 11 years ago, Just as one example, there were people who attended our church, and they, they observed that Cornerstone was clearly a loving community where the people love one another. The problem was that they did not feel welcomed into that. Into that love that they saw that existed amongst the brothers and sisters here. And we, after we launched our care groups, people started inviting newcomers to their care group on the first Sunday that they showed up.

And newcomers were made to feel like family quicker than before. I'll never forget one family. That came to Cornerstone in the first couple of years of our care group ministry. And when they showed up, they were immediately bombarded with requests, invitations from people to come to their care group.

And so they began visiting some of the care groups that they were invited to. On their 3rd Sunday at Cornerstone, they happened to be visiting our care group, the one that I was leading at the time. And during that care group meeting, there was a brother. who confessed some sin and some struggle to the care group.

And so we tried to encourage him and then there was a point where we wanted to gather around this brother and to pray for him and lay hands on him. So I invited anyone who was present to come and lay their hands on this brother as we prayed for him. And the father of this new family, the Cornerstone. was among those who stepped forward and placed his hands on this brother as we prayed for him.

And after we finished praying, I'll never forget what this father said. He sat back in his chair and he said, this is so amazing. We've been at this church for 3 weeks and we already feel like family. The man who spoke those words was Dave Schilling, who's not here this morning to know that I'm talking about him, so don't tell him.

Dave Schilling, who now leads one of our care groups and works hard to make others feel like family as quickly as he did. On top of wanting to provoke ourselves to widen our hearts and grow in love, we also viewed our care group ministry as a means through which opportunities for ministry would be multiplied. For example, instead of convening on a Sunday night like we were doing before, where one person gets to preach and one worship team gets to lead in worship, now there are 13 care groups, which means that now there are opportunities for 13 worship leaders to lead, 13 people to lead in communion, 13 people to lead in prayer, 13 people who are opening up their home, and 13 people to lead the discussion around God's word.

And the discussion and the prayer times, just them by themselves, open up opportunity for everyone present to minister through the insights that they share.

The confessions that they make. The encouragements they share, and the prayers that they pray on behalf of their brothers and sisters in the Lord. And this is not even to speak of opportunities that we have as care groups to minister alongside of each other, helping a brother or sister with financial need. Or engaging together in ministry to the people of this community.

Along these lines, I just wanna share with you guys that over the next year, we're asking our, our care groups to be involved at least one time in providing a meal to the homeless families who are at the path of life. Ministries Family Center that is on 3rd Street near here. Last Friday, 9 days ago. Our care group had the opportunity to do that.

And had the chance to be the hands and the feet and the heart of Christ to the families that were there in crisis. We got to sit down at tables with the families there and to eat with them and to serve them and to talk with them and to show the love of Christ to them. I also got to watch precious brothers and sisters in our care group serving in various capacities, preparing food and serving that food. And visiting and talking and encouraging the people who were there, and I found myself falling more deeply in love with the Christ who is in them.

Over the course of this year, we will be providing the opportunity for all of our care groups to provide a meal and join these families for dinner on a Friday night and to do that at least one time. It's a small thing, but this small opportunity is the product of some people in our church considering how to stimulate us to greater love and good deeds. And by the way, I'll have to say that those of us that were there that Friday night did not go home that night feeling warm and fuzzy.

What we saw provoked us.

Just like Paul's heart was provoked, same Greek word is in our passage today, provoked within him as he beheld the spiritual needs of the people of the city of Athens in Acts chapter 17, verse 16, our hearts were provoked by what we saw that Friday night, and we're already pondering aloud with one another, how we can do more as a church. And what we saw that Friday has served to provoke us all the more in this direction. Let's be a people. And so many of you serve in so many capacities, not only your brothers and sisters here, but reaching out, showing the heart of Christ to the people in your neighborhoods, in the workplace, and you do so, so beautifully.

And we're so blessed by the quality of brothers and sisters that we have at Cornerstone where this ethic is, is being lived out in wonderful ways by so many. And as well as some of us in this congregation may be doing, let's reject complacency. And let's be a people who are always thinking deeply about the gospel of Jesus Christ and what it's calling forth from us, and how we can stimulate one another. To greater agape love.

And greater good deeds. To do this effectively, there's a 4th exhortation that we will want to follow and let's look at this quickly, and that is, let's be assembling with one another. The writer of Hebrews says, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some. Guys, to rightly and fully engage in this ministry of stimulating your brothers and sisters to love and good deeds, you need to assemble with them.

And to rightly put yourself in a position to allow them to stimulate you to love and good deeds, you need to assemble with them. It's in relationship with one another in gospel community that we experience the full package of the stimulations to love and good deeds that God wants us to experience. The fact that the writer of Hebrews has to actually tell us to not forsake assembling and the fact that he tells us that some had already developed this habit of non-assembly indicates that there are forces at work that would pull all of us.

Towards a lifestyle of non-assembling if we let them.

Some people stop assembling with others in the church because they've been hurt or disappointed by others or perhaps because they've given up on others. Perhaps they've been sinned against, or perhaps their heart is being hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, and they've started to pull away from assembling with others so that they can hide and continue in their sin. Perhaps they forsake assembling with their fellow Christians because they're put off with the immaturity of other people who are not nearly so spiritually advanced as they are.

Perhaps they forsake an assembling with their fellow Christians because they're too busy or have found other things to do that seem in the moment.

To be more important. What do we do in response to these influences that push us away from Assembling together with one another. We resist them and we refuse to forsake assembling with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We make assembling a priority and we don't just view assembling with one another as simply one of the many items on our to do list.

Instead, we view assembling as a core practice in which we try to do life together. With others And then all of us together try to face the demands of life from a position of togetherness. With one another The writer of Hebrews says, let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Let's give heed this ministry year to this exhortation by coming together frequently and often on Sunday mornings and in our care groups and in our Bible studies and other venues.

But let's do more than just show up and this leads us to the last exhortation we'll look at quickly. When we do show up and assemble, let's be encouraging one another. He says, but encouraging. One another There are other things we should do for each other when we assemble, but the first and only word that the writer of Hebrews chooses to use here is the Greek word that the new American Standard translators translate as encouraging.

The word translated encouraging is the Greek word that means literally to call from along one side. This word literally means to come alongside of someone. It's a relational word in that sense, to come alongside of someone and then from a position of long-sightedness to encourage or to deliver a rallying call. That's what it means.

Read through the book of Hebrews and see how the writer encourages his readers. He encourages them with gospel truth, he encourages them with the glory of Jesus Christ. He speaks hard warnings to them, but he follows up. Those hard warnings by saying things like, but we're convinced of better things concerning you, even though we're speaking to you in this way.

In Hebrews 12:5-6, he speaks to them in their discouragement under the disciplining hand of God, and he says to them, have you forgotten the encouragement? Addressed to you as sons. And then he quotes from Scripture, the Old Testament scripture. Where the text says in the book of Proverbs, for those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines.

He encourages them by quoting to them from Old Testament scripture, reminding them of God's love. He even takes time in chapter 6 and in chapter 10 to mention evidences of grace from his readers past and from their present in order to encourage them to keep the faith. In chapter 11, he points to the inspiring example of many others in Old Testament history to encourage his readers to walk in faith. And we see in this passage, actually a part of what he does in this letter.

And that is he, when he delivers commands, there's 13 times in this letter where he delivers a command and he doesn't say, you do this or that. But he words it, let us do this or that. I'm doing this and I, I call you to join me in doing these things. These are commands delivered from a position of along sightedness, not from a position of aboveness or apartness.

And above all, the writer of Hebrews walks his readers through many precious gospel truths and delivers encouragement to them. Through the gospel. So guys, let's be good at encouraging one another. Let's not just a symbol having high expectations of everybody else and how they're supposed to minister to us.

Let's have high expectations of ourselves and let's show up having thought about how I'm going to minister and encourage and stimulate my brothers and sisters to love and good deeds. To where we're ready to come alongside of others and encourage. Let's be a congregation of encouragers. Who delivers several parts encouragement for every one rebuke.

Let's encourage one another in the gospel. Let's encourage one another by pointing out evidences of grace in our brothers and sisters' lives. Let's encourage one another by ministering healing on the other side of a word of rebuke. And let's do all of this from a position.

Of long-sightedness. This coming year, be famous. As an encourager And I love how the writer of Hebrews ends verse 25. He says, And all the more as you see the day drawing nearer.

The day of the Lord, the coming of Christ is drawing nearer and nearer. History as we know it is coming to a climax, and it will culminate with Christ returning to earth and glory and establishing his righteous reign on the earth. And the fact of this approaching day of the coming of Christ. The writer of Hebrews says should give us all the more motivation to do what he's calling us to do here in this passage.

The coming of Christ should supercharge our already existing motivation to assemble with one another and encourage one another and provoke one another to love and good deeds. Just in closing, you all have seen the bumper sticker, that says Jesus is coming soon, look busy. I'm not a fan of the word busy and I'm not sure I get the humor, totally of that bumper sticker. But using that basic idea, I would say that the bumper sticker should read, Jesus is coming soon, be busy.

Be busy drawing near to God, be holding fast to your confession of hope in Christ, be considering, thinking about how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, and be assembling with one another and encouraging one another. I know that's too long for a bumper sticker, but That's the message that we have here today. When Christ returns, may he find us doing these things, and may the people of this city find us to be a church doing these things. Preaching Christ, making him known and adorning that gospel that we declare by the Agape love and the good deeds that we engage in.

We all know That there's a culture war that is raging today. It's a war we all need to be engaged in. Let's follow the example of the church in ancient Rome and fight the culture war by doing these things that we see today in this passage, with the gospel of Christ. And with lives that abound.

And agape love and good deeds toward one another. And toward the world. Will you do these things? Let's pray and ask God to help us to give heed to His word this morning.

Lord, 15 years ago on this very day, Muslim radicals driven by their faith. By their religious beliefs, flew planes into buildings, killing Almost 3000 people in total. We've seen many more since then, driven by their religious beliefs doing great damage and harm to many. This is Provides us a wonderful opportunity, Lord, to be driven by our faith.

By the good news that we believe in. And to commit acts of goodness. Acts of Agape. And good deeds that show forth the beauty of Christ.

And do good to others and reveal the heart of the Savior who has saved us. May we be radical and being driven by the gospel. To live this lifestyle. For your glory.

And advance us, we ask You, Lord, in Agape, love. And in good deeds, make us better, make me better. At reflecting your beauty. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to give of our offerings to you.

We pray that you would receive these funds and do much with every penny that is given for the glory of Jesus. We give ourselves to you at the same time, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said. Amen.