Hebrews 10:19-25 // From Creed to Conduct (Part 2)

0:00Today on Growing Through Grace The strength that God has provided is oftentimes found right around you. God's choice in strengthening the people is people is the invention of the church. That's God's pick, isn't it? I'll give them a church to plant themselves in and people that will bear them up and folks who will be concerned for their well-being. And you will always be. Faithful father, you're my everlasting care. To come more praises do. And you will always be. And you will always be. Faithful father, what I'm stronger than you. It's what I love about.

1:02You're listening to Growing Through Grace with Pastor Jack Abelan of Morningstar Christian Chapel in Whittier, California. As we learned last time we were together, we are now in the application section of the book of Hebrews beginning at chapter 10 verses 19 through 25. As Pastor Jack finishes up this week and this study, he'll begin to build on the doctrine that was set up in the first nine chapters and take us now to the practical application of those truths. So if you can, let's turn together to Hebrews chapter 10 verse 19 as we back up just a bit into yesterday's study in order to catch the context and conclusion of this message. Here's Pastor Jack. And I think that's always where the application is, isn't it? You do what you know. You act upon what you have learned. Let us draw near. Let us come to the Lord. Let us now come and seek Him and come with a heart-true heart that is filled with an assurance of faith in what we know God has accomplished.

2:03Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, having our bodies washed with pure water, we now get to come. When we finished verse 18 last week of chapter 10, Paul, in going over the thing for the one last time, all of the comparison said, the Old Testament shadows couldn't provide access to God, nor could it provide a cleansed heart. No clear conscience. No assurance that you were in a good place now with God that everything that had needed to be done was done. And yet, with Jesus, we can come. We can draw near to God, and our hearts can be assured in faith knowing what we know that our place with Him is secure. Well, what about if the Lord brings up that last cinema? And he says he's forgiven and forgotten. And the blood of Jesus cleanses me from all sin. Not most, not some, not many, but all. So I come with a heart that is completely committed, the word true there,

3:04is the one that modifies the word heart. So the idea is, as I come with a sincereness in faith with a heart that's desiring to know the Lord, when I come to Jesus, learn all that I've learned, my evil guilty conscience is pacified, it is cleansed, and my life, my body, my ways have been washed and are being washed in God's word. So come. Come based upon the evidence, come based upon the knowledge of what you know, that you might be sanctified and cleansed constantly by the washing of God's word. You know, for the first time in our lives, the guilt over sin and what it might do between us and God is completely gone when you come to Jesus. And your conscience for the first time says, oh, that's good. I grew up in a pretty religious household, and we were religious like worldly religious people are, you know? But you could honestly say, you never were sure. You hoped for the best. You made mental arguments that things will be all right. You found people that were more rotten than you.

4:05And you went, well, if they, you know, make it, then I'll make it. If there's a judgment, I'm going to get ahead of them. And then you try to find more people below you than above you. And then you, that's your relative piece right there, you know? You, you, you want rotten people around, you know, if he makes it, everyone's going to go, you know? But then you get saved. And for the first time in my life, I remember when I got saved on a Thursday night in a home Bible study in Belflar. I went home and I laid my head on the pill and I went, you know, I'm going to make it. I'm going to heaven. My sins are forgiven. And I hadn't done anything for it other than believe in what God had said. But that under the blood thing made a lot of sense to me. I was under the blood. I was forgiven and for it. And God had forgotten. And, and as I learned of his word, it brought that realization, you know? So, look, come. Let us draw near. You have boldness to doors open. Jesus gave his life. His blood shed. The high priest has done his work. Come on in. And come with a heart that's totally committed. And come with an assurance of faith in your heart that God will welcome you.

5:09And genuinely trust him because he has made you acceptable in his side. Now, for this young church under this great pressure and tremendous persecution, knowing that they could come and the Lord would accept them and had provided a place for them and would embrace them ought to keep them going. Come towards the Lord, come. Verse 23 said, and let us secondly hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who has promised his faithful. Towards God, we come with much assurance based on what Jesus has done. For ourselves, we have to hang on to hope that faith has produced. Knowing from all that we've learned if we will hang on to Jesus, we're going to make it just fine, aren't we? Hopelessness is the lot of the, I think, secular man. They did a study a couple years ago at NYU, a professor marched and asked 3,000 folks on campus what they had to live for.

6:17And right down what you have to live for. 94% of these 3,000 folks checked a box that literally said, I'm waiting for something in the future. And it is usually one or two years out after I graduate when I'm getting married. And their short term hopes were about all that they could express. There weren't really any long term reasons to live. It was next week, next month, next year. It was as shallow as life could be. And yet you and I, as believers, have something to live for far beyond tomorrow. Our lives are lived in such a way that the hope of the believer has tremendous substance. Jesus went on ahead. In fact, I think it was in Hebrews 6 that we read, you can have this hope as an anchor for your souls that Jesus went ahead as the forerunner opened the door. And we belong to Him. And He's the anchor. So let us hold fast.

7:17Don't let go. The words literally mean to squeeze. Hang on with all you got to the confession of your hope without wavering. In verse 22, full assurance of faith. In verse 23, hope that doesn't waver or doesn't bend or doesn't change. When we get challenged, we just hang on. When we're under trials, we hang on. When we don't get what God is up to, we hang on. When we're prospering, we hang on. And when we're broke, we hang on. And when we're sick, we hang on. Let us hang on. Because it is our conviction in hope that God's promises won't fail. Isn't that what that says? I read a story a few years ago. I remember looking at this verse of a fourth grade boy who dad had dropped him off at school in the morning.

8:19And he said, now look, at 3 o'clock when the class gets out, you sit right here on the curb and I'm going to come pick you up. And he said, all right. But he was kind of a flighty kid, so dad wanted to worry and all day, you know. Then when he went to pick him up, they had a traffic jam or some kind. And he got to the school at 415. And the little boy was sitting right on the curb. Exactly where dad had told him, oh, good. And he said to him, were you worried? He said, no, you said you'd come get me. Now, that's the way the Lord wants us to be, isn't it? We don't always know what he's up to, but I can hang on. And sometimes that's all you can do. You know, the kind of tenacity that weather's any storm and that won't turn your back. But it is produced by a open God's word because we see it as faithful because he's promised. There's no thought of going back because Jesus won't go back. He knows our need. He understands our prayers before we pray them.

9:21He's not leaving or forsaking us. Every lives to make intercession for us. You can hold on. Let us come with a full assurance of faith. Let us hang on with a hope that says he doesn't lie. I can make this. He will work this out. I can stand the test. And for this young church, I can make it through the persecution. And don't waver a word that means to flutter in the wind. You may be no people that waver. They're up one day and down the other. And they're faithful one day. And they're not so faithful the next. The solution to most of that is find out what God has said and believe him. Because it is your conviction over God's faithfulness of His promise that we'll keep you holding on tight. Let us draw near. Let us hold fast. And thirdly, verse 24, let us consider one another. So that we might stir up love and good works and not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some.

10:27But rather exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching. If verse 1 says come in and verse 2, the second one says hold on. Then the third one says look around. You can't do this alone. And I think that there is much to be said for the understanding of these three verses. Our spiritual life as Christians is challenging enough for each of us that our faith is constantly under attack. And the strength that God has provided is oftentimes found right around you. God's choice in strengthening the people, His people, is the invention of the church. That's God's pick, isn't it? I'll give them a church to plant themselves in. And people that will bear them up and folks who will be concerned for their well-being. As we told you before, there are already some who are unwilling to show up because it seemed to make life easier in reality.

11:34Spirituality could only make life far more difficult. And I don't know that the church really views itself as that place of tremendous strength. I don't know how you view the body as a whole. People seem to have a thousand reasons to not go to church from unfaithful people to boring sermons, to busy schedules, to holding grudges. There's a reason why I'm not going. But I'll tell you what, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Because we read, let us consider one another. We need to be loved and have good works and not forsake gathering. And especially as we need the exhortation, as life just gets worse in the world. And things aren't getting better before the Lord comes. We need to be planted in the body. The early church found some out of fellowship due to persecution. Today people just tend, I think, be lazy or preoccupied or they don't see the need for themselves or others need for their involvement.

12:36But look, the local church was established by the Lord as a place of learning and a fellowship and of support and a vision sharing, and a mission outreach coordination. If you go to seminary, it's called ecclesial ontology. It just means that there's a special existence of Christ found in the church. And that's where we should go, because that's where the Lord works. He chooses the church to strengthen, and it's a tool that God has chosen to use in that manner. You remember when John, in his 90s, was there on Patmos and the Lord, gives him that revelation there that you have in the back of your Bibles. And he begins in chapter 1, just seeing the glory of Jesus. Before the Lord says to him, now look, I want you to write down the things that you see and the things that are. And then I want you to write down the things that shall be. And so John had, you know, chapter 1 to write down, and then the things that were, and then the things that were coming. But at the end of chapter 1, the Lord, as he explained to John, some of the vision that he had given him said to him,

13:39you know, the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand, the seven golden lamps, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. The seven lamp stands are those seven churches. And then he goes on to say that the Lord holds them in his right hand and he walks in their midst. That's where God does His work, in the church, in the local church, in the local body. And Jesus finds himself there in the book of Revelation, particularly involved in the local church and its people and its pastors. Look, I'll tell you what, you meet God in many ways, in corporate worship. You meet with God in many ways, in corporate study, and in prayer, and in fellowship, in a way that you could never meet Him alone. It is true a person doesn't have to go to church to be a Christian. Any more than a married person needs to go home to be married, but I suspect that's not going to make for good relationships.

14:40So, the gifts of the Spirit, and the confidence in the faith, and the knowing of the Word, and the practicing of love, and a safe place to fail, and a position that you can take to share your struggles with others, whether you like it or not, you need the body. And you that float from church to church looking for a blessing are shooting yourself in the foot. Find a place, make it home, get involved, don't have to be here. There's a lot of good, but you live in South California and go to a million places. If you live in the middle of Iowa, maybe not. But certainly here you can, but wherever it is, you should make yourself at home and find yourself. And the absence of involvement in a body is kind of like taking a coal out of the fire. You know, pretty soon it loses its heat and it loses its effectiveness. In a tragic sense, mobs are usually cooler than individuals would be. What mobs do, individuals don't. They will beat someone to death.

15:44You wouldn't do that by yourself, but a mob carried away by emotion can do the worst of things, mob mentality. In a spiritual sense, a crowd of saints can inspire you to godliness and holiness that you alone would never have sought for or desired. You'll sit in church and hear the worship of the saints, you go, I want to enter in. I miss that. I need that. You'll gather with those, hey, let me tell you what the Lord did yesterday. And by the time you're done hearing it, you want that. There's something about life in the church that the writer says, let us, let us. Let us come before the Lord with faith and let us hang onto the Lord with hope and let us look around ourselves to be sure that we're not trying this on our own. It was Luther who wrote at home in my house, there is no warmth or vigor for me, but with the church multitude, it gathers a fire as kindled in my heart that breaks way through. There's something about church life, isn't there? About the ministry of the saints.

16:46And the local church is both a place of learning and a place of great accountability. Paul said to the Ephesians in chapter 3 verse 18, I pray that you might be able to comprehend with all of the saints. What is the width and length and depth and height of the hope that God has given us? He lays it out for all. Theology is supposed to be taught at the local assembly, but I'll tell you what so often passes off as aberrant theology or bad doctrine. It oftentimes doesn't come in church pulpits, but it comes from those who write them in books and yet aren't planted in churches so they don't have to live with the consequences. They dispute and leave. They write it down and go. They're safety in church because it's very difficult to live aberrant theology. It doesn't work. You can teach it, but people can't live it. And so they'll rebel against it. There's some safety in the body as a whole. We need the church. It's the place where you learn to love others, even those you don't like.

17:49Where you put into practice faith. Where you develop a concern for the spiritual well-being of others. And it is to our detriment that you would willingly absent yourself from church or from involvement or from outreach. In fact, it seems to me that the writer here begs the people to not make that mistake. Don't do that. Don't hurt yourself in that regard. In fact, he uses the words consider one another and then uses the words in order to stir up. Strong word in Greek, it means to provoke. In a negative sense, it would be to choose a fight. But in a positive sense, it means to arouse or to spur people on. We gather together so we might prod each other on in our walks. I think that's good. I think I've told you before. I really think the Lord made me a pastor so I'd have to go to church. Because if I was just left to come or go, I probably wouldn't show up. But pastors, they'd have to show up as part of the deal. So I'm here. But it's good for me.

18:56The idea being if not in that situation you fall and you don't go forward and Satan isolates you and body life leaves you behind. So exhort one another, get together often, exhorting one another and so much the more is a clause that modifies the word gathering together or assembling together. So get together and you ought to get together even more often as the pressure is turned up. And for this church, the pressure was turned up. We need help keeping the spiritual fires burning, don't we? You need it. I can't begin to tell you how often I just look forward to the midweek service so I can get to Sunday. Oh, thank you. That was awesome. Beyond your own all week and you struggle. There's safety and numbers and help in the flock and encouragement. Not just for you, but through you. If you think you got all you need, then start helping someone else. But how folks make it in life with 30 minutes on a Sunday morning and don't ever return for anything else.

20:01It's phenomenal to me. And especially as we run into these darker, frantic works of the enemy in these last days, we need to be more available, not less, don't we? How important is that? So we have faith towards God. We have hope held closely and we have love set on display. But the invitation is, look, there's boldness now come. Come before the Lord. Come with an assurance of faith. Come with a cleansed heart. Come knowing God is faithful. Come to walk in His love and to encourage others to do that. And wait for the Lord to come. I love the lettuces here in the scriptures. And it is my hope that you will come and let the Lord fill your heart, shall we pray? Father, on this evening when we're going to spend some time in worship and having communion, we thank you for the beginning of this application here in our study in Hebrews.

21:07And Lord, that tonight as we sit together, that we might, with great boldness, come and sit before the throne and raise our hands and lift our voices. And realize, Lord, that we belong here with you because of the blood that Jesus has shed and because of His flesh that was torn, that you, Lord Jesus, as our high priest, have opened the door and entered in for us so that we might enter in through you. And that Father, tonight as we sit here together as a body, we might have hearts that are sincere and faith that is fully assured, consciences that have been cleansed and lives that are being daily washed with the water of your word. May we hang on tight to what you've promised, that our confession and our hope wouldn't waver, no setbacks, no back treading or backsliding.

22:16But just Lord, that lock on that confidence because you've said it, how can we doubt it? You have promised, you have worked a work, how can we not hang on? And Lord, let us look at the church the way you do, not as a place to find weak people and find fault. But as a place we go to be encouraged and to be an encouragement, to love and to be loved, to be exhorted and to gather often, especially as we, the church, live in this very difficult world waiting for the Lord's return. Let us, may that be our marching orders as we let us, come often to pray, hang on with all we have and reach out to those who are struggling or weak or fault-turing or just sit next to us in church, work Lord amongst us, work in us.

23:25And then God may you keep us until that day. And then God may you keep us until that day.