Encourage One Another
Passage Hebrews 10:24-25
Speaker Hugh Bourne
Service Evening
Series I Have Hidden Your Word in my Heart
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24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.
So much. Please do keep your bibles open in Hebrews chapter ten. It's great to look at this verse together and we're going to be particularly focusing on verse 25. But I can't not give a little bit of reference to Hebrews chapter ten. It's such a wonderful passage and I think the simplest way to summarise what's going on in Hebrews chapter ten is.
It's the most wonderful invitation.
It's a welcome message. It's an invite to come to church, but more than to come to church. To come to know God, to know God through his son Jesus Christ. And I'm rubbish at giving welcomes. I stand up here most weeks and say welcome, but quite know what to say, you know.
Hello, welcome to church. Lovely to see you, thanks for coming. And I don't know how you can make that more exciting. We're quite british, aren't we? You know, it's very formal, but you are welcome.
Lovely to see you, especially if you're new. Really good to see you. Thank you for coming. But Hebrews ten is much more of a warm, exciting welcome to church than I could ever give. The best take on Hebrews chapter ten as a welcome I've seen.
I've got a little video I'd like to show you in a minute. And it's a pastor from Americorps, he's called Ray, and he's giving a welcome to church. And it's not very english, it's not very kind of. How do you do? Welcome.
Lovely to see you. But I think it resonates with what Hebrews ten is trying to say about a real genuine welcome to church. And this little video explains also this little detail that his church has got red doors. Red doors. That's important.
And he explains why his church has got red doors and why. And how you are welcome to church and what that really means. Let's have a little. Watch this video. Welcome to church.
Now, here's the one thing I invite you to understand. You may have noticed when you walked in that the doors out there are painted red. That is an old christian tradition, because we enter into the church through the blood of Christ, out in that world we live in the rest of the week, we never measure up. Our lives are never complete. We never fully belong.
Then we come into the church through the finished work of Christ on the cross. And what makes the difference here? The reason why we belong? We're walking into completeness, already prepared. Therefore, we can be weak.
We can be honest with ourselves, with one another and with the Lord. And he says, we belong.
Welcome.
So to all who are weary and need rest, to all who mourn and long for comfort, to all who fail and desire strength, and to all who sin and need a saviour, this church opens wide her red doors in the name of Jesus, the friend of sinners. Welcome. I'm glad you're here. Welcome to church. His church has red doors.
And that is the best way I can summarise Hebrews chapter ten. He also sang, welcome, welcome to church through the blood of Jesus. Because Jesus has died for you, you can come to church and find his life, his peace, his welcome. So when verse 19 then says, therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, he's saying, we have confidence to come to God, to come to his church, because he has died for us. And so he says, verse 22, we can draw near to God.
We can come close. You see, when this verse talks about meeting together, it talks about church. There's so much more going on to just say, I'll come to church on Sunday. Oh, no, we're doing so much more here tonight. We're meeting together as God's people bought by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus.
And he says, you're welcome, welcome to church. And that is the context of Hebrews chapter ten. That's the context of our verse tonight about meeting together. And I'd love us to just look briefly at verse 25, then not giving up, meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day approaching.
I'd love to just look at three ideas from that verse in reverse order, just to keep things interesting and not confuse you at all. Okay, so the first idea we're gonna look at is as you see the day approaching, do you think a bride and groom get busier or less busy as it gets close to their wedding day?
As you get closer to your exam, do you revise more or do you revise less or do you just revise the same throughout? I don't know about you, but you probably revise a little bit more as the deadline approaches. What about those people who were organising the Olympics? What about those people campaigning in the recent general election? Do you think they got busier as the big day approached or less busy?
When the big day gets closer, we become more focused, more serious, more determined. And for the writer to the Hebrews, church, meeting together as Christians becomes more focused, even more important as the big day approaches. And indeed, he's talking about a wedding day here, too, because when the Bible talks about the day, it's shorthand for the day of the Lord, the day when the Lord Jesus will return. When we look out of the world, we see so much suffering, war and pain, injustice and greed, broken relationships, a breaking planet. And it's easy to see the world in such a mess and think, well, the church is just irrelevant, isn't it?
The church hasn't got anything to say into this kind of situation. What can the church do in the face of such brokenness and often in the face of such hostility to its own message? But Jesus has a different verdict. Jesus looks out at the world and says, these pains are a sign of his return. These pains are not death pains, but birth painst.
He says, behold, I am coming soon. Indeed, that was one of the earliest prayers recorded by christian people. They would say maranatha, which means, come, lord. That was at one of their core prayers. They all pray, come, Lord Jesus.
Jesus. We are longing for the day when you come back. And so if Jesus is coming back, coming to gather his people, coming as a groom to marry his bride, the church, then let's get ready. Let's get ready for the big day. That's the encouragement to be church, because the big day, the day of the Lord is approaching.
So what are we doing here? What is this gathering tonight? I haven't simply come to church, have I? But rather I've come to worship the living God. I'm approaching a holy God with confidence because of what Jesus has done.
I'm entering into God's household, not this building, but this people I'm joining with, brothers and sisters, not blood relatives, but those bought by the blood of Jesus together. This is his church, among many others, and we're getting ready to be with Jesus forever. As the day approaches, as the big day gets closer, that's got to change the way you live, isn't it? That's got to shift your priorities.
How will you think differently about church knowing that that big day, the day of the Lord, the day that Jesus returns, is getting closer? Well, here's what he says. As the day approaches, encourage one another. Encourage one another. Verse 25.
But encouraging one another, that's the core action. That's what he wants us to do, encourage one another. So given who we are, given what we're doing here tonight, together, encourage one another. And the author uses quite a negative word here, that word spur, in verse 24, it could be translated as provoke or incite, to stir up. Let us spur, like that.
Spur on the rider's boot. It annoys the horse, but it gets it moving in the right direction. So the author says, like, elbow one another in the ribs, kind of uncomfortable. Elbow them in the ribs, get them moving. Encourage one another.
What? Encourage one another to love and good deeds. Come on, saying, come on, guys, let's do this. Come on, church, let's encourage one another.
He's like a kind of a coach, isn't Hedden? I wants them to keep going, keep persevering, keep fighting, keep encouraging one another. Doesn't that give a renewed focus for church? It's not about me, it's about us. It's very active.
We encourage one another. We stir each other up to encourage one another. What we come to tonight isn't really a service, but an opportunity to serve and encourage one another. It's not a show, but it's a family, it's a community. Now, there's all sorts of good things that we can do as Christians.
We can read a good christian book, can listen to my favourite Preachers podcast, I can watch a church service online, I could go and visit another church, I could go to a christian festival. Now, these are all things, great things that we could do, perhaps on occasion. But they're primarily things for me, aren't they? Things to encourage me, things to help me, things to strengthen me. I hope some of these things will enrich your christian life.
And of course, keep doing those things, keep doing things that build yourself up. But the call of Hebrews ten is much more than that. Not just to encourage me, but to encourage one another. You see, if the gathering of God's people is really focused on encouraging one another, then I'm going to need to be here, aren't I? I'm going to need to be here to encourage each other in person, be here so I can be with you and I'm gonna need to come ready to serve.
Thinking, who can I encourage tonight? Who can I encourage this week? Who needs to be welcomed tonight? Who needs to be supported? Who needs to be loved?
Who needs to be prayed for this evening? That's a great question to ask ourselves in light of this passage. How can I encourage someone? What can I do to encourage someone in need in this church family? I'd like to tell you about someone who was a huge encouragement to me.
His name was Alistair, many of you know him, and he was a great encouragement to me. Why was he encouragement? Well, let me give you a few things. The ways in which he encouraged me, he served he gave his time and his gifts. You know where you'd find Alistair?
You'd find him by the door. What was he doing there? He was welcoming people. He wanted to make sure everyone got a really warm welcome when they arrived at church. They'd see his smile, this big handshake.
He quite literally served to invite others in to encourage others.
He gave. Each Christmas time, he would sidle up to me and he'd slip into my pocket a wadge of notes and he said, give this away. And that's what we did. We gave away gifts to people. Alastair never knew who it went to and those who received never knew where it came from.
And he didn't mind not knowing. He was just happy to know that he was helping others. He gave of himself to help others in the church, perhaps those he didn't even know, but he wanted to give to help others. He testified he loved to tell his story. He loved to tell the work that God had done in his life through good times and through hard times especially.
He loved to tell the story of how he came to know the Lord Jesus through that verse from revelation one Easter Sunday. He wanted other people to know just how good the Lord had been to him so that others might be encouraged by that. You know, he was always giving thanks. He was always giving thanks for the gifts of others. He'd often talk about Keith, who helped lead him to the Lord.
He used to talk about a man called Dick, who was a real inspiration to him in his faith. He loved to share in the gifts of others by way of encouraging me and others, and he really cared for others. A few years ago, a man turned up at church and that man had reached a crisis point in his life and he really didn't know where to turn, except he knew some people from church and he turned up for church one Sunday night. And the first person he met, of course, was Alastair, who gave him a warm welcome, encouraged him, but he didn't leave it there. Over the next few years, myself and Alistair would go to the pub, you know, who doesn't need an excuse to go to the pub or to Masha?
And we take this chap out for Curry and beer and we talk to him about faith. Alistair would talk about how God had been so good to him, even in hard times. And this man was hugely encouraged by that simple ministry of sharing life together, of sharing encouragements.
You see, being an encouragement to one another isn't complicated. But you do need to be here. You do sometimes need to take a risk to speak to someone new, to ask someone how they are. And don't just stop at I'm fine. To pray for people, to pray for opportunities, to give of your gifts and time, to help and support others.
You see, encouragement. It's just doing church. It's ordinary Christian living for the benefit of others. Now, we're not all ancestors, but we can all serve and share. We can all give and give thanks.
We can all share what the Lord is doing in us. We can welcome others and care for those in need. It's a question for all of us. How might I encourage someone today? How might I encourage someone this week?
Here's the final thought. Give up meeting together. That's a key idea, isn't it? It comes at the start of verse 25, don't give up meeting together. And it's followed by another thought.
There, isn't it? As some are in the habit of doing, we see that the gathering of the church is a place for encouragement, and that should be reason enough to keep going. But there's something of a warning here, too, isn't there? Sometimes we talk about habitual attendance. You get in the habit of going somewhere.
It becomes familiar. It's what you do. It's part of your routine. But for some, as the author to the Hebrews writes, the new habit was not going to church, not meeting together. I've met a lot of people for whom this has been true recently.
So we just stopped going in lockdown and we never really started again. Or. Or we moved house, we moved to a new place, and we just never got back into the habit of going to church.
In one sense, you're here. You don't need to hear this. I'm preaching to the choir. But that could change, couldn't it? What if circumstances change?
What if you get unwell? What if you fall out with someone? What if you go off to university or you move away or you have kids, or your kids grow up? There's all sorts of things that could knock you out of a habit of being part of church. Perhaps that's you this term.
Perhaps you have got kids moving away. Perhaps you yourself are moving away. Please don't assume that you'll just keep going to church. Please don't assume that that will just be the habit that continues unless we make it a habit, unless we say no. This is really important.
Jesus died for us, that we would come together and be his church, that we would encourage one another. Friends, please keep up the habit. Keep coming, keep giving, keep serving, keep loving, keep singing, keep praying. Keep encouraging one another. And in Hebrews, chapter ten, it alludes to all sorts of other things that might knock you out of that habit.
It talks about fear, about this kind of lack of assurance that perhaps you think, well, I keep messing up. Why would God want me part of his church? It talks about sin and guilty consciences. We might look out and think, well, everyone else seems to be perfect. Everyone else looks like they've got their life sorted, but not me.
Well, I won't fit in here. Will I also talk a little bit about persecution? Perhaps your friends or your family or your colleagues just think you're weird to be part of a church.
There's all sorts of things that could knock us out of that habit. But here's the other thing that will knock me when I remember those who used to be here, those who've gotten out of the habit. Of course, I can think of people who used to be here who are. Some are wonderfully with the Lord, others have moved on to bless others in different places. But I know some have left, perhaps because they fell out with people, or they lost confidence that Jesus words were good news, or simply because they got out of the habit when circumstances changed.
Friends, church is so much more important than that. Jesus, as we've seen, has opened the door. He welcomes us to his church through his blood. He loved you and he died for you. And now, with confidence, we come not to a service, but to church, to his household, to his family, to this place that we belong because of Jesus.
And it's not only with confidence that we come, but with anticipation as we await Jesus return, when he'll put all things right and be with his church forever. So, in light of all that, friends, please take this verse to heart. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encourage one another. And all the more as you see the day approaching. Amen.
Amen.