Hebrews 10:24

And so I remember when I was playing football, every Monday we had to watch film. You get yelled at by the coach. And then you go out and you run for 12 minutes. And you have the laps. We're running in the stadium. And we would run around. And I had a teammate that we always liked to run together. And we pushed each other. And we would always shoot for two miles in 12 minutes. I can't do that now. I could back then, but not now. If I did it by myself, I wouldn't make it. Maybe I'd get a mile, maybe a mile and a half, but I wouldn't get to. And tonight, our verse is, and this verse tonight, is infinitely more important than running 12 minutes. This is our life.

And we need each other. And that's the point of one of our main points tonight about needing each other. And I'm going to quote another verse here with kind of in that synergy piece, Matthew 18, 20, Jesus says,

where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.

Talk about great synergy. How much power do we have when we're gathered together in the name of Jesus? And so we need each other.

And so our focus first, we have our focus this Wednesday evening, we've done hospitality. and giving and generosity, and now we're turning towards encouragement. So I hope my words this evening will be encouraging to you, and I hope we can continue to do that throughout our time here together.

So our focus verse again, Hebrews 10, 24,

let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.

Now I think the verses, I love these verses when the main point is like the verse. It's like, that's the main point, all right? But if we want to say it a different way, we can put it this way.

We should think about how we can encourage one another, think about it. in following Christ, increasing our faith and assurance of salvation as evidenced by our love and good works. And so our love and good works is evidence of our faith. And it should be in an increasing fashion. So why can and why should we do this? It seems really important.

Christ first loved us

And I think our motivation, if you have your Bibles open, you can read a few of the verses before that, Our motivation is found in the preceding verses, and Daniel did a great job of kind of laying out a really nice summary of Hebrews. And continue, the writer of Hebrews has been laying out that Jesus is our great High Priest, whose sacrifice was perfect and effective. He died once for all, ushering a better covenant, not an old covenant that doesn't, we have to keep offering sacrifices. And that covenant keeps God's promise of salvation and gives those who believe in Jesus full assurance of faith. That's encouraging. Verse 19, we have confidence to enter the holy places now. Verse 21, we have a great priest. Verse 22, our hearts are cleansed. And verse 23, we have a confession that gives us hope because God himself is the guarantee.

We should consider how to stir up one another to love and good works because Christ first loved us. His love is the greatest love. His work is the greatest work. There's nothing better than God's love and good work of his salvation through Jesus. Our love and good works are motivated by Christ's love and his good work of salvation in us. Indeed, his love and his work gives us the ability to love and to produce works. We have a great privilege that we can draw near to God. The Israelites didn't have that. He was distant. He was on the mountain only once a year, right? We've learned about that before. But we get to draw near to God and he calls us to give him glory as we share what he's given us with others. He has filled us with his spirit and we should be displaying that and sharing that with others.

It would be a sin for us to reject this, and that is the sin that will destroy you. If you don't believe the gospel, that's the sin that can destroy you. There's lots of sins, but that one is the one of rejecting Jesus and rejecting drawing near to God. that will destroy you. And God knows us. He knows that we're prone to wander. So in His sovereignty, He has given us a church, and He's given us each other, so that we can stir one another up. And when I think about stir up, I think about being a catalyst, causing a change, causing that synergy, that it's greater than what we could do on our own.

Hebrews 13.3 is similar.

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.

We need each other to keep us from sin, because sin is deceitful. We need each other to exhort, to encourage, to stir up the belief in the truth of God, the truth that we are sinners, and that we need a transforming grace. Christ is, we need, Christ, sorry. Sorry, I lost my place. We need Christ to forgive us and to be having that eternal life.

We need reminders of this, of what that gift that God uses the body to build each other up. He uses us. Our creator and king and savior has called us to build each other up. So, We know that we're motivated, we know that we have a great king, we know that we can draw near to God, that's our motivation. So how do we do this? It's great, we can stir each other up, but how do we do that?

Draw near to God

Well, I think the first step is we must draw near to God. You can't impart what you don't possess. So fill yourself with Christ. What are you filling yourself with? Would be a great question for reflection. Our role is to fill ourselves with Christ so that we can pour it out to others. We can draw near to God and he will draw near to us.

James 4.8 tells us that. We must connect to, the second thing we must do is connect to people, other Christians. Consider, in our verse, means that there are options.

You might connect with someone who has the same interest as you. That's sometimes easier. But you also might connect to someone who's very different than you. It doesn't matter if they're the same or they're different. It's the habit of connecting to other people. And it takes intentionality. We have to be intentional when we're connecting to others.

It's great that we have this church building. It's such a blessing. We're fixing it up. But that is not the church. The church is us. We're the body of believers. Just as we have a body with hands and toes and feet and everything else, we need that. And as a community, in Romans 12, 15, and 16,

rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. live in harmony with one another.

We need each other in that community to encourage one another. Thirdly, we must meet together, and that goes on in verse 25. It tells us not to neglect meeting together so that we can encourage one another. There are no lone rangers in the body of Christ. Just as our bodies need all the different parts to properly function, we need each other to spur one another on in love and good works.

What are we stirring up?

And those good works, when we're doing those good works, it keeps us from sinning. So we're motivated, we have some idea of how we should be doing this, we should be connecting with one another, we should be meeting together. So what exactly are we encouraging one another in? What are we stirring up? I would have six things for you and the first one I would say is perseverance. We must stir each other up in perseverance.

It's easy to be discouraged. It's easy to get down. And it's perseverance in the faith. Because Jesus is coming back and that day draws nearer and nearer every moment that we breathe. So we need to draw nearer and nearer. So don't stop believing. Apparently Journey had it right. I know that song came into some of your heads. Don't stop. Yeah, I won't do it for you.

Secondly, we need to believe gospel truths. We should encourage one another in the gospel truths. I love my wife because she's really good at this. She will tell me when I'm talking to myself and I'm relying on my stupid thoughts that are just mine. And it says that's not from God. If it's discouraging, it's not from God. We need to be encouraged to believe that God indeed is good and he is for us. He is good and he is for us. He is good, he is really, really, really good and he is for us.

And we need to believe that. And that should motivate us to keep doing more. And that's the third thing, more good works. So what are those good works? We've been talking about them a lot these last few weeks. Hospitality, generosity, thinking about others, rejoicing with others, weeping with others, evangelizing. Those are the good works.

When you're doing good works, if you read on past verse 24, you'll see it will keep you from deliberately sinning. That's good news. We need to do the good works and we need to, as Keith has shared with us so many times,

practice, practice, practice.

And we need to practice so that we stay away from deliberately sinning.

Another good work might be reading the room and finding out who's the person that I need to stir up. A fourth thing that we can encourage one another in is renewing our mind. We should be stirring the desire and the actions to be renewed, the desire to read God's word, talking about scripture, sharing your thoughts about scripture, sharing your quiet times. One of our, in our family, when we've had devotions, we were just talking about this recently, one of the best times that we've had is when it was just simply sharing, what are you reading in your quiet time? What are you, what's God saying in your life? And just having those conversations.

We should be encouraging one another, fifthly, in prayer. Praying for one another. is encouraging, and that, this evening, just hearing others pray, having yourself prayed for, praying for other folks, that can be a means of encouragement. And finally, our sixth thing, we should stir and encourage one another for more and more faith, love, and discernment. James 1, 9 through 11,

and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve what is excellent and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

So Jesus is coming back. And we want to be more and more drawing near to him. We want to be ready on that day. So, that sounds great, but so why don't we do it?

Some possible barriers

I think there are some barriers. And so, you might be one of those folks that has one of these barriers, maybe you're not. This is something that I might have a barrier with, that I, well I know that I would have a barrier with. So, some possible barriers from doing this. I'm too much of a sinner. I cannot encourage people because I'm unworthy, blah, blah, blah, blah.

God loves you and he has used drunkards, murderers, adulterers, liars, prostitutes, and all sorts of sinners to bring about his will. So repent and believe that God saves you and changes you because your Christian life is a testament to the Lord and it's an encouragement to others. So many times folks have sat up here or stood up here and shared their testimony. How encouraging is that to hear others' testimonies?

Two, you might be saying, I'm a sinner and I'm not worthy of being encouraged. That thought is not from God. God is for you. He wants your best, and he's made you for community. Be willing to be stirred up. Don't let your heart be hardened. Be willing to be stirred up.

Thirdly, you might say, I'm an introvert. I'm uncomfortable. Get over it. Yep, I'm an introvert. Believe it or not, I am an introvert. And so that just means that it wears me out when I'm talking with people. So get a good night's rest and then consider one person that you can encourage, that you can stir up. You don't have to be charismatic. You don't have to be inspirational. You just have to faithfully care for other people and the ones that are around you. A fourth thing that I think that causes us that is a barrier is we're not intentional.

We should be thinking about worship and our meetings and our gatherings together before we're gathering together. So as we are preparing for coming to Wednesday night, as we're preparing to come to Sunday morning, we should be thinking about, who could I reach out to? Ben was great, just shared this. We have visitors that are coming.

We should be intentional. We should intentionally say, well, I really like the back row, but I'm going to sit in the front intentionally because I know that could encourage somebody. So you may be an introvert, but be intentional about being an extrovert. So

let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.

Who can you stir up?

And so for your reflection as we close here, who can you stir up? I want you to think about that this evening. Who could I stir up? Who could I be a catalyst for? Do you need to be stirred up? There's another thought for reflection. Do you need to be stirred up? Maybe you need to seek out being stirred up. Is there someone that you need to talk with and say, I'm struggling, help me out.

We're in community and we should do that. And then how will you be intentional in this endeavor? If we're going to stir one another up to love and good works, so it's more and more, how can we be intentional? And I want you all to remember you have full access to the throne of God, and he is for you, and he's for your fellow image bearers. So let us be a church that joyfully stirs one another up to love and good works more and more as the day of the Lord approaches, because it is coming.

Let's pray. Father, I just thank you for your word. I thank you for just this body that I've experienced so much encouragement from, and I know others have as well. Lord, let us be those who encourage, those that stir up. Let us be filled with your Spirit. and let us pour your spirit out as an offering back to you. Father, we just thank you that you are for us, that you love us, and that, Lord, would you just move in our hearts and in our body so that we would be more and more like you. And Lord, we ask that you would come quickly. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.