If you have your Bibles with you this morning, please turn and open with me again to the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews chapter 10, we'll read verses 19 through 25 this morning. Hebrews chapter 10 verses 19 through 25 Please hear the word of our God Therefore brothers Since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh and Since we have a great priest over the house of God Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. As far as the reading of the Lord's word, may he bless it. Please join me in prayer. Oh, our God, we come humbly now to your word. And we thank you that you have revealed all things in order to correct, to rebuke, to train in righteousness, to reveal your most holy will for us, the way in which we ought to walk, and to enlighten our minds and our faith to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We pray that as we come to these commands this morning, that you would help us to grasp a hold of them by faith, to lay them up in our hearts, to practice them in our lives, We pray that these words wouldn't fall on deaf or unattentive ears, but that we would be eager to all be fed from your word this morning. Be with us, we pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen. The prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, once said this. My faith rests not in what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, and what he has done, and what he is doing now for me." And that quote sums up, if you will, in large part, what the writer of Hebrews has been trying to convey to us, or has been conveying to us, over the course of chapter seven through ten. That our assurance of salvation rests in Christ and in Christ alone. As we came last week again to chapter ten, we did is we took a step back and we simply addressed how would Hebrews respond to the weak conscience that struggles with the assurance of salvation. And this week we could as well take a step back and we could show how Hebrews would rebuke those people who have a presumptuous salvation. But I don't think that's where Hebrews wants us to go because the tenor of chapter 7 through 10 is far more about encouragement than rebuking. And so today as we come to verses 19 through 25, we want to look at the next piece of this puzzle of Hebrews, if you will, and that is we want to look at the fruits of assurance, the fruits of the assurance of our salvation, or if you would prefer to say, these three commandments that the writer of Hebrews gives to us. You note there, and we'll just go over this briefly, that in verses 19 through 21, that the writer very helpfully summarizes much of what he's been saying, not just in chapters 7 through 10, but he summarizes what he's been saying in the first 10 chapters. Looking there in verses 19 through 21, most of the words that he uses we're familiar with and we've preached on. You note there in verse 19 that he speaks of now that we have this confidence, or that is the assurance, to enter into the holy places. And you remember that word, those words holy places were used earlier of where Christ is seated, that is in the heavenly places, in the new Jerusalem, the heavenly Jerusalem. You can see that in verse 20, we read that Christ has opened this way in his flesh. That's a reference to the death of Christ that the writer of Hebrews has talked about often. You note that we read of his death back in chapter 9, verse 14, and in verse 20, and in verse 22 again, and even down in chapter 10, verse 10, there's references to his death. So he's summarizing this for us. And as well as we read in verse 21 that he speaks of Christ as being our High Priest, we remember this imagery, we remember these words, particularly back in chapter 7, verse 26, where we're told that it was fitting for us to have such a High Priest, that Christ is our High Priest. Remember, even if you can stretch your minds back a little further in Hebrews, that Hebrews chapter 3 verse 6, we're told that we ought to consider the apostle and the high priest of our confession. The writer here in verses 19 through 21, he's summarizing where he has come from. And in a wonderful way, what he's doing is he's bringing these strands of theology together in these verses. And in verses 22 through 25, essentially what he is saying is because all of this is true. Because we have this assurance, because Christ has died, because Christ is our High Priest, then these fruits ought to be evident in your life, or you ought to be fulfilling these commandments. You see, as we began the book of Hebrews many months ago, we noted that our ears can't merely be tickled with great and glorious theology, but good theology always impacts our lives. And so as he's finishing up this section of deep theology of the death of Christ and the blood of Christ, he comes now to these three commandments. I would note that this is essentially the first commandment that this writer has given in nearly four chapters. In four chapters, these are the first commandments that he has given to us. So we want to look at each of these three commandments this morning. You note that the text outlines it very simply for us in verses 22, 23, and 24. We have these words, let us. Let us draw near, let us hold fast, and let us consider. Now before diving into the substance of each of these commandments, I want to just briefly ask, why these three? Out of all the commandments that he could have conjured up, that he could have impressed his congregation on, why does he pick these three things? Is he shooting from the hip? Is this completely arbitrary? Is he at a loss for words, so he's grappling for the first thing that comes to mind? Think we all should know our Bibles better than that? No. These aren't arbitrary commands. But rather, these three commands all relate to how we are to worship God. So in light of Christ being the ground of our assurance, of our salvation, now this is how we ought to worship Christ. This is how we ought to worship God, whether that's private worship in our own prayer closets, or whether that is public worship. Both important, both necessary, and he's going to draw upon both of these. So all of these commandments relate to our worship. Remember back in Hebrews chapter 8, as we looked at the covenant, we said that the purpose of the covenant, the purpose of salvation and redemption, is to create worshipers. That's why God redeemed Israel out of the land of Egypt. Moses was to go to Pharaoh and say, let my people go. Why? In order that they might worship me on the mountain. So in everything that God does to redeem his people, it's to make us worshipers. And the writer of Hebrews is saying, in light of everything I have said, Now this is how you are to worship. So let's take each of these three commandments in turn this morning. The first commandment we read there in verse 22. The writer says, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Now, there's just two particulars that we want to look at here in verse 22. And the first particular is to look at the command itself. There in the first three, or sorry, four words, we read the command, let us draw near. Well, draw near to what? Draw near to who? Perhaps you remember that this term of drawing near has already been used three times in the book of Hebrews. It was first used back in chapter 4, verse 16. It's used again in chapter 7, verse 25. And the third time was in chapter 10, verse 1. And now here in verse 22, he uses it again. And all of these verses show us that what the drawing near is, what the writer is talking about, is drawing near to God for the purpose of worshiping Him. So what the writer here is saying, the simple command is draw near to God. Come and worship God. Because through Christ, as the writer has shown us, we have a new and living way that has been opened for us. So because Christ has spilled his blood on Calvary and he's purchased our souls, draw near to God. Worship God. The second particular that we want to look at And this, just briefly, are all the qualifying words that come after this commandment. So we have let us draw near, and then note how the writer qualifies this, with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. We don't have time to look at all of the particulars of these qualifications or these descriptions, but we can say that what the writer is saying here is we don't draw near to God, we don't worship God in any way that we think we should. The manner of our worship is important to God. Not only are we told to draw near to Him, We're also told, how do you draw near to God? And the writer shows us here that we come in truth. We come in integrity. We come with our hearts and not just our lips. We don't worship God just with lip service saying, yeah, yeah, we worship you, we're going to do this, while our hearts and our minds are disengaged. But the writer shows us here we ought to come with our hearts before God. We ought to come and worship Him in the totality of our being. So here the writer of Hebrews, the first commandment that he gives us is we ought to worship God and we ought to worship Him rightly. I want to just pause here before moving on to the second commandment. Because I don't think that most of us, perhaps this is a wrong assumption, often think rightly about worship. Sometimes I think we're tempted to think of worship as something that's mundane or simple. Something that doesn't require a whole lot other than me perhaps jumping in my prayer closet or opening my Bible or diving into my car and driving to church. But the writer of Hebrews here has just left off on these glorious chapters of everything that Christ has done for us in order that we might draw near to God. Now if you can, place yourself in the position of Old Testament Israel. Here they are, they are standing at Mount Sinai at the foot of it. And God has come down to give them these ten commandments. And if we were these Israelites, what would perhaps be going through our heads? Not that this worship that we now have of God and give to God is of this mundane or simple thing, but we would be thinking, look at everything that had to happen in order that we could be brought to Mount Sinai. Look how God had to raise up a prophet like Moses to stand and fearlessly defy Pharaoh and say, let my people go. And think of the great redemption that had to happen in order for Israel to be here at this mountain. Pharaoh had to let them go and he did it through these miraculous wonders that were worked by the hand of Moses. And more than that, even after they had been released from Egypt and they were running into the wilderness. And think of how these Israelites would have remembered, well, Pharaoh's army chased us. And yet, what did we see? What happened in order for us to get here to this mountain? Well, we stood there before the Red Sea, and the waters parted miraculously, and we walked upon dry land, and then God consumed all of our enemies here in this flood of the Red Sea. As these Israelites stood before Mount Sinai worshiping God, they had to have been mindful of the great redemption and power and glory that was needed in order for them to worship. And in many ways that is similar today. In order to draw near to God and worship him, think of the blood that was required to be spilled. Think of the power that was needed in order to turn darkened and dead and depraved hearts to light. Think of the spirit that was needed to take our God-hating affections and emotions and to transform them in order to come and to love God truly. You see, worship is a blood-bought privilege of God's people. It's a privilege, and we ought never to forget this. But how does this fit within this theme of assurance that the writer's been speaking about in verses 7 and 10? If he's coming off of assuring us of our salvation and he now gives us this commandment to worship, what does that have to do with assurance? Let me put it as plainly and simply as I can. The assurance of our salvation ought to drive us to God, not away from God. When we are assured of our salvation, we ought to be driven to worship God. I cannot fathom or wrap my mind around these people who profess to be saved and yet have no interest in worshipping God, no interest in worshipping Him either publicly or privately. These people who claim that Christ has purchased them with their blood and they go out and they live their lives however they want or they think worship is very insignificant. And if it becomes an inconvenience to me, then I will gladly dispose of it. I can't wrap my mind around that because when we see that we have been saved and why we have been saved, when we know that we've been saved, One of the greatest fruits of our assurance is not independence from God, but it's complete and utter dependence on him. I know that in the minds of many this works contrary to the way in which we think. You raise your children to mature them, to make them assured so that they will be independent of you. Nobody glamorizes a 32-year-old son that lives in his parents' basement mooching off of them every month. That's not a sign of maturity. And yet Christian maturity works in the exact opposite way. Christian maturity and those who are assured of their salvation grow increasingly dependent on God, grow increasingly towards God, come near to him, draw near to him to worship him. And so the writer of Hebrews comes with this commandment. If Christ has forgiven you for your sins, if you're assured of your salvation, your heart ought to be inflamed to worship him. We would think that prisoner a complete fool, who if that prison gate was opened, he refused to walk out but decided to lay upon his cot day after day. Once many ways we would say that they are foolish, who think that they've been saved by Christ, but not for the purpose of worshiping him. So the first commandment that's given here is to draw near to worship God because that's why Christ has purchased us. And the second commandment that we read of here in verse 23, not only let us draw near, but secondly, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. There's three particulars here in this commandment that we wish to look at. And the first one is to simply ask, what's meant by this confession of hope? What does the writer mean here, this confession of hope? What is that? Perhaps remember back in chapter 3 verse 1 that the writer says, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession. And again we see in chapter 4 verse 14, let us hold fast our confession. So the writer of Hebrews, whatever this confession is, it's important to him. It means something. He brings it up at particular points throughout the book. And here he says this confession of Hope. This confession of hope. Now, hope is a word that speaks of aspirations, of longings, of anticipations. You think of Paul in Romans chapter 8, verse 24. He says, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. So the writer of Hebrews here, we've noted as we've unfolded these last chapters, Christ has secured a glorious redemption for us. And yet, as we live yet in this world, we have not yet received the fullness of that redemption. Yes, Christ has died for our sins. And yes, we have boldness and access before the throne of grace with great confidence. But the fullness of our salvation is not found in this world. As Paul says it so wonderfully in 2 Corinthians, now we walk by faith, not by sight. So the writer of Hebrews is impressing upon us all of this that Christ has done for us. It's a real and present reality and it's important. But remember that the consummation of it has not yet come. That you still await the redemption of your bodies and your souls. That we, at this present time, worship But we worship by faith and we have the hope that one day we will finally worship by sight. That now we embrace by faith that our sins are forgiven, but there's coming a glorious day when we shall see that all of our sins are forgiven and sin is done away with and finally destroyed. And it is by faith that we come and we stand before the throne of God with the angelic host of heaven and all the saints who have gone before. But the day is coming when we shall stand in body and soul before that glorious throne." You see, these present realities show us that we have a great hope of greater things. And so the writer of Hebrews' second command here is, hold fast to this hope. And the second thing we note from this commandment itself, And so we're told to hold fast. The only time you use language like this, hold fast, is when there's an assumption of difficulty. You've ever been whitewater rafting. You're going down this quiet and easy river and you're flowing there and all of a sudden your rafting guide says, hold fast, grab a hold of something. And you know that what that means is there's imminent danger and this is what you've come for. There's a rapid coming and if you're not careful, you might get thrown out of the raft. And so this guide will tell you to hold on. Well, in the same way, the writer of Hebrews tells us here that we need to hold fast to this hope. What he means is there's trouble ahead. There's rapids that are coming against you. He commands us to hold fast because there is trouble. And when we look at our life of faith, when we look at our hope, how continually assailed it is by Satan, and by the world and even by our own sin. Satan and the world and our sin trying to tell us that this hope is futile. This world is going to hell in a handbasket. You have no hope, it's baseless, it's groundless. Don't you understand that now is your best life? Now is the time that you have, and everything against God works against this hope. To try and show us our hope is vain, that it's inglorious, that there is no hope, and it would have us to despair. And so the writer of Hebrews says we must contend. We must contend to hold fast upon this hope. And for our greatest encouragement, he thirdly marks out here that he who promised is faithful. That is that God will certainly bring to fruition our hope in him. You think of that wonderful hymn, Jesus, I, my cross have taken, and that verse that says, soon shall close thy earthly mission and soon shall pass thy pilgrim days. Hope shall change to glad fruition, faith to sight, and prayer to praise. So the writer, in order to encourage us to hold fast, reminds us, God is faithful, and he will bring this to pass. And the world, with all of its glory, will fade and blow away like dust in the wind. And in that day, the glorious new Jerusalem shall descend from heaven. And in that day, your faith will be made sight, because God is a faithful God to all of his promises, and he will bring it to pass. So the second commandment here, in light of everything that Christ has done for us, is we ought to continually set before our eyes this hope, this confession of hope that we have, and we ought to do this especially in our worship and our fellowship with one another. You note there at the end of verse 25, if we can jump ahead for just 10 seconds here, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near. Dear friends, I'd also like to say that this is where the weightiness of preaching comes from. The point of preaching is to always hold before our eyes this hope. And the content of preaching is meant to prepare you and I for grace and glory and God. See, there are some people out there who simply want preaching and sermons that are all about this life. They want to be given self-empowerment, or they want the minister to build them up with a healthy self-esteem, or give them 12 steps to successful planning, or financial freedom here in this age, or people think that I want my immediate needs met every time a minister preaches or pastors are sometimes, oftentimes nowadays, called life coaches. Trying to coach us in so that we can have the best life now. And people who think that preaching is nothing more than a gas station mentality that I come into church to have my tank filled in order that I can have a good week and I'll come back next week and get my tank filled so I can continue puttering along throughout my life. But worship and preaching is about hope. It's about the coming glory and the end of all things. And that's what preaching aims at. Perhaps not our immediate needs, but the need that we all have to be prepared for that day when either we die or the Lord returns and we step into either eternal glory or eternal condemnation. And so the writer here, to inflame our worship, encourages us to point our eyes to this hope. Now the third commandment that we have here is in verses 24 and 25, the third let us statement. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Lord willing, we're going to take verse 25, we're going to preach one entire sermon on verse 25 next week. This morning I want the emphasis to fall here on verse 24. See, the previous two commandments that have been given to us here in verses 19 through 25, in large part they relate to our devotion to God. But now as we come to verse 24, the writer turns to this horizontal relationship. In our worship, there's this vertical dimension between us and God, but there's also a horizontal relationship. And the meaning of verse 24 is incredibly straightforward. The writer is simply saying we have mutual obligations to one another. If Christ has redeemed you, you have mutual obligations with your brothers and your sisters. And he says here first that we are to stir up. Now this word here, stir up, it's a word that conveys intensity. If you will, it's a type of positive provocation. It's being intentional, it's being directed, it's being almost forceful. And he says that we ought to be stirring up one another towards love and good works and encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Now this encouragement that we are to have for one another, this isn't banal conversations about the weather. or about politicians or sports teams or television series that we're watching or movies. The type of stirring up, the type of mutual obligation that we have to each other, it's a hope stirring. It's a Christ-saturated and gospel-centered and love-provoking type of stirring up that we ought to do with one another. And just as we noted in the first commandment, The assurance of our salvation is not meant to drive us from God, but to God. The writer of Hebrew says here, assurance drives us to one another, to a church. Genuine assurance doesn't drive us away from the church as though we didn't need it, but it drives us to the church. This is a simple, very simple concept, but it's not received very well. I recently had the privilege of talking with a dear OP minister who is far older, far wiser than I could ever hope to be. He told me that he has received more flack and criticism and anger from his congregation and people actually leaving the church. The number one reason why people leave his church is because he preaches on the necessity to be committed to the church. People hear this and they walk away from it. They say, we don't want to hear about this commitment type of stuff. Because that's what's driven more people away from his church than anything else. Why is this? Why does a commitment to the church drive people away? I can think of at least two reasons. And the first reason why commitment so often drives people away is because one of the church's greatest challenge, or competitor if you will, is our dedication to individualism. This was Adam and Eve's sin. They wanted to be autonomous. They wanted to be independent of God and they wanted to be independent of each other. And today, here in the American Western culture, we exalt individuality. And we go around and we live by this mindset that my right, my good, my interests, my comforts, my well-being, my time, my conveniences, my desires, this is of chief importance to me. And anything that approaches or hinders or stops these things is bad. Anything that would require me to look out for the interest of another, I'm not going there. If it serves me, wonderful, I will do it. And as Americans, in an American culture, we have seen this as a virtue. To say that my self-interest, my self-propagation, my comfort, my reliance is of the utmost importance, and we consider this a virtue. but it's not a biblical virtue. For what Christian who thinks biblically can possibly imagine that they can survive this life of faith without others? And who in the world thinks that they are strong enough to deny the necessity of mutual commitment and love and encouragement that the body of Christ has. What person is prideful enough to think that they've received enough gifts from the Holy Spirit that they don't need anybody else's gifts? are so wise to think that they can do and think all things on their own. No. This isn't a virtue according to the Bible. Biblical virtue is not rugged individualism. But the biblical virtue is a life-giving, encouragement-breathing, blood-purchased reliance and commitment on each other. Consider how you might stir each other up towards love and good deeds. But the second reason why commitment is so often frowned upon, not only our individualism, But secondly, because for many, this isn't what the Church is. The Church is not a place of love and of good works and of encouragement. This week, providentially as it would seem to be, the New York Times printed an article that was written by a religious columnist named Mark Oppenheimer. I don't know if any of you had an opportunity to read this, but the title of the article is what caught my eye. The title, especially as I was preparing for the sermon, the title is, When Some Turn to Church, Others Go to CrossFit. If you don't know what CrossFit is, CrossFit is a strength and conditioning program. They claim to have over 2 million people who are currently going to these gyms for the strength training and condition. There's over 13,000 locations here in the United States that have this CrossFit. But more so, it's not just a strength and conditioning club, if you will, but even more so, it's becoming an increasingly popular subculture. And it's becoming a fad, almost a family, where individuals are finding their place of encouragement and community. And this is what Oppenheimer is writing about, and he has this very telling quote here in the article. He says, and I quote, and in increasingly secular America, all sorts of activities and subcultures provide the meaning that in the past religious communities fulfilled. End quote. And it's not just CrossFit that does this. But there are countless other institutions or subcultures where people are flocking to to find daily love and morality and encouragement and hope and community. And when we look at the trend here in America, people are becoming increasingly, and dare I say fiercely, more committed to these institutions, to these clubs, to these sports teams and subcultures and schools and political gatherings and communities and societies and jobs are becoming fiercely more increasingly committed to those and fiercely less committed to the church. And why is that? Because for some, the church isn't a place where they're being stirred up towards love and good works and encouragement. But the church is all too often seen as unloving, as non-committed to each other, as critical of one another, as a discouraging place. And this leaves many, even brothers and sisters in Christ, with the sweet aroma of CrossFit, and not the sweet aroma of the Church of Jesus Christ, and rather a repugnant stench of pride. As we come to verse 24, you see what the writer of Hebrews is saying. This ought to be us, dear church. The church ought to be one of, if not the most loving and encouraging and serving institution on the face of planet Earth. Not a church that's filled with casual relationships and shallow conversations and vain self-serving and egotistical takers. But the church could be and should be, ought to be a harbor of joy and commitment and love and thankfulness and union and self-sacrifice and long-suffering and peace and harmony and grace, such that when the world looks at the church, they're provoked to jealousy. because of our oneness of love and unity and encouragement. Because when the world looks at us, they ought to see that they don't look like us, and they don't talk like us, and they don't act like us, and they don't love like us, and they don't encourage like us. They have something that I can't find in CrossFit, that I can't find in my rotary club, that I can't find with my golf mates, that I can't find in my job. or my subculture, or anywhere in all the world. See, this is the ideal that we always shoot for. But are we that? Are you that? Do you view the church in this way as a place where you gather with brothers and sisters to stir them up to love and good deeds and encouragement? or do you propel your brothers and sisters from you? Because you find that your encouragement of them and their encouragement of you is of little to no value at all. The third commandment here is that we ought to consider how we might stir one another up towards love and good works. And so we see here in verses 19 through 25 The writer has wonderfully brought assurance to run its full course. The assurance of our salvation is grounded only in the high priestly work of Jesus Christ for sinners such as us. And yet assurance comes to the fullness of fruition as we draw near and as we hold fast. and as we consider one another. Amen. Please join me in prayer. Our gracious and merciful Lord, how kind you have been to forgive us of all our sins and trespasses and iniquities. We pray, oh Lord, that you would continue to encourage our hearts and to fan into flame in our lives, desire to live holy lives that are pleasing to you. We pray that you would help us to draw near to you in true and heartfelt worship, that you would help us to firmly hold fast to the confession of hope that we make, that you would help us to consider how we might stir one another up towards love and good deeds. We pray you'd be merciful and gracious to us, and we ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.