This morning, we will be back in the book of Hebrews chapter 10. This morning, looking at verses 19 to 25, we've just observed the Lord's Supper and the new, the institution, really the reminder of the institution of the Lord's Supper. And then this morning, we're going to be thinking about the confidence and the response to the confidence that we have because of this glorious new covenant. Enjoying the thrill of a roller coaster ride is something that didn't come naturally for me. Maybe it does for some people, but when I was a kid, I'd long to have the fun that seemed other people had when they were on it. But when I got on my first roller coaster, I wanted to jump off. It was so scary. And as I got older, there were some times when I just had to exhibit a bit of fortitude. And so I needed to be able to enjoy a roller coaster ride. And so the impediment, the thing, of course, that kept me from the joy of it was, or getting on them anymore, was fear. And what changed it all was standing there, observing for an extended period of time, watching, and seeing that circuit after circuit, the train left, went through its route, it came back, everyone that got on got off, not once, but twice, three times, four times, and the train did not derail. And so I decided, well my confidence began to build that I would be okay, I would not want to jump off, I knew that the worst thing that could happen would be jumping off, and with all the enjoyment that all these other people seemed to be having, I was confident that I could enjoy it too. So with my confidence built up, I was ready to be locked in and to take off. And then, as the train, the roller coaster would proceed from the spot where it took off, I decided to think, not in terms of what I was experiencing from sitting in the coaster, but to sit and think about what I had seen when I was standing below watching. Not only did I make it back okay, I wanted to suddenly ride all the other ones in the park as well. The difference was confidence. Confidence made the difference. And if that's true regarding coasters, it is even more so in living as a follower of Jesus. God has given us the basis for confidence that translates into action in our lives. And really that's what our text is about this morning. So let's stand together as we read from God's holy inerrant and life-giving word Hebrews chapter 10 verses 19 to 25 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 high priest over the house of God 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, 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. Please pray with me. Our Father in heaven, Lord, thank you again for this precious word of yours. We praise you bless your great name that you have seen fit to give us light in the darkness the light of your word and the truth this morning that is more than just a light to our path it is confidence for our souls fill us with this confidence we pray that we would earnestly engage in the Following of the exhortations that you provided to us through the writer to the Hebrews in this text this morning We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. Maybe seated Well over the last ten and a half chapters The writer of Hebrews has been making his case and we've rehearsed it almost every sermon for the last eight months or so and that is that Jesus is better than He is better and the New Covenant is better and there's no comparison. In fact, last time we observed the writer's crescendo on the point that the New Covenant has replaced the old. Now the writer is not finished giving us instruction and showing us what we need to understand and what we need to know. But he does at this point for a number of verses want to apply what he is taught. How should we then live? So the message of today's text is where we should go from here. The provisions of the New Covenant provide us with confidence so as to encourage us to take specific actions. The writer reiterates the confidence of the New Covenant and then he exhorts his audience towards several basic determined responses. And so these are our two points this morning. First, our confidence. where we will review what the writer has said about our confidence that we should have. And then secondly, our determination that comes kind of as the fruit of that confidence. So let's get started with our confidence, which really is what he underlines for us in verses 19 to 22. Our confidence, there's nothing like being reminded of your mistakes to undermine your confidence. You see it in sports all the time. often leads to another, and to another, and to another, and there's like a downward spiral when someone's confidence begins to spin out of control. When someone gets down on himself or herself, there's so often a vicious cycle of defeat. Now, according to the author of Hebrews, that's the way that the old covenant operated. Every year, the Day of Atonement would roll around again, and every year it served to remind the people of their sins without ever really taking them away. And the people were still left with a consciousness of their depravity and the hopelessness in the midst of it. They were left in a state of being weary and heavily burdened and there was no foundation for lasting confidence. how wonderfully different it is with the New Covenant. Instead of being reminded of our sins so much, we are reminded of the grace of God and the saving work of Christ that has taken care of the problem once and for all. And so as we observe the Lord's Supper this morning, That's the focus. The drinking of the cup in particular reminds us that in the shedding of Christ's blood, a new covenant has been established. And when we come to the table, we do grieve over our sins. But there is a hope with which we move forward that far overshadows the sorrow. The hope is the removal of the guilt of the sins of those who believe in Christ. This hope now was firmly established in the heart of the writer of Hebrews so that now he culminates his expose on the New Covenant with the confidence which it infuses into our hearts. Look at what he says in verse 19. Therefore, brothers, since we have Confidence, he then goes on to list certain aspects of that confidence. It is a kind of summary statement about our confidence as those who are blessed to be participants in the new covenant that God has made with those who believe in Christ. And the confidence about which the writer speaks is a specific kind of confidence. It's the kind of confidence that if you have this kind of confidence, you can be confident about anything. I don't mean that you can be confident that you can do anything you want to do, but I mean that no matter what you face, this kind of confidence will give you the kind of confidence with which you can endure whatever comes your way. This is what Hebrews is talking about, this kind of confidence. And what kind is it? Well, it is the confidence to enter the holy places. Now what a difference this is from Certainly, if you turn on the sports and people talk about confidence all the time, they're all concerned with what it's going to do to enable a person, a player, to play better. But this kind of confidence that we're talking about this morning far outshadows any kind of confidence on that level. This is confidence to stand before holy God. You know, some people display confidence in one realm and a total lack of confidence in another. For example, well, you might not, after you've been speaking publicly for umpty-nine gazillion years like I have, it's not really nerve-wracking for me to get up and to preach. put me on the ice on skates like I was yesterday and I, you know, I move in ways I've never moved, you know, I never move anywhere else at any time just to avoid falling or to try to keep my balance and confidence is not what I have out there. And we all have these different realms of, you know, where we feel more confident, where we feel less confident. But again, what we're talking about this morning is the kind of confidence that outstrips all others. And really, if you have this confidence to stand before God, you can go ice skating and do all that and not really care. And that's just the least of your worries. But bear in mind this phrase, the holy places, confidence to enter the holy places. It's a reference to the two intersections, not the two intersections, but the two inner sections of the tabernacle, which are shadows of the true and heavenly reality. And so the first of those two holy places was the holy place. Entrance into the holy place was restricted to only the priests. It was a place of the light of the knowledge of God, symbolized by the candelabra there, the delight of fellowship with God, symbolized by the bread of the presence, and the assurance of access to God, the aroma going up from the incense. That's our prayers are to God. The second of the holy places was the holiest place, the Holy of Holies. And as we probably know, the entrance into the Holy of Holies was even more restrictive than the first room because only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, only the high priest and only one time every year. Here's where the glory of God was expressed as the Lord was in effect seated above the cherubim. So entering into the holy places was in essence entering into the presence of God, the concentrated manifestation of his glory. So the confidence about which Hebrews is speaking here is the confidence to enter. into the presence of God. It is the assurance that we can step on holy ground without dissolving before the majesty and glory of God. The scariest of horror shows cannot hold a candle to the awe of standing before God. For as Hebrews tells us, He is a consuming fire. But to be privileged to stand before Him is the confidence which every Christian is given. You see, then if we have this kind of confidence, there's no other kind of confidence to compare with it. Moreover, there's no greater privilege in the universe than this one. I assume most of us are familiar with the situation. When the Israelites, many of them, were exiled in Persia and Esther became queen. And the evil Haman determined to destroy the Jews and it fell to Esther to approach the king in their defense. And there was a law called the Persian Royal Protocol which called for the death of anyone who would approach the king without being summoned And they would be spared only if the king lifted his scepter to admit them. It was a risk to dare to appear before him uninvited, even for a queen. But it was a risk that Esther was willing to take. So she called on her uncle Mordecai to gather all the Jews to fast for three days. Only then did she dare approach. And she did so saying, if I perish, I perish. At least I've tried. At least I've tried to protect my people. Well, it is far more dangerous a thing for a sinner to approach the living God than for a queen even to approach her king. For God is holy. Holy, holy. But here's the confidence granted to even the most ordinary of ordinary believers in Jesus. We have confidence to enter the holy places. We have the confidence to enter the presence of God. We dare draw near and set our foot, so to speak, on holy ground. because of the confidence we have in the New Covenant. This kind of confidence is not arrogant, it's not audacious, it's not rude or self-exalting. If it was, it wouldn't be the kind of confidence we're talking about here. It is the confidence, though, even to dare to approach the Lord, but it does so in the spirit of all the others who are gathered around Him, who sing constantly of His holiness and proclaim His worthiness to be worshipped. It's a confidence to dare coming before God in worship, in humility and submission. It's not reluctant and it is not naive. It is delighted. This confidence is grateful. It is amazed. It is filled with the awe of God. And if you dare approach God with audacity, as though he answers to you, then that is not this kind of confidence. It is a spirit of self-importance. It is fueled by a lack of true knowledge. It is a satanic spirit that will see no golden scepter raised. Access to God is a special privilege worthy of the utmost reverence. Next, though, we look at the basis of this confidence. That's the character of the confidence. I want you to see next the basis of it. Hebrews says that our confidence to enter God's presence is based on three specific foundational provisions. First, there's the blood of Jesus. Remember, mention of the blood is a reference to the death of Jesus. We deserve death. Upon our approach to the throne of the universe, The golden scepter should never be raised to give us admittance. But you see, Jesus already faced the unraised scepter when he died on Golgotha's cross. He alone is worthy for God to raise the scepter. and admit him into his presence but he stood in our place and shed his blood. He died in the place of sinners and he who knew no sin became sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him. He was rejected so that we might be admitted. But we have to come to the Father through Jesus or we will be rejected. Now there's a second basis for our confidence. Not only the blood of Jesus but Also, a reason for our confidence is because His way is the new and living way. It's the new covenant way, the living way. Christ came into creation in the flesh. His body was torn like the veil, the curtain of the temple, and He died. So there is a death aspect, but He did something none of the animals ever did. that were slain in the tabernacle and the temple. He rose from the dead. He lives. His way is the living way. And so Jesus has eliminated the barrier between human beings and God that was put in place by our sin. We have confidence by Christ's blood and by His life. And one more thing. Our confidence is based upon a third item. This is the priesthood of Jesus. We have confidence to enter the presence of God because not only did Jesus die and rise, he is already right there. He ascended to the right hand of the throne of God, whereas our high priest, he ever lives to intercede for us. He is priest forever. And so the welcome of Christ's people in heaven will never end. And all of this is really a rehearsal of matters that we've covered over the past months. But they are precious truths to us who believe, and being reminded of them sets us up for the exhortations that are about to be delivered. So having then looked at our confidence, we turned next to our determination in verses 23 to 25. The writer here is following really a similar pattern to what we observe in other New Testament epistles, particularly those epistles of Paul, wherein you see quite frequently the pattern of Paul is to spend a significant amount of time laying out truths that we must believe. Then he pivots over to the category of moral and ethical exhortation where he exhorts his readers to now live according to the truths that we believe, to act in accord with what has been brought to our attention as to the foundational matters of truth before God. It is because what we believe is the ground of what we do. We can't make this point too lightly. You know, some people, it seems, all they want to do is hear the what I should dos. But they need to hear the what you must believes, because what to do may not make sense and it runs out The power of it runs out. If all I ever did was say, do this, don't do this, do this, and don't do this, it becomes total legalism. And it might also just seem to come out of the whims of thinking. But rather it is out of the structure that God has ordained and the truth of what is that all of the to-dos come. And so we have to study what is true. and get grounded in that before and upon the basis of which to look at what we should do and why we should do it. Alistair Begg recounts how sometimes he's asked questions like, don't you think pastor that in light of the many marriages which are struggling at the moment in our church family that you ought to just preach a series of sermons on marriage? Instead of, like he said in this particular case, wading through the first 10 chapters of the book of Hebrews, and he says that his reply is in the negative. I won't say everything he said, but if I did, maybe I could have you laughing. He usually will say something like, well, I tell him probably not, but I only say probably because I want to seem like I'm kind. I want to say absolutely not, but that's not what I say. But he explains himself in this way. He asserts that when a husband's life is drawn in line with God's truth, then he will better be able to serve his wife in the privilege of marriage. And the same is true of a wife in relation to her husband. She needs to know the truth. Then all of the exhortations will not only make sense, they will have proper grounding. So the doctrinal indicatives provide the foundation for the moral imperatives and the reason, actually, that many people are struggling in their marriages and in their Christian lives is because they're trying to live a Christian life on the basis of moral imperatives, on the basis of exhortation, on the basis of, you should do this, you ought to try that, and have you ever thought about this? And what they discover is that there is no substructure to it, there is no foundation to it, there is no sense of ought to it, and all of the ought is found in what we believe, what we know to be true. So, here we are now in Hebrews, and for 10 chapters, this letter has been stressing doctrine and theology. Truth, particularly as it pertains to Jesus and the New Covenant. Now the writer is about to unleash a series of practical exhortations, and the point is that the believer's confidence to enter the presence of God should lead to certain behaviors. And here are three specific ones. They are these. Draw near, hold fast, and stir up. Draw near, hold fast, and stir up. And we're going to look at each one of these for the rest of our time today. First of all, he says that we should draw near. Since we have confidence to enter, then that is exactly what we should do. Draw near. 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, the exhorted action is to draw near. And we've seen this exact exhortation before. And what it means is come close. Approach God. Enjoy the access that you have. Do not let distance come between you. And God. The veil has been torn in two, why would you hang around in the outer court? So back for Father's Day, Ariel gave me a park pass to National Parks. And so I can go to any park and get in free. That's access. The sad thing was a couple of weeks ago when we went to Yosemite, Everybody had access because the government shut down and they weren't even caring if you had a pass or not so I was like But I got it for nothing, but I had access okay, but what we understand is that we have access to to the presence of God and not everybody has access. God will never throw throw the gates down. It's always access granted by the new covenant and in Christ and in his blood. And if you and but I guess I was saying that to say this. I had that card and I wanted to use it so bad. You have access, you should want to use it. And so since we have confidence to enter the holy place. Why do we hold back? Why aren't we anxious every day to draw near? And the exhortation here of the writer is to draw near. The veil has been torn in two. Why would you hang around in the outer court? Why would you get a pass and say, one day maybe I'll use that? Access is something that every believer has the privilege of using and accessing all the time. So what is it that keeps us, as a follower of Christ, at a distance from God? Well, I know what kept Adam and Eve at a distance. Disobedience. Sin. We can allow sin to get the upper hand, and in our shame we stay distant. Or we may stay away because of other interests. We have other interests, things that demand our attention. We don't pray for a significant amount of time because we have other things to do. And there's a third reason for many, and that is doubt. They doubt. Does God really hear me? really want to hear from me? But neither of these matters is a good reason to be distant from the Lord. Haven't the truths we've already addressed, that we've seen, haven't they already addressed these matters? But Hebrews urges this. Let us draw near in full assurance of faith. If we are in Christ, then already our hearts have been sprinkled clean. Already our bodies have been washed with pure water. In other words, the stains have been eliminated. They've been washed away. We've been given a new wardrobe. And after we have come to Christ in faith, we're washed of past sins and present sins and even future sins. While our sins are indeed a cause for sorrow and shame, they don't They can't be allowed to keep us from drawing near to the Lord. Our sins should not keep us away. But looking at what Christ has done for us and washing away the stains, how can we get entangled in other things that keep us away from Him? Every day is a day to celebrate that through His work, Christ has made of us what we can never make of ourselves. No one loves us enough to experience the wrath of God for us but Jesus. By His suffering, we have been delivered from hell. How can we sidestep time spent with Him? And then what about doubt? What more could God do to demonstrate His love for you that He's not already done for you? Yeah, for you! Not just you, but you! You ordinary thinking Christian, you think I'm just ordinary of the ordinary, and why would? That's exactly who He loves to come to. To say, come to me, and drawing near, says yes. I believe you love me, that you provided your own son for my cleansing, that you tore the veil in two to invite me to come in. The sacrifice the Lord has made for you provides the grounds for full assurance of faith. Keep on looking to Christ and draw near. How? How do we draw near? What do we mean by saying draw near, come close? Well, Draw near in worship. Draw near to declare to God his greatness, to ascribe unto him the glory of his name. Come near in worship. That's the main thing that transpires in the presence of God. Angels praise him because he's worthy. The saints are praising him because of his glorious salvation. It glorifies God that we give him thanks as well as praise. You don't have to be in church or in a building or with others to do it, although that's a great time to do it. But it's also a great time to do it when you're not there walking down the street. Praise the Lord. Laboring at work, praise the Lord, drawn here to worship, but also drawn here to confess and to give thanks and seek help from the Lord. Drawing near is the help me. I I can't do this on my own. That's what he loves to hear. He doesn't intend for us to do it on his own, but he wants us to come and say help. So draw near also to submit to his will to say, Lord, your will be done in me. Draw near to express to him your needs. Your hurts. Your pains, God is honored by our requests. Draw near. Since we have confidence, let us draw near with full assurance of faith. The second of these three imperatives here in this section of Hebrews chapter 10 is hold fast. That exhortation comes in Hebrews 10.23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. For he who promised is faithful. The confession of our hope is that set of truths that we believe, that we know are true, that are the ground of our hope and the foundation of even our approach to God. So the writer of Hebrews is addressing this because there were some that had embraced these truths. But they hadn't wrapped their arms around them. Because other things came along and they let go. and turn away. And sometimes there are times in our lives when we have to hold on. There are times of doubt. There are times of assault from Satan himself. And you have to say, for example, in the throes of depression, when all seems to be darkness, and you lack within you a sense of meaning, you at least know what's true. And you keep holding to that truth. Times of sorrow, times of disappointment, times when perplexity about these truths is there, but you know what you know. Don't let go, hold fast. Without these things being true, we are truly hopeless. Without believing them, we are also without hope. A confession is what we hold to be true. So in particular, the truths about Jesus are the confession of our hope. And a number of these bedrock truths have been pressed home in this incredible epistle of Hebrews. They include The deity of Christ, that He is God. The humanity of Christ, that He has become one of us without ceasing to be God. And the sinlessness of Jesus, the atoning death of Jesus, the priesthood of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and the return of Jesus. And now added to those is this wonderful replacement of the old covenant with the new. These truths depend upon promises made by God and they are kept. by God. We can hold fast to them because God himself is faithful. God can no more fail to fulfill what he has promised, that he can cease to be God. That is who he is, a promise keeping covenant keeping God. This exhortation to hold fast to the confession of our hope is An exhortation to persevere. So this exhortation assumes there will be opposition. We will face challenges. The enemy will attack. Our own fleshly weaknesses will attempt to drag us down. We may be afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. Come what may on earth, however, we must continue to trust God who's in heaven. Trust His word. Stand upon it. And as the writer says, do not waver. Don't even for one second entertain the idea that, well, maybe it's not worth it, or maybe it's not true. Go back to the things that remind you of its truthfulness for sure. It's not calling you to be blind. It's calling you to be sure, but not let go. The more we treasure something, the more we will work to protect it and keep it and hold on to it. thieves broke into the Louvre in Paris and they simply drove a ladder truck up on a sidewalk and with the use of the ladder they got access to an upstairs balcony. And they took an angle grinder to cut through the glass from the balcony and gain entrance to the gallery. And they used those same angle grinders to threaten guards and cut through display cases. All in all, the thieves got away with eight items of crown jewels. The value of those items is estimated at $102 million. To date, they've made some arrests, but the items have not been recovered. The gallery's local alarm system, by the way, was not functioning at the time. Brothers and sisters, the value of your soul cannot compare with one hundred and two million dollars. The confession of your hope is priceless. Meanwhile, there is a thief on the loose. He's here to steal, kill and destroy. And you need to be ready for him Don't let a non-functioning alarm system allow him in. Don't let your alarm system fall into a non-functioning state. Hold fast to the hope, to the confession of your hope without wavering. Protect that confession with all that you have. Devote yourself to it and live in the light of these truths of the gospel. And if you do, you will experience opposition. And the thief will drive his truck up on your sidewalk and raise his ladder to your balcony. He will break in and steal if he could. But remember, God is faithful. Hold on and don't let go. Well, the third imperative is to stir up. We are to draw near, hold fast and stir up. Since we have confidence to enter the presence of God through the person and work of Christ, let us consider how to stir up one another to love. and good works. The point here is that this glorious hope that we have in Christ is not simply a treasure to be protected. It is also an investment by God Himself in our lives and God is looking for a return on the investment. He has given us His Son. By the Holy Spirit, He has written the law of God on our hearts. He has granted forgiveness of our sins. He has given us the power to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. We are to shine like stars in the world in which we live for the glory of God. We glorify God by love and good works. Now, Jesus taught that the world would recognize the disciples of Jesus, how? By our love. He also said, let your light so shine before men that they might see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. So the confidence that we have in Christ to enter the holy presence of God is meant to produce from us a sort of fountain. And that fountain, out of the confidence we have, the fountain produces love and good works. They should spring forth in abundance. But of course there's opposition. Just like a robber would come, there's the opposition to flourishing and fruitfulness, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Producing this love and these good works is meant, though we learn in this text, to be not an individual project. It's a community project. Because he says that we should consider how to stimulate one another, stir up one another to love and good deeds, good works. And so, hmm, how do we do this? Producing this love and these good works is meant for, to be an us thing and not just a me thing. Not just an I thing. Oh yes, I shall bear responsibility for what I don't do. But this is why we're meant to be together. Because it's meant to be a way in which being together is what produces more of the love and good deeds. God supplies strength to each one of us through the whole that we are together as the body of Christ. We need each other. Now, I've said a few things over the course of the last month about the trip that I took with Jeff and Tim to Yosemite and the cool things that we saw. And one of the things that we enjoyed, Tim and Jeff and I, was that we were walking among the redwoods and the sequoias in California. And they're just massive. It's almost impossible to grasp the size and the height of these trees without seeing them for yourself. If you see a picture of them, they look big. But they don't look as big as they do in the picture as they are in reality. Without some comparison, you simply can't imagine how truly tall and how truly wide these are. So I like to show people pictures of one tree in particular. And the first picture contains no people, just trees. And the tree looks huge, but it is far more huge than it looks. And so the second picture is the same tree, but it helps put things in perspective. Because in the second picture, there is a person, one midget named Jeff Smith, but he looks like a midget. Jeff Smith, he's sitting on a bench in front of that same tree, and when the size of that tree makes Jeff look like a marble, then you have a better idea of how truly tall and how truly big that tree is. Anyway, we learned an interesting fact about these trees out there. Their root system is relatively shallow. But the roots of the trees, as they grow, they grow into one another and they interlock. And so that all of the trees help steady one another. These massive trees don't normally fall. Even with all the earthquakes that happen in California, unless their roots fail to be interlocked with the roots of the other trees, they can survive the trembling of those earthquakes because of mutual support. They hang on to one another. They support one another. And here in Hebrews, we have this point then in this exhortation in our text that should speak to us. 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. You know, sometimes when a brother or sister falls into sin and difficulty, you know what they want to do? pull away, and when they do, they're pulling away from the very thing they need the most. And so when people are attending church and then all of a sudden they're missing and they're missing and they're missing, well, we want to say to them, don't be missing. But it should say to us too, go get them. be the structure that we're supposed to be and go call upon them. Because a lot of times when people, it's not a good sign when God's people are not fellowshiping together regularly. Because A, we need it. And B, when we need it most is when we tend to pull away. And so we need to be pulling back. Because of the confidence we have before God, we're called to stir up one another. So the good works in which God designed for us to walk demand the encouragement and the involvement of each other. So the writer says not only that we are to stir one another up, but he also says we are to give thought to how best to accomplish it. Let us consider. how to stir one another up. In other words, it doesn't happen by accident. It happens because you think about, how can I encourage that person? How can I be used of God to promote godliness and joy in their life? Lord, what can I do? And then do it. Don't just think about it and say, oh, that was a great idea. I'll mark it down. Good ideas are meant to be implemented. Why do you consider how to stir one another up? Because once you consider it, you start stirring. You encourage. So one of the key ways to stir one another up is encouragement. We need to remind one another of God's goodness. of God's faithfulness, of God's glory, of God's word, of God's love, of God's plan. We need to personally encourage and exhort one another. I work out several mornings a week at the gym, and Ariel works with me. And I do a lot more, and I do a lot better because she is there. She encourages me when I'm going like, I don't even think I want to push these up today. Come on, Dad, you can do it. And then I try to return the favor sometimes. I'm probably not as good at it as she is, but this is reminding me I need to be. And what about you in the body? Are there people that encourage you? Well, if you say no, and why don't they do that? Don't quit. That's not what God does. Don't consider how people don't stir you up. It says consider how you should stir others up. And our mind should be more on what are we doing to encourage others than what are they doing to encourage me? But if we will find, I think we will find the more we encourage, the more we do to stir up others, the more others will come and stir us up as well. It's something that if we just sat there and wait for each other to get up and do it, then nobody's gonna do it. But if we all get up and do what we're supposed to do, then everybody is gonna be doing it. And all the more. And so, One reason why people ought not to miss church is they need to give encouragement. We need to receive it. But what we're told here is we need to give it. It's a bad habit. It's a habit some get into. They get lax. It's the last thing you should be lax about. We have to get together. to encourage one another. And when we get together, we must consider how best to do it. Don't flitter and flutter here and there. Know that church is a part of having the best spiritual security system that you can have so that the thief can't break in and steal when he shows up on your balcony. Confidence that is gained from watching a roller coaster is in action is one thing. So you can ride a roller coaster without jumping off and without falling off. You are able to scream and laugh and have a big time, big deal. Real confidence is the confidence to enter the presence of God. And that confidence makes all the difference with respect to what matters most. Confidence that comes from who Christ is and what he's done by his life and death and resurrection is the ground for drawing near to God. It's the ground for holding fast to hope, and it is the ground for stirring up each other to live for His glory. So let us dig deep into the confidence of Christ, and let us flourish in drawing near, holding fast, and stirring strong. Let's pray. Dear Father, You have given us real practical stuff today, real practical stuff to hold on to. To know that we must believe and to be grounded in and out of that ground You have shown us, Lord, the importance of not neglecting to draw near to You. The importance of being certain and being confident and holding fast to the truth. And then encouraging each other with that truth. And we pray that You would make us lively, vigorous in doing just that. All to Your glory and honor. To you be all the praise, we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.