Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 19. Word of God says, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. And having an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised. and let us consider one another to provoke and to love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. This is an incredibly rich passage, and there's no way we'll be able to cover all the details that are in it, but I hope, by God's grace, to be able to draw out a few truths that will encourage us as we attempt to serve the Lord. Let us go before the Lord in prayer. Father, I come before you. You know that I do not have the strength that I need to preach. I don't have the wisdom that I need to put a message together. I don't have the ability to deliver a message. And above all, I have no power to convict hearts. If someone is here that does not know you, I cannot, with my words and my ability, Father, penetrate their heart. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. I cannot convict a believer that they need to change in some particular area. I can't even encourage them. Only you can do that. And yet your Word has the power, when it is preached, to do all of those things. And I pray that your power would be present today. I pray that I would say that which you would have me to say, and may you be glorified in all that follows. In Christ's precious name I pray. Amen. Please be seated. No matter how many times I have the opportunity to preach or to teach, and no matter how much time I've spent in preparation, I always feel nervous. It really is, when you stop and think about it, a fearsome thing to stand behind a pulpit and speak in the name of God to His people. It's a fearsome thing to stand in front of people at all, but to stand in front of people and say, this is what God has to say to you, now that's rather fearsome indeed. It is especially fearsome when I know, as I do this morning, that I am very far from having mastered the truths that I am about to speak on. Not that there's any truth in scripture that you ever get to the point where I've mastered it and, man, I am telling you, I've got this thing down. But when it's something that you feel like, I have a, I struggle in this area, And there are many that are here today that exemplify what I'm about to preach on far better than I do myself. In fact, the church as a whole, and I want to make this point before I get into it, and the reason why I'm making it will be clear as we get into the message, but this is not a message of, this is something that West Side Baptist Church does terrible at, and here's how you can do better. That's not the point at all. In fact, this church is an example in some ways even to other churches of the principles that we'll be covering, and for that I'm thankful. Yet I'm nonetheless convinced that the truths in this passage that have convicted me are truths that all of us need all of the time, no matter what stage of our Christian walk that we're at. They're not the sort of truths that one can master and then move on from, but the sort of truths that take a lifetime to be mastered by. No matter how well we as a church do at these things, we will always need to hear them again, because we will always have room for growing in them. In fact, these seven verses are a perfect summary of what it means to live as a Christian in a fallen world. They form in the Greek text only one sentence. Verse 19-25 in the Greek text of the book of Hebrews is a single sentence. The number of sentences in an English translation will vary. The King James makes it two sentences, others usually more. But the writer structured these verses in Greek as one long sentence. All of these things fit together. It's one run-on, in English, it'd be a run-on sentence, but in Greek, it is perfectly constructed. It's bad grammar in English to have very long sentences, which is why translations usually split them up. In Greek, it's perfectly acceptable, and indeed, it's considered a mark of high style. In many ways, these verses, this one long sentence is the Christian life in a nutshell, from how we enter into it to the very end, the goal, the whole thing, it's all here in this sentence. Beginning with a reminder of the work of Christ on behalf of believers, they move on to three powerful exhortations that sum up what believers are to do in response. And the first verse says, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. Having therefore brethren, this therefore refers back to all that has come before in the book of Hebrews. This is a key transition in the book, both summing up the teaching that has already been given and offering a condensed version of the exhortations that are about to follow. It's not as though there's been no exhortation, no calls to action in the book of Hebrews up to this point, but the majority, particularly from the end of chapter 4 here through this section of chapter 10, is a very doctrinally rich teaching section. And so the therefore refers back to this teaching that is already been given and it's summing up having therefore these things, and it's about to sum up the things that have been covered. Boldness to enter in to the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The atoning work of Christ has given us, every believer, boldness, access into the presence of God. We do not need to fear condemnation, because Christ has borne our condemnation for us. His blood has cleansed our sin once and for all, and we no longer need to fear, as did believers in the time of the Old Testament, to enter into the presence of God Himself. It goes on to say, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. And the grammar here is a little bit tricky, and there are several opinions about exactly how everything, every part of this sentence sits together. And since this is a sermon and not a lecture, I'm going to spare you all the details of Greek prepositions and whatnot that would go together to argue for each of the different opinions, and I'll just give you the conclusion If those details are what floats your boat, you can come talk to me later. The beginning of the passage states that we have access to the part we already covered. We have access into the holiest by means of the blood of Jesus. So verse 19, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. So the blood of Jesus is the means by which we enter into the holiest. If we're sprinkled with the blood of Christ, if our sins have been covered by his blood, that is how we have access to the Father. And the second part of this glorious summary of Christ's work on our behalf is parallel to that first section. It is saying that we have a new and living way through the veil by means of His flesh. And in other words, the phrase, that is to say His flesh, is not giving us a definition of veil. That's what it looks like on the surface, but if you think about what that would mean, if that's what it was saying, Christ's incarnation would then be an obstacle keeping us out from the Holy of Holies, and that is very far from the case. In fact, if that's what it was saying, it wouldn't be Scripture, because it would contradict other Scriptures. It is rather an explanation of the means by which this new and living way through the veil has been forged. And these two first sections of the sentence together sum up the work of Christ on earth. To paraphrase a songwriter, the blood of Jesus poured out on the cross was the greatest gift that God could have given us, that he died for us. And yet before he gave his life, he lived for us. As another song said, Jesus was indeed born to die. But we must not forget that he was also born to live. Jesus not only paid the penalty for the things we have done that we should not have done, but he also fulfilled on our behalf all of the good and righteous demands of the law that we have failed to fulfill. And yet he goes on to say in having a high priest over the house of God. Yet the work of Christ on behalf of believers wasn't finished when he ascended into heaven. The perfect incarnate life of Christ and his atoning death are accomplished facts never to be repeated. Yet there is another side of Christ's work, a side that is going on even now. Our high priest didn't just accomplish everything that was needed to give us access to the Father and then leave it up to us after that. He is also ever interceding on our behalf before the throne, something that's pointed out previously in the book of Hebrews and is being summed up here. As Romans 8.34 reminds us, Christ is even now at the right hand of God, making intercession for every believer. His atoning work is done, but His high priestly intercessory work on behalf of believers is going on right now. These are glorious realities. They ought truly to bring joy to the heart of every one of God's children. Yet in this long sentence, these glorious realities are not the focus, not the main point. Instead, they're summing up all the teaching that has come in the last several chapters of the book of Hebrews in order to lay a foundation for the three commands that follow. Because Christ died and lived for us, because he is even now making intercession on our behalf, we are to respond by living the life that these exhortations summarize. And the first of these exhortations is this, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." The first exhortation is to draw near, to enter into the holiest. Though the writer includes himself in this exhortation, and that's something that's characteristic of the book of Hebrews, almost always the writer says, let us do this. Having therefore this, and he identifies himself, let's do this, let's do this, but that shouldn't disguise the reality that each of these is still a command. Grammatically, it would be an imperative. That's the form of a verb that's used for a direct command, and that's what is going on here. These are orders. They're not suggestions. They are not optional. We are commanded to draw near to the Father. It is the only proper response to the access that Christ has won on our behalf. While the primary way in which we draw near to God is in prayer, this exhortation is not limited to prayer alone. As one commentator put it, this continual approach to God includes, but is not specifically limited to prayer. It includes every aspect of the listeners drawing near to God, both individual and corporate. There's so much power and beauty in every clause, every word of this passage, that there could be an entire series of messages could be preached from it. It's impossible for us to cover every detail, so we're going to have to just leave some of those details uncovered if we're ever going to be done this morning. He goes on to say, "...having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." Believers, through the blood of Christ… So he gives the first exhortation, and then he flashes back to, these things are true about the people to whom he's writing. Let us draw near, because these… So here's the foundation of what Christ has done, and let's draw near to the Father. because we're partakers of that which Christ has done. So he's drawing a connection back to the foundation, back to the foundation he's already laid, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. Believers, through the blood of Christ, have been made partakers of the new covenant. We have not been simply given a new set of rules. We have been given, through the sacrifice of Christ, the new hearts that are spoken about in the book of Ezekiel. We've had the law written on our hearts as is spoken about in the book of Jeremiah. The phrase, having our hearts sprinkled, is a direct reference back when the first covenant, the covenant, the old covenant of the law that Moses set up with the children of Israel, he sprinkled the children of Israel with blood and that established that covenant and that established that relationship in which they were brought into this relationship with the law. And yet this new covenant, the new covenant relationship with God where we're made new creatures and we're born again into the people of God, We're sprinkled not with the blood of bulls and of goats, but with the blood of Christ himself in the holiest. Our hearts are changed and we are made partakers of Christ, indeed brought into union with Christ. The point that is being made here is that those to whom this exhortation to draw near is being given are those who have been born again, sanctified by the blood of Jesus, believing in Jesus Christ had made them right with God and their sins no longer separated them from the Father. And so the first exhortation, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Yet not only had they had their hearts cleansed by the blood of Christ, they have publicly identified, these to whom he is writing, had publicly identified with Christ by the washing of their bodies in baptism. Baptism has nothing to do with conversion. Getting baptized in this or any other church will not cleanse the smallest stain from your heart. Yet that does not make baptism optional or not important. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. Baptism is the primary means by which belief in Christ is professed to the world at large, the means by which believers publicly identify with those that are Christ. We draw near and for assurance because we have been made partakers of the new covenant that gives us this access, and we have, through baptism, publicly professed this faith. Our individual walk with God is an absolutely foundational aspect of our response to Christ's work on our behalf. So we've got this summary, we've got three exhortations, and the first exhortation is related to our individual walk with God, and that is absolutely foundational. If the access you have been given to God to come before him in prayer and in worship, both individually and corporately, does not thrill your soul, you need to seriously consider whether or not you are a believer at all. Yet as wonderful as is the access that we have been given, our personal walk with God is not the extent of what it means to live as a Christian in this fallen world. This exhortation is not the end of the sentence. If we are to properly respond to the work of Christ on our behalf, it is not enough simply to have a really great walk with God in secret. We must make a public profession of that faith, not only at the beginning of our Christian walk, not only by being baptized or identifying with Christ in that way, but also on a daily basis. And so this is a transition that leads us into the second exhortation. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful that promised." This exhortation was necessary for those to whom this epistle was written because they lived in a world, even as we do, in which they constantly face the temptation to waver in their public profession of belief in the promises of God, their decision to publicly identify with Jesus and His people. It's not enough for us to have our own little walk with God. Christ died to pay the price for our sins, but He also set us an example, as 1 Peter 2.21 teaches, so that we may follow in His steps. Just as Jesus trusted the faithfulness of His Father even unto death, so we are to trust the promises of God, confident that He will be faithful unto the end, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God. God's faithfulness to us demands that we remain faithful to our profession of him, no matter what it may cost us. While each of these three exhortations is essential to the believer's response to the work of Christ, it is the third exhortation that is the most often forgotten in American Christianity today. I know that it is certainly the one that has been the most often forgotten in my own life. We all know that prayer, access to the Father, is essential to the Christian life. We understand that holding fast to our public profession is not optional. Our prayer life may not be what we want it to be. We may not be as bold in our witness as we wish that we were, yet we have this understanding and we know that these aren't optional. We may want to grow in these areas, but we know that they're areas in which growth is required. Yet many believers in the present day seem to think that they can cut the third section of this golden summary of the Christian life off without losing much at all. They could not be more wrong. The passage goes on to say, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works. It's often been said that there are two dimensions to the Christian life, vertical, our personal walk with God, and horizontal, the way that we interact with others. To a certain extent that is true, and it has a true idea, but the Christian life cannot be summed up in two dimensions alone. The Christian life is not a two-fold chord consisting only of communion with the Father and profession before the world. There is a third strand, a vital strand, a strand that sometimes will be the only thing that will keep the other two from fraying away altogether, and that strand is Christian community. A cord with two strands may seem as sturdy as one with three, until those cords are tested with any weight at all, and then the difference is shown. As fathers of Jesus, we are certainly called to draw near to God and to hold fast before the world, but we are not called to do so alone. Indeed, we are not capable of doing so alone. We are called to constantly be considering the needs of our fellow believers so that we may provoke them, we may stir them up to love and to good works. We normally think of provocation as a bad thing, and it usually is. We are provoked by many things. Drivers can be provoked to anger when they're cut off in traffic, and you can provoke other drivers to anger when you cut them off in traffic. Parents can be provoked to impatience when their two-year-old experiments with how many times they can repeat the same request in five minutes flat while you're doing something else. And most of the emotions and actions we're provoked to in our everyday lives are bad ones. And that is exactly the point. We live in a world in which we are constantly being provoked to anger, frustration, anxiety, worry, despair, nervousness, you name it. The gamut of emotions we're not supposed to have, we're constantly being provoked to have those emotions. the extent of actions we're not supposed to do, you are constantly being provoked and constantly provoking others to do those actions that you're not supposed to do and they're not supposed to do. We don't have to seek out negative provocations and we don't have to give attention to ourselves to provoke others in a negative way. Giving and receiving negative provocations comes naturally. But if we, on the contrary, are to provoke one another to greater love and to good works, stir one another up to produce the fruits of salvation in our everyday lives, we are going to have to do so intentionally. It will not happen by accident. It certainly won't happen if we, as the writer goes on to say, begin to forsake the assembly of the saints altogether. not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. It's sometimes tempting to look back on the early church as though it were a golden age in which everything which we now struggle with ran smoothly. We can be tempted to bemoan our fate in living in such a uniquely perverse generation, a generation whose challenges are so new that many claim that Scripture is no longer sufficient to meet them. Such is far from the case. They faced back then the same root temptations and struggles that we face today. They were professing believers known to those to whom this epistle was first written who had given up altogether on the institutional church and were doing their own spiritual thing. That isn't a new idea. It goes back to the beginning and it's always been a bad one. We don't know the details of exactly why they had done this, but the following reasons are among the most likely, certainly the most common reasons why so many throughout church history and in the present day have followed their example. The believers to whom the book of Hebrews were written were evidently going through a difficult time. They had been through a difficult time in the past, and it seems like they had difficult times even when the epistle came to them. Perhaps some of them thought that the cost of publicly assembling with the social outcasts that the early Christians were was simply too high. We don't know exactly what price their commitment to Christ was requiring of them. It doesn't seem like they were in danger of being put to death, but professing Christ certainly hadn't made their lives easier. According to other references in the book of Hebrews, we know that for at least some of them, their identification with other believers had led to financial suffering and social reproach. Some perhaps were simply unwilling to continue to pay the price, and so they stopped coming. Perhaps due to some false idea or other, perhaps one of the false ideas addressed in this very letter, they decided they no longer needed the community of faith. Their own personal spiritual walk was sufficient, and they were so far beyond the others in the Christian community that they had no need of them at all. Perhaps it wasn't a doctrinal issue at all. They were just tired of putting up with the other members of the church and wanted to worship God in the privacy of their own home, withdrawing from divinely ordained community into an environment where they could remain in control, where no one would provoke them to anything they didn't want to be provoked to. Perhaps they had simply allowed other priorities to take precedence over their commitment to the public assembly. As one commentator points out, even in the early second century, there's a document from the early second century talking about the church at Rome, and when the church was being persecuted, it was simple preoccupation with the affairs of this life that was the most common reason for the forsaking of the assembly. And that remains the most common reason to the present day. Before we go on, I want to be quite clear on one point. You aren't forsaking the assembly every time that you miss church. This isn't talking about staying home because you or your children are sick. It isn't addressing those who have to miss services due to mandatory work shifts that you have no control over. The some in this passage, whose custom was to forsake the assembly, were not unavoidably detained, wishing they could be present. They deliberately chose, for whatever reason, whether it was some difficulty or struggle, whether it was indifference, whether it was simply apathy and other priorities taking over, they deliberately chose to do something other than assemble. Now, it'd be easy to go off on a tangent about how important it is to come to church, but that would be counterproductive, and for a couple of reasons. First of all, you all are here in church, so I don't need to give you a lecture about why you need to come to church, because you're already here. But there's a bigger—but maybe sometimes you'll be tempted to not come to church, and that might help you. There's a bigger problem, and that is that this little portion of a verse doesn't stand by itself. This condemnation of those who forsake the assembly doesn't stand by itself. It isn't even one of the main verbs in this sentence. The reason why forsaking the assembly was so bad wasn't primarily because they needed the assembly so badly, because they needed to show up so badly, though they did, that's true, but that's not the point that's being made here. but rather because assembling was absolutely necessary if they were to consider one another to provoke unto love and good works. And the fact that this is the point is made clear by what he goes on to say. So he says, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching. We can get the idea that the flip side of forsaking the assembly is being faithful to show up for church services, being there every time the door is open. Now showing up is good. I'm glad you're all here. Preaching to an empty room is neither easy nor fun. I would have quit by now. And before I go on, I want to emphasize that I would not for one second wish to devalue the importance for the Christian life of hearing the Word of God preached. I would not for one second want to devalue the significance of corporate worship. In fact, that corporate worship and that listening to the Word of God as it is proclaimed is an essential part of the first exhortation, Let Us Draw Near, because that isn't just talking about your personal worship of God, but also about the corporate worship of God. And so I'm not saying that, you know, it's no big deal if you show up to church or don't show up to church. That's not the point at all. Yet at the same time, as we celebrate the indispensable value of preaching, the indispensable value of corporate worship, we also must be clear that the purpose of assembling is something that reaches far beyond anything that is on this order of service. Obedience to this third command is not exhausted by receiving the exhortation of others, any more than hearing someone else draw near to God exhaust the first command, or watching someone else hold fast their profession of hope exhaust the second command. Each of these commands is something that each of us must do. None of them can be done for us. As believers, we have just as much an obligation to watch out for the spiritual health of each other as we do to draw near to God for ourselves. One-anothering, in the context of the local assembly, is just as essential to your response to the work of Christ on your behalf as is your public profession of Him at your place of work, as is your personal walk into privacy of your own home. Perhaps this point could be summed up in this way, community is not optional. Community is not optional. The work of Christ on the behalf of believers demands a threefold response. We cannot drop one strand from this threefold summary of the Christian life and expect to stay faithful in the long haul, expect to hear a well done at the end of our lives. Different believers, of course, will struggle with different areas. Some will struggle more with their personal spiritual walk than will others or will struggle in a different way. Some will face more temptations to compromise their profession, their public profession than most do. Yet I am convinced that it is this third command that is the most neglected by American Christians that is most often treated as optional. Before I go on, I want to repeat once again that this message is in no way intended as a rebuke from someone who has this community thing all figured out, because the Lord knows that I surely don't and most of you do too. It is something that I struggle with as much or more as anyone here, yet that doesn't make it any less essential to the Christian life. Community is not optional. Yet as important as community is, community for the sake of community won't get you anywhere. If a rope isn't tied onto something sturdy, it doesn't matter how many strands it may have, it won't support a blessed thing. That is why this golden summary of the Christian life doesn't start with what we do, but rather with what Christ has done. Your sins have never been covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. His righteous life does not count for you, and you do not have a highest priest interceding for you. If you have never been born again, it doesn't matter how flowery your prayers may be, they're not coming near to the Father. Doesn't matter what you say to the world or how much persecution you receive from it, your profession is still an empty one. It doesn't matter how much attention you give to community, you are still nothing more than a pretender. And when the last day approaches, you will be left forever outside the people of God. I do not say these things with joy. I say them with sorrow of heart because I know that in a congregation this size, it is almost certain that there are at least some here who have never truly been born again. Some who have never placed all their faith and confidence in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. You could be a quote good person or a nice person, but being nice in the eyes of the world will not put you right with a God whose standard of righteousness is the perfection of Jesus Christ himself. You could know how to say the right words when people ask you about your walk with God, but saying nice sounding words isn't a substitute for genuine repentance of sin and true faith in the work of God's dear Son, Jesus Christ. You could even be a member of West Side Baptist Church, but your membership won't save you from God's wrath if the blood of Jesus Christ has never covered your sins. There's always a danger in warnings like this. Satan loves nothing more than to render true believers useless by putting them on a perpetual treadmill of fear and doubt. And even though I tremble at the thought of troubling a true believer, I tremble even more before the reality that there are some in this room this morning who desperately need to question the state of their soul and are even now being convinced by the adversary to ignore these warnings. And for your sake, I dare not remain silent. Flee to Christ before it is too late. Acknowledge your wretched state before God and admit to Him and to the world that He would be most just if He would damn you to hell forever. That is true of every one of us. Confess your sin. Confess your inability to do anything to save yourself. Confess that there is no hope found anywhere but in Jesus Christ alone. believe that Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross exactly what he promised to accomplish, and believe that on the third day, he really rose just as he said. Come to him in faith, believing that he will receive you, and he will. He has never turned anyone away, and he will not turn you away. No matter what you may have done in the past, no matter what you may be involved in, right now, his arms are open to all who will, as Christ began to preach so many years ago in Galilee, repent and believe the gospel. Yet though there may be some here today who do not know the Lord, who have never been made a partaker of the precious work of Christ on the behalf of His people, I trust that for the great majority, it is that very precious salvation that is brought to you here today. The truths about the work of Christ, that this golden summary are truths about what He has done for you, what He has accomplished for you. His blood covers your sins. His righteous life is counted to your account. His interceding prayers have your name attached to them. If you're a believer here today, you have been given promises that are so precious that they boggle the mind, that we cannot comprehend how high and how deep and how broad is the love of Christ. The work of Christ on your behalf demands a response, and the response that it demands is threefold. It demands that you draw near to God the Father in prayer and worship. Christ did not bear the wrath of God on your behalf, shedding His blood to pave a way through the veil that separated sinful humanity from the presence of God so you could live your life with fewer worries. He opened up a new and living way of access so that all who are in Him can use that way boldly and without ceasing, day in and day out. The most wonderful thing that God could ever do for any of His creatures is to give them access to His presence. And if you are a believer, He has done exactly that. We do not need to tremble or doubt when we come before the Father, for we do not come in our own name, but in the name of His dear Son, Jesus Christ. He has covered our sins with His own blood. He has come in the flesh and fulfilled the righteous deeds we should have done. And He is even now in the throne room, interceding on our behalf with the Father. We have access to the Father, and it is unthinkable that we do not make use of that access. Yet coming near to the Father in prayer is not the only response demanded by the work of Christ on our behalf. It is not enough to worship in private. We must also profess our Savior publicly, and we must hold fast to this profession, no matter how we are tempted to waver. I don't know what will tempt you to waver in your public profession of Christ. It could be that being a believer of any kind is simply not very popular at the place where you work, and you could be tempted to keep silent rather than publicly identify with Christ. It could be a specific teaching of Scripture, perhaps even the simple reality that God created men and women different, that causes your family members to roll their eyes in disgust because you're one of those people. And you're tempted to profess Christ just a little bit less firmly in order to escape their mockery. Your temptation to deny your profession of Christ could be so subtle that no one around you but you even realizes what is at stake. And you may never even get the opportunity to explain the reason why you won't falsify that shipment is because you're a believer. You may be fired before you get the chance. And yet you still know that what you're being asked to do or say is in direct contradiction to the profession that you have made of our Lord and Savior. Denying Jesus Christ is not only for those who say, I deny Jesus Christ. He can be denied in our actions just as much as he can by our words. You need to remember that our declaration of identity with Christ is our declaration of hope in the reality of His promises. It really comes down to this. Do we or do we not believe that He will be faithful to fulfill the promises upon which we have placed our hope? We do not need to worry about the promises. The one that is promised will be faithful. The one whose promises we hope in will be faithful to fulfill his promises. Publicly professing by both word and deed our confidence in his promises is not optional for those who claim to be the recipients of those promises. It is vital for believers to make use of the access to the Father that Christ has won for us. It is essential that we publicly profess our belief in His promises in both word and action. These responses to the work of Christ on our behalf are not optional. I can't imagine anyone who professed the name of Christ claiming that they were optional. I thank God for that. Yet this beautiful sentence is not over. There is a third non-optional response to the work of Christ on our behalf that is demanded from every believer just as much as the other two. And that is that we stay concerned for one another, constantly considering how to provoke each other to love and to good works, never intentionally forsaking the assembly, but rather exhorting each other, encouraging one another to live faithful lives. Community, particularly the kind of community that God calls believers to in the context of the local church, can be both difficult and messy. It is easy to provoke each other to frustration or to jealousy or to anger. That comes naturally to every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve. Provoking one another to love and good works isn't going to happen by accident, which is why the command is to consider, to set our minds to the task of mutual encouragement, exhortation, and edification. I would love to give you a list of the things you could do that are guaranteed to produce love and good works in every believer you come in contact with, but there simply isn't any list like that. A checklist, no matter how long, misses the point altogether. Checklists never produce community. considering setting our mind on the needs of our fellow believers does. Of course, this isn't going to happen at all if you forsake the assembly altogether for something else, but it is also not guaranteed to happen just because you show up. There is more to being a member of a local church, of a local Christian community, than listening to the sermons, putting something in the offering plate, and casting your vote at the church business meeting. Becoming a member of a church is about far more than getting your name in the directory. It is about becoming part of a body that has many members, a body for whose health you are directly, as a fellow member, responsible for. Like every area of the Christian life, living a community, living a life of concern for one another, comes easier to some than it does to others. We don't all pray the same prayers. We don't all face the same temptations to waver. And we don't all minister to the needs of the body in exactly the same way. The point is that we're not all to be going around asking each other the same list of canned questions about how your walk with the Lord is. Not that it's bad to ask questions, but it's not like I'm trying to give you a list of questions. If you're going to be a faithful member of the church, you need to ask five people this week five questions each. That's not the point. but that all of us are to be constantly considering how we can contribute to each other's spiritual health, how we can stir one another up to love and to good works, because if your heart is in considering how you can encourage each other, the Lord will give to your mind things that you could do to encourage, and the Holy Spirit will lead you in conversation to think of how you might be able to stir someone up and might see an area in which someone else is weak or see an area in which someone else has made progress and give them encouragement and say, I'm thankful that I'm seeing you on Wednesday night Bible study now, and you didn't used to come, and I'm so happy that you're coming every week. It could be very positive. It could be you're starting to miss service a lot, what's going on, and maybe you find out that it's something that they couldn't avoid, and you can help them with that situation. It could be that they need some help of a very practical kind in order to get here. It could be some other area of their profession. It could be you work with a believer, and you notice that their stand for Christ is slipping a little bit, and you speak to them about it, and you encourage them. Just as the way that each of us will demonstrate our concern for each other will look different, so the things that keep us from showing concern will look different as well. Some perhaps are too busy with their own agenda to take the time to consider the needs of others. Some might be very concerned with the needs that other peoples have, that other people have, but their solutions rarely involve love and good works. It's more like gossip and complaining. Perhaps you feel as though you've done your duty to the community simply by showing up at the service. Perhaps you're afraid to get involved in the lives of others because they might point out areas where you yourself need to make some changes, and if you open yourself up and you're vulnerable and you live in community with the body, then they might say, you need to change, and it might be something that you're not willing to change. This call to community, this call to consider one another, isn't a call only for those who enjoy being social, and boy do I thank the Lord for that. It's something that goes far deeper than simply enjoying conversation with your fellow believers. This isn't a matter of what your personality is like, but where your heart is at. It is something that goes far deeper than simply enjoying conversation. What it really boils down to is whether or not we are willing to love our fellow members enough to always seek to help them grow in conformity to Christ, even when they don't feel like growing and we don't feel like helping. The bottom line is love, not personality. True community, the community that we are called to in this passage, is never easy, but it is also never optional. Are you committed to this kind of community? Does the way in which you interact with your fellow believers demonstrate that commitment? I'm going to go before the Lord in prayer, and after I do, there's going to be an opportunity to respond to the Lord if He has spoken to you. Father, I come before You. I thank You for this opportunity to have preached Your Word. I pray, Father, Lord, that your Holy Spirit would be present. I pray that you would convict those who do not know you of their need for you. I pray, Father, Lord, that you would convict believers of areas in which they need to grow in their response to what you have done for them. I pray, Father, you would convict me of the areas in which I need to grow. Help me to worship you. Help all of us to worship you in these moments. In Christ's precious name I pray, amen.