Never Miss Church

Background

If we havent had the pleasure of meeting my name John Colunga and I have the privilege to serve here as lead pastor

I also have the privilige of bringing todays message from God’s word

If you have your Bible, please turn to Hebrews 10:19-25

Today, we will be continuing our sermon series called The New Day Way

This is not to say that our way is the right way and everyone else is wrong,

Rather, the new Day Way is our action plan to fulfill our vision

2 weeks ago we had our New Day Launch and we got our text from 1 Peter 3

It was in this message that our vision was cast for the New Year

The New Day Pasadena Vision - To pursue healthy growth through unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, tender heartedness, humility; and will seek and pursue peace within the church and the world

And so we talked about having an action plan in order to help to grow in these characteristics as a church

And the first step of this action plan is that each of us need to start our day with God

We talked about how we encourage you to read your bible and do a bible study every morning

We also clarified that if you do this at night because its the best time for you, then do it, cause thats good too

And today, we are going to talk about our second step which is to, “Never miss church”

And just by saying that phrase, you might feel some type of way

You might think that it sounds legalistic, you might think that it may be a brainwashing tool,

And you might think that we are indeed expecting perfect attendance from you

I will address each of these thoughts as well as other thoughts from our society and culture which are being used today

But as always, we dont live by New Days words, or my words,

But we live by God’s words and so we will be in the book of Hebrews today

While the author of Hebrews is unknown, the book of Hebrews tells us that whoever the author is:

Knew Greek

Knew the Old Testament

Knew the original readers and was concerned for them

He did not know Jesus but came to faith through the teachings of the apostles

And He was familiar with Timothy

Hebrews is written to a people that have been scattered due to the persecution of Christians

Most likely they were persecuted themselves

This persecution, the loss of Jewish tradition, and confusion surrounding the character of Jesus and his glory,

Is leading the people to be tempted to turn from the faith

And so the author writes Hebrews to exhort the people and to teach them who Jesus is and to connect Jesus with what has been taught in the Old Testament

If you arent familiar with sermons, sermons should have both preaching and teaching

The late R.C. Sproul says that, “Preaching involves such things as exhortation, exposition, admonition, encouragement, and comfort, while teaching is the transfer of information and instruction in various areas of content.”

When I come before you I should be both preaching and teaching - sometimes I might do more teaching, sometimes I might do more preaching - but I should have both

When the people of God gather and meet, there should be teaching, application, and an exhortation/encouragement to do the application

Teching without preaching is a lecture and preaching without teaching is dangerous

Hebrews on its own is considered a sermon and it is from this sermon where we will get to our exhortation and teaching today

So please stand and join me in the reading of God’s words

Hebrews 10:19-25 “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 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.”

This is the word of our Lord, you may now be seated

Setting up the church

In verses 19-21, the author is summarizing all of the doctrines taught in Hebrews chapters 1-10

This summary comes by two main teachings

1. We have access to God through Jesus Christ

It used to be that the Holy of Holys was a special place that only the high priest could enter in

A sacrifice would be made before God for all of the people through the Priest

And if the Priest himself was not right with God when he entered into the Holy of Holys, he would die

This Priest was an intermediary between the people and God

What we find in scripture is that Jesus, being the great intermediary, gave up his life as the sacrifice

Jesus’ sacrifice, his death, his blood spilled for the people, is what makes us right with God

Matthew 27:50-51 “And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.”

The veil was torn so that we can have confidence that through Jesus, we have access to God

When a person puts their trust and faith in Jesus, they can have confidence in Him

We as believers, in 2023 can be confident that because of Jesus, God hears our prayers

Because of Jesus, God hears our confessions

Because of Jesus, we will live eternally with God once we pass away

And Jesus being our confidence and sacrifice leads into the second summary statement

2. Jesus is our high priest

Our High Priest Jesus is in Heaven

He sends the Holy Spirit and empowers us through the Holy Spirit

Our High Priest is over the House of God and because we are his, we can have full assurance of faith

Baptism

What I love about this specific passage is that it is talking about once we are saved and then what happens after we are saved.

Most often the question asked is, “now what? I’ve given my life to Jesus, now what?”

We have next steps here at New Day, and the next steps do not end. If you are wondering about your next step, ask me

But our next step is in line with the authors next step

You see, We are saved through Jesus who gives us acess to God and is our High Priest

And then it says, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

What we find in scripture over and over again is to believe and be baptized. Repent and be baptized, make disciples and baptize them

Here in Hebrews the author is speaking of Baptism

Once we are saved, our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, we then wash our bodies in pure water

Make no mistake, this is symbolic

There is nothing Holy about the water in which we use to baptize

I promise you it is high quality, grade A, warm, Pasadena water

But the significance of the action is to be made clean spiritually

You are no longer the old person but you are a new person

Christ died for your sins so that you could be made new, Holy, and acceptable before the Lord

And we believe that Baptism doesn’t save you, but we stress the importance of it because of the significance of what it represents and how we are to follow Jesus

And it is in your change of heart and your new spirit, longing to love, serve, and learn more that you cling to God’s promises

The author writes, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

We hold tight to God because He is faithful

Meeting for Church

The author talks about assurance through Jesus, followed by baptism, and up next, he talks about gathering

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 Christian’s, as followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to gather with one another

We are not called to isolation and complete individual spiritual growth

But we are to stir up one another to love and good works

It’s no coincidence that this is in line with our vision to have unity of mind and brotherly love which is rooted in 1 Peter 3

We are to encourage one another to the things of God and to do His work

We encourage one another to grow in our life of worship to God

If we are to backtrack to hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

We are baptized into new life and its a life of complete devotion to God

To give him all the worship, all the glory, all the praise

And so we do not neglect gathering, rather we meet together and we worship

Worship is therefore essential to our spiritual health and well-being. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains: “It is only when I am near to God in Christ that I know my sins are forgiven. I feel his love, I know I am his child and I enjoy the priceless blessings of peace with God and peace within and peace with others. I am aware of his love and I am given a joy that the world can neither give nor take away.”

Richard D. Phillips, Hebrews, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2006), 360.

Now that we have access to God, how do we draw near to him through worship?

1. Come to worship with a true heart - a heart postured not for self, but for Christ

2. When we worship, we worship with with full assurance - We believe in what we are singing, (We are engaged) we have assurance that God can convict us, teach us,

3. Come to worship clean and purified - we dont have to bear shame or guilt, rather we repent and are forgiven

4. Come to worship to be part of the body of Christ - we are active in worship by meeting and serving others

We do these things to darw near to God in worship

As the body of the church, There are some verbs here given for us to do

First we are to “consider”

Our thoughts should dwell on the needs of others

Second we are to “stir up” which means to incite or provoke

Our life should incite or provoke others to see Jesus in you and encourage them to love and do good works for Jesus as well

Third we are to “encourage” and not to just encourage with a good word

But we are to help bear their load (pray for them, share life experience with them, comfort,)

We can draw near to God by doing his work

The author of Hebrews gives us these steps to faith and what should occur after as we walk as Christians

There is no doubt that we are to meet and to worship

And at the very end of this, He says and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

What I love about this, is regardless of your view of the end times, we are to meet all the more

And it seems like we live in an time where church is something we just do once a week for an hour an hour and a half and then its out of sight and out of mind

One of the things we find in Acts is that the church understood this

Acts 2:42-47 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

We believe it is biblical to devote yourself to God and by extention you devote yourself to the fellowship

To learn the word of God, to break bread, to pray for one another

To rejoice when a brother or sister is heald from sickness

To have unity of mind

To be generous for each other and to help one another

And when the church acts like the church

When the church loves and devotes itself to God and for eachother - The Lord added to their number day by day

As we strive to remain and grow in our spiritual health, as we strive to be in God’s word, we should strive to meet and be the bride of Christ

I understand that what was happening in Acts was unprecedented and spiritual and used to grow the church in that time period

But what is the same is that those people in that time period were part of the bride of Christ as we are part of the bride of Christ

And as the bride of Christ, being made clean - we are to gather

Do you see from scripture that we are called to gather?

That we are called to be in community?

We gather simply because we are Christians and Christ calls us to do so

But this gathering is not to be a burden but to be a time of rejoicing and praise

We are to be eager to gather because of what Christ has done for us and for what he brings us too

I may have used this illustration before but we should be more eager to go to Sunday worship than to a football game

I wake up early, get to the game early, cheer, and go crazy for my team

My wife is a Packers fan and I look at all of those Packers fans cheering the Packers in a full blown snow storm

Lord put that eagerness in me! Despite the weather and circumstance, I am eager and determined to worship you with my brothers and sisters

To draw close to you with my brothers and sisters

Application

So when we say to strive to never miss church - we arent trying to chain you, being legalistic,

Rather, we are encouraging you to live out the Christian life that is set before us by Christ

We arent saying this to burden you but to call you to have an eagerness to meet with one another

And in case anyone is wondering, we have scriptural basis as to why we meet on Sunday

Matthew 28:1 “Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.”

Jesus arose on the first day of the week (It became the Lords Day)

Acts 20:7 “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.”

1 Corinthians 16:1-2 “Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come.”

Revelation 1:10 “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet”

So we meet on Sunday, The Lords Day, the first day of the week to worship together

And then we gather in homes on Wednesdays for Community Group to break bread and meet

Now, for those who miss a Sunday, we do not believe that it is sin

Ultimately God knows your heart, your desire, your circumstance

But we are freed from the rules and regulations of the Sabbath and are free in Jesus

We do not have Gold stars to track your attendance

With that, as a member of the church, we will call you if there is an extended period of time

But its always out of concern to see how you are doing, if we can help in any way, and to simply encourage you

For some of you, making it to church is a win. It is a process and a hard one (We understand)

Let me just encourage you that your presence here means the world

Your desire to worship with us is seen and doesn’t go unoticed, your presence matters

For those of you who take care of family or have family out of town, minister to your family (take care of them)

Ultimately God knows your heart and your circumstance

Ultimately we do find rest in Jesus

As we grow, we do not want to lose sight of what we are called to do

We do not want to foster or encourage a forsaking of the gathering

Rather, we want to cherish the Lords Day and to strive to gather together

Announcements

Connect Card - Please fill out and turn it in

February 1st will be our first community group meet

February 5th - Connect Class (Get to know us, get to know each other, have a lesson)

Church workday will be Saturday, January 28th at 9am (I will be out due to funeral)

A couple of different books out there for free - Apologize and give out (I can be a book defender)

New Day Reading Plan - Website, top right tab you will see the BIble reading plan

Mon-Fri - Matthew 6-10

Just as we read today to bless others, I would like to dismiss with a benediction before we leave -

Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” Amen

Thank you, you are now dismissed