Heb 10:23-25 Holding Fast Together
Notes
Transcript
19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 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. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 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.
I can honestly say that I have no military experience. My only experience was a very short time when I turned 18 during my mandatory military service, after a week I was discharged. I didn’t learn much, outside of how to stand in line and march. Even though I didn’t really serve in the military I can say that I could see that one of the goals of military service is to create a greater sense of obligation for the collective group, instead than the individualistic focus that we all have.
I’m no expert in this area, but it makes sense that you want the soldiers to work together for a specific goal. If the soldiers are focused more on themselves than the group ultimately the group is going to fall apart at the first struggle or opposition.
I have heard from others who are experts in this area and have been in real combat and difficult situations, that in the moment of intense fighting and life threat, what moves you, what motivates you is solely to fight for the man, your brother who is next to you. It is in that scenario that what matters is the one another, what you do for one another.
If we remember that we are living in the midst of a spiritual war, that we have a true enemy who wants to kill and destroy us, and that we are engaged in a spiritual battle we will see the commandments regarding one another in a new light. Maybe even with a greater urgency of applying these commandments to one another. Especially the commandments that we are going to study today in this passage.
Last week as we were studying this section of chapter 10 of Hebrews we stopped at v22 with the commandment to draw near. Today we will dive into the next two commandments, but before we do so we should review again v19-21 since it is the foundation for the commandments.
19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
Remember that the author throughout the previous chapters is making the case that Jesus is greater than the Old Covenant tabernacle, priesthood, and sacrifice. Jesus is superior to the old Tabernacle because Jesus, our High Priest, entered not the earthly temple, but the true and everlasting temple of God in Heaven. Jesus is the perfect everlasting High Priest who is fully God, and He is fully human and sympathizes with our weakness. Lastly, Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, Jesus' single sacrifice, once for all, is sufficient to save, sanctify and rescue the worse of sinners.
Because of all of these truths about Jesus, we can enter and are commanded in v22 to draw near to God, which we studied last week. I hope that in this past week, you have taken advantage of the privilege that we have to enter God’s presence through the blood of Jesus. If you want to grow in your walk with Jesus, if you want to feel His presence more and more, there is no replacement for spending time with your heavenly Father.
The commandment to draw near is so important and it deals primarily with our personal, private walk with our Savior and Lord. The following commandments that we will study today, deal not only with our personal walk but has implications for how we relate to one another in the body of Christ.
23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
The commandment here very clearly is to hold fast. When we are commanded by God it doesn’t mean that we do so when we feel like doing this, or after we have done everything else that we want to do. It means we should hold fast at all times, it should be our priority. This also means that we need to hold fast when we are in trouble and in the midst of suffering.
I believe that there are way too many Christians who live like we are in peacetime and not in the middle of a spiritual war. If you live thinking that you are at peace, it means you are not too worried about what is going on around us, but you are more concerned about your own life, your own desires and wishes, you’re living for your own little kingdom of self, rather than the Kingdom of God.
We are not at peacetime; we are at war with the spiritual darkness of the present age. If you just take a little glimpse of what is happening in the world and in this country, how things are quickly falling you will notice that the time is getting shorter and shorter before Christ’s return.
If we can have this assessment with just a glimpse, don’t you think that the devil knows his time is getting shorter and shorter? Therefore, the enemy is working harder and harder, his works are getting more and more audacious and out in the open for all to see. We are living in a time when people are so deceived that what would have been unthinkable just 10 years ago is now reality.
We are not too far from being in a place where those who hold onto one of the most basic truths, such as the fact that God created us, male and female, we will be an abomination to the world. The outcome of where our world is heading is that there will be no room to be a “half”-follower of Christ. We are approaching a time when those that are lukewarm will be spit out.
If you want to have a glimpse of the direction our country is going, I encourage you to watch the documentary What is a Woman by Matt Walsh. You can find this documentary free on Twitter. You can just google “what is a woman twitter” and you will find it. However, I must caution you before you watch it, because it is so disheartening to see the blindness and the plain evil in our society. It is the work of the enemy who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
We have an enemy who is prowling around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Furthermore, because of the times we are living in, and we are going to live we need to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering. We not only should, we need to. In fact, we must, we are commanded to hold fast to our confession because we have Jesus as our High Priest. We have been covered by the blood of Jesus so that through His flesh, not the material curtain, we can enter into the very presence of God. We are safe in the arms of God. Therefore, we must hold fast because He is holding us… He covered us with His blood… He redeemed us… restored us… reconciled us… and He is interceding for us.
Besides all these reasons the author of Hebrews gives us another reason here in this verse as to why we should hold fast.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
Why should we hold fast? Because He who promised is faithful. We can count completely on God because He is standing behind His promise. Whatever God promises is a strong and firm foundation, just like when God spoke, and creation came into existence. Therefore, we should be the most hopeful people, because we have a God who is Sovereign and what He said is coming to pass, we can trust Him, and we can trust His Word.
God promised that He would come, die and rise again… while He is outside of time He chose to allow His word, His promises to be bound by time. And He was faithful to His promise to come and die.. die a gruesome excruciating death. If He was going to be “unfaithful” it would have been at that moment in the Garden… But He was FAITHFUL! We live in a time where faith has been seen… so allow this truth to give you unwavering hope that He will come back. Jesus was willing to suffer for us already, it will be so much easier for Christ now to return and conquer what He paid the price already.
It is because of who God is that we can hold fast. We should also be clear as to what we should hold fast to, v23 makes it clear that we should hold fast the confession of our hope.
We might ask what is this confession of our hope? This confession is the essence of the Christian faith. Jesus is the only way. Jesus is the Son of God, He is our High Priest who took our sin upon the cross and paid fully the price for our sin and gave us His righteousness. Salvation is by faith alone in the only Son of God, who is fully God and fully man, who was raised from the dead on the third day and is seating at the right hand of God, interceding for us. In essence, our confession of our hope is our basic belief in Christ as our only hope in this life and in the life to come.
Therefore, we must hold fast to Jesus, who is holding us, He is our hope, He is the only hope for this fallen world. What the world needs the most is not a return to when most people understand common sense. It is not a return to righteousness and financial and progress. What the world needs is Jesus. It would be a nice thing if justice and righteousness and order were common things in our society, however, what our world needs the most is Jesus. Simply and solely, Jesus can change hearts and redeem the brokenness of this world.
How we hold fast to the truth that Jesus will have an impact on those around us. It is in the focus on those around us that we are given another commandment in v24
24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
The author of Hebrews had previously commanded us in v22 to draw near to God, then in v23 to hold fast, both commandments focus on something that we do privately, personally. These commandments affect us individually, however, in the next two verses, the focus is not on the individual but on the Christian community, our local church, all believers, and how we should interact with one another.
The commandment is to consider or to think of ways, to contemplate, to give some time and thought… to make a plan or to carefully consider. However, what are we to contemplate? What should we carefully consider and find ways or make plans?
The verse makes it very clear and there is no way around it, it says “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” We are commanded to think about, to carefully consider how to stir up one another, or to provoke one another. This seems to have a negative connotation. If we hear that we are to consider carefully how to provoke one another, we might think of how to make someone angry or upset, to move someone’s heart towards so much intense emotion that will cause so much discomfort and anger that will move someone to act it out, to display physically, externally that intense emotion that was provoked.
Is God really telling you to make your brother or sister angry? To provoke them, perhaps in a sin you find them in or to continually remind them of what they aren’t doing and how imperfect they are? And lest you be confused. I’m not talking about my job as a pastor as I expose scripture…
There is some difficulty in the translation of this verse because the wording of “provoking or stirring up” is a kind of wording that is often used with just such a negative connotation. However, the verse makes it clear what emotion we are to provoke in one another, it is not anger, but love. Love for Christ, love for our neighbor. We are to provoke one another in love so much that it will be a catapult for good works, for real action, to display that love in the real world.
So you will see that I’m doing my job of exposing Scripture, and the Holy Spirit is then doing His job of bringing the Scripture to your heart. Therefore, if you are feeling provoked or picked on, then it is God that you need to take that up with. God is showing you the greatest love by coming after you by desiring to make you more like Him. He is stirring you up to love one another and good works. And if you ever want support working through this, I’m here, but know that I will always side with Scripture.
Again, we are not in peacetime, we cannot live focused only on ourselves and our own life, we cannot be living for our own little kingdoms of self. We are at war, engaged in battle with the spiritual darkness of the present age. We are not fighting this battle alone, we have brothers and sisters who are next to us and we must be finding ways to provoke one another to love and good works.
We need to take a little bit of time to talk about what love and good works mean since we live in a time when there is so much confusion about these concepts. The world tells us that to love is to accept, and approve others and their sinful choices and desires. The love here is to love God and love our neighbor, the most unloving thing is to not tell the truth and compromise Scripture for the sake of people, their acceptance, or the culture. Jesus said it clearly, if you love me you will obey my commandments, if we love God we will obey Him, follow Him and trust Him.
The other word that often there is confusion about is “good works”. We know that we cannot be saved by works, we are saved by faith alone. But often we forget that true faith has works. Eph 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” If we are truly saved then there are works that God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Therefore, when we encourage one another to love and good works, we are doing to one another what God had already planned and willed for us and others around us.
Then the author continues encouraging us to think more collectively in the next verse saying.
25 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.
The commandment that is found in v24 is to think of ways to provoke one another to love and good works, then here in v25 the author of Hebrews is pointing out the crucial importance of the Christian gathering so that we can obey the commandment to provoke one another to love.
The first instruction in v25 is presented in the negative form… to not neglect meeting together. This tells us that this issue of not regularly attending church is not something that is characteristic of just our time, but is an issue that has been around for many centuries. Satan has used this tactic… divide and conquer… from the beginning of time.
After the commandment to provoke one another it is natural for you to think of those in our Christian community who are neglecting to meet together. If you have someone in mind I encourage you to call them or text them, but above all to pray for them, that God will convict their hearts and that they will see the importance of coming to church, and that they will make it a commitment to take a little time each Sunday to corporately worship Jesus.
If you have a hard time trying to think of everyone in our church family, or you can’t remember all the names, at the table in the foyer there is a piece of paper with the list of people that the elders use to pray for our people, feel free to take one home, and to pray for one another.
Why shouldn’t we neglect to meet together? Because when we fail to attend church we are failing to appreciate the significance of Christ’s priestly ministry and the access to God that Christ provides. When we neglect to meet together we are neglecting the setting where mutual encouragement and exhortation occurs.
Meeting together is good for our souls and it is imperative for our Christian walk. There are many who say that they love Jesus, but do not want to go regularly to church. They are ultimately saying they love the head of the church, Jesus, but don’t love the body of Christ, the church. It is the same as if a husband would say to his wife “Honey I love your head, but I don’t want to be near your body, in fact I don’t anything to do with your body”
If you love Jesus you will want to come to church, you will not view it as something that you have to do, but it is something that you desire, you long to be a part of, that it is a joyful thing to gather with others who love Jesus.
Furthermore, v25 tells us what we should do when we gather together. We should encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t need encouragement. Everyone needs encouragement, Why? you may ask, because we live in a broken fallen world, where sin is present around us, inside us, and we have an enemy who wants to devour us.
We are in the middle of a spiritual war and we get our strength to fight the good fight. To hold true to Scripture when we hold fast as a group together looking to Jesus, the founder, and perfector of our faith. Above all we need to look up to Jesus, and when we look to our sides we need to see our brothers and sisters encouraging us to keep looking to Jesus. Otherwise, you are surrounded by those who use their emotions or their own beliefs… as well-meaning as they are… to distract you from Jesus and from the Truth.
There is no reason to be discouraged when we see that we are in a spiritual battle because we know the end, Jesus has won the war. There is a day coming when He will come to possess what He already purchased, we are fighting a battle as victorious soldiers of Jesus.
But we know that the closer we get for Christ return it will get worse and worse. Therefore, we need to encourage one another, “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” There is an urgent insistence to encourage one another more and more as we see “the day” getting nearer and nearer.
As we see this world getting more and more ready for Christ's return. As we watch the news and get discouraged and disheartened by what is happening in our country. God is not calling us to be complaining or pointing fingers, but God is calling us to action, to encourage one another, to provoke one another to love God and our neighbors and to good works, to be true ambassadors of Christ in a world getting darker and darker.
The darker this world gets, the more those that have the light of Christ, the light of the gospel will shine. Don’t be discouraged by this world, but be encouraged in Jesus, draw near to God more and more. Hold fast the confession of our hope in Jesus, provoke one another to love and good works, encourage one another.
We are not in peacetime. We are at war. We don’t fight “against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm”
Let’s us hold fast together for God is for us, it is His battle, it is His church, it is His world, His people, and it is for His glory.