Let Us Gather Under One Banner

Hebrews 10:19-25

English Standard Version Chapter 10

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.

Pray

Tonight is the Super Bowl. I like football. My team will probably never be in a Super Bowl, but I like watching the game. My grandparents gave me a love for the Dallas Cowboys and we would often watch the games together, my grandfather calmly watching while my grandmother yelled at the TV.

I watched a lot of college and professional football this year. I love the drama and the camaraderie, the upsets and the victories. I watched a few games this year where, I think they were playing in Buffalo, it was really snowing. People were packed into that stadium in below freezing temperatures rooting on their team.

In that stadium there were all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds, fighting through the misery of the cold because, at that particular time in space, they shared a common goal, to cheer their team on to victory.

This is what we do as humans. We rally around our “teams” our “groups” and we cheer each other on in worldly things. Hundreds of millions of people rallied around the red and the blue sides in our recent political match up this last November, millions of people rallied behind an aging, 59-year-old “Iron” Mike Tyson as he got beat in a boxing match a few months ago. We like teams, we like to have something in common.

The military is built on this frame work. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from or who your daddy is, you are in the fox hole next to another soldier and he will cover you and you will cover him and together they will win the objective.

We are better together. Tonight it will not be a singular player against the 11 players of the other team. That would be strange. It is never a loan fighter going to battle. All of us think that is a ridiculous scenario, but for some reason people look at their life with Christ as a singular sport.

I hear things all of the time from people that say, “I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” That is true, you also don’t have to have a relationship with your family in order to share a last name, but it is a lot better when you do.

When Jesus sent the disciples to go from town to town to tell people that the Messiah had come, He did not send them off alone, He sent them two by two and then when they were done they all came back together.

There is a blessing in this gathering. When you are out in the world you are confronted by people that do not think like you, they do not share your values, they do not love the Lord and our job is to shine Christ into those areas. Sometimes it can be confrontational, sometimes it can be draining to be around those people. Even Jesus, when He was walking through the crowd in Mark 5, a woman who had a discharge of blood came to Jesus and touched Him to be healed. In verse 30, after the lady touched Jesus and her bleeding stopped, the text says, “

English Standard Version Chapter 5

And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?”

He felt drained. This happens to us. We need to be in places where we have “all things in common” as Acts 2 says about us. Within these walls on Sunday mornings, this time is for the believers in Christ. It is for those that believe what the bible teaches.

There has been a common misconception within the last hundred years that Sunday is for “seekers” and not necessarily all about believers. So many churches have done things to try and accommodate the non-believers on Sunday morning, but I can find nowhere in the Scriptures that validates this action. Non-believers are welcome, but our sole focus is to worship God as the family of God because we share in a confidence. We share in an inheritance. The non-believers that come and maybe are sitting in here today, we want you to see the love that we have for each other and we hope that the Spirit moves in you to want to be a part of this body.

We hold each other up here and we celebrate with those celebrating as we did last Sunday with Raymond’s 100th birthday. We weep with those who weep as we have done with members here recently. We struggle along side those who are struggling to lighten their load. This is not a new concept.

As I was reading through my bible reading plan this week, I was in Exodus 17 and it told the story of Israel, under the leadership of Moses going into battle with Amalek. As long as Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, but when his arms got weary and they fell, Amalek prevailed. Have you ever tried to hold your hands up in the sky for a long period of time? Maybe the last time was in the class room. The teacher wouldn’t look at you and then you had to support yourself with your other hand, then finally you put your hand down because the pain would become too much. What happened with Moses, HIS FRIENDS, CO-LABORERS helped him and put a stone under him so he could sit down and they held his arms up until the battle was over and Israel won.

I’ve always read that story and wondered how peculiar it was. Then as I read the next chapter, it hit me. In Exodus 18, Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, comes and visits Moses. He notices something that Moses is doing. All day and night Moses is sitting before the people, probably close to a million people, and he is hearing cases all day long and giving wisdom in disputes. Jethro tells Moses that if he continues at this pace, he will wear himself out and he tells Moses to set Godly men over thousands and hundreds and tens to help lighten the load.

There is rest in the body. We should come to this place every Sunday or whenever we meet with joy and gladness because we get to worship the King of Glory together. It doesn’t mean that we do not have problems and sin that we need to confess to one another, this should be the place to share those things, it means that this place has no judgement of repentant sin, we are going to come here and lean on the one thing that we all have in common and that is the confidence of Jesus Christ.

English Standard Version Chapter 10

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,

What does this mean? Even if everything seems to be falling apart all around us out there, in here we are reminded that the one thing that truly matters, a right relationship with God, is promised to us and secured if we are in Christ. We can confidently approach the throne of grace because of Jesus. That is what the rest of this text is saying in the next few verses.

English Standard Version Chapter 10

20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the

We have talked about this in the past, but the old way that required sacrifices yearly for sins, all of this was done in the temple. I don’t want to belabor the point, but for those of you unfamiliar with the temple, there was an outer court where the gentiles could be, there was an inner area where the sacrifices were made, there was an area where the bread of the presence was and then there was the Holy of Holies. You probably all know that because I have been beating that drum for the last several weeks, but the thing separating the Holy of Holies from the everyone except the high priest was a curtain. This curtain was made of blue, purple, crimson and white thread and it was four inches thick.

That is quite the barrier. It was thick and it probably took some effort to get through it for the High Priest. What do we find about that curtain when Christ gave His one and only sacrifice. Matthew 27:51. Jesus dies and yields up His Spirit…

Matthew 27:51 ESV

And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.

That is a massive event to cause that curtain to tear from top to bottom. The unseen now was seen. The unreachable now could be entered into. The barrier of entry had been removed because there was no more need for sacrifices since the final sacrifice had been given. Can you imagine what it would have been like for gentiles to be able to peak their head in and see what had been shielded from their eyes for so long? Not only that but those who had been following the Lord their whole lives to be able to see the Ark of the covenant in all of its splendor with their own eyes? That is what the sacrifice of Christ did, it made God available to all mankind. Now we enter in by the curtain of Jesus’ body.

Over and over in the Gospels Jesus says that He is the way that you get to the Father.

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 10:9–16 ESV

I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

John 14:6 ESV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

The Father is now accessible to all who believe in the Son because, as we learned last week. Hebrews 10:14

Hebrews 10:14 ESV

For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

We have been perfected by Christ. If we have been perfected, then the author of Hebrews tells us in verse 22.

English Standard Version Chapter 10

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.

We are to come to the Father through the Son, putting all of our trust in His finished work, receiving His blessing with gladness and humility. We have been made clean, holy through the blood of Christ. That sets us apart from the world that does not hold to Christ. We are not like the Israelites of the past that had to cleanse themselves over and over with water that could never really make them clean. He has cleansed us once and for all. We are made right with the Father and we are heirs. That means we have full access to the Father in Christ. Who doesn’t want God as your Father? We were once orphans but we have been adopted by the Father. That means that all of us that are in Him are brothers and sisters and all He desires is that we love Him.

It blesses God when you receive His blessings. This is something I have struggled with my whole life. I don’t take compliments well, I don’t take help well, I don’t take blessings well. I am sure it is a cultural thing in the United States or the South because I know many of you don’t either, but when we are grateful to the Father for giving us things, we are giving Him the praise He desires. It isn’t because of the thing that we have recieved but out of a genuine love for the One that gave it.

Krysta and I buy our kids things as parents do. We give them necessities but we also treat them to extra things because we want them to feel special. There are things they like and we do those things if and when we can. I love doing it, but the thing I love the most is when we get into the truck after we are through and Clive says, “thanks, Dad.” He does that because he realizes what my time commitments are. He knows what it costs us to do those things. He says thanks because he is truly grateful for the blessing. I didn’t make him say it, he said it because he loves me and is appreciative.

These blessings are doled out by the Father in many different ways. Obviously, day to day, He gives us what we need and provides, but sometimes it is through the church. He has done that over the Millenia. When you come here and you give to the church, that money goes toward facilities that are used by us and the community for all sorts of things. It goes to fund missionaries. It goes to fund me so that I can study and preach the Word to you and people all over and it goes to help people in the body.

We try to be the best stewards of that money that we can, so we don’t enable but we help. That is monetarily sometimes, finding work for people, building things for people or just being there. All of this we do because we…

English Standard Version Chapter 10

hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

This is who we are. We preach Christ and we love our people because we, as Lampasas Community Church, hold on to the hope of Christ above all else. He doesn’t need us to be a big organization. He doesn’t need us to find ways to try and get you to engage. He has called us to preach the Good News and love our people. That looks different than other churches. We don’t have any programs, we don’t have small groups. We have bible studies and we are friends. Some of my great friends are in this church. People know me here. I don’t have anything to hide because my flaws are on display for everyone to see. If you are looking for a perfect pastor, you are in the wrong place. If you are looking for a church with perfect people, you should probably find another church because you won’t find that here, but what you will find are people being made like Jesus knowing that we have been perfected in our relationship with the Father. There have been a lot of new people coming so I think this is worth saying, we, as elders of this church, want this place to be about Jesus and our hope in His sacrifice which means it is available for all no matter what stage of life you are in.

We want to be about the Lord’s business. What does that mean? Verse 24 sums this up for us. Knowing nothing but Christ crucified and the hope of the resurrection…

English Standard Version Chapter 10

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.

Our job here and your job as a minister of the Gospel is to become a mouthpiece for Christ. You are to be His hands and feet. We encourage you to read your bible and don’t take my, or any of the other people in this church, word for it. You have access to the Scriptures and if you don’t have a bible, take one from the pew. Your relationship with Him should grow and blossom in your heart. If you have been perfected by Him, you will be sanctified. That means as you grow you will become more like the Son. That should stir us up to love and good works.

If you truly realize what you have been saved from and forgiven for then how could you not love your sinful neighbor or brother and share the gift that was shared with you. Discipleship doesn’t have to be some big, difficult affair, older women who have been in the faith for years, find a young woman and take her out to coffee and answer her questions about the bible. Older men, there are a lot of young men in here that could use some wisdom. Young or old believer, if you are confused about a certain situation in your life or you don’t understand the bible, I am always available. I do work more than an hour a week, but I will make time for you, you just have to let me know and if I can’t make it we have amazing elders that want to help. Have you joined a bible study? There is great community in our bible studies. All of them are listed on the handout. There are a lot of your questions that could be answered in a bible study. I know in my bible study, we open it up with questions. I’d rather answer something you have been struggling with in your relationship with Christ than to continue plugging away to just get finished with a book so we can go on to the next.

One last thing and I will close. Verse 25 says that we should not neglect to meet together. How often are you coming to church? This should be a priority in your life. I know all of you with young kids and crazy schedules and Sunday is your only day to relax, but I’m telling you that if you don’t make it priority, your kids won’t either. This should be a place of love and it is. Wayne Wiseman when he was here a few weeks ago was telling us, “How is it always like this?” He was speaking of the love and joy that we share. This should be a place you want to go to. Not for me or the music or anything other than gathering with the saints and worshipping the Lord together.

We should be about the Father’s business always. That means taking care of each other. If you need something, tell us. If we can help with a project or anything, tell us. We will do what we can because the church serves its people. Brothers and sisters, that means that you should feel an urge to serve whether it is with the children on Sunday mornings or with constructions projects or maybe writing checks to help someone that has an unexpected need, or even calling to check on other brothers and sisters. You can write letters to people in jail. It doesn’t always take a strong back or a deep pocketbook. Sometimes it is just a heart for Christ and asking Him where you can serve the body.

Christ shows up for His people and we are recipients of His blessings and as the Holy Spirit moves we should move to help our brothers and sisters and find rest in their companionship. This is an important family and we all share a Father. We are heirs with Christ and that love should move us to spread His name to all corners of the earth and to our neighbor next door and be about the things of the Father until Jesus comes back, however and whenever that is. Let’s pray.