Grow Relationships [inward discipleship]

Quick recap of where we are going with this series that we are calling simple. We started last week by noting how often it is in the ongoing life of a Christian that all the activity of religion starts taking over and somewhere along the way we lose touch with the simple activity of being a disciple of Jesus. And we noted that simple does not necessarily mean easy—because Jesus didn’t say that following him would always be easy. But following Jesus should be clear; it should be something that each one of us understands the same way; we should all get it. That’s what we mean by simple discipleship, that we all clearly understand it together.

Let’s see if this is working. Let’s have a little quiz here concerning what we talked about last week. And this isn’t a quiz to see how well all of you were paying attention. This is a quiz to see how well I did at clearly communicating discipleship. It should have been clear enough that you remember it—at least I hope I was clear enough for that. So, last time we looked at Psalm 19 and I talked about the way in which our discipleship pursues the activity of loving God. And I said that there is one thing that God has given us as something we can do more than anything else to help us to know him and love him. Do you remember? What is the one thing that God has given us that helps us to know him and love him?... [the Bible] It is in spending time in the Word of God that we see God as he has revealed himself to us. And as we begin to know God and know his love revealed to us, we are prompted and moved by the Holy Spirit to respond in love to God. And this is where faith is planted and begins to grow in us.

That is the way in which our live of discipleship focuses upward to God. That was last week’s message. If you are new or you missed last week, you can always find the audio of that message on our website. Today we move on to the second of our clear and simple activities for following Jesus. Today we focus on inward discipleship. We ask the question and consider what it means for us to have an inward focus as people who seek to grow in faith. The mission statement of this church identifies three activities as core to our mission: loving, growing, and serving. Loving God, growing relationships, and serving community. Last time was about loving God as our activity of upward discipleship. Today is about growing relationships as our activity of inward discipleship. Let’s see what the Bible has to say about this.

First, a 30-second summary of how these six verses from chapter 10 fit into the larger picture of the book of Hebrews. The six verses we read here today in chapter 10 are the conclusion of a very long section in Hebrews that begins all the way back in chapter 4:14. This is a section of Hebrews that goes on for six whole chapters. We don’t have time to look at all of that in one sitting here today. Here’s the 30-second summary.

The Jewish high priest back in Old Testament days had to perform his temple duty over-and-over again in order for the people of God to be purified from their sins. Jesus comes as the new high priest. The sacrifice of Jesus one time, once-and-for-all, purifies all God’s people from their sins. God’s presence in the Old Testament was symbolized by the tabernacle, and then the temple. Even there, the presence of God was separated from the people by a curtain—the people did not have direct access to God. In Jesus, the curtain is torn and now you and I have direct access to God through the new covenant of grace in Christ, accessible to us through faith.

Hebrews 10:19–25 NIV

19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Let’s spend a little time with this passage so that we see what God is saying here about an inward discipleship that focuses upon growing relationships. In the outline I have that marked off with five phrases that come from this passage. I am using the older NIV translation to pull out these five phrases. The 1984 editions of the NIV that you have under your chairs will show these five phrases. The newer 2011 edition of the NIV translation that I read and that was on the screen has different wording. In the newer NIV the wording breaks it so that three of the phrases are primary, and two of the phrases are subordinate. I am going to point that out as we go through it.

Let us draw near to God

The first phrase. Verse 22: Let us draw near to God. This isn’t a command so much as it is an invitation. Remember that for the people receiving this letter, drawing near to God was something that was not possible in any way before this. Before Jesus came and made his sacrifice once-and-for-all on the cross, only the Jewish high priest could enter the Most Holy Place in the temple, and he could only do that one time each year.

The point of verse 22 is the reminder of God’s people that we now have access directly to God through Jesus. There is nothing that holds us away from God’s love anymore. It is no longer about performing all the right religious rituals. It is no longer about being a perfect person who never makes mistakes. God’s love and favor for us does not depend on any of those things. it is only through Jesus that we access to God. It is only through Jesus that we draw near to God.

Let us hold unswervingly to hope

The second phrase. Verse 23: Let us hold unswervingly to hope. Unswervingly is an unusual English word. It is chosen here as the best way to translate the word in this passage from the original Greek that literally means ‘that which does not bend.’ In other words, it is a hope that never falters, never deviates, never turns or breaks.

Before Jesus ever came, the people would have to keep performing these religious rituals over and over again because the sins they committed kept breaking their end of the covenant promise with God. But when Jesus came and fulfilled the covenant promise on our behalf, he did it with his sacrifice on the cross in such a way that this new covenant unshakable. And so the hope that we now have in Jesus never fails. We hold onto that hope—not because we are unswerving people—but because Jesus is unswerving in his faithfulness to us.

Let us spur one another on to love and good

The third phrase. Verse 24: Let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds. Consideration here does not mean that we weigh the pros and cons, that we decided shall we or shall we not. The Greek work in the original text means intense focus. This is key because this is exactly what we are looking at in this series on simple discipleship. I want a path of following Jesus that is crystal clear, that directs my focus on the most essential activities and habits of what it means to be a disciple—a follower of Jesus. And this is it. This is that intense focus. Spur one another on to love and good deeds.

How exactly do we do that? What is the formula for this kind of discipleship activity? This is where the passage starts to turn. If you are looking at the older 1984 NIV Bibles, you see there are two more let us phrases. But if you were to look at the newer 2011 NIV Bible you would see that these last two phrases are not stand-alone as number four and number five. No, they come underneath the third one. They are the authors explanation of EXACTLY HOW to spur one another on to love and good deeds. This is the real application of how inward discipleship works.

Let us not give up meeting together

The fourth phrase (which is really a subcategory of the third). Verse 25: Let us not give up meeting together. Following Jesus is never meant to be something that we do alone. Being a disciple of Jesus always happens within a community. At this church we talk about our mission with three action words: love, grow, and serve. Today we look at growing. And in looking at growing we see from Hebrews 10 that our faith grows—that we grow as disciples of Jesus—in a community of other believers. We grow in faith when we grow in our relationships with other Christians. This is why when we talk about growing as part of our mission of discipleship, we affirm how important it is to grow in relationships.

Meeting together is not about programs. Finding ways to attend every single thing my church offers is not the key to inward discipleship. It is the relationships that grow from those meetings that bring us to an inward discipleship. So please do not feel a guilt trip if you miss a Bible study or have a Sunday when you cannot make it to worship. Attendance is not the key, relationships are the key. But also understand that relationships require a certain amount of attendance. I can’t have relationships with other believers if I rarely show up to be in community with other believers.

What do these relationships of inward discipleship look like? There are two key feature I want us to note about growing relationships that strengthen our faith. First, these are relationships that are more than just acquaintances. We live in a world in which we can be casually connected with so many people. We have Facebook connections with hundreds—or perhaps even thousands—of people. With email and telephones, we can remain in some kind of contact with people all over the country, and all over the world. Often there are many people, then, who are acquaintances. We know them and know of them and know a few things about them. Maybe we work with them or live in the neighborhood with them or go to school with them. But we are looking for relationships that are more than just acquaintances.

The second feature we see, then, is that relationships of inward discipleship have accountability. Students have this naturally. Younger children are automatically accountable to parents and teachers and coaches. But the older you get, the more freedom you have to be choose for yourself whom it is you will remain accountable to. Some people might say that when you are an adult that you are accountable to yourself. Sadly, some people try to live that way too—without being accountable to anyone else. But relationships which grow in discipleship are relationships of accountability.

Let us encourage one another

Fifth phrase (also a subcategory of number three). Finishing verse 25: Let us encourage one another. Growing relationships of inward discipleship means that we pursue ways to build one another up. Encouragement can happen in couple ways. Sometimes encouragement comes with intentional words. We meet for coffee and talk, we call on the phone, we write a note, we send a card, we shoot off a text message. These are all ways that we have before us of communicating encouragement. Sometimes it’s accidental, meaning it just happens on its own. But growing relationships of inward discipleship reaches out with intentional encouragement. Make room in your life to encourage others on purpose. The other way that encouragement can happen is with intentional actions. Sometimes encouragement is more than words, it’s doing something, it’s showing up, it’s being there. Often we express this with actions like providing a meal, giving a ride, completing a chore.

Living back in Michigan again after many years away, I am aware again of just how many different kinds of trees are native to this area. My house is in a rather wooded area with many large maples and oaks that I am sure have been growing there for a long, long time. Strong wind storms tend to make me a little bit nervous about limbs coming down from the many large trees which grow near my house. Right here at the church we experienced a few limbs snapping off in the last ice storm we experienced. But for the most part, trees here are pretty strong and can mostly withstand a pounding of ice and wind.

Maybe some of the strongest trees that come to mind are the famous giant sequoia trees that grow in northern California. The giant sequoias are the tallest and oldest trees in the world. In fact, of the top ten tallest living trees on the planet today, five of them are in the same forest grove in California. One of the largest of them has a trunk that measures 70 feet in diameter at the base. That’s a tree trunk that is almost as big as the floorspace of this room we’re sitting in right now. The oldest of the sequoia trees is more than 3500 years old. These are some pretty strong trees. To be around that long and the to grow that big must take some massive strength. How many wind storms does a tree experience in 3500 years? And there they still are, whole forests of them in California. The sequoias once had groves that stretched over two million acres before the first American pioneers started clearcutting the forests for lumber.

I imagine that a tree which can grow to a height of 300 feet and have a trunk girth of 150 feet around must have roots that push right to the core of the earth. How else can a tree that big and that old possibly still be standing? It seems like this is the perfect place for me to make some brilliant spiritual application about the necessity of strong roots and healthy foundation in order to grow as spiritual giants in our world.

Except none of that is true. The giant sequoia trees of northern California grow in the rocky steep slopes of the Sierra mountains. The sequoia trees there actually have rather small root systems. There is not much at all holding them in the ground. Which leaves a little bit of a mystery. With such weak roots, how did they all get so big? How are they all able to keep surviving so long among year-after-year of wind and storms? The answer is the grove. Giant sequoia trees all grow fairly close together massed within tight groves. It’s not the roots that help keep the sequoia trees in place, it’s the other trees around them that help hold them all up. A sequoia tree is able to keep growing on shallow roots because the limbs of the other sequoias give stability. And the tree that depends on other trees to stay upright and keep growing is—at the same time—providing that exact same stability for all those other trees as well. It’s amazing, really, that the largest and oldest living trees on the planet are only the largest and the oldest because they grow together in a forest grove.

Those of us here who are white middle-class Americans tend to place a very strong value upon independence, that we are all self-reliant individuals in charge of our own lives. Part of growing up and becoming an adult is being able to do things on your own and being able to provide for yourself. You have to learn how to be responsible and take care of yourself and do things on your own without having to depend on others.

I wonder how much we have taken that same white middle-class value of independence and made it a value which applies to our faith as well? I wonder how much we have taken the idea of a personal relationship with Jesus and turned it into a private relationship with Jesus? In this private, personal relationship I have with Jesus, it is the strong roots of my own faith that hold me up. Of course, it is God who strengthens and nourishes my soul. It is God who provides for my spiritual well-being. But somewhere inside I hold onto this idea that the primary way in which God does these things for my faith is through my own spiritual roots.

The author of Hebrews is telling us something quite different today. The Bible is telling us that the strength of faith and the spiritual growth which God provides for us does not come primarily through the strength and growth of our own spiritual roots. No. God provides strength and growth for our souls by giving us the surrounding of other faithful souls to stand among. We grow in faith and grow in discipleship because we grow together in community—we grow relationships.

Who is your grove? Where is your forest? Where are the relationships to which you make yourself accountable to hold you up? And who are the other people for which you take a piece of responsibility for holding them up? Inward discipleship depends on growing those relationships.