Sermon Tone Analysis

Hebrews 10:19-25 | Let Us ... Do Church

Good morning.

We are back in Hebrews this morning in a series we've called, Greater Than.

In this series, we are reminded that Jesus is greater than anything or anyone.

We're in chapter 10 this morning and will cover verses 19-25.

I think it is safe to say that overall church attendance has decreased over time, even by those who claim to be committed Christians.

I personally love church and hate to miss it.

While sometimes it's unavoidable and there are good reasons for missing, other times it isn't, and we make excuses for why we missed it.

So, thoughtfully, our friends at the Babylon Bee have provided 12 more excuses and a bonus one from me, just in case you've run out:

1) The worship leader keeps singing in keys that are way too high for normal humans to sing in: How are you supposed to worship God in a too-high key?

UGH!

2) You just, like, don't feel like you've been getting anything out of the sermons lately and stuff: This is entirely the pastor's fault.

3) The band is playing "Oceans" again this week: Please, make it stop!

4) You need to find socks and shoes for ALL your kids to wear: An impossible task before 9 AM.

5) There's a sermon series on sin and you don't need that kind of negativity in your life: You're probably not that much of a sinner anyway... probably.

6) Greeters: You're an introvert, yet the church still posts greeters at the door.

This is abuse.

7) Those stale cut-in-half [bagels] are too tempting: Today isn't the day to ruin your 7-day keto streak.

8) COVID: That's still a thing, right?

Yeah, COVID.

9) You got in a big argument with your spouse this morning and you're still mad: It may be too hard to fake a convincing smile to the greeters.

10) Your church started offering gluten-free communion options: And you're not into all that "woke" [stuff].

Don't worry, we've stopped doing that.

11) Some weird visitor was sitting in your [seat] last week: You just can't deal with that awkwardness again.

12) You listened to some worship music this morning and that pretty much counts as church: Church isn't a building, after all, right?

13) I went to church last week: I mean, God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, right?

Obviously, that was all in fun, but the reality is, many professing Christians no longer regularly attend church and have lost the value that church attendance really brings to the Christian.

Hopefully this morning, in our passage, we will see why we go to church, and what that is supposed to look like.

Follow along as I read our passage this morning:

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.

Here is the main idea from our passage this morning:

Because of Jesus, we can confidently meet together in God's presence.

I am going to ask for a little audience participation here.

There are three exhortations in this passage.

An exhortation, by the way, is an urgent plea, or an emphatic urging to someone to do something.

I want you to help identify these exhortations.

I am going to give you a hint: "lettuce"

Say the word out loud and slowly.

That's right: "Let Us"

The writer here, is saying, "look, we've spent the better part of this letter speaking about Jesus replacing the old way of doing things, so because of this, "let us" ... draw near; hold fast; and consider how to stir up one another.

Once again, the writer, as a way to begin a new section, summarizes what we've learned so far.

One pastor in my studies this week identified two primary Old Testament passages that summarize what we've learned:

Psalm 110:4 and Jeremiah 31:31-34.

Psalm 110:4 of course identifies Jesus as the Hight Priest, and Jeremiah's passage, which we looked at last week and a few weeks ago, is all about the New Covenant, where we see through Jesus' sacrifice, the Old Covenant was made obsolete.

So, the writer here is telling us the "now what," or the action needed from us with this new understanding.

While I want to spend most of our time this morning on the "three heads of lettuce" as one pastor almost titled his sermon on this passage, I do want touch on the "therefore" section first, answering the question of ...

WHY WE CAN BE CONFIDENT

First, this word confidence speaks to a boldness in speech.

It is to say, now ...

* We can boldly approach God in prayer.

o Think about it.

Under the old system, only the High Priest, once per year, had access to the Most Holy place.

When Jesus died, as we saw in Matthew 27:51, the veil was torn, which now the writer is saying that Christ's death removed that veil that once separated us from God

o Jesus, as the High Priest, now sitting at the right hand of God, in a way invites us into the Most Holy place because His blood has cleansed us from sin

* Jesus' death is the new and living way

o Verse 20 reveals this phrase to us.

o Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest paraphrases it this way: "He [Jesus] inaugurated for us, a road freshly slain and living"

* So, this idea of "new" relates directly to the death of Christ, that final sacrifice, which via the resurrection, leads to life

o Once again, removing all barriers, removing all unholiness before a Holy God

Once again, the writer of Hebrews is reiterating what we've learned already, and allowing us to now know what:

OUR RESPONSE TO BEING MADE CLEAN

Here is where we get back to the "lettuce" passages:

* We draw near to God.

o If this sounds somewhat familiar to you, you have a remarkable memory, as we did see a very similar exhortation back in Hebrews 4 which Pastor Pat covered last September.

* There, we learned that; the verb "draw near" is a compound word that literally means "to come facing forward".

And we are exhorted to do that "with confidence".

That phrase literally means "all speech," which ties us back to what we saw moments ago, as we now have confidence through prayer.

* Noteworthy, this exhortation, just as the next two, are all present tense verbs, which means we are to keep on doing this.

o Imagine getting a new car.

But since you are so afraid to get it dirty, or for the value to diminish, or you're afraid to wreck it, you just leave it in the garage to look at every once and awhile.

* That would be quite silly

* Instead, you should enjoy that car

o If we are followers of Jesus, we cannot simply sit back and enjoy the view, we are to be active participants.

o Notice too what the writer does here.

* The writer draws us back to verse 19 and that confidence that we now have:

* Because he is addressing Christians here, he says that we draw near with a TRUE HEART.

* What we'll this week and next is that there are really two possible responses to those who have heard the truth and have understood the truth.

o First, what we are seeing today, the marks of committed and deliberate believer

o Second, what we will see next week, those who have possibly drifted away, or are in danger of doing so, which we saw way back in Hebrews chapter 2.

o We will see this more clearly next week, but the writer here is setting up one of these warning passages in the epistle, again introduced to us back in chapter 2.

* In speaking to those with a TRUE HEART, he is also speaking to those who have full assurance.

o Full assurance is directly tied to the phrase "SPRINKLED CLEAN FROM AN EVIL CONSCIENCE AND OUR BODIES WASHED WITH PURE WATER"

* Many people take this verse to speak of baptism.

* However, if you look at the context of Hebrews as a whole, the writer is contrasting the ritualistic cleansing with the finality of us being cleansed in Christ alone.

* I believe that is what is being spoken about here.

An internal purification, and the external expression of that purification, which we see here with these exhortations.

o Therefore, we can have FULL ASSURANCE of our faith because Jesus has already declared it to be so.

o The next exhortation is to:

* Hold fast the confession of our hope.

o Holding fast, once again is something we saw back in September while looking at the final verses of chapter 4.

o We learned then that, the verb "hold fast" means "to cling to something tenaciously, with all one's strength," and that the word "confession" is used here in Hebrews in the sense of our "profession" of our faith in Jesus.

o The troubling part of this verse (verse 23) is the idea of "WITHOUT WAVERING."

* This is huge.

Think about it.

The wavering that the Hebrews were facing at the time was their uncertainty of Christ's final work and going back to Judaism under the old system

* Unfortunately, churches waver on cultural issues regularly

* This month is June, and everywhere you turn, we see this idea of "pride."

Of course, this directly ties to the LGBTQ+ community.