Draw Near, Hold Fast, Stir Up (Hebrews 10:19-25) with Pastor Andrew Courtis

Please join me in prayer.

Our gracious and loving Lord, we thank you for what we have been able to declare this morning.

I pray that this would go beyond such beautiful words to sing with people we love.

But I pray that we would truly be gripped by the meaning of those words and by your hand would live that out and would spread that across this world.

Give us your hand of help now as we open your word.

I pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Turn with me in your Bibles this morning to the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 10, and our reading will be from verses 19 through to 25.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

Hebrews chapter 10, and we begin in verse 19.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

And I want you to note that this is the beginning of the practical section of the epistle to the Hebrews.

We've looked at the foundation, and now we're going to see the structure.

Or perhaps we could say we've considered the root.

Now we're going to experience the fruit of this incredible message.

Hebrews 10, beginning in verse 19.

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us through the veil, that is his flesh.

And having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled 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 one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.

Every single human being was born to worship, and no human being needs to be taught how to worship.

We come hardwired as worshippers.

Now this shouldn't surprise us because Ecclesiastes 3 and verse 11 tells us that God has put eternity in our hearts.

The heart of every human being is longing to worship.

But the sad thing is, in our sinfulness, we distort the good desire.

And we end up worshiping the creature instead of the creator.

We believe the lie.

We exchange the truth of God for it.

And we end up worshiping the good things that God has made, but not the God who made them.

Sometimes we may even deceive ourselves into thinking that we're worshiping God, but the problem is it's a wrong kind of worship.

We're not worshiping God the way he wants to be worshipped.

And no matter how sincere and sweet and lovely it may be to our feelings, it is not good worship.

What is worship?

Worship, as it's been said by one scholar, is resembling what you revere.

Or perhaps to say it another way and stretch that out a little bit, worship is simply devoting yourself to what you love.

What you love has so taken a grip of you that it actually changes the way you order your life.

I don't bow before them.

I'm far more advanced than that.

But we worship sport, we worship friendships, we worship career, we worship our money, we worship our bodies, we worship our cravings.

We are all worshipers, and we revolve our life around what we love the most.

God has made us to be worshipers, we were born to worship, but we've distorted the good gift.

But the good news in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is that we have been born again to worship, and we have been shown a new and living way in which we are able to submit those distorted desires and have them renewed by God's grace with the Spirit of God living in us, so that we are now able to offer up that longing and passion that is embedded into our hearts, and we are able to now revere and respond to God.

We are now able to resemble Him and live for Him and enjoy Him.

We know that that is the chief end of man.

It's to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

But the only way in which that can be done is by means of the beautiful work that our Lord Jesus Christ has once and for all accomplished for us.

We cannot be a part of true, meaningful, God-glorifying worship if we do not receive the cleansing power of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, I want to remind you as we come to the passage that we're going to look at together this morning, that this epistle to the Hebrews has been quite the journey.

It is a profound book, it is a deep book.

But what we must not lose sight of is the great message in the first part of Hebrews.

Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1, all the way through to 1018, can be summarized with a simple sentence.

Hebrews 1:1

Are you ready for it?

Jesus is better.

If you just get that in your mind, you've got Hebrews chapter 1 to 1018 down.

Hebrews 1 · chapter mention

Jesus is better than the angels.

Jesus is better than Moses.

He is the better sacrifice.

That's what the writer has been laboring to establish.

Jesus is better.

But if that's how we would summarize Hebrews 1.1 to 10.18, how do we then summarize Hebrews 10.19 to the end of chapter 13?

It would be this therefore live for him.

So if we could summarize Hebrews in a small sentence, it is Jesus is better, therefore live for him.

That's the message of Hebrews.

And I hope that's the heart that you're going to have as we move into this practical section.

But before you do the living for him, you first of all need to know him.

You need to belong to him.

You need to know why he is better than anyone or anything else in this world.

You need to gaze at his greatness and glory.

You need to be in awe of his majesty and his loveliness.

My chief purpose as a pastor is to preach Christ to you and for you to see his majesty and his magnificence.

I want to be very clear.

Any other message will not matter.

One day you will stand before the Lord.

Even before that day, one day you may experience a horrible affliction.

You may go through times of great trial.

Trauma may break into your life.

And what you need more than anything else in those moments is to be able to cling to the glory and greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To know that He is your great high priest, that He is interceding for you, that He is preparing a place for you, and that He is going to come again in power and glory.

And that is what the writer to the Hebrews has been laboring to show his readers.

He is calling for them to persevere in the Christian life.

But he doesn't want them to do it in their own steam.

He wants them to do it because they belong to Christ.

He is the king.

He is the great high priest.

He is the prophet.

We must submit to him as our king.

We must serve him as our priest.

And we must listen to him as our prophet.

This is the great message of Hebrews.

And what the writer does in verses 19 down to verse 21 is he summarizes this incredible work that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished for us.

Listen carefully to what he says, therefore, brethren, on the basis of everything that I have been telling you about as to why Jesus is better and what Jesus has accomplished for you and for me, he reminds his readers that they have boldness to enter the holiest.

This is a reference to the throne room of God.

You have confidence and boldness to enter the holiest place in the universe.

And on what basis do you have the confidence to do that?

Not in yourself, not in your accomplishments, in your works or in your deeds, or in your family connection, or how long you've been in a church, or how little you've been in a church.

No, the the basis of your confidence to enter the holiest, he says, is by the blood of Jesus.

Jesus gave himself up as the once and for all sacrifice for our sins.

He atoned for our sins.

And as a result of this sacrifice of himself that the Lord Jesus Christ made, he has now opened up the way into the holiest.

And what you need to remember here is that imagery of the tabernacle.

You remember in the tabernacle, there was the most holy place.

Of course, only the high priest could go in there once a year, but there was a curtain blocking that most holy place.

And this veil was showing a visual to say no access.

In fact, the access was highly restricted to that great high priest once a year, but only as he followed the strict procedures.

And if you entered into that most holy place, you would die.

And if the high priest went into that most holy place inappropriately and didn't follow the pattern and the procedures that the Lord had given, no matter how nice of a guy he would be, he would die.

God would strike him down.

That's serious, isn't it?

But we're told that the holiest has now been opened.

And there is now a new and living way, not a way in which you're going to die on, a new and living way.

And what we're told here is this new and living way has been consecrated, it has been made holy by means of what Christ has done.

And it says it is through the veil that is his flesh.

So picture this: there is the most holy place, but the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ has been torn for us so that we now have access into the most holy place.

This pathway that you and I can now figuratively walk on and have access into this most holy place.

It's new, it's living, it's consecrated, but it came by means of Christ, and he's once and for all sacrifice.

And then he adds that not only do you have this access, but the house of God is overseen now by the great high priest, and it's Jesus Christ.

He has a people that he has purchased with his own blood.

They are precious to him, they were given to him, he has secured their salvation, and he presides over the house of God.

This is why Jesus Christ and Him alone is the head of the church.

You do not own the church, I do not own the church, no institution owns the church.

Jesus Christ in him alone is the one who is over the house of God.

And as the writer gives us this incredible image at the backdrop at the start of this passage, showing us the beautiful access that we have to the holiest place in the universe, the pathway that is new and living, consecrated and holy, with a high priest who is there over us, who loves us and has purchased us with his own blood, the writer is now going to say, You have a responsibility then as the people of God.

And what I want you to ask yourself right now is, knowing that you have access to the holiest place, knowing what it costs the Lord Jesus Christ to secure it, what should we then do?

What should you do?

Well, I want you to see three exhortations, three words of encouragement that compel us and call us to carry out a responsibility.

And what I love about this responsibility is it's not done in isolation.

He repeats a uh formula, and I want you to see it in verse 22, verse 23, and verse 24.

It's the words, let us let us.

Here he is assuming that we are committed to the community of God's people, that we belong to a household, and that you're not in this by yourself.

And in this household, you have a responsibility, but do not separate the responsibility from the redemption.

The redemption is what makes the responsibility possible, but it's also what makes it powerful.

What is the responsibility you have?

What is the collective responsibility that we have as the children of God?

He says, Let us draw near, let us hold fast and let us stir up.

Well, we're going to look at these three responsibilities one at a time.

And I hope that you can see the privilege behind each of these responsibilities.

I hope that your heart is filled with a strong desire to embrace these.

I hope that the Lord also convicts us of where we're failing in these, so that we can humbly come before Him and ask the Lord to forgive us and cleanse us so that we would make use of these privileges and responsibilities that we've given.

There are many things that people will say today about what a church should or shouldn't do.

But let's not miss the simplicity and the clarity and the directness of these three responsibilities.

Let us draw near, let us hold fast, and let us stir up.

Let's look at the first one.

Let us draw near.

When I read verse 22, I am struck by what I think is the greatest and most beautiful invitation you could ever receive.

I'm sure you've received many invitations over the years.

Some of them maybe not that significant, but perhaps a few that are really important.

First of all, I find any invitation exciting when it's just got my name on it.

It doesn't really matter what it is, even if it's just from the real estate agent.

Invitations make you feel special.

It's got your name on it.

But how much more special is an invitation when you can tell it's got very fancy writing?

And then you open it up and you begin to think, I think I know what this is.

And you read it, and it's someone you know, it's someone you love, it's someone who's very precious to you.

And they're inviting you to be a part of something that is really important to them.

And because they're important to you, their event is also very important.

It's an absolute privilege to be invited to something.

Maybe some of you have been invited to things that are actually very exclusive, things that are truly once in a lifetime moments.

An invitation is precious.

It's a real privilege, isn't it?

But no invitation in this world begins to compare to the beauty of what verse 22 says.

Let us draw near.

Draw near to what?

Draw near to God.

Draw near to the throne of God.

Draw near to our heavenly Father.

Draw near to the Maker of heaven and earth.

You are invited to come and to draw near.

And I want you to notice the basis in which this is done.

We can't draw near by ourselves because the scriptures tell us, left to ourselves, there is none who seeks after God.

There is none who is good, none righteous.

If we were left to ourselves, we would never seek after God.

We would never draw near to Him.

We would be too focused on ourselves.

We would be too busy worshiping the creature instead of the creator.

We would be living for our agenda, our way.

Our three favorite people get all the attention: me, myself, and I.

But something new has happened for the child of God.

We've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

And on the basis of this new and living relationship with Christ, an invitation from heaven has come.

It's got your name on it with gold letters.

But when you see the name that's signed it, it's written in blood.

It was very expensive for you to be able to come to the most holy of places.

But the price was not gold and silver.

It was the life of the Lord Jesus.

But he bids you come.

Let us draw near, says the writer.

Let us go, let us enter, let us go into this holy place, but let us do it together.

Who are the ones who come?

Only those who have a true heart in full assurance of faith.

This heart was once darkened by sin.

This heart, as a result of its ugly rebellion to the law of God, even had an evil conscience.

And that evil conscience reminded the heart of its wickedness, but the heart in its wickedness ignored that conscience and didn't care.

But this heart is now called a true heart.

What made it a true heart?

What gave it full assurance of faith?

The full assurance of faith is saying that we can be absolutely encouraged, built up, and certain that we have access to God because our entry is on the basis of what we're believing in.

Faith is directed in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But what changed this heart?

How did this heart become new?

Notice two things.

The heart was sprinkled from an evil conscience.

You've got the imagery of the high priest who has this blood and he sprinkles it upon the people.

And sprinkling this blood is showing that a substitutionary sacrifice has taken place.

But this very act of sprinkling this blood is showing a cleansing is taking place.

And not only has this heart been sprinkled from an evil conscience, their bodies have been washed with pure water.

And that's what the beauty of Christian baptism symbolizes.

What we have here is a beautiful description in the context of covenantal language.

This was the promise of Jeremiah 31.

We also see it in the book of Ezekiel that God is promising this cleansing that is going to take place.

And what we see here is we get to draw near, we get to approach the throne of God.

We get to worship him.

We get to pray to him.

We get to sing to him.

Because our hearts have been sprinkled by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We've been cleansed and we've been washed.

We've been made new.

And all of this is on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ.

We did nothing to do anything that would enable us to be able to draw near, but Christ, He did it all.

We have this picture of this true heart.

Once ugly, once disobedient, once focused on itself, made clean.

Forgiven.

Forgiven of all.

No longer condemned.

It's a true heart.

The emphasis of a true heart also reveals that it comes in spirit and in truth.

There is an absolute holy sanctified sincerity.

This heart doesn't draw near to God out of a show.

It doesn't draw near to God to gain acceptance.

This heart draws near to God because it loves him.

It's grateful to him.

With humility, yet with eagerness, receives the invitation from heaven that says, Come.

And the writer says to his congregation, let us draw near.

I want you to remember that you can draw near privately, but we also draw near corporately.

You need to take time in the quietness of your own life to draw near to God.

You need to go to that quiet place and pray.

You're to pour your heart out to Him.

You're to thank Him.

You're to adore Him.

You're to supplicate before Him.

You're to bring all your needs and requests.

But we are to also do that corporately.

We are to draw near to God with the people of God.

But I want you to know that if you have not gone via the new and Living Way, then you can't draw near to God.

Jesus said in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father but through me.

That's why we cling to Christ.

But then he goes on and gives us a second exhortation.

We're not only to draw near with this true heart, but we are to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.

This imagery of holding fast tells us that there is something that we are to hold on tightly to.

And this is the imagery that he used earlier on in chapter 6, where he tells us that we have an anchor as the people of God.

But unlike a normal nautical anchor, our anchor doesn't get thrown out of a boat down into the water.

But the anchor of the Christian life attached to a rope goes up and it goes through a veil and it goes into the holiest place.

And that anchor is fastened to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And He holds the rope of our hope.

And He is pulling us to glory.

And what we're told here is that we are to hold fast.

Let us hold on tightly.

But what we're holding on to is the work of Christ.

We're holding on to what He has accomplished.

We're clinging to Him.

And this is why it's called hope.

It's a hope because what Christ has accomplished, what Christ is doing will unfold.

The victory of the Lamb is occurring and it will be seen by all.

We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

That is our confession.

We proclaim that Christ is Lord.

He is our great high priest.

He is the only savior of sinners, and we are to cling to him.

And in clinging to him, we are to do so without wavering.

That reminds us that there will be times where we do waver.

We do shake.

We do compromise.

We get tempted to go after other things.

And we start stepping backwards.

Before we know it, we're no longer holding on to that.

We're holding on to other things.

But the problem is if we hold on to anything other than Christ, it's like holding on to sand.

We think we have a firm grip of it, but try holding sand in your hand and holding on to it all day.

It will start slipping through your fingers.

And before you know it, you won't have as much as what you think.

And the moment you open it all up, it will just fall out of your hand.

Well, that's how foolish it is for us to hold on to the things of this world.

They may look attractive, they may please us, they may gratify our cravings.

But the things of this world are passing pleasures.

They will slip through our fingertips.

Even the good things of this world, don't hold on to them for your hope.

If you are relying on your looks, you are going to get old.

If you're relying on your wealth, you're not going to bring it with you.

You're going to have to give it away.

If you're relying on your friendship group, they're going to make other friends.

If you're relying on your health, you are going to get sick and afflicted one day.

If you're relying on any of these things, these things can be good gifts from God.

But our hope, our holding firm is not to be these things.

It's to be Christ.

For Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Cling to Christ, hold fast to Him, and as we hold fast to Him without wavering, we then enter a ride of a lifetime.

Hold on to that rope, and Christ will pull you home.

You will go through storms, but He will not let go of the rope.

You will go through times of darkness, but He will be there in the valley of the shadow of death.

Christ will ever be with you, and we're told that we ought to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.

And why should we not waver?

Why should we say we can be certain?

Why should we say we should be confident?

Why should we cling to Him and not look to anything else other than Him?

Because the text says, For He who promised is faithful.

He has made a promise in His beautiful work of redemption.

And Christ has come true on all that He said He would do.

This is the reason why our trust is in Him.

This cannot be said of any of us.

This is why we need the Lord Jesus to have access to the glorious throne.

He is faithful.

He has proven himself to be faithful to you even when you've been unfaithful to Him.

When you have chased after things that dishonor Him, when you speak against the things that He speaks well of.

When you speak favorably of the things that He doesn't speak favorably of.

Yet He's remained faithful.

What a humbling reality, isn't it?

To think that all of our unfaithfulness has been responded to with Christ's faithfulness.

He loves his own and he loves them to the end.

John 13, 1.

He will not lose one that has been given to him.

He is the faithful shepherd.

He knows his sheep's voice.

He has the flock that has been given to him, but he also knows there is a flock who will come and join his flock, that they be one flock with one shepherd.

He knows all of his sheep that were given to him before the foundation of the world.

He secured them by his blood.

Christ is faithful.

He is faithful in his life.

He was faithful in his death, and he continues to faithfully carry out his ministry as our prophet, priest, and king.

Knowing that we have Christ who is faithful, or to encourage us to say, Yes, let us hold on.

Let us hold fast to our confession.

Let us stand with brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus and together remind them, yes, let's hold on.

When someone is wavering and saying that they're beginning to chase things that are compromising, when people are beginning to live disorderly lives, when people are living in a way that's not pleasing to the Lord Jesus, we get alongside them and say, brother, sister, hold on.

Hold on.

Because if you hold on to those other things, it will bring devastation.

There may be other ropes from this world, but you don't know what they're attached to.

But what we do know is they're not attached to Christ.

They will not drag you to glory.

They will bring you down.

They will bring you down into the oceans of this world.

They'll bring you into darkness.

They'll bring you into guilt.

They'll bring you into regret.

They'll bring pain into your life.

They'll bring devastation into people's lives.

So many people will reach out for the ropes that this world offers.

But the writer says, no, let us hold fast to the rope of true hope that is anchored to Christ.

Cling to him.

But finally, he gives us the third exhortation, verse 24, and let us consider one another in order to stir up.

The main command there is stir up, but in order to do this, we need to consider.

The word consider means to examine, to look at closely.

You can only consider believers if you actually spend time with them.

This is not talking about a sampling.

This is talking about a spending time with.

In order to consider the brethren, you ought to be praying with the brethren, you ought to be serving with the brethren, you ought to be spending time with them in various ways around the assembling of them.

We are to consider one another.

And when we look at each other closely, guess what we'll discover?

People will be easy to get along with, but also some won't be easy to get along with.

There will be those who are strong, there will be those who are weak.

But this is the people of God.

You just look at the little assembly the Lord Jesus formed among his disciples, and you've got a real mixed batch right there.

And so it is, as Christ continues to build his church, we begin to consider one another and we'll see beautiful things, but we'll see ugly things.

But you know what we need to remember?

Charles Spurgeon once said that the church, despite all her flaws, all her blemishes, all her neurotic ways, all of her areas that cause difficulties and tensions and hardships, Spurgeon said the church is the dearest place on earth.

And why did he say that?

He goes on to say, because Jesus loves the church.

And if I love Jesus, I love what he loves.

And how do we know Christ loved the church?

He gave himself up for her by purchasing her with his blood.

So the writer then says, not forsaking.

Excuse me, let us consider one another in order to stir up.

The word stir up by itself can actually be a negative term.

It could mean provoke and agitate.

But I'm glad he didn't stop there.

He tells us what kind of provoking we should be doing.

I think we're hardwired to be able to stir each other up in an ungodly way.

I don't think any of us need to do a course on how to annoy someone.

We don't need to undertake a series of membership classes to say this is how you can get under the skin of fellow members at EBC.

No one has to sign up for that because we already know how to do that.

We need to learn to do the opposite.

We need to learn how to stir up for love and good works.

That's what the text says.

We need to be able to get alongside and say, I'm going to stir you up.

I'm going to provoke within you a longing to love the Lord Jesus Christ more and to love the church more.

I'm going to get alongside you and stir you up so that you start showing good works in the life of the church.

And those good works will involve a life of submission to the word of God, a life of commitment to prayer when the church gathers to pray.

You're going to be there because you know you need Christ.

You're going to be there when someone has a need.

You're going to be not spreading unhelpful things to one another.

You're going to be spreading helpful things to one another that helps people grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

The writer says that we are to consider one another, to stir up love and good works.

Here's a big question.

When people walk away from you, does that person walk away saying, wow, I just love Christ more now and I love the unlovely more?

Or has that person walked away agitated?

If you are not building people up and showing people the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ, if the fruit of the Spirit isn't bursting out of your life, then you're not doing what this text says.

We are to stir each other up for love and good works.

Christ died so that we would be in the household of God.

Don't provoke the household of God so that people aren't loving the Lord Jesus more and serving each other more.

One of the ways in which this is neglected is seen in verse 25.

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some.

It's really sad.

Evidently, in this church, as the writer wrote this, there were some who would forsake the assembling together.

We're not talking about people who are sick or afflicted or going through a genuine trial.

This is talking about those who are deliberately deciding not to gather.

And we have the same problem in our world today.

People will forsake the assembling together of the people of God because they'll be lazy.

Some will forsake the assembling because they're bitter.

Some will forsake the assembling because they've got other priorities.

Might involve TV, it might involve sports, it might involve quote-unquote homework, it might involve all sorts of things, but they forsake the assembling together.

And if they could only have a grip of what this text says, church is not about you.

Gathering's not about how you feel.

Gathering is what God has commanded so that the people of God would learn to love Christ more and build one another up.

And we have a living access.

The question is: if you have been bought by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and you've been invited to draw near with others who've been bought by that same blood, why would you not gather?

Why would you not come together?

And the gathering isn't just sitting there listening, by the way, it is coming with a heart that says, I am eager to engage in worship and pour myself into the lives of others around me.

And it doesn't matter if you're an extrovert or introvert, we can all do it in our own ways.

You don't have to be loud about those things.

You can just quietly be a blessing.

Forsaking the assembling of ourselves means that you are removing yourself from the preaching of the word of God.

You're removing yourself from the public reading of the scriptures.

You're removing yourself from the public prayers.

You're removing yourself from the practice of the ordinances.

You are removing yourself from the engaged singing of praise to God.

You are withdrawing deliberately from the appointed means of grace that God has appointed to help you grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Christ has provided all of that for you by means of his precious blood.

And the writer then challenges, says, This has been the manner of some.

There are actually some who are choosing to forsake the assembling together.

And he says, But don't do this.

Exhort one another, he says, encourage one another.

And that means we ought to be actually lovingly and tenderly and patiently challenging each other.

When we do see these decisions being made in which people aren't drawing near the way that they ought to be, we out of love ought to challenge them on that.

Not out of legalism.

Legalism, we're not hate legalism.

No, no, no.

Out of a love for the Lord Jesus, and out of a love for what the Lord Jesus loves, we are to exhort.

And he reminds them that there is an urgency in this exhortation because so much more he says, as you see the day approaching.

The day is approaching, he says.

What day?

Well, I think this has a jewel fulfillment.

The people that he were writing to, some of them were tempted to go back to the Jewish system of sacrifices and procedures in the temple.

And very soon the day was coming in which that temple would be destroyed utterly.

In 70 AD, there would be a day of destruction.

That day was approaching.

And to go after those things, and then to suddenly be faced with that judgment would have been most devastating.

But I think ultimately he's pointing beyond that, and he is talking about that future glorious day in which the Lord Jesus Christ will personally, imminently, visibly return in power and in glory.

And ultimately, in the Lord's return, he will bring judgment and fury to all of his enemies.

And anyone who does not believe and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ will experience the fullness of his fury.

He will return.

And we are to remember that that day is approaching.

The day is at hand.

The Lord's coming will occur.

It is our blessed hope, and the reality of the return of Jesus Christ ought to say to us, knowing that our Lord is returning, how much more then should we draw near, hold fast, and stir each other up and not forsake the assembling together.

Friends, if we really understand what the Lord Jesus Christ has once and for all accomplished, if we really understand what He is doing in this world from the right hand of the throne of God, then we would be highly committed to these exhortations.

And here's the exciting thing that when we actually obey them and carry them out with a humble and holy heart, with no agenda other than saying, I want to draw near on the basis of the blood of Christ and commit myself to the blessing of partaking in the life of the church, then we begin to have a foretaste of what will one day be experienced in his fullness.

One day we will be gathered with those from every tribe, every nation, every language, of people who have been purchased by the blood of the Lord Jesus, and joined by all the hosts of heaven, we will forever sing, salvation belongs to the Lord, and we will sing of the victory of the Lamb.

In the meantime, we have the privilege and joy to anticipate that, and our weekly gathering is a reminder of what we're going to eternally experience.

The question for us is: are you gazing at Christ?

If you know who Christ is, then draw near.

Hold on and stir up, and let's help each other in that privileged task.

Our gracious and loving Lord, I thank you for this new and living way that has been opened up and made accessible by our Lord Jesus.

Help us by your gracious hand.

You know full well how much we struggle in these areas.

You know our failings, you know our weaknesses, but we thank you that we do have a high priest who ever lives to intercede for us.

So we bring before you our weakness, we bring before you our failures, and we ask that he would continue to enable us to help each other live out this Christian life all to the glory and honor of Christ.

I thank you in our Savior's name.

Amen.