The Way of Encouragement | The One Another Way - Hebrews 10:23-25 | Travis Jones

All right, church.

This is a blessing to sing and meet, man.

I just thank you.

Thank you for being here.

It means something.

The gathering of the church, the gathering of the saints for the purpose of worshiping his name, learning about him through his revealed word.

And so glad you're here.

I would invite you at this time, if you would, if you have your Bible, if you would open it up or a Bible app.

And I want you to go to the book of Hebrews.

That's going to be in the New Testament towards the back latter portion, chapter 10, and we're going to pick up in verse 23.

You can follow along in your worship guide and you can take notes.

But today we are continuing in our series.

We began it last week.

It's entitled The One Another Way.

And what we're doing in this series is we're looking at eight of the one another commands found in the Bible.

These are commands given to Christians to show us how we are to relate to one another, how we are to treat one another.

There's over 50 of them.

If you were to read the New Testament and circle every one another, you would see there's over 50 of these commands.

Last week we began with what I believe is really the foundational one, it is we are to love one another.

Today we're going to continue by looking at encouraging one another.

Alright.

So as I was studying this, it made me think a lot about encouragement.

And so I just want to talk about encouragement for a moment because I thought to myself, you know, what exactly is encouragement?

What are some of the facts about encouragement?

And so I usually run it through my, you know, all I have is my own brain and stuff.

And here are some of the things that I have discovered about encouragement in my life.

Here's the first thing is this encouragement is powerful.

I believe it has more power than most of us even realize because in my life I found that sometimes the difference between quitting and continuing is that someone in my life encouraged me.

So I could say it this way there are things that I enjoy in my life now that I would not have had someone not encouraged me.

So it's powerful, right?

Not only is encouragement powerful, it is, and I think we all know this, it is needed.

Encouragement is a needed thing.

I want you to understand there's not a person here today who does not need encouragement.

You are not going to run into an individual who does not need encouragement.

In fact, I'll submit this to you.

If you're ever in a conversation and you don't know what to say, let me just suggest encourage them.

We all need encouragement.

Okay, so it's powerful.

It's changed directions of my life, right?

We all need it.

And the crazy thing about encouragement is it's not difficult to give.

It costs you zero.

Anyone can do it, and it cost us zero to give.

Now, you would think if something that's so powerful and something that is so needed, and something that is so easy to give, you might conclude that we must have an abundant supply of it.

It would make sense.

But that is not the world we live in.

There is not an abundant supply of encouragement.

There is not.

We live in a day where encouragement is very hard to find, and it really makes no sense.

Our culture, this isn't lost on any of you.

Sometimes I feel like I'm saying stuff that we all know, but man, our culture has become experts in tearing one another down.

We love to criticize.

Anybody can criticize, anybody can point out what is wrong.

We have our culture made it an art form, right?

We applaud people who can criticize in the most unique way.

But we're going to see today, church, God has not called us to be demolition experts, right?

He has called us as a people to build one another up, to encourage one another.

That is why Hebrews 10 is so needed.

It is something we we we need it.

We need to be doing it.

We need to be a people who are marked by doing it.

We need to be receiving it.

We need to be giving it.

We are to be building one another.

Encouragement is a ministry that we all ought to be involved in.

It is God's way of using God's people to encourage his people.

And so these it's three verses.

It's three verses.

And when it's three verses, you guys know we're going to be here a long time.

The fewer the verses, the longer I talk.

Listen, it's powerful.

We all need it.

It's easy to give.

Let's see what the author of Hebrews has to say.

Now he's writing to a church that has been greatly discouraged.

Let's get into it.

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 23.

Hebrews 10:23

We're going to begin this way.

Encouragement begins with hope.

Like almost every week I do this, I love to begin.

I think the text begins with kind of laying a foundation.

This is a foundation to encouragement.

Verse 23.

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

Now he's building this and he's going to land on encouragement.

But the first thing he tells us here is not a technique.

No, he says here that encouragement begins with hope.

So Christian encouragement isn't, I don't know, empty optimism.

Our encouragement, the foundation of it, is based in the character of God.

Let's just walk through this verse and we're going to see some key components to encouragement.

He begins this way.

He begins with two words.

Let us.

That's us.

That's us here at church.

Let us, let us.

We're all involved in this.

So it is not let me, it is not let you, it is let us together.

It's not, hey, you go over there, you try your best.

I'm gonna go over here, I'm gonna try my best.

And after we've both been out there trying our best, we're gonna get back together and compare notes.

No, we are all to be doing this together, right?

All right, so this is a corporate activity.

Well, what exactly are we to be corporately doing?

Next two words.

Let us corporately be what?

Holding fast.

All right, let's break that down.

Holding fast, they're strong words, right?

The verb is a picture of someone gripping something so tightly that they refuse to let it go.

I think we all get this.

I do.

I was thinking about things that we hold tightly, right?

And I think we all have things in our lives that we hold tightly.

I can give you examples.

Once again, I'm the best example.

Look, there's things I hold tightly.

I hold I hold my phone tightly.

I do.

I hold that phone, man.

Like I may not know where my keys are.

I may not know where my wallet is.

Dude, listen, one time I was in Target, I lost my son.

But you know what I didn't lose?

I did not lose my phone in Target.

Didn't lose that, man.

I was holding it tightly, man.

Some of you, some of you, some, you know, you you TV remote control.

There's every house has one individual who holds that that remote control like it's a family inheritance, you know.

They just they just own it, man.

But the author of Hebrew says there's something more important than holding that that little dirty phone, man, and and not that it's it's physically dirty is what I mean.

I'm not saying your phone's dirty, but yeah, there they can be disgusting, man.

You just hold on to that.

There's something more important than just gripping that TV remote.

We are to hold on to something specific.

So we all corporately hold fast, refuse to let go of what?

The next, the next what five words?

Hold fast the confession of your hope.

Hope, key word, right?

Okay, so what?

Okay, good question.

What is the confession that we are to hold on to?

Well, that's simple.

Our confession corporately is Jesus Christ is Lord.

That is our confession.

Confession means our public declaration.

We're not talking about something you whisper in a corner.

We're talking about a vocal allegiance to Lord God Almighty, an allegiance to Jesus Christ.

That is what we're to be holding fast to.

Our hope, yeah, amen.

You're right, man.

Our hope, our hope rests on the finished works of Jesus Christ and his sure return.

So, so, so we are not to hold fast to our feelings because our feelings fluctuate.

We're not to hold fast to our circumstances because they change.

We're to hold fast to the confession of hope, the unshakable promises of God.

And then he says another two curious words.

We corporately hold fast to the confession of our faith, and then he adds, without wavering.

That tripped me up some.

Because I thought about this.

How might it be, if I was already holding fast to something, why would I waver?

It almost seems as though he's giving us the same command twice, but it's not.

It's not the same.

Here's the deal, man.

So these Christians that this book is written to, this letter is written to, they're under intense persecution.

And I know you know this, but when you get persecuted, when things get difficult, when you feel the squeeze of the world around you, there is a possibility for you to shrink back, for you to drift away from Jesus, right?

Here's the deal.

When following Jesus costs you something, the flesh tends to drift from it.

And what do you do?

You start to, I don't know, you start to, you start to wobble.

And there's not a believer in here who has not wobbled at some time, man.

But he says, no, you hold fast without wavering.

Do not let your weariness talk you out of worship.

And we can do that.

Don't let your disappointment talk you out of doctrine.

Don't wobble.

Don't wobble, church.

Don't wobble.

Hold fast.

Why?

Okay, what that's a good question.

Why should we all hold fast to the confession of our hope without wobbling?

He says, last few words, for he that is God who made these promises is what?

It's in the text.

Faithful.

Yeah, he's faithful.

He's faithful.

God is faithful.

That is the foundation to biblical encouragement.

That is what we're getting at here.

It means, I believe, that encouragement from one another begins when we remind one another of the goodness of God.

When we remind one another of this faithfulness, we do that in multiple ways.

We do it verbally.

We do it with the hand, I mean, we do it with a hug, dude.

We do it, man.

But we ought to be, we need to be people who are encouraging one another.

And the greatest encouragement that anyone of us can have is the faithfulness of God.

He is good.

We come alongside people.

We help them hold on to that hope.

That hope of glory.

Jesus Christ is what?

The hope of glory.

You got to be reminded.

Man, I know that.

I know that.

I tell you what, this world can be beating me up, beating you up, and sometimes you start to get that wobble wobble.

I tell you right now, I need you.

You need me.

We come together.

We are to encourage one another.

So he begins that.

Now I want us to get to verse 24 because we're going to keep building on this.

That whole ideal.

That whole ideal of holding on.

All right.

He's going to say next, encouragement grows through thoughtfulness.

Thoughtfulness is a dying, I don't know, art form.

We're not necessarily known for our thoughtfulness.

I'm not.

I'm not.

Let me read this.

24.

He begins with the word and.

That means in addition to holding fast to the confession, in addition to that, let us, once again, all of us here, consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.

All right.

So in addition to holding fast to the confession of our hope, we are to consider one another.

That's all I do being thoughtful.

Being thoughtful.

Pay attention, man.

Means we're supposed to think carefully about one another, right?

We're supposed to study one another spiritually.

Not in a weird way, man.

I mean, you don't don't go up in the lobby and say, I am considering you.

That will not encourage anybody.

But we will call the cops, you know what I'm saying?

So you don't do that, right?

But the point is, is that encouragement grows when we're thoughtful, right?

You're gonna be thoughtful.

Thoughtful for other people, other brothers and sisters, right?

We're not accidentally thoughtful people.

We don't naturally, I'm just telling you, isn't it?

Once again, I use myself as an example.

I don't naturally consider other people first.

I I think about what I want, what I need.

I know I do this.

I know this.

I got I know I do this.

I'm gonna give you an example right now.

This is me.

This is me, man.

Oh, it's confession.

Look, so if I go out to a proper restaurant with friends, and when I say proper, proper means it's a restaurant that brings you chips.

All right, it's a proper restaurant.

So if I go out to a proper restaurant and the server puts chips on the table, my first thought is this are there enough for me?

You know what I'm saying?

Well, is that gonna be a sufficient supply?

Not only that, not only that, not only that, I look, I look, you guys will know this.

I look to see who grabs the first chip.

Because that's my competition, you know.

I naturally think about myself, man.

That's that's what I do.

I I a couple of weeks ago, I went out with these two guys.

We we ate we ate tacos.

We each of us and Gene and and and we we each got our own bag.

We don't share.

We we don't share chips.

We do not share chips.

We each get our own bag of chips because I naturally think about myself, and I understand that.

I don't want it, I don't want to be that way.

I don't want us to be that way.

I want us to be thoughtful, right?

Consider one another, right?

Think about the other people in the church, think about those around you, think about, man, our brothers and sisters.

Encouragement grows through thoughtfulness.

And then we're giving specifics.

What exactly are we to consider?

What exactly are we to be thoughtful about?

He says this, it's very specific.

How to stir up one another to love and good works, all right?

That means we're we consider, we're thoughtful, right?

How can I help that individual move forward in their faithfulness to Jesus Christ?

I observe them, I walk with them, I spend time with them, I think about their need, I consider, I want to encourage them, what will help them grow in their faith.

Now you get to that word stir up, and it's an interesting word.

It carries the meaning of provoking, you know, inciting.

It can even be translated as irritate, agitate, you know.

Now we all know, we all know individuals who, I don't know, agitate, but it's in a negative way.

We know that.

We get that.

It's not hard to find someone who's gonna stir you up to gossip.

It's not hard to find someone stir you up to be angry or divisive, you know.

That's not what he's talking about here.

He's talking about a holy provoking, you know, a holy agitating, you know.

That's what we're to be doing, right?

We are to have a deliberate effort to rouse others for for for obedience.

You get in this spiritual slumber.

We've all been in a spiritual slumber.

I need you, you need me to come alongside us and encourage us, to agitate us, to incite us towards holiness.

I need to be provoked.

Provoked.

You you ever been and you ever been around an individual who provokes you to be holy?

I have, and I I love it.

Actually, you all provoke me to be holy.

I'm just being here with the saints, man.

I am stirred, man.

And it's awesome.

God has appointed his people to be instruments to awaken and stir one another to love and good works.

That's what God has appointed.

I was thinking about this.

I don't know, man.

You ever hopefully you have.

I hope everyone here at one time in their life has started a campfire.

You need to if you haven't.

Um, but you start a fire, man, and when the fire starts getting low, you don't stand back from the fire and say, I don't know, that used to be a good fire.

You know, you don't criticize the fire.

That fire used to have some passion, it ain't got passion now, so I'm just gonna yell at it.

It doesn't work, man.

What do you do?

You gotta get a stick and you gotta stir it.

You gotta stir those embers, man.

You gotta add wood, you gotta add oxygen, and you know, we can be like that, like, right?

Like maybe the fire is not gone, but the fire is low.

The faith is still there, but it needs another individual in the body to come along and kind of agitate it, stir it up.

Church, come on, let's be a church that stirs it up.

Stir it up, be considerate, think on others.

How can you wholly provoke them?

How can they wholly provoke you?

And it's easy, man.

It's it's this is not a difficult thing to do.

I know sometimes we're going through the Bible and we talk about difficult things to do.

This is not one of them.

It's not difficult.

You can, man, you can text somebody.

Text, text, man.

I get provoked, wholly provoked by so many text, man.

In fact, you know what I'm gonna do?

Look, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you, I'll throw this out.

Don't do it if you don't want to, but this weekend, this week, get out your phone, just go through your your your contacts, and just start wholly provoking.

Just start provoking you, man.

You know what I'm saying?

We can do it.

You have a conversation, man.

Be a faithful example.

Guys, let me let me just tell you how easy this is.

I don't know.

This this it's just we've got to do this, but it's so easy.

It's beautiful outside.

It's beautiful.

I do this, well, at least once a week, sometimes more, but man, sometimes I just get with my buddies.

We just walk.

Listen, walking's a lost art form.

It really is.

But I'm telling you right now, you just call a dude up and say, hey, let's meet here, let's walk.

And you just walk and you walk and you just provoke them.

I get provoked all the time.

I'm walking, and these men are just telling me about Jesus and what Jesus is doing.

And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, dude, I want some of that.

I want some of that.

It's not difficult to do, but we are to be thoughtful.

We're to think on one another, how to agitate them, how to wholly provoke them.

Let's get to verse 25.

I'm gonna break it into two sections.

I want to look at the first part of verse 25.

So I want you to see this.

Encouragement happens through presence.

This is a beautiful verse.

I don't know.

It's a beautiful verse.

It may, it may, anyway, it may irritate you.

Uh this provokes you.

He says this, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some.

All right, so he's getting practical here, right?

He says, do not neglect meeting together.

That's what we're doing right here, okay?

Now you might think to yourself, why in the world in verse 25 is he bringing up church attendance?

Well, check out the flow.

Look at the flow.

Verse 23, he says, let us hold fast.

Verse 24, he says, let us consider.

Both of those mean you got to, I don't know, be together.

Does that make sense?

You can't, you can't, you can't let us, man.

You can't let us by yourself.

Yeah, let it's in the assembly.

It's when we are together.

It's this is what I call the let us life.

It's my favorite kind of let us, man.

You know what I'm saying?

Let us, let us together.

You cannot hold fast, you cannot consider others if you're not, if you're not, if you're not together.

You know what I'm saying?

Holding fast, being stirred, takes place in the assembly of the saints, and as you're doing your life together.

So encouragement requires presence.

It requires your presence, right?

You can't you can't encourage somebody you're never around.

I know, I know, I know.

We live in a world you can do almost anything from a distance.

You know, you can shop from a distance, you can work from a distance.

You can order food from a distance, and the introverts in the house all go, amen.

But hear me out.

Hear me out.

You can't encourage from a distance, man.

You gotta have to have that face-to-face.

Look, I tried this this week.

I tried to get encouragement without involving anybody else.

So I know how'd I do that?

Well, I I I talked to ChatGPT.

Here's what I did.

No, seriously, I'm gonna tell you, I got chat GP GPT.

I go, hey chat, I'm discouraged.

Would you please encourage me?

All right.

I'm just gonna tell you what chat told me.

Here's what chat said to me.

I'm sorry you're carrying that.

Take the next step.

Take the next faithful step.

Then he says, I don't know if female, I don't know what chat is, but you're not failing.

This is a fortune cookie, dude.

We're losing jobs to fortune cookies?

I'm like, what's up, what's that?

No, what does that mean?

Don't give up.

What do you mean, man?

Okay, well, I'll give you this.

Chat GPT can put some words on a screen.

Great.

But I'll tell you what, ChatGPT cannot do.

ChatGPT can't give me a huggy hug, you know that.

ChatGPT can't put their arm around me.

ChatGPT can't give me a hug.

It can't do that.

The writer says we need each other for encouragement.

Don't neglect this.

And then, oh, those last words.

I love this.

He says, as is the habit of some.

It's a habit.

That's interesting to me that even 2,000 years ago, some of our people got in the habit of not going to church.

It's not a new phenomenon.

It's as old as the church itself.

But this guy, the writer of Hebrews, says he looks at the church and he goes, Some of y'all got a bad habit, right?

And your bad habit isn't that you eat junk food.

Your bad habit isn't that you don't exercise enough.

Some of y'all's bad habit is you not going to church.

And he says, right there, my translation, knock it off.

That's what he's saying.

Just knock it off.

It's not helpful.

It's absolutely not helpful for your spiritual growth.

Isolation weakens your faith.

Isolation makes discouragement louder, and for real, the enemy loves an isolated Christian.

Let's just go back to the fire.

Yeah, the fire.

You pull a coal away from the fire and it will cool faster.

Believers away from the body cool faster.

They're easier to deceive.

We cannot, we cannot, we cannot get past this truth.

Presence matters.

Your presence matters.

Your presence matters for you.

I'm going to push into this because I want you to know this.

Your presence matters for others.

It does.

You being here matters for others, right?

You are a receiver of encouragement here, and you are a giver of it.

There's always someone here who needs your presence here.

There's always someone here who needs to be encouraged.

There's always someone here who needs your handshake, needs your hug, someone to look at you and to see that you're still following Jesus.

Do not underestimate the ministry of just simply showing up.

Sometimes your presence preaches before a sermon ever starts.

It's true for me, man.

I'm going to tell you, this is once again, if I can't confess in front of the church, where can't I confess that?

Sometimes in a church service, before it starts, and we're singing, and I don't know, man.

Maybe, maybe I'm not, I'm just not all in.

I don't know.

You know, you're just not there.

And I will see one of you from my side, and I'll see you raise your hand, or I'll hear one of you guys say, Amen, and I don't know, it kicks me into that next worship gear.

Sometimes after church, um, maybe some of you have been the recipient of this, but after church, I'll um see some of you and I will hug you and I'll just say, I thank God that you're here.

I'm grateful for you.

And sometimes one of you will reply something like this, I didn't do anything.

And I will tell you, yeah, you did.

You showed up.

You showed up.

Your presence mattered to me.

Your presence blessed me.

You spurred me on, and I thank God for you.

I'm grateful that you're here today.

And that's true for everyone here.

We all a bunch of people spurring one another on.

Do not underestimate the ministry of showing up.

You need the church, the church needs you.

Let's get to the last part of verse 25.

Encouragement increases with urgency.

All right, here we go.

But this is the command.

Here it is.

It's good.

He's been building on this.

Encourage one another.

That's a command.

Don't neglect the church, but encourage one another, and all the more as the day is drawing, the day drawing near, as you see the day drawing near.

Encourage, what we see it.

Encourage one another.

Come alongside someone, comfort them, spur them home, agitate them to a to a to holiness, man.

And encourage, listen, I'm gonna say this.

Encouragement, we confuse this sometime.

Encouragement is not a compliment, is different than a compliment.

It's different, it's deeper, right?

Compliments are good, but that's not encouragement.

A compliment says, you got some nice shoes on.

That's a compliment.

I love compliments are good, man.

Encouragement says, man, I see the grace of God in you.

I see God working in you.

You know, keep doing it, keep going.

How can I pray for you?

How can I spur you on?

That's a little different than just a compliment, man.

All the more.

It says, all the more.

That means that as the day draws near, that's the return of Jesus Christ, we are to be increasingly encouraging one another all the more.

More excited.

More excited, more excited.

You can think about a race.

Think about a race.

Think about a race, right?

The runners, as they get near the finish line, the crowd does not become more quiet.

The closer you get to the finish line, the more the encouragement just erupts.

The writer of Hebrews says the day is drawing near when Jesus Christ will return.

You, church, we are nearer to that day today than we've ever been.

This is not a time to get quieter.

This is not a time to draw back on your encouragement.

This is a time for us to encourage one another all the more.

Church, hear what I'm saying here.

Listen, listen, please hear this.

Somebody near you right now is tired.

Someone near each one of you right now, someone is fighting sin.

Right now, near you is someone who's grieving, someone who's doubting.

This is not the time to pull back on encouragement.

We need it, right?

We need it.

We need it.

Encourage all the more.

And once again, our culture is different.

We're the people of God.

We've been saved by a great God.

And we are to relate to one another differently than the world does.

So three verses.

The way of encouragement.

It begins with hope.

It grows through thoughtfulness.

It happens through presence.

We gotta be together.

And we're going to increase with urgency as the day draws near.

This is not complicated.

It is not hard to do, but it is greatly needed.

We live in a world that's mastered, mastered discouragement.

Let us be a people who master encouragement.

We build hope.

We build faith.

We build up love.

So I say, let's go out of our way to encourage one another.

Make it a mission.

Let's encourage one another.

Send text out.

Give a call.

Go on a walk.

It's powerful.

There's not a man or woman here today who doesn't need it.

Stir one another.

This holy, holy hope we have, because he who made these promises is faithful.

Let us be marked.

Let us be marked as a people who encourage one another.

Let's pray.

Father God, thank you for these three tremendous verses and all the truths contained in them.

We desire to be a people who encourage one another.

I pray for every individual here today that you would give us ways that we would encourage each other, that we would go out of our way to encourage one another, that we would build each other up and that you would be glorified in it.

We thank you for our church.

We thank you for Silverdale Saturday nights, and we ask this all in Christ's name our Savior.

Amen.