Hey, good morning church. My name is Tyler. I’m one of the pastors on staff here. I get the joy of ministering God’s Word this morning, and it is a joy indeed. Man, I am excited for this week. I’m excited for this morning. But man, for the next week I’m just going to be in bandanna mode all evening, every evening. I kind of wish I had one on right now.
VBS is great. The Lord saved me when I was eight years old in the basement of my home church in Texas during VBS, and that put me on a trajectory. Let’s be clear. It wasn’t just a single line. There were some of this, you know what I’m saying? But it put me on a trajectory at eight years old during VBS.
And so my hope is that that happens this week for the students and the children here at our church. Hey, if you’re not involved, if you’re not one of those 289 volunteers, can I just incline you? Can I just invite you? Put a reminder in your phone every evening and just pray. Pray for the volunteers. Pray for energy and rest and patience, that the joy of Christ would just shine through our volunteers. And pray for our kids that even now the Lord would soften their heart, draw them to faith and repentance and trust in Him.
So you can all be volunteers for VBS, and the work that you do in prayer is so vital. It’s not some second hand thing. It’s the first thing we do, right? So just let me invite you to do that if you would.
Ok, this morning we’re going to be in Hebrews chapter 10. By the way, I think I get the coolest preaching background in the history of preaching backgrounds. I’m not going to jump on the trampoline. I saw what happened to Micah first hour. And no, no. I’m not taking that chance. It’s great. The moon is great. I feel lighter, so that’s cool. And man, I’m excited. I’ve got the star background. I’m ready to go.
Hebrews chapter 10. Here’s the big idea for today. Don’t just attend this place. Belong to these people. And so we’ve understood if you’ve been hanging out with us for a while here, that the church is not a place. It’s not the building. It’s not the facility. It’s not the events. It’s not what happens up here. The church is you. And the commands in Scripture are not just to attend the place once a week, though that’s important. The command is to belong to a people.
And so that’s kind of my goal this morning is to invite you into another level of belonging that maybe you don’t quite have just yet. Maybe some of you do. So I want to start by asking you a question. Are there days in your life that are in the future that help you narrow your focus and help you figure out how to spend your time now?
A couple of weeks ago my family got to go on vacation. We left in the middle of the school year. Can’t recommend that enough. We waited until after the ILearn Testing was done. We kind of blew off perfect attendance. We’re not that family. And we took our kids and went on vacation. It was cheaper, less people. Totally recommend it.
The two months leading up to our vacation we were able to put all of our events into the context of “vacation is coming”. Right? And so a hard day at school? That’s tough. I’m sorry. But vacation is coming. And then on the other side of things, I’ve got to make sure the house is clean and I’ve got to make sure the lawn is mowed and I’ve got to make sure somebody can feed the cat and some of those things because vacation is coming. This coming thing affects how we think and how we spend our time now.
Maybe some of us in the room know the clarity and the narrowing of focus that happens when hard news hits or even when the potential of hard news hits. All of a sudden it does something to your brain and you begin to think about things that didn’t matter and you just laugh them off and shrug them off as no big deal. Why was I so concerned with that thing?
And the things that do matter come blazing into focus. So today I want to give you a gift. I want to clarify for you what matters and then how we should spend our time in light of that truth. So we’re going to start, I said it, in Hebrews 10. We’re going to read 19-25 here in just a second. But I just want you to focus on 25, the second half of 25. I want you just to notice something really quick with me. It says this, “encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”
Now how many of you have that word day capitalized? Awesome. All right. Good. yes, ok. So that day is capitalized. That’s not normal for the word day to be capitalized. So something going on there. What’s happening is the writer is referencing the coming day of Jesus, when He comes again to judge the living and the dead, to set all things right, to make all things new. That day is still in our future. It hasn’t happened yet. But the fact that it’s in our future should inform how we live now.
In the beginning of the Scripture passage that we’re going to read this morning is going to inform how we live from the gospel forward. So we’re going to look at that in just a second. But throughout this morning, my hope is that because there is a day coming I want to help you learn how to live in the here and the now.
There is a day coming, and so I want to awaken within you a desire to invest your time well. And so one of the things we’re going to talk about for a while this morning is what it means to truly belong to a Body, to truly belong to a Body of believers, to be known and to know others in the context of some sort of smaller group of people than this crowd right now. I want to awaken within you a desire to jump in and be known at a level that you’re not known just yet.
So Hebrews 10:19. Here we go. By the way, the first chapters of Hebrews, chapters 1-9, really starts off, Hebrews chapter 1 starts off with a Christology, which is a fancy word for just a passage that focuses on the person and work of Jesus. And then it moves through and it crescendos with what Jesus accomplished for you on the cross. So what did He accomplish? It says every priest stands daily offering the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin. We don’t do that up here. Praise the Lord, we’re not killing animals weekly. But there was a day when that was the case. Every priest just stands daily offering sacrifices, and they never take away the sins.
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down indicated it is finished. He sat down at the right hand of God. and so this is a work that Jesus has done for us.
And in light of that verse 19 he says, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 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. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 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. (Hebrews 10:19-25)
So we’re going to spend the bulk of our time in 22-25, but 19-21 is so vital for you to understand before we move on. So there’s this reference to a curtain, this reference to this idea that we can with confidence enter in. How has that been made possible? Through the blood of Jesus. And this was something that was accomplished for you in the past.
So the gospel, what Jesus has accomplished for you, is in the past and it should change how you live now, as well as the coming day of Him when He returns should change how you live now. So we’re in this in between period.
And in this in between period I want to just make you aware that we’re in a war, that all things have not all been made new and made right yet. Jesus has died on the cross and paid the penalty for sin, but there is a new reality that we do not yet enjoy the fullness of. And in the meantime, there is a war raging. It’s not a war that you can see, and your enemy isn’t flesh and blood, but it’s a war all the same.
And you see it. You see the effects in your own life. And maybe you can even just recognize the reality that there is at times a war inside of you in terms of if you’re going to make a decision based on the flesh or based on the Spirit. So I’d like to do a little bit of small group in the room this morning. There are about 500 of us in the room this morning. Can we do small group for just a second? What I mean by that is get ready to get a little bit honest, a little bit vulnerable, a little bit real. Take the mask off.
How many of you would be willing to admit that there have been seasons, and perhaps even now, when you’re just kind of discouraged? Anybody in the room? I go through periods of discouragement. Thank you. Maybe a season of doubt where you’re not even sure you believe all of this. Is all of this real? Is all of this true? Did all of this happen? Is God real? Does He love me? Does He care? Anybody ever struggle with a season of doubt now or in the past?
What about distracted about your true purpose? You just get entangled in all the things of life and forget what really matters and live for yourself for a week or two and then wake up to the realities. Is that anybody in the room? Ever get distracted from your purpose? Yeah. entangled in sin. These things are happening because we have an enemy and we’re in a war. And so I want to help us just think about that for a second.
When folks join the armed forces, when they sign up, there’s this period of like boot camp. And then there’s all other kinds of training that happens because there is the possibility, the potential, of some future battle. And because that potential exists, it should change how we spend our time now. And so they spend time learning tactics and getting in shape and learning how to communicate and fighting, fighting a battle. There are things that you do to prepare, disciplines to have in order that are helpful for anybody in any armed force, right?
And then there’s the dressing for the battle. Maybe we know a battle is coming tomorrow and we’re going to wake up and we’re going to dress for it. And the way you dress is different than the way you dress if you’re not going to battle.
So we’ve been in a series, kind of a short series, on focusing on a few different spiritual disciplines. We’ve looked at fasting and we’ve looked at prayer last week. Those are both vertical disciplines. And this week I want to talk to you about the discipline of community, the fact that we need to wage this war, to flank each other and fight together.
And then Micah next week and for the next few weeks is going to be in Ephesians 6 looking at what it means to dress for battle. And so let me just encourage you this week. Read Ephesians 6. Meditate on it. Pray on it. Ask the Lord to reveal to you from it. So Ephesians 6 is where we’re headed. There is a battle and there are some things that we need to do in light of that. The discipline of community. Just a reminder, don’t attend this place. Belong to these people.
So point number one is this. Together we draw near to God in faith. Did you notice how often the word us is mentioned in the Scripture? Let us. Let us. Let us. Did you see that? So there is an aspect of your faith that is you and it’s individual and it’s between you and the Lord. there’s your personal time with Him each day. Each person on their own must repent and submit to Jesus as Lord. but our faith is not just individual. It is communal. This is something that we do together. The Scriptures say, “Let us. Let us.” So together we draw near.
Verse 22. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. So this is something that we do together. Now what is this drawing near that the writer of Hebrews is mentioning? Draw near to God in faith. So this concept comes from the idea that there was a time in which we could not draw near, to draw near to God, to touch the mountain back in Exodus. It would have killed you.
And at the time when Jesus was living and walking on the earth, there was a temple in Jerusalem and in that temple there were various levels. So imagine that we could take a time machine and go back a couple of thousand years and we go to Jerusalem and we go to the gate of the temple and there’s a stranger outside. And that stranger starts to interact with us. And we say, “Hey, what’s in there? What’s that all about?”
And he would say something like, “Well, in the inner of inner sanctums there, right in the holiest of holies, is the presence of God.”
“Oh, can I go? Can I go enter into that presence?”
“Absolutely not. You’re lucky to get through the gate you Gentile.” Right? Most of us are Gentiles, and that’s as far as we’re going to get and then we’re going to receive a “do not enter” sign.
And if you’re a Jew you get to go a little bit further. There’s a special place that the Jews get to go that the Gentiles didn’t get to go. But then no further.
And maybe you say, “Oh man, I’m not a Gentile. I’m a Jew. I get to go here and I’m going to keep on walking.” There would be a “do not go any further; do not enter.” And it would be because great, you’re a Jew, but you’re not a priest. So there was a place that only the priests could go.
And then if you’re a priest and you’re walking through there, there would be another door in which you would love to go through but you would receive a “do not enter” sign. Go no further. Because you’re not the great high priest. And even if you’re the great high priest, there are conditions in which you would enter the holiest of holy places that existed behind a curtain. There was a big curtain in the temple. It’s mentioned here. It says the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh.
Big giant curtain. Not starry like this one. Different colors. But it was massive. It was wide, it was tall, and it represented the separation from the people of God from the manifest presence of God. It was where the Ark of the Covenant was stored. And only the great high priest and only once a year and only if he did the right preparations and got ready in just the right way, communicating his desire to God to be clean, cleanliness. And they would tie a rope to this priest so that when he goes through the curtain if he goes through and doesn’t enter in the right manner and he falls down dead, they’re able to get him out. So there are these “do not enter” signs. Do not enter. Do not enter.
And I can imagine that great high priest that one time a year and he’s done everything, and man, he hopes it’s right. And just like the timid, careful, maybe he like puts his toe under the curtain and pulls it back and puts an arm through and makes sure it’s not burning and just slowly moves through the curtain and enters into the presence of God. great high priest once a year. That’s it. And the rest of us don’t have access.
The Scriptures just said we can with confidence draw near through the curtain. So this curtain, like I said, is His flesh. And when Jesus died on the cross, the temple curtain, if you had been in the temple when Jesus was dying on the cross at his breath when He breathed His last, the curtain was torn from top to bottom, indicating that it was God’s work, not man’s work that made the way open.
That’s the gospel. That’s the gospel that Jesus has made a way for you to enter into the presence of God. And it happens not because you’re good enough, but because Jesus is good and He pays the price that you could not pay, making way for you to have a relationship with God. And now we can with confidence draw near.
So why would it say “let us”? Because I think there are times when we need each other to remind each other of the truth of the gospel. Because I think there are a couple of ditches when it comes to the gospel, when it comes to this idea of entering into the presence of the Lord.
Ditch number one you might find yourself in from time to time. You might be doing really well with the Lord and you might be tempted to think, “I can enter into God’s presence on my own accord, because of my own good works.” Now when I say it like that, most of you if you know the gospel, you’ve been here for any length of time, you know that’s not the case. You go, “No, that’s not me. I’m not that guy.”
But I’m telling you, a large majority of the world who doesn’t know Jesus, that’s what they believe. If you were to ask somebody, and I’d just encourage you to do this. Test me on this. “Hey, where do you think you’re going when you die?”
“I’m going to go to heaven.”
“Why do you think you’re going to go to heaven?”
“Because I’ve tried to be a pretty good person. I’ve tried to do the right things. I’m better than the jerks I know who are closest to me. And so I should be good.”
You’ll hear something like that. It’s not the gospel. Maybe that’s not your ditch. Maybe your ditch is I am so bad and so hopeless and my thoughts are so dark. There is no hope for me no matter what. That’s a ditch y’all. It’s probably the ditch that’s more common around here. I just can’t get it right. God is never going to love me. He’s never going to accept me. He’s never going to want to have a relationship with me. There’s nothing I can do.
And the gospel penetrates these two ditches. And it says, “No, you cannot be good enough to enter into my presence. It’s why I sent my Son.” And the gospel says, “There is no sin that the death of my Son cannot cover.” Enter in with confidence because of the blood of Jesus.
And from time to time, I need other people in my life telling me, reminding me, the truth of that gospel so I’m not going in one ditch or the other. I need protection from these ditches. Those are errors and we need each other to remind each other of the truth.
Now go back again 2,000 years and imagine you’re not the person peering into the gate. You’re now the person who knows, and it’s after Jesus has died. And the curtain has been torn. And you’re able to say at that temple, “It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter what tribe you grew up in, what thoughts you thought two minutes ago. You can enter in and you don’t have to be timid. You don’t have to just poke a toe. You don’t have to just…No, no, no. You walk with confidence into the presence of God.”
That’s a great message that we get to share with people. That’s evangelism. You can with confidence enter into the presence of God now and in eternity. But there is one door. All our welcome through one door. It’s the door of Jesus. Repentance, faith, submission to Him as Lord. And you can be welcomed in. That’s great news.
It’s why we spend a lot of time around here trying to make sure that folks feel welcome. I hope you catch that. Not that this is the manifest presence of the lord, but we’re just trying to communicate, “Hey, all are welcome here. All are welcome to receive Jesus. All are welcome to submit to Him as Lord of their life. There is no one that call is not available to. So come in.”
It’s why we have parking lot Jedis with lightsabers directing you where to park. We believe that you can find a place to park. You’ll figure it out. We have enough right now. There’s a whole rock quarry if you don’t want to park on the nice stuff. You can park. But we just want to smile and say, “Come on in. Come on in.”
I believe that you can open a door. You probably didn’t open the door into the church building this morning. You probably had it opened for you. We’re saying, “Welcome. Come in. welcome.”
There are ushers in this room that will help you find your seat if you’re struggling to find a seat. Again and again and again so many folks come before the rest of us. This place was filled by like 8:00 this morning with folks who are ready to communicate “welcome; come in.” It’s a wonderful thing. I’m thankful for them.
And this is something we do together. We remind each other of the gospel.
Number two, together we hold fast. Verse 23. It says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.” We hold fast and He is faithful. And we hold fast together. Community will help you in that moment that your faith wavers. And waver it will from time to time. Stuff will happen. Events in your life occur that just causes a momentary waver. And we need each other in those moments.
I’m reminded of the seed that fell on rocky ground, the parable of the seed. And there were four different kinds of seed. One fell on rocky ground and never figured out roots and never got anchored. And the storms came and it just swept it away. I don’t want that to be true for the folks in our church. Community is built for that storm type moment. That’s what community is built for.
I’m sure you’ve all seen videos of runners almost finishing a marathon. I had somebody come share with me last hour. There was a Chicago marathon that somebody was running and there was somebody who fainted close to the finish line. And fainted and kind of got woken back up. And folks rallied around this person, put their shoulder under him and helped him finish the race at cost of their own time.
They could have finished faster. They slowed down, they stopped, and they helped somebody along. It’s what we do y’all. It’s what we do for each other. We stop and we help and we say, “Come with me. I’ll help you at my own expense.”
Somebody that can pick up up when you stumble, that can encourage you to hold fast. You’ll benefit from having a person in your life to which you can say, “I’m struggling to believe. Can you help me think right thoughts about God? Can you help me think right thoughts about me and my identity?” You need people in your life like this.
Years ago I was in high school and I used to mountain bike a lot. And there was this really cool place I woudl mountain bike. And there was like a waterfall at the bottom of this trail. And I used to just love being down there. I was in a season of life where I was just kind of dry. I felt distant from the Lord. I felt like there was static. Just weren’t communicating. I was praying lame prayers and they were just kind of the memorized prayers you pray before a meal and that’s about it. It was just distant and dry and far, and I knew I needed to do something.
So what I did was I got my bike, got my Camelbak, put my Bible and my Camelbak and I planned. And my plan was I was going to ride down to this waterfall, I’m going to sit there, I’m going to pray, I’m going to read, and I’m just going to wait. And I’m going to ask the Lord to speak to me. So that’s what I did.
I go down there. I get down, sit down, read my Bible, pray. And I say, “God, would you just speak to me? Would you please speak to me?” And I sat and I waited. And I waited some more. And I kept waiting. And eventually I shrugged, I sighed and I packed up my Bible and I rode out. I didn’t hear a thing. Not a word. That’s a hard moment. But I had community.
So I go to my close friend, I come back a couple of days later and I say, “Hey, you’ve got to help me. I don’t know what’s going on here. I’m distant with the Lord. I haven’t really been talking to Him much. And I went down there and I prayed and I asked Him and He gave me nothing. He just didn’t speak to me at all. And I don’t know what to do with that, but it’s got me wavering.”
And my friend was close enough to me to lovingly rebuke me. And this is what my friend shared. He said, “Tyler, imagine that you’re married and that you haven’t really spoken to your wife for like two months. You just haven’t spoken to her at all. Every day just kind of cold shoulder. You walk past her in your house. And then one day you come home from work and you look at your wife and you go, ‘Hey, I’ve got thirty minutes. Speak.’ Do you think your wife wants to say anything to you in that moment?”
He said, “Tyler, you do not have God conform to your calendar. He doesn’t work like that.” He lovingly rebuked me and he helped me in that moment. It hurt a little bit but it was helpful. We don’t put God on our schedule. He doesn’t conform to me. Man, I was thankful to my friend in that moment.
This holding fast that’s mentioned here, this is a command to abide. Hold fast. Abide. And this is something that we do together. There are many branches, not just one branch. There is one vine and He in Him. The promises are yes and amen. But there is one vine and many branches. And we all as branches stay abiding in the vine together and we help each other along in this.
Community in groups at Gospel City is at its most effective, its most powerful, when we’re hearing each other’s burdens and reminding each other of God’s promises. It’s one of my favorite things to witness happening in groups.
Let me just share a few examples from the time I’ve been a groups pastor, just hearing some of these things. Couples grieving miscarriage and they’re struggling, maybe thinking some wrong thoughts about the Lord, you can understand. And then the group gets to remind them that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and that He gets the loss of a child, understands that, and that all the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness.
Maybe somebody in a group has been experiencing some kind of chronic illness, pain that just won’t go away without any real resolution in sight. And the rest of the group can come around them and remind them. The outer man is wasting away, but the inner man is being renewed day by day. There is a day coming. And they get to encourage that person.
Recently I got to visit a group and pray with the group for a while. I didn’t come to this group with this expectation. But heard about it not too long before I attended the group that night that two women had recently found out that they had received a cancer diagnosis. Two different women in the same group struggling. But I can’t tell you the beautiful thing that happened that night as the group gathered and prayed and prayed big prayers. Like, “God, heal these women.” There were tears, but there was faith. There was anxiety, but there was hope. There was the potential, the valley of the shadow of death, but there was the “fear no evil; God is with you. And we’re going to flank you as you walk through this.” Together we hold fast.
Number three, together we stir up one another. Verse 24. Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Let us consider how to stir up. Now maybe you have a different translation than mine. How many of you have the word provoke? Is that anybody in here? That’s a little bit of an older translation. A few of us. Ok? Provoke. What about spur on? Anybody? Yeah. The word here that is used has the connotation of a sharp confrontation. In other places it’s translated as a sharp disagreement. So there is a place within the Christian community for us to kind of grab each other by the shoulders and kind of shake a little bit and stir a little bit and wake up, a place to spur on.
Now I grew up in Texas. I was born there. And you would think that we’re just like born with horse knowledge, that we just drive it to Whataburger and go through the drive thru there on a horse. I’m not. I had to learn. So this is a spur. And what does a spur do? This one is a lot less sharp than those are. I think this is an antique spur. I think we’ve gotten wimpy on the horses over time or something.
So what does a spur do? So when you’re riding a horse, and maybe the horse begins to slow down and maybe it begins to kind of waver on the trail and kind of forget what it’s doing and stop and smell the roses and maybe look for some food and look at the horse behind it, all those kinds of things, whatever horses do. From time to time you need to remind them of what they’re doing. You need to remind them of their true purpose. So you spur them. You kick this thing into their side and it jolts them out of their stupor. And it sobers their mind really quickly. It reminds them of what they’re supposed to be doing. Oh yes, I’m supposed to be walking this way at this speed for this reason. Let’s go.
There are times when we’ve got to spur each other on, stir each other up. An example would be like let’s say you’re in group and somebody by the grace of God is confessing something like, “Hey, I think I might have flirted with a girl at work this week. We were just kind of joking and then all of a sudden there was this weird change that happened and it was like we both knew we had both gone a little bit further than we thought. And I don’t know. I think I might have flirted with somebody.”
In that moment you can say as a group, “Hey man, we’ll be praying for you,” or you can spur them on a little bit and say, “Believe the promises of God. it’s not going to be better somewhere else. You shouldn’t even be putting all that stock into some other person anyways. That’s idolatry. Nobody can satisfy you. The Lord alone. Put your faith in Him. He’s the living water. And go home to your wife and love her and tell her and confess and repent.” Spur on.
Maybe somebody by the grace of God is confessing something like, “I’ve got some real anxiety going on right now and I am just kind of able to start a sentence with the phrase what if and then my brain fills in the blank and it gets weird and it gets dark and it gets scary. And I get worried and I’m anxious.” Wonderful thing to bring to the light. “I’m just anxious all the time.”
Did you hear what we sang this morning? It’s a little bit of a spur. I speak the name of Jesus over that anxiety. Don’t forget the promises of God that He’s for you, that He knows you better than you know yourself, that He’s wise, that He loves you and that He can see your future. He’s got you. And hey, if He never did another thing for you, He’s all you’d ever need. We sing that sometimes here. Is that hard for somebody else in the room to sing? Sometimes it’s hard for me to sing from time to time. I want it to be true all the time. God, if you never did another thing for me, it’s all I’ll ever need. Sometimes as I’m singing I think God, I want that to be true. I hope it’s true. I don’t know. Sometimes my faith is wavering. That’s a prayer I pray sometimes. God, make it true. It’s why I need You. It’s why we need each other. We remind ourselves of the promise of God in that moment.
“Hey, I’m struggling with what I look at on my phone.”
“I’ll be praying for you!”
Or get serious about putting to death the sin that is still in you. “You’ve said struggle for like five months. I don’t know if you’re struggling. You’re just giving in. take a step you haven’t taken yet. Get a dumb phone with big buttons and a small screen, one that doesn’t have access to the Internet. Will it be harder? Yeah, life will be a little bit more tough. There was a day that existed where we didn’t have these. You guys remember? You can make it. Sure, there might be a song on the radio and you can’t like, ‘Hey Siri, what’s the name?’ You won’t be able to do that. It’s ok. You’ll make it. Get serious about sin. Take a step you haven’t taken. Put to death what is early within you. And we want to help you.”
That can be what a spur looks like. Sometimes it doesn’t come after a period of confession. Sometimes the spur is uninvited because we all have blind spots. And the thing about blind spots is you can’t see them. You don’t know that you have them. But we all do.
I was reading a couple of weeks ago in my own time and just was reminded of the story of Nathan and David. And man, there was this time when David committed some just horrendous sin. He takes a man’s wife while the man is off at war where David should have been. And she gets pregnant. So he starts freaking out and trying to cover that sin. And he can’t figure it out, so he kills the husband. And then he tries to go back to life as if it’s normal. He covers his sin and then like tries, ok, cool. Everything is fine. Hopefully enough time will pass and I won’t feel bad about what I did and I’ll forget about it and move on. David had a blind spot.
But he had a good friend. His good friends’ name was Nathan. Nathan comes to David and he says, “Hey King David, (Dave maybe if you’re close enough; I don’t know.) Hey Dave. I don’t know. Imagine there’s a rich man who is going to prepare a meal for a traveler and he has tons of sheep. But he doesn’t kill any of his own sheep. He goes to the poor man’s house and kills the only sheep this poor man has and serves it to the stranger. What would happen to that guy?”
And David, not realizing the story is about him because he is blind to it, he goes, “Oh, that man must die. Pay back fourfold.”
And Nathan goes, “You are that man.” He lovingly rebuked David and woke him up to the reality of his sin. David experienced consequences from that, eventually repented from that sin. Go read Psalm 51. That’s David’s repentance psalm. He needed a good friend in his life who could remind him, “Hey, you’ve sinned and you’ve got to deal with the Lord on that. You can’t just act like you didn’t do that thing.” He needed somebody to show him his blind spot. We need that.
You need to be the kind of person who is willing to say the hard thing and you need to be the kind of person who is humble enough to hear the hard thing and respond well. And it could look like this. “Hey man, I love you. You know that. I reserve the right to be wrong here, but I think I just see a blind spot that I would just love for you to consider.” Maybe it’s not as strong as Nathan going, “You are that man, king.”
“I’m a mess too. Can I share something with you?” And then you anchor it in Scripture. Scripture is the authority, not you. We’ve got to do this for one another.
Now what will help that moment is a relationship. Not just anybody was going to King David to share with him, to go at him, right? Nathan had a good relationship with David. They were close friends. And that’s what community does. It builds a foundation of relationship and that’s there when you need to say the hard thing.
I wonder, do you have somebody in your life like that? Do you have somebody in your life close enough that you know they’ll say the hard thing? I want to invite you into community. Have somebody in your life that will speak to you things you need to hear but are hard to hear. And be humble enough to hear.
So he finishes here in verse 25. Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near. These commands to draw near, to hold fast, to stir up, to spur on, to encourage, they’re made possible when we gather together. And they’re impossible if you have in your head the habit or the lack of habit of gathering in church. So he says “as is the habit of some,” meaning there are some people that had already developed the habit of skipping church all the time. Don’t get into that habit.
If your kids or your wife or somebody, your husband asks you, “Hey, are we going to church in the morning?” you haven’t made this a habit yet. But I want to lovingly tell you that Sunday morning is vital. It should be the pinnacle of your week. It should set you up well for the next week. But there are some things that Sundays can’t quite accomplish as well as groups can.
We do encourage one another in this room. We sing songs together about God. We remind each other of God’s promises. We encourage each other through the Word. Sometimes we have microphones set up here and you’ll just minister the Word to each other. And I love that. We’ll stop and pray together. I see it happening in the lobby. Ministry is happening. Burdens are being beared.
But unless you’re sitting with your small group right now, there are probably people right around you, you might not even know their first name. You have no relational passport to say a hard sentence to them, and you wouldn’t know what to say if you did. You don’t know their struggles.
It’s just a little bit hard if the only thing in your life, if church to you is only let’s make it three or four times a month and let the Bible sit on the shelf each week. And we’ll go back and we’ll do it again next week. And we’ll go back and do it again next week. There is so much more for you. Don’t neglect the gathering. And what I’m talking about is the kind of gathering where true fellowship can occur.
Sorry, my voice just feels weak this morning. The type of gathering where true fellowship can occur. What do I mean by true fellowship? I mean things like vulnerability, honesty, the removal of the mask, what unites us together. We all love different sports teams. We all look different. We all work different jobs, make different amounts of money. We live in different neighborhoods. What unites us is the gospel. And what empowers the type of community I’m talking to you about is the gospel. Because what the gospel says is there is no darkness in your life that the light of Christ can’t penetrate. And there is no sin so far that the blood of Jesus can’t cover it. You are not outside of the bounds of grace.
And so we should be the most honest, the most vulnerable, the most real people on the face of the planet. There’s no faking it in here. We all realize we’re far from perfect, but we have a great Savior. And in that context man, be vulnerable. Be honest. Be real with what’s going on with you.
We all have cards. And some of us keep our cards pretty close to the chest. We don’t want anyone else to know the chaos in our life, to know the crisis, to know what’s going on. And we kind of live life like this and we go to church like this. Let’s get real. Be vulnerable. Be honest.
Start to say things like, “Hey, I don’t really talk about things like this much, but I’ve to let somebody know. Hey, I haven’t shared this in a while, but there’s this thing I’ve been struggling with and I don’t know what to do with it.” You’ve got to have people in your life that you can start doing this to, right? Just start flipping them over.
True fellowship is made possible when the cards are facing outwards, when you’re known. This is fellowship. Oh wait, hang on. Anybody else bothered by the one card? Any OCDers in the room? C’mon man, flip that card! What’s he doing? This is how a lot of us live our lives though. And you’re kind of known and you kind of say enough to get the heat off of you in accountability or whatever. But there’s this thing man that you haven’t really shared, that you haven’t really talked about. And what’s going to happen when you do life like this is you’ll say to yourself, “They don’t really know me. They don’t really love me. Because if they really knew me, they wouldn’t love me. If they really knew me, they wouldn’t accept me. If they really knew me, there wouldn’t be grace for this thing.”
And I’m telling y’all, there’s no sin the grace of God cannot cover. And the joy and freedom that is felt when you flip that card over. And you go, “Hey, Tyler preached on this this morning, this week. Small group, I need to let you know. Accountability group, I need to let you know there is something I’ve been not sharing for a while and I want to share it. And come what may, but I need to confess.” Be willing to turn the cards over.
And maybe it’s not a sin to confess. Maybe it’s a hard thing that you think you alone have to deal with. Turn the card over. Let’s be real. Fellowship. That’s what we’re after. It’s a little bit harder just on a Sunday morning, but man, you get in a small group. Small groups are like greenhouses. They create conditions for growth. We can’t force growth to happen, but man, everything is kind of set up in such a way that we can really, if the Lord would do a thing, things are going to grow.
It doesn’t happen just because of physical proximity, just because you happen to be sitting next to somebody, although it can. And I want to encourage you on Sunday morning, come a little earlier and strike up a conversation. Stay a little later and hang out in the lobby. Shake somebody’s hand that you don’t know. Get to know them a little bit. “Hey, what are you dealing with? What are you struggling with? Can I pray with you?” Those are things that we can do to each other on a Sunday.
I’m so thankful my wife over here hangs out with Eve, who sits two doors down most Sundays. They sit in the same spot and Megan and Eve have just struck up a little bit of a relationship and they pray together. And Megan knows more about what’s going on with Eve and I’m betting Eve knows more about what’s going on with Megan. “Pray for me. My husband is crazy.” All that stuff, right? Eve and Megan know each other well because they come a little early, they strike up conversation and they stay a little late and they keep talking. And they pray together and they ask each other, “How are you doing?” Do that. Do that.
Maybe a sermon really convicts you. Maybe something I’ve said or weeks past or weeks coming up will really convict you. And you’ll go out to eat and you’ll go, “Man, I’m conceited. I really want to do something on that.” If you’re not in a group and nobody else knows you, it’ll start to wane and you’ll just be like David and you’ll just go back to normal.
But a group enables you to say, “Hey, I was really convicted. I need you guys to hold me accountable. I really want to be different in this area. Would you hold me accountable to that?” Groups do that. It’s the outworking of conviction that might happen on a Sunday.
“I want to attempt a fast. Will you guys ask me about that? I want to pray better prayers. Will you guys help me with that?”
It takes intentionality. And the reason I call community a discipline is because it’s not always easy. It doesn’t automatically happen just because you’re a friendly person. Sometimes it takes time. Sometimes it takes patience. Sometimes it takes forgiveness because you’re going to sin against each other. Can I just invite you in to that? If you’re not in a group, I would love to see you get in some sort of group at Gospel City. We have different types. Some are sort of off season right now because it’s summer.
Maybe you ask someone to be a mentor. But in the fall we’re going to have things like Hope groups are going to start back up, Core, men’s and women’s studies. There is going to be a lot going on. But man, if you are just kind of here and you’re coming on Sunday and nobody knows you and you want to know more people, come and see me. I’d love to hang out with you at meet and greet and talk to you about groups. Give us some time. Be patient. Be persistent. But get after it, ok?
Some of you need to lead a group. I want to spur you on in that way. You’ve been sitting on the sidelines and you’ve got some capacity maybe. And you might be tempted to think, “I don’t really know enough. I don’t really know the Bible as well as I want to know the Bible. I’m going to be leading people that are going to be correcting me.” All of those things.
Let me tell you, the number of people that I know who don’t feel qualified to sit in the ministry spot they’re sitting in is like 100%. All right? You all enter in and then you’re like, “Lord, I am not ready for this.” It keeps you on your knees. It’s a good thing.
So I would love to invite you into that. But maybe you just ask somebody to mentor you. Listen, the goal of redemptive history is that God will dwell with man together in eternity. That’s the day that’s coming. And in order to get to that day intact, we’ve got to help each other draw near and remember the gospel. In order for that day to be realized, we’ve got to help each other hold fast. And we spur each other on to keep going, to finish the race together. So draw near. Hold fast. Stir each other up. Encourage each other. It takes vulnerability. It takes relationship. It takes courage. It takes intentionality. It takes the church. That’s how I want to spend my time, because the day is drawing near. So let’s invest it and send it on what matters.
Let me pray for you. Father, thank You for the church. Thank You that we can with confidence draw near into Your presence. We don’t deserve that, Father. Thank You for sending Your Son, making a way. Father, I pray that there would be people this morning who would deserve to be known more than they’re known right now. Father, would You help us look more like Your Son through the power of Your Spirit and with the help of each other? We want to bring You glory. We want to see you glorified. We want to see lives changed.
I want to be used. And Father, what a joy it is when I see evidence of You using people to minister to other people. So I pray that You would continue to do that. Give us a sweet fellowship here, a true, real fellowship anchored in the gospel. We love You. it’s in the name of Your Son that I pray, amen.