Sermon: You Need the Church

Let's take a moment and let's pray before we open God's word together this morning.

Father, we are thankful for your word. It is a very loud voice midst of all the voices in this world, thankful that this word alone is authoritative and trustworthy. That it is always good. There's a firm foundation on which we can set our lives and we do pray even this morning that we would hear that loud, authoritative voice. You would minister to us that your word would not return void and that we would know that we have heard from the sovereign God of heaven and

earth. Pray all of this in the strong name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the living word. Amen. This morning Hebrews chapter 10 verses 24 through 25. This is the holy inherent sufficient word of God 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 so the grass withers and

the flower fades. The word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

As I mentioned to you last week as we were going through the verses, immediately proceeding this, uh, no one can hold fast for you. Uh, you have to hold fast. And as I said last week, in one sense the the Christian life is uh, not a group project, but in another very real sense it is a group project and he is pointing that out in our text this morning. You remember last week as we looked at it, he took us into corporate worship and he was showing us that we need to hold

fast to the Lord in corporate worship. That is that God ministers to us, his grace as we come into corporate worship. And now what he is going to point out in our Texas warning is he also ministers to us by his grace in corporate worship. As we come together and we minister to one another, what I want to do is look at this third led us. We looked at the first two last week, led us verse 22 was the first, let us draw near verse 23 was the second.

Let us hold fast and now verse 24, and let us consider how to stir up one another. We each individually have to draw near, we each individually have to hold fast. We each individually have to stir one another up. There's a reason that he says, let us' no Christian as an island, none of us exists simply for ourselves. There is no, as I've said to you before, a lone ranger, Christianity, not even a lone ranger in tanto Christianity, you are saved unto God.

You are also saved unto one another. And so in a very real way, we live as Christians for one another. We pour out our lives for one another and I wanna look at that together this morning. Let us consider how to stir up one another. We look at it under four ways this morning. First the commands stir up one another, the commands second, he provides a correction and we'll look at that. Third, I want to answer some objections and then fourth,

want to provide some practical encouragement for you this morning. So first the command and the command is this. Stir up one another. Now we use that same imagery in the English language, the same kind of little phrase we talk about stirring one another up. You know what that means? You have a sense of that. And if we were just to leave it at that, we would be in trouble. There are a lot of Christians that are stirring up in the church,

stirring up dissension, stirring up angry anger, stirring up division, stirring up questioning, stirring up angst. And the Greek word here has that idea. It has the idea of often it's used to speak about stirring up anger, stirring up a kind of dissatisfaction. That's not how he uses it here, that's not what he's referencing here. He's using it in a positive sense that we are to excite someone else to the good, we're to stir one another up and that we're exciting. One another.

The good.

Think about all of us and uh, that are sitting here this morning. Every single one of us has an ideal church in our mind. You may not have completely thought through it, you may not be able to articulate it, but you have an ideal church in your mind. Uh, it may be a church that you used to belong to. It may be the church you belong to. Now, it may be that your ideal church is more in tune with the culture or less in tune with the culture,

or your ideal church is more like the church down the street. Your ideal church is anything but the church down the street. But I wonder when you think of your ideal church, does it have this, is it marked by this where he says that we it it does. My ideal church have me, does me living and laboring to stir up others in a positive way? Does your ideal church have you laboring and living in a way to stir others up in a positive way?

That's the command aim at exciting the spirit of others in this body, exciting them by example, by exhortation, by encouragement to what is to love the good works that flow from that love

side each other to love.

We can all think of those people in the church. There are many of those people in this church where you just, oh, there's people that you're around them and they just, they just ooze love. And you find that by their example. They they stir you up in love that as you watch them, you, you see them serving in love that when they say something to you, it's meant to encourage you in love. He's saying that it's not just for the super elites in the church,

not just for the super Christian in the church. No, he's saying this is to be something that every Christian within the church is, is committed to showing up in love.

Now this takes some effort. Jesus said they will know you by your love for one another takes effort. My hope, even my expectation is, is that when people walk through these doors, and it's not just my expectation, it's the Lord Jesus's expectation. They will know you by your love for one another. That when someone walks through these doors, the expectation is is that when they bump into us in this place, that they find us very strange and they find

you strange because you love uncommonly, you love in a different way. You love one another in a different way. You love the person that walks through the door in a different way and that takes effort. The man who comes home every Day from work and he plops down immediately upon the sofa and he starts watching TV or he starts playing his video games and he is just waiting for his wife to put dinner in front of him. And when she does, he

Just Grunts his acceptance of it and then goes back to his watching TV and playing video games. He's not loving no matter how, how much he protests that he loves his wife and he loves his kids. He's not loving no matter how much he says, look, I go to work all day and I labor and I earn a paycheck for my wife and my kids. I love them. He's not loving. Takes effort, Requires engagement and it requires investment. It requires relationship, it

Costs the love

and everyone wants to be loved everyone.

What's interesting is that often our tack that we will wait until someone shows love towards us or reaches out to us before we will pour out love or reach out to them. But Christian Love is different. That's why it's to be strange when people walk through these doors. 'cause we have A different model Of love. We have a different example of love

In this is Love. Not that we first loved God, but that he loved Us And sent his son to be A propitiation for our sins.

He loved Us when we were Unlovable. When John says we love because he first Loved us, Love moves As a Christian. Love does not wait. When we wait for others to move towards us, no one's need for love is met in the body. And interestingly, when each member of the body is not looking after their own interest but is seeking after the other and we're each reaching out in love than everyone's need and even desires Are met within the body.

And we can do this as Christians And have this kind of strange Love 'cause We don't operate from a Deficit, Never have a deficit. We, we are the recipients of a love that is ever abounding. A love that is deep, that knows no height and no depth and no breath and no length. There is never a moment that the Christian is ever unloved. There's never a moment that the the cup of our love isn't full and overflowing. You always have that well from which to draw from

never unloved always loved. But from that love we pour out love and stir others up in love.

Second, the correction

as in our day. So in their day there were some in the church

who were forgetting about the church. They were not coming to church and so because they were not coming to church, they were not stirring up others in love within the church.

Maybe they came at times, but it doesn't give us the reason. Maybe they were nonchalant, maybe they were neglectful of just meeting together. He says that it has, even for some of them it's become quote, a habit for some of them.

Now some are physically prevented from being able to to come to worship. That that that happens where physically the body is deteriorating or going through disease or going through some sickness. And so we can't come to church. That happens. I and in that case I have often with different staff members here and elders here at U R C, we have gone to visit that home bound person or we go to the nursing home to visit that person and what do we do? We bring worship to them.

We come in and I will preach a short little homily and we will sing a hymn together and we will pray and then we will distribute the Lord's table to them. We, we bring worship to them because they can't come here and be with the gathered church.

But if we're able to be here, those who can come and don't are in a dangerous place.

Why? 'cause it's the grace that he has given to us. He dispenses his grace to you and I through one another. Often he's gathered us together as a body to minister to one another and inform one another and encourage one another and challenge one another and equip one another to stir one another up, giving you that grace.

Some of the dearest saints have had the privilege of serving or those who are suffering bodily, physically and uh, in horrible ways. When I've gone to visit them on countless occasions, I've said to them, think of four individuals in my mind immediately and that have been members of this church and a couple that still are. And remember sitting with them and on countless occasions when you say to one of them you say, ah, how is it that I can pray for you?

Countless occasions they've said to me, they haven't asked for healing, they've asked for this, something along these lines. I just want enough strength so I can go to church on Sunday. Pray for that. They know what they're missing. So many of us take for granted what they know they're missing. They're living from Lord state of Lord state and they're missing, missing the body gathered together before the throne of Christ and

all the grace and benefits that come from that.

We need the body has in grace given us to one another.

And David in Psalm 42, we often turn that Psalm on its head. It's not what we often attribute to it. We will, I can remember that song when I first came to saving Faith in uh, the early nineties. We would sing that song as a Dear Tith for Living Stream. So pants, my Soul After You. And it was kind of this emotive individualistic kind of expression and and we often think of that psalm that way, but that's not what David's talking about.

He says that his his soul is panting after God as a deer pants for living streams. He says that he is crying night and day and what he is crying for, what he is missing is the gathering of God's people before the throne of God. This is what he says. I pour out my soul how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival. He knows the benefits

of being with God's people in the presence of God and he misses it. He longs for it. He's dying for it.

Grace upon grace,

he ministers his grace to us as we're in his presence and he ministers His grace to us as we are gathered with his people. Grace upon grace.

I know the world laughs at us that we gather together on Sunday.

I know that there are Christians that will say it's legalistic to say you must be at church on Sunday. I know that some of you're sitting in there right now and saying, ah, preacher, you got a vested interest in us being here on Sundays. Understand

and that that is all just subterfuge.

I know you need to be here on Sunday.

The word says you need to be here Sundays.

It's true. Be a Christian and not go to church. I just wouldn't risk it.

The Bible has no category for believers who can and don't gather with other believers in worship. No category for that.

We know by experience, we know by history, we know by the teaching of the scripture that those who walk away from God first walk away from the people of God. Our brothers and sisters throughout church history, were willing to give limb and life to gather with the people of God when they were outlawed from doing so. When they knew it would mean persecution, possible death. They still gathered with the people of God because they knew

it was necessary.

You miss a week, okay, you missed a week. Okay? Often that turns into not one week missed, but every other week missed. Then it becomes a month miss. Then it becomes we livestream, then it becomes, we livestream some and then it becomes absolutely nothing.

And often the argument is, is this is what is best for me and Jesus. But do you notice? Do you notice it isn't just about you and Jesus,

he says that we gather together in part for one another.

Now there are times, maybe even a season, Aaliyah and I went through this for a short season where you know what a larger church like this, we went to a larger church like this, bigger than this and we just didn't have the mental capacity. We didn't have the spiritual capacity, we didn't have the emotional capacity to to stir others up in love and good works. We just needed to come in and we needed to go out and just not touch anybody.

And this is a big enough church that it provides opportunity for you to do that. You just need a place to rest a little while, just to soak it up, just not to be involved in other people's lives. Just come in and go out. You can do that for a time. You can do that for a season

but only for a season. But even to do that, you have to be here.

Be here. We gather together. Worship is experienced physically. We gather together we're the body of Christ and Being the body of Christ that speaks of our dependence upon our head, the Christ. But what Paul will point out In one Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, what he's saying is, look, it's not just that we're dependent upon the head, we're also dependent upon all the other members of the body. We all are these different parts that are put together that inform one another

so that we are growing up into a holy temple Unto him. He's given us one another with purpose. And every member of the body matters. Every single one. I want you to think about this. It is so incredibly Gracious of our God. He could have called you to save him faith and he could have made it just about you And Jesus and you could have gone through this life where it's just, you just gotta figure it out. Just you and Jesus alone.

But he doesn't. He surrounds you With all kinds of Saints, brothers and sisters that hope uphold your arms when they get tired, that pray for you, that encourage you, that exhort you, that challenge you, that model before you. What it looks like to walk with Christ, to walk and step with the spirit. He surrounds you. But it's not just That. It is also grace upon grace that he gives each of us gifts for the good of the body.

That he's made us each different with different abilities, different inclinations, different gifts so that every single one of us matters in this body.

That we all have a Role to play Every one of us. Your life has meaning. It has purpose.

It doesn't matter if you're the most immature Christian or the most Mature Christian, the youngest Christian, the Oldest Christian. It doesn't matter whether you have the most gifts or the least amount of gifts you're needed.

I need you. They need you. You need me. We need each other. Stir one another up the low good works

robber sells. We are not here and can be is in worship together that we're able to fulfill our ministry one another with our different gifts. It's in worship together that we can obey the command of Paul and Colossians to teach and admonish one another in all wisdom. Singing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts to God. That requires being with one another, meeting with one another, needed

a hymn. We will sing at the end of the service today, one of my favorite hymns. Uh, and it ends with that. That stands there where it, it talks about like a piece of coal that is taken out of a fireplace and put on the hearth it it says that that piece of coal, if you watch it, it it will. It will remain for a time. Eventually it dissipates. Why? 'cause it needs the heat and the light of the other coals need the heat and the light of other Christians. You rob yourself.

If you're not here week and week out equally rob us. We need you.

Remember the context they're facing, hardships and possibly more severe persecution as Christians and the rider of Hebrews is admonition to them is not scatter because there's persecution. His admonition is you need to gather and even more stir one another.

Third, let me answer some objections that may come to mind.

I'm too tired. Well, your body needs rest. So does your soul. And you can't replicate the rest that your soul gets by being amidst the people of God in corporate worship before the throne of God. There is a reason that the people of God throughout scripture gather together in worship regardless of circumstances needed. I'm too scared.

Remember context here is they're facing persecution may be that there is a day where the United States, it's somehow outlawed or frowned upon based upon the things that this church holds to that you would gather together in a place like this. If we place family and freedom and home or life above Christ, then we have no interest in Christ gathering together As a church becomes outlawed in this country someday we still gather I'm too hurt.

I understand any of you have been hurt incredibly by the church, by pastors that have betrayed your trust, my fellow congregants that have done harmful things to you.

I understand some of the greatest pains I've experienced from people in life have been church people,

but they're worth continuing to press into.

They were worth Jesus dying for. So they're worth you living for.

Keep pressing into,

I'm too bored. Listen, worship is a lot of things. Gathering together with God's people before the sovereign God of heaven and earth is a lot of things, but it is not boring. If you're bored, it's 'cause you don't understand what's happening in this room at this moment. There's a breach between heaven and earth and you and I as the body of Christ are being brought into the heavens by the spirit of Christ so that we can gaze

upon the beauty of Christ so that we can hear the voice of our savior from the word. And you're gathered together with those that he has purchased with his very own blood. This is anything but boring.

I'm not needed. Again, misunderstanding.

Bite your feelings. Bite your feeling that, ah, I don't know that I quit quite fit here. I don't know that I quite have anything to give. I don't know quite. This is for me. You have to fight those feelings and you have to hear a louder voice. This voice that's actually authoritative, not that one that's in you. This voice that is very clear. You are needed. You're needed because you've been gifted and you've been called by God to serve

the body. You're needed.

I'm too busy than you think. Too highly of yourself.

God gave us one in seven days so rest and worship take place so that we would know that we and the things that we're doing are not the most important things in this world.

I'm too concerned about my work or home or family or recreation to attend. If you're so concerned with work or home or family or recreation to bother with worshiping God, then you are not a worshiper of God. You're a worshiper of work or home or family or recreation.

You need the means of grace. You need the diversity of the body. You need to be stirred up and we need you to stir us up. Need it? Old saints need the zeal of young saints. Children need to see other adults believe the same thing as their parents. College students need to see those who are persevering to the end. As an example, the healthy need to be reminded by the sick that life is short. The sick need to be reminded by the healthy that their burden is not theirs

alone. The slugger needs the example of the faithful. The melancholy needs to draft off the hope of the joyful. You need to be pulled and you need to be pushed. You need to be under authority. You need to refreshment and recentering for the week that you are getting ready to start Today. You need to be reminded of Christ's provision for you. You need to be reminded of the end of what's coming. That's how he ends this.

Notice that he instructs him to stay together all the more. As you see the day drawing near Christian worship prepares us for eternal worship. When we gather together to help one another, we are gathering together to help one another. Just to finish this race.

I stir you up. You stir me up so that we keep our eyes upon Christ so that we can finish this race,

race in each other's lives.

I found that the more Christian falls in love with Christ, the more we'll be drawn to the bride of Christ.

The more he is upon my mind, the more she will be upon my mind. The more I serve him, the more I will serve her. The more I seek his glory, the more I will serve for her. Good Christ is never separated from his bride. The head is never separated from the body. The great shepherd is never Shep separated from his sheep. If I love him, it will manifest itself in growing love for her. That's what it looks like.

And give you just lastly, some practical encouragement.

First is this. Be boring on Saturday nights. You be boring on Saturday. Live it up Monday through Friday. Don't tell your pastor about it. I don't wanna hear about it. Saturday night. Be boring. Boring, sleepy heads make for drowsy worshipers. It also makes for self-centered saints. Second treasure the Lord's Day. Focus on this moment throughout the week. Talk about Sunday worship all week long. And when the day arrives, model excitement about it.

Model it before your family members, your roommates, your fellow college students. Model it before one another When you're here, if this is what we are living for, if this is the high point of our week is to gather with God's people in God's presence on the Lord's day,

then we should show it. Third, be prepared for Sunday mornings prepared. There's a reason that spouses tend to squabble on Sunday mornings more than any other morning. There's a reason that it seems like children are cranky on Sunday mornings. There's a reason that uh, of all days I get a flat tire Today, on Sunday morning,

our adversary doesn't want you to be here.

Spirit is willing. The flesh is weak. You gotta prepare yourself. You gotta prepare yourself to fight through all the different challenges that there will be on Sunday morning. You gotta be prayed up. You gotta prepare. Be prepared to extend grace upon grace to one another on Sunday morning

prepared. Fourth, don't rush you. Wake up with plenty of time to spare on Sunday morning.

Don't arrive late. Don't arrive even a few minutes right before the service. Rushing out the door at home or rushing in the door of church discombobulated and it stymies our ability to worship and surely our ability to serve one another.

Fifth, come preparing to encourage. Come prepared to encourage. Don't come as a consumer.

Come as someone that is a lover and a giver. Give as you are able and then try and give more than you are able. And we all have different capacities. We all have different gifts. Some of you're extreme extroverts. I love you. That's not all of us. Some of you're extreme introverts. You give as you're able and then you try and push to give more.

Give as you can. Come here on Sunday mornings. Think about this often and do this often. Think, think. Create a list in your head of different people that you're going to touch. Not just your friends at church, but different people that you, that person's gonna need some encouragement. That person just needs a kind word. That person needs just to be stirred up in love in a way. That person is lonely. That person is depressed. That person is melancholy, that person is new.

That person is a visitor. That person is wrestling with this. And you just come with that list and you get outside your own comfort zones. And we're trying to stir up one another. Now I understand there's some of us that are just strange.

Got family members that are strange and yet you keep going to family reunions had a, had a great uncle that was strange. He, he was on a mission to show everybody in the world his feet. That's strange. I understand. Some of you think I'm that strange great uncle. Okay, some of you are that strange great uncle. But here's what he does. He puts us together. And in all of those ways, we just grace upon grace. We ministered each other.

We shape one another. We learned to grow in grace. We learned to grow in faith. We learned to grow in patience. We learned to grow in kindness. We learned to grow in love. Just using us in each other's lives

prepared to encourage. Finally, look out for one another. Someone's missing for a week. Pray for them. Someone's missing for two weeks. Call them someone's missing for three weeks. Hound them out for one another. He's given us to each other. Stir us up in Christ's likeness. It's grace. Upon grace. He's given us himself. And then he's given me all these brothers and sisters.

He's given me me the great charge. Getting to cooperate with him in their lives for their building up.

What a blessing.

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 we see the day drawing here, pray.

Father, we thank you for your kindness, giving us our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, the king and head of the church. Thank you for giving us brothers and sisters to walk through this life with thank you for the gift of corporate worship where we get to inform one another with all of our gifts coming to bear by the spirit of our savior. Pray that each of us would know disgrace upon grace that you have granted us and we pray all of this in the strong name of Christ. Amen.