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I invite you to open up your Bibles and turn to the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, Hebrews 10 and verse 24. We have been studying together in our series entitled A Healthy Church. And so far, we have asked the question, what should a member expect from the church?
What should a member who's coming into the church expect from a healthy church? Well, we said that a member should expect biblical preaching. They should expect biblical theology, a biblical understanding of the gospel, of conversion, of evangelism.
They should expect biblical church membership, biblical discipleship, biblical leadership and biblical church discipline. In short, a healthy church should have a biblically centered focus when it comes to how it operates.
A healthy church should be a biblically functioning church. Well, this morning, we're going to turn the question around. We have seen what each member should expect from the church. Now we move on to the next question.
What should the church expect from each individual member? Now the burden becomes a little more personal. What part do we each individually play in the building up of the church as a collective whole?
Well, over the next few weeks, we're going to examine nine things which the church should expect from its members. And this morning, we're going to look at the first three, which deal with the subject of participation.
Let's stand together. We're going to read Hebrews chapter 10, verses 24 and 25. Hebrews 10 and verse 24. And let us consider how to stir 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.
Our Father and our God, we thank you for giving us this time to study. I pray, O Lord, that you would encourage us, make this a time of worship for us, wherein we see not only the truth that is being proclaimed in this text, but also how that truth applies to every one of us.
I pray that you would keep me from error. I pray that as I preach, that you would speak through me, that you would, Lord, protect me from error and that you would open the hearts of your congregation, your people, to the truth.
In Jesus' precious name and for his sake, Amen. It wasn't too long ago that we were fully invested in a three year study of the book of Hebrews. So it's somewhat interesting that I would venture back to Hebrews so soon, but sometimes certain passages are so pointed and lend themselves so perfectly to a certain subject that we would be foolish not to reexamine them.
And today's passage is such a verse. When it comes to participation in the local body of believers, Hebrews chapter 10 and verses 24 and 25 has long been heralded as the go to verse for those wishing to make their point.
And for good reason. It is one of the few places in the text of the Bible wherein there is a specific command to come together as the body of Christ. Those who want to argue that they can effectively live the Christian life without being part of the local church have to run around this text or they have to completely avoid this text.
Now, what does this text actually say about our participation? What does this text say about participation in the local body and how does it fit into our understanding of what a healthy church should be?
Well, what we're going to see this morning, if you're taking notes, this is the outline of what we're going to be talking about. We're going to see three admonitions from this text regarding our own individual responsibility within the congregation as a whole.
In this text, we are actually commanded by the author to do three things. We are commanded to participate in worship services. We are commanded to participate in fellowship and we are commanded to participate in ministry.
You may say, well, Pastor, you seem to be drawing a lot from that text. Well, trust me, I will show you where we draw what I've said. But know this. The key to this text, the key to all of what we're going to talk about today is looking inwardly and asking the question, am I really participating in this church?
So we're going to look at those three things. And I tell you, as I was writing this and I was talking to my wife about it, I said, is this too in your face? So I'll let you tell me later. We're going to go for it and you can tell me how it feels later.
I'll accept the emails with great anticipation. So let's look at the first one. Participation in worship services. In verse 24, it says this, and let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works.
And some of you may read that and say, Pastor, that doesn't say anything about worship services. And that's true, it doesn't use the language in so many words. But what it does say is very important. It says that we need to consider.
To think on, to put in our minds, to focus on, to spend some time thinking about how to stir one another to two things, to love and to good works. Well, the term stir up in the ESV is translated to stimulate in the NASV, and it is translated to provoke in the KJV, the King James Version.
And it means just what those words seem to indicate. Believers are supposed to be prodding each other towards two goals in the Christian life. We are supposed to be stimulating each other towards two goals.
In our Christian walk, one is love and the second is good works. And the primary time in the week when we have to be prodded along to both of those is when we gather together. To sing of the Lord, to participate in the ordinance of communion and to hear his word preached.
Consider what happens in the worship experience. We come together, we pray, we sing and we share in communion together. And in those activities, we are engaging some of the most important expressions of love that there are because we're engaging an expression of love toward God.
People say all the time, oh, I love God. Do you worship God? Well, no, if you don't worship him, you don't love him. Well, do I have to go to church to worship him? We worship in concert together. We worship in fellowship together.
We worship as a body of Christ. Can you worship individually? Yes. Are you called to be a lone wolf Christian? No. And the idea of the lone wolf Christian finds no home in Scripture. Remember, beloved, love is not a feeling.
And I know, man, in our society today, you just cannot break the crust that is on the brains of some people to get that into their thick heads. Love is not a feeling. Love is an action. Love is a verb.
It is something that you do. That is the absolute, it is a verb, and we exercise love for God when we gather together in worship, we also come together to hear the word proclaimed to us. Why is that important?
Well, what is included in this time with the word? An admonition to obey. An admonition to obey. A spurring to good works. That's what this is. By the way, did you know that's the difference between a sermon and a lecture or a sermon and a lesson?
That there is a difference. A lesson does not have to include an admonition to do something. A lesson can be in World War Two, this happened and that happened, this and that. It doesn't have to involve application.
It can simply be facts and figures. A lecture can be truth and facts and figures. But a sermon is not just truth and facts and figures. It is a message which begins with the truth and moves to action.
A sermon must have a call to action. So what do I do on Sunday mornings? I spur you to good works. I spur you towards something. That is the goal of the preacher, to stand before the people of God and to prod them along to good works.
So when the text says we should consider how to stir, we should immediately recognize that the first way that we practice love and good works, that we stir each other towards love and good works is by participation in the worship experience, the worship service, the regular attendance together, proclaiming God's word.
This is the most powerful time in the week wherein we are all together prodded toward love and good works, love for God, love for one another, love for the brethren and actively engaging in good works.
That is what this service is all about. This is why the very next breath of the writer is to point towards regularly meeting together. If you look in the text, in verse 24, and let us consider how to stir up one another in love and good works.
And then what's the next next phrase out of his mouth? Not neglecting to meet together. Because there are some people who say I can do it all alone. They say I can sing songs alone and I do it all the time.
Michael W. Smith playing on my car radio. Well, I'm in the mid 90s, red, playing on my car radio. I don't know. I don't listen to music. So I can sing songs. I can pray alone. I can have communion alone.
I can buy bread and grape juice. And with modern technology, I can listen to sermon after sermon after sermon, one broadcast after another in my private closed quarters church. But beloved, that's not what we're called to.
We're not called to participation in individual Christian living. We are called to participation in corporate Christian living, not corporate in the sense of business. Don't get me wrong there. It's just a modern use of the term.
But to come together as a body, come together as the body of Christ, living the Christian life is in community. With one another. And it begins by participation in worship, begins by being here when all the saints of God in the local congregation are singing to him, when all the saints of God are participating in communion, when all the saints of God are hearing the word proclaimed, being here and participating in worship.
Not just warming a seat and waiting for that lunch afterwards. Man, Sunday lunch is great. And I just I don't want to hear him talk. I want to eat. No. Engaged in worship. That's the first thing we are called to participate in worship services.
And secondly, we are called to participate in fellowship. So we go back to verse 25. He says very plainly, couldn't make it any clearer, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some. You see, there is a specific admonition here that we are called to come together in times of meeting and we are not to neglect those times.
And it goes on to say, as is the habit of some. Even in that time, two thousand years ago, there were folks who neglected that important aspect of being part of the Christian community. There were people who were neglecting that.
And the apostle, whoever's writing this, because we don't know who wrote Hebrews, it likely wasn't the apostle Paul. It may have been Barnabas or one of the others. But he's saying very clearly what? Don't neglect this.
Some are doing it. They are wrong. Oh, it's not nice to tell people that they're wrong. Get off of that train, please, and get in the fast lane of reality. This whole, it's not nice to tell people they're wrong.
It is necessary, if we ever expect change, to recognize when we're not right. Why is this so important? Not neglecting to meet together. Why? Well, we meet for worship. We've spoke of that already. But we also meet for fellowship.
We meet for growing as Christian brothers and sisters. Some of the most precious times that I have had in my ministry, and it is short so far, but some of the most precious times I've had in my short time of ministry is this.
Spending time individually with people in these fellowship groups, building up the body in fellowship. And I think that the truth is this. I've been just as successful helping people understand the mysteries of the faith over a glass of iced tea as I have over this pulpit.
Because we have engaged in these times of fellowship, we have not neglected to meet together. We have not neglected to be together and to discuss the truth. And it's not always about theology. Sometimes it's about helping people discover their gifts.
Sometimes it's about helping people understanding their position as a child of God in the body of Christ. Fellowship has so many numerous blessings, and they're too numerous to count. And beloved, when we neglect to come together, when we neglect to meet together, when we neglect to have these times of fellowship, both in the church and outside of the church.
When we neglect to invite each other, to participate in our lives and open our homes to one another, to be hospitable as the scripture actually commands hospitality among the brethren. And if we neglect these things, we are not growing together as the body of Christ.
Because I don't know you any better than you know me, and we're not helping each other. We're not a support system for one another. And we're certainly not a family, as we should be. Beloved, we are called to be a family here.
We're not a family if we're not meeting together regularly. If all I ever see you is for 35, 40 minutes on Sunday morning, maybe an hour and a half if you come and you're here for the whole worship service.
If I only see you for an hour and a half on Sunday morning, we never, ever spend time together outside of this. And not just me, but all of us together. If we're not seeing one another, can we really say we're a family?
Can we really say we're participating in the body of Christ? I told you this is straightforward. You know, I didn't add a lot of illustrations. I didn't go to my, you know, thousand good stories for the soul book this week.
Just want to lay it on the line and ask the question, are we participating in fellowship at this church? Are we truly and you know, are we truly engaging each other's lives? Are there people in this church that you can trust and that you would trust with your most difficult of spiritual battles?
Should be. Shouldn't there be? Shouldn't there be people that you can call when you have a difficult life decision? As Jennifer and I did just this week, had a real difficult decision come across our table.
And somebody said, is another church call you? No, no, no church call you. Don't worry about that. I'm not real popular. Don't worry. It wasn't that, but it was another life decision. I had a brother in this church that called me.
He made a point to call me to give me some helpful thoughts. And he doesn't know how important that was. I tried to express to him because afterwards it really made a big difference to know that he cared enough, that he loved me enough.
But also, you know, sometimes when we're told stuff that, you know, it's not exactly what we want to hear, but it's what we need to hear at the time. You know, that matters. And that's you can't do that if you don't have fellowship with people.
You can't do that if you don't have a relationship with someone. So participation in fellowship, not neglecting to meet together is part and parcel of the Christian walk. And it's a necessary part. So we've seen two things where we are called to participate in worship.
By it, we are spurred towards love and good works. We are called to participate in fellowship because through that, we grow together as the family and body of Christ. And finally, we are called to participate in ministry.
Look at verse 25 again. It says in verse 25, not neglecting to meet together is to have this sum. And in the ESV, there's a common, there's no common degree because they didn't use those types of punctuation marks.
But here in the ESV, there's a common after the common says this. But encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day of the Lord or the day. That's that's a shortened phrase for the day of the Lord.
As you see the day drawing near. It's interesting that the word for encouraging here is similar in its root to the word that Jesus uses for the Holy Spirit. How many of you ever heard the phrase paraclete?
Many of you probably heard the term paraclete in some point in your Christian studies. You've heard that word. The paraclete is the Greek word that Jesus used to describe the Holy Spirit. When he said in John 14, 16, I will pray the Father and he will send you another comforter.
It's all those paracletos. The paraclete means the one who comes alongside to stand for you. The one who stands with you. The one who supports you. Jesus said, I am going away, but the Father is going to send you the Holy Spirit.
And he is the paraclete. He's the one who's going to stand beside you, to walk beside you. He is going to strengthen you, undergird you, encourage you and give you power for ministry. Well, when we look here at Hebrews 10, 25, it says that we are to be encouraging one another.
The word encouraging comes from the same root. Paracletos means to call alongside. And ultimately, what it means is that part of the reason we come together is we come together to minister to one another as part of the body of Christ.
We come together to build each other up, to encourage one another, to be ministers to one another within the body. Oftentimes, I am referred to as a minister. In fact, in some places, that is the official title given to me, is that minister.
But beloved, that is not my official title. My official title in scripture is pastor or elder, sometimes bishop. If you look in the King James, it comes from the words presbyteros and episkopos, the position of elder or bishop or pastor.
The reality is every believer is a minister in the body of Christ. Not everyone is called to be an elder. Not everyone is called to be a pastor or deacon. But everyone in the body of Christ is a minister.
In fact, the role of the elders is supposed to be this, that we equip the body of Christ for the ministry of the church. Turn in your Bibles back to our very first verse. When we opened our service this morning, we went to Ephesians 4.
And I want to end in Ephesians 4 today because I want to show you something very important. In case when I read it this morning, you maybe didn't notice this. But in Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 11, it says,.
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, those would be the elders, the pastors, to equip the saints. And by the way, the saints, I know most of you know this, but just in case you don't, saints is every believer.
Every believer is considered... The whole idea that the Roman Catholic Church has of making special people saints is ridiculous. The word saint is hagiosmos in the Greek. It means holy ones, the ones who've been set apart by God, the ones who've been made holy by the work of Christ.
That is everyone who is a believer. So don't come to this text and think, Oh, they're just supposed to equip certain people for the work of ministry. No, it's all believers. So let's read it again. He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.
Every one of you today who is a confessed believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, who professes faith in Him, who is a member of this local body of believers, you are a minister here. You have responsibilities here that God has called you to.
He has gifted you individually somehow to use those gifts here. Thus, the application of this sermon is simple. As an individual member of the body of Christ and the local church, you are expected to participate in worship, in fellowship and in ministry.
You are not expected to participate in worship haphazardly or occasionally. We expect to see you in worship when we're gathered together. You are not expected to avoid fellowship. We expect you to take a vested interest in each other's lives and fellowship regularly.
You are expected to come in, not just occupy a pew, not just leave and not be heard of for six days, but you are expected to come in to be actively ministering to one another in the body of Christ. This is what the church expects of you.
This is what the church expects of each of us. And we have the right to expect it because this is what God expects of us. And some of you may have never heard a pastor be so brazen as to say that it is your responsibility to participate in church life.
But I think the church has far too long been an institution of pleads and begs. The reality is participation in the Christian life is not a request of God. It is a command of God. He has commanded us to be a part of his ministry.
He's commanded us to be soldiers in his army, saints in his kingdom. He has commanded this of us. Who are we to sit on the sidelines when God has commanded us to get in the game? Our Father and our God, we thank you for the reality of this text this morning.
We thank you for the truth that has come out of it. And I do pray, O Lord, I pray that hearts have been encouraged this morning. I pray hearts have been opened up, laid bare. And Lord God, that there is a renewed vigor in this church and desire to draw close to you.
And to draw close to you through the ministry of Sovereign Grace Family Church. Father, we thank you that now as we get ready to see a person confirm their faith through the waters of baptism, we pray your blessing upon him.
We pray that this will be an experience in his life that he will not forget. And that the church will confirm upon him, Lord God, their commitment to him to continue to encourage him and spur him along toward love and good works.
We praise you, Father, for all that you have done and are going to do in each of our lives. We pray for the ministry of this church in Jesus' name. Amen.