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First of all, I'd like to thank those three young men. Because not a lot of young people have gotten here today, actually before about five minutes before service, and never really got here in person.
And I want to thank each and every one of them for actually being willing to come up here and do something that may seem simple, but can be very intimidating. They did. They all did a wonderful job. And so you guys don't know how heartfelt I want to thank you all for that.
Amen. Any of the men out there, or even some of the ladies, there's times you'll see that one of us is out. If you want to feel it, by all means, come and say, let me breathe the Word of God. Because that's what we're here for, right?
We have obligations to God. He saved us. Not because of anything we could have done. That He loved us. Because I know my history, I know my past, and I know I'm not redeemable, but my Redeemer lives. We're going to be in Hebrews chapter 10 today.
And guys, bear with me. I'm having trouble enunciating today. I don't know why, but I am. So just kind of bear with me. We're going to be in Hebrews chapter 10. This is a topic that seems kind of odd and ironic for me to do it today.
Because invariably what happens when Pastor Jeff and Pastor Sarah are gone, our number drops. Because we have an obligation to the family. We do. Hebrews chapter 10. I'm going to start reading in verse 19.
It 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, without hearts crinkled, cleaned from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure hearts.
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another through love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as a habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Let's pray. Father, right now, I ask for the words to say that are on my heart. Father, right now, I ask for the people to hear not the words that come from my mouth, but what is truly on my heart from you.
Father, I just ask that you be with us. Father, I ask that you just comfort us. Father, guide us and direct us. All of you. Guys, we have an obligation to you. We have a rather large family. I have four brothers and four sisters.
Many of you already knew that. And if you only did not understand the first time I was taking Melanie to introduce her to my family, how you can love a brother but not necessarily like him. Right? Melanie's an only child.
It was kind of a culture shock for her. It still kind of is, I think, when she comes to visit. But guys, we have an obligation to our family. Jesus paid the price. Jesus brought us together. Jesus made us one family in God.
We're here for each other. And I have some brothers that no matter how bad they've been, all I have to do is pick up the phone. One of the hardest days of my life is when I told you, my brother, I'll be there as soon as you're ready for help.
But until then, I can't let you know where my family lives. I can't let you know how to get in touch with them. Because I have to protect my family from my family. I'm going to focus in on verse 23 through 25 today.
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 all the more as you see the day draw near.
You see guys, because when times get hard, when things get tough, all you have is family. When everybody else walks away, what's truly left is family. And when you neglect that family, it's amazing how you don't have that support when you need it.
I remember telling my sister of my father's death. We got together as a family to kind of reminisce and send him off. We didn't have to have a funeral. We had a little family memorial. And my sister was so upset because there were four of us that were really, really close.
And she felt like an outsider. And I explained to her, or I tried to explain to her, that when I graduated high school, my parents moved up to Wisconsin to be closer to my grandmother. And my younger sister moved up with her.
She wasn't there with the family. The four of us who were left in Arkansas made a conscious effort to assemble together. We made a conscious effort to build each other up. We made a conscious effort to support one another through our struggles and trials.
And as a result, we got stronger as a group. And she didn't understand why we had that support when she didn't. It was simply because she was absent for no other reason than she was absent. Because then, even when they moved closer and we would invite them to dinner, they wouldn't come.
My brother, it's the same way. We invite them every family function. Every time we get together. But this is six months from now. If Christ has made the ultimate sacrifice for us Christians, He did. He died on the cross.
He took our shame, our guilt, and all that on Him so that we can have fellowship together and with Him. It was by conscious choice that my family members excluded themselves and by default, excluded them from the benefits of having that close-knit family.
So let's look at these verses again. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering. Why are you here? Truly, why do you come through these doors? So all of a sudden, they enter His courts with thanksgiving.
They enter His courts with praise. Right? But many of us come here very dejected and sad and there's no prayerful worship coming in when you're entering these doors. Why are you here? Potentially, He saved me from where I was.
And He wants me to be more like Him. So I am going to go through trials. James tells us to rejoice in those trials. And carry one another through the year. You're not here for you, Christian. You're here for Him.
The assembly is to worship Him. It doesn't matter what's music like. By the way, I love that first song that we sang. I've never heard it before, by the way. Sorry, I decided not to say it before I forgot.
But God, it doesn't matter whether you like the music or you don't like the music. It doesn't matter if you like the preacher or you don't. If the Word of God is being read, I can get Owen to come up here and read the Word of God.
And Christian, if you have the Holy Spirit in you, you should get some blessing from the reading of the Word. It doesn't matter who does it. I can remember we had this old retired pastor. None of us, he never actually told us what church he was.
He was just a pastor. And he would come up here. And at the time, it was my job to make sure that the Winston Heights were covered. And we would often let, if someone had something to say and share, we would let them speak on Wednesday nights.
And I can remember him coming up to me and asking me, Brother John, because I was a deacon at that time, who are we, who's teaching tonight? And it was actually one of our youth that was going to be speaking.
And he said, oh, I'm going to go home. Looking at that man, this is the last time I think I actually saw him. I don't think that was the last time he came, but I think this was the last time I actually saw him.
And I looked at him and he said, you called yourself a pastor. And this was a youth who felt like he was being called to the ministry and getting up here to share the word of God and rather than support him and pray for him, you're going to leave?
Christian, how many times did we do that? We find out who's going to be teaching today. And that determines whether or not we decide to come and show up in God's house. Christian, you're not here to get entertained.
You're here to learn more, right? You're here to worship God. You're here to praise his name. He died so that we can do this. And let us consider how to stir up one another. Some translations say provoke or to promote.
That means to instigate. That means to make it happen, right? We are here today to stir up one another. We're here to give and make each other do something, right? And just hope to love in good words.
You know, the Greeks had four different words for love. But the one here is agape. That's a sacrificial love. That's an unconditional love. That's a love that does not matter what they did in their past.
It doesn't matter what they do in their future. You're supposed to love them anyway. Jesus says in John 13, 34, a new commandment I give to you. John 13, 34, 35. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you.
How many of you can say that about the person you're sitting next to? That you're willing to lay down your life for them. You also are to love one another. By all this people will know you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
How many of you when you walk out into that world everybody knows about you saying that you're a Christian that you are a Christian because of the love you have for each other? That's the standard Jesus gave us of how much we're supposed to love.
You can't love somebody if you never spend time with somebody. You can have some familiar feelings to them. That's the problem with the English label. We have one word for love. I had a love or I have he overdosed a long time ago.
I had a love for my brother Hal because he was my brother. But I didn't have that adopted. He was part of my family but he wasn't part of my family. You know what I mean? Everybody in here that claims to be a Christian or the title Christian they are part of your family.
And we're supposed to not only love them but we're supposed to love each other. Right? We're supposed to love our neighbor. You should love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.
Second of this you should love your neighbor as yourself. How many of you love your neighbor as if they were you? You're supposed to love your family, husband, love your wife that Christ loved the church.
Right? You're supposed to love your enemies. Luke 6 27 but I say you here love your enemies do good to those who hate you bless those who curse you and pray for those who abuse you. We're supposed to be the purpose of this gathering is to make each other love each other more.
Showing love to each other. When you teach somebody to love is to show them love. To teach somebody to do something is to emulate it in their own life. Serve each other up for love and good works. To serve somebody other than yourself.
I prepared the good works ahead of time each morning. He already knows what you're supposed to do and if you don't you're not going to figure it out sitting at home. The saying is trustworthy and I want you to insist on these things that you're going to believe in God and be careful to devote themselves to good works.
These things are excellent and profitable for people. Devoting ourselves to good works. What are good works? Putting somebody else in front of you. That's a good one. Not so everybody can say oh we had a boy good job.
But so they can prosper. It just saddens my heart when I come here and I see people that never want to do anything to support the family. And I'm not talking financially. I'm talking about the little things.
They come here for me. How can you serve me? How can you make my life better? What are you doing for somebody else? Scripture tells us not to think more highly of ourselves than we should right? What makes you so special that you think you need to be the one that is to be served?
I know what I've done in my past and I don't deserve to be served. And it's said in verse 23 that we should spend time considering how to do these things. That means it's a proactive plan that when we get together how am I going to help Shane do love and good works?
How am I going to help Artie do love and good works? How am I going to help Melanie do love and good works? We need to be considering this when we're not here so that when we get here we're ready to do it.
Because that world does not like you no matter how much they claim to. They want you to return to your old filth and your own vomit where there's still stuff. Ephesians 5 .13 says for you are called to freedom brothers not only to use your freedom not only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for flesh but through love serve one another.
How can you serve somebody if you never spend time with that person? How can you encourage somebody if you never take the time to invest in them? Your words mean nothing. I've never spent a moment with you when I get a phone call from you or a message on Facebook oh I'm praying for you.
What does that mean? Invest time. Don't be a selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourself. Let's each of you look not only to his own interest but also to the interest of others.
Don't just focus on yourself. We all have those days that I want it to be about me. And some days we even need it to be about me. But that should be the rare occasion. Because I said last time I was up here if you're having trouble and you're worrying about you so much the best way to quit worrying about you and get yourself out of your funk is to start worrying about somebody else.
Start trying to fix their problems instead of yours. Start lifting them up instead of you trying to pull yourself up. Because it's a whole lot easier to pull somebody else up off the ground than just pick yourself up sometimes.
If you're stuck in the muck in the mire it's a whole lot easier for somebody else to reach down and pull you out of there. So quit focusing on yourself and focus on your family. And you can only do that by getting to know each other.
By spending time with each other. That's why those mission trips are so valuable. It's not because of all the thousands of dollars of work but we did it because you get to learn each other as a family.
That's why I was telling somebody while we were there I actually hated the new place we were staying. Because the place we would stay in Bahama you had a little tiny room that four or five of you were staying in so it made sense to get out of the room and by default sit on the patio area and by default everybody in the patio got to talk and you got to know each other so much better.
Where as here you had apartments and everybody stayed in their apartment and very rarely did you see people outside talking. But I can't know Seth by spending time with Seth. I know his needs and his desires and his struggles.
If I spend no time with him. The altar keeper says not to neglect the assembly. I know there are some days we kind of joke about it because oh it's raining so I'm going to stay home. Oh it's sunshine now so I'm going to go to lake instead of going to...
We come up with so many different reasons not to come here. And some of them say I'm going to go to the ministry instead of coming to the Bible study. To worship God. And say I'm going to go here and we're going to go do this activity.
We're going to go do this fun thing. And guys there is value in that. But the purpose of the assembly was to worship God together as a family. Come here and then after go. Spend time together focused on God.
Sunday morning worship was never intended for the non-believer. It was intended for God's people to assemble to worship. If a non-believer came in great we're going to worship God. Your worship is supposed to go and witness because it recharges you.
Many of you already know this about me. I'm a very introverted person. I really don't like talking to other people a lot. It tires me physically, mentally. I get exhausted. I remember Sundays at Hamilton when I was preaching out there.
I would be so tired by the end of the day. I didn't do anything to talk. I truly get together with God's people to worship. I may be physically tired but there's a joy that I can't explain. So why am I talking when I'm around people?
It doesn't make sense. It's real funny when I'm at work and I would be walking through the hospital and everybody would go, where's your favorite nursing group? I was supervising them on the floor. My answer to them was, I hate everybody the same.
And if you think about it it's true. I love all of them. So I hate you all the same. It tires me to interact. I'm so happy. And Melissa. But that's because I don't know what to do. I've joined my family at home.
It's going to be more of a chore to come than a joy. I'm so happy my daughter grew up in this family. So much so that when we moved out to Mississippi she still wanted to come here because this was her family's home.
We're supposed to be getting sanctified, right? And if I don't have the discipline to show up here when someone's going to tell me what the word of God says, how am I going to have that discipline at home by myself?
Oh, I can worship God anywhere you can, but you don't. Leave your Bible on the shelf. One day turns into two, which turns into ten, which turns into a year, which turns into a day. It hurts to come to know what I say anymore because the world hates what's coming from my mouth.
I can praise God in spirit and I don't have to fear what I say. I'm not going to do all the day. Encouraging one another to be done together. If I've never spent time with you physically, 511 says therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing.
If I've never been here, I know that they've been asking for what's going on. You're going to go out the door. Insects are drawn to that light. There's always going to be insects in the world. So encourage and build each other up.
I love you so much. Man in the world. I know you can hear me. I can hear me. In prison. I'm here. You're like, but I'm here, Pastor. I'm here. What do you want from me? Invest. Don't just show up. Consider how to provoke them to love and good works.
Hold fast to that initial conversion. Remember that joy of your salvation. Because as the season gets darker, you're going to need the light. Guaranteed one day we will not be able to stand out on the corner and say, Jesus is God.
And mistruth. I truly believe there's going to be false prophets who are claiming, Oh, God smiles. Jesus loves you. That he doesn't love you the way you are. He loves you in spite of the filth. And where are you today?
Are you one of those that only show up when it's convenient? You're the one who said, I don't need to go to Bible study. I don't need to invest time. I don't need to help. Oh, they're doing the block party this week.
I'm not going to come back that time. I'll come in the other night, but I'm not going to come back. Or are you the person that said, Oh, you know what? I can go. I can be at home for six o 'clock. I'll tell you from a teacher standpoint, when you've prepared and poured your heart into a message or a sermon or a lesson and no one shows, it's disheartening because God's people should be hungry for his word.
I'm not saying you have to be here every time the door is open, making a conscious effort that this should be what I need. It's not re-evaluating. This is more of a social portal or let me see what I can get from everybody else.
You need to recheck your priorities. If that's the case, stay at home and let those who want to worship the truth come together and worship the truth. Because I'd rather be here with two or three that want to praise God than a stadium full of people who just want to show up.
As musicians come forward, I want everybody to think about where they stand. How much am I investing in my family that is here? How much am I truly forsaking the assembling just simply for convenience?
How much am I serving one another? How much am I seeking God's word? If there's room for improvement, come on. This invitation time, this time we get together, it's amazing how many people just start talking about what they're going to do after rather than how they can serve one another.
Don't use this today to figure out where you're going to go eat lunch. Don't use this today to figure out what you're going to do this afternoon. Use this time to truly focus on the needs of your family.
Pray with somebody. Pray for somebody. Whatever it is you need, you come as God leads.
