Hebrews- Part 8- " Now What ?" Series

Hebrews

Encouragement for a life of faith

Part 8

“Now What?”

Hebrews 10:19-25

How many people here like to be honked at?

For me that just really gets my blood boiling

To be sitting at a red light

And have someone blow their horn at me as soon as the light even thinks about turning green

It irritates me to no end

Actually it makes me want to break at least 2 of the original Ten Commandments

Honking can be rude and can be misused

On the other hand

I love it when someone passes by my house and sees me on the porch and gives a little beep on their horn

This type of honking is encouraging

It makes me know that I am acknowledged even loved

When I think of this type of encouragement

I can’t help but think of the huge flocks of Canada Geese that will begin making their way south in the next couple of months

Seeing those v’s of geese and hearing them honking at each other is a sign of the coming of fall, shorter days and cooler weather for me

I never until now spent a lot of time contemplating why the geese honk

In my older days

If asked this question

I would have just said something smart

Like

Their geese

That’ what they do

But now I understand better about why they honk

The lead goose is breaking the wind current for the rest of the geese

He is setting the course

And he is setting the speed at which they fly

And being the leader is hard work

He gets tired

He gets discouraged in a goosey kind of way

And the ones in the back

Honk

To encourage him

Their honks are a sign of love- once again in a goosey kind of way

They are saying

Keep going

You’re doing great

We are with you

And he is encouraged to continue

But

The geese in the back are also encouraged

The ones in the back hear

Come on

You’re doing great

The ones in the middle encourage both those in front and those behind

The ones near the front are also being encouraged to fly up and take the lead when the one in front gets tired

Constant encouragement from their peers is what makes the huge flocks of geese make the long trip south every winter

We as Christians need encouragement as well

So in our study of Hebrews today we are going to see what the writer has to say about our part in encouragement

Before we dig in let me recap just a moment from last week

Last week we took a hard look at Jesus as our high priest

We saw how he and he alone has the perfection needed to be able to serve in that position

And how as our High Priest

His perfection makes us – not perfect

But perfectly forgiven through his perfect sacrifice

We have heard though this series some strong admonishments for better Christian living

We have been stepped on

And stomped on

And we have also been encouraged

And we may want to ask “Now What”

All of this mashing is in an effort to get us doing what God has called us to do

And that is

That we are

To Show the love of Jesus

Let our light shine as the kids song says

Please open your bibles to Hebrews 10

If you are perceptive and have been following along with this series

You will notice I jumped forward about 3 chapters in this study

The material I skipped is important and is further study on Jesus’ role as our High Priest

I strongly encourage you to read and study this for yourselves

Or

Come to our Sunday Morning Round Pen Bible studies where we dig deeper

Hebrews 10 Beginning in verse 19-22

And so, dear brothers and sisters,[a] we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. 20 By his death,[b] Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. 21 And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, 22 let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

We can boldly enter heavens Most Holy Place

In common terms

We have direct access to God

We don’t need to make an appointment

No need to stand in line

Jesus gave us this direct access through his own sacrifice

But our writer goes on to say

That we need to fully trust God

With sincere hearts in order to fully reap the rewards of having this unlimited access