“Love & Good Deeds” Hebrews 10 - October 14, 2012
Turn with me in your bibles to Hebrews 10. We have been going through the book of Hebrews, and we are camping out for a month looking at the five calls to us given here in chapter 10. The book of Hebrews is a book of the Bible written under the inspiration of God himself, through a human author, I personally think Paul, and written to Jews, saved by faith in Jesus Christ who is the promised Messiah, the anointed one of God. This book tells these Jews that they no longer need to be bound by all the rules and regulations of the OT sacrificial system. Jesus has provided a better sacrifice than all the bulls and goats that were slaughtered to cover over the sins of the people for a short time. Instead, his sacrifice takes away sin for all time.
As we have gone through the book we have seen that Jesus is better than OT prophets who only had bits and pieces of truth, better than angels who are merely servants while Jesus is the Son, better than Moses the lawgiver, better than any high priest, even Aaron, the first high priest, and even better than Abraham, the father of the Jews. Then we saw four dangers we are warned about in Hebrews.
• We need to pay attention to the truth - or we will drift into error
• We need to make sure our hearts are not hardened by sin
• We need to make sure we are growing spiritually, not staying spiritual “babies”
• We need to make sure we do not give up or become lazy spiritually
Then we come to chapter 10, where we see that we are to live boldly as Christians. No longer do we need to be passive about our faith or rely on mediators, going to priests to find forgiveness of our sins. Instead, we have confidence to come right into the very presence of God. I’ll begin reading at verse 19, and I’ll be reading from the NIV.
Read 10:19-25
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,
by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body,
and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.
And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds.
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another--and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Let’s pray!
We saw in weeks past that we are to live boldly, on purpose, claiming the rights that are ours as Christians, That is something that we often fail to do. Instead we live weak, ineffective, ashamed lives, trying to blend into the crowd and not make any waves. And as a result our lives make no difference, no impact upon anyone else. Instead, Hebrews gives us a call to live out our inheritance. We are given five commands. Each one beginning with “Let us.” The first is found in verse 22 - Let us Draw near to God - we are able to come into the very throne room of God, to come before His throne boldly. Heb. 4:16 tells us, Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. We do not come to a God who could care less about our problems, but to a God who counts the hairs on our heads, a God who clothes the lilies of the field, and a God who sees each sparrow fall. And he says WE are far more important to him than flowers or birds. We have a God who loves to hear and answer our prayers. It says “how much more valuable you are than birds!” It’s an interesting study to go through and look at the times God says “how much more.” It tells us in Matthew, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So we draw near to God with confidence. Jesus has given access for us to God through a “freshly-slain” way, by dying on the cross for us.
Then the second call we are given - We are called to Hold on to hope! Our hope is centered on all that God is and all He has done. We saw last week that hope is the confident expectation that what God has promised surely will come to pass. Our hope is based on the fact that God cannot lie, He always keeps His word, He is always faithful. He is right now preparing a place for us to enjoy with Him forever. We have an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, reserved in heaven for us. Our hope is not in what we can amass for ourselves down here, but in what God has promised us up there! Let’s not hold too closely to the things of this world, but let’s remember that our treasure is what we send on ahead!
We are called to Draw near to God and to Hold on to hope. Today we see the third call. We are to Spur Each Other on to action! It says in verse 24 - And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. And that is the verse we want to consider today. And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds.
Let’s slow down and look at this one phrase together this morning. Some times we are on an agenda. Men are like that. Give me the shopping list, send me to the store, and I want to conquer - I want to get every item and be back in an hour. Women are different - shopping is an experience they savor and delight it. They want to look and try on and take their time. Many times we come to scripture with the conquer mentality - I’m going to read 10 chapters in 15 minutes - instead of the savor mentality that says let me pause and think about what I’m reading. So, let’s think about this verse a little longer today. The first thing we see in it is this:
1. Our Consideration - it says “Let us consider . . .” What does it mean to consider? It means to “think.” That’s something that as a group we don’t do a whole lot. We live in a nation of “couch potatoes.” We are real good at “being.” We are real good at sitting around watching movies and ball games. But when is the last time we took time to truly “think” about life?
What is one of the key lines a parent says after their teenager does something foolish? “Did you THINK about what you were doing? or What did you THINK you were doing? To which the answer is always, “I don’t know!” We have a nation that doesn’t think. We are a people who live for pleasure and amusement. What is amusement? It is that which you do without thinking. A- without Muse - think. Amusements are things we enjoy that we really don’t have to think about. For example, your son is in the living room playing his Xbox or Nintendo, you could say The house is on fire! and he would just grunt. His eyes are glued to the screen, totally oblivious to what is going on around him. We live for things we can do without thinking about them.
But as Christians, we are called to think. About 100 times we are called to “consider.”
What are the implications of “considering”? Really it is this: we are not to live our lives “aimlessly” but to live “on purpose.” God has a purpose for us, and we need to live according to His purposes.
In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul writes this: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last for ever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
He says in verse 26 - “ I do not run like a man running aimlessly” - He is saying I’m not just going in circles with my life. There is purpose in how he lives. We need to be very intentional about what we do. If you listen to Randy Carlson on Family Life Radio you’ve heard the phrase before The intentional life. We live our lives on purpose. So our call this morning is to “think”. Think about what you want out of life. Think about what you want your life to look like in ten, five, two years. We do that less and less as a culture. It used to be that people made many new year’s resolutions, but that is becoming a thing of the past. Whatever problems and hang-ups and burdens and sins you are struggling with today, you will still be wrestling with a year from now - UNLESS something changes in your life to make things different.
We need INTENTIONALITY! We need to step back from life and THINK what we want our life to look like! Hebrews reminds us we need a consideration - we need to consider our lives and live them on purpose. I thought about giving you a minute or two to take time to think about your life, but the reality is you need much more time than that. But what I will do is pause for a moment to ask you, WHEN will you take some time out of your schedule to THINK about your life and how you are living? Can you take some time today? If not today, when this week can you set aside time to pause and think? Take a moment and think about when you will be able to do that. --pause -- I hope you WILL follow through and keep that time this week to think about how you are living your life. The next reminder from this verse, we saw our consideration, now we see
2. Our Stimulation - Now we don’t often talk about stimulation in church. Far too often as Christians we find our stimulation in every place BUT church. We find it in physical pleasure, in romance novels, in gambling, in a bottle - but we often don’t think about church being stimulating. Verse 24 states, And let us consider how we may spur one another on... This word “spur on” is really the idea of a cowboy sitting on his horse and kicking the spurs into the side. It literally is the idea of “sharpening” something and getting “movement.”
Do you remember as a kid sitting in math class being bored to tears when suddenly you look down and realize that you’ve got a sharp pencil and the boy in front of you has his behind sticking off the seat. The sharpened point of your pencil QUICKLY motivates the boy to action, often getting you in trouble as well. Now, just a quick disclaimer here, that is NOT a safe diversion nor am I recommending it for anyone here to do. Kids, don’t do that! But we ALL understand stimulation and motivation!
Stimulation gets us moving. This term is the idea of getting moving, or inciting, of stirring up, of encouraging to take action. When we take the time to THINK, then we need to MOTIVATE to act. But the focus is not on our taking time to motivate ourselves to action, but on motivating OTHERS to action. We are to spur on ONE ANOTHER! We see that we are to spur one another on to love and good deeds. The truth is that when we do THINK, we often think about what WE as an INDIVIDUAL can DO, instead of thinking what it is that WE as the BODY, TOGETHER can do. The truth is that together we are stronger than the sum of our individual strengths. Together we can do more that we can accomplish individually. There is strength and power from Christians working together. Satan knows this, and often he seeks to get us to act individually. He gets us to think that we are the only one who wants to serve God and if anything is going to be done, then we are going to have to do it, after all, no one else can do it quite as good as we can.
We need to get away from this “perfect” mindset in the church. We see these elaborate church services on TV -- did you ever watch Robert Shuller and the Crystal Cathedral? -- and we get the idea that to REALLY worship, we need a massive crystal cathedral with an arboretum and waterfall in the sanctuary, we need to sing like Sandi Patti and play piano like Dino and have someone preach like Chuck Swindoll or Billy Graham. And when we don’t see that in our worship services we say, why even bother? We can’t measure up! But that is EXACTLY the lie that Satan wants us to believe!
Remember our worship is done for an audience of ONE! Worship is not done to make US feel good, but to give glory to God. And the truth is that ALL the gifts - singing, teaching, giving, playing - they ALL come from God and he gives them to US to bring glory to HIM---not to get glory for ourselves!
God’s desire is for us to work together in ministry. And for that to take place, we need to encourage one another, to spur one another on. The biggest hurdle we face in doing ministry is really MOTIVATION or ENCOURAGEMENT. We KNOW what we should be doing: we know we should witness to our coworkers, neighbors, friends. We know we should read our bible and pray. We know we should come our to church and worship and fellowship and minister together. Normally we don’t need more training to do what we should. We each need to grow and study, but it’s not knowledge that sidetracks us: it’s MOTIVATION!
If you really want to get motivated to serve God, where’s the best place to get that motivation? Internally or externally? I believe it is externally. If we had internal motivation we would already be doing what we should. But we ALL need a friend, a brother or sister coming alongside us calling us forward to do what we should be doing, to BE the church, to be salt and light to our world. We need teammates cheering us on.
Ladies, this is where you can step up this week. We are starting a men’s group on Thursday night. Your husband will be tired after supper and want to watch the ball game on TV. You need to step up and say Why don’t you drive in for men’s group tonight! Give him encouragement to take action.
Think about the game show Family Feud. One at a time the team members give an answer, and even if it is the STUPIDEST answer in the world all their teammates jump up and down and clap and shout “Good answer! Good answer!” Or think about a relay race. Four members of the team. Each has a part to play. Each gets to carry the baton for a while. And while each member is running, the others are all cheering him on to the finish. In the body of Christ, far to often instead of cheering one another on in our race, we are yelling out complaints and criticisms: You’re running to slow; quit looking around; Your shoes are untied! All that does is get everyone on the team defeated and discouraged. Instead we need to cheer and shout and celebrate the fact that SOMEONE is running and cheer them on! We all need encouragement.
Pause for a moment and ask yourself a couple questions:
• When is the last time I was negative and critical and put someone else down?
• When is the last time I encouraged someone is how they were serving the Lord?
• Who could I encourage this week in how they are living for God and serving Him?
We have a consideration - we think about our lives; we have a stimulation - we cheer one another on.
3. Our Imitation - we are called to imitate our Savior, Jesus, by living a life of love. What is it that we are to spur one another on to do? To show love! And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love. WHY do we need to encourage one another to love? Because we DON'T show love! It’s sad, but true. We say we love - we love ourselves, sometimes we even love our family - we have a sensual love - we live for pleasure and worldly fulfillment - but we don’t love as we ought to love. We don’t love as God does. The term here for love is AGAPE - the word for God’s love. The selfless, sacrificing love that puts others before ourselves. This is the way we are called to love. John 13:34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
1 John 3:11 - This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
1 John 3:23 - And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. John puts loving one another one the same level as believing in Christ.
1 John 4:11 - Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
We will show the world we are followers of Christ by imitating Christ in every aspect of our lives. And the key characteristic we are to have is love! Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13 what this love looks like: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
So, if we want to follow the example Christ left for us, we will encourage each other to love - fully, deeply, selflessly-- as Christ loved us.
When we cut and criticize and tear each other down, it shows that we do NOT love one another. It shows that we are not following the example of Christ. It shows that we are not mature spiritually, but we are immature, spiritual BABIES! We are quick to snap at each other and wound one another. If were in the army it would be like shooting the man in the foxhole with you. Remember in 2009 Nidal Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood and shot his fellow soldiers: he killed 13 and wounded 29 others. And he is facing the death penalty.
That is what we are guilty of when instead of loving one another we attack and tear down each other. We EACH need others to come alongside us, who will encourage us to LOVE. Because the reality is that we are NOT good lovers! We love when it’s convenient. We love when we have been shown love. But Christ’s example is even when He was mocked, beaten, betrayed, ridiculed -- He loved.
We have a consideration - we think about our lives; we have a stimulation - we cheer one another on.
We have an imitation - we are to love like Christ in our daily affairs of life. And finally,
4. Our implication - what does it mean if we will show the love of Christ in all our daily affairs? It means that we will be busy doing Good works! Love is always expressed by action. We can’t say we love God but not show it by our actions. If we love, it will be shown by action.
Now when we talk about “good works” we need to understand that we are NOT talking about anything we do to EARN our salvation. This is not a passage about salvation. Rather this is a passage about expression. The implication is that if we DO believe and if we ARE Christians and if we LOVE as God loved, then we WILL do good works. James wrestled with this question of faith and works. He says in James 2:18 - I will show you my faith by what I do. Faith is shown by action. And these good works are really what we are created for in the first place. If we take seriously the fact that we are to live our lives on purpose, then we need to understand what that purpose is. Ephesians 2:10 tells us clearly: For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. God’s plan, from before the foundation of the world, was for us to live out our faith by doing good works. Not as a MEANS of salvation, but as an EVIDENCE of salvation. It is the fruit that occurs naturally when we are saved.
In the book of Titus, Paul gives Titus instructions in how best to lead a people who are quarrelsome, argumentative, always straying away from the truth. Paul writes Titus in chapter 3 and says Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order that they may provide for daily necessities and not live unproductive lives. If we really want to have a productive Christian life, we need to show good works in our lives. We need to do that which is good.
In Titus 2 we find these words: For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. Far too often we need to be coaxed and manipulated and begged into doing that which we know we should be doing.
God’s plan in bringing us salvation is to create a people who are actively doing what is good and right. And the reason is so that God will receive the glory. Matthew 5:16 - In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
What these good deeds are will differ for each person. I don’t believe it is a set list of things to “check off” as much as it is the idea that our lives are lived in a way that we do the right thing at all times, not out of personal agenda or ulterior motive, but simply choosing to do the right thing so that God may receive the glory.
Looking at 1 Corinthians 9 once again, Paul says, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. Paul denied himself many fleshly pleasures so that his testimony would be consistent, so he could please his master. Many times, because we are not living like we should, we do things that cause us to be “DISQUALIFIED.” And that is where we need one another!
When you see a brother or sister doing something they should not do, doing something that is NOT GOOD, come alongside them and kick the spurs in, poke them with your pencil, motivate them to do the right thing! Don’t judge them, don’t criticize them, don’t talk about them to someone else, but come alongside them and encourage them to do right and show their love for God. Galatians 6 talks about this: Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If we are going to spur one another on, we need to be involved in each other’s life.
As the church, we need to not just come together for corporate worship, but to live an interconnected life together, weeping when one another weeps, rejoicing when one another rejoices, sharing all of life’s temptations, trials and triumphs together. But that means we will end up having to deal with some “messy” stuff, because the reality is that most of us have lives that can be quite messy at times. We can put a good front on Sunday mornings - How are you today? Great, praise the Lord Brother! -- But when it comes down to how we live on a daily basis, we struggle with sin and selfishness and stubbornness and we NEED our brothers and sisters to come alongside us to help us. We can’t get by on our own. God created us to live in community with one another. THAT is our calling! THAT is our command from God.
To live boldly in Christ,
• we have a consideration - we need to think about our lives and live on purpose; we make our choices based not on our feeling, but based on doing what we know we should do
• we have a stimulation - we cheer one another on; don’t put others down - lift them up!
• we have an imitation - we show love, selflessly, just as God loved us; we think of others more highly than we think of ourselves; we seek their good, not our own good; and
• we have an implication - we who are God’s children are to show it by doing that which is right!
? What GOOD are YOU going to do this week? Who will you come alongside and help this week?
May God help us to live boldly as we spur one another on this week. Let’s pray!
