Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording, including sermon titles, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these sermons. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copied and/or quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
PROVOKE THE BRETHREN
Hebrews 10:22-25, "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."
Why do we come to church? For most people, their first answers are that we come together to worship Jesus and to hear his word ministered to us. These are two very good reasons but there is a third reason that I want to bring to you in this message.
We come together to provoke one another to continue in serving the Lord. At least that’s what we are supposed to do.
All too often I see Christians come together for another kind of provoking. We seem to love to take a free shot at our brother or sister in Christ because if we put down on them or make them lose face, then it somehow makes us look bigger and better, at least in our own eyes.
Now there is nothing wrong with having fun or enjoying one another’s company but no one likes criticism, even constructive criticism. If someone asks you how to you like the way they are dressed, or the way they have combed their hair, or the class they have taught, they really don’t want to know the truth, especially if the truth will hurt. They just want to hear the praise and agreement and to be accepted as they are.
If you don’t like the way I dress, who asked you? If you don’t like the way I preach, take it up with the Lord. If you don’t like the way our special singers or musicians sound, then pray for them and praise them, don’t criticize them.
Now I haven’t noticed much in the way of criticism in the past month or so, but for a while, criticism was the order of the day. There wasn’t a service that passed without a critical spirit raising its ugly head to bring a division. The criticism was meant to bring about an improvement but, instead, it nearly always drives a wedge of hurt feelings and will hinder the growth of the church.
The problem is that we don’t come together in the right spirit and with our hearts prepared to edify one another.
It’s not enough just to come together. Hebrews 10:25 says this, “we should not forsake the assembling of ourselves together in the name of Jesus”. But we are not to just come together for sake of assembling at the church. There has to be some other criteria that are met before our “assembling” can have its proper effect.
…Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water…
I am convinced that if we would only draw near to God before we draw near to one another that there would be far less of the wrong type of provocation in the church.
A heart that is fully assured of its relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is at peace within and thus will be of a more amiable nature toward those who are without.
I wonder just how much of our complaining, griping, provoking, joking and putting down of one another is the outward sign of an inward heart that isn’t quite where it needs to be in the Lord.
It seems that too many people don’t feel good about themselves and they focus that feeling of inadequacy into their treatment of others.
The heart needs to be “sprinkled from an evil conscience”. This doesn’t mean that we need to take a shower. (I hope we do this anyway!) Natural water cannot cleanse the heart or clear the conscience of its condemnation. The sprinkling spoken of here is the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus upon the doorposts of our hearts so that the sin can be cleansed. Once the sin is forgiven and washed away, then the conscience can be clear and we can come together with our motives right.
1 Peter 1:2 says, "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied."
Who are the elect? I believe that every born again Child of God is one of these “elect”. It is God who “elects” us to be his children. It is those elect who are ever searching for the truth and striving to become more like Jesus with each passing day. God first “elects” us to be in his family and then we must “elect” to follow him.
Those of us who are among the “elect” are sanctified by the Holy Spirit through obedience to the New Testament Covenant by having our hearts sprinkled by the blood of Christ, just as the sprinkling of the blood of bulls and goats was a symbol of cleansing Israel’s sin when the priests would sprinkle it on the four corners of the Brazen Altar.
Once that blood covering has been placed upon your heart, the grace of God will abound in you toward other people, the peace of God, born in love and grace will be multiplied and we will begin to see other people through the eyes of the love of God and not the critical eyes of someone under condemnation for sin.
“…and our bodies washed with pure water …”
In Genesis 35:1-3 we read this account of God’s instructions to Jacob, "And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments…"
Why was Jacob running from Esau? It was he did the wrong kind of “provoking” toward Esau by stealing the birthright of the first-born son from him. This brought a reaction from Esau that Jacob had not considered because Esau was out to get even by killing Jacob.
God’s instructions were, Get up! Go to Bethel, meaning “the House of God” and stay there, making an altar to the Lord. Put away everything from you that might cause you to stray from God, clean up your act and change your clothes.
That’s what I am trying to say to you right now. Before you start provoking your brother and sister in Christ, get alone with God, get shut in with him, get into his presence, shut out the things of this world that distract you from your primary purpose, then repent of your sin, allow God to clean out your heart and then put on the garments of praise.
That great prophecy of Isaiah 61:3 that points to the coming of the Messiah says that Jesus was coming, "To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified."
Our problem is that we bring our problems with us and we enter the House of God in mourning because the world has been beating away at our spirit and we have a heavy heart. Jesus came to replace that heaviness and remove the ashes. The ashes are our burned out spirit and empty shell heart. He replaces them with the “oil of joy” and the “garment of praise”.
If that is the condition of our hearts when we assemble ourselves together in the House of God, the oil of Joy will be dripping from our spirit onto those around us, helping to bring them joy. The garment of praise that surrounds our heart will break forth in words of kindness and praise one for another and there will be no room for any kind of criticism.
…Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised)…
Do you profess to know Jesus? Are you full of the Holy Ghost and power? Are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb? Then your words and actions should show everyone around you that these things are true.
Griping, cutting one another down and poking fun at someone else until it hurts are not the way that Jesus acted. I don’t think that there was ever one time in the scripture where I heard Jesus joking around with the disciples. I know that God has a sense of humor. I know that the scripture says that “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine”. But I don’t think that the merry heart belongs to one who laughs because it is making fun of another person. I know that we can have a good time together and that having fun is a necessary and enjoyable means of building better relationships, but let’s not have fun at the expense of another person. God’s House should be a place where we can come together and hear encouraging words; words of faith and words of praise, from the lips of our fellow Christians.
…And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works…
Everything we do and everything we say should be edifying to the Body of Christ. I am reminded of something that we have all heard from our parents and teachers from the time we were small children, “If you can’t say anything good, then don’t say anything at all.” That’s good teaching and we should never forget it.
When we come together we should gain strength from one another for the journey ahead. We should sympathize and empathize with those who are sick or hurting. We should rejoice with those who are glad. We should help those who are in need to the best of our ability. Everyone who walks through that door should get a handshake, get some recognition for being a viable part of the church, and feel welcome and at home in God’s House.
For a long time I think that our church was lacking in much of these things. There was, and still is in some instances, too much “cut downs” coming from the lips of one person, going to the ears, eyes and heart of another. Lest we forget, let me remind you and myself, that there are no perfect people. We are all in need of improvement. We have no right to point out the speck of dirt in our brother’s eye until we have removed the fence post from our own. We must learn to focus on what is good about each other and not on the negative that we see.
God saw what Gideon would become, not what he was right then. Gideon was hiding from the Midianites in the threshing floor. He was afraid, weak and trembling. He was the smallest son of a large family. He had little or no skills as a warrior. And yet, God called him a “might man of valor”.
That’s the way we must see one another – as “mighty men and women of valor”. There is no limit to what God can use each of us to do and let’s not forget that!
When we come together in God’s House with that kind of spirit, heart and mentality, there is no telling what God can do for us! We can gain strength, be encouraged and be uplifted by those around us – and that’s what is supposed to happen in God’s family. There should be no sibling rivalry for we all have an equal inheritance with our Heavenly Father.
Illustration:
The huge redwood trees of California amaze mankind. They are the largest living things on earth and the tallest trees in the world. Some of them are 300 feet high and over 2,500 years old. One would think that trees so large must have a tremendous root system that reaches down hundreds of feet into the earth. But not so! The redwoods have a very shallow root system. The redwoods root system all intertwine. They are locked to each other. When the storms come, the winds blow, and the lightning flashes, the redwoods still stand. They are locked to each other. They are not alone for all the trees support and protect each other. Each tree is important to all the other trees in the grove.
We should be like those redwood trees. Our hearts, our lives, our desires for the growth of the church and salvation of lost souls should be bound together and wrapped tightly so that Satan could not destroy anyone or give us trouble without everyone of us feeling his attack and falling on our face before the Lord on behalf of that “tree” that is under attack.
… forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching…
In a time when Christians should be binding together to defeat the devil we see that there is a great falling away instead. People come to church only when it’s convenient for their schedules. People come to church just to ease their conscience. People have forsaken the assembling of themselves together with other Christians and allowed the idols of the world to draw them away from God.
This was happening in the early church at the time of the writing of the Book of Hebrews. The church was under a terrible persecution and many were afraid to gather in even a small crowd. They could be captured, imprisoned, tortured or killed for their faith. Christians were staying home to be safe but losing their identity as Christians in the process. They had lost their faith and trust in Jesus to bring through the persecution victoriously.
The modern day church, at least in America, hasn’t seen much of that kind of persecution. What we have seen is a “spirit of complacency or lethargy”. We are too satisfied, too comfortable with the status quo, and we like things the way they are. We don’t want to hear a preacher condemn our sin or our lifestyle. We don’t want any preacher upsetting our cart and trying to get us more committed to the church. We like our busy schedules and we don’t want to change.
I am also convinced that this is but another of the “signs of our time”. Surely we are living in the last days before the coming of the Lord. The current events in the Middle East and around the world are only confirmation that this is all going to end soon. Prophecy is being fulfilled before our very eyes.
2 Thessalonians 2:3 says, "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition…"
The falling away is the result of a fat, happy, satisfied, self-centered church that won’t fall on its face before the Lord and cleanse their garments.
It won’t be long until that “man of sin” is revealed, but before that happens, the Lord will take his Bride away.
Let’s come together and provoke one another to do good things, no great things, for the cause of Christ. No dream is too large or too small if it is a dream from the Throne of God. No member of the Body of Christ is unimportant. We all need one another so let’s come together as the Word of God commands and let’s build one another.
It won’t be long until it’s all over and we will be going home to meet the Lord in the air. Let’s provoke one another to do good works until that day comes!
