Hebrews 10:19-27

Come to Church

I want to talk to you this morning about something which is the

necessary consequence of hearing and believing the Gospel. This

something is foundational to your health as a believer in Christ. It is

something that God has purposed for all of His people in order to

preserve them, in order to keep them safe and secure for the

eternity that He has prepared for them and for His glory. I want to

talk to you this morning about coming to church. I want to talk to

you about coming to church.

Welcome back if you were away over the long weekend last week.

This morning is part 2 of 2 messages that we are preaching on the

church. So if you missed last week please make use of our website to

listen to the sermon on “what is the church?” It is really important

that you do so. The church is not the physical building we are

meeting in this morning. The church is in fact the living building

which is the people of God. We are the living bricks that make up the

building that God Himself is building. And the extraordinary reality

about this building made up of you and me is that God Himself lives

it. God has been pleased to make for Himself a dwelling in the midst

of His people. It is the most mind-blowing reality. That’s what the

church is.

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So one of the things we heard last week was that it is antithetical to

the purposes of God for each individual living brick to separate itself

from the rest of the other bricks. That’s not what a brick is designed

for. Each individual brick is meant to join together with other bricks

in an indivisible union, isn’t it? That’s when it realises its brick

potential, right?

I am convinced that the seriousness and significance of coming to

church is something that is lost to most of our society today and

even to many professing Christians.

Coming to church has become something that many people

view as old fashioned and backward. This is the 21st century.

We are passed that now. Church going is something for our

grandmothers to do.

Others think of church as that boring place where you are

taught many rules that nobody’s got time for.

But then you get people that think of coming to church as a

good thing, but they just don’t have the time to do it. They

think coming to church gives you upliftment and motivates you

to be a better person. So they think it’s good to pop in to

church every now and again. Someone actually posted on

Facebook the other day, “it was so good to go to church

yesterday. Now I feel so much better”.

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So she’ll come back in a few months’ time when she wants to

feel better again.

Others just visit church and never come back. They simply

decide it’s not for me.

Those are some of the attitudes of people in our society at

large.

But then there are attitudes of people in the church which are

also not great because they don’t recognise the significance of

coming to church.

o There are some Christians who think for example, they

don’t need the church because they can just be with their

God at home. I was recently shown a so-called prophet

who says that the church is a terrible Governmental

institution that you must stay away from. God wants you

to stay at home. Some people think that’s true.

o There are of course professing Christians who know that

coming to church is part of what Christians do so they do

it but they don’t really know its significance so they don’t

see it as a high priority. So they come to church when

they are free on a Sunday morning or when they are free

during the week for midweek meetings. When they have

nothing better to do.

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o Others come regularly but if something comes up then

they drop church and do that thing. And I think a lot of

people who call themselves Christians are tempted to fall

into this category rather than the others ones I’ve just

mentioned.

o So for example, many of you are students. You have a test

on Monday morning, or a weekly assignment that must

be submitted every Monday morning. You don’t plan to

do the assignment in time so you’ll just not come on a

Sunday evening, and you’ll do your assignment during

church time. Exams start at the end of May, so we see you

in April, we don’t see you in May because you are

studying every Sunday night and then in June-July you’re

on holiday so we see you again in August.

o Many of you are working people with all sorts of

pressures and demands from your work and somehow

church tends to find its way to the back of the agenda

because there are lots of other urgent things to do.

Everything I’ve said up until now is evidence of a problem. What’s

the problem? We don’t know and feel the seriousness and

significance of coming to church.

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My aim therefore tonight is not to tell you my thoughts. I want to

show you from Hebrews 10 that coming to church is the necessary

consequence of hearing and believing the Gospel. I want to show you

from Hebrews 10 that coming to church has been purposed by God

as the means by which He preserves His people, the means by which

He keeps them safe and secure for the eternity that He has prepared

for them and for His glory. If you haven’t already done so please turn

in your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 10:19-27. That is our passage for

this morning.

Let me pray. Father help us this morning by your Spirit. Help us as we

read and hear your Word to re-arrange our lives, to re-arrange our

priorities and line them up with your purposes. We don’t want to be

a people that call themselves by your name but neglect to live by

your ways. I pray that your people at St. James would see and feel

the significance of meeting together this morning and so make it the

habit of highest priority in their lives so that in the end we may see

your face and live. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

If you are unfamiliar with the book of Hebrews this language will

seem very strange to you. Don’t panic. I’m going to explain the gist of

what the writer is saying without going into too much detail today.

There are 3 sections in our passage this morning and I am going to

look at the 1st one and the 3rd one and then come back to the 2nd one.

So let’s have a look at 1 and 3 then.

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1) The first section I want you to notice is the summary of the main

point of the book of Hebrews. It’s the summary of the main point of

the book. Look at v19:

The writer is coming near the end of the book and he is going to

make some conclusions based on what he has written in the book so

far. That is why verse 19 starts with a “therefore” right? A therefore

as you know, indicates that what I’m going to say next is based on

what I’ve said before right? Now we don’t know what the writer said

in the last 9 chapters because we haven’t read them. But thankfully

this is a really intelligent writer because, before he starts telling us

his conclusions and makes some applications, he first summarises

the main point that he’s been making in the last 9 chapters. Are you

with me? But how do I know that? How do I know that he

summarises his main point before he makes his conclusions? Well,

because he follows his “therefore” with the word “since”. Now, I’ve

just confused you haven’t I?

Let me explain with an illustration. If you walk into Jenna’s house in

the middle of a conversation she’s having and she says, “therefore,

since Jed and Jess have done their chores, they can play with their

toys.” What do you think she was talking about before you walked

in? She was talking about the chores they had to do right? That’s

what that “since” tells you and that’s also what the “since” in v19 is

doing here as well. It’s summarising for you what was said before.

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So read with me then the summary of the main point of this book

from v19. “[since] we have confidence to enter the Most Holy

Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us

through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and [since] we have a great

priest over the house of God…” Pause right there. That’s the

summary before he makes his conclusions. That’s basically in a

nutshell what this writer has been trying to get across for 9 chapters.

What does it all mean? Let’s take it step by step: V19 “we have

confidence to enter The Most Holy Place” that’s the presence of God.

It means we have confidence to enter into a direct relationship with

God.

“By the blood of Jesus” means that it’s because of Jesus’ death that

we are able to confidently enter into this relationship with God. V20

“by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is,

his body” That means that when Jesus’ body was crucified on the

cross the curtain that stood in the way between us and God was

removed. V21 “we have a great High Priest over the house of God” A

High Priest is someone who offers a sacrifice to God on behalf of

other people’s sins so that that sacrifice takes away the sins of the

people. Because there’s no forgiveness of sins without the shedding

of blood. So when v21 says that “we have a great High Priest over

the house of God”, it’s talking about the Lord Jesus.

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The writer has spent a lot of time in this book talking about Jesus the

Great High Priest. It means that when Jesus died on the cross, He

was actually acting as a High Priest who was offering the sacrifice of

Himself in order to take away our sins.

If I’ve lost you, here’s the whole thing put together: v19-21 is saying

this: we have confidence to enter into a direct relationship with God

because of Jesus’ death. Because when Jesus’ body was crucified on

the cross, the curtain that stood in the way between us and God was

removed. When Jesus died on the cross, He was actually offering the

sacrifice of Himself in order to take away our sins. That’s the curtain

that stood between us and God, our sins, our offences against a holy

God. But now because of Jesus death for our sins we have

confidence to enter into a relationship with this Holy God. Are you

with me?

And that ladies and gentleman is the most incredible news that you

will ever hear. It is the main point of this book and in fact it is the

main point of the whole Bible. It is what the Bible calls the good

news; the Gospel. It is sweet music in the ears of a sinner like me. It

is the only reason why eternity with God can be a reality for a sinner

like me. Anyone and everyone who believes this news, this Gospel

will be saved from judgement for their sins. It’s the reason why Kyle

and I are in this job. We want to tell you and others and as many

people as we can this very news.

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We want as many people as possible to open the Bible and see for

themselves this great news from God and trust God.

2) That’s the first thing I wanted you to see, this massive main point

of this book. The second thing I want you notice is the 3rd section of

this passage and that’s down at v26-27. So jump down to v26-27

with me. “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received

the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a

scary expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume

the enemies of God”… The second thing is a warning. Can you see

that? I would not be doing my job if I didn’t warn you that there’s a

warning.

The warning is that if after you receive the knowledge of this truth

we just talked about and you still turn around and keep on keeping

on deliberately living the sinful lifestyle you were living, if you

reject this Gospel we just talked about and in your heart you don’t

care that you’ve deeply offended God with your sinful life and you

just go back to it and forget all about the sacrifice of Jesus for your

sins, then there’s nothing else that can be done for you. There’s no

sacrifice left for you because you’ve rejected the only there is...

There’s only the sacrifice of Jesus that’s there for our salvation…

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It’s incredible that we human beings love sin so much, we love

rebelling against God so much that even after someone dies for us as

a sacrifice for our sins so that we can have an everlasting relationship

with God, we can still say, ”No thanks, I’ll go back to my sins”… In

that case then, the writer says, there’s no other sacrifice left for you.

All that is coming your way is a scary expectation of judgment and a

burning fire that’s going to devour God’s opponents V27…

So the second thing is a warning... The first thing is there’s really

good news for all of us brothers and sisters. Really good news. Jesus

sacrificed Himself for our sins so that we can confidently enter the

presence of God. The second thing is the warning that if we reject His

sacrifice and deliberately turn back to our sinful ways then there isn’t

a sacrifice left for us, only a scary expectation of judgement for our

sins and a burning fire that is going to devour God’s opponents.

Now the writer doesn’t leave us there. He doesn’t leave wondering

whether we will be in the presence of God for eternity or we will be

in the raging fires of judgement. He tells us what the logical

conclusion to hearing and believing the Gospel is so that we will not

fall away. He tells us what necessarily follows from hearing and

believing the Gospel so that we will not drift away and be held

captive by sin and then face judgement in the end. How do I know

that tells us the logical conclusion? How do I know that He tells us

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what necessarily follows from hearing and believing the Gospel? Well

he said therefore, didn’t he?

And so we come now to the second section of this passage. We

looked at the 1st section which is the summary of the book, which is

the Gospel and we’ve looked at the 3rd section which is the warning.

And now we’re looking at the writer’s conclusions and applications

for us. He’s told us the good news, he summarised it with that word

“since”. He’s warned us with that word “If”. He’s warned us of what

will happen if we go back to living in sin and now he is going to tell us

how to not drift away, how not to fall back into an unbelieving

lifestyle of sin. This writer wants us to be saved. Remember it’s not

just him writing this passage. It’s God who is ultimately writing this

passage to us. It is God who wants us to be saved. That’s why He

used this writer to tell us the means by which He will preserve us and

keep us safe and secure for the eternity that He has prepared for us.

So have a look at the conclusions and applications then in the middle

of our passage, v22-25: v22 “Therefore, “since we have

confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a

new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his

body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God [now

here it comes] let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with

the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to

cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed

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with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we

profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how

we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25 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.

How many “let us-ses” do you see there in your Bible? The first

person to put up their hand and get it right will get a chocolate.

There are 3 let us-ses and some translations have subdivided the last

2 and that’s why some of your Bibles have 5 let us-ses. So you are

both right. We will have a look at the 5 this morning.

Who is the writer addressing? An individual or a community? He’s

addressing a community of Hebrews who have put their trust in

Jesus. That’s is why he says “let us” when gives them applications

that follow logically from the Gospel. These applications are being

made primarily to the body of believers as a whole.

Number 1: v22 “Therefore… let us draw near to God with a sincere

heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our

hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having

our bodies washed with pure water”. Let us draw near to God. Let’s

not hear this Gospel and carry on with life like nothing has

happened. Maybe this morning is the first time that you’ve actually

understood what Jesus is all about.

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The beauty of Jesus is that if you believe in what He has done for

you, that He has sacrificed Himself to remove your sins that stand

between you and God, then now and tomorrow and always you can

come to God not fearing that you are not good enough for Him… you

can come to God not fearing that you will be rejected. That’s why

v22 says “with assurance”. The assurance of faith. Meaning, He has

washed you clean if you believe in His sacrifice and God will never

turn you away. Therefore come to Him knowing that your conscience

has been washed clean by Jesus’ blood. You are acceptable to God

now because of Jesus. So run to Him confidently as a child runs to

her father, assured of His love and acceptance of her… That’s the

logical implication of the Gospel not only to someone who’s never

heard it but to all of us as the believing community. We ought to

draw near to God with assurance that faith in Christ’s sacrifice gives.

The danger of course is that if we don’t draw near to Him then we

forfeit the assurance that faith gives. You see brothers and sisters

when it comes to salvation there’s no neutral ground. It’s either you

are drawing near to God with assurance of faith or you are drifting

away from Him in danger of being engulfed by sin. It’s like being in

the middle of an ocean. If you are not confidently swimming towards

the shore, you will be pulled deeper and deeper by the current. If

you’ve been a believer for any length of time you will know that sin is

always crouching at your door waiting to devour you. God says to us

draw near to me St. James. Coming to church is not merely about

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ticking a box that you’ve done your religious duty for the week. We

come together as a body to talk to God in prayer, we talk to God in

song, we praise Him for His goodness, we fill our minds and hearts

with songs of what He has done for us in Jesus instead of the

nonsense that we consume on the radio. We confess our sins to Him

being assured of His forgiveness. We listen to Him speak through His

word as it is being preached. We get to know more of Him through

His word. We get to be excited by Him through His word and delight

in in Him and all that He is doing in the world when the Bible is read

and preached as we study it in the week. We are not ticking old

fashioned boxes when we meet together. We are drawing near to

God. Draw near to God St. James. The God who dwells in the midst

of His people.

If we are drawing near to God in relationship; always wanting to

know Him more through His word and experience Him more in His

forgiveness and grace and fellowship with Him more in prayer then

we will stand firm and assured in our salvation. That’s the first logical

response to hearing and believing and the Gospel.

Number 2: “Therefore, Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we

profess, for he who promised is faithful”. So long as the devil is in

the world, he will use every single trick in the book to make you

doubt the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Jesus for you, to make you

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doubt that he died for all of your sins, to make you doubt that you

are clean and acceptable to God because of Jesus.

The devil’s goal in life is not to make you poor, or to bring you

hardships and disasters. That’s not his goal. His goal in life is to make

you lose hope in Jesus… because he knows that our hope in Jesus

saves us. He doesn’t want that. He wants you to himself, divorced

from God. He wants you to abandon God and return to your sins so

that you face will the face the fire that devours the enemies of God.

Only our hope in Jesus assures us that our sins are no longer an

obstacle between us and God, no longer a curtain that stands in the

way. Only our hope in Jesus removes the curtain of our sins and

brings us into the presence of God. And God is not going to change

and say take the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins away. No. God is

faithful. He will keep His promise. He will forgive us of our sins

because Christ died for them. God is faithful.

Therefore, don’t wonder away from the community of the people

who hope in Jesus and leave yourself vulnerable to being blown

around by all the false teaching and rubbish that’s out there

distracting you from the Gospel. Don’t swerve. Don’t move from this

hope. What this means in practice is that you have got to

consistently sit under the sound teaching of the Gospel with the

people who believe it. You need to be deeply rooted in the Gospel.

That’s how you won’t drift away from it. You need to keep growing in

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your understanding of it. You need to constantly feed on it. Your

worldview and your aspirations and passions need to be shaped it.

If we continue to hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, then we

will stand firm and assured in our salvation. That is why this service is

filled from top to bottom with the message of the Gospel. We as a

community of believers have to hold on to this hope. That’s the

second logical response to hearing and believing and the Gospel

Number 3: “let us consider how we may spur one another on

toward love and good deeds”. The truth is that brothers and sisters

if you have become a Christian, you have now entered a lifelong war

against the sin that comes from your heart. The sin that desires to

drag into the fiery expectation of God’s judgement. And in this battle

against our sinful hearts we need each another. We need each

other’s friendship. We need each other’s presence. We need each

other’s motivation. We need each other’s example. We need each

other’s encouragement to stay away from sin and to instead spur

one another on toward love and good deeds. That’s why one author

once rightly said, “spiritual life is designed by God to be a community

project”. You cannot survive on you own. If you break away from the

body of Christ, sooner or later sin will enslave you again and in the

end you will receive a DNF. Does anybody know what that is? DNF

stands for Did Not Finish. It comes from the tour de France cycle

race. It’s received by riders who started the race but did not make it

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to the end. I know, as I’m sure you do too, many people who started

out in the Christian walk who are no longer walking with us today.

Did not finish. We need each other so that none of us will receive a

DNF in the end. We need each other.

We need brothers and sisters around us to spur us on in this new life

that God has brought us into. This new life that is characterised by

love and good deeds, not selfishness and bitterness and drunkenness

and lust and all kinds of sin. You know the saying, bad company

corrupts good character? What we are told here is that Christian

company encourages love and good deeds. People influence you one

way or the other whether you like it or not. It’s true. You are not an

island. You are not self-made. And the people that have the most

influence on you are obviously the people that are around you the

most. It means we actually need this fellowship. It’s not just for fun

that we come together. It’s dead serious.

You might not be able to see how this fellowship is influencing you

but over time you will if you are consistently with this body. Meet

with the body of Christ and spur one another on to love and good

deeds guys. If we do that, then we will stand firm and assured in our

salvation. That’s the 3rd logical response to hearing and believing and

the Gospel.

Number 4: “Therefore, Let us not give up meeting together, as some

are in the habit of doing”. Here the writer is spelling it out for us.

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Lots of people are in the habit of abandoning meeting with believers,

abandoning Bible study, abandoning coming to church on Sunday.

They come up with all sorts of reasons like we spoke about earlier…

Don’t give up meeting together...

Meeting together must be your habit! Many obstacles will come your

way in this life. You will be lazy, you’ll think it’s fine if you don’t

come, you will be depressed, you will be busy doing all sorts of

things, friends will want to do stuff with you on Sunday night, there’ll

be a party or something you must go to on Wednesday, Thursday,

Friday or Saturday night. Sin will knock on your door and tempt you

away from church, work and tests, assignments and exams will put

you under pressure. All sorts of things will happen… Don’t give up

meeting together like some are in the habit of doing. If we do that,

then we will stand firm and assured in our salvation. That’s the

fourth logical response to hearing and believing and the Gospel.

Number 5: “therefore, let us encourage one another—and all the

more as you see the Day approaching”.

The great day is coming guys. It’s the great day of judgement. It’s not

something that many people like talking about. It’s not trending on

twitter. It’s not making waves on Facebook. It’s not on your T.V. It’s

not on your NMMU curriculum but it is coming whether you talk

about it or not. We’ve got to live our lives in light of that fact. It’s so

easy to casually go on with our lives like we are going to be here

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forever. The truth is that we are going to die and after that face

judgement. We’ve got to live in light of the end. What that means for

us as Christians, as those drawing near to God, as those who are

holding unswervingly to our hope in Jesus, our hope in His death for

our sins, is that we’ve got to keep encouraging one another.

Encouraging one another to not give up meeting together,

encouraging one another to hold on to our hope, encouraging one

another to kill sin and practice love and good deeds. We cannot

encourage one another and develop relationships with each other if

we fall into the habit of not meeting together. You can’t live the

Christian life as God purposed outside of the body of believers. And

relationships and community take time and effort to develop. If

coming to church is not high on your priority list it will not happen

and that leaves you susceptible to the greatest of all dangers in the

end. Let us encourage one another. If we do that, then we will stand

firm and assured in our salvation. That’s the 5th logical response to

hearing and believing and the Gospel.

Many of you will know a guy by the name of John Stott. Now on one

occasion, he got invited by the Queen to the great palace. After

being there for a while, John Stott said something like this to the

Queen: “Listen, I have to leave now because tomorrow morning I

have a date with the King.”

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Let us pray. Father I pray that as we have read and heard your Word

this morning that by you Spirit you will help us to re-arrange our

lives, to re-arrange our priorities and line them up with your

purposes. We don’t want to be a people that call themselves by your

name but neglect to live by your ways. I pray that your people at St.

James would see and feel the significance of meeting together this

morning and so make it the habit of highest priority in their lives so

that in the end we may see your face and live. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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