Get Connected // The Importance of Connecting into Community // Pastor Josh Evans

Great God, can you say Amen this morning? And I love, love that song. And you sang it like you love it. And I love that song. It is good to sing that. And that's such a powerful, powerful song of what God has done for you and that he has purchased you and sent his son to bleed and die for you so that you could be reconciled to the Father. And that's a reason why we can gather and praise his name here today. Well, if you have your Bibles, you can go to Hebrews chapter number 10.

Hebrews chapter number 10 here today. I mentioned this just a few moments ago that we are starting a brand new series entitled, Get Connected. In fact, let's all say that together. Get connected and listen, that's what the series is all about.

It's about connecting into the local church. And here's what I want you to understand. Many of you, you're here. Well, all of you, I guess are here. And so, but you're here today. And well, we are talking to online people, so I could have met them, but you are here today. And so it's easy to hear a sermon like this about connecting into the church. And you would say, hey, we've done it. We're here. We're a member and we show up and we are here. But I want in the few moments that we have, I believe God wants to do something to every single one of our hearts here today.

I really believe that. And about deepening our connection to the local church that he has called us to. But I want you to know, all of us sometimes we get into routine where church can become a routine or a rhythm, right? How many of you, we'll just have some fun here today.

How many of you grew up in church, like from the day you were born, your parents had you in church? Raise your hand, okay. So look around you.

Keep your hands raised for just a second, all right. So a lot of us in here, that's my story. I've been at church. My parents brought me home from the hospital.

And there's always this kind of like, how long do you keep your child? My parents were so committed to the church, I don't think that they cared about anything. They had me in church like quickly, nursery, the whole deal. And I have been around the church my entire life.

My entire life. So I've heard a ton of sermons. I know what it's like to be connected into a local church. My parents, we went to a church where we had Sunday school, we had Sunday morning, we had Sunday night, we had Wednesday night and revivals all the time.

I vividly remember that. It was like, man, we were drug to church my entire life. And so if anybody understands church, it's me. In fact, I became, a lot of times we would go to church because it became routine.

If you're honest, how many of you sometimes show up at church because it's routine? Okay, like we do that. That's what we've done.

I mean, that's what we did. My parents used to say this phrase to me growing up. They would say, we are gonna be in church every single time that the doors were open. How many of you heard that growing up? So several of us, like that was our story.

And so here's what that meant for us. Revival Tuesday night, I played community basketball when I was in middle school. And middle school, here's how diehard my parents were about this. Is middle school, I'd be playing.

We'd have revival on Tuesday night. I'm like, man, I got practice. You know, what are we gonna do?

And here in the community. And my parents, they would send me to practice and they'd bring me with a change of clothes. And then they would take me out of practice, like mid practice and we'd go and I'd go kicking and screaming, you know, because I was a teenager and I'm like, basketball is life and everything else. And so I was like, what in the world? But I'm showing you that that's like, my parents were deeply committed to church.

How about this? Like, this is how we were growing up. You know, I grew up not far from here. I grew up in Ashboro, so that's where my church was.

And so that's where my childhood was. One time, or I mean a few times, it would snow, right? And it would snow like a good amount. And my pastor, he would say, we ain't canceling church for nothing, right? And here's usually, just to be honest about pastors, here's usually why we say that. A lot of times pastors live like on site, right? And in this case, the pastor, he lived like right there, right next to the church. And so like, of course he's not canceling.

He don't have to drive anywhere. He just goes out and put his hiking boots on and go. And so he comes in and I remember there was about two or three times, I vividly remember going, my parents were like, we ain't missing for nothing. So snow is out there. It's like, I mean, he's putting all of our lives in danger, my dad, as he drives, right? And, but we got there safely.

I'm here today, grateful. And we got there and I remember pulling up. And I mean, I would say the whole way, because it was like a 10 minute drive to church, but in the snow, it takes like 30 minutes. And so we get there, 30 minutes, I'm in the backseat like, dad, nobody is gonna be there. It's gonna be just us.

And none of my friends are gonna be there and stuff. And sure enough, we get there and pastors waiting outside, seeing who's showing up, here comes the Evans vehicle. Here we come. So, listen, I'll just tell you as a kid, I was not singing. There's joy in the house of the Lord, you know?

It's not singing it, but a lot of times we become, church becomes routine. How many of you kind of, how many of you have been at Union Grove for 20 or more years? Okay, a bunch of you in here. How many of you just for fun, park in the same parking space or at least close to it all these years, okay? How many of you know, this one's fun. I love, I love this question because I love to kind of baptist, you know, have a place that they sit. How many of you have sat kind of around the same area like for many, many years, okay? All right, you're the ones I'm preaching to tonight, okay?

Or this morning. I'm joking. And we have, and I say all that to say, if we're not careful, church can become a routine. It can become something that you come to, this assembly, like what we're gonna look at from Hebrews chapter 10, where you are just showing up week after week, you park in the same place, you sit in the same spot, and you think that you just being here and walking in these doors and being here every time the doors are open, you think that you are fully embracing what the writer of the book of Hebrews is saying here in chapter 10.

And my challenge is to you that what the writer is gonna say here in Hebrews chapter 10, it does involve showing up. I think that's important. We're gonna talk about that.

We're gonna address that. But I'll tell you this, being a part of a church is more than just walking through these doors and sitting in the same seat every single week. In fact, I would suggest to you that Hebrews chapter 10, what we're gonna look at today, you can, for 20 or more years, sit in the same seat that you're sitting in and never miss a service and not fully be obedient to what he's telling us in Hebrews chapter 12, or Hebrews chapter 10. And that's why I wanted to tell you, like church can become a routine, something that we just show up to to check something off of a list, something off of our to-do list as Christians or followers of Christ. And we can forget the whole reason why we gather here every single week.

The reason why we should want to be here. Before we jump in, I'll mention this, like this really hit me a few years ago about, I guess it's been about four years ago, I had the chance to go to Guyana. My sister-in-law lived in Guyana. In fact, she married a guy from Guyana.

She lived in Guyana and was a missionary there in Guyana. And so what we did was we had an opportunity to go on a mission trip. And so we went on this mission trip.

There was me and about eight people, and we were gonna run a youth camp there in Guyana. And so what we did was we flew into a place called Georgetown there in Guyana, and that's like the city. So we flew there, we stayed at a decent place, ate good food. And then, we were there for about a day and a half, and then we jumped on this real small plane, you know what I'm talking about, that only fits like eight people. And we get on there, we pack our stuff on there. I'm thinking, man, there ain't no way, like we're going down. Like this is a lot of suitcases and stuff.

So we get on this plane, this real small airport, and we head into what they call the interior or the jungle there in Guyana. And we were gonna be there for 10 days. And I'll tell you this, I've done a lot of mission trips in my day. And one of the things that scare me about mission trips is food. I'm a picky eater. You guys know me. I went with our Sunday school class downstairs. I went to a potluck last week.

I've told you guys a lot. For a picky eater, potlucks are scary, okay? And so I'm nervous. So when I go on mission trips, I'm scared. I'm like, what in the world are we gonna eat? You know, that we're there in the interior. And he told us to bring like these rice packets and stuff.

And I'm like, what in the world? So we get on this plane, and we go and we fly over, you know, some water and trees and jungle. And we land on like a clay run strip, okay?

In the middle of the jungle. And we land there. And then we get in this like a couple of these vans and we slowly go. And there was potholes everywhere.

It was wild. And so we get to our place. We put a, you know, we stayed in hammocks for 10 days, put on these hammocks, outside, by the way, with a mosquito net over top of us. And we would go to bed and we'd look at the wall of these place of the, like, what they call houses. And we would stay on the front porch. Our hammocks are all pitched there.

And we'd look, and I kid you not, we're in our hammocks, you'd see like tarantulas walking on the side of the building, okay? First day, I'm like, God, this is not for me, okay? So we get there and we stay a night. The next day we set up for youth camp for having all these teenagers come in. And so we're there and we're setting all up. And they said, all the teenagers for this youth camp in the middle of the jungle of Guyana, they're all coming and they're gonna be here around four o'clock, which is registration.

Registration. So we set up that day and we're excited. You know, we got all these kids. They've never done a youth camp before. So if you've been to youth camp, like, you know, they've never done it. So they didn't know what to expect. There's some fear about what, what this is, whatever. And we're there and all these kids start showing up and these adults were bringing them, you know, and a lot of them were walking and different things. Well, it was about, about, and by the way, a lot of them, we pre-register for this. You don't there in the jungle of Guyana. You just, if you show up, that's who we have, right?

Well, we had dinner and after dinner, it was about probably about 8 p.m. or so. Still light there. And we are there, it's the middle of the summer. It's hot. Here comes this man. This man's about 70 years old. And he has like, you know, all this gear on the back, okay?

All this gear on the back. And he comes walking, you know, there. And he's got this young kid with him. And they show up and we're like, you know, like who is this or whatever?

And the local pastor there, he knew him by name. And he comes over, he says, hey, this is, this is a so-and-so. And he tells me, and I was like, oh man, you coming to camp? And the kid's like, yeah, he's a little shy or whatever. And he's like, sorry we were late. We just walked for three days to get here.

Three days. And I was like, what do you mean walk? I was like, I mean, surely you don't mean what I interpret walk as, right? It's like, yeah, we stayed, that's what all the gear was. They had like hammocks and stuff. And they would stay on the side of mountain as they came to this camp. Three days to get to where they were. And I got to talking with them. I was like, man, listen, I mean, I was like broke and I was in tears.

You know, I've been complaining about the food and complaining about a tarantula on the wall. And I'm thinking, this family, man, we're gonna give this kid the best week of their life. So I got to talking with the guy. And he told me, he said, where he lives in the jungle of Guyana there, he said, there's not like a church around. So he has to walk about six hours to church every single day, every single week for Sunday, just to get to church. And he said that this young boy in their church, that small church there in Guyana, he said he wanted to go to youth camp. And we heard about it. And so I told him, if you come with me and you commit to walking, we'll go for three days and I'll take care of you and we'll get there.

And in that moment, I'll just tell you this. I began to think, and listen, I'm not preaching at anybody. I'm more preaching myself.

I'm thinking, my, how we have got it wrong in where I live. We ain't walking three days to church. In fact, if I do a lot on Friday, I ain't coming to Sunday service, right? Well, that's how we think.

And we cancel for anything. And we, well, all this stuff, like we don't show up for different reasons and stuff. And here this kid is, who wants to go to camp and he walked for three days. And his grandfather walked every single day for about six hours to get to church. My, how we have missed the mark and missed how important the local church can be in our lives. We don't attend because we're too busy, right?

We get so busy. Look, I'm preaching right to myself on this. I'm busy, church doesn't become a priority. Some of us don't attend church because we had a bad experience, right? You got church hurt. Listen, I've been through church hurt. I've talked about church hurt.

I've been there. I know what it's like to come to church and be mad and to be frustrated and to not trust and different things. And we have all these different reasons or some people say they don't come to church because there's too many churches filled with too many hypocrites. You ever heard that? Like, I know these people outside of church and woo, they raise their hands on Sunday and they raise a whole nother thing on Monday, right? And we say things like that. And some say, I've talked to a lot of people not in church and here's what they'll say.

I've heard this. I'm spiritual but not religious. And when you talk to them, here's what that slowly becomes. I'm interested in God but not his church for various reasons. And all I'm gonna tell you in this series, especially this first week here in Hebrews chapter 10, is that you cannot, I want you to get this.

I'm gonna be very dogmatic and direct with you today. You cannot love God and not his church. They do not go together. You can't love God and say, man, I love God. I walk with God and not be deeply connected to his church because those two things come together. They come together.

They are intertwined together. I'll go as far to say this. You cannot be fully obedient and surrender to God and at the same time be disconnected from his church. You can't say, man, I am walking with God. I'm fully obedient to God and be completely disconnected to his church.

They don't go together. The church and a relationship with God are so intertwined. Now let me tell you by way of introduction what I'm not talking about. There are people who physically cannot make it to church. I get that.

That's not who we're talking about today. We're talking about people who are refusing to connect into a church, who are refusing to practice what a church is supposed to do in their life and what others are supposed to do in their life here today. You see, here's why we believe this before we dive into our text.

Now I knew this was gonna be a little bit of a longer introduction. The church, when functioning correctly, is the hope of the world. The church, when it's functioning the way that God designed for it, it's the hope of the world because we carry the message of hope within us. It's the hope of the world that people on the outside should want to look on the inside of a church and wanna be a part of what's going on in there.

That should be the example of what we should do. Here in Hebrews chapter 10, give you a little bit of background before we jump at our text is this. The writer of the book of Hebrews, there's a debate about that.

It's a bunch of different options that you can choose. Some think Paul wrote it, some think other different apostles wrote it and stuff like that. We're not entirely sure, but the book is rich in doctrine. There's a ton of doctrine and theology in the book.

In fact, some people say that it is really close with the book of Romans in terms of the amount of theology and doctrine that is found in the book of Hebrews. The book is actually written, and you see this mentioned throughout scripture, especially here in chapter 10, where it is written to Christians or to Jewish believers who have actually been scattered abroad because of persecution that has come upon them for their faith. The people that are receiving this, really it's like a letter to them. As they're receiving this, they are experiencing persecution in their life because they have proclaimed the name of Jesus. And because of the persecution that they've experienced, here's what's happened in their life. Many of them, they have drifted. They have drifted away from God and from the things of God because they're experiencing persecution. Now, before you criticize them, is I want you to understand, we have not experienced the type of persecution that we're talking about here, right? We have not experienced the type of persecution where we could lose our life because we're gathered here today. I wonder if somebody came in this week and said to us and announced it and came in here and said, anybody who steps foot in Union Grove Baptist Church will be executed next week. Whoever's here will be executed.

I wonder if our church would have anyone show up next week. Why? Because persecution, we're all afraid of it. That's not wrong to be afraid of it. That's what this writer is writing about. These people were losing their lives and because of that, they were drifting away from the things of God. And here's what he says here in verse 19 of Hebrews chapter number 10.

Having therefore, by the way, the word therefore, anytime you look at it, it's referring to everything that has happened up to this point. And the theme of the whole book is that Jesus and a relationship with Jesus is greater than anything else that comes into our life. That's the message of the book of Hebrews. So he talks about things like Jesus has a better plan. Jesus is a better high priest. Jesus is better than the Old Testament rituals and Judaism.

Jesus is better than all of that. And he says, because of all of that, brethren, Christian, boldness, you have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. Now the word boldness, I want you to understand it's the word confidence. It carries on the idea that you have the confidence to enter into the presence of God, just like your kid has confidence to kind of show up in your life, right? Like my kids, they have access to me. They have access to me. Listen, if I'm talking to you and I love to talk to you, but I hope that you'll understand that if I'm talking to you and my son or my daughter shows up to me, I'm probably gonna turn a little bit of my attention from you to them, why? Because they have access to me because they're my children. That's the word that we find here, the word boldness, is that he says this, Christians, those who are drifting and being persecuted for their faith, he says, listen, you have boldness, you have confidence.

You say confidence to do what? To enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus. The only reason that you can enter into his presence is because Jesus died for you.

That's the only reason. Listen, you don't come into the presence of God because you're righteousness. You don't come into the presence of God because you grew up in church.

You don't come into the presence of God because of anything you have done. The only reason that you approach his throne is because of what Jesus did for you. Verse number 20, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us, or in other words, he opened for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. In other words, he's created a new covenant.

Now, this has been a theme kind of over the last several weeks that I have taught, and here's why this is important. I really wanna kind of speak into this a little bit today when we talk about the church, is this, you have access to him. Here's why that was so important for them during this day, is because up until that point, they didn't realize that they had access to the Father. In the Old Testament, the children of Israel, they had a tabernacle, and what would happen is the priests were the only ones in the tabernacle, and the Israelites, all they could do is enter into the outer court of the tabernacle. And so what would happen is there was one sacred place there in the back of the tabernacle called the Holy of Holies. It was the Holy of Holies, and it's where the presence of God dwelt.

So that's where you went to meet with God. And what would happen is one day a year, the Day of Atonement, and I know if you don't know this, this has come out in like every sermon I've preached lately, so I don't mean to be repetitive or redundant, but every passage we're preaching from is kind of speaking about this. But one time a year on the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, this high priest would actually walk into the Holy of Holies and he would have sacrifice, he'd have blood from the sacrifices, and that would sacrifice for all of the sins of the Israelites. Now a week before he entered, he would enter into isolation, and that high priest, he would not be around anybody, he wouldn't eat with anybody, he wouldn't drink with anybody, and you say, why would he do that? It's because he did not want to be defiled in any way, shape, or form with anything that is worldly. He didn't want to be defiled for anything. So he would go into isolation for a week beforehand, and then as he went in to the Holy of Holies, in fact, they would tie a rope to his feet.

And if he actually entered into the presence of God unworthy, here's what would happen, is he would be struck dead, and then they'd just pull him out, and then they'd get a new high priest. It was a sacred place, but I want you to understand why this is important for you and I. It's because all the Israelites that were listening to this, all the Jews, they're reading this letter that is written to them, some say it was preached to them as a sermon, and they're reading this, and they're thinking, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I thought only the high priest has access into the presence of God.

In other words, the message up to this point is stay out, or stay in the outer court, if you would. And now what the writer of Hebrews is saying is no, actually in Jesus, Jesus became the high priest for you, and if you trust in Jesus, what happens is now the veil, that's what it's talking about here, the veil is torn. You know when Jesus died on the cross, it says that immediately when he said it was finished, the veil torn.

And I want you to know, don't read past that. That's important for you, because as soon as the veil torn, here's what that means for you, is now every one of you, if you trust in Jesus, we now don't need a high priest to go in there because Jesus became the way that we get into the presence of God. And so now, because of what Jesus did for us, we can now enter into his presence. There's no dividing veil. There's no tabernacle.

Here's what it is. You, whenever you need to, can go and approach his throne boldly. You see, that's why it was so important here, and it's only through the blood of Jesus that we can do that, verse 21. And having a high priest over the house of God, 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, that's drifting. Remember, I said the rider was riding to persecuted Christians who had drifted.

They had gone away from the faith a little bit because of persecution. He says, listen, without drifting, why? For he is faithful, that promise.

By the way, he's still faithful today, and I'm thankful for that. Verse 24, 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. So here's the message of this, and this is what we're gonna talk about for just a few moments. We need, this is what I want you to get, we need to connect deeply into the local church. We need to connect deeply into the local church.

Now I'm gonna show you from this why this is important for you. First, we see the attitude of the church. We see the attitude of the church. Look at verses 24 and 25. It says, 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. So he mentions a word here that is super important in verse 25. He says not forsaking the assembling.

Let's all say that word together, assembling. Here's what that word literally means. It's a congregation. And in other words, this is the word, if you look at it in Greek, it's actually the same word that we get the word synagogue.

So it's a place that you should go to be in the presence of God. It's a place, it's a congregation. Now it's important for us to understand the difference here between a congregation and what we call an aggregation. You say, what's an aggregation? An aggregation is something that people gather for a certain event, or possibly a speaker or something.

It's something that's unified a body, that's kind of come together, but it's different than a congregation. They're here for the event. In other words, if you've been to a sporting event, how many of you have been to some sporting event in your life? Like, you know, maybe a basketball game or whatever. For example, I went, Wake Forest is in the College World Series. So when they opened up here in the playoffs here in Winston-Salem, my family went and we went there and we sat there and we watched this baseball game. There were people around us and what unified us was Wake Forest that night, okay?

And so I want you to know that I sat next to people that I did not know and we interacted a little bit about the game, because the game, the event is what brought us together. But when I left there and as the game ended, here's what we did not do. We did not exchange phone numbers with these people. I did not look at them and say, hey man, it's been a real pleasure sitting next to you watching Wake Forest. Can I have your number and just text you tonight to make sure you got home safe and sound? If I had done that, that would have been weird, right?

I'd have immediately pulled out my phone and said yes and I'd have given him, he's not here, I'd have given him Pastor Bailey's number and said, text this number. And all I'm saying is, is that is an aggregation. We're there together kind of for an event, for an event. Okay, it's different than a congregation. You say, what's a congregation? A congregation can be defined this way. It's a community of people in which the members of the congregation's lives intersect together. In other words, when we use the word congregation, which is the word assembling, like we just all shouted out a second ago together, it is the word congregation.

It's where we get the word congregation. And here's the point, is it is a word defining a community of people where their lives intersect together. In other words, they eat together. In other words, they pray together. In other words, they serve together. In other words, they care together. In other words, they love one another. In other words, they do this with other people and it is this idea of one anothering. One another. You see, the attitude of the church when we talk about this here from Hebrews chapter 10, it's found in that one phrase, one another. It's found in one another.

In other words, it's mutual. What the writer here is saying about the local church is that the church is mutual. It is a one another type of congregation. Here's what that means directly and here's what I want you to understand and this is why this message is for everybody, is that you are not being fully obedient to Hebrews chapter 10 if all you do in our church is sit here and come and be fed every single week and you sit in the same seat and you park in the same spot and you come and you sit here and you get fed and then you leave. That is not the definition of the church in which he is writing about here in Hebrews chapter 10. You see, where we've gone wrong in a lot of ways is we have determined Hebrews chapter 10 as just a word of the gathering. That Hebrews 10 is just about us gathering. So we've felt and I'm one of these so I'm not preaching at you, I'm preaching with you that as long as I'm here, as long as you know my seat is full and as long as I show up and sit on the same seat that I have done everything that Hebrews chapter 10 has told me to do. And I want you to know that there's a lot of people in churches, not just this one, but all across our community and all across the world and here's the thing.

They are showing up every week and they are not being a part of a congregation the way that Hebrews chapter 10 defines it. Because this has the idea, this word, it has the idea of mutuality. It's more than just coming and being taught. In fact, here in 19 to 23, we're not gonna read it again but you see this incredible progression here what the writer is saying. 19 to 23 is all about access into the throne room of God. It's access into the presence of God. Like okay, we can get into the presence of God and then he just on a dime here in verse 24 he changes that and he starts talking about the local church. And here's what I think the writer means and what God wants us to understand is that you experience access through community, through relationships. Now does that mean in your private time you can't get in the presence of God?

Yeah, you certainly can. Get into the presence of God. But here's what this means.

I said this to somebody this morning. We were chit-chatting and this is what I think this means right here is that as I spend time in the word of God and in the presence of God in my own time, my access, right, that verses 19 to 23 is talking about. When I spend time, here's what God does. He births things in my life that somebody else needs in the local church from me. So here's what I think what he's saying is if you wanna be connected deeply into the church, here's what it looks like. Be in access, the presence of God and out of the presence of God, what God is doing in you, you have to share it with somebody else. In other words, Christ works on us through one another. We are carriers of Christ to one another. That's what a local church is.

It's more than just coming in here and absorbing teaching. That's what a lot of us define church at, right? Is that we just come in every single week and we absorb the teaching and we leave and we don't care for one another, we don't love one another, we don't talk to one another, we don't do this and we don't impact or encourage or comfort or anything with anybody else.

Let me tell you this, that's not what he means here. Gathering's important, trust me, you should be here, but the reason that you're here is more than just getting fed, it's actually sharing what you are learning out of the presence of God with the people around you. That's why relationships are important in the church. That's why, because we have to one another one another.

Listen, somebody next to you needs something from you. There's people in this church who need you and that's why it's important to connect. That's the attitude of the church, it's one anothering together. The second thing, we see the practice of the church. Here, I want you to understand, practicing this in Hebrews 10 is much more than sitting on a seat every Sunday.

So don't miss it, like I think a lot of believers miss this. Here's what it means to be a part of a church, verse 24. Let us consider one another. First thing we have to do is we have to consider one another. This means that you're thinking about someone that may not be as far in their journey with God as you.

Some of you who have been saved for many, many years, you might find somebody who is newer in their relationship with God and you recognize you're considering them and you are asking yourself, what can I do to help them grow spiritually? You see, that's what the church should be. And listen, in my experience, I've been in church, I've been in this one for a couple of years and then I've been at my church for many, many years growing up, much like this one. And here's what I'll tell you, is that not a lot of people do this.

In my experience, there's usually about five people who really take this as a personal responsibility that they have to go out and they have to consider one another. But when we think at large, the majority of people who attend church, they think attending church and obeying Hebrews chapter 10 is just sitting on a pew every single week. And as long as I'm doing that, I'm fully obedient to Hebrews chapter 10. The writer's saying, no, no, no, no, no. You need to get together in assembly? But it's much more than that.

You need to be looking around and building relationships with people in the local church and you need to get to know them so that you can consider them. Then he goes on, he says, provoke. Some translations for this word might say spur. You know, a spur on a horse that is on the boots of a person riding a horse, you know, and it's there to direct them.

It's there to kind of inflict a tad bit of pain to get them to go in the direction that they want. The word here, provoke, if you look at the Greek text, here's what it literally means. It means to irritate.

Now, some of you are great at this one, okay. I'm joking. It's not the word that you think. It's not our English translation of the word irritate. It actually means, and this is really hard because I don't think a lot of people practice this well. It actually has on the idea of to confront, to confront. So the writer of Hebrews is saying this. Is he saying, you know what a church is?

When you gather together and you're in one another relationships, you gotta consider one another and then you might have to confront one another about their sin. You see, none of us like being confronted, do we? Every time I correct my kids, it is very rare that one of my kids say, ah, dad, you're right. They always fight.

They blame things. Here's what my son says every time he gets in trouble. Like he, the other day, he smacked his sister, okay.

Stop judging us. Some of you are like, oh my word, calling social services. Cameron's gone mad, right. Listen, your kids probably smack people you don't even know about, okay. Since he hit his sister, so Lindley's freaking out, right.

She comes to me or whatever. Here's my son, first thing he said, it was an accident. Like, so I play off of that. So I'm like, oh really, man, I hate that.

How'd you accidentally slap your sister? Like you just, you know. See, we hate being confronted because we immediately put walls up, right. Anytime somebody comes up to you and confronts you for your pride, like it's very rare in church where somebody's like, you are right.

You are so right, I'm gonna work on that. No, what do we do? We put walls up and we start saying, well have you looked at everything in your life, right. We hate being confronted, but what the writer is saying, a healthy church not only considers one another, but a healthy church is willing to have relationships in their life where you have somebody in your life who's willing to provoke you. To speak into your life, to confront you. I'll tell you this, a mark of spiritual maturity is being able to be confronted with your sin. You're not a spiritually mature Christian if every time somebody confronts you about something, maybe your attitude, maybe you're critical, maybe you're being judgmental, maybe you speak out of turn all the time and stuff like that. If somebody says, hey listen, you have a little bit of a problem with that, you need to stop that and you immediately go on the defensive, that's a mark that you're probably not as spiritually mature as you think you are. I didn't get one amen for that, I don't know why. You see, provoking, it's this being in relationship. And I'll tell you this, there's some people who take this verse and they think it is their God-given gift to go around and find people and police people, right?

They're like, I'm the provoker. Every person that does wrong, I'm gonna go find them and I'm gonna tell them, hey listen, you should not do that. You shouldn't dress like that. You shouldn't go there. You shouldn't act like that. You shouldn't have sung that song.

You shouldn't have whatever. And we think, and let me tell you this, it's all about relationship. It's up to you to find people that can speak into your life willing to consider you, trying to help you on your spiritual journey, but also to provoke, confront you. Third thing, exhort. And I gotta hurry, verse 25, he says, exhorting one another.

This is the opposite of provoke. This is encouragement. In other words, this word, this word exhort, it carries on the idea of placing yourselves in someone else's shoes, being empathetic with them. And by the way, you need people in your life who will encourage you, but you also need people in your life who will confront you. Some of us surround ourselves with just tons of encouragers. And you need that. But you also need somebody who can say, hey listen, shouldn't do that.

Or confront you about something, a blind spot in your life. And you say, why should we do that? Why should we consider?

Why should we provoke? Why should we exhort? And he says, for two things, it's because we are supposed to do these things out of love, verse 24, unto love.

This means character. The reason why we consider one another, the reason why we provoke one another, the reason why we exhort one another is to build up the character, the godly character in other people's life. That's the reason, that's what a church is.

It's more than being fed, it's you looking around at people in your Bible fellowship classes and people who sit near you in church and you look at them and say, I'm gonna consider them. I'm gonna help them in their walk with God. I'm gonna provoke them. I'm gonna maybe tell them certain things. Now, I wouldn't just go up to strangers and say that, okay, and confront them. But listen, there's a way to handle this, but that's what the church is. I'm gonna exhort them.

Why? So that we can build them up in love and then also good works. In other words, active and compassionate service. This is where making a meal for people, writing them a letter or a card, helping a widow, helping somebody move, or ushering, greeting, helping out on a Wednesday night kids ministry.

Nice little segue and plug there, right? But you see, that's what this means. It's where we are willing to be considered, to be provoked, and to be encouraged so that we can build character in our life and so that we can do good works. Now, the third thing is this, the access to the church.

So we see the attitude, that's one another. We see the practice of the church that is more than just sitting on a pew or sitting on a row. It's actually get involved in relationships. And the best way that we do this, I'm just gonna tell you, it's Bible fellowship classes. I love our Bible fellowship class. I feel like our Bible fellowship class, we have such a good relationship.

They get together for certain things and they care for one another, and they love one another, and they're there for one another, and they hang out with one another. They have relationships with people in the church. If you leave here and you don't have any relationships in the church and you don't know anybody, maybe outside of me, then you're not practicing what the church is. You gotta deepen your relationship here. That's why we call you to be in Bible fellowship.

By the way, if you're a new family in our church, you just joined, I'm telling you, you will not fully embrace and experience what God designed for the local church if you are not deeply involved in relationships here. And the way that we do that is get into a class. Some of you, you stopped going to your class years ago.

You're like, man, I'm just stopping. If I go to 10 a.m., I'm good. Let me tell you this, is this is a good, I love this crowd, and we probably have 300 people in this room right now.

It's not including all the kids and stuff like that. We have about 300-plus adults in this room, and here's what I'll tell you. This place, it's not a good spot for you to get to know one another. Why, because we sing. It'd be really awkward if like while I'm preaching, you're walking around and talking to everybody, saying, hey, how you doing? You're we good? While I'm preaching, hey, you know, hell is hot! And you're just like, how you doing?

And it is, he's right, it's hot outside, isn't it? It'd be weird, why? Because that's not designed for this. That's why we ask for people to step out of rows and get out of the rows sometime and jump into a smaller group of people. And in a church our size, the only way to do that is through Bible fellowships and groups and different things. And so I'm telling you, if you're not in that, you're not fully embracing what Hebrews chapter 10 is telling you to do. You gotta get into relationship.

You gotta one another, one another. And then the third thing, the access to the church. Verses 19 through 22, I gave you a little bit of exposition on that, it's listen, it's the fact that when Jesus died, it gave you access. You see, when Jesus died on the cross, the veil was completely torn down to where now we have full access to him.

We have access to the community. So when you get saved and you trust in Jesus, you're a part of the church. Remember when, in the New Testament, in the gospels, when Jesus was walking with his disciples and he asked Peter, he said, hey, what's everybody saying that I am? Peter's like, hey, some say you're this, some say you're this, and he said, but Peter, I'm gonna ask you a question.

He said, who do you say I am? And Peter says, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus says, yes, and he says this, upon this rock, I'm gonna build my church. And he says that the gates, the church is gonna be so strong, it's gonna be a force that even the gates of hell won't even stand against it. You see, that should be one of your favorite prophecies in all of scripture.

You say, why? Is because you are the fulfillment of the prophecy of what Jesus said to his apostles. Right there in that moment, he says, upon this rock, I'm gonna build my church. He's not talking about this building, he's talking about you.

He's talking about me. He's talking about every person who would come through the only way, the one and only way through Jesus Christ, every single one of you. If you've professed to know Jesus as your savior, you are the fulfillment of that.

You see, that's why it should be important. And upon this rock, there's not a gate in here that will prevail. There's nothing, no sin, no person, nothing will prevail against the church. But the access is only through trusting Jesus as your savior, trusting in his shed blood for you. You see, the only way that you gain access to a community like this is through trusting in the blood of Jesus. And here's the beauty of it. When you come and you trust in the blood of Jesus, there's not a person in this place who deserves to be here. You see, that's the beauty of local church.

That's the beauty of this. Listen, we're not here because we have tenure. We're not here because, boy, bless God, I was a part when this building was built. And I helped lay the bricks. I helped put that stuff out there. I painted this place. So I must have some tenure here.

No, listen, the person who joined last week has as much tenure in here as you. None of us deserve to be here. And that's the beauty of a local church. That's the beauty of being a part of this and being a part of the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy when he said, I'm gonna build my church. It's the fact that none of us deserve to be here. Everybody next to you, hey, they're broken, I'm broken.

Hey, we can be friends. We can be broken pieces joined together only by the blood of Jesus. You see, that is the beauty of the local church. So I ask you this, are you a part of it? More than just attending, I'm not asking that. That's only a surface level part of what he's meaning here. Are you deeply a part of it? Because I'm telling you, if we function the way Hebrews 10, we're not gonna have to have a whole lot of outreach into the community. The community, they're gonna hear what's going on inside of here and they're gonna wanna be a part of it.

Isn't that what we want? Isn't that the example? I'll close with a story. I read this this week. A man by the name of Tony Campolo, he's a Christian author and speaker. And he said this story one time. He flew to Hawaii for a conference and he was speaking. And so he gets there and there was such a drastic time difference that he was wide awake at three in the morning.

So he's there in Hawaii and he's speaking at this conference and he's wide awake and he's hungry. And so this Christian man goes to a local diner. So he goes out, walks down the street to a local diner from the place where he was staying. And he goes into this diner three in the morning and he goes and he sits down. And it so happened that the people behind him in the booth, there were two ladies there, that he found out in their conversation that they were prostitutes.

So he's sitting there and he's this Christian speaker and he's like just sitting there and he listens their story and he found out as he was listening and he's doing his thing and he's eating his food that one of them behind him is having a birthday the next day. And so he was like listening and the person that she was with said to her, well, are you gonna have a party? And she responded and Tony heard, said, I've never had a birthday party. So Tony, the girls left, Tony stays a little longer, goes up to the owner of the restaurant and he said, hey, I'm only here for a few days, but do you know those girls that came in? He said, yes, I know every person that comes late at night because I'm the night shift guy and he happened to be the owner of the restaurant. He said, well, listen, I wanna throw that girl a birthday party because she's never had one.

And he said, I'm gonna get everything, I'll get a cake for it, I'll do the decorations, I'll come a little bit early, but if you could allow us, we're gonna do this. I don't know her, but we're gonna have a birthday party for this girl. And so the next day comes and sure enough, three, whatever, when she walked in, the place, the owner had gotten some people that worked there and know her, they all came in the middle of the night, by the way, which is wild, and they said, as soon as she walked in, they all shouted, happy birthday! This prostitute, she walks in and she is overwhelmed, as you can imagine, with emotion.

She's never experienced anything like this in her life because of her upbringing. And so she goes over and Tony, this Christian speaker and author, he comes up and he says to her, he says, hey, come over here and blow out your candles, blow out your candles. So she comes over to the cake and she said, before she blew out, she couldn't even blow them out because she was just crying, just weeping. And she said, hey, can I just take this cake home?

I don't wanna destroy it tonight. I just wanna take it home real quick so nobody eats it. And she's like, I live right by this diner. It was kind of awkward. He's like, oh, sure.

I mean, she'd never had a birthday cake before. So she took it, ran home and everything. And when she left, the owner of the restaurant, his name is Harry, he said to him, or no, Tony said to Harry, as she left, it was kind of awkward. Tony said, hey, can we pray for Agnes?

And man's like, sure, you know? And so they bow their heads for prayer. And in Tony's prayer, he prayed, he said, God, I pray that Agnes would feel the love that you have for her tonight. And he prayed for her salvation in that moment, true story. And as they got done praying, she wasn't back yet, the owner of the restaurant looked at Tony and said, I didn't know you were a pastor. And he said, what kind of church are you a part of? And he said, the kind that throws birthday parties at three in the morning for prostitutes. The owner of the restaurant said, I don't believe it. He said, why is that? He said, because a church like that, it does not exist. Because, and then he goes on, he said, because if it did, I joined that church. You see, here's the thing, here's the message of Hebrews chapter 10.

The reason why we feel the gospel and the church when functioning correctly is the hope for our world, it's because when functioning correctly, nobody will not want to be a part of it. You know how many churches have a bad reputation in their community? Some of you know them.

When you hear their name, oh man, you wouldn't go there because of whatever. Listen, we need to be functioning the way God designed for us to function so that everybody in this community wants to be a part of the community in which we live. Listen, there's no tenure here. I don't care how long you've been here. Every person that walks in, they're welcome. Every person that joins, they're a part of us. And listen, we're not a country club. We're not a church where it's just us. I've been here 30 years.

Listen, I don't care. I'm grateful. I'm grateful for your faithfulness. But at the end of the day, our arms are open. And for this community, when they look in, I want them to say, wow, that's something I want to be a part of because they're functioning the way that Jesus designed for them to function. And let me say this, only the gospel can produce a community like that.

Only the blood of Jesus can produce a community like that. Would you bow your heads with me? Let's do this. Let's just stand at this time.

Nobody looking around, heads bowed, hearts lifted in prayer. I'm gonna ask you a question and then we're gonna sing tonight or this morning. How many of you would say, pastor, and I want you to be honest, nobody's looking around in here, but you say, pastor, I've not really been obedient fully to Hebrews chapter 10. I've kind of just come and been fed and been cool with that, but I need to do more. I need to connect deeper into community in this place. How many of you would say, that's where I'm at here today. I need to do more. Would you please slip up your hand? Sweet, I see that. Hands going up, thank you.

Hands going up. Hey, don't be ashamed of that. Listen, connect deeper. If you're brand new here, your first thing is, hey, find a Bible fellowship class. You need to join it. Be a part of community.

Be a part of relationships. Many hands went up here in this place. I want to pray for you. And then here's the beauty of the gospel, is that all of us are welcome here. That's the beauty of this. All of us can be a part of this.

There's no tenure in this place. We're only here because we're broken pieces and the blood of Jesus is the only thing that has restored us here today. And listen, there's not a person in here that is good enough to be here. We're all here because of what Jesus did for us. And so we're gonna sing Just As I Am. Let's pray and then we're gonna sing this together and I want you to declare it.

And if you've been in church a long time, listen, hey, you're not entitled, you're not privileged. I want you to sing this because there was a time in your life where you had to come just as you were, broken and messed up and the blood of Jesus is what saved you and changed you. Father, speak to our hearts here today. I pray that you'd give people the courage to come.

God, that you would give people the courage to remember and to be thankful and grateful that the blood of Jesus is the only reason why we gather here today. Bless your people as they sing this morning. I pray that we declare this here today, Just As I Am here this morning for it's in your name we pray, amen. I want you to sing it this morning like you believe it, like you don't deserve to be here, okay?

Just As I Am. Just as I am with thou of one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am and waiting, God, to rid my soul of one dark lot, to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. I come broken to be mended. I come wounded to be healed.

I come desperate to be rescued. I come empty to be filled. I come guilty to be warden by the blood of Christ the Lamb.

And I'm well-known with open arms. Praise God, just as I am. Just as I am, I would be lost, but mercy and praise my freedom, Lord, and now to glory in your cross, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. I come broken to be mended. I come wounded to be healed.

I come desperate to be rescued. I come empty to be filled. I come guilty to be warden by the blood of Christ the Lamb.

And I'm well-known with open arms. Praise God, just as I am. I come broken to be mended. I come wounded to be healed. I come desperate to be rescued. I come empty to be filled. I come guilty to be warden by the blood of Christ the Lamb.

And I'm well-known with open arms. Praise God, just as I am. Praise God, just as I am. Amen. Amen.

Hey, you can have a seat real quick. As Pastor Bailey, I know he's not here, and I need to run through this. But I wanted to make mention of just a couple of prayer needs for our church.

And this is one of the things. And by the way, that song, I love that song because if Jesus has his arms open for anybody, why should we have our arms closed for anybody? And so I love that. But today, it is good to see Tammy Haynes here today. And thank you for your faithfulness.

She was here Wednesday. And listen, I bring this to you rejoicing that Steve is making a ton of progress. And this is To God Be the Glory, which her texts to me have just been so uplifting throughout this whole thing.

He is off the ventilator. Praise God for that. And we are so thankful.

And still a little bit of ways to go. But I think they're talking about moving them out of ICU, and which I'm super excited about. And so I want you to continue to pray. Also, Archie Nyfong was in the hospital this past week. Had a chance to sit and visit with him and Betty for a little bit.

He is at home. Continue to pray for him. Tanya Wasser, continue to pray for her. I think she has another procedure on Tuesday, if I remember correctly. And so please be in prayer for her. And then Stafford McKenzie as well, who had an ablation procedure on Friday.

And so be in prayer for them. Also, it is good to see Dale Bishop. He's at the back. It is so good to see him. We had the funeral for his wife this past week.

And a tremendous, tremendous family. And so, Dale, we're with you, man. We're standing with you and helping you through this. And so it's good to see him here today. Well, just on our way out today, they couldn't be here last week. I want to ask Shane and Suzanne to come.

You guys can stand front and center here today because you're not having to join with a thousand other people. But you can see their picture up here today. This is Shane and Suzanne.

Everybody say, hey, Shane and Suzanne. And they've been coming to our church for a long time. And so about a year or so. And so they came to Starting Point.

And they just really, and I love this, they're asking a lot of questions and things like that. And finally, he came to me recently and said, we know this is our church home. And they have both been saved, been baptized, and been a part of a different church. And they've come here today.

They have some relationships here in our church under the Hudspeths and different people know them. I'm surprised you still come after that, but whatever. And so I'm joking. But it is so good to have them coming here today. And I want to make a motion. Anybody make a motion right back here.

And then here's our second. All in favor, say amen. All right, very good.

And you made it. All right, you can relax. But it is so good to see them. And so listen, I know we have our meal down in the cafeteria. I want everybody to be there because the kids are ready for you. And so the teenagers are ready to serve you and their family.

So please, please be there and eat with us and to have a good time. In the cafeteria, we have chairs set up. There's about 150, 60 chairs set up in there. And I want that reserved for kind of some of the older people so that when they get their food, they don't have to go anywhere else.

And so if you could help us, if you're young enough, I guess you determine what that means, okay. You can go to the gymnasium. And then there's also behind the cafeteria, there's some outdoor seating as well with a pavilion, like a covering. And so there's quite a bit of seating there. You can sit in one of those two places, but please leave most of our cafeteria space for those who just don't need to be taking their plates down to the gym or outside and things like that.

That would be great. And then they'll give you some instructions as soon as you get into the cafeteria on where the line goes. And they'll serve you, they'll help you. And there'll be a donation spot right at the beginning.

All that money goes to these kids. So please support them. And let's try to get a bunch of them to camp. And we're excited about that. But on your way out, I want you to come meet the Hills and get to know them.

Let's stand and we'll be dismissed here today. God, we love you. We're thankful so much for what you have done for us. And God, I pray, Lord, I'm thankful for the Hills today and them coming to be a part of this family, this community here. And God, we are so thankful because every single one of us, the only reason why we're here is because of the blood that you shed for us. And God, I pray that you would bless this meal that we're gonna have here in a bit. God, I pray that you would be with everybody who's prepared it and just bless our fellowship as the church here today for it's in your name we pray. Amen. Hey, come meet the Hills and then come down to the... Amen.