Scripture:
22 Let us draw near to God with a “true heart” in full
assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and
our bodies washed with pure water. 23
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without a wavering, for he who
promised is faithful. 24 And let us
consider how to stir up one another to love and good deeds, 25 not neglecting
to meet together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encourage one another
and all the more as you see the day drawing near. For if we go on sinning deliberately after
receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for
sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will
consume the adversaries. (Hebrews 10:22-25)
Observation:
Like many, I’ve heard the “do not give up meeting together”
verse for years as the reason we should have church. Actually, I think I am guilty of even citing
it myself for just such a purpose. But
when you put that verse back into context and the larger point that the writer
of Hebrews is making – you see something else frame these words.
The first verse in this chapter says “The law is only a
shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same
sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near
to worship…. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and
goats to take away sins.” Then Jesus
said “here I am, I have come to do your [God’s] will.” This is the reason that Jesus came. And by his sacrifice, he took away the guilt
of our sin.
I wish that the information I just quoted, the profound
truth of it, reached my heart instead of just my head. It’s good to know that Jesus forgives me for
the awful things I think, do or say, but it’s much harder to feel it, isn’t it?
We still think we should pay. Sometimes we even pick situations for
ourselves that we think we deserve, in order to get the punishment we think we
need, to make penance for who we think we are, or what we think we’ve
done.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this is biblical
behavior, but it is often what we do anyway.
When I hear the verse “do not give up meeting together”, It
evokes the image of Christians getting their party on. Lets face it wherever two or three Christians
gather together there is a potluck.
Right? But when we pull this
verse out of context like that we miss the deeper meaning I believe is here for
us.
If you look at the two verses nesting our favorite one
you’ll see something interesting. I call
them “one another” verses. There are a
whole bunch of them, you should look them up sometime.
Why would verse 23 say “Let us hold fast to the confession
of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful”, unless He knew
this internal struggle that would take place in our lives? Knowing that Jesus covered your sins and
believing it (acting on it) are two different things, and we need each other to
do it. Vs 24 says “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and
good deeds.” I wish I understood the
Greek for the word “stir up” but my heart tells me that it’s the action a
friend does to pull us out of our own heads – to redirect our thinking. Maybe this happens through conversation,
maybe it happens through confrontation; either way it’s the action of a brother
in Christ who comes along side you and has permission to know what’s really
going on inside. We can get lost in
negative thoughts and destructive attitudes, can’t we? It’s why he gives the commands to stir up,
meet, and encourage.
Application:
I am concerned by the church’s trend to congregate for the
sake of congregating without the real spirit of “meeting together”, being
fulfilled. Specifically those “one
another’s” that help us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess. The average church goer today is not involved
in a small group of people who have access to the intimacies of their
life. They believe that meeting together
means standing in the same building at the same time listening to the same
sermon and singing the same songs.
Because if we are doing this thing right, following in Christ’s example
that is, then we are in for conflict and suffering for doing right. Verse 36 says “You need to persevere so that
when you have done the will of God you will receive what he has promised… and
in verse 39 “But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed,
but to those who have faith and are saved.”
Prayer:
Lord, give us courage to
not shrink back, but to follow you in faith.
Help us when we meet together, where you are in our midst, to bind us
into a deeper intimacy with you and with each other. Amen.
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