A Superior Hope for the Church

If you can look in the mirror in the morning and say, no judgment, perfect, I'm free to be me, Lord. I'm free to be myself, free to love other people, free from evaluation, free from fearing judgment and disappointment and pity and people looking down on me. I'm in forever. If you can get that in your head, we can get that in our relationships.

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CTK Sermons is a ministry of Christ the King Presbyterian Church. CTK is a community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful relationships, and committed to redemptive work in Raleigh.

Chapter 10. We're gonna read verses 19 through 25, and I'm gonna invite you, if you would join us in reading God's word aloud together.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain, that is through his flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold onto the confession of our hope without wavering since he who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other and all the more as you see the day approaching. — Hebrews 10:19-25

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

As I said, we have lots of reasons. In a day when people are cynical about the church, fearful about being a part of a local congregation, we have so many reasons today to hope, to be optimistic, to be encouraged as we look forward. And I want to briefly just move through three points with you this morning. I want to talk about the priority of the church, the provision of the church, and the power of the church—the power that makes all of this work.

The Priority of the Church

Now if you noticed as we were reading this, there it underscores over and over again the importance, the essential nature, the priority of the church. Did you hear this in the passage? Three times: let us. Let us. Let us. You know, it's not let you. It's not let me. It's let us. The focus is always on the togetherness of Christian community.

Discipleship, being a follower of Jesus, is never meant to be a solo enterprise. It's always about us. It's always about God's people because growth only happens in relationship with one another.

American Christians are unique among Christians throughout the world in that we tend to be so self-focused, individual-focused when it comes to our faith. Even our language can emphasize this. We talk a lot about me and Jesus or a personal relationship with Jesus, which is an appropriate term. But personal doesn't mean private, and personal never means alone. Always, the push of the Bible is for together, us together.

In this passage, the writer here calls us not to neglect gathering together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other all the more as you see the day approaching. That word gather together is a word in Greek which will have a word that you recognize. It's episynagogue. You recognize that word synagogue in the middle of that? The word simply means gathered together.

In the first century, in Jesus' day, a synagogue was something every town had. It was a place where people gathered together on the Sabbath day, the Jewish Sabbath Saturday. They would gather there to hear God's word read aloud and discussed and taught. And it was not a building. It was the meeting itself. It was people coming together. And that's where we get this word about gathering in this passage.

What is implied here is not an aggregation, but a congregation. Now what's the difference between those two? An aggregation is like a bag of Skittles, a bag of M&Ms, a collection of things together in one place. But a congregation is not just a collection. It's a connection. It's people who are joined together. It's not Skittles. It's corn on the cob, all the kernels that are connected, or better yet, Indian corn. Remember Indian corn that we use in our decorations around harvest time, around Halloween—all the different kernels, all different colored kernels, but they're organically connected and related to one another. That's the picture of what's in view here of what it means to be God's people: not just people who happen to be together, but people who are connected.

Many pastors have looked at this passage, verse 25 particularly, and say, "Hey, this—don't neglect meeting together. That's about what we're doing here. That's about church service." But I don't think that's right because the words here are describing what is in view can't be done in a worship service. You can't consider one another and provoke one another and encourage one another and gather together in a room like this.

You can't do all those things. Now that doesn't mean that what we're doing is not important. In a moment, I'm gonna go through each of those verbs, but we can't do all those commands on a Sunday morning. There's something much larger and much deeper that's in view in this passage, something much more essential to what it means to be a Christian, much more irreplaceable to what it means to be a Christian. It's the one another. It's the connection. It's let us, let us, let us.

More than two decades ago, there's a celebrity academic—which are two words that don't usually go together—and his name was Robert Putnam. He's still alive. He wrote a book in the year 2000 that sent shock waves throughout our culture because it so described what was happening in the year 2000. His book was called Bowling Alone. And in it, he describes with a lot of data how Americans were living more and more isolated lives from one another, how there was a decline in things like church involvement, bowling leagues—that's the title—clubs, activities that we're moving further and further away from institutions where we feel connected to one another.

Now, what's fascinating is Putnam now, he's 83 years old, and he says, "Everything I wrote in that book, multiply it by 100. We are in a loneliness epidemic." Now, of course, what was not in place in American society in the year 2000? One big thing: social media. And you might think, well, surely that connects us. But another researcher, professor Sherry Turkle from MIT, has done a really famous TED Talk, written a book about this, where she says this: "Technology with its is seductive when it offers to meet us in the places of our human vulnerabilities. And it turns out we are very vulnerable people indeed. We are lonely, but we're fearful of intimacy. Digital connections and the social, sociable robot may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. Our networked lives, social network, allow us to hide from each other, even as we feel like we're tethered to one another."

And I like this line: "We would rather text than talk. We'd rather text than talk." If you want to read her book, it's called Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From One Another.

And, of course, you can feel where I'm going with this. The answer to this, I think a very simple thing, so simple it may be something we miss. The answer to this is church. The church, God's people, but not church as in a gathering in a room like this, and not church as in a building that meets somewhere in our city at a particular address, but church as a vital living congregation of people who are in one another's lives in real, authentic, and powerful ways.

See, it's not just church that's the answer. It's a particular type of church that's in view in this passage. Why should we be optimistic and hopeful about the church? Well, this particular—you know, consider the provision of the church. What we need most is not just any community called church. There's a lot of bad news about churches right now. You can read. You can watch the documentaries. You can read all the blogs about what's happened in the church in America. But what's in view here is a particular type of church, a church that does four things. These four things: considers, provokes, gathers, and encourages. Let's look at each of these in turn.

Consider

When my kids were little, we have six boys. Most of them are grown now. But when I was a dad of really young boys, the number one word I tried to impress upon them over and over is "be considerate." It's not natural for a tribe of young men to be considerate. So I said this over and over. I would say things like this: "Be considerate. Your little brother's asleep in the next room. Be considerate. He is happily playing with that toy. Why would you go take it from him?" You know, I was trying to push on them hard, and the boys will admit—they remember. Now they didn't put it into practice, but they remember me hammering this word with them: "Consider it. Remember other people. Imagine what it's like to be them."

Can you imagine what it would be like to be a part of a living community where other people are imagining every day what it's like to be you? That's profound. This call to consider one another is not just "don't wake up your brother." It's to imagine what it's like to be one another. You think about you all the time. I do too—not you. I think about me. We daydream. We think about what we'd like to do. We make plans in our heads.

A community that considers one another daydreams about one another's growth and good. Daydreams about one another's growth and good. Asks questions like, "What do you need from me? How can I help you grow? How can I help you become the person in Jesus that he has for you?" Can you imagine? This is what we're called to: to consider one another. Now that's the happy side.

Let's look at one of the hard ones: provokes. I think you know about this. We all know and could name churches and individuals who are very provocative in some of the worst ways, and that's not what I have in mind—people who make you angry. Rather, there's something deeper in this. To stir up literally means to irritate or to agitate. Other translations—I remember the NIV says to spur one another on. I want you to picture a cowboy, a cowgirl, the boots, and the big metal spurs that they dig into the horse's flanks to make it go. That kind of agitation, stirring, provoking.

Now the best example of this, and I got this from another pastor, was Homer's Odyssey. Maybe you had to read that in high school. I had to read it in my Latin class, and I remember Homer's Odyssey is the story of what happens after the Trojan War to the main hero, Odysseus. And it's about this journey that he makes with his boat full of crew as they go back through the Aegean Sea back home to Troy. And as they go through this journey together, they have all these obstacles, monsters they have to navigate, all these different islands that they land on.

Well, one of the ones that's most notable for our sermon today is where the crew is about to travel by the Island of the Sirens. This Island of the Sirens was famous because it was inhabited by these women who sang these magical songs that, if you listen to it, would drive the sailors crazy, and they would want everything in them to be on that island. And yet the island was surrounded by sharp rocks, and the meadows of that island were covered in the bones of sailors. It was, in other words, a magical place and a completely destructive place.

Ulysses decides he wants to hear the song of the sirens, and so he tells his crew: I want all of you to stick your ears full of beeswax so you can hear nothing. And then I want you to take strong ropes and tie me to the mast of the ship so that I can't move and I can hear the songs. Now no matter what I say, no matter what I do, you are not under any circumstance to untie the ropes. Even if I plead or command you, do not untie me from the boat.

Of course, they go by the island, and he hears the songs. He's going crazy out of his mind with desire to go to the island. He was going to jump overboard, drown himself in the water if he needed to. But this is such a great picture, and I know this may sound strange, of Christian community because there is something in us, in every last one of us, that left alone is self-destructive. That left unchecked will grow into something in the dark, without the prying eyes of friends, without other people who ask questions and know what's going on with you—it will grow into things that will shipwreck your life and my life.

Alone is the friend of destruction, the friend of sin. Together is the enemy of sin. You need friends who will tie you to the mast. You need friends who know what's better for you than what you most want in any moment, who will disrupt you and irritate you and agitate you so that you might become more like Christ, who will push you. There is in every human heart the seeds of our own destruction. And we need people with prying eyes and good questions wearing the spurs, who come in and ask the questions and point out things. These are friends with spurs who don't give us what we want but what we need. Do you have such people? Can you imagine a community of such people?

A People Who Gather Together

Third, a people who gather together. Now as I told you earlier, this is the word episynagogue, which just means to gather. It's one thing to be in a car on the highway. I guess there's a certain amount of solidarity in traffic jams—we're all going to the same place, and we're all stuck. But that's not a picture of community. A picture of community is one that gathers together. To synagogue is to meet together. And it refers in part, like I said, to what we're doing in this room, but it refers to a whole lot more of gathering together.

One of the things every one of us learned during the pandemic is that church doesn't really work online. It doesn't work online. This is why our staff, when we talk about the outward face we have with our social media or our website, we talk about digital hospitality, but not digital ministry. Ministry doesn't work online. Ministry works face to face—me with you and you with me together.

We need to gather to be with one another. Now why is that? I think in part, that's because our God is not visible to us, and it's so important for us to see God at work. And we can't get that from reading books.

We only really get that when we watch the work of God in each other's lives, when we're gathered, when we're hearing, when we're seeing, when we're knowing what's going on with one another. That's when we experience and see what it's like to lay hold of Christ and know Christ and walk with Christ because we see it in one another's lives.

Encourage

Finally, this leads me to this last point: encourage. To encourage is to pour courage into the life of another person. You cannot encourage yourself just like you can't tickle yourself. I've noticed this over and over in my own life. It's encouragement that always comes from other people, just like tickling has to come from other people.

Literally, the term here is parakaleo—to shout alongside, to call out outside of you. It's a word that's used by Jesus in the book of John to describe the ministry of the Holy Spirit, one who calls out to you. It's the word we use in our church to describe our leadership team for women who are coming alongside our congregation, to call alongside.

Now many of you have these experiences, but a good coach is one who parakaleos other people—calls the plays, shouts the instructions, gives the essential information, reminds the team of their training and practice. A search party parakaleos calls out to somebody who's lost in the woods, reminds them of the way to go. A good friend parakaleos you, tells you what's true, reminds you of who you really are, helps you become a better person or spouse or parent or employee. And a good church parakaleos you with encouragement—not just in a general sense and not just on the stage, but life on life, relational.

Anybody here this morning that's just too encouraged? You're just tired. You had it up to here with other people encouraging you with good news, with people reminding you of who you are. You're just tired of it. I'm so sick of that. None of us. Instead, what I find is most people that I interact with in our church are like a dry sponge. You are dying for lack of encouragement.

You know, it's not even that hard. It's just vocalizing the good that we see in one another. I remember growing up, it was always my great aunts who would tell me how much I'd grown in between visits. They were the ones who'd always say, "Oh wow, you're so much taller, you're so much bigger." And as a kid, you don't feel bigger. You don't feel taller. You can't feel yourself growing. And the same is true in the Christian life. It's other people who are able to point out to you where they see you growing.

My wife is a professional counselor. You know what she's looking for in her counseling sessions? Not overwhelming change, but small incremental growth. Only somebody outside of you can name what's happening in you and say, "Look. There it is. There is the shadow, the beginning of some good fruit of what Jesus is birthing in your life right now, what he's doing in you." Can you imagine a church that encourages like that?

This is kind of corny. I saw this as a bumper sticker this past week while I was on the road. It said, "There's always a place for you in us"—you get the spelling, right? You get the U in there. But I thought it was right with regard to this church. I can promise you, as this church grows, as this church changes, and has changed so much over twenty-five years, there is always a place for you in us.

Why do I know that? Because we need you, and you need us. We need each other—not in some kind of like icing on the top, gravy on the side kind of way, a little ketchup to dip your fries in. We need one another in a vital way, in an incredible way. The way that happens is through individual kernels of Indian corn on the cob together who gather together, provoke one another, encourage one another, and consider one another.

The Power of the Church

Last point: the power of the church. This passage begins with the word "therefore." If you've ever been in Bible study, your Bible study teacher tells you that if you see the word "therefore," you should always ask what it's there for. This passage is the hinge of the book. Everything we've been reading in chapters one through ten comes to a head right here in chapter ten. And from this point forward, it's all about application. All this great theology leads us to all of this application. And so the "therefore" of this passage is so important.

How do we become a community that considers one another and provokes one another and gathers together and encourages one another? It's right here in this passage. Listen again:

Therefore, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, He has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain. That is his flesh.

And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. See, all that language says full access to God. It refers back to the temple. The temple presented two things if you walked up to the Jewish temple: a sense of no access if you're a Gentile, or mediated access if you're Jewish. A sense that only special people get to go in, and only one special person gets to go in once a year to the really special place.

And what we've been unpacking over and over in this book, and what this book builds to, is this: full access, boldness to enter the sanctuary. How? Through the blood of Jesus. He's opened for us a new and living way through the curtain. How? Through his flesh. So draw near. Come close. You've been given full access.

The Outsiders

It's a staple of high school English classes to read a book called The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. Maybe you read the book. Maybe you've seen the movie. It was a brat pack original movie with all these famous people in it: Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez. But The Outsiders is a story of two groups of people. There's the Socs, the social group, the insiders in the school, and then there are the outsiders—a group called the Greasers. They're rejects, they're nobodies, and they feel like nobody. The story is about this group of outsiders and how they feel a sense of exclusion all their life.

One of the things that's fascinating about this book and the movie is how this hits every generation. It's about a story of the nineteen fifties, and yet over and over and over, generation upon generation, English teachers love this book because there's something about this experience of being an outsider. You know what that's like. You know what it feels like to be a freak or a geek, to be on the wrong side of the in-group, to feel like there's something wrong with me or am I giving off something wrong. We all know what this feels like.

Many people come to church with that very question: Am I gonna fit in here? They're not so worried about the preaching or the music. They're like, are there people who like me and will like me? That's the question. We grow up with this lifelong sense that there's something wrong, that I'm on the outside of something.

What if you were permanently and irrevocably on the inner circle for the rest of your life? Everywhere you went, what if you never felt like a weirdo or an outsider ever again? How might that change you? How might you look in the mirror at your own body, or the way you talk, or what you wear, when you have this sense of confidence? What about the way you'd relate to other people out of such a sense of security and rootedness—I'm okay. I'm okay in my own skin. Free from evaluation, free from fearing judgment, free from disappointment or pity or people looking down on you. Never an outsider, always an insider.

Well, here's the gospel. I want to remind you: In Mark's gospel and in Matthew's gospel, Jesus on the cross recites the words from Psalm 22. He says, "Elohi, Elohi, lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why so far from my deliverance and my words of groaning?"

Elohi, Elohi, lama sabachthani. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? — Psalm 22

Now what's weird is that those words are in two different languages: Hebrew and Aramaic. Aramaic was a local dialect of Hebrew in that day, which means scholars say this must have been word for word exactly what Jesus said. In a moment of pain, he cries out in two different languages exactly what he's feeling—this sense of utter abandonment and rejection. He was experiencing on the cross the abandonment, the loneliness, the isolation, the rejection, the exclusion, the being an outsider on the cross.

And why is that? So that you and I would never know anything except full access all the way in. The blood of Christ has made for us a new and living way into an eternal hope through the curtain—that is, through his flesh. And we have boldness to enter into the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus.

So what can I say with confidence about this church? You know what I can say confidently about CTK? There are no outsiders here. Sure, there are people who know each other better, who socialize with one another. But for you who know Jesus, you are permanently, irrevocably on the in, on the inside, brought in, full access.

If you can get this in your head, you can get this in your relationships. If you can look in the mirror in the morning and say, no judgment. Perfect. I'm free to be me, Lord. I'm free to be myself. Free to love other people. Free from evaluation, free from fearing judgment and disappointment and pity and people looking down on me.

I'm in forever. If you can get that in your head, we can get that in our relationships. We can be the kind of people who consider one another, provoke one another, gather together, and encourage one another. May it be so for at least twenty-five more. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Covenant Renewal

Today, I want to end the sermon in a way that's different from how I normally do. I want to give you an opportunity to recommit yourself to the Lord this morning, not individually, but as a people. This is an old tradition that goes back to the Methodist Church in the eighteen hundreds in England. They regularly, once a year, covenant themselves—commit themselves together to be God's people in this place together. And I'm going to give you an opportunity this morning to do the same thing.

I'm borrowing the exact language and covenant. I'm going to put it up on the screen behind us. I'm going to invite you to say these words with me. Would you stand?

This is our covenant renewal, and I hope to do it from now on every year in August at the beginning of school where we offer ourselves again as a church to the Lord. Would you join your voices with mine?

I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will. Place me with whom you will. Put me to doing. Put me to suffering. Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you. Let me be full. Let me be empty. Let me have all things. Let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, oh glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine, and I am yours. May it be so. And may the covenant which I have just made here on earth be confirmed in heaven. Amen.

Thank you for listening to our CTK Raleigh sermons podcast. CTK is a community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful relationships, and committed to redemptive work in Raleigh. If you have questions about our sermon content or about our church in general, please visit our website at ctkraleigh.org.