Introduction

If you have been at Bethlehem for any length of time, you know that we talk about small groups as our second highest priority. What we mean by that is that we are asking everyone at Bethlehem to do three things: (1) faithfully attend corporate worship, (2) join a small group, and (3) give of yourself (time, talents, treasures).

Each of those three realities requires its own sermon because much more needs to be said about each one. This sermon addresses priority #2. The text gives us a compelling vision for small groups. When we say, “Join a small group,” are we calling for people to just show up and occupy space in a group? Are we really only concerned about you checking a box that says, “I physically attend a small group meeting?”

Our vision for small groups is much bigger and richer. We don’t take a minimalistic view of anything here at Bethlehem because we are serious about your joy! As a church, we care about you. We want you to be a disciple of Jesus with a relationship with Jesus as the Lord of your life that is vital and vibrant and flourishing and filled with reverence and awe and wonder. 

This text gives us a vision for what a small group gathering should look like for disciples of Jesus. In actual point of fact, this text cannot be restricted to small groups because the author of Hebrews does not say the assembling together has to be in small gatherings. This text has something foundational and glorious and monumental to say to both priorities #1 and #2 because it addresses the need to assemble together. Assembling together foreshadows something stunning. Our gathering together anticipates the final gathering of God’s people forever. Being part of the earthly assembly is an important counterpart to saying, “I will be part of the final heavenly gathering.”

This vision of life together in this text could apply to our large group corporate gatherings to some degree, but this text is a better description of our small group gatherings because it commands us to truly know one another, or better yet, study one another. That is a little more difficult to do in our large corporate gatherings—the person next to you may not want you to be staring at them and studying them throughout this worship service.

The point of this passage is perseverance is a community project. The author of Hebrews makes this point in two ways. First, he looks at what we do when we gather together. Second, he clarifies what is at stake when we gather together.

1. What We Do (vv. 24–25)
2. What Is At Stake (vv. 26–27)

1. What We Do (vv. 24–25)

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

The biblical blueprint for gathering together involves three realities: (1) studying, (2) stirring, and (3) speaking.

A. Study One Another (v. 24)

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” This translation gets the gist of the verse right. However, the translation choice is imprecise at one point and it may cause the reader to miss the more precise point God makes. The key question is “What does God tell us to study?” Something or someone? The object looks like “study how to,” but the object in the original is actually “study one another.” Therefore, this is a call not to study something, but to study someone. God calls us to study one another as we gather.

This is a call to study people. What are their hopes and hates and gifts and fears and strengths? It is a labor of love that calls you to treat the specifics of who we are seriously, rather than just lazily glossing over things and lumping all people into the same categories with vague generalizations. Study people; do not stereotype them. God created the differences and he cares about them. We can delight in God by caring about the differences God created.

This summons to study is not merely something you do because you love the person, but because you care about the Kingdom and you want to see fruitfulness. This is what Hebrews makes clear in the rest of the verse.

B. Stir Up One Another (v. 24) 

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (v. 24). Therefore, the call is to stir up one another. The translation is once again a bit imprecise. Literally it reads, “And let us study one another unto the provoking of love and good works.” Study people to provoke them.

My best attempt to explain this dynamic is to illustrate it negatively first. It is amazing to me how family members can figure out how to provoke a response from a fellow family member. We sometimes say things like, “Wow, you really know how to push my buttons.” Or, “That person really knows how to get under my skin.” When we speak that way, we are describing a negative dynamic. We know what it would take to provoke the response we want. We are sinfully entertained by the exasperation of others. We provoke people to pick on them. We are the only ones who get enjoyment out of it.

If you are a Vikings fan and you are speaking to a Packers fan, you may ask them how far the Packers got this year. If you are a Packers fan, you may retaliate and ask how many Super Bowls the Vikings have won. It will get ugly from there. That discussion is not going produce very much love and good works.

Our text says that there is such a thing as provoking a positive response instead of a negative response. This is the kind of thing that coaches or teachers do all the time. They try to study their players or students to know how to motivate them or spur them on to greater achievements.

The text says that we should study one another so that we know how to positively provoke them in order to produce love and good works. Don’t provoke in order to produce anger, but love. Don’t provoke in order to produce negative reactions, but good works. We should not be entertained by the exasperation of others. We should take great joy in watching love and good works come to life in the life of our brothers and sisters.

The fact that we need to be stirred up says something about our weakness. The Christian life can be hard going. We become spiritually weary and even lethargic. We need encouragements to not become discouraged by the resistance we see in our world, in our families, in our church, and even in our own hearts. We need each other. 

It is illuminating to look at the parallels in Hebrews when we ask what love and good works might look like in Hebrews. A passage eight verses later gives us a window into what the writer has in mind. 

But recall the former days when, after you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.—Hebrews 10:32–36

The words “love” and “work” occur earlier in Chapter 6 and this passage emphasizes the same basic point as Chapter 10.

Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.  And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.—Hebrews 6:9–12

Dear friends, the fact that God ordained that others would stir us up says something startling about us and something wonderful about the church. We can easily grow sluggish and weary and be tempted to coast or quit.

It feels like what happens in a workout when you see the other person sucking air and trying to keep going—hands on the hips, looking weary. What do you say? “Come on, let’s finish this. Only four minutes left. You can do it!” That is why Hebrews emphasizes the drawing near of the Day “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (v. 25).

God could ordain that he is the only one to stir you up, but he has not decided to do it that way. He decided to create a family of faith in which we would need to depend upon his grace in a way that strengthens the bonds of togetherness.

One of my friends has a favorite Bible verse that guides him. Ephesians 2:10 says that we are to walk in the good works that God has ordained for us. In our prayer times together, I can mention that verse and he comes alive. Yes, that is right. Help me walk in those works today! All that we have been talking about to this point implies something that now the author of Hebrews makes explicit. We move to point three.

C. Speak to One Another (v. 25)

This link between studying and stirring in verse 24 is instructive. Now it begs the question, “How does studying lead to stirring?” The next verse gives the clue as he says we are supposed to “speak” to one another (the ESV says “encourage,” but it is actually the same word for “exhort”). In other words, we study so we can speak in an informed way that will hit home and result in the person being “stirred up” to love and good deeds. I will say more about the nature of this exhortation a little later in the sermon. We will be helped at this point by feeling the weight of what is at stake in our gathering together. 

2. What Is At Stake? (vv. 26–27)

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 speaks to us in a straight up way about our dangerous predicament. It is possible to fall away from our profession of faith such that we are not following Jesus anymore. Rather than walking with Jesus with joy and awe, we turn away and follow the rebellious path of sin. Hebrews refers to it as to “go on sinning deliberately” (v. 26). Did you hear that? We could go on sinning deliberately. This willful decision to sin is willful rebellion against God.

But what does “sinning deliberately” look like in Hebrews? What is the main issue? It does not simply address bad behavior. He is talking about people wandering away from Jesus—throwing away the confidence that they have in him. Their relationship to Jesus is diminishing and deteriorating. Jesus begins to mean less and less and other things begin to mean more and more. They are tempted to leave Jesus for inferior things (like old covenant religion). They are tempted to throw in the towel and shrink back from their allegiance to Jesus and their assembling together and association with other Christians because they could be persecuted (like visiting them in prison and having their homes confiscated). Is Jesus and the life to come he has purchased worth it?

The author of Hebrews unpacks a little bit more in terms of the knowledge that they have received. It is not just the revelation of who Christ is, but also the revelation that eternity hinges on your relationship to him.

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.—Hebrews 10:28–31

This knowledge should inform our expectations. People who are drifting away from Jesus should realize that the path they are on is more dangerous than they can possibly fathom. They should have “a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries” (v.27). They should smell smoke on that path. There could be nothing worse than having an Almighty enemy.

The phrase “fury of fire” should fill out what “fearful expectation” means. Jonathan Edwards is famous for preaching the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” What we forget is that Edwards spoke far more extensively of the incomparable delights of heaven than the unspeakable horrors of hell. Heaven and hell cannot be separated in certain respects because we are headed to either one—there is no third way, no neutral territory. You literally are on the way to one or the other right now—and this day could be the Day of arrival for you. 

Notice that the judgment of hell is not just “fire” it is the “fury of fire.” Edwards often reflected upon the infinite nature of God as it will be expressed in either heaven or hell. Heaven will be the unrestrained delight of God in providing for the fullness of joy for his people. Hell will be his unrestrained wrath for his enemies. “God will have no manner of regard to the welfare of the damned, will have no pity, no merciful care, lest they should be too miserable. … There will be no merciful restraint to God’s wrath.” But with respect to the saints, “There will be no happiness too much for them. God won’t begrudge anything as too good for them. There will be no restraint to his love, no restraint to their enjoyment of himself; nothing will be too full, too inward and intimate for them to be admitted to.” (Works of Edwards, 18:371)

This danger of drifting and the danger of everlasting punishment provides the reason for why we should not forsake assembling as we see this Day approaching. Eternal judgment or eternal joy is at stake. The author of Hebrews makes the same point in Hebrews 3:12–13 where the same word for “exhort” occurs again.

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”—Hebrew 3:12–13 

Let us make four observations. First, the focus is the heart. The focus is not first on behavior or outward actions because they flow downstream from the heart. Why are our hearts dangerous?

Second, the problem is hardness of heart and the deceptiveness of sin. Why don’t we just deal with our own heart when we see that we have an evil, unbelieving heart? When we see it, we should just start believing, right? That is just the problem: We may be too deceived to even see it. Hebrews says, “We can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (v. 13). This is the scariest verse in the Bible to me. The biggest danger is self-deception. We need someone else to exhort us because sometimes we do not see our spiritual state clearly. Let us name some of the deceptions and think about how to deal with them from the word of God. Twisting the biblical idea of forgiveness is central to the lie of license. It is amazing that sin can even twist the gospel and misuse the idea of forgiveness. It is easy, after all, to say that we are forgiven. You see, sin says, “You are forgiven, so you do not have to fight sin.” This is the lie of a license to sin. We have a free ticket to paradise. We are not saved because of obedience, and thus obedience does not matter.

The deceptiveness of sin can convince a hard heart. It takes a hard heart to believe that rebellion against God is a good thing. John MacArthur shared a story in his commentary on Hebrews about a time that he was in college and was thrown from a vehicle going 75 mph. He slid on his back for about 100 yards. He suffered third-degree burns and the resulting scar tissue is now insensitive. He says, “Something very much like this happens to a conscience that is repeatedly disregarded.” (Hebrews, p. 88)

Third, this is a warning directed at professing Christians because the danger is having an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. This means that the lips can make someone a professing Christian, but the heart can wander from the profession.

Fourth, notice the solution. Exhortation. Who should do the exhorting? Only Pastors? No. Christians must exhort one another. Pastors are not the only people who should be exhorters. This is what all Christians do. Exhort one another.

Hopefully, you can see now why the translation “encourage” is too weak. The word “exhort” here does not mean encourage as in give someone a compliment like, “Nice shoes.” That is not going to help in the war against sin. Encouragement is an exhortation to not coast or quit or throw in the towel. Return to Jesus as your first love; don’t throw away your confidence. Don’t give up!

An evil, unbelieving heart says, “You are forgiven so you do not need to fight sin.” The heart saved by faith says, “I am forgiven so that I can fight sin.” The only sin we can truly fight is a forgiven sin. How do you fight a condemning sin? How does a condemned person fight? Why would they fight? They have no hope!

Only a forgiven sinner can truly fight sin. I am forgiven so sin will not win in the end, and thus I will fight to the end. Faith recognizes that only God can call a cease-fire for sin. And He will. He will call for a cease-fire when he casts sin into the lake of fire. We do not make peace with sin. If we do, we will be cast into the lake of fire with it.

Let me give you an example of this strategy in action. During my days at the Bethlehem Institute I was trying to put these things together. Pastor John told us about a couple that had come to him asking if he would marry them. The problem is that they were already married to other people. They had been having an affair and now they wanted to divorce their spouses and get married to each other and have Pastor John officiate.

What would you say to a couple like that? He did not say, “I know for sure that both of you are going to hell.” He said something like, “I cannot see your hearts, but your lives are showing possible evidence of an evil, unbelieving heart that is falling away from the living God. Scripture says those who commit these sins do not inherit the kingdom of God. If you do not repent and you stay on this path, you will go to hell.”

God used the warning from Scripture. They realized that they were self-deceived. They repented and returned to their spouses. When I heard the story, 12 years ago, they were still married.

Fifth, when should we exhort? Every day. How often are our hearts in danger of drifting? Every day. How often must we then speak to one another? Every day.

How can the words of others help us? You may be wondering why we need community for this? I have Christ and I have the word of Christ. Isn’t that enough? No. God ordained that we would need Christ and the word of Christ in others as well. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it in a way that caused light bulbs to turn on for me.

But God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. … Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself. … He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure. And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation. (Life Together, p. 23)

Conclusion: Don’t Forget the Holy Spirit

I want to exhort you not to forget the Holy Spirit in the process of studying, stirring up, and speaking.

The two ditches here are man-centered ditches: truth without love or love without truth. The Holy Spirit must be at work in this process. Don’t try to do these things on your own. Study people prayerfully. Ask God to give you insight. Speak to people prayerfully. Ask for the wisdom to say things winsomely and lovingly, instead of speaking in a harsh and shrill way that stirs up defensiveness.

Truth Without Love Is Destructive

Without the Spirit, you could try to speak the truth, but your words will not have power and they will not come from a place of love (i.e., the fruit of the Spirit). I have seen people get red in the face with frustration as they try to create conviction and get someone to see something. You cannot create conviction with the force of your words. Don’t try to play the Holy Spirit—pray that the Holy Spirit would guide your words and use your words and shape the words into love.

Love Without Truth Is Deceptive
Without the Spirit, you will have a warped idea of love—you will think that it is loving to not speak some hard truth to someone. Failing to speak the truth to someone is not going to come from the Spirit of truth. The Spirit can give you the courage to have the hard conversation and trust him with the results.

Unlocking the Heart
Small groups will require the power of the Holy Spirit if hearts are to be unlocked. Why would someone be open to community apart from the Spirit? Without the Spirit, the door of your heart would be locked to truth and community (especially if you have been hurt by people in the past). Some of you need deep healing by the Spirit to be able to trust people again.

The Holy Spirit Creates Community
Don’t simply hear a call from me to seek out potential small groups and join one. I am also calling for current small group members to be more like Barnabas. Small groups need Barnabas-type people to go get people and bring them into a small group at Bethlehem. Look what Spirit-filled Barnabas did for Saul when he was something of an outsider.

 So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.—Acts 11:25–26

Sermon Discussion Questions