Sunday Morning Service 10:30 AM - Confidence in Christ ~ Hebrews 10:19-25 ~ Pastor Ryan Nichols

Good morning, church family. I'm so glad you're here. It's really good to see everybody. I want to invite you to stand with me. We'll pray and we'll get started.

Father, we come before you this morning and we thank you for another day and thank you for allowing us to be here in your house this morning, Lord. I just thank you for our church family here, Lord God. Thank you for the blessings. They are to me, to those around them, Lord God. I just ask your blessing upon this time. Bless them, Lord God, and may your word go out with power.

In Jesus' name, amen. Jesus is come. Like a sinner, wake up the saint. Shout of your fame. Jesus is come.

You guys can go and have a seat if you like.

Your blood.

Lord God, we just thank you for your blood. Thank you for your precious blood that you spilled out on the cross for us, Lord God. That brings new life, God. We just thank you and we praise you.

May we just empty ourselves. Of everything this morning, Lord. Fill us afresh with your Holy Spirit, Lord God. Fill us with more of you this morning. Jess, stand with me for the last one.

This morning, I just pray that we would come to this place of full abandonment. With full surrender to you, Lord God, and your will for our lives. Lord, if there are any here this morning that have never surrendered their life, to you, I just pray that today would be the day of salvation. That today would be the day of surrender.

Lord, if there are any here this morning, Lord God, that have never, that just still have unsurrendered areas of their life, Lord God, I pray that today would be the day of surrender.

That we would be holy and fully surrendered to you this morning, Lord.

Lord God, we've got to stop. Lord God, we've got to stop living for ourselves. We need to start living for you, Lord. And it begins with surrender, Lord.

We come to that place of surrender today.

Sing that with me one more time. I'm completely depleted.

Lord God, we thank you for another day. We just thank you for this time of worship. Lord, now, God, as Pastor Ryan comes, I just pray that you would speak mightily through him, Lord God. Give him the words to speak. Give us an ear to hear and a soft heart to receive it, Lord God. Lord, move mightily by the power of your spirit this morning. In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen. Let's take some time and greet one another.

We'll get started.

Good morning, and welcome to Calvary Chapel. We're glad you've chosen to worship with us this morning. It's a pretty packed room today. That's awesome. In the bulletin on the left side, there's all the things that are normally going on through the week. A lot of studies to get plugged in, do a lot of home fellowships. So a lot of options to walk with the Lord

and walk through the word together with people as a fellowship. In the middle section, we're still doing the Bible reading plan. We post that online as well as on the back of the bulletin. So we'll see what the readings are this week. A reminder about the construction. The kitchen in the back is still kind of a big non-kitchen right now. So bear with us in the transition,

and we'll have a nice kitchen here after a bit. It's going to look really nice. We're real excited about it. There's going to be a women's retreat, and I'm going to have Ms. Diane Nichols come up and speak on that a little bit.

So the women's retreat is coming up September 18th through 21st, and it's in Wawoka, Oklahoma. And the last day you can sign up is August the 1st. And you can room with two people, and it's $275. If you have three people in your room, then you save a little bit of money, and you save even more money if there's four. Ryan shared first service that they charge you double

if you're in a room with more than four people. So we don't know that that's true. That's simply speculation on his part. But anyway, so I hope a bunch of you can come because it's the most fun when you can get a group of women, and we all get to go down there. We get to have a great time. We get to learn and grow in the Lord, and we get to laugh together, and we get to lack sleep together.

It's a great weekend. So hopefully some of you can come.

And just a reminder, that's going to be September 18th through 20th at the St. Crispin's Convention Center in Wawoka, Oklahoma. Scan that barcode for a little more information. And then we'll remind you to pray for the Guatemala Missions team, which is leaving in a couple days. And on that note, I'm going to have Ryan come up, and he'll explain a little more about that.

All right. Before we get into our responsive reading this morning, I'm going to invite the Guatemala Missions team to come up here with us because we want to, as a church body, pray over them. So if you are a part of that team, there's definitely not room on the front row for the kids. They're just going to stand in the back. So if you're a part of that team, come on up here.

Be bold. You can do it.

You have to fit the span between Drew and I here. Oh, he just made the span a lot bigger.

Oh, and look, we've got Jack and Quinn.

Tell everybody hi. All right. We've got... Here we go. There it is. We made it.

All right. So these guys head out Tuesday, Tuesday morning early, 6 a.m. Tuesday. So there's going to be a lot that they do over this 10 days that you're down there. Seven days that you're down there. So what we wanted to do, knowing the fact that there's a lot of spiritual warfare they're going to go through and things along those lines, we just wanted to take time as a church body to pray

over them. So just where you're sitting there, if you just extend your hand out, Drew and I are going to lay hands on this team. If you just extend your hand, we're going to pray over this team. So, Father, we come before you, and I just thank you that you have laid it on the hearts of these individuals to go and to serve you in this way, Lord, to go out and to do the work of the ministry, to be the hands and feet of Jesus, Lord, in a faraway land.

And so, God, we just want to pray your blessing over them. I pray right now, Lord, that you would overflow each of them afresh with your Holy Spirit, Lord, a fresh filling. Father, that you would gift each of them individually with exactly what they need for this week of service. Lord, we pray your protection over their travel. We pray your protection over not only the travel down there,

but I know that there's car rides back and forth. We pray against anybody throwing up on the car ride. And, Lord, we just pray, we just pray, God, that you would just bless this team. And again, Lord, bind the enemy from hassling them and move through them as you see fit. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, thanks, guys.

And for our responsive reading this morning, we are going to be in Psalm 146. Psalm 146. Looking at the New American Standard, if you need a copy, it should be one in a row around you. If there's not, you may have to share with someone. And as you are turning to Psalm 146, if you are able, please stand in the honor of the reading of God's Word.

I will read the odd verses if you will follow along with Pastor Allen and the evening. Psalm 146. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. I will praise the Lord while I live. I will sing praises to my God while I have my being. Do not trust in princes and mortal man in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs. He returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish.

How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is the Lord his God. Who made heaven and earth and the sky. And the sea and all that is in them. Who keeps faith forever. Who executes justice for the oppressed. Who gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord raises up those who are bowed down.

The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord protects the strangers. He supports the fatherless and the widow, but he thwarts the way of the wicked. The Lord will reign forever. Your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord. And Father, we do praise you for who you are. And Lord, thank you that you have given us an opportunity to gather as your body, Lord,

to not only pursue you through song, but also, Lord, to seek you through the word. And so I pray that as we spend time in your word now that you would move by the power of your Holy Spirit as you see fit. Lord, as always, we ask that you would instruct where we need instruction. Lord, that you would convict where we need conviction. And Lord, that you would comfort

where our hearts need comforted. And so, Lord, do the work individually in our hearts. And only your Holy Spirit can do through your word. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of Hebrews, chapter 10.

Hebrews, chapter 10. Well, we finished up our series on the ministry of Christ. And ultimately, as we came to the end of verse 18 in chapter 10, we really came to the end of the, if you will, theological portion, the doctrinal portion of the book of Hebrews. It now gets very practical. But before he really gets into the practical nature of things, the writer to the Hebrews does what he has often done.

And that's that when he gives some doctrinal instruction, he follows that up with a warning, something for us to pay attention to about what he just shared. And that's exactly what he's going to do now, only he's going to give us both an exhortation and a warning. And so what I have entitled the message that we'll cover the next couple of weeks is confidence in Christ, an exhortation and a warning. So picking up in verse 19, of chapter 10, this is what he says.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and to good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. And so what we'll cover in verses 19 through 25 is we will cover the exhortation that the writer to the Hebrews said, the writer to the Hebrews gives to these ones receiving this book. And so there's two things that I want to tell you about in this.

And that's that he's going to talk to us about confidence. And then he's going to tell us about the exhortation. The first thing he discusses is the confidence. I want you to notice what it says in verse 19. He says, therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, the first thing he's going to tell us when it comes to confidence is that we have access,

that we have access. He starts off with the word, therefore, and therefore is always a linking word that connects what he's about to say with what he has said previously. And I think that the therefore that's listed here not only connects what we learned about in the last couple of chapters, but ultimately connects everything that we have learned about in the book of Hebrews. Remember, as we entered the book of Hebrews, we gave it an overarching theme.

And the theme that we gave to the book of Hebrews is, but we see Jesus. Because what was happening in the lives of these Hebrew believers is they were wanting to fall away from the faith. They were wanting to give up on the journey of following Jesus because the persecution had become great, because the pressure had become great, because life had gotten hard. And so they had decided that perhaps the best thing that they could do is defect, walk away from the faith, and maybe life would be a little bit easier.

And so what he's done is he has masterfully proven that Jesus ultimately is the only way. And Jesus is so much better than anything that you can go back to, whether that be going back to an old covenant law or back into the world. And so what he did is he first of all showed us that Jesus is the one and only. He is the one who is seated at the right hand of the Father after having victoriously won the victory over sin.

He is also greater than the angelic realm because he is the creator of the angelic realm. He is greater than Moses because while Moses brought the law that was temporary, Jesus brought a new covenant which was permanent. He's so much better than the high priesthood because the high priesthood only served for a temporary time, giving temporary relief from the guilt of sin where Jesus was the one who was the one who was the one where Jesus is an eternal high priest who brings eternal salvation. He is so much better than the Levitical priesthood because his ministry is far superior because he doesn't serve in a sanctuary with a shadow of the good things of heaven.

He serves in the eternal sanctuary. He doesn't serve in a temporary tabernacle. He serves an eternal tabernacle. He is not a sacrifice that has to be offered over and over again year after year. He is the eternal sacrifice that was offered once for all that is eternal. He is able to completely take away sins. Therefore, having confidence to enter the holy place.

That word confidence means boldness and full freedom. Boldness and full freedom. And it is a complete distinction to the Old Testament view of God because what they lacked in the Old Covenant, what was lacked in the Old Testament was confidence to come directly to God. As a matter of fact, there was everything but confidence to go directly to God. If you were to go back and look at when the law was given,

you will find that when God gave the law and they said, Moses, you go talk to God. We're going to wait here. God said, that's a really good idea. As a matter of fact, put a fence around the mountain. No one can come near and touch the mountain except for you, Moses. Everybody else who touches the mountain where I give the law will be struck dead. There was always this fearful nature

when it came to approaching God. And then when the tabernacle was built, the place where they were supposed to meet with God, only the priesthood could enter the holy place and only the high priest could go into the most holy place one day of year with a blood sacrifice. So this confidence is something that they did not know about in the Old Testament, but this confidence is something that we live with as New Testament believers in Jesus Christ. He says, therefore, having confidence, having boldness to enter the holy place.

I will point out to you one more thing about this confidence. This confidence is not something to be achieved. This confidence, this confidence is a truth that we live in. It's not that you have to try to be confident. It's that this confidence is what you already can have if you will simply believe what Jesus has done for you. He says, therefore, having confidence

to enter the holy place. And then he tells us how we can have this confidence to enter into the holy place. The first thing he tells us is that it is by the blood of Jesus. It is by the blood of Jesus. In other words, the thing that allows us to come into the holy place, the thing that gives us the confidence that we need to approach God is the fact that we have been covered

in the blood of Jesus. It is not because you're such a good person or because I'm such a good person because quite frankly, we're not. It's not because God thinks we're so special because quite frankly, we're not. It's not because of the way that I was raised. It's not because of what my background is, who my family is, what my last name is because none of those things matter

in the economy of God. What gives me confidence is the life that I have received through the blood of Jesus Christ. It's interesting to take note of how nature tells us about the power of the blood. If you were to go into the Old Testament, you would find that very early on, they were told, don't eat the blood. Don't drink the blood because the blood contains the life.

And science teaches us that this is true. Physically speaking, blood contains life. I just read an article the other day as a former athlete and somebody who tends to injure myself a lot. I read this article. And you know that when you were growing up, if you ever sprained your ankle or something like that, what was always employed with you is the RICE method.

Everybody know what the RICE method is? Rest, ice, compression, elevation, right? That's what we were all told to do. Do you know now science is finding that that may not actually be the best thing to do? That especially the rest part is not always the best way to handle an injury. Actually, oftentimes the best way to handle an injury is movement because what movement does is it increases blood flow.

And the increase of the blood flow is what actually brings healing to the injury. If you don't believe me, ask someone who's had a knee replacement surgery. Ask them how long it took for them to start physical therapy with them. They will tell you the same day. And the reason why is because that movement of blood is what brings life and healing back to the joint.

Isn't it interesting that God wrote that into the code of how we're made? Because if we have a spiritual injury, we must keep moving towards Christ because the life is in the blood. And if you want healing, it comes through the movement of the blood of Jesus Christ in our lives. Because he says, we have boldness to enter the holy place, listen, by the blood of Jesus.

He then tells us that we have boldness to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus through a new and living way. Through a new and living way. That word new is an interesting word. If you take it just on its base value, it means fresh. But if you take the actual Greek word that's used here, the word new means freshly slain. Freshly slain. Gee, I wonder what that's referring to.

I think it's probably referring to the sacrifice of Jesus. And isn't it interesting that though Jesus made the sacrifice 2,000 years ago, and it was once and for all, its power is as fresh today as it was in the day when he cried out, it is finished. Because that sacrifice, the sacrifice of Jesus, while not perpetual, is always fresh in our lives because the blood of Jesus Christ has never failed us yet. And not only is it a new, freshly slain way, but it's a living way because Jesus is alive to usher us into the presence of God.

He says, therefore, having boldness to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, the last thing he tells us, which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh. He tells us that this new way was inaugurated or instituted through the veil that is the flesh of Jesus Christ. That means a couple of things. Number one, we are reminded that Jesus is the veil through which we enter because remember we are told that, he told his disciples, he said, I am the way and the truth and the life.

Do you remember there's a couple of other statements that he made? He said, I am the door of the sheep. You see a shepherd, when he had his flock, in a fold, a small walled in area, there would be one little opening where the sheep could get in and get out. That's called the door. And what the shepherd would do is he would sleep in the doorway at night because he is the door of the sheep.

The only way you get into the sheep fold is through the shepherd because the shepherd is the door of the sheep. That's what it means when he says that his flesh is the veil because he is our entrance into the body of Christ. But we are reminded of what took place with that veil because with the veil, when Jesus said it is finished, and we've said this time and time again, it was torn in two from top to bottom, which is exactly what happened to the flesh of Jesus. In order for us to have access, then the veil of Jesus' flesh was torn in two for us because after all, by his stripes, we are healed, right?

And so he tells us, therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which is inaugurated for us through, the veil that is his flesh, that means that we have access to God. He goes on to say, not only do we have access to God, we have advocacy before the Father. He says, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, since we have such a great high priest over the house of God, we discussed this quite some time back now, so I feel it necessary to explain it to you again. The high priest had two jobs.

The first job that the high priest had was to represent God to the people. He did that by declaring the truth of the law, by declaring what the law said and making sure that the people understood the holiness of who God is. But the other job that the high priest had is that the high priest represented the people to God. You see, the high priest had this ornate garment that he had to wear.

And there's two specific parts of the garment that I want to point out to you. First of all, on his shoulder, he wore on each side an amulet and on top of that amulet was a stone. And on the stone on the right shoulder, there were written six things. And on the stone on the left shoulder, there were written six things. Engraved on each of those was the names of the 12 tribes

of the nation of Israel. Six on one side, six on the other. And the idea is this, the high priest bore the weight of the nation of Israel before God. He carried the nation of Israel before the Lord to present the nation before God. And to bear them up on his shoulders. But then there's a second part of the garment that's really important. He wore this breastplate.

It was a piece of metal and on it were 12 stones. And on each of those stones was written one of the names of the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel. Indicating that not only did he bear the nation of Israel on his shoulders before the Lord, but he held them close to his heart when he went before God to offer sacrifices for them. Jesus is our great high priest.

And he doesn't just bear the names of the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel on his shoulders when he was on that cross. He bore the names of all of us for all of eternity on those shoulders because he bore the sin of humanity on his shoulders. But not only that, he also holds us close to his heart because brothers and sisters, if you belong to Jesus, you are not only inscribed upon his palm, but you are written on his heart. Because he is your great high priest.

And he is your great advocate before the Father. And we are told that that advocate, ever lives to make intercession for you. That means that every time that the enemy comes against you, and the enemy comes against you and starts to tell you all of the things that you've done wrong and starts to accuse you before the Father because one of the names for Satan is the accuser of the brethren. When he starts to accuse you before the Father, the best thing that you can do is embrace the accusation and let your defense lawyer handle the rest.

Because he is your advocate, your defense lawyer before the Father. And he says, just stay guilty. But I've already taken care of it. Because he is our advocate before God. It not only gives us peace for the present life that we have, but confidence for the future because that same Jesus is advocating for us in every aspect of our life. And so we can have great confidence

because we have this advocate and we have this access. Now I have a question for you. How are you taking advantage of the access that you have? How are you taking advantage of the access that you have before the Father? I saw pictures this weekend that made me really sad. People went to this sweet concert, right? Forrest Frank was up in Kansas City and I saw the pictures

and I was like jealous, right? Because I would have loved to have been at that concert, but we didn't get tickets. We couldn't get tickets to it. And so as I saw the people at the concert, I thought, man, it'd be fun to have a ticket. Now I want you to think about something. I want you to imagine that somebody gives me a ticket to the concert. And not only with that ticket,

not only did they give me that ticket, but with that ticket, they give me a little thing that says, backstage access. You get to go hang out with the people that you love. You get to go hang out with the people that you love. With Forrest Frank, I would be like, we're writing songs together, right? He won't use any of them, but I'll love it. Now imagine if you will,

somebody gives me those tickets and it's the night of the concert. And they say, you've got access. You've got access to the show and access to backstage. Are you going? Nah. What do you mean? What do you mean you're not going? I'm just going to hold on to them. Isn't it great that I've got this access? And then I never take advantage of it. And I never go to the concert

and I never go hang out with them. We never write a song that's going to be a bestseller. I never get famous from it. All because I never took advantage of the access. Brothers and sisters, that's what we do too much with Jesus. We have full access and we love to tell everybody, I've got all this access. And then we never take advantage of it. We never go before the Father.

We never approach Him with everything that we've got. We have this advocate. We have this access. We never take advantage of it. So hold on to your confidence. But then let's look and see what we're supposed to do with it. He now is going to give us the exhortation. And the exhortation is going to be three things. It's going to be three lettuces. Now, I said this first service.

I'm going to say it again. If I was really thinking ahead of time, I would have called this the lettuce that doesn't give you explosive. That's what I would have called it. I would have not used the word because that would make my wife mad at me. But I would have called it the non-spicy lettuce or whatever you want to call it, right? I didn't come up with that in time.

We have to stick with a really boring word like the exhortation.

Number one, he says, let us draw near. Verse 22, he says, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. The first thing he tells us is to draw near. The word means to approach or to go right into the presence. In other words, take advantage of the access.

The access that you have to the Father every single day, every single moment of every single day and approach him with that desire to draw near. I pointed out to first service, this is a daily activity for us. Unfortunately, we make drawing near to God something that we do on Sunday. We do it on Sunday mornings and maybe we relegate it to our 15-minute devotional time, first thing in the morning or right before we go to bed.

That's our time of approaching the Father. And I would tell you that it's great to do that, but that should only be a part of what you do. Your approach to God should be something that you do every moment of every single day. You see, as believers in Jesus Christ, there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular. Whatever you do can be a sacred moment in your life.

However you live your life can be a sacred moment in your life. I learned this. I learned this early on after I graduated from Bible college. Listen, one of my favorite jobs I ever had was being a lawn guy and mowing lawns. You know why? Because you can sing as loud as you want to on a lawnmower and at least as far as I know, you can't hear what I'm singing.

I only know that because if you could have, they would have asked me to stop and they didn't. So that's an indication of me I can sing as loud as I wanted to. And in that moment, I'm in the presence of Jesus. And I started learning, at that time, that there is no time in my life that doesn't include sacred things. I can meditate on God's word while I'm out mowing the lawn.

I can worship God as I'm doing lawn care. Well, move down the road a little ways and I'd get it to construction, right? And for the most part, I kept that same mentality when I was working in construction, but I've shared with you before that the summer before I moved down here, the summer of 09, the summer before I moved down here was a long summer. We worked seven days a week getting the high school ready.

And I started being around all of the filth of the world that was around me all the time and soaking in all the garbage. It's the most in my walk I've ever struggled with things coming out of my mouth that Jesus didn't like. And I realized I had to change something. I realized I had to turn my job back into my sanctuary. And so what I did is I worked off the side of the building

that entire, for like two or three weeks of that summer because we had to remove all of the siding off the side of it. And I realized that if I'm gonna struggle with this, I have to turn my job into my sanctuary. And so now, this was before phones played music, okay? So it started off with me carrying this thing called an iPod, right? That's the precursor to the iPhone

for you young people in here today. But sometimes I would just have a radio with me and I would just turn the radio on, bought radio network. There's Bible teaching on that thing all day long. And so I would listen to Bible teaching and then I would listen to worship music and I didn't care who I worked with. I didn't care who was around me. That was what I was gonna do

because I was gonna turn my workplace back into my sanctuary. You say, well, Ryan, that's probably easy for you to do now. You're a pastor. No, it's maybe harder now as a pastor than it was then because my mind is so locked in on things all day long that I have to remember to make sure that my job is still my sanctuary because believe it or not, ministry and sanctuary don't necessarily equal each other.

You have to still make the same decision even in a job like this. But you can choose every day that you are going to draw near to God whatever you're doing. How does that happen? Well, you don't treat prayer time like the 15 minutes. Since you have in the morning, you treat prayer time like your entire day. I've said it before and I'll continue saying it. You should wake up in the morning and say, dear God,

and you should go to bed at night and say, amen. And your entire day is a pursuit of God through prayer. And you're just talking to him all day long because that's what it means to draw near to the Lord. But now he tells us how to draw near to the Lord. He says, let us draw near. First of all, with a sincere heart. A sincere heart. That word sincere means true

or genuine as opposed to being a counterfeit. In other words, your heart should be wholeheartedly seeking after God. God wants every portion of your heart. And listen, we need to know something. God either wants all of your heart or he doesn't want any of it at all. And too many people want to give God a portion of their heart and God says, then I don't want it.

I either want all of you or I don't want any of you. Matter of fact, that exact thing is used. That exact statement is used in Revelation. When he talks to the church of Laodicea, the half-hearted church. When he said, I wish that you were either hot or cold, but because you're lukewarm, I have to vomit you from my mouth. And that's just the truth of who God is.

God wants 100% of who you are. That's why he says, let us draw near with a sincere heart, a true heart. God wants an undivided attention from us. Take lots of couples through premarital counseling. And one of the things that we talk about is communication. Because I don't know if you know this or not, but communication is the lifeblood of a relationship. If there's no communication,

you actually don't have a relationship. And we talk about the fact that communication is always made up of three things. There is your content. That's what you actually say. There's your tone. That's how you say it. And then there's nonverbal. That's what you're doing while you're saying it, right? And so, if I'm talking to somebody and my tone is really bad and my nonverbal is really bad,

it doesn't matter what I say because they can only hear those things. Because wisdom is only as good as the way in which it's presented. Now, that's also true when we listen. Have you ever had a conversation with somebody and their nonverbal tells you they don't care about anything that you're saying? You know how they do that? They do that by looking at everybody else.

They do that by looking at their phone. They do that by checking their watch. They do these things and they say, I don't care about what you're saying to me. Because they showed that nonverbally by all the things that they do, right? How many times do we treat God the exact same way? Our prayer time is also focused on scrolling my phone time. This is why I tell people,

don't do your devotion on your phone. Not because I'm so much better than you, but because I'm more distracted than you. And I've learned that if I do my devotion on my phone, distracted is exactly who I'm going to be. Because God wants a sincere heart. The second way it says that we are to draw near to God is not only with a sincere heart, but we are to draw near to God in full assurance of faith.

In other words, you need to really believe. You need to have full faith that God is who he says he is and that God answers those who seek him. Now, I want to give you a little bit of a word of encouragement. Have you ever tried to have a lot of faith, but you're like, oh man, I'm just struggling to believe right now. Oh great, I can't draw near to God because I don't have the right kind of faith.

And all of a sudden now, this is also something that you can't do. I want to remind you of a story that I read this week. It comes out of the book of Mark. This guy brings his daughter to Jesus. He says, I need you to heal her. And Jesus says, anything's possible to him who believes. And the man looks at him. I love the honesty of what he says. He says, Lord, I believe, but could you help my unbelief?

See, that's what it means to have full assurance of faith. I wholeheartedly believe that you can do it, but I'm still struggling with doubt. Can you help me with both? God loves that because that sincerity with full faith as we approach him. He says that we should draw near with a sincere heart, full assurance of faith. And the last thing he tells us is with a heart

that is sprinkled clean and a body that is washed. It's interesting because this is Levitical imagery of the high priest. When someone became the high priest, the first thing that they would do is they would make a sacrifice for them and they would literally sprinkle blood on the high priest. Then they would take blood and they would coat his right ear, his right thumb and his right toe so that everything he heard, everything he did, everywhere he went would be set apart unto God.

And then after they sprinkled him with blood, they would strip him down and they would bathe him in water. And that is the final cleansing point that allowed him to go into the holy place to serve God. Isn't it interesting that he says the same thing to us, the kingdom of priests, that we are to be sprinkled clean with the blood of Jesus. That's the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

And we are to have our bodies washed with water. I believe that speaks of not only baptism, which is an outward expression of the inward cleansing, but it also speaks to the power of the word in our life. As it says in Ephesians, that we would be washed in the water of the word. And so if you're going to approach God, you need to have your conscience clean before the Lord.

Make sure there's nothing between you and him. And you need to constantly be cleansing yourself with the word of God. And so he says, number one, since we have this confidence because of our access and our advocate, we are to draw near to God. Number two, he says, let us hold fast. Let us hold fast. I want you to notice what it says in verse 23, let us hold fast the confession of our hope

without wavering for he who promised is faithful. That word hold fast, that phrase means to seize and to hold tightly, to keep a firm possession or to retain a firm grip. Are you catching the idea of what he wants to, he wants us to hold on really tight to our confession of faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, he wants us to hold on tight to Jesus. Why does he say this?

Because they're about to let go. They're about to decide that the pressure is too great, that the persecution is too great. That they haven't seen enough results. That they haven't seen enough fruit. And maybe this whole thing just isn't worth it. Maybe I'll just give up and go back to the way I used to live. Maybe I'll just give up and go back to what I was doing before. But if you ask

Peter, Peter would tell you this. You see, there was a point in time in the lives of the disciples when Jesus was making very hard statements and everybody was leaving. All of a sudden things were, people were starting to depart. What started off with a church of huge numbers is now dwindling down to a small group of followers. And Jesus looks at his disciples and he says, what are you

going to do? What about you? And Jesus, and Peter looks at him, he says, where else are we going to go? Only you have the words of eternal life. You see, that's a man who was holding tight to his confession. He didn't always understand. He knew there was pressure, there was persecution coming, but he was going to hold on as tight as he could. I'll use this illustration. I've used it before.

I don't understand overtime rules in wrestling anymore, but I remember the way that they used to be when I was growing up. Okay. So this is the way it was when I was in high school, wrestling for Arkansas. Kansas, the man, the myth, the legend, Wayne Jackson, is that if at the end of three periods, the score was tied, you went into an overtime that the first person to get a takedown in the first minute won the match. If no one got a takedown in one minute, you went into sudden

death overtime. And in sudden death overtime, the ref would flip a coin and you would either choose top position or bottom position. If you were the guy on the bottom, your goal was to escape. If you were the guy on top, your goal was to not let them. Escape. And at that point in time, it didn't matter what you had to hold on to. As long as you held on, you won the match. And so I think about this when I think about

what he says, when he says, let us retain a firm grip on, because I'm here to tell you right now, I've been in those situations before. And when that whistle blows, you grab onto something and you hold on for dear life, because the minute that you let go, the match is over and you've lost. But if you can just hold on, you win. Brothers and sisters, we're at overtime. These believers, they were in overtime and they needed

to hold on, to hold on to anything that they could in any way that they could, because they were being pulled away. So he says, retain firm grip on Jesus, but he doesn't tell them to do it for no good reason. He says, for he who promised is faithful. For he who promised is faithful. That word faithful means reliable or trustworthy. He says, for he who keeps his word. And that's who Jesus is for us.

Why do we hold on? Because Jesus has always held on to us. You know, I think one of the greatest things that we can do is to learn to have that faith, that faith that just keeps holding on. But that faith doesn't just happen. That faith is a muscle that we have to build, right? And I think one of the greatest ways that we can learn to hold on is to do three things.

These are three things I think we can do to become those who retain, a firm grip on our faith. Number one, I think you should read the stories of those who have gone before. You should read the stories of those who have gone before. Start with the word. Start by reading all of the stories in the Old and New Testament, the book of Acts, read about Elijah, read about Noah, all the people that we're going to read about in the book of, in Hebrews chapter 11.

Read those stories and let that be what builds your faith. But don't just stop with the word. There are some wonderful Christian biographies out there that you can read that will tell you stories of faith, and I think that you should read those. Because the more that you read about what God has done in the lives of people, the easier it is for you to hold on.

You should look up stories by people like Corrie Ten Boom, who lived through the Holocaust and retained her faith through the Holocaust. You should look up stories of George Mueller, who ran an orphanage completely on faith without funding from a church. And he did it. masterfully and God provided in amazing ways. You should read stories of the conversion of

Charles Spurgeon and how he got started into ministry. You should find some of these people and you should read their stories because those stories build faith. Because you think the same God who moved in their life is the same God that I serve. And if God's going to do it for them, then why won't he do it for me? So the number one thing that you can do, I think, is to read

the stories of others. The second thing that I think that you can do is I think that you can write down your own stories. Listen, when you're going through something hard, do me a favor, just start writing out what's going on in your life and then start writing out the prayers that you want God to answer through the difficult things that you're going through. And then when God answers those prayers, go back and check them off as answered, because I'm here to tell you right now, you're building your own faith book. Because when you

go through the difficult times, you can go back and you can go, I remember when I went through this and I remember what God did to get me through this. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if he got me through this, he's not going to stop now because he's the same God today that he was then. And so you should write out your own stories. Number three, I think that you should make sure that you are involved in fellowship in the body of Christ. We'll get to this a little bit more in just a minute.

Be in fellowship in the body of Christ, because as we mutually share our struggles and our victory, it carries an incredible amount of weight. Because now you're not just reading stories of some guys that lived 300 years ago. Now you're listening to the story of your next door neighbor, the person who sits next to you in church every single week. And you're sharing what's going on. And then you're

also gaining prayer partners through it. So we hold fast. We retain a firm grip on our faith as we confidently approach Jesus, because he who promised. Is faithful. Number three, he says, let us consider one another. Look at verse 24. He says, and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and to good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.

And all the more as you see the day drawing near, he says, let us consider one another, I think it was the Amplified Bible that translated it like this. Let us consider one another thoughtfully. You know what it takes to consider one another? You have to be available. And I don't just mean available physically. You have to be available mentally. And we live in a

culture right now of people that are mentally and emotionally checked out. Have you ever noticed that? That you can be around a group of people and nobody seems to pay attention to anything. Everybody seems to be locked into their own little worlds, an online world or just the world of what they've got going on in their lives. And essentially what he says here is you need to be available to each other.

We need the availability of the body of Christ. Because as we consider one another thoughtfully, we can then do what he says. We can stimulate one another towards good works. That word stimulate means to stir up or to provoke, not provoke in a negative sense. This isn't rage baiting, but provoking in a positive way. Because as we stir one another up and consider one

another, we are pushing each other to be better. We're pushing each other to be greater. I've said it lots of times. Listen, you can never discount the importance of a well-placed, encouraging word. You can never discount the importance of somebody coming along and giving you an encouraging word. I want to ask you a question. You ever worn a new shirt? You ever worn a new shirt? You ever worn a new shirt?

And somebody says, hey, nice shirt. That just became your favorite shirt, right? You know why? Because somebody noticed it. This is just human nature. This is who we are. Because somebody said, I like that. Now that's my favorite shirt. Because somebody affirmed that, yes, I don't look stupid in this shirt, right? The same is true with everything else in our lives.

When people encourage you, you give more. And that's what we're to do as the body of Christ. That's why he says, thoughtfully consider one another. I think one of the greatest things that you can do is to give more. And that's what we're to do as the body of Christ. That's why he says, start paying attention to what people like and don't like, and then giving them the things that

they like. Let me give you a for instance. When somebody, and this is, listen, you do this what you want to. This is not subliminal messaging on my part, okay? I showed up to school one time when I was still teaching at Ark City Christian Academy. I showed up to school one time, and one of my students brought me my favorite coffee drink. And I'm here to tell you right now, I was nicer

that day, right? I think I was. I think I was nicer that day. Because somebody cared enough to know, A, what my favorite coffee drink was, B, to bring it to me. Do you know how that stimulates one another to love and good works? That's one of the most beautiful things that you can do. Have you ever been in one of those lines where people pay it forward? Hey, the person in front

of you just, they just paid for your meal. And then you're like, okay, I'll go ahead and get the guy behind me, unless it's a Suburban. And then you're like, well, or one of those giant vans, right? You're like, listen, I'll pay for the two guys in the front seat, okay? Everybody else, they're on their own. Look, that's just real talk, okay? We've all been there. But it's amazing how that stimulates us to

love and good works. That's what the body of Christ is supposed to be for. He says, let us consider one another so that we can stir up love and good deeds in one another. Therefore, I added that part. It's not in there. Therefore, we are not to forsake the assembling together, as is the habit of some. Do you know what makes me happy? I love seeing everybody show up on a Sunday morning.

Not because I care that there's a bunch of numbers here, but because I just like seeing all of you. It's just really fun. My favorite part of the message, and maybe it's yours too, is when I'm done. But one of my favorite parts of the message is when I'm done, and I get to say hi to everybody on the way out the door. I just, I love that. Whether I high five, shake, fist bump, or awkwardly

try to do all three at the same time. I just, I love that. Because I love the assembling together of the body of Christ. I love when we all get together. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and we get to hear everybody sing. There is nothing, I don't always get to sit on this very front row right here, but I did this morning. And so, I, I love, there was one moment where I think

Jared was either letting us sing, that's what I believe he did, or couldn't find his word for a minute. I think he was just letting us all sing. And the entire body just sang. And it was so beautiful. Because I thought, isn't it great that, that he, we were led like that. We knew what was up there. We sang it out. I love hearing the body of Christ worship. Together. There is something incredibly spiritual about the gathering together of the body.

We should not forsake it. I love that we provide an online. I, I love that we have that platform because, because I love that, that a couple of weeks ago, I was in Mississippi driving down to Florida and I got to listen to Jared give the word. It was beautiful. I loved it. I was like, this is so exciting for me. I get to be there without being there. But if that's the rule for

you, if all you do is watch online, you're missing out. You're missing out on what God has for you. Because at some point in time, that becomes a podcast. That's not church, right? You need the body of Christ. You need the body of Christ because when we gather as the body of Christ, my favorite thing of all, ladies, I love y'all. My favorite thing is when I, when I say something to the men and I see you ladies go, you just cast that little

look at your husband. I'm like, Ooh, we're talking about that when we get home. Or when I say something about kids and I see some dad go. And I'm like, yep. Talking about that when we get home. I love that though. You know, that's so important because, because when you hear a convicting word and you're all by yourself in your living room, you can go, must've been for someone else. Right? But when you hear a convicting

word and your neighbor knows what's going on in your life and they're like, listen, keep doing that. Okay. I promise I'm not looking that closely. When I, when I see that happen, I'm like, yes, that's what the body of Christ is for. It's for us to say, I see you and I see what God's doing. I'm here for you. Because when we gather as the body, that's what we do for each other.

David Guzik in his commentary said this. He said, when we gather together, there's a handful of things that take place. And there's a handful of reasons why we do so. And he wrote down this wonderful list because that's sort of his gifting. Number one, we gather to receive from God. We gather together corporately so that we can receive from God corporately. Receive what he has for us

from the word, what he has for us from each other, what he has for us in our time of worship, through prayer, whatever it is, we gather to receive from God. Number two, we gather to give to God. We gather to, to give to God our time. We gather to give him our praises and we, we gather to use our gifts, hopefully, not just me, but even the body of Christ before and after service, hopefully using your gifts with each other. We gather to encourage each other through shared faith. We gather to encourage each

other through shared faith. You know what the most dangerous thing that you can do in a difficult time of your life is to isolate yourself. I remember when we brought dad home a little over a year ago, when we brought him home from, uh, uh, from the hospital and he went on hospice and we knew there was only so much time left. And I remember the danger that we faced, even as a pastor, it would have been easy for me to say, I'm going to let somebody else take over for me for a little while. I'm just going to be with my dad. But I knew if I did that,

it would make it that much harder. And the danger that we faced was closing in and saying, we're not going to let anybody else in our circle. Instead, we're going to stay home that way. And you can come up with all the reasons in the world, but we didn't do that. And can I be honest? The biggest reason why we didn't do that is because my father, my dad wanted to be in church so bad.

He was too weak to show up, but he did it anyway, because he knew that the thing that he needed in this difficult time in his life was the body of Christ around him. And we'd say, dad, you're pretty weak. Are you sure you can do that? He goes, it doesn't matter. Let's do it anyway. And anytime physically he could show up to this place with all of you here, he was ready. And I remember I

would think, oh Lord, there's a swarm of people around him. I hope he's okay. And I'd look at him and with the sheepish weakness that he had all over him, he was smiling from ear to ear because he was just so happy to be around God. God's people. We gather to encourage each other in the faith. We gather to bless one another, to bless one another with a listening ear, to bless one another with a good word,

to bless one another with our prayers. And then we gather to work together. We gather because as the body of Christ, we can accomplish more together than we can accomplish individually, because individually we are one, but together we are a force to be reckoned with. Amen. And so we gather together. He says, don't forsake, not forsakingly assembling of ourselves

together. Listen, as some are in the habit of doing. In other words, this was taking place at this point in time. And the ones who are not getting together with the body were the ones who were in danger of falling away from the faith. Because the problem with missing church is eventually you don't miss it. Eventually you don't miss it anymore. And so he says, rather,

all as, excuse me, verse 25, not forsaking our own assembly together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day drawing near. I'm going to wrap up with this. That word encouraging is a very interesting word. It's the word to exhort. And that word exhort, we've talked about lots of times. That word exhort means to call to one side,

means to call to one side. In other words, what he says is you should be calling each other to your side. As you see this, you should be calling each other to your side. And so he says, the day drawing near. In other words, as the day draws near, we should be drawing closer to each other. I have a question for you. Do you know everybody in this room? And if you don't, why not?

Could you identify everybody in this room right now? And if you don't, why not? I used to hear people say, well, you know, if we just put, would put out a directory with pictures in it, I would know everybody in church. And yet, you know what I still find? People go, oh, shoot. I still don't know who that is. Listen, I get it. We all forget names. I have to do it sometimes too.

Some of you will greet me and I'll say, bro, you have to remind me of your name. It's not on purpose. It's because I got a lot of names to memorize. I know your face. I can tell you your story. I don't remember your name, but I admit it. And I ask you for your name. The reason why is because I want to know you. And the problem that we have at churches sometimes is that we can show

up, sit in our seat, talk to the same three people we talk to every single week, leave and never get involved in each other's lives. That's not encouraging one another. That's showing up to a building. You should get to know the people in the church. You may have to sit in a different spot sometimes. Now, I told first service, now, if all of you over here sit over here next week and all of you over

here sit over here next week, you're still not going to meet each other. Maybe mingle a little bit. Maybe mix in together just a little bit. But get to know each other because otherwise you cannot encourage one another if you don't know who each other is. Amen? And so he says, let us draw near. Let us hold fast and let us consider one another. Why? Because we have great confidence in who we are in Christ. Let's all stand. And if you'd bow

with me. Father, we come before you and I just thank you for the morning that you've given to us. I thank you for the time that we've had in your word. And I thank you that you have blessed us to be able to be here. Lord, I thank you for the opportunity to serve. Lord, I thank you for the people, the people that make this a church. And so, Lord, be with us as we go out from here.

Draw us near. Draw us near to you. Draw us near to each other. Lord, may good conversations, may encouraging words take place. Move as you see fit. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.

God, we just ask that as we leave here today, Lord, that we would take the word that you've given us, Lord, not just, not just let it sit, but make it the meditation of our heart. Let it mold us and transform us into your image this morning. God, give us faith to trust and to do what you say, Lord. We love you, Lord God, and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Love you guys.

Have a wonderful week.