Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about fellowship. We’ve been looking at Hebrews 10:24-25 where the author of Hebrews is encouraging his readers to engage in deep fellowship because life was only going to get harder for them. Listen to his encouragement:
24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 25 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.
So far we’ve seen the method of fellowship—considering how we may spur one another to love and good deeds. Just being together is not enough. Yes, that is needed, as verse 25 will show, but when we meet together, all of us need to pay attention to one another and identify how to encourage (v. 25) or agitate (v. 24, “spur”) them to get off their butts and develop a heart of love that loves to serve others.
Second, we saw that the goal of fellowship was to promote loving hearts and good deeds. We want people to be motivated by love in their service of others.
Third, the object, or target of our fellowship is “one another.” This ministry is not aimed at outsiders, but at those within the fellowship.
Now, today we’re going to look at verse 25 and see the means of fellowship. Actually, the means are communicated through two participles—first negatively (“not neglecting to meet together”) and then positively (“encouraging one another”). These are the two means by which we spur one another to love and good works.
Notice that sandwiched between the two exhortations to speak up (“spur” and “encourage”) is this vital exhortation: “don’t quit on one another!”
The participle is in the present tense, including an ongoing action, “don’t continue neglecting to meet together,” which is matched by the statement “as is the habit of some.” In other words, it was becoming a growing, and dangerous, habit that some were dropping out.
“Meeting together” refers to assembling in the same location. This, of course, may refer to the typical Sunday morning gathering, the large group gathering, but it could have any other kind of gathering of believers in smaller groupings in mind as well. It merely points out that proximity over time is necessary for developing the deeper kinds of relationships in which “spurring” and “encouraging” can happen regularly.
In America there are 18 million self-proclaimed evangelical Christians. Ten million of those have not been to church in the last six months!
In the four years before the pandemic, 2016 through 2019, an average of 34% of U.S. adults said they had attended church, synagogue, mosque or temple in the past seven days. From 2020 to the present, the average has been 30%, including a 31% reading in a May 1-24 survey. (https://news.gallup.com/poll/507692/church-attendance-lower-pre-pandemic.aspx#:~:text=Church%20Attendance%2C%20Past%20Seven%20Days%2C%20Historical%20Trend&text=Church%20attendance%20in%20past%20seven,in%20most%20years%20before%202013.)
Roughly 40% of Americans say they seldom or never attend church or synagogue according to a recent Gallup poll. 29% attend church once a week. 11% attend almost every week and 16% attend about once a month.
Thus, it has become the “habit” of some to drop out and not attend often. Sam Storms says, “You don’t cultivate a habit overnight. It takes time. You find yourself immersed in a habit, often one you can’t shake or break, when you live unintentionally. That is to say, you don’t get up each day with a plan for what is going to happen. You simply drift through life. You take things as they come without forethought or preparation or prioritizing the many things that compete for your time and allegiance.” (https://www.samstorms.org/all-articles/post/why-must-a-christian-be-in-community-in-a-local-church-hebrews-1023-25). What the author of Hebrews is encouraging in Hebrews 10:24-25 is more like “urgent intentionality” rather than “lackadaisical unintentionality.”
Over the years there has been a decline in commitment to church. It used to be that people would give 5 hours a week—Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. Now we’re lucky to get you to church for a couple of hours Sunday morning. In fact, statistics show that 70% of Christians are content with their spiritual life just by attending church one time on Sunday.
There are many reasons for this—busyness, overcrowded schedules, disappointment with the pastor or the church, but at the bottom of it all is a satisfaction with minimal spirituality. And it is bound to be dangerous, as Hebrews 3:12-13 shows.
12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 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.
These verses are telling us that any of us has the potential of developing “an evil, unbelieving heart” and causes us to “fall away from the living God” unless we avail ourselves of the possibility of being exhorted by others. That doesn’t happen when we do not assemble together with other believers. It doesn’t happen when we watch church on television. And when it doesn’t happen, we are in real spiritual danger!
Mark Dever, pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church, near D.C., has written a book entitled Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, and in it points out the connection between missing church and getting caught up in sinning.
Nonattendance, in the early years of the church, was considered one of the most sinister of sins, because it usually veiled all the other sins. When someone began to be in sin, you would expect them to stop attending.
The way that we guard ourselves against developing that evil, unbelieving heart is to place ourselves around those who will exhort us and remind us that sin is very deceptive.
Now, there is a direct link between that kind of God-based hope and the love and good works that get stirred up in assembling together. Look at verses 34-35 in chapter 10.
For you had compassion on those in prison [there’s the love and good works that got stirred up by assembling together], and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property [there’s the proof that the love was not legalistic or forced or coerced, it was joyful], since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one [there’s the source of the love—confidence of hope in God’s promise of reward. Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.
That’s just another way of saying verse 23, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”
Our faith can be weak or become weaker, and we need others to encourage us to hang on to God’s promises. We need to remind one another of God’s promises, to tell stories of His faithfulness so that they would be encouraged to believe.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.”
We need that.
Assembling together is so important to others, but it is also important to you.
Charles Spurgeon, the great evangelist of the nineteenth century, told the story of a woman who came to him claiming that her relationship with God was just fine, even though she saw no need to actually attend church. As she chattered away, he walked over to the fireplace in the room, and with the tongs, picked out a blazing coal.
He carefully set the coal on the hearth, all the while listening as she made her case. She noted his actions but failed to see their significance until he asked her to observe the coal. The once red-hot coal, separated from the fire’s warmth, grew colder and colder, sitting alone on the hearth.
The significance of the lonely coal was not lost on his friend. “As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of a friend,” says the book of Proverbs (27:17).
In another sermon he preached, “Warm hearts are not easily kept alive among empty pews. A coal must be very lively to burn alone, but many glowing coals laid together help to keep each other alight.”
So assembling together helps everyone.
Several years ago, former American Prisoners of War were interviewed to determine what methods used by the enemy had been most effective in breaking their spirit. Researchers learned that the prisoners didn’t break down from physical deprivation and torture as quickly as they did from solitary confinement or from being frequently moved around and separated from friends. It was further learned that the soldiers drew their greatest strength from the close attachments they had formed with the small military units to which they belonged.
These observations give us insight into why Christians need the group experience of fellowship with other believers to help them remain loyal to the Lord. Our own personal relationship to God, vital as that is, is not sufficient to produce spiritual maturity and endurance. Relationships within a unified, Spirit-filled body of believers are essential for growth and for maintaining our individual faithfulness to the Savior (Hebrews 10:23-25). Sometimes we would rather not be involved in church life, thinking it is easier just to go it alone. But Christians who do that miss out on all the benefits. Let’s remember that God in His wisdom has grouped us together for strength.
Isolation is the single most effective tool Satan has in his arsenal. 1 Peter describes Satan as a “roaring lion.” Well, if you’ve ever watched the National Geographic channel you see that what a lion does is first they isolate a potential victim from the herd and then once the victim is isolated it becomes easy prey and soon becomes the lion’s supper.
Why go to church? In a letter to the editor of a British newspaper, a man complained that he saw no sense in going to church every Sunday.
“I have been attending services quite regularly for the past 30 years,” he wrote, “and during that time…I have listened to no less than 3,000 sermons. But, to my consternation, I discover that I cannot remember a single one of them. I wonder if a minister’s time might be more profitably spent on something else.”
That letter sparked many responses. One, however, was the clincher.
“I have been married for 30 years. During that time I have eaten 32,850 meals—mostly of my wife’s cooking. Suddenly I have discovered that I cannot remember the menu of a single meal. And yet, I have received nourishment from every one of them. I have the distinct impression that without them I would have starved to death long ago.”
But it is obviously more than just going to church, just showing up, that is at stake here. Real fellowship happens when we pay attention to one another and figure out how to exhort and encourage one another to love and good deeds, to continue to rest in God’s promises, so that we don’t allow an “evil, unbelieving heart” to develop and fall away from God. We are encouraged to “assemble together” so that we can know one another, think about one another, speak to one another to promote spiritual development in each other.
The dangers are that we would stop getting together, fail to know one another, stay silent and as a result we would see a growing departure from the faith (Hebrews 3:13), which is exactly what we are seeing from the youngest generation, and we would see little love and few good deeds.
Notice how the early church did that. They loved being together, sharing time and space. Listen to these verses from the story of the early church as recorded in the Book of Acts: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common” (Acts 2:42-44). “Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico” (Acts 5:12)
Just like the Triune God, they hung out together, and they did it well.
Such fellowship does not just happen. In fact, it requires a relentless struggle on the part of people whose fallen natures lurking within them fight to prevent any true bonding. We are like sheep constantly going astray, wanting our own way. That is our nature.
Solomon, in Proverbs 27:17, says “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” But iron only sharpens iron if the two pieces have sustained contact with one another. And we can only shape and develop one another into that God wants us to be by maintaining regular contact with each other.
Hanging out well requires a commitment to engage others. It’s so easy to disengage from the body of Christ. After all, relationships are messy, complicated, boring, risky and sometimes painful. You might get hurt. People can be so dull and live such petty lives…unlike me. People do such stupid things…unlike me. People can be so mean and cutting and insensitive…unlike me. Most of us could share stories of disappointment and rejection. Or perhaps you know the hurt of losing a close friend. People move in and out of our lives way too fast. The change, loss and grief can be devastating.
Struggling to knit your heart together with another saint is often painful, but Proverbs 27:6a says that “wounds from a friend can be trusted.” The more you know that someone loves you, the more you trust his or her “wounds,” that is, the words he speaks to pierce your heart and encourage or correct you. Statistics show that 95% of Christian men do not have a close friend.
Jesus knew the value of friendship. While preparing for His ministry, He chose twelve “interns” to travel with Him and share in all His experiences. These men were united, strengthened and encouraged to take their stand in times of persecution and severe hardship. Together they brought hope to those who were without hope.
Spending time together provoking one another to love and good deeds…that is a formula that could change the world.
Christian fellowship is God’s precious gift…to each of us…and to the world.
The author of Hebrews reminds us that assembling together for the purpose of encouraging and exhorting good deeds through love grows all the more important as the days pass. He says at the end of verse 25 that all of this should be happening “all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
We should not be assembling less, but more. No matter what persecutions come, no matter how busy we get, it is more and more vital for us to assemble together and encourage and exhort one another to hang on to God’s promises and minister to each other in practical expressions of love.
The “day drawing near” is likely the day of Christ’s return to earth. While it will be a joyous, victorious day, full of deliverance and vindication for God’s people, it will be preceded by seven years of “hell on earth.” Saints will be persecuted like never before. The heavens and earth will convulse with God-ordained seizures, making life on earth miserable.
The verb “drawing near” is present tense, meaning that even as the author wrote these words he saw it in process of happening. F. F. Bruce reminds us, ““Each successive Christian generation is called upon to live as the generation of the end-time, if it is to live as a Christian generation.”
“Christians were to live as if the dawning of the day was so near that its arrival was only just beyond the horizon.” (Guthrie)
Kent Hughes summarizes this passage saying:
Hebrews 10:19–25 is no insignificant text. Its role in moving from instruction to application gives it huge significance. It tells us that if we have the proper confidence that comes from our access and advocacy before God, there are three things we must do for the sake of the church and her survival.
- We must draw near in prayer to God with a wholehearted sincerity. Our entire human spirit must be engaged in prayer and worship.
- We must hold on to the anchor of hope we possess. Our hope is in Jesus and is anchored in Heaven, where he intercedes for us. This is no cock-eyed optimism but tremendous reality.
- We must devote ourselves to the corporate church and do everything we can to provoke each other to love and good deeds.
If we do this, the church will ride high on every storm that comes! And we must do this more and more as we “see the Day drawing near.”
Grace Still Amazes 