Church believes, and that's why we preface each one of those statements, over each one of those major points articulating our faith, we preface it with I believe. But there's also one statement in there that I think that gets overlooked more than all the others, but it's no less significant. We confess this warning that we believe in the church. I believe in the church. And that's a statement there that almost gets overlooked and compared to the rest of the context of who I believe in the church. And of course that word churches is modified by holy and Catholic. I believe in the holy Catholic church. We believe that the church is holy that speaks of the purity of the church. We believe that the church is Catholic, that speaks of the universality of the church, that the church is made up of every tribe, nation, and tongue of people, every different ethnicity around the world. The church is Catholic in that sense. And then we confess something that I think we often overlook. And that is I believe in the holy Catholic church, what's the next phrase? The communion of saints. The communion of saints. Let me ask you a question this morning. Do you believe in the communion of saints? Do you believe those words we confess this morning? Do you believe in the communion of saints? Past, present, future? The communion of saints in heaven gathered together around the throne of God, the throne of the lamb, the communion of saints gathered together here on earth. Do you believe in that communion? See, that's what we said this morning. I believe in the communion of saints. And when we use that language, communion of saints, we are using the language of fellowship, the Bible calls Coenania fellowship. And when we talk about fellowship, we can use the idea of fellowship in the sense that fellowship is a means of God's grace. That is to say that the church is in one sense a means of God's grace. I have to tell you that I would not be here this morning. In this office, as a pastor, as a teacher, as a minister, would not have the title reverend in front of my name this morning if it wasn't for the communion of saints. I would not only be blind. I would not only be lost, but I would probably be dead if it were not for the communion of saints. If it were not for the church, I probably would have died a premature death. And sometimes I think that the church doesn't value the church enough. Sometimes what is it then? What do you left with if the church doesn't believe in the church? We said I believe in the church, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, what do you left with when the church doesn't believe in the church?
I believe in the church. I believe in the communion of saints. I believe in the fellowship of God's people, and I believe that fellowship is a means of grace, that it is the ways of empowering and enabling people, God's people, to live the Christian life, to live in the way that we ought to live. And so this morning, as we sort of conclude the series that we were engaged in before I went on my various and diverse mission trips, we were talking about the means of grace. We're talking about ways that God empowers and enables us to live the Christian life, to live a life that is pleasing to God. And this morning we're going to talk about the fourth means of grace. We talked about the word of God as a means of grace. We talked about prayer as a means of grace. We talked about the sacraments as a means of grace. We talked, and now we're going to talk about fellowship as a means of grace. And all of these means of grace, beloved, are to empower us and to able us to live in such a way that we attempt to do things for the glory of God, and the good of His people that we otherwise could not do. And so this morning, as we look at fellowship, I want us to keep that in mind. Let's turn to the Book of Hebrews in chapter 10, beginning with verse 19. And the first thing that I want you to see about fellowship is that fellowship, the basis for our fellowship, is the person in work of Jesus Christ, the foundation, the ground of our fellowship, is the person in work of Jesus Christ. Look at verse 19 of chapter 10 in the Book of Hebrews. And the author of the Book of Hebrews begins by saying, therefore, brothers. Now, when you see that word, therefore, that's a directional term. That means it's pointing you in a particular direction, and in this case, it's pointing you backward to everything that the author of Hebrews has said thus far, and particularly about the person in work of Jesus Christ. And this Book of Hebrews is laden with passages that tell us about the person in work of Jesus Christ. And so this is a directional term. And then now, he's about ready to give us a summary of all that he has said about Jesus Christ. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter into the most holy place, how, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, open for us through the curtain that is his body. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Now, what this is saying is, beloved, is that there is no fellowship with either God or with one another except by the person in work of Jesus Christ. We have no fellowship with God. We have no fellowship with each other. What this is saying is that all of our fellowship is mediated in. Theologians sometimes speak about immediate and immediate relationships. An immediate relationship is a one-on-one relationship. It's a relationship in which there is no goal between. There is no mediator. What the author of Hebrews is saying is that for Christians, for people in the church, for the saints, there are no immediate relationships. That is, there are no relationships that are not mediated. Our relationship with God is mediated and our relationship with one another is mediated. So that we don't really have one-on-one fellowship directly with each other. That is to say that our fellowship with God and our fellowship with each other is mediated by the person in work of Jesus Christ. He is the mediator. So in one sense, you could sum up, if you look at that word, therefore, and at pointing back to everything the author has said about the person in work of Jesus Christ, if you look at what he is summarizing here for us about the person in work of Jesus Christ, you could sum it all up in one word. And what he is saying is that Jesus Christ is the mediator. He is the great high priest. He is the one that mediates between man and God and between man and man, so that there are no relationships for the Christian that are not mediated by the person in work of Jesus Christ. There are no one-on-one relationships. There is no direct fellowship in that way. It's never you and I. It's always you and Christ and I so that we're never really in a relationship without Christ. It's always you and Christ and I. And no one has articulated this better than Dietrich Bonhoff or the German Theologian and pastor during the Nazi regime and his book Life Together. And this is the point that he makes is that all of our relationships as Christians are mediated that Christ stands between us and God and between each of us together. And this is something that I think needs to be understood and needs to be brought out. This is the key to understanding fellowship. This is the key to understanding all of our relationships. This is the key to understanding what it is to relate each other as brothers and sisters in Christ so that all of our relationships are understood as with Christ. Then the author goes on to tell us about our fellowship that we have with God and notice what he says. He says, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith. Having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water so he's exhorting us. In fact, there are three exhortations here. The first one has to do with our exhortation and our fellowship with God. The next two have to do with an exhortation and our fellowship with each other. In the Greek, there are three exhortations that all begin with the words let us. Now in English, there are actually four phrases that begin with the words let us. But there are actually three exhortations here. The first one has to do with our fellowship with God. The next two have to do with our fellowship with each other. So he says, let us draw near to God. Now think about that. And you say, OK, so personal work of Christ, he gives us access. He makes the way for us to be near to God. OK, I get that. I understand that. What's the big deal, right? I mean, Jesus Christ, He's our high priest. He's our mediator. He makes the way. He gives us access to God. I get that. OK, what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is this. Is that for the people of God historically, for the people of God in the Old Testament, for the people of God in Israel, for instance, they were told that they couldn't draw near. You see, you remember the story of Moses when he led the people of Israel to the Mount where he received the law on Sinai? And God said, don't let the people come near. Keep them back. Don't even let them touch the mountain or what? Or they will die. Don't even let one of your animals, one of your beasts touch the mountain. Stay away. Don't draw near. The message of the tabernacle, when you look at the book of Exodus and you see the tabernacle, you look at the book of Leviticus and so forth and you see how all the elaborate directions and the liturgy that accompanied the worship of the people of God in the tabernacle and how it was all arranged and furnished and so forth. What's the message of that of the tabernacle in the wilderness? The message is simply this, don't come near. The same is true in the temple. The way that the temple was built and arranged and so forth. The message of the way that the temple was built is simply this, don't come near. No self-respecting Jew would ever think about going into the Holy of Holies. This was something that was reserved for the high priest to go in to the Holy of Holies and the message there to every Jew, every one of God's people in the Old economy was simply this, don't come near. And that's why this is so, really, this is really startling news. This is not something that we can take for granted. This is not something that we can think about casually. This is startling news when the author of Hebrew stands up and he says, come near. You say, wait a minute, what do you mean, come near? This is what God's people were never able to do. He's saying enter in. He's saying you have opportunity. You have access to come into the Holy place. Draw near. Let us draw near. This is a revolutionary idea to the people of God. And so the first excitation is that we have fellowship with God because of the person and the work of Jesus Christ. The second excitation is found in verse 23 where he says, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful. Now, when I was coming into the parking lot this morning, I realized, as I looked at the cars in the parking lot, that cars reveal a lot about people. Did you know that? Cars can tell you a lot about people. You can figure out what's important to people by the car they drive, right? You can actually sort of figure out the social, economic status of the church by just driving into the parking lot pretty much. You can tell pretty much where people are on the ladder, if you will, by what car they drive. And so as I was driving in, I was looking at the cars in the parking lot and it occurred to me that we could probably do a little better in that regard.
But the thing that really occurred to me having just come back from Kenya is that the worst car in the parking lot of our church is better than the best car or better than any car that I was in when I was in Kenya. The cars in Kenya, for the most part, at least the ones that I was exposed to, I mean, it's not to say that I didn't see any nice cars in Kenya. There are some very wealthy people in Kenya and you see them driving very nice cars. Most of them either work at the United States Embassy or work for the UN, the United Nations, but for the most part, the cars that people are driving, are cars that you and I wouldn't drive. Or wouldn't drive in. And as I was thinking about the cars we were in and then I was thinking about the roads we were around over there. One of the things that I was reminded of is that we have good cars here
and we have good roads. You know, just about the time I'm getting tired of my car once it gets paid for and I'm ready to trade it in or something and get a new car. If I go to Kenya and I come back and I get in my car all of a sudden, I mean, it feels like a top-end luxury car. And when you put it on these roads that we have in the United States of America and you put it on these, especially in Florida, I mean, we have really, really good roads. When you're driving in Kenya, the roads, even the highways, the good roads are really, really bad. We were driving, we were the couple of the missionaries that we support and they were taking me one Sunday to a church to speak at and we were on this highway and I was sitting in the front seat on the passenger side and I saw, I mean, we're driving down and I saw this hole in the road. This is the four lane highway. I saw this hole in the road and I thought the hole, if we hit it, the whole van was going to disappear in this road. I mean, I thought, if we fell into that thing, I thought we'd come out in China someplace, it was huge. And this scares you to death. And one thing that Carol Arnold said on a couple of occasions is we were traveling around there because everybody's swerving around these holes and she said, you know, if somebody drives straight in Kenya then they're either drunk or they're driving somebody else's car. Because nobody drives straight, you're always zigzagging and swerving around and cutting in and out and so forth. And, you know, nobody drives straight because it's dangerous to drive straight. And one thing that I learned when I was after several trips to Kenya and being in these kinds of vehicles on these kinds of roads, one thing I learned is that you've got to hang on, okay? You've got to, I have, I have bumped my head or my elbows or something really, really hard, simply because I wasn't hanging on. And it's a metaphor for life, folks. On the road to life, on this journey that we are on in the Christian life, it's not a smooth journey, is it? It's not what we would call a good ride all the time, is it? We've got to hold on. The author is exhorting us to hold on. And you say, well, what does that have to do with fellowship? Well, look at the language that is being used here. It says, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we have. Are we profess? It's plural language. It's talking about the body of Christ. It's talking about the fellowship of believers. It's talking about the communion of saints corporately together collectively. And it's saying, let us hold on to what? To the hope we profess. And there's another message here for us. And that is so often we interpret the idea of fellowship in the sense that what fellowship is about is sort of us holding on to each other. Now there is a sense to that, but that's not what the author exhorts us to hold on to, is it? Notice that the author doesn't say when you're on this road, when you're on this path, when you're on this road of life, and this road of life is hard and tough, it doesn't say what? Hold on to each other. Doesn't. Now the scripture does exhort us in other places to weep with those who weep and to laugh with those who laugh and to carry one another's burdens and all of those things. That's part of the Christian life. But notice what this author is instructing us to do. He's instructing us to hold on to the hope we profess. This is something we do together collectively as the church. And that's important for us to hold, let us hold unswervingly.
In other words, not all this driving around, cutting in and out, swarving through traffic, if you will, let us hold on unwavering unswervingly to the hope we profess.
Why, for he who promised, is faithful. The one who promised is faithful. God is the promised maker, and God is the promised keeper. The one who promises is faithful. And so the author says, let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promised is faithful. And then look at verse 22. He says, and let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. The idea of spurring someone else on is the idea of provoking, inciting, even sometimes, angering someone on. And let us consider. Now that's language that we need to pay attention to. He's saying let us consider, in other words, this is not spurring someone on doesn't come naturally to us. spurring someone on doesn't come naturally to us. spurring someone on is not what we're hardwired to do. spurring someone on is not in our DNA, if you will. spurring someone on is not what comes natural to us. It's something that takes deliberate consideration. And so he says, let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. And so this is the role of fellowship. The role of fellowship is to spur each other on to love and good deeds. And then in verse 25, what we see in verse 25 is really an explanation of the previous verse, where he says, let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. But let us encourage one another and all the more, as you see the day approaching. Let us not give up on meeting together. We began by speaking about the church. We confessed this morning that I believe in the church, that we believe in the church. But what I want to say to you this morning is that there is something mysterious and cosmic that happens when the church meets, that doesn't happen at any other place, at any other time, and at any other way. You know, so often I think we get caught up in all the wrong things in church. And this is another thing I love about going on the mission field. Because you can sit there and worship with somebody with a drum. And the people of God are worshiping fervently, faithfully, and expressively. Did you see Justin Frames letter that he sent out to the congregation a few weeks ago about the worship there? You remember that, Justin, what you wrote there? And you feel this tension because you're there, and these people are singing. And they are with everything they have passionately. And then Justin said, what do you say? He said, then they asked us to sing three white kids from America, you know, and they tried to put together a song and what was it like? It's all right, what? That's what it's like. Sometimes I think we get so focused on the wrong things, on the wrong set of values, that we miss what they get. And that is that when the people of God are gathered together for corporate worship, that something is going on mysteriously and cosmically, whether you like the music or don't like the music, whether you like the preaching or don't like the preaching, whether you like the fact that we do the sacraments every week or you don't like it, there's something going on cosmically and mysteriously that doesn't happen any other place at any other time, anywhere else. And that is that in a very special way, when we worship, there is an intersection between time and eternity, between the infinite and the finite, between the invisible and the invisible, between heaven and earth, all of those things come together in a special way that doesn't happen any place out at any other time with anything else you're doing your lives. And that's why the author of Hebrews is saying, don't forsake the assembly of yourselves together. And then too, I want to emphasize, when we gather together for public worship on Sunday mornings, but in small groups, and you know it's interesting in the book of Hebrews, some scholars think that this was a series of little small congregations meeting in house churches all over the place. And there is great value in meeting in small groups. Now there is a list on the table outside in the four year of the small groups that we have meeting. And what I want to encourage you to do, if you're not in a small group this morning, take a look at that list. Go visit one of the small groups and see, in fact, go visit every one of them over the next month or so, because there's great value in small groups of God's people meeting together. It connects you in a way that you may not get connected in the larger group. And then the third thing that I want to emphasize with respect to meeting together is it has to do with the last two sermons that we preached when we were together. One was about the Great Commission, and the other was about the Cultural Mandate. And just last week we emphasized the various ministries that you can get involved to. This is another way of meeting together. And I encourage you at that time as well to visit each of these ministries that we highlighted for you last week, because this is a way of meeting together. And this is a way of spurring each other on to love and good works. So the author of Hebrews is exhorting his people. Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. But let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching. So let us draw near to God. Let us hang on to our hope. Let us draw near to God and faith. Let us hold on unswervenly to the hope that we profess. Let us consider how to spur one another on towards love and good deeds. And did you notice something there? Did you notice the triad there? Did you see it? The author is saying let us draw near to God and the fullness of assurance of faith. Let us hold on to the hope and let us consider how to spur one another on to love. You see that faith, hope, and love. That is our definition of the community of saints. That is our definition of the church. That is our definition of fellowship. That's our motto. Covenant Presbyterian Church. The community of faith, hope, and love. Committed to worship, nurture, and witness. It's no mistake that that triad is in there. Faith, hope, and love. May God help us all to have this kind of community and this kind of fellowship. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank You for the Word of God as a means of grace, as a way of empowering and enabling us to live in a way that is pleasing to you. We thank You, our Father, that we can come to You in prayer as a means of grace, expressing our desires according to Your will, knowing that it is Your good pleasure to give Your people what they ask for. We thank You, Lord, for the fellowship that we have with one another and with You. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And Father, as we prepare now for the sacraments, we thank You for the body and blood of Jesus Christ. And for this ordinance that You have given to Your people and to the church as a means of nourishing them and strengthening them with Your grace. We give You the praise for that in Jesus' name. Amen.