Hey all, Pastor John here. Thanks for tuning
in to the weekly sermon podcast. We pray this
message encourages you, strengthens your faith,
and helps you to take your next step with Jesus.
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Now let's dive into this week's message. All
right, let's make our way back to our seats this
morning. How are we doing, Village? All right.
Way more awake than first service, like way more
awake. It was crickets. Well, I hope when you
came in, you thought, I'm going to my seat, and
then you found that there was a reserve seat
sign in your seats. That was the point, right?
We are heading into Easter week. We are looking
to next Sunday, and next Sunday is Easter, Resurrection
Sunday. Do you know what that is in the Christian
calendar? Super Bowl. Next week is Christian
Super Bowl and we are stoked to get to celebrate
the resurrection of Jesus Christ because if the
tomb is empty, as one pastor says, if the tomb
is empty, then anything is possible and everything
has changed. Amen? And we put these signs up
because this isn't my friend or my neighbor.
This is your friend and your neighbor and we're
saving a seat for them in this house. Maybe it's
your dad who is far from the Lord and needs an
opportunity, just a door open for him to step
back and take a step toward Jesus. We saved him
a seat right next to Gail, right there. He can
come and sit next week. Or maybe it's your brother
or a friend who you've been working on. You've
been talking. You've been planting seeds. You've
been watering. You've been hoping that the gospel
would begin to bloom. And you're like, hey, I
want to get them where the gospel is going to
be preached, where Jesus is going to be exalted
and glorified, and where they can have an opportunity
to respond and enter into the kingdom of heaven.
I'm telling you, this is the Super Bowl for us.
Just don't come looking crazy or wearing some
like face paint or something, okay? We wanna
be welcoming too to the people who are coming.
So we obviously have plenty of chairs. We set
up all the chairs we fit in here. This is about
156 chairs right here. We can obviously fill
in the gaps that are here. And then we've got
an overflow where we can add another 20, 30 seats
in the back. And I think every one of them is
a one more. Every one of them is a lost. soul
or a wandering soul or someone who walked away
a prodigal and it's time to come home and not
only just come home not in in some private corner
somewhere but come home to the family of God
and we we got room and we're going to make space
for them you know there's one thing to have room
right it's one thing to have a seat but it's
another thing altogether to make space for someone
to make space for someone you have to make space
in your heart first You have to say, actually,
I want you here. I actually wanna make myself
available. I wanna move toward you to make sure
that you can be here. We gotta make space for
all that God is going to do. And I believe that
God will fill that space. He will move in a powerful
way and we will get to interact with more brothers
and sisters as a result of it in the kingdom
of heaven that we get to spend eternity with,
reconciled to their God creator through the blood
of Jesus. That's what we wanna be. All about.
All of it. That's what it means to be a great
commission church. We take seriously what God
said when Jesus said, go into all the world and
make disciples of all nations. We want to do
that. Can we be that people? So we've got the
challenge out there. Amen. It's a bring three
challenge. It's keep working. Keep working the
ground. Keep tilling the soil. Keep watering.
If you find that some soil is too hard and they
want nothing to do with it, move on. There's
other soil out there. There are far too many
people in this world who are lost and many of
them are dying each and every day. And you have
the key to everlasting life in the gospel of
Jesus Christ. We can point them to it. We should
be doing this all the time. We're taking Easter
as an opportunity to refocus and be all about
it, amen? Join me in praying as we go to our
time in the word. Father, we pray for Easter.
We pray for the celebration. We pray for village
that. we would be one of many beacons of hope,
many ambassadors, many embassies around the city
and around the state and around the world who
are opening their door and making space for one
more, one more sister, one more dad, one more
friend, one more neighbor, one more coworker
to take their next step with Jesus, to step into
eternal life. I pray that our heart would tune
to your heart. Father, if we've been off by a
couple degrees, if we've been listening to 107
.1, but we need to be listening to 107 .5, you
would tune our hearts today, Lord, to your heart.
That our heart would be in frequency, receiving
the message, receiving the hope, receiving the
love, and receiving the power of the Holy Spirit
to go and be the kingdom of God here on earth.
as we go with the gospel of Jesus. Lord, I pray
that you continue to form and shape us, that
your word would do your work and your people
this morning. We ask this in Jesus' name. We
all say it. Amen. All right. Well, we're in our
last installment in our series, One Anothering.
And did you know that every relationship in your
life is doing something to you? Every relationship
in your life is doing something to you. Some
relationships encourage you, some challenge you,
and others drain you. And so hear this, you are
not neutral in your relationships and your relationships
are not neutral toward you. They are forming
you. And the question is not if you're being
formed, it's how and by whom. Listen to what
Proverbs says, two different passages in Proverbs.
Proverbs 13, 20 says, the one who walks with
the wise will become wise, but a companion of
fools will suffer harm. Proverbs 22, 24, and
25 says, don't make friends with an angry person
and don't be a companion of a hot -tempered one,
or you will learn his ways and entangle yourself
in a snare. But most people don't think about
this. Very rarely do we stop and ask, what are
these relationships actually doing to me? Are
they helping me become more like Christ or less?
And this is where we're going this morning. God
has not designed you to grow in isolation. He
has designed you to be formed through people.
Not just through sermons. Not just through your
own private Bible reading or quiet time, but
through real, intentional, sometimes uncomfortable
relationships. And that's exactly what we see
in Hebrews chapter 10, which you can turn over
there if you're gonna follow along in your Bible,
Hebrews chapter 10. In Hebrews 10, you start
off with this deep theology about Jesus, his
sacrifice, his finished work. And our access
to God through what Christ has done. And then
suddenly the author turns and says, now consider
one another. Not consider God or focus only on
your faith. But in the flow, he says, now look
at the people around you and take responsibility
for who they are becoming. So you won't give
an account for their lives, but you are a part
of their story. Who you are shapes who they are
becoming. And most of us have asked the question,
man, how do I actually keep going in the faith?
How do I not drift away? How do I not fall on
the path? And his answer is this. You don't just
need better personal spiritual habits. You need
the right people around you. So let's look at
this together. Hebrews chapter 10, beginning
in verse 19. Therefore, brothers and sisters,
since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary
through the blood of Jesus, he has inaugurated
for us a new and living way through the curtain
that is through his flesh. And since we have
a great high priest over the house of God, let
us draw near with a true heart in full assurance
of faith. With our hearts sprinkled clean from
an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure
water, let us hold on to the confession of our
hope without wavering since he who promised is
faithful. And let us consider one another in
order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting
to gather together as some are in the habit of
doing, but encouraging each other and all the
more as you see the day approaching. This is
God's word. So let's look at the flow of Hebrews
chapter 10, because if you don't see the flow,
then verse 24, 25 will feel somewhat random.
They're not. They're the conclusion. And the
author has just spent this entire chapter building
one massively big idea, and that is Jesus has
done what nothing else and nobody else could
do. Amen? I was scarred by first service. I'm
going to need a little bit of feedback here on
second service. I gotta make it through. You
gotta help me make it through here, all right?
Help me make it through. Jesus has done what
nothing else and nobody else could do. Amen,
amen. That's too much, too much. Settle down
a little bit. Goodness gracious. That's not sustainable,
people. You've gotta find a nice little rhythm
in the middle. I liked it, but it's not sustainable.
Let's go the distance here. Marathon, okay? No,
really, that's the idea he's been developing.
It's the big idea that nothing else, nobody else
could do what Jesus has done. He is supreme over
all. Everything else that has come before, he
is it. Under the old covenant, well, sacrifices
had to be offered over and over again, but they
could never fully deal with sin. And you might
wonder, what is sin? Well, sin is rejecting God's
authority. And in choosing to define and direct
my life on my own terms. We sin when we live
our lives contrary to the will of God, which
is revealed to us through the word of God. But
Jesus, through one sacrifice, took our place
under judgment, carried our sin, paid for it
completely, so we could be brought back to God.
Amen? That's good. And because of that, everything
changes. Everything has changed. And so in verse
19, the author says, we now have confidence to
enter the holy place, the most holy place. And
that's huge. Because the most holy place was
where God's presence dwelled. It was restricted.
It was dangerous. It was inaccessible. Only the
high priest could enter once a year on a specific
day. He went in with blood from a sacrifice.
as a way of dealing with sin. Because the understanding
was this, that God is perfectly holy and we are.
And if you entered his presence without your
sin being dealt with, you wouldn't survive it.
And so even the high priest went in with caution,
with reverence and fear. This wasn't a comfortable
place. It was a place that reminded you there
is a real barrier between you and God. But now,
Jesus took our place. The perfect lamb of God
who takes away the sins of the world, carried
our sins, paid for it in full. What was once
closed off to us is now wide open. Not just for
a priest, but for you and me. You don't need
to stand at a distance from God anymore. You
have access, not because you cleaned yourself
up, but because Jesus made a way. You didn't
have to learn some super secret code word. You
didn't have to do a series of feats in the gauntlet.
But a person, Jesus, who the author of Hebrews
says is a new and living way through him. Full
access. And not only full access, but your access
is secured. The work is finished. It's completed.
You've been brought all the way in. And now,
based on that reality, the author then gives
us three responses. How should we respond to
this new reality? You see it in the repetition.
Let us, let us, let us. Not the vegetable. The
two words. Let us. My wife got a lettuce wrap
last night at In -N -Out, and I just keep thinking
of that every time I say, let us, let us, let
us. Let us eat. Right? Mmm. No, you can see it
there. He has three of them. You probably noticed
it as we were reading through the chapter. He
starts off by saying, first, let us draw near
with a true heart in full assurance of faith.
In other words, don't hold back. Don't keep your
distance. Draw near to God with confidence. You
have access. And the second, he says, let us
hold fast to the confession of our hope without
wavering. Hold fast means to grip tightly, to
cling, don't release. Why? Because he holds you
fast. Hebrews says he is faithful. And because
he is faithful, because it is secure, because
access has been granted, I want to now hold tightly
to it. I don't want to lose what's been given
to me so freely. Confession of our hope, well,
that's what you believe and publicly hold to
about Jesus, who he is, what he has done, what
he has promised. That's your confession of our
hope. And he says, do it without wavering, not
being pulled off course. And so let us draw near
and let us hold fast. And then the third lettuce
is let us consider one another. And there's the
turn, right? He now points you to people. Why?
Well, you see, drawing near and holding fast
are not just personal issues. They are community
issues. Let us consider one another. The word
consider means to think carefully, to think intentionally
about others. Not just be around people, but
actually pay attention to them. Know where are
they struggling? Where are they drifting? What
lies are they believing about God or about who
they are in Christ? Where is their faith confession
not showing up in their life? Consider one another.
Understand one another. Discern one another.
Why? Why should we consider one another? Is it
just for people watching? Man, I'm all for people
watching. Anyone like to people watch? You park
me somewhere on a bench and put a bunch of people
in front of me, I can sit there for a while.
Oh, you know, you're heading somewhere. You're
on a mission. You look weird. Like, hey, I get
to do it every Sunday. You guys are great. You
guys are. You guys are a great group to people
watch. That's what I'm doing behind the scenes
right now. It's like, hmm. That's a choice right
there, yeah. No, he doesn't say do this so you
can people watch, does he? He says consider one
another. Why? In order to provoke love and good
works. Whoa. Well, what is provoke? It literally
means to irritate. Consider one another in order
to provoke, to irritate, to sharply disagree
is another meaning of it, or to sharply confront.
Some of you are experts at this already. No,
if you knew this scripture before, You know that
this scripture used to, one of the translations,
maybe it's NIV, I didn't look it up before I
came up here, but it said, consider one another
in order to spur love and good works. It's the
same word, right? An irritant in the side of
a horse. Spur one another on toward love and
good deeds, right? To provoke means to intentionally
press one another toward. love and obedience,
even when it's uncomfortable, even when it might
be somewhat costly in the relationship, to provoke
one another, to move people toward love and obedience,
to love someone enough to not let them stay where
they are, but to move them toward love and good
works. Remember, the human heart is naturally
bent in on itself. It seeks comfort. It seeks
self -satisfaction, self -justification. It avoids
anything that calls it to change. And Tim Keller,
he had a sermon on Hebrews chapter 10, and he
shares a moment in the story of Odysseus. Odysseus
is out of the Homer's Odyssey. It's a story in
Homer's Odyssey. I think it was book 12 in Homer's
Odyssey. And Odysseus, I think this story captures
it perfectly. Odysseus is on his journey home.
And he knows he's going to pass by the island
of the sirens. What is a siren? Just think Starbucks,
the logo. That's a siren. And it has the same
effect on me. You'll see, right? He knows he's
about to pass the island of the sirens. And the
sirens have this reputation. Their song is so
beautiful. It's so alluring that anyone who hears
it would be drawn into it. They would steer their
ships to get closer and closer to this song that
they're singing, only to crash their ship on
the rocks and die. And so Odysseus, he doesn't
trust himself. He's about to pass by the island
of the sirens. He doesn't trust himself. He knows
that when he hears the song, he will want to
give in. And so before they get there, while
still in his right mind, he tells his crew this.
He says, bind me to the mast of the ship as we
pass by. And no matter what I say, no matter
how much I beg, do not untie me. For I will take
over the ship and steer it right into the rocks.
And then he has them put wax in their own ears
so that they won't hear the song. And when they
pass by, it happens. He begins to hear the song.
He hears the music. He hears the singing. And
he begins to shout, let me go. Let me out of
here. Untie me now. But his crew refuses. They
don't listen to his momentary desire. They hold
him to his earlier commitment. They tighten the
ropes. They keep him and the ship on course.
And that's exactly what Hebrews 10 is getting
at. Provoking one another means there are moments
when you won't want what's good for you. There
are moments when you won't want what's good for
you. There are moments when your desires will
pull you off course from your confession. And
you need people in your life who won't listen
to your momentary voice, but will hold you to
what is true of your confession. People who will
say, I know what you're feeling right now, but
I also know where that leads and I'm not going
to let you drift off course. And so we are called
to consider one another so that we might... provoke
love and good works. What are love and good works?
Love, love for God. Adoration, worship for God
and worship for others. I mean, love for others,
works for others, good works. Good works are
active, compassionate service of others, helping
one another, helping the marginal, helping the
helpless. In other words, your heart bent outward,
not inward. We're to take hold of our hearts,
one another, and provoke one another to bend
that heart outward toward others and toward God.
And Hebrews says we need to be provoked to have
a living faith. We need to be provoked to have
love that acts, not a dead faith. And so on to
that, right after that, he adds, not neglecting
to gather together as some are in the habit of
doing. Which means some already were. They were
pulling back. They were falling away. They were
disconnecting from the people of God and from
the confession of their faith. And the author
says, that's dangerous. That's dangerous. That's
getting off course. That's heading for the rocks.
But instead, he says, encourage one another.
It says strengthen, call forward, remind one
another of what is true. And we have to be careful
that we don't read our definition into the word
encourage. It's so easy. We can hear encourage
and we can think compliments. Or we can think
niceness. Or emotional support only. Here's how
I would frame encouragement. Encouragement isn't
shallow positivity. It is truth -saturated strength
that keeps us from drifting from Christ. You
might replace truth with even Scripture. Scripture
-saturated, truth -saturated strength that keeps
us from drifting from Christ. That's what encouragement
is. The Bible tells us that we have full access
to God through Christ, but it also tells us that
you need people around you who refuse, even at
the risk of being uncomfortable, to let you drift
from him. So I want to give you a way of seeing
this in real life. I'm going to call it the community
matrix. It should be up here on the screen. You
see on the community matrix, there are two axes.
There's the one axis up and down, which is provoke
on both ends with a plus or a minus. We might
call it high provoke and low provoke. And then
on the cross axis here, I don't know my Ys and
Xs, but you have encourage and you have a minus
and a plus. We might call it low encourage, high
encourage. And I wanna show you. That encouragement
reminds you of who you are in Christ. Provocation
calls you to live like it. And every community
of people, whether it's two people, three people,
10 people, or 100 people, fall somewhere in this.
So let me walk you through it. First, in the
bottom left -hand corner, in that quadrant, we're
gonna call it the just show up community. Uh
-oh. Yeah, we'll make it. We'll be okay. Hold
fast. We can get through it. Here we go. The
just show up community. Low encourage, low provoke.
We might even call it the nothing happens community.
Nobody is speaking into your life. Nobody is
encouraging you. Nobody is challenging you. You're
around people, but you are not, no one is forming
you. It's hangout time, it's easy time, it's
surface level time. And it produces one thing
over time for sure, and that is drift. Over time,
you just slowly become less serious about taking
your next step with Jesus. It's just show up,
community. And second, we have high -encouraged,
low -provoked, and we're gonna call that the
here -only community. People remind you of who
you are in Christ. They're supportive and they
provide words of strength when you go through
trials or temptations or difficulties, even sometimes
when those difficulties are the result of your
own foolishness and sin, but they never challenge
you. They just encourage you. They never ask
questions or the hard questions. They never call
you to move forward beyond where you're stuck.
And so you feel loved, but you never grow. Sin
will stay unaddressed. Obedience is always delayed.
It's a community of immature believers, maybe
even with a lot of knowledge, but they still
bent in on themselves. The next quadrant, low
in courage, high provoke. We'll call it the try
harder community. Oh, there's challenge. There's
correction. There's always a push to do better,
but there's no strength or support. There's no
warmth. There's no grace. The gospel gets inverted
to a sort of work harder and God will accept
you. Or some form of work harder so that you
can achieve next level Christianity, a higher
plane of Christian life, and then you can look
down on everyone else. A sort of self -righteousness.
Instead of the true gospel of the finished work
of Christ and the life of Christ that is available
to every believer, whether it's their first day
in the faith or their last day. The real gospel
where we work from our new position of being
accepted, having access to the Father, not in
order to be accepted. And what is this? What
is... What does the try -harder community produce?
Well, in some, it produces hiding. I can't measure
up, so I'm going to withdraw. In others, it produces
self -righteousness. They're very proud of all
they do for God and how God must have a special
place in his heart for them. Some pretend everything
is okay, on the surface at least, and some burn
out from trying to earn their place. It's a try
-harder community. But then there's the fourth,
high encourage, high provoke. We're going to
call this a gospel community. This is what Hebrews
10 is describing, people who will strengthen
you and people who will spur you on. A gospel
community that reminds you of who you are in
Christ and calls you to live like it. People
who say, I'm for you. I'm 100 % for you. And
because I'm for you, I will not let you stay
where you are. See, God saves us through Christ.
God saves us through Christ alone. And this.
This gospel community through love and encouragement
and provoking, this is how God sustains us in
Christ. Most people don't live here. Most people
settle for one of the other three. Me and my
wife were talking about past church experiences.
We've been in every one of those churches, every
one of those communities. You either stay comfortable,
you stay distant, or you stay under the pressure.
without support. But Hebrews 10 says, well, you
have to have both. We have to be a community
where our one another includes encouraging, reminding
us who we are in Christ, what is already true
of us, and provoking, telling us it's time to
take a step forward. And so let's bring this
down to real life really quickly in some application.
First, yourself. You are not just being shaped
by others. You are constantly shaping your own
soul. Did you know that? You are both the encourager
and provoker of your own life. Pastor Paul David
Tripp says, when life doesn't make sense, you
will always preach to yourself some kind of gospel.
Either the true gospel of God's goodness, his
grace, and his presence, or some kind of false
gospel, a distorted, misshapen gospel. The gospel
you preach to yourself will shape you. And so
ask yourself, do I only comfort myself? Do I
only remind myself of all the things that are
true of me in Christ? Do I excuse things that
I know I shouldn't? Do I avoid obedience because
it's hard or because of fear? Do I tell myself
it's not that big of a deal? Or do I only provoke
myself? Am I constantly critical, always bagging
on myself how short I'm falling? No grace, no
rest, all earning, no assurance. The gospel,
the true gospel gives you both. It tells you
you are fully accepted in Christ and now you
are called to walk in obedience. And so you need
to learn to preach to yourself encouragement,
who you are in Christ, and provocation, and now
what he calls me to be, how he calls me to live.
And so that's yourself. The second one is the
church, and that's the direct context of Hebrews
chapter 10. He's writing to the church. Do you
have people who actually know you here? Do you
actually know others? Not just a name or a face,
but life on life. Do you have people who will
provoke you and who will encourage you? Who will
provoke you to love God more and who will encourage
you to do good for others in the strength that
God provides? Who will help you to confront sin
and get over it, even as its beck and call is
like the island of sirens? Come, crash on the
rocks again. Someone who says, don't do that.
I know your confession. I know you're standing
before God. You have access. Don't do that. Don't
drift away. Or do you just live in a just show
up community? Sitting, leaving no one close enough
to speak into your life. Hebrews says that's
not safe, friends. That's not a safe place to
be. That's how people drift. And so this means
you don't just attend, but you engage. You begin
to grow gospel -shaped friends, the kind of friends
who will speak encouragement and will speak life
and will provoke you toward love and good deeds.
Maybe you get connected if you're looking for
an easy route to just get together with people
who are all in this struggle together, all moving
forward, trying to love Jesus and get over their
stuff. Hop into a disciple group. Get into the
mess with everyone else. Are you all bent in
on yourself and you have no room or no margin
in your life for serving others? And I would
say that biblically, if you read all the scriptures
about service, and again, we confuse this word,
but what does ministry mean? Service. Ministry
means serve. We're all called to ministry. We're
all called to minister to one another. We're
all called to serve one another. And you might
say, but I do serve. I serve the whole world.
Oh, that's cute. But the Bible calls you first.
The premise is to serve your brothers and sisters.
For this very reason, prone to wander, prone
to drift, need encouragement, need provocation.
Open your life up to people. And then third,
your family, your home. Did you know that your
home is a community? Your home has its own culture.
The question is, what kind of culture? What kind
of community? Is it all encouragement and no
challenge? Where everyone is strengthened, but
no one is called forward? Is it all provocation
and no encouragement? All pressure, all rules,
all lists, no warmth, no joy, no grace. Because
neither produces maturity on its own. When your
home, what your home is, your home needs both.
It needs to speak life. It needs to remind one
another of the truth. It needs to call people
back, your family members, you, your spouse,
your kids, whoever's in your home, call them
back to their confession. Continue to anchor
them in who they are in Christ and call them
to live that out in everyday life. Your home
is a place to celebrate what is good. And parents,
this matters deeply. If you're a parent in this
room, your kids don't get the same choice of
who they spend time with. They have to spend
time with you. Which means they're being formed
and shaped by you. So, how are you forming your
kids in this every single day? Are they living
in a gospel community at home with you? And remember,
a gospel community, if you go, oh, a gospel community,
everything's perfect, I can't ever fail, I can't,
no. Now you're back in the try harder category.
It's the recognition that the gospel is Christ
and what he has done for us, which means that
I still fail, I still trip up and fall into all
kinds of things. But what do I do when I'm there?
We talked about it last week. Do you go to your
kids and say, Mom was wrong. I shouldn't have
said it that way. I shouldn't have raised my
voice. I shouldn't have expected that in the
way that I did. Or dad, dad was wrong. When I
did that, when I came in hot and heavy and I
was angry, I shouldn't have done that. God did
not want that for me. And will you forgive me?
That also models a gospel culture, doesn't it?
What kind of culture is growing up at our home?
What kind of place is our kids being raised in
and formed in? Is it a gospel community? Is it
a try harder? Is it a truth only or here only?
Or is it a just show up? Everyone just passing
in the wind. Just a good hang, but nothing else.
So let's wrap it up now. Hebrews 10 doesn't start
with community though, does it? Hebrews 10 starts
with Christ. It starts with the reality that
through one sacrifice, Jesus has dealt completely
with your sin. You now have confidence to enter
the presence of God, that you are not trying
to earn your place. You've already been brought
all the way in if you're in Christ. And in Christ,
you are known completely. You are accepted and
you are welcomed all the way in. And so you don't
need to hide anymore. You don't need to pretend.
You don't need to protect your image. You are
free to be known because you are already fully
known. And not only that, Jesus is not just the
one who saves you. He is the one who sustains
you. And one of the primary ways he does that
is through his people. So when someone encourages
you, someone speaks the truth about who you are
in Christ, that is Christ strengthening you.
And when someone provokes you to a living faith,
love in action, that's Christ keeping you. Not
just a good hang, not just an awesome time together,
a fellowship, but this is a means of grace. What
is a means of grace? All it means is, another
word for it is, it's one of God's chosen mechanisms.
For how he decided he wants to distribute the
grace that is accessible to all believers, again,
whether it's day one or the last day on earth,
this is the means by which God wants to distribute
the grace he has available, all of it to his
people, and he uses means of grace. And community
is one of those. The people of God is one of
those. In other words, if you're disconnected,
you're just outside of one of the ways that God
has ordained and authored to distribute the grace
to his people. It's right here. It's right in
this room. He wants you to have it in a gospel
-shaped community of people who will encourage
and provoke you. This is amazing grace. And this
is how God holds his people fast. Because Christ
has secured you and is sustaining you. step into
the kind of community he uses to keep you. Be
known, be encouraged, be challenged, because
the credibility of the witness of the church
is directly connected to how we one another,
how we love and serve, as we talked about in
the first week, how we confess and forgive, as
we talked about last week, and how we encourage.
and provoke one another toward love and good
works.