Tana City Church Preaching
Kim Midgley | Hebrews 10v19-25 Part 2
So, I've been organising a visit from a team from the US, they arrived today, and you know, we wanted to go into town tomorrow and show them like a big picture of the city that we're in, and you know, then all my elders are like, "No, it's Pentecost for public holiday, you can't go, it's not a good day for going out, there's going to be loads of people on the streets, and many of them are going to be drunk, and it's dangerous for your team." So, like, mission comes to a stop on Pentecost Monday, because of Pentecost Sunday, I'm so disappointed in these religious holidays. I actually wrote it in my notes so I can get the wording right. So, tomorrow is a perfect holiday to mark Pentecost, and in an absolute mockery of the truth, Pentecost, people are going to go out and get drunk on alcohol. This is exactly the opposite of what Scripture commands. People make these religious holidays, and then some people go out and use them for evil. So, I don't want to celebrate a religious day, I want the power of the Spirit in my life every day. And so, while you think about that today being Pentecost Sunday, and think about that tomorrow is a public holiday, ask God for His Spirit. Ask God that His Spirit would fill your life every day, that every day would be a Pentecost day for you. We don't need to take a day off and then have people having drunken revelry with alcohol in the name of a ceremony day. We need the Holy Spirit. We need the power of God in our lives every day. So, I'm going to pray, let's pray. God we thank you for the promise of your Holy Spirit. God, we thank you that you poured out your Spirit on all flesh. Thank you that we have seen the fulfillment of the words given by the Prophet Joel. Lord, we live in the last days. Pour your Spirit upon us. Fill us with your Spirit. Lead us by your Spirit. Holy Spirit instruct us now through your word. Illuminate. Embrace it upon our hearts. Convict us to live by it in Jesus name. Amen. I believe I've now honored Pentecost Sunday and I'm going to get on with the word of God. We begin today in what Corinthians 13 and verse 13. More writes to the Corinthians. He's been explaining about spiritual gifts and the ministry of the Spirit and he corrects them in chapter 13 of how to use the gifts appropriately with love and he gets to verse 13. He says, "So now faith, hope and love abide. These three, the greatest of these is love. So now faith, hope and love abide. These three." So it's a very important, he's saying these are three, he's naming the faith, hope and love as foundational. The greatest of these is love. People have called these the three theological virtues. Faith, hope and love. There's a Catholic interpretation of the meaning of faith, hope and love. There's a Protestant definition as well. You can read up on faith, hope and love. Love is the greatest because faith will become sight. Hope will be fulfilled but love is eternal. The word is agape. I think in the King James they translated his charity. Charity we often associate with grace. There's a root similarity there but that's a mistranslation. It's better translated as love. The agape word actually means affection and it's the characteristic of God's love that sent his only son into this world to save us. So for God's so loved the world that word loved in John 3 verse 16 is agape. It comes from the same Greek root. So it's God's affection. He's so deeply affectionate towards us that in his goodness there's another meaning for agape. It's benevolence or goodness. So that's what we see. Faith, hope and love and love of course is the eternal component of the three. And I believe that's why it's greater. It's also essentially the nature of God. We can say that God is love but we mustn't say that love is God because then we become weird. Some people justify silly things that way but God is love. Now interestingly we find these three theological virtues. In Hebrews chapter 10 the passage of scripture we're looking at from last week and today and so I'm going to read again and continue from Hebrews chapter 10 verse 22 to 25. Let's read Hebrews chapter 10 verse 22 to 25. Let us draw near with our true right in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised his faithful. And let us consider heart to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day growing near. There in verse 22 it says draw near with the true heart in full assurance of faith. In verse 23 it says hold fast to the confession of hope our hope and in verse 24 consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. In addition the right to make three charges. Let us draw near. Let us hold fast. Let us consider. And last week I shared about drawing near to God. One of the things that sometimes bothers me is it's not another Kim rant it's only a half a rant. It's when the latest Christian book comes out and the church grabs a hold of it as if it's the one thing we've always been missing. And lately the last few years it's often been a book that's been advocating again for a more contemplative Christianity and self-improvement. So more like introspection, more like me alone with God, me becoming a more spiritual man. This is often very much needed but it can also lead to people viewing faith as solely a personal thing. And faith isn't solely a personal thing. It's bigger than that. And this is well expressed in the quote I bring you from the internet. Actually it's given credit where credit is due. It's from Corpus Christi Catholic Church. Now you may wonder if it's kosher for me to quote from a Catholic Church website. Did you like my mixed metaphor? It's not kosher nor is it allowed but it is something we can learn from. See your history and my history was Catholic up until the Reformation. So let's be honest we were you know historically if we were in Abrahamian you know and then in Adam you know in our sinful nature we were also in the Catholic Church in our church history. But I'm not in support of the Roman Catholic you know the vehicle, the institution but the knowledge you get on the internet is pretty solid some of it. I want to read a quote from Corpus Christi Catholic Church it reads, "Faith requires both solitude and community. We must be able to find God in the solitude of our hearts and participate in intimate relationship and love with him there. As individuals we can seek God out in the truth of his revelation by reading, studying, asking questions. We can seek him out in the beauty of nature, art and music. We can find him in the goodness of the world through the observation or participation in the good works we see being done all around us. All these things give us the faith and assurance of God's existence and allow us to interact with him on an individual level. However faith cannot exist alone and survive without a communal component as well. As members of the body of Christ we must cooperate in expressing our faith. Faith requires communal worship, corporate worship that's what we're doing today. In liturgy and an acknowledgement of the communion of the saints as unseen members of our body in other words we're part of a body. John Packer was saying in a clip I watched recently how people can't really worship God and love him without loving his body and being part of his body. It's almost like if you withdraw into that monasticism or it's just me and God in my faith is personal you're closing down a whole component of what God himself has created, his church, his body. So that's what this is about. Community creates an atmosphere for discipline and obedience as we hold ourselves accountable to one another and the church which he created. The intimacy between God and humanity is expressed through faith and authentic faith requires action. If anyone says our love God but hates his brother he is a liar for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen when John 4 verse 20 said powerful reflection of how you can't really claim to love God if you don't love your brother and so in a way to be part of the community of sciences and test of your love for God. How do we love one another? In loving our neighbor we serve as a witness to our faith and demonstrate our love for God. I think of their scripture by this they will know you are my disciples by your love for one another and so this totally shuts down any idea that you can just work out your relationship with God completely, privately. Your God is not just you and Jesus. If you got hurt by the church you need to forgive. If you're angry with institutional Christianity you need to look beyond it to what God is doing. He has a body that he has prepared. So therefore under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the writer to the Hebrews covers this all the basis. As we've just read let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. So we have access to God because of Jesus and we should draw near to God we should seek his presence as I shared last Sunday. We must come boldly because we have assurance we have confidence because Jesus has made the way open to the Father so you as an individual must draw near to God. That is imperative for a healthy Christian life. You can't just write on some external other experiences going to church conferences going to church worship events going to you know it's going to be yours. And then the next verse is hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised his faithful. So we have this hope which is an eternal hope it's a forward looking hope it's not a wishful thinking hope. Christian hope is not like the world says we hope for good weather next week when we have the tournament. It's not wishful thinking this hope is actually anchored in the faith that Jesus has made the way open for us so therefore we have a guaranteed eternal inheritance. So this hope is made sure this is not a wishful thinking it's a strategic observation of the work of the cross and saying he is risen we will be raised we are certain of this hope. The reason it's hope is because we haven't yet got there it's in the future it's an eternal reality and this is transformative to the Christian because it alters us to the extent that everything changes the values of this earth diminish the things of this world become worth less the things of eternity become worth more and when someone who's a believer dies and another believer grieves we do not grieve the way the world grieves as though we had no hope but we grieve differently because we grieve with our hope that we will be together again it's glorious this hope and so this text though doesn't say just hold on to hope privately it says hold fast the confession of our hope so where are you declaring this hope where are you confessing it you're you're you're speaking differently about life the meaning of everything the future and it's something that other people will hear you describe so again it's not just now purely private the faith may be private the drawing year to god may be personal but the hope is our hope and we confess it which means there's an audience you're not alone at this point and finally the transition is complete by verse 24 and 25 let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near it's on a heading towards Christ's return this hope for his return it's also worth noting how the writer got the emphasis on what you bring to the community not what you get from the community this is profound verses he says let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works I want to get Craig revved up and I know revved up on a Wednesday morning we meet together and then I want to see them getting fired up to go and live out their faith and in a corporate sense encouraging one another encouraging one another to do the good works not so it's about what we are doing to strengthen others not how I'm being strengthened so you come to church today not to be blessed solely but to be a blessing to others we need you here as much as you need me here I need you here because your face encourages me and I knew that very acutely during COVID I sat preaching to my phone and it was horrible it was the worst expression of church I've ever endured that I was trying to feed the flock that I couldn't see your faces how miserable so this writer is expressing these virtues faith hope and love love is the virtue through which we can fulfill the two great commands love the Lord your God with all your heart and the second is like it love your neighbor so those two get fulfilled through love so the writer has brought such a comprehensive idea of healthy Christianity as a people of faith a people of hope a people of love this should define you to a large extent as a as a believer you should see yourself as part of a community of saints who are a people of faith a people of hope a people of love and I don't know how you see yourself but if you're a young Christian I want you to hear these words today and start to see yourself connected to a body that is a body that lives in this world with faith hope and love and it's it's interesting to me how often when we begin we think people are explaining more of me than I can give because I don't know if my faith is that strong and what if I I dropped the ball what if I can't live up to these things well the writer to the Hebrews said with the profound and complete picture of the necessary dynamics for a healthy Christian life these are necessary dynamics led us drawn here full of faith led us all fast to our confessional hope and let us encourage one another think of remember one another consider how to stir one another up so now you may feel under some kind of pressure what if my faith is weak what if I've abandoned her what if I can't find it in me to love and that's pretty heavy because somebody affains you or somebody hurts you deeply it might be a legitimate hurt and you know you're supposed to love them and you just don't feel it so you don't want to forgive sometimes or sometimes you feel pretty miserable about the future you don't feel particularly hopeful other times you think well my faith is really weak I want to go to quite two of my message now and tell you something that I found quite profound these three faith hope and love should be seen not firstly as something you must do but as gifts God has given something you receive you receive faith hope and love you don't have to firstly manufacture them in some level of excellence to be part of the community of saints the community of saints is a community of faith and hope and love but let's see where it comes from faith is a gift Romans 12 verse 3 says this for by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of itself more highly than you want to think but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned so God my faith is weak I feel I feel weak God you've assigned a measure of faith a measure of faith that God has assigned if God is to some extent involved in the measure of faith we have can you see how it shifts your eyes from yourself to God can you see how now rather than looking at your little faith you can look at your great God and say God I need more faith see Jesus really is in control of the stuff Luke 22 we've read this more than once recently Luke 22 verse 31 and 32 Simon Simon behold Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat but I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail and when you have turned again strengthen your brothers Simon is going to face one of the most hot trending crises of his life because he's going to deny Jesus three times before the rooster crows and I kid I was always getting confused that the rooster crow three times all you know now the rooster prognitors crowed once and then Simon was like oh no I've just denied Jesus three times right there in that moment his faith wavered and he caved but his faith didn't fail ultimately because Jesus prayed for him so Jesus said I've prayed for you that your faith may not fail when you've turned again you see you will come back because I've prayed for you your faith will bounce back it will be renewed and it was and so Jesus held Peter's faith up he upheld it mark nine verse 22 to 24 this is a guy whose child was epileptic and the demons were causing these epileptic fits it has often caused him into fire the demon and into water to destroy him but if you can do anything have compassion on us and help us the great goes to Jesus and Jesus said to him if you can what are you talking about it's like the guy comes to Jesus asking for a miracle if you can do it and Jesus is like if you can you insult me of course I can of course I can do anything and he says all things are possible for one who believes immediately the father of the child cried out and said I believe help my unbelief it's beautiful this is where you go when you need more faith go to God and say I believe but I need to believe more I'm feeling weak in my faith but you can strengthen me in my faith and God does a lot of things to strengthen our faith sometimes he puts us in a furnace and then he delivers us and then we think we're safe because we've got a God who delivers us isn't it incredible how after a furnace experience you forget the furnace and remember the God who met you in the furnace God sometimes hurts us to open our eyes to see that he's completely able to help us why not in an evil sense in a loving sense he guides us through something that will separate us from this world and fix us on him we are strengthened in our faith one more verse if you don't believe it's biblical Luke 17 verse 5 the apostles said to the Lord increase our faith there it is so I tell you faith is assigned to you by God but faith can be increased in you by God God will lead you from glory to glory from faith to faith one degree to a greater degree and so if I'm an old man one day I want to be a man of greater faith than I am today that's what it means to be a people of faith to be saying God you are the source of our faith increase our faith hope is given by God look at two Thessalonians two verse 16 and 17 now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word what did God do God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope God gave us good hope and he comforts us establishes us in every good work and word Romans 8 verse 24 to 26 says this for in this hope we were saved in other words God's very salvation occurs in the context of this new hope of eternity you believe and now you receive hope that you will be raised one day that you will see God face to face for in this hope we were saved now hope that his seed is not hope for who hopes for what he sees but if we hope for what we do not see we wait for it with patience likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to pray for as we ought but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans too deep forwards i added that one in because it's bent across sunday thanks for love and pray this for us hoping for at least one life it's true though the spirit helps us in these things and so when you see that you're saved in hope and when your hope starts to weaken just ask the spirit to show you the future and then turn to revelation and start reading about how the story ends and you'll be full of hope again you'll be like yeah Jesus is coming back yeah he's gonna crush all his enemies yeah we're gonna reign with him there's gonna be a wedding feast we love weddings some of us Romans 15 verse 13 says Romans 15 verse 13 says "May the god of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the holy spirit you may abound in hope" that's where you go to the god of hope who fills you with all joy and peace in believing so it goes along with your faith so that by the power of the holy spirit you may abound in hope so let's not be a people of little hope if God's word says that God is able to cause you to abound in hope should be like Jesus is coming back yeah it was a tough day to work today but Jesus is coming back come sooner lord some of us want that but and one peter three verse 15 and 16 but in your hearts honor Christ the lord is holy always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you yet do it with gentleness and respect having a good conscience so that when you are slaughtered those who revile your good behavior Christ may be put to shame so we carry a hope we testify of this hope we hold to our confession of the hope and thirdly love two Timothy one verse seven says "for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control this is incredible God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control you may be the icicle young the the guy who's like got the biggest shell around you you're not their friendliest most chilled guy well maybe you are too chilled the icicle one you know like i feel like it's not in my personality to be haggy or friendly but God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control so God gives you a spirit of love you may not be seeing yourself as the warmest person but God will warm you up God will put in your heart an affection for him and an affection for the saints those things come from God so it's not it doesn't depend on your personality you don't have to be pretending to be a nice warm fuzzy touchy-feely person it doesn't have to be that but a deep conviction of love God will put it into you God will awaken that within your brothers one John four verse 15 to 19 whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God God abides in him and he and God so we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us we've come to know and believe the love that God has for us for some of us it's very hard to receive God's love because we had a very rough childhood or maybe our father was distant absent harsh cruel there are all kinds of reasons why it can be difficult to receive the love of God but i assure you God has love to give you God has infinite love to give you and if you come to him and believe in him you will come to know and believe so we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him but this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment because as he is so also are we in this world there is no fear in love perfect the perfect love costs out fear that's the fear of judgment the fear of punishment the fear of rejection all the things that kept us away from God because of our sin are removed because of Christ's work and so there's no more fear we may boldly approach God there's no fear in love with perfect love costs out fear for fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love we love because he first loved us so there's my revelation of where love comes from it's not a feeling that i have to crank up it's a reality that God is love and he now lives in me and God because God loved me i've learned to love to love a different way he loved his bride his church and laid his life down for her now i can love my wife with that love that Jesus demonstrated towards me i love because God first loved me so it's not a kind of a amelavic person type of love it's a love that comes from God and is alive in us because God is in us and we love because he loved us and you can see that these faith hope and love they work together let's read from Romans 5 verse 26 i'm nearly finished Romans 5 verse 26 therefore since we have been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ there's what faith did we believed in the work of Jesus and we were reconciled to God therefore since we've been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God so we look forward to standing in God's presence we now have access to him we will be with him eternally not only that but we rejoice in our sufferings note that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us so how did the love come into us by the spirit of God who has been put in our hearts God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us i find this so interesting most people who go through the attrition and the the grind that that wears you out where do they end up hopeless and despondent like it just breaks you down life can be so hard things can be so relentless and if you are without God you end up without hope but this text says there was it it was saying suffering we rejoice our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope so this text suggests that when you go through suffering with God you end up with more hope it's very counterintuitive but that's how God's kingdom works you go through something hard you come out stronger you get pushed against you don't get weakened you get strengthened the enemy tries to destroy you like i'm gonna assist Peter the enemy Satan is demanded to serve you Jesus this but i've prayed for you and when you've turned back strength in your brothers why because he's stronger it's incredible so all of this is a dynamic of the people of God there are people of faith hope and love but the source of all of that is God himself so you can never look at faith hope and love again and say i can't do it because i'm not enough i don't have enough faith i'm feeling a bit dejected and hopeless i'm i'm not a very loving person no God is all those things for you here we see i haven't even finished reading this for a while we were still weak at the right time Christ died for the ungodly in other words that's where we were but that's not where we stayed well we were weak but now in Christ we are strengthened he died for us while we were weak sinners so here we see all we need is available to us these have nothing to do with your temperament we will attitude for your genetics or your upbringing they gift from God faith hope and love are gifts from God God has made every provision for you to be spiritually healthy he supplies these virtues to us much like love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control is a fruit of the spirit the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control when i look at that list i would be oh man i can't do it when i look at god he starts to set just abiding me and you'll bear fruit i'll bring forth more love more joy more peace more patience kindness goodness so when we look outside of ourselves to him to be the source of our faith hope and love we find it there god has made provision for you to be spiritually healthy in him and in the community of saints so what shall we do let us draw near with full assurance of faith let us be a people who seek god's praises let us hold fast to the confession of our hope let us remember Jesus is coming back and we're going to spend eternity with god in heaven let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works there's the personal the private but there's the corporate and the public this is how we remain healthy and strong won't you stand the band can come up everly father we stand before you weak as frail human beings but strong because your spirit is in us holy spirit i ask you in this moment to increase faith in every heart to renew hope in every soul to full everyone here with your love when we ask for the infilling and indwelling power of the holy spirit we ask god for faith hope and love to be defining virtues of our lives but we don't find that in us lord we love because you love us we hope because you saved us in this hope we believe because you're open our eyes thank you you are everything to us lord you are all we need god come and fill this church with faith hope and love in jesus name let's go shopping