Spurring One Another On
Hebrews 10:24-25

This will be the last of our series on Hebrews, and a good time to review and to look ahead. For the past several weeks we've been going through the book of Hebrews entitled "Foundations of a lasting faith." We've been talking about practical ways of building a strong and focussed relationship with God. We've talked about focussing on Jesus, and about Drawing near to God.

But the book of Hebrews doesn't just talk about our relationship with God, it also talks about how we relate to each other. So this is both the end of our series on Hebrews and the beginning of a new focus that we'll call "Characteristics of Christian Community." Beginning today, and for three weeks after this, we'll be focussing on our relationships with each other within the church. Scripture calls the church a body. Why? We'll be exploring what it means for us to be the body of Christ.

We'll begin that exploration today by looking at a couple of short verses in Hebrews 10.

But before we turn there, I have an exercise for you. This is an exercise that I gave to my students every year in my Introduction to Religion class at Mount Holyoke. If I was to give you an assignment -- say to write a pick one of the major themes of Hebrews and write a paper on it -- and if I also gave you the choice of working together with a group, or working on your own, which would you choose. Would you want to work together with others -- and be evaluated collectively? Or would you rather work on your own? Why or why not?

How would you answer?

I've always tended to be a loner. I've often said that if Carol had not been gracious enough to rescue me I would certainly have ended up a hermit. If it was a choice between reading and getting together with friends the book won every time. Always hated study groups in College. Seemed like a waste of time. In my dorm I was known as the ghost.

But unfortunately for people like me, the truth is that the Christian life is not for hermits. Whether we like it or not being a Christian makes you part of a community. The Christian life is a team event, rather than an individual sport.

The author of Hebrews has hinted at this truth -- notice how he uses the first person plural in his exhortations -- Let US fix our eyes on Jesus, WE must pay more careful attention to what we have heard. Everything he writes is written to Christians not as individuals, but as a community.

But in Chapter 10 he begins to address the characteristics of Christian community more directly. Let's look at Hebrews 10:24-25.

I've been encouraging you to think of the author of Hebrews as a spiritual coach, so let's stick with that image and apply it to this passage. Here's the situation:

Last time I suggested an all church race. This time we're going to organize a church soccer team. A Stony Brook soccer team -- the Stony Brook sword-fish?. Isn't that the sort of thing churches are supposed to do? Now in reality we probably would not make a very good soccer team. But lets paint the picture even bleaker than it would be in reality. Let's say that most of our team is completely new to the game. Who doesn't know the first thing about soccer? OK -- you're the captain. Who wants to be the coach -- let's have a volunteer. Who's pretty good at soccer -- OK, you all got injured or decided not to play. Our first couple game is a complete disaster. No one stays in position. No one wants to pass to anyone else. We're all crowded around fighting with each other for the ball. We score four goals -- for our opponents. We lose miserably. And things just keep getting worse. No one comes to the practices. Everyone's blaming everyone else. Everyone's fighting. We're completely demoralized. And the really big game is coming up -- we're playing that big church in Northampton that some of you used to go to -- College Church?

So the coach decides drastic action is needed. He calls a team meeting and manages to get everyone to attend. So, coach what are you going to say?


Let's see how you compare to the pep-talk the author of Hebrews gives.

First point in his pep-talk: Start acting like a team. Be team players.

Well, OK he doesn't say it exactly like that, but I think that's whathe means. Look at verse 24. What he actually says is "And let us consider one another with an aim of provoking love and good works." Is that what your Bibles say? No? Well it should. The exhortation here is not to consider how to do something, but rather to consider one-another -- it means to focus on one another . Now we've talked about focus before because Hebrews on several occasions talks about focussing on Jesus -- In 3:1 we are told "fix your thoughts on Jesus" and in 12:2 we are instructed "fix your eyes on Jesus". The word is the same as the one here.

So first we were told to focus our thoughts on Jesus.
Now we're also told to focus our thoughts on one another.
Same word different object.

So let's review what it means to be focussed. The hard drive on my computer was acting up yesterday, and for a while there I was very focussed. You see I'm not the sort of person who carefully backs up my hard drive. I dropped everything and had that thing all apart on my desk. No matter that there was a work day on. No matter that my sermon wasn't written. This was important! I was not going to let anything distract me until I had it fixed. I was focussed.

Now what if we put as much focussed thought and attention into getting to know each other as some of us do into getting to know our computers. That is what it means to consider one another -- to focus on one another, to think about one another, to ponder one another.

In other words, act like good team-mates. Good team-mates are aware of one another's strengths and weaknesses -- they think about how to help each other out -- how to build into each other. They really know each other.

Now it would be easy to get the wrong idea here -- to get the image in your head of a touchy-feely sort of encounter group -- you know where we come together to really get to KNOW one another. But that's not the idea at all -- this focussing on one another is not a passive sort of meditating, but an active process of thinking through how to motivate one another. The aim is to provoke love and good deeds. Again, the image is of team mates egging each other on -- you can do it. Come on. Don't give up. You can do better than that!

[The word provoke = paroxysm]

In practical terms, I think there are two ways of provoking one another to love and good deeds -- first by example. The best way to some excited about something is to be excited about it yourself. The best way to encourage someone to work hard is to work hard yourself. Second, we provoke one another by our words -- by exhorting them and admonishing them. Don't let those around you wallow in spiritual mediocrity -- spurr them on.

The Christian life is not a individual competition -- God has placed you on a team, and you have a responsibility to get to know your team mates and to help to motivate them to grow spiritually.

But how on earth are you supposed to do any of that if you don't show up at team practices!

And this is where we get our next appeal from our coach: Verse 25. Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing.

In other words, Stop skipping practices.

But why, you might say. I don't get anything out of practices. They're boring, always the same. Same old drills. Same old boring lectures from the coach. Besides, I don't have anything to learn. I'll just practice on my own.

Sound familiar? People say this sort of thing all the time about church. Ho hum. Borrring. Have to sit still for an hour and a half. Boring sermons. Droning hymns. I just don't get anything out of it. Besides, what's wrong with worshipping on my own? Of course I can't understand why anyone could say that about our church where the sermons are always gripping, the music is always lively, and all the children are above average. But I understand that it sometimes happens even to Stony Brook people.

You know what the problem is -- we too easily forget why we meet together. We don't meet together to be entertained -- we don't come to hear the best preaching, or the best music in the world. If you want stellar preaching you could order cassette tapes. If you want fantastic music, you could by a good CD. We meet together because we're a community. When you're part of a community you want to be together -- you need to be together. Meeting together is just something that communities do -- its a natural outworking of being involved in one another's lives.

I've tried to think of a simple definition of community, and I think the simplest I can get is this: community is being involved in each other's lives. It's doing life together.

Look at Acts 2:42-47
Now that is community! And that is the model we as a church should be striving for.

And you know what -- this kind of community doesn't just grow from getting together on Sunday mornings. You aren't going to make much of a difference in other people's lives if you just see them on Sunday morning.

Meeting together means real involvement in one another's lives -- it means knowing, loving and serving one another every day of the week.

That is why we have home-based fellowships. I want to challenge you -- if you're not involved in an HBF, you should be. This is one of the primary ways that we support one another at Stony Brook.

But I also have a challenge to those of you in HBF's -- Evaluate: Is your HBF a true community, or do you just get together for Bible Study and that's it. It's really easy to treat your HBF like just another weekly meeting. And NONE of us need just another meeting. But aim should be to develop true Christian community -- to be deeply involved in each other's lives.

So we meet together not just to be together, and not because we are afraid God will zap us if we don't. We meet together to invest in each other -- to build each other up.

And that brings us to the last point in our coach's lecture to his team: Let us encourage one another -- and all the more as we see the Day approaching.

Spend much time watching soccer games as I have, and you'll see a striking difference between teams that are working well together and teams that are not. A team that's working together sees the good in each other and encourages each other; A team that is falling apart suffers from complaining and back-biting. They've forgotten they're on the same team

The same is so often true in the church. We forget we're on the same team -- we should be encouraging each other, but instead we complain, we gossip, we slander one another.

What does it mean to encourage one another? I'm afraid that the idea of encouragement has been cheapened. We think of it as little more than a compliment. Just to say nice things -- nice tie. I like your haircut.

But real encouragement is much more powerful. To encourage is to build each other up in whatever way we can.

To strengthen
To help
To come alongside

Most of all -- to proclaim truth.

Look at 1 Cor. 14:26 "What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an intepretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church."






To whom are you a source of hope? To whom are you a source of strength.

What is encouragement for me? For someone to see an area where I am struggling and come alongside me to help -- to say, hey, I'd like to support you in that.