Sermon Tone Analysis

Quick recap of where we are going with this series that we are calling simple.

We started last week by noting how often it is in the ongoing life of a Christian that all the activity of religion starts taking over and somewhere along the way we lose touch with the simple activity of being a disciple of Jesus.

And we noted that simple does not necessarily mean easy—because Jesus didn’t say that following him would always be easy.

But following Jesus should be clear; it should be something that each one of us understands the same way; we should all get it.

That’s what we mean by simple discipleship, that we all clearly understand it together.

Let’s see if this is working.

Let’s have a little quiz here concerning what we talked about last week.

And this isn’t a quiz to see how well all of you were paying attention.

This is a quiz to see how well I did at clearly communicating discipleship.

It should have been clear enough that you remember it—at least I hope I was clear enough for that.

So, last time we looked at Psalm 19 and I talked about the way in which our discipleship pursues the activity of loving God.

And I said that there is one thing that God has given us as something we can do more than anything else to help us to know him and love him.

Do you remember?

What is the one thing that God has given us that helps us to know him and love him?... [the Bible] It is in spending time in the Word of God that we see God as he has revealed himself to us.

And as we begin to know God and know his love revealed to us, we are prompted and moved by the Holy Spirit to respond in love to God.

And this is where faith is planted and begins to grow in us.

That is the way in which our live of discipleship focuses upward to God.

That was last week’s message.

If you are new or you missed last week, you can always find the audio of that message on our website.

Today we move on to the second of our clear and simple activities for following Jesus.

Today we focus on inward discipleship.

We ask the question and consider what it means for us to have an inward focus as people who seek to grow in faith.

The mission statement of this church identifies three activities as core to our mission: loving, growing, and serving.

Loving God, growing relationships, and serving community.

Last time was about loving God as our activity of upward discipleship.

Today is about growing relationships as our activity of inward discipleship.

Let’s see what the Bible has to say about this.

First, a 30-second summary of how these six verses from chapter 10 fit into the larger picture of the book of Hebrews.

The six verses we read here today in chapter 10 are the conclusion of a very long section in Hebrews that begins all the way back in chapter 4:14.

This is a section of Hebrews that goes on for six whole chapters.

We don’t have time to look at all of that in one sitting here today.

Here’s the 30-second summary.

The Jewish high priest back in Old Testament days had to perform his temple duty over-and-over again in order for the people of God to be purified from their sins.

Jesus comes as the new high priest.

The sacrifice of Jesus one time, once-and-for-all, purifies all God’s people from their sins.

God’s presence in the Old Testament was symbolized by the tabernacle, and then the temple.

Even there, the presence of God was separated from the people by a curtain—the people did not have direct access to God.

In Jesus, the curtain is torn and now you and I have direct access to God through the new covenant of grace in Christ, accessible to us through faith.

Let’s spend a little time with this passage so that we see what God is saying here about an inward discipleship that focuses upon growing relationships.

In the outline I have that marked off with five phrases that come from this passage.

I am using the older NIV translation to pull out these five phrases.

The 1984 editions of the NIV that you have under your chairs will show these five phrases.

The newer 2011 edition of the NIV translation that I read and that was on the screen has different wording.

In the newer NIV the wording breaks it so that three of the phrases are primary, and two of the phrases are subordinate.

I am going to point that out as we go through it.

Let us draw near to God

The first phrase.

Verse 22: Let us draw near to God.

This isn’t a command so much as it is an invitation.

Remember that for the people receiving this letter, drawing near to God was something that was not possible in any way before this.

Before Jesus came and made his sacrifice once-and-for-all on the cross, only the Jewish high priest could enter the Most Holy Place in the temple, and he could only do that one time each year.

The point of verse 22 is the reminder of God’s people that we now have access directly to God through Jesus.

There is nothing that holds us away from God’s love anymore.

It is no longer about performing all the right religious rituals.

It is no longer about being a perfect person who never makes mistakes.

God’s love and favor for us does not depend on any of those things.

it is only through Jesus that we access to God.

It is only through Jesus that we draw near to God.

Let us hold unswervingly to hope

The second phrase.

Verse 23: Let us hold unswervingly to hope.

Unswervingly is an unusual English word.

It is chosen here as the best way to translate the word in this passage from the original Greek that literally means ‘that which does not bend.’

In other words, it is a hope that never falters, never deviates, never turns or breaks.

Before Jesus ever came, the people would have to keep performing these religious rituals over and over again because the sins they committed kept breaking their end of the covenant promise with God.

But when Jesus came and fulfilled the covenant promise on our behalf, he did it with his sacrifice on the cross in such a way that this new covenant unshakable.

And so the hope that we now have in Jesus never fails.

We hold onto that hope—not because we are unswerving people—but because Jesus is unswerving in his faithfulness to us.

Let us spur one another on to love and good

The third phrase.

Verse 24: Let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds.

Consideration here does not mean that we weigh the pros and cons, that we decided shall we or shall we not.

The Greek work in the original text means intense focus.

This is key because this is exactly what we are looking at in this series on simple discipleship.

I want a path of following Jesus that is crystal clear, that directs my focus on the most essential activities and habits of what it means to be a disciple—a follower of Jesus.

And this is it.

This is that intense focus.

Spur one another on to love and good deeds.

How exactly do we do that?

What is the formula for this kind of discipleship activity?

This is where the passage starts to turn.

If you are looking at the older 1984 NIV Bibles, you see there are two more let us phrases.

But if you were to look at the newer 2011 NIV Bible you would see that these last two phrases are not stand-alone as number four and number five.

No, they come underneath the third one.

They are the authors explanation of EXACTLY HOW to spur one another on to love and good deeds.

This is the real application of how inward discipleship works.

Let us not give up meeting together

The fourth phrase (which is really a subcategory of the third).

Verse 25: Let us not give up meeting together.

Following Jesus is never meant to be something that we do alone.

Being a disciple of Jesus always happens within a community.

At this church we talk about our mission with three action words: love, grow, and serve.

Today we look at growing.

And in looking at growing we see from Hebrews 10 that our faith grows—that we grow as disciples of Jesus—in a community of other believers.

We grow in faith when we grow in our relationships with other Christians.

This is why when we talk about growing as part of our mission of discipleship, we affirm how important it is to grow in relationships.

Meeting together is not about programs.

Finding ways to attend every single thing my church offers is not the key to inward discipleship.

It is the relationships that grow from those meetings that bring us to an inward discipleship.

So please do not feel a guilt trip if you miss a Bible study or have a Sunday when you cannot make it to worship.