Transcript

Amen and amen. Hebrews 10. Let’s go back there. We looked at verse 24 last Sunday morning. We’re talking about the importance, ah, the essential nature of the local church and being faithful to the local church. We talked about the agape factor last week, that it is this deposit of unique God-love, if you will, within us that draws us to God and to one another, that is, those of us who know God through his Son Jesus Christ.

Now we come over to verse 25 of Hebrews 10. Now remember the context, the writer is writing to a church made up primarily of Jews, Hebrews, thus the name Hebrews, and there was a proneness among them to, ah, date Jesus for a while and then fall away back to the old Mosaic economy, to go back to the old Jewish synagogue. Now as always, there were complexities. I, I would say the majority of them probably did not say we renounce Christ. They probably said, “Oh no, we still hold to Jesus, we still believe in Jesus but, you know, for upwards to 2,000 years our family’s been Jews, our families have honored the law of Moses. We’ve functioned under the Jewish economy of, of the moral law and the ceremonial law and we think we need to go back and embrace that. We’ll just take Jesus with us.” Well, that doesn’t work because Jesus makes all of the old Mosaic economy, this is the, the word in the book of Hebrews, he makes all of that obsolete. So there was a great falling away and so the writer is dealing with that and, ah, perhaps that should give us some encouragement in our day as every sound church I know experiences two or three seasons of groups leaving them or falling away. That doesn’t mean all of those are evil or rebels but a falling away happens to every church in every generation, but we should be challenging the true children of God to not let this affect them and just stay strong. That’s what the writer of Hebrews is doing.

Let’s look at it together. Hebrews 10:25,

25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

I thought about this many times. I don’t think I’ve ever used it in a sermon but I, I’m gonna use it this morning to kick things off. Have you ever heard someone say, “That is my life verse”? Or, “That is my favorite verse”? Well, I know what folks mean by that and very often it’s a good thing, but too often it’s not a good thing. Someone will tell me their life verse and, ah, I know enough about them to know they’re just kinda using the Bible as sort of a superstitious little, ah, a trinket or something that this verse kinda helps me get what I want out of life, or gonna make sure my child turns out okay, or if I stand on that verse, I’m gonna get the kind of a job, or financial, ah, advance I think I should get in this life. And so often what I’m saying is their life verse is actually or their favorite verse is actually centered on them, not centered on God. I think the question should be, now look, if you’ve got one of those, I’m not condemning you, okay? I’m not saying that’s all bad. I understand we all have verses that impact us and bless us, but we do also know that we’re prone to a, to, to, that can be a gimmick of our fallen fleshly appetite to serve us and not serve the purposes of God and the glory of God. Now so I get to all of that to say this: the real question perhaps we should be asking is what is God’s favorite verse? What is God’s life verse, as a figure of speech?

Well, my first response would be all of them. Everything that he’s recorded in his perfet, ah, Canon of Scripture, all of them. But based on the balance of biblical truth, what the theologians call a systematic theology, sometimes systematic theologies get lost in all the compartments of the theology and miss the main thrust, the main purpose. I would submit to you perhaps, perhaps John 12:28 is a, a decent place to start to think what is foundational and center to God? Here Jesus is about to embark upon the pentacle of time and eternity. Jesus is about to approach the event of all events and in his containment to this human body and in the emotions of a human being because he was fully God and fully human, we know the Bible tells us he wrestled before the Father, never sinfully but he wrestled before the Father about this event and you know what the event is, he’s going to the cross. But when he comes to the final conclusion of the matter, Jesus looks at the Father and says, “Okay, Father, here’s what it’s all about, glorify Your name. Glorify Your name.” So Jesus says in effect, the one thing, now, now look, if, this is God the Son Jesus Christ at the most important moment for time and eternity and he said it’s all about, “Father, glorify Your name.”

So I think that’s a pretty good candidate for saying, “Well, that’s God’s life verse. That’s God’s favorite verse.” But I, I just, this, this text just grabs me and will not let me go because it doesn’t end with Jesus saying, “Father, glorify Your name,” then a voice came out of heaven; on this occasion didn’t privately, God the Father that is, didn’t privately reveal something to Jesus in his heart, the Bible says, boom, God said, “This is too important and I want, I just want to say this out loud. I have both glorified it and I will glorify it again.” The point being God the Father says, “Son, I’m with You on this and You don’t have to wonder about what I’m all about. I have glorified My name and I’ll, am going to glorify it again.” And brothers and sisters, listen to me this morning: I don’t care what happens on earth, I don’t care what’s happening in the world, it doesn’t bother me, well, it does bother me, it doesn’t threaten me that Governor Cuomo and New York brashly, arrogantly and blasphemously, whatever it is, said the other day that this great improvement they’re having in New York City, remember what he said? He said, “God didn’t do this. We did this.” I want to tell you something: that, that might, by the way, that tells me that God may not be through humbling us because we’re not humble enough yet. Blasphemous statement. It doesn’t matter what man does and how man rages and how man struts around in his pomp and in his pride, I’m telling you, God is in control of everything and everything is to the end of his glory.

Now some people are up, get a little bit upset with me when I say that because they say, “No, my salvation, that’s about me and that’s important.” Well, it includes you and it’s wondrously important to you and it’s a wonderful blessing for you but it’s ultimately about God’s glory. Jesus did not say at the pinnacle moment, “I’m going to the cross. Now here, let’s save all these people.” Now he did I believe the Scripture would bear out he meant that in at that time, but what he says is, “No, Father, glorify Your name.” God is glorified in saving us.

So when it comes to God wanting to be glorified and to glorify is something of a pregnant term, it has various shades of meaning, there’s a lot to it, but it means to cause dignity and worth to become manifest and acknowledged. God the Son is saying to God the Father, “We’re about to finish this plan of redemption that We planned together before the world was. I’m going to the cross. Now in doing all this, Father, one thing really matters, make sure this unfolds before people, mankind, and before spiritual beings. Make sure it unfolds before them all so that they will have to acknowledge Your greatness, Your power, Your wisdom and Your beauty in doing such a thing.”

The glory of God. When it comes to God being glorified, this is God’s obsession. Now a lot of times we use the word “obsession” in a, kind of a negative context, obsessive- compulsive, whatever it may be, but it doesn’t have to be that way. It means that this is a priority and a continual devotion of God’s heart or occupation of God’s heart and mind, his own glory. And I even thought this is not just an obsession, it’s an immaculate obsession. No stain, no spot, no impurity. It’s right. Brothers and sisters, he is God Almighty. He’s the one transcendent holy God. It is only proper and right for him to be obsessed with his own glory. It’s righteous for him to be.

And now I would add one verse onto what perhaps could be God’s life verse or God’s favorite verse and that verse is Ephesians 3:21, ” to Him be glory in the church and,” horizontal playing field here, “and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” So here we see this passion of God for his own glory, it centers in his Son’s work on the cross and all of that centers in their work of purchasing, redeeming, securing their people, their church that will know them, enjoy them, and glorify them for all time and for all eternity.

Now what a good backdrop that is for our text today as the apostle is writing to this church to say, “Do you guys, let me, let me give you some motivations to be faithful to the church because you’ve got to understand how important this thing is. You need to grasp the magnamity of what’s going on here when God’s building His church so that you will be stirred to faithfulness in the assembly.”

Now in verse 25 as he gives this exhortation, “not forsaking our own assembling together,” let’s remind ourselves that we have all professed faith in Jesus Christ at our baptism. You chose to do that. That wasn’t just a meaningless ritual that helps stamp your ticket into heaven. Your baptism was a formal and public proclamation to a assembly of believers that, “I’m God’s now. I’ve been saved by faith in Jesus Christ and through this procedure of me willingly go to the baptismal waters, for you voting me in having observed my testimony that I am truly one of God’s saved ones. I now join with this local assembly and this is God’s doing. I am added to this church.” Brothers and sisters in Christ , anchor it in your thinking that you did not join a church, God added you to a church. That’s exactly what the Scriptures bear out in its teaching.

Now you did that in a formal way initiating your new life with the family, a local church assembly, now as we continue on in our Christian faith, we are to make a continual outward profession of our faith and one of the primary ways we do that is by regular faithful attendance and service in a local church. You see, it’s important – are you hearing me – it’s important that on Sunday morning people see a car pulling out of your driveway. It’s important on Sunday morning they see the children are loaded up in that car and mommas in that car with you because we’re going to the meetinghouse of God. That’s you making a profession of faith every Sunday, and by the way, if the church elders have ordained that we’re gonna meet Sunday morning and Sunday night, your car should pull out of the driveway on Sunday night too as a profession, “We’re going to the place where God’s people met because God added me to that church. This isn’t about me. Not about what I decide to do or not to do. It’s not about me having the freedom and the liberty to say, ‘Well, I’ll, I’ll meet with this group or I’ll study the Bible with that group,'” and all that may be fine but it is secondary to God having added you to the local church. So let’s stir ourselves afresh to continually make a strong and clear profession before our community, our neighbors, our friends that we’re gonna assemble with the redeemed people of God.

Well, he says in the text, “do not,” or rather he just simply says, “not forsaking our own assembling together,” and the word “forsaking” is a double compound. There’s an emphasis there which means that it’s, it means an utter forsaking. It’s like what the Bible says in 2 Timothy 4:10, “Demas, having loved this present world, has forsaken me.” I want to note here that this forsaking is not missing church. You can miss church and not have forsaken the church. But be careful, a pattern of missing church is the beginning of forsaking church. A lot of people like to play with that and toy with that. Why would you toy with that? Why would you try to see how close you can get to the line? I, I want to tell you something: that, for a long term pattern if your approach to the assembly of God’s local church is, “I’ll go just enough to stay out of trouble,” or as I heard one person say, “I don’t want to get that letter in the mail about not attending,” if you’re going just for that reason, it breaks my heart but the truth is you not, you just ought to just stay away and go somewhere else, or put your name on a membership roll somewhere else because your heart’s wrong about it in every way. Be careful that a pattern of missing church is the beginning of forsaking church.

So believers are forbidden by God to forsake the church. They’re not to forsake their own assembling together. Now I., about this forsaking and about motivations to stay faithful, I., we’ve got to remember we have a sacred oneness. We should not be forsaking the assembly because we have a sacred oneness. Now I, I watched something of the, ah, virtual NFL draft on television because there’s nothing else to watch. There’s just almost nothing worth watching. There wasn’t much worth watching to begin with, but in watching that draft, you know what I kept doing? I kept, I kept looking for my team and who was being drafted. I had to wait a long time. It wasn’t a lot of fun. And, ah, you know why? Because I have a oneness, that’s my team and I’m one with those folks who cheer for that team and that’s not wrong but it is not a sacred oneness. I used to fish in a, in a bass fishing club and I loved hanging out with those guys. I, look, I grew up working cows, hauling hay, hunting and fishing, that’s just what I did and so I just enjoy that, and I remember being in that bass fishing club and some of the guys in there were believers, some were not and we sorta had a oneness, we’re all about fishing and catching the best fish, who can catch the biggest fish, who can catch the, the largest string of fish, whatever it was, and there was a oneness and that’s not all bad but it was not a sacred oneness. We as God’s children have a sacred oneness. We are an assembly that has been created by Christ, we’re an assembly that has been created for Christ, and we are an assembly that continues forward continually under Christ. It is a sacredness.

The building of his church, Christ’s church, is the holiest and most sacred work of the Godhead. It, it’s not even to be compared with the, when God originally did the work of creating all that is because this work – listen to me – this work of building his church took the death of the Son of God. There is a sacredness, a sanctity, if you will, a holiness to our oneness. We assemble together under one head until the ultimate day when the eternal state begins, then we’ll assemble in a different way. The Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 2:1, ” Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him.” Now, now we’re gathered together for him, there’s coming a day when Christ returns and he’ll banish sin and set up a, a kingdom on the earth in which righteousness dwells and on that day we will be gathered together to him but right now we’re gathered together under him and we are to be faithful to this assembly, to the local church until that day that he returns physically and hallelujah, hallelujah, we will be, we will be gathered together to him the text says.

Hey, by the way, we’ll still all be together. Did you hear that? I hate that it’s true but so often some of our family members will not be there. Some of the people we love dearly on the earth may not be there, but I’m gonna tell you, the entire church will be there. It’s the only thing that’s gonna last fully for time and eternity, the church. There’s a sacredness and we have this sacred oneness.

Let’s remind ourselves that to forsake the body which for now is the local church, is to forsake the head. You cannot embrace, you cannot treasure, you cannot joy in, you cannot honor the head, Jesus, and dishonor and not treasure and not joy in the body, the local church with all of its weaknesses and imperfections. By the way, we’re not glorified yet. Some folks think they have to do some sort of a independent thing and, um, they let a proud independent spirit arise in them, they just decide, “Well, I’m just gonna get with my family and maybe one or two other families that are real real committed like we are, and we’ll just have us a, a home church.” I don’t find one word in the Bible about your home church. There’s only “a church.” We don’t get to put all these subjective qualifications on it according to what we think.

Now I’ll go into this perhaps a little more in a moment, I say this every time because I understand in every generation the state of the church is not good. I know in God’s sovereign purposes he’s doing something because the Bible teaches he always has a remnant among the false professors. So there could be many of you listening to my voice and you’re in a, in a church that has knowingly, openly and willfully denied or comprised foundational or essential truths about Christianity and about church life. That, that breaks my heart and that’s difficult but your, your option is not to start something on the side, your option is to keep praying until you find a church. You’ll never find a perfect one but as I say, you can find one that’s on track.

In a baseball analogy, ah, you can find one that leads the players right out of the dugout and they’re starting to go around the bases. They fail, they slip, they slide, they’re not perfect but they’re on track. They’re, they’re starting out and far too many churches today haven’t even gotten to the, they don’t even know what game they’re playing. They don’t hardly know what team they’re on. The state of the church is, is, is awful and I mean the professing local church. But look, that does not mean God said, “Okay, time out, I’ve got Plan B.” He doesn’t have Plan B. I’ve been working for four decades to prove that the local church can be true; that the local church which is God’s wisdom and God’s plan can be solid, never perfect before glorification but we can be biblically and spiritually healthy and you need to find that church and bond yourself to it for the glory of God. Or stay where you are if your pastor is trying and be the best helper he possibly can have in his church as he’s purposing to build a true and faithful local church, but understand there is no foundation for you to forsake God’s ordained means backed by God’s omniscience and infinite wisdom to do his work through local churches. The phrase simply says there our own assembling together, our gathering together, and one day we know there’s going to be that gathering together to him in the new heaven and the new earth but until then, our duty is to be faithful and assemble with a local church until that great universal gathering together day comes.

Now notice the two words “our own” as we’re talking about the sacredness. Our own. We are God’s children. I love the phrase “called out,” we’re an ekklesia is the word that’s translated church in the New Testament, and the word ekklesia has the simple meaning of called out ones. At one time you fit with another collective, at one time you fit in the world, at one time your major, ah, ah, social belonging was in another place but when God saved you he called you out from that being your primary association and fellowship to a new community, body, association and fellowship which is the local church.

Just a few verses. Jude 1:1. In Jude 1:1, Luke, Jude rather, “a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, our brother of James, To those who are the called.” He didn’t say the saved. He didn’t say those who believe. That would be proper. Other times the Bible says that but here he uses another phrase and I’m glad the Bible uses various phrases because it teaches us various things about our conversion. “To those who are the called, beloved in God, and kept for Jesus Christ.” Boy, I could just on and on about the wonderful truths in that phrase that we are called out and kept for him, but for time until the eternal state we’re to be kept together in local assemblies because we are all the called out ones. You’re a called out one, and you’re a called out one, and you’re a called out one, and you’re a called out one, and I’m a called out one and we’re called out from the world but we’re called to be together. That’s God’s will.

1 Corinthians 1:24, “but to those who are,” there it is again, “the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” So first of all, he calls his own through the Gospel and the power of the Spirit, those individuals give good evidence of his calling by repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ, and those who are called are received then into the assembly of a local church by believer’s baptism, and this is that collectivity. It’s called the local church that is unique and separate. Now in this context getting to what the writer’s getting to 2,000 years ago when he first wrote this, you’re, you’re no longer connected to Moses. You’re no longer connected to the ceremony and moral law as a means of your standing before God. You’ve been called out of that – now listen now – you’ve been called out of that and into grace. That’s a good transition right there. That’s a great slop-out right there. I’m no longer under the law of Moses, as holy as that law was, but the only thing that law could do was condemn me or be a tutor that leads me to Christ, and now I’ve been called out of that approach and that status, now I’m one of the grace children of God. These people were prone to go back to Moses. Why would they do that? You’re a called out one, you’ve been called from that to God’s final, true, climactic work in the earth, his local churches. Wow. Good stuff. It’s the pinnacle of God’s work. That’s why as your pastor for four decades now I’ve been imploring you and yelling at you and preaching to you about the glory, the wonder, the wisdom, the beauty, the power of God in the local church because, I’m just, you just might as well get used to it, this is what God’s doing until he gets back. That’s what he’s doing.

One of the great, ah, challenges you and I have is not to get distracted on good things but to stay right here on the best thing, the local church. Brother Jeff, there you are preaching that, we can’t even meet together. Yeah, but I want to stir you up for when we can get back together.

The church is the local, visible assembly of those who are called out by God. Local, visible and called out by God. When he calls, we leave as our primary joy, we leave as our primary commitment all other competing groups or organizations. Now these people 2,000 years ago, that would be the Mosaic economy and back to the old Jewish synagogue. We leave that, those things and we unite with the others in a local church with all the other called out ones. I’m saying all this to say grasp afresh, marvel anew, embrace more firmly the sacredness, the divine ordinance of the local church.

II. Interesting where he goes from here, secondly he says use the forsaker’s folly to stir your own faithfulness. He says literally, “Use those who forsake and their folly, their foolishness, to stir you to remain in faithfulness.” That’s what he says in verse 25, “as is the habit of some.” In other words, don’t forsake the assembly, look at what they’re doing and use that as a motivation that you don’t do it.

And again, this forsaking of God’s church has been the sad condition of some professors of all the ages. Notice that is the way he is “as is the habit of some.” Thank God it’s not the habit of all. I’ve been here right at 40, I have been here 40 years. I’ve been on staff now 39 years, pastoral staff, and my goodness, have we not seen those who fall away, who abandon us. That has happened but God has also replaced them with new folks. Many went out from us just serving the Lord in other places. Praise the Lord for that. But many went out from us because they weren’t really of us. But this should serve as a motivation.

I was talking with someone just recently about a family who no longer attends and, ah, they were troubled by it, I was troubled by it, but I think both me and the person I was talking to was stirred to say, “Well, let’s make sure that’s not us.” That’s what he’s saying here.

You know, it’s funny through the years and I, I counsel with pastors all of the time and, and a lot of the time about this issue. Pastor will call me and say, “Well, this guy was a deacon, this guy was a leader and they got together 2-3 other families and they’ve decided that they don’t like the way I’m doing things.” And it’s almost never, matter of fact, it, it, it is never. I mean, I’m sure there’s been a time but I don’t remember a time when there was a clear biblical reason for those people to abandon their local church. But anyway they decide to leave and then, then they, they just go away. Well, what happens in the church typically is the rest of the church members get this kind of anxiety and this, “Well, are we supposed to stay? Is it, are we okay to stay? Are we supposed to…” No, the Bible says right the opposite. No. Use their abandonment to motivate you to stay faithful. Don’t do like the habit of some.

Now I remember we had a large group leave us years ago, we actually had three large groups leave us at one time or another but when one of the large groups left us, one of them who was leaving said to one of our faithful families, said, “Well, y’all gonna go?” And I love his answer, he said, “You open the Bible and you show me clear doctrinal methodological failures that they’re unwilling to fix and I’ll go with you.” Well, they, they didn’t even crack a Bible. He said, “Well, that’s, that’s what I need to know. You show me that and I’m with you.” But listen, the church is not about what makes you happy, the church is not about what makes you fun, the church is not about where your buddies are, the church is not about what fits you because you like this, this hobby and you like that activity. That’s not what the church is. God put you in the church and there, matter of fact, he may put you in a place where you’re not so comfortable so you can prove to the world you can love those who are not like you because your heart’s been changed. I love what God does. Don’t you love the word of God and the truth and the wisdom of the word of God?

Now of those who forsake and again it’s more the idea of utterly forsaking, and again in this context we, we would know that who knows the percentage, many, probably the majority didn’t just leave, ah, theism, they didn’t leave God in their thinking, they went back to Moses, but Paul writes here, at least I believe Paul wrote Hebrews, Paul writes and says that forsaking the assembly which is forsaking the head too. So when people leave, they’ll often leave flying a banner of, “Oh, we’re, we’re still serving God, we’re just gonna serve him this way or that way.” Well, too often what they’re actually saying is, “We, we just don’t like a church committed to the Scriptures and the word of God and serving Him the way y’all serve Him.”

So those who fall away like this, some are undoubtedly unbelievers, some undoubtedly that walk out on the local church, no longer faithful, it’s because they’re not born again. John, 1 John 2:19-20, John says, “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.” Is that not simple? They, they didn’t stay with the, look, if a church is striving and growing to be a true church, never perfect but a true church, the Bible simply states it unequivocally, those who walk out on that didn’t belong in that. That’s what it says. “But they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”

Let me give a footnote here because I know a lot of pastors listen and if God’s maturing your church, there will come a day when this situation is very rare. It’s a very rare thing. Now early as you’re reforming your church to health, you’ll see a lot of it, but as the decades – note my wording – decades go by, you’ll notice that this becomes a very rare thing as God matures the body, and all I can say to that is praise God. You know, there was a time when we were one of the large churches that every 3, 5, 8, 10 years had a big group that left us and went to the next big happening church and then 3, 5, 8 years they’d move and go to another happening church and we just tried to get our share as this big cycle, I should say this big circus tour went from one place to another. We’re not in the cycle anymore, hallelujah. You come to Grace Life because you’re convicted about our doctrines and our methods are biblical and God-centered and you want to be a part of that and I’m so glad that somehow in God’s grace that’s where we are today.

Well, some leave us because they’re undoubtedly unbelievers. Secondly, some leave and forsake. They’re not just missing anymore, they’ve pretty much forsaken and there are saved folks who will incur God’s discipline but whatever the case, to fall away the Bible is teaching is serious and it is sinful and the faithful should look at those who fall away and use their example to stir themselves to diligence to remain faithful. Matter of fact, Jesus did this. Right quick, look at John 6. I’m gonna make this a two-parter, okay? So I won’t be much longer this morning. If you’ll listen well, I can see you out there. We installed little cameras on your computers so I’m watching you out there, so listen well and we’ll, we’ll be through early, alright?

John 6:60, “Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, ‘This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?'” He’s been talking about his body being, they have to drink his blood and eat his body. It’s figurative language but it’s troubling them. Verse 61, “But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, ‘Does this cause you to stumble? What then, What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, ‘For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.'” Stop right there. I’m not through but stop right there. He says, “Some of you are not with me and some of you are not saved and the reason for that is My Father hasn’t drawn you to Me.” Here’s my point: God builds his church and those he’s drawn he keeps. They stay.

Verse 65, ” And He was saying, ‘For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.'” Now verse 66, “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” Now the word “disciple” there doesn’t mean they were converted, it means for a while they were following along after but their hearts hadn’t been changed. So Jesus taught this but he used it to motivate the faithful.

Notice where he goes, verse 67, “So Jesus said to the twelve, ‘Do you not want to go, you do not want to go away also, do you?'” Now in answering that question he’s stirring them to faithfulness. What, that’s what the writer of Hebrews is doing.

Verse 68, “Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You’ve got the words of eternal life.'” Going back to Vance Havner’s statement, we’re shipwrecked on God and stranded on omnipotence right here. Where else is there to go? We can’t leave this. If we leave this, we’re exposing ourselves as counterfeits. We’re exposing ourselves and we’re, we’re revealing what we really are.

The Apostle Paul did the same thing as he pointed out the unfaithfulness of the Jews in 1 Corinthians 10:6. The Apostle Paul writes, “Now these things happened as examples for us, that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.” 23,000 fell when they fell away and turned to idolatry and immoralities which, by the way, always go together. When you begin to worship your idols, sexual immoralities always fall close behind.

The falling away of others demonstrates human weakness and a proneness to rebel and this should mirror for us an examination that we should remain vigilant and watch over our hearts and over our souls. We should remind ourselves Galatians 6:1, that we can fall away too. What’s it say? “Each one looking to yourselves,” end of that verse. Each one look to yourselves.

1 Corinthians 10:12 reminds us, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.” The point is as you see others fall away, and thank God at Grace Life that doesn’t happen a whole lot, but when it does happen, use that, use their folly and their foolishness to stir you to say, “O God, I’m not gonna let that happen.” Look, guys, in our Christianity there’s gonna be times of just determination and resolve, that you just draw a line in the sand and say, “I’m not going there.” Sometimes you may have to wrestle with some family members on this, but you know what the book says and you decide, “We’re not following that. We’re staying right where God put us.” He said, “Stir yourself to a new faithfulness when you see this happening.” In other words, we gather good out of evil. It is an evil thing to forsake God’s assembly and when we see that, we stir ourselves to renew our commitment and our faithfulness.

Three quick thoughts and I’ll close. Let their sinful habit of forsaking the assembly stimulate us to renewed commitment. Let their sinful habit humble us to consider we are weak and we’re also prone. And thirdly, never view their sinful habit as excusable or tolerable. Don’t, don’t think, “Well,” and I, my goodness, early on in my Christianity, early on in the ministry, how many times I’d hear a statement like, “Well, they’re not in church but at least they’re saved.” Oh, my goodness, I want to run through that wall back there. You can’t abandon the, the body, the church without abandoning the head. It, this is kind of, “Well, it’s excusable. Well, it…” No, it’s not. Being devoted to the body is critical, foundation and essential to being a Christian in this world and we should use the evil of some who forsake to stir us to a new resolute conviction and commitment that we’re going to stay faithful to God’s word and God’s truth.

Last verse and I’ll pray, Ephesians 5:11, “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.” Part of exposing them is expose them in your own thinking and in your own heart. Say to yourself, “That’s unacceptable. I don’t care what they’re saying, what they’re doing is unacceptable. That’s not the way you solve conflicts. That’s not the way you get over hurt feelings. I’m, I’m gonna expose that as, as being unacceptable and without foundation what they’re doing and I want to hold myself to a higher standard.”

Well, motivations to remain faithful. So Grace Life Church folks and those who are watching us over the internet or whatever means you’re watching, can I charge you this morning renew your resolve, renew your treasuring, stir up your joying and your commitment to God’s local assembly. God’s passionate about it. God’s obsessed with it for his own glory and we should be too.