Reliance - Seek Fellowship

This man, Jesus, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God from that time, waiting till his enemies are made his footstool, For by one offering he is perfected forever those who are being sanctified. But the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us, for after he had said before, this is the covenant that I will make with them. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds. I will write them. Then he adds their sins and their lawless deeds. I will remember no more. Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh, and having a high priest over the House of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, Having our hearts sprinkled 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 is faithful, and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the day approaching, Jesus, thank you, Thank you God, Thank you Lord for everything you are, for everything you have done. Lord, You've been so good to us, so faithful in every single season. Lord, even when we didn't feel you and feel your presence, even when we've gone away from you, you have still been there. You've still been with us, your hands outstretched, and Jesus, thank you for making a way for us to be reconciled. Thank you for being our heart priest. Thank you for providing an offering that cleanses us. Thank you for laying down your life for us. Lord, we can't even comprehend the magnitude of your love and your power and of everything that you are. But God, we declare your holiness, We declare your faithfulness, and we proclaim Jesus, that you are King of kings and Lord of Lords, that you are the creator of the heavens and the earth, that you made everything, and that you have prepared a place for us. Lord, in this season, I pray that you would bring brothers and sisters of Christ around all of the members in your body, Lord, who are suffering, who are dealing with pain and loss and grief. God, I pray that you would encourage them and that they're where there is no one to reach them. God, God, I pray that your Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, that you that you would reach them directly. God, I pray that we would be reminded of the need that we had and have to walk out our lives with you and in the strength, and in the counsel and in the company of other believers. Lord, I thank you for your encouragement towards us. I thank you for the peace that passes understanding. I thank you for the protection and provision that you have engineered. God, help your people, raise up your people, strengthen your people, deliver your people, heal your people. Correct bad thinking and bad doctrine, correct anything that just has us focused on the wrong things. God, let us be your people, your salt and your light in this earth, and let us fulfill and accomplish what you have set out for us to do only through your power and only for your glory. We love you, and we bless you Jesus in your name. Amen, Let's speak a bit about God. Let's talk about our lives and fellowship with one another and the need for discipleship and encouragement and fellowship. Here we are considering a scripture towards the end of what we read in Hebrews ten. Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works. What we can find is that when we are operating by ourselves, when we are isolated, it can be more difficult to stir up love and good works, and so we should look to the examples of other believers. And the best example is not the example that you can see on the the internet. It's not examples that you hear about, even though both of those avenues can be extremely powerful. The best example in a discipleship context is the example of someone who you are alongside, someone who is close to you, physically present with you, who you can look to as someone who is stirring you up towards love and good works, and someone who you can stir up as well. Because when we think about an Ecclesiastes the threefold chord not being easily broken, we can look to that as referring to the Trinity. I have that on the inside of my wedding band to symbolize that the marriage that I have with my life is under the purview and in covenant with God, and that we are not just two by ourselves, but that there is a threefold binding, a threefold chord there with Gods as the head, and our marriage is subservient to that structure. But here we're also talking about the need for us to come alongside one another and consider one another. We should be accomplishing a state of affairs where we hold a bit of a bit of properly structured jealousy for those alongside us who are moving in the Lord. It is not that we are in competition with our brothers and sisters to see who can sprint the furthest because it is a race, it is a fight for the faith. But it should be one where we are mutually motivated by those around us, and when the motivation of someone else around us flags a bit, that we can be there with a word of encouragement, with a word of knowledge, with an open door of opportunity. And you know, we don't take this into the man made religious context to put up a scoreboard, because we know that it's the state of heart that the Lord looks at. When Jesus was in the temple and pointing out the widow who gave her two mites, he said that that offering was more and more impactful and greater than in a moral and in a spiritual sense than those who put a lot of money into the pot. But we're doing it for the sake of their own reputation and their own grandiosity and their own influence. And so we're not in a competition in that way, in a man made way, in a carnal in a secular way. We are in a spiritual competition where we are all on the same team. But just like in any team kind of environment, where the right kind of leadership, the right level of high performance can bring everyone else up, it can elevate everyone else's game. So we need to be in our general faith walk, and that can be in our own family environments. But the complexities and the nuance of the day to day of the family mean that while that is an important component and an important dynamic, if we aren't supplementing that kind of assembling together with dealings with other believers, people who are dealing with their own issues and fighting and winning their own battles in their own spheres, then we are missing out on an important source of encouragement. And over the past few months, as my family has grown into a position where we have an established home church, We've been able to find more fellowship. I'm in a Bible study and i recently went to a conference. In all this, and there is just something so profoundly about the recharging that you can get from being around other believers, because we can so often when we are by ourselves, even if we are with a spouse who agrees with us, even if we are with children who stand alongside us, even if we're in a community that in general moves in that same kind, same kind of direction, there are times and moments of isolation and of loneliness and of feeling like there just isn't anyone else around who gets it, who understands who, who knows where I'm coming from. And at the end of the day, even if we find ourselves in those positions, even if we were completely isolated, then the response and the answer would be to lean into God, who is all sufficient, who sees everything, who understands the needs of our hearts and the needs that we have spiritually in each and every moment. There's never a situation where the hand of God, where his arm is shortened and He does not have the power to provide for us the spiritual comfort and blessings that we need. Our fellowship in the Lord is completely sufficient to satisfy all of these things. However, if we have the opportunity to be around other believers, and you know, through through our own effort, almost all of us, essentially all of us, for the sake of argument here do have that opportunity, then we need to be active in pursuing that kind of opportunity, even if it involves doing things that we are not totally comfortable with or something that sort of we get those whispers in our head not to do, even if it involves introducing ourselves to new people, going to a new place, seeing what God has to offer. And at the end of at the end of the analysis, this is for the sake of God and for His glory by virtue of serving the brethren. If we can come along side other people, there will be times when we can serve as an example to stir up love and good works and others and there will be equally examples where other people stir up love and good works in us. And it works the best when you have multiple blocks of mature Christians all being transparent and honest about what they're going through in their lives and taking it to the scriptures, taking it to the Lord, worshiping God, remaining in prayer, doing all of the things that biblical Christians are supposed to do, fighting that good fight of faith, standing in the gap for our families and our communities and our nation, being God's people, being salt and light, speaking the truth for the sake of the Lord in any situation that we're in. And it's in those kind of refreshing moments that the power of God is on the move, and we need to actively be seeking those things out, even if it is a challenge, even if it is hard, and if there's some inertia in our lives. I just pray that the Lord would break that power, and that that the still small voice that expresses to us and even potentially convicts us of through the Scripture, of our need to be around other believers. And you know, I know this as a fact from my own walk, because there is a season during during the pandemic, and as as both of our children were very little, we're newborns and then infants, where we didn't have in my family as much deliberate direct contact with the Body of Christ. We didn't we didn't have a home church. I wasn't in you know, regular settings of fellowship. But fortunately the Lord has opened those doors, and I am determined and still fast to the extent that I can help it never have another season like that, because you know, my my excuse to myself was essentially, yeah, I'm reading the Bible, I'm listening to these podcasts, I'm going I'm going deeper in faith. But there was an aspect of it that I that I wasn't doing. I was. I was texting some brothers who I who I keep up with. I was. I was in that kind of communication. But a text every few months is not the same thing as fellowship. Fellowship it being in the same place physically and aligning and agreeing and offering up our prayers and our worships and our and our burdens to the Lord, and trusting other believers around us with those things, and seeing the Lord work through those circumstances and those opportunities to stir us up. The scripture says to love and to good works. There is such joy in that, in part because you can you can read theology and study doctrine and all these things for days and months and years and decades. But there's something about just being in the presence of other believers and bringing everything to the Lord and elevating him to the highest place, and welcoming into a gathering that is complete, that is reinforcing to our faith in a way that some precise argument about a finer point of doctrine just doesn't quite provide. We need sound doctrine, We need to be convinced in our in our beliefs, we need to have the Bible backing everything up. But we also need this true, genuine fellowship in part because it gives us an opportunity, a concrete opportunity to serve others. It is it is such a wonderful thing to be able to offer a word of encouragement to someone else, particularly if it's a word of encouragement that is coming out of your own faith, your own and testimony, your own experience of what God has done in your life, as opposed to some you know life, like standard standard greeting or just general comment, well like be encouraged. You know that that's a far cry from being in a structured setting or position inside the church or out of it, where you're sitting down and you're talking about the things of God seriously, you're offering up prayers and prays. It's where it's not just a casual conversation, where it's something that is deliberate and focused on the Lord and on glorifying Jesus. And when that is the overriding motivation, when that is the structure of a get together, and when that is the posture of fellowship that we have glorifying the Lord and seeking his face, then the Holy Spirit will absolutely be in the midst and will provide direction for what is the most valuable thing that we can do. Because you know, if we walk into a room of people, believers or otherwise, we don't know what they need, We don't know what's going on in their lives. Even if it's revealed to us, we're not going to get the full picture. And if we're processing it in our own mind and in our own strength, we're likely going to come to, if not the wrong conclusions, you know, not the best possible conclusion. But when the spirit of the Lord is there, we can immediately be given something to say that cuts right to the very heart. We can be given a scripture that will point someone towards life and life more abundantly. And so it really is in those kind of fellowshipping scenarios that we get kind of recharge that we need, where we just our confidence is restored, and we go from the position that Elijah was in hiding in a cave after winning the victory over the prophets of bail but then fleeing because of the threat from Jezebel. But then God comes to him, and God meets him, and God feeds him and he goes in the strength of that food for forty days and forty nights. And so just one word from God. We've said up before, and we'll say it again, one word from God can change everything. Taking one scripture to the fullest extent and really incorporating it seriously with the gravitas that it commands, can change everything about our lives. And so it is so critical because you never know when the next breakthrough will be. You never know where it's going to, where it's going to come from and the Body of Christ is here for our edification, and sometimes it doesn't like that. Lord knows, there are forms of fellowship and circumstances where people have been grievously wounded and hurt by the Church, but that doesn't absolve us of the I would argue duty that we have to assemble ourselves together. If it's not in one place, in one form, it's another. We just need to find ourselves in a situation where we can sit and as much as possible physically be in the presence of other believers and deal seriously with the things of God in an interactive way where everyone is participating, where there's transparency, where there's mutual concern. And it's in those environments when the love that we are supposed to demonstrate, the love that in the Book of First John is a testimony to the world of our salvation, of there being something truly different, of of that kind of cooperation and encouragement and you know, just all pulling in the same direction. It's in those fellowshipping environments where the love that is that is poured out can be can just flow as freely as possible, and we just don't get, in my view, the same kind of circumstance when we are isolated and by ourselves. Although the Lord may call us into into the wilderness for a time, that is that is also true at the at the end of at the end of the entire analysis, there is nothing more that I can say other than obey God, obey the Lord through the Word, through what the Holy Spirit is leading him into, and pray that the Lord would open up doors for for fellowship the Lord, the Lord would open up a door of opportunity. And you know, at the at the end of the day, if you are, if you are, if you feel completely on your own without without an oppor tunity to to fellowship, send me an email on the objective at gmail dot com and I will I will do my best to make it a point to set up a time when we can have a call so that you can have that kind of fellowship. Like far be it from me to say this is something that you should do, but then not not offer a hand of fellowship in that in that respect, So if you if you do feel like there is no open door for you to fellowship with with people around you, and again again not everybody has to believe the exact same thing on every single component of every single every single thing. If we're in the same page at about Jesus about the core truth of the faith, about earnestly pursuing to be obedient to the word of God and to the and to the will of God, then we can have this kind of this kind of fellowship that provides breakthroughs, that stirs up love and good works. I think that's an incredibly important component of our walks as disciples of Christ. And I pray that each and every one of you would have an opportunity to do that. And so let's thank the Lord again for his sacrifice, for establishing a new covenant and for giving us the opportunity to receive from him the richness of grace and a favor. And let's commit our lives and surrender everything to the Lord. So Jesus, we give you our lives, and we pray that you would stir us up in love and of good works. Lord, it is our reasonable service. Lord, you laid down your life as a sacrifice on our behalf. You paid the price for our sins. You rose victorious over the grave, over death, over hell, and God, we give you all of the glory for it. The only way that anything good could ever happen is because of you, Jesus. You have been so faithful, so kind, so loving in every season, even in seasons when we are despondent or lethargic, or just not not feeling like we are where we should be. God, you see us, God, you know us. God, you want what is best for us. And so Lord, cleanse our hearts and our minds and reorient us towards You. Give us hearts where the highest value is obedience to your will. Lord, let your will be done in our lives. And we pray that you would open up opportunities for fellowship, opportunities for assembly, opportunities for all those listening to be around fellow believers, brothers and sisters, where we can all be stirred up to love and to good works. Father, let your kingdom be established in the way that you deserve. You do not deserve the slander that is poured out against your name. You do not deserve the wickedness that is found even amongst people who claim to be yours. You do not deserve the reputation that the scoffers and the mockers would assign to you. You do not deserve any of that. You deserve admiration and love, and gratitude and humility in the highest degree, to the highest extent. Lord, you deserve everything, and so we give everything to you in a posture of surrender, declaring Jesus your glory and your absolute sufficiency and your complete and total perfection. Thank you. Cod open up doors for your people. Raise us up, stir us up. Give us the opportunity to make a difference, to speak an encouraging word to someone else, even today. Bring it to our mind's Holy Spirit, someone we know needs encouragement, and pray that you would bring that person to our hearts and to our minds. We love you, Lord, we pray that you would facilitate all of this for your kingdom, for your glory that will last forever and ever, in Jesus' name, Amen,