The Church of Eleven22 - S02E21 - Spur One Another On Toward Love and Good Deeds

Episode Date: August 30, 2021

This week’s one another comes from Hebrews 10. May we always encourage one another and surround ourselves with those that continually point us to Jesus. If you need community like this in your life, join a disciple group! Find a group at coe22.com/disciplegroups. ²⁴ And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, ²⁵ not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. – Hebrews 10:24-25

Welcome to Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we're praying this message helps you deepen your relationship with him. Now let's dive in. Hey, church family, welcome back to the Deep and Devo. Let's dive in. We're going to be in John, chapter 14. That's what we covered last weekend.

And it sets up our one another. Our one another comes from Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 24. it says this, spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Spur, like a cowboy spurs on cowboy boots. This is not a kind word. Some translations will even say encourage one another towards love and good deeds. And the word encourage in Greek does not mean like way to go towards love and good deeds. It means that you might cause a little pain. You might make somebody a little uncomfortable. mole. You might have to stick and poke and pride towards a direction, and the direction is towards loving good deeds. And the reason I wanted to talk about that this week is in light of what we

covered this past weekend. In John chapter 14, it's one of the most famous verses, especially for preachers or evangelists, is John 14.6. And what happens is the last supper's over. Jesus is laying out the next few days. This is the end of 13. And he says, where I'm going, you can. You can't come yet. And he's talking about heaven. And then, you know, Peter's like, why can't we go? And he says, hold on, hold on, hold on. Now we get to 14.1. He goes, let not your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. Trust also in me. I'm going to prepare a place for you. And when he's talking about is our place in heaven, in eternity face-to-face with God the Father. I'm going to prepare a place for you. where and I sew, I wouldn't have told you this. And I'm going to come back and I'm going to get you

and I'm going to take you with me to where I am. And then he says, and you know the way. And Thomas says, we don't know the way. Now, I want to say all that, okay, before we get to 14.6. Because what Jesus is talking about is a pathway that has a destination. The beginning of the pathway is that you surrender your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You put your faith in Jesus Christ. And then God gives you the Spirit of Christ to live inside of you to walk with you as you walk as a follower of Jesus Christ. And then what we do is that our lives are headed in a direction. And it's the direction you go that determines where you end up. Not what you pray about, not what you think about, not what you hope for. It is the direction that you go that determines where you end up. So when when Jesus says you know the way, He's saying, by faith, when you follow me, that path ends in heaven. And then Thomas says, we don't know what you're talking about. We don't know the way.

And then you'll remember this very famous line, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. And no one gets to the Father, no one comes to the Father except through me. That Jesus is saying, to believe in me is to know the Father. And when that happens, that he is, this is the rest of 14, that he's going to deposit the Holy Spirit. He calls the Holy Spirit the helper in you to keep you on the way following after Jesus

and your ultimate destination is heaven. So Jesus is the road to heaven. And then he says this at the end of 14. He says, whoever loves me will keep my word. And you will continue on this path following Jesus that ends in heaven. All right.

God gives us three. primary helpers or three primary supplements so that we can stay close to Jesus, follow Jesus, follow His commandments, go to heaven. Now, the way you get to heaven is by surrendering your life to Lordship of Jesus Christ. Your ticket to heaven is when that moment occurs in your life where you realize I admit it. I'm a sinner in need of a Savior. I believe when Christ died on the cross and says, it is finished. That counted for me.

my sin was paid for, and I confess him as Lord. And when you confess him as Lord, that confession that somebody is your Lord means you do what they say to do. And Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commands. If you love me, you will obey my word. And then God gives us three things for us to keep that direction following him. Number one, according to John 14, he gives us the Holy Spirit inside of us. Okay.

And so this isn't just begrudging submission. This isn't just you've got to get your willpower under control and do the things Jesus said to do. This is not white-knuckling behavior. It's not. Being a Christian is not sin management. That's not what it primarily is. Being a Christian is not. I use this example all the time.

People have this beach ball theology. Like what it means to be a good Christian is to hold on to this beach ball and by your power and strength. Shove it under the water. You can only do it for a while. Eventually, you're not strong enough or a wave hits you or you get distracted. and when you let go of that sin, it does not just lightly float back to the surface.

It explodes in your face. The gospel, what the gospel does is comes along. It's like Jesus coming along with a pocket knife. He stabs the beach ball. It takes all the power out. And so God puts the spirit of God in you. And from the inside out, as we abide in Christ, we'll talk about this next week.

Then as we abide in Christ, as we stay close to Christ, then the fruit of the spirit begins to be produced in our life. So one, he gives us the spirit. He gives us the word in front of us. So he gives us the spirit in us, and he gives us the word in front of us. Psalm 119 says that thy word is like a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. You don't put a light behind you, you can't, because you're not going that way. You put a light, you light up the direction that you want to go,

and so God gives us the spirit in us, the word in front of us, and this is what I want to talk about today. And he gives us friends beside us. brothers and sisters beside us. So enter one another, let us consider how to stir up or spur one another on towards love and good works. That means that you and I need friends on our left and right, stirring us up and spurting one another on.

Let me read it in the ESU. Hebrews, chapter 10, says this. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy place, by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way, that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh. In other words, when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain that separated the presence of God from the people of God

was torn from the top to the bottom, and brothers and sisters in Christ, we have been invited into the throne room of God, and the king of the universe now just happens to be our dad. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, so now we don't need a high priest, like the old covenant had, because Jesus is our high priest. And we find out that we are a royal priesthood.

That's right, that every single believer is a royal priesthood. That because of what Christ did on our behalf, you don't have to confess your sins, like if you grew up Catholic, you were told that you have to, because the mediator between us and God is his son, Jesus Christ, not any mere mortal. says, let us draw near with a true heart in full of shirts 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 is faithful. And let us consider how to stir one another to love in good works, or let us spur one another own to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together. Think about that these days. not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging or spurring one another on,

and all the more as you see the day drawing near. In other words, this means, as a believer in Jesus Christ, God has given the Spirit in us, the word before us, and friends beside us, to help us continue in the way of Jesus. Here's what this means, that you and I need people in our lives that stir us up towards love and good works, that encourage us, that spur us on towards walking like we believe the gospel. This means that you should have some people in your life. And if they recognize that you've gotten lazy in your faith, or you've taken a detour and you're heading in a direction that does not lead to where you know you want to go, in your marriage, and your relationships and your finances, which are all a reflection,

ultimately, of your walk with Jesus Christ, that what it means to stir one another up to love and good works is to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you're going the wrong way. Jesus is the way. And the way you're treating your wife, what you're doing with your finances, what you're doing with your time, what you're doing with your morality, what you're doing with your Thursday nights or Sundays. They are leading in a way that is not the way of Jesus.

And God has put me in your life. your life to stir you up, to spur you on towards a direction, and the direction that we are to point each other to is the direction of Jesus. Here's what it means. I hope you've got some people in your life. Well, just make it personal with me. I hope that the people I have invited into my life, my friends and the elders and some of the other pastors in my life, if they saw me heading in a way that was not the way Jesus said

to walk, that they would love. me enough to get in my way and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not where you want to go. That's not where you want to go. So let me ask you, is there anybody that you need to stir up? Is there somebody in your disciple group, or used to be in your disciple group? Is there anybody you attend church with or you used to attend church with, and you need to stir them up? Now, I'm going to tell you, it takes great boldness to love a friend more than you love the friendship. And in our world, man, we love to be loved. We like to be liked.

We want all the positive affirmation that we can receive. But the Bible says that we should love one another enough to stir each other up towards love and good works. Is there somebody that God has placed in your life and you need to reach out to them and say, hey, bro, it's time to come back to church? I'm not talking about any kind of valid health concerns. That's not what I mean.

but I'm talking about somebody that used to be a vibrant part of our body. And now they've gotten lazy, and they have disassociated themselves from the family. And maybe you need to be one to call them, or maybe into your disciple group. Somebody used to attend faithfully and be in their word, and you know that they're drifting away. The Bible says the devil prows around like a roaring line looking for someone to devour. He always devours that one that's isolated out there by themselves. as I was preparing this for you,

God put a friend on my heart because just from my perspective, I don't have all the details right now, and good gracious, I'm not the perfect Christian. But it just seems to me like there was a season in his life where he was leaning into the Lord, and it seems to me right now there's isolation and he's leaning away. And so I just sent a text just to get together.

Who is that for you? And then secondly, this one's just as important. Who have you invited into your life to stir you up to love and good works? Who have you invited into your life to stir you up for love and good works? And if you don't have that, let me implore you. Join a disciple group today. Like go online, join it right now. And if you're like, I went to one, it wasn't that good.

Well, then find another one, okay? Or start one, because you must be awesome. So maybe you could lead one, all right? you need this in your life and if you wait till you need it to try to build it it's like a retirement accout it's too late man it's too late i've got so i've got people in my life god has given me a platform a responsibility anointing and i've seen a whole bunch of people in my position that did not have people in their life to spur them stir them up towards loving good works and that's how they flame out i've got elders a bunch of them in my life and some more than others that that that

mean in, and I've invited them, I'm saying, no problem, hurt my feelings for the sake of my heart for the Lord. If you see whatever you think is a problem, I ask you, I beg you to please, if you see me running my life, running my ministry, running my marriage, running my authority as a father on a path that leads to going off the cliff, it is not love to not say anything to that person as they're driving off of the cliff and then once they go over share prayer request about their recovery. That's not love. You know what love does? Love cares more about the person than what they think about you. And love stirs one another up or spurs one another on to love and good works. So who is God calling you to encourage, and it may be a little painful, and who have you given

permission to talk to you when you go off the way. I hope and pray, I hope and pray, that you will make the call, that you'll make the call to say, hey man, I'm going to have a tough conversation with you. It's time to come back. Or that you would make the call and say, I want to give you permission that if you ever see me taking my eyes off Jesus, that you would be the person that would step in and say, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't go that way. Come to the way, the truth in the life, and continue on this pathway of following Jesus. Let's pray. Father in heaven,

Lord, I thank you, and I praise you for the church, for your body, your bride, the family of believers under your headship. Lord, I know she is not perfect, but she is pure because you have purchased her. Lord, she is arrayed waiting for your return. And so, Lord, I thank you that as a body needs the body parts to function together,

We need one another, and you've designed it this way. So, Lord, I pray for the folks that are listening right now, and a name, a face comes to in their mind. I pray that you would give them the courage by the power of the Holy Spirit to reach out and say, I love you so much. And it seems like you're going astray. And Lord, you would give us the words to say with the right heart that we would love our friends enough that we would re-point them back to you.

And, Lord, I pray that you would give us the humility and the maturity to before we ever need it, invite some people into our lives that would love us enough to stir us up to love and good works. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for joining us for deepen with Pastor Jobie Martin. If you're looking for additional resources to help you further deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ, visit co-e-22.com slash resources. We're praying this message you heard today helps you experience God in a unique and fresh way. And as always, be free.