Let Us

He likes to just drop me in the most awkward spaces, I realize. I’m going to try to maintain this at a decent speed, or just cut — I don’t know.

Yesterday I had things to finish up with my message, and Jay was going to fix the ring around the toilet — the wax ring around the toilet, I don’t know. Anyways, it had been leaking, and so the floor had begun to absorb the water, and it was kind of coming up a little bit. And so I said, “Well, you’re going to fix the floor, right?” And he said, “I’m going to fix the floor.” And I said, “Well, if we’re going to fix the toilet, you’d better fix the floor. We have flooring.” So we went back and forth for probably a good five to ten minutes about if it could be done, if it couldn’t be done, if it could be done, if it couldn’t be done. And I was determined, guess what, that it could be done, and he was determined it could not be done. If anyone’s been married at any point in time and you’ve ever found an impasse with your spouse, it’s kind of the battle of the wills sometimes — who’s going to win.

And I was determined, because I had actually started this project in this bathroom. I know nothing. I hate measuring. I’m just like, “That looks okay.” I am not intended for construction or remodel or anything, but I decided I was going to do that with this bathroom. And I said, “I have seen videos on this being done, about this floor.” So I won that fight, and we replaced the floor, and it was able to be done.

But I say all that to say, all of a sudden I found myself — I had things I had to do to get ready — on the floor pulling up flooring. Because obviously he said, “Well, if it can be done, are you going to do it?” And so to prove to him that I was right — because I was not going to stand to be wrong in that moment — I was there for about an hour and a half, two hours, figuring out how to cut around where the toilet went. I kind of eyeballed it. I was also like, what if there’s mold? So I was happy to say that the flooring went in. We didn’t have to take everything out, because he’s like, “You’ve got to go all the way back.” And I’m like, “I don’t know what you’re watching, honey. I’ve seen people do it.” I don’t even know why I’ve seen people do it. Anyways, so we were in this precarious situation, not giving me much time, but we fixed it. The floor looks great, and the floor can be replaced. That’s what I figured out. Anyways, I say all that to say I wasted my time here while saying I didn’t have much time.

The clunky parts of Scripture

Well, I’m excited. We are in the book of Hebrews, and we were not here last week, and our livestream was having some issues, so it was actually not recorded. We were meeting this week, and Jay and Pastor David were talking about the necessity of the Scripture where Jay left off. And so I’m kind of in this obscure place where I couldn’t see what his teaching was — I guess I could have read his notes. And I am not the greatest teacher. I feel like if you look at Scripture, I just like to feel it and go. And so anytime Jay asks me to slow down and teach, I find it a little bit of a struggle. So he gave me kind of a get-out-of-jail-free card: if there’s something the Lord gave you, go ahead and teach it. And I said, no, I’m going to stick to Hebrews. I’m going to dig down, and I’m going to do this.

In the middle of Hebrews 9 is where he said — I thought he said Hebrews 8; he said Hebrews 9. So in the middle of Hebrews 9 is where we’ll start off, and I’m going to kind of summarize to where I want to land. But I want you to know that as we’re reading Scriptures, as we’re going through the book of the Bible, it’s important to understand not just the things about Christ that make us feel good. It’s important to understand the fundamentals of some things.

And let me tell you why. I found myself, in my own scatteredness, watching this girl’s testimony. She was commenting on a previous video she had done. She’s young — she’s got to be like 26, 27, 28 — but she said from about the age of 15 on, she started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. She got involved in a cult, really heavy-duty into witchcraft, and she has since found Jesus. And so I was watching her testimony because I just found it very intriguing.

And this is why it’s important we go to fundamentals. She was talking about how, in this earlier video, she was at this venue and she says, “I found the cross of Christ,” the Christian cross, it was up there. And then she went on talking about God. And her now-self was saying how, when she talked about God in her days when she was lost, she was talking about this obscure god — gods with a lowercase g. But she would refer to it in this way that would almost sound spiritual and right, but it was not right. It was just the god of this world.

And as I was watching that, I was thinking about my own experience. Twenty-five years ago — I can’t believe it’s that long ago — when I was in college or a little bit after that, I remember taking this world religion class, because I wanted to learn about the religions of the world. I don’t remember what it was categorized under. And I remember the professor talking about how there were many ways to heaven. He said, “You know, it’s kind of like a mountain. You can get up a mountain many ways.” Which is actually not very true. I’ve been up some mountains, and you definitely want to go on a path, because it can get treacherous if you end up in the wrong place.

But I just remember thinking, even now, gosh, I’m so glad that I had the foundation of truth, an understanding at 18, 19, that was there, because of how dangerous that is. See, it sounds really good. We could really just hang out in a really comfortable space and talk about really comfortable things and allow you to just go and live a comfortable life. But that’s actually very dangerous, because there are lots of things, even more so now than ever, where when people are talking about God, they’re not necessarily talking about the King of kings and the Lord of lords. They’re not talking about the Creator of heaven and earth. But it’ll sound mystical. It’ll sound right. It almost feels right. But we want to make sure that we are setting a solid foundation, and that’s why it’s so important to navigate through some of these things.

Now, I sometimes will still read Scripture and I’m just like, “What?” But it’s important for us to slow down a little bit, because there are a lot of people around us who are going to say, “Oh, I heard God speaking to me,” or, “The spirit moved me.” And as I’ve gotten a little bit older, a little bit wiser, I just realize that not everyone’s talking about the same thing. There are plenty of people — and I’m not trying to get into this too much — who would say that they feel called to teach or to be a pastor and will still make room for all the things of this world in their teachings. They’ll make room because it’s comfortable, right? For me to just say to you, “Just live your life. Live your truth.” No accountability. We don’t have to go through any uncomfortable stuff. We don’t have to talk about it. We could just keep it light and happy and fun.

But I believe Jay and I, especially as pastors, have a different call, and we’ll have to stand before the Lord with the words that we speak, that we preach — the places of accountability, how we led you to Jesus. So I take this with fear and trembling — maybe not fully trembling — but we take it very seriously, preaching the Word of God. And that’s why it’s important to navigate through these clunky parts of Scripture. It would be funner to just have a word and go, and everyone’s encouraged. That’s exciting to me. But we’re going to navigate through this, because the reality, the truth, is that there is a heaven and a hell. That’s true.

The truth is that the only way we get to heaven — we read this in John 14:6 — is that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. And thank goodness, thank God, I am not the judge. I thank God that I am not here to bring judgment. I am here to bring truth. I don’t know how all of judgment works, and I thank God that I don’t have to be the judge, that I don’t have to figure it out. All I know is that my call, our call, our opportunity, is to turn to Jesus, and Jesus will make things work out in us. And sometimes people have said, “Well, I’m a good person. Am I going to go to heaven?” Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. That’s between you and Him. That’s the truth.

Humanity is not enough

So I say all this as a preface, because we’re in this place in Hebrews chapter 9, and I’m going to kind of summarize from verse 23 to chapter 10, verse 18, a little bit. As I was reading through chapters 8, 9, and 10, one thing is absolutely clear, if we’ve not made it clear enough: humanity is not enough. See, the old covenant and the sacrifices and the law kept them moving towards God. They kept them in forward motion. But it was not anything we could ever do to cover our sin. It just kept humanity going forward. We read this in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 4. It says, “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.”

See, in the old covenant, in the Old Testament, when we read it, there were all of these sacrifices and — protocol is not the right word, but it’s the only word I can think of — things that had to be done. There were these festivals, and then there would be this time of your grain offering and your burnt offering. And basically now we’re here, and he’s saying, look, the blood of bulls and goats could not cover. A sacrifice could not cover and take away your sins, because the reality is we could never do enough. Sin could only be conquered by something or someone pure, which is Jesus.

We are told in this world oftentimes, “You’re enough. You’re enough just as you are. You matter.” I am not enough. Can I just say that up here in front of everybody? I’m not enough without Jesus. I’m not a horrible person, but I’ll tell you, Jesus working in my heart, Jesus working through me, does make me a lot more palatable for some, because I’m not enough.

I just think about yesterday. My husband and I were having a great day, great evening, went to a hockey game. I’m getting ready for bed, he gets in bed, and he starts typing, and he has his headphones on. And I’m like, “What are you doing?” And he’s like, “I’m just working on some things.” And he has his Bible out, so now I feel really bad, and I’m like, “Okay, okay.” So I’m going to go to bed, and again, he has his headphones on both ears, and I have none. And all of a sudden I hear — and I am like, “Bro, I’ve got to get up early.” When I teach, I get up at five or six. And so I kind of look at him, and he’s like, “What?” Okay, so I’m going to bed. And I think the TV must have been on — neither one of us was watching TV, it was just on. And all of a sudden — I’m not kidding you guys, I have a point to all of this — all of a sudden it’s dark, and I just see the covers moving, and I’m like, “What are you doing?” This is kind of the Sunday morning version of this, okay? And I’m like, “What are you doing?” He’s like, “Where’s the remote?” I’m like, “I gave it to you already. What? I need to sleep.”

I am not enough. I am a jerk at times. I need Jesus. And I’m telling you, you probably need Jesus, because you’re not enough. But the world has sold us that we could be enough, that we can work hard enough, that we can do all of these things enough. And the reality is, as we’re reading through Hebrews chapters 8, 9, and 10, what we’re discovering is, guess what? It’s not enough. There’s nothing we can do that will ever be enough. We all need the only One, which is Jesus. Jesus was the only One who could cover the sins, who could wash the slate clean for us to be reconciled with Jesus, to be reconciled with His Father.

From a tree to a table

Now, here’s the other thing about this not being enough. I don’t know where I am in my notes, so I’m just going to go with this. We have to think about this for just a moment, about not being enough. We had Adam and Eve in Genesis, and at the beginning of time, the very crux of the moment was surrounded by a tree. Just think about this. God creates Adam and Eve. He gives them everything that they need. They had everything — none of us can maybe fathom that in our minds. Everything was there. They had dominion over the animals, which I would have loved. I love animals. They had access to everything. And He said, “Stay away from this one tree, the knowledge of good and evil. Just stay away from it.” And it doesn’t become enough.

So now they go, and they partake. We most likely know the story. They partake. And this tree represents the free will we are all given. And we later see in Scripture — and where we’re talking about this in Hebrews — Jesus comes, and what does He die on? A tree. See, between the tree in the Garden of Eden — and I hope if we get anything, I want us to really capture this — we have the tree in the Garden of Eden, and then all in between we have elements of wood and altars that are created, and the source of it is a tree. So all of these altars, humanity, humans — and you think about it when you read Scripture, and I’m just like, man, You love us so much that You see what we’re created to be beyond what we do.

Anyway, so we have this tree, and then these forms of tree, and then Jesus comes and He dies on this tree. But let me tell you what He does when He dies on this tree. All of a sudden, this tree becomes a table, and this table is an invitation of access to His heavenly Father. See, a table represents communion and fellowship. And so we go from being disconnected, to working hard, to the only person who could ever be a sacrifice enough, which is Jesus. He dies on this tree, and then all of a sudden we have access to this place, and we’re invited to come to this table, into this realm, to have access to God in heaven, which we didn’t have before. See, He took the cross and He made it a table so we could have full access to God.

We go from Adam and Eve all the way to Jesus, and we see that it is both His free will and His choice of obedience that allows us to have access to our heavenly Father. And just as Jay — he didn’t know where I was going with this; he didn’t know where I would land — but as he was saying, it all comes down to this: we all have free will, and we all have obedience to choose our heavenly Father.

See, when we’re reading this — I call these the clunky parts of Scripture, because sometimes in my mind — well, we don’t need to know fully what goes on in my mind. But when I read Scripture, I sometimes have to read it multiple times, out loud. It takes a moment to comprehend in my mind. So this is kind of clunky for me. I just have to keep reading it, keep reading it. But what we see is that Jesus comes, and He takes the tree of the cross, and He sacrificed once and for all, so we don’t have to try to keep coming up with sacrifices. We go from this place to where we now have access and are encouraged to have fellowship and communion with our heavenly Father. See, now we don’t have a cross we have to die on. We no longer have to cut wood to create an altar and sacrifice. Now we get to be invited and choose: will we show up to the table to have communion and relationship with our heavenly Father? That’s our choice.

He broke down the middle wall

Ephesians chapter 2 puts it like this. Jay and I were talking about how you read through Scripture and you don’t realize something until all of a sudden there’s this moment. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 14–18 — this is how Paul puts it. He says, “For He Himself” — Jesus — “is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation.”

I have never read that ever in my life. I mean, I have, because the word “enmity” is circled, and I didn’t circle it before, so I have definitely read it before. But I don’t ever remember reading it. He broke down the middle wall of separation. Think about that. That’s what Jesus did. When we’re reading in Hebrews, and Hebrews is talking about this sacrifice, how all other sacrifices didn’t suffice — what Jesus did is He broke the wall of separation, the middle wall that separated us from our heavenly Father. Just think about how beautiful that is. And maybe it seems so beautiful because I feel like I’ve never read it before. But the imagery of that — that He broke a wall. Not only did He come to be our peace — He gives us peace — but He crushed the wall of separation so we could have peace, so we could have access to the Father.

It says in verse 15, “having abolished in His flesh the enmity” — so the hostility and the opposition that puts us against God; He crushed that — “having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.”

This is the beautiful thing that Hebrews is trying to encapsulate: that all of a sudden the middle wall is broken. The trying and the effort are done, and Jesus paid the price through the cross, being the only sacrifice we will ever need. The beauty in that.

Now, what I need you to do for just a moment — all right, I want us all to do this. I’m not going to do it, so I can make sure I follow my own instructions really well. I want us all to close our eyes. Everyone close your eyes. I’m not going to look up to see if you’re keeping your eyes open, but just close your eyes. And I want you to think for just a moment: what is the thing that you feel separates you from access to the heavenly Father? I want you to think about that in your mind. What is the barrier that makes you pull back? What’s the barrier that makes you not feel like you’re worthy? The questions, the doubt, whatever it is.

Okay, you can open your eyes. I want you to know, whatever you just visualized, Jesus came and He crushed that middle wall of separation. So that doubt that you might have — He says that doubt is not for Me. That confusion is not for Me. That addiction is not for Me. I’ve already paid the price, and I crushed the enmity, the hostility that you feel between you and God. Jesus came and He crushed it on the cross. That place where you feel separated, or unworthy to come in, or not wanting to come in, or feel like you have too many questions — crushed it. The only thing that stands between us and God is ourselves, because Jesus already crushed the middle wall of separation.

Not only that. What I loved is it says He came and preached peace to those who are far off and those who are near. From the beginning of time — amen, yes — He has been preaching peace to those people who don’t believe, who are far off. That’s how I read it. Maybe he was talking about geographically far off and those who were near. But I read it as, oh no, You’ve been preaching peace to those who disown You, who — what’s the word I’m looking for — don’t acknowledge You, don’t believe in You. You’ve been preaching peace to them, and to those people who are drawing near. The wall has been broken, and peace is yours as a gift.

Those places that feel raised up, that feel like enmity — it means a hostility, an opposition — from what you’re trying to work towards, pursuing God, let me tell you, He’s already crushed that wall. And the enemy wants you to think that it actually is a barrier that stands between you and God. But I’m telling you, He’s already crushed it. What keeps you from standing at the table? What keeps you from coming in?

Let us come boldly

Hebrews chapter 10. We’re going to go back to Hebrews chapter 10, and we’re going to start at verse 19 now, because he makes it really clear. After going through all of this about what sacrifices were no longer good enough, why we needed Jesus — after he goes through all of that, he says this. This is how we overcome those things. He says, “Therefore.” Now, I went on the internet, and I was like, what’s another word for “therefore”? A synonym — is that what it’s called? Yeah. And the one that I liked was “for that reason.” For that reason, brethren. Verse 19: “Therefore” — for that reason, for this reason we just read — “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…”

And if I was going to name my message, it would be “Let Us.” See, because of this we get to — first, before we get to the “let us” part — boldly come into the Holiest of places, the most sacred place.

You know how many people have told me, when they find out we’re pastors, that it makes them feel uncomfortable? Jay and I don’t usually go, “Hey, we’re pastors.” Not because we’re ashamed — just because it makes someone else feel uncomfortable, more than us. Now most people in our lives know that we’re pastors. But for a long time, when people would find out we’re pastors, it would make them feel uncomfortable, and they would start giving us the reasons why they didn’t go to church. And we’re just like, I just want a hot dog. I love you — I’m not saying we can’t have a conversation — but I’m not here with a checklist. I’m just here to enjoy the game.

But I remember once someone said, “You know, the whole reason I don’t go to church is if I were to go to church, lightning would strike me.” And I thought, you know, God’s not confined to a building. If He was intending to strike you by lightning because of who you were, He wouldn’t have to do it in His building. He could do it anywhere He wanted. He is everywhere, right? And I get that this is viewed as a sacred and holy place, so I would chuckle with it. But not only in the sacred, holy place — both Him living in our lives and wanting to dwell with us when we come together — He invites us to do it boldly, with boldness.

What does boldness look like to you? When I think of boldness — clunky must be my word for the day — I feel like sometimes I’m a little clunky when I go into places. I’m a little bit of a situation. I have my purse, and if I walk into a room, it’s very likely you know that I’m in there. I usually have my hands too full or whatever. I just can’t gracefully walk in somewhere. I’m just here. But that’s kind of that boldness, right? I don’t think too much about it. I just boldly walk into where I’m supposed to be. And that’s the invitation to all of us. He’s saying, look, okay, now because of everything we just read, brethren, I want you to come boldly into the Holiest of places.

Psalm 100 — I’m just going to read it really quick. And this might help you understand. When I’m worshiping, I don’t know what’s happening behind me. But when we think about worship, part of us coming into worship together is us boldly entering into His presence. We read in Scripture that that’s what they’re doing: they’re worshiping God in heaven as we speak. In heaven there are angels who are just worshiping God. And so when we come in here and we get to worship, that’s part of boldly entering in, that we don’t have to hold back.

Now, I’m going to call her out on it, because she does it from the stage: when I sing off, one of our worship team will look at me. I’ll sing the wrong word, and then I’ll laugh, and then I look up and she looks at me, because she can hear me — she knows my voice — and then we make awkward eye contact about it. So if you ever see her making awkward eye contact, I’m just saying, I sang it wrong. But that’s the whole point.

Anyways, it says, “Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.”

When we think about boldly entering the presence of God, boldly coming in — think about that. The invitation is to come in singing and shouting. I was listening to this album from the ’90s that I loved, and I was driving, and I was worshiping, and I was clapping, because it was a fast beat. And I look over, and she was like — and I’m like, I am worshiping the Lord right now. If you could know the beauty of this album. But the invitation is that we boldly come in. So many times we’re taught, understand your environment, you’ve got to do all these things. But He’s saying, no, come boldly into My presence. Come boldly because of everything you already know, because of what Jesus has done. You have access. You have room. I want you to come in as you are. It says to come in boldly, as we are.

And the other part I think about is, when we come boldly into His presence, it’s making room for what He’s done. It’s making room and acknowledging, God, You are so faithful. When our worship leader was saying, “Just sing out, sing your own song to the Lord” — I don’t know if you guys are like, what does that even mean? It just means you say whatever you want to say. Declare whatever He’s done.

I remember when Jay told me he loved me, I said, “Thank you.” It was our first time. He’s like, “Hey, I love you.” And I was like, “Thank you.” And then when he said, “Will you marry me?” I said, “Shut up.” So you can understand, I might have some emotional stuff I’m working out. The point is, sometimes we don’t know what to say. We just say what we know to say, and for me it was “thank you” and “shut up.” And so when our worship leader is saying, sing your song to the Lord, it’s okay to just say, “God, You’re good. God, I don’t even know what to say, but I’m going to just say what I think.” And I’m going to tell you the joy that it brings Him, that we would boldly come in and just say, “You’ve been good. Thank You. I love You.” That’s enough.

When we think about boldly coming into His presence because of what He’s done, that gets to be enough. I just get to say, “Oh, I love You. I love You. I love You. I love You.” If that’s all you repeat. I say this because I think so many times we come in and we think that there’s this protocol of what to do, and so we just don’t do it, because we don’t know.

I know why I told Jay “thank you” when he said “I love you.” It’s because I didn’t want him to feel like I was obligated to say it back. And sometimes I think we come with these thoughts in our mind, and He’s just saying, no, just say it as it is, because that’s enough. Jay would have never thought twice. He thought more about me saying “thank you” than if I would have said, “Oh, I love you too,” because I loved him. It was those first times — I just didn’t want to feel obligated. But he would have never thought twice. Trust me, the “thank you” didn’t go over very well. Obviously we worked past it. But the Lord knows you’re not obligated. He sees the beauty of who you are. He sees you as His child that He loves.

Let us draw near with a true heart

It says in verse 22, “Let us draw near with a true heart.” When I thought about the words “true heart” — He knows the deep, dark places of ourselves, the places we think that we can hide. And the invitation is to come to Him with a true heart, with the things where I don’t know how to work through this, I don’t know how to say this back to You. And His invitation is, no, would you just come truly as who you are?

So let us draw near. Based on everything we know, “let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” That means, what You’ve done, Jesus, is enough, and I’m coming to You because You’re enough and I am not, and because You want the true part of me, not the part that’s fragmented. You want all of me. “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.”

Let us hold fast. Circumstances will always invite us to waver. That wall, whatever you visualized, will always invite you to doubt: God’s not going to do it. He didn’t say it. He doesn’t love you. You’re wrong. Our circumstances will always invite us to waver. But the promise is based on what Jesus has done. We can come with the full assurance of hope in what He’s done. And so when situations arise, when prayers don’t feel like they’re being answered, we get to say, “God, but You’re faithful. You’re good. I have breath in my lungs. I don’t even know how to fully pray, maybe, but God, You’re enough.” That’s how we hang on to full assurance.

We remember that He took the tree, and He created a cross, and then He made a table for us — that His plan has never wavered. Our words do matter. And so it’s important for us to remind ourselves what God has done: that He loves us, that He’s present, that He says He wants to speak to us, that He wants us to draw near. And not only does He want us to draw near — He wants us to draw near together.

Let us consider one another

It says in verse 24, “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.” Think about that. My job, our job as pastors, our job as parents, our job as friends, whatever it can be — Lord, the position You’re actually calling me to is to stir up love and good works, because You do the rest. Now, as a parent, that’s sometimes hard to walk out. I want to be like, “Hey, XYZ, ABC,” right? We want to be on it. And He’s just saying, no, can you love one another?

What does it look like to love one another? What does it look like to stir up good works? Today I am leaving church with eggs, coffee, and cookies. Tell me my life is not good. I have fresh eggs, coffee beans, and cookies. That is a recipe for success. Someone stirred up good works today. Really, that was it. It was just done in love: “Oh, hey, do you need coffee? I have some coffee for you.” “Oh, I have some cookies.” And I’m like, someone at my house loves oatmeal cookies — I’m going to grab two oatmeal cookies. Why? Because I know he loves oatmeal cookies. And someone’s like, “Oh, I brought you some eggs.” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, thank you.” See, it’s really not that hard to love. But the enemy would have us think we have to do all these things, and He’s just saying, just love and acknowledge and see one another. Learn one another. Understand the way that they are.

I always say there’s a dear friend who has known my kids since — literally, I raised them and she raised them. And Jay, you helped too, but you know what I mean. That was literally what happened. I would wake up, I would be with the kids, I would take them to her, she would feed them and have a great afternoon with them, and then Jay would pick them up, bring them home, and I’d go to work. That was our life for the first seven years of all three of our kids. She knows my kids. She knows what they love. They actually love things because of her. They love peas because of her. They love raw vegetables because of her. These are things they love because of her, not because of me. So when she sees them, oh, she just loves them, and she just hugs them, sees them, and knows them.

That’s the invitation we all have. And while maybe we don’t have the lifetime of relationship like she has with our family and our kids, we can begin seeing one another, to love and stir up good works in one another. It’s really not that hard.

Not forsaking the gathering

This is probably the harder part. Verse 25: “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” I think that’s the hardest part right now: gathering together. We can gather together on Sundays — that works for my schedule. Oh, you want to gather? Okay, what about three Thursdays from now? We have a lot of things. And it’s not guilt — I’m talking about myself. I’m not talking about any of you. Literally, we have all of these things that fill our time.

And the writer is saying, no, no, as you see the Day approaching. Now, I’m assuming it’s the return of Jesus, because it’s a capital D, so it has to do with heaven, right? As we see the Day approaching. And if you are not paying attention to what’s going on — I sometimes don’t want to pay attention to what’s going on around me. I just want to come love, work at church, and not listen to the news. That would be great. But not to look at it like doomsday — if you’re just paying attention, the days are getting closer. It says in one of the Gospels that our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. So awake, wake up, let’s get out of our sleep. The Day is approaching when Jesus is returning.

And he’s saying, as the Day approaches, don’t forsake getting together. Don’t isolate. In Suzie terms: don’t just come on Sundays. Gather together and make space for each other during the week. Now, I can’t gather with everyone. Jay can’t gather with everyone. You can’t gather with everyone. But you can gather with people. Gather together. Keep trying. If you invite someone for coffee and they say they can’t, try again, and try again, and try again. And just choose to say, I’m not going to be offended if they can’t. I’m not going to be offended if they don’t return my text. My goal is to love one another and to stir up good works. If we keep that posture as we gather together, oh, how beautiful it’ll be. We’re called to gather and grow even more so towards the end times.

And so my invitation, as we read all this, is that Jesus didn’t do this just so that we can come on Sundays and experience Him on Sundays. Sundays are kind of like a fill-up in your car — that’s F-I-L-L, not the name Phil. I heard how that sounded. We put gas in the car, and we’re to gather together during the week. Make space for people. Ask questions together. Gather around the Word: “Hey, I was reading this,” or, “I noticed this,” or, “I had a question about this.” “Can I pray for you?” Would we be people who would just be available by text — “I’m really struggling. Could you pray for me today?” Would we be more free with our number? That’s kind of a crazy place to be. My number is out there in lots of places. But just ask for prayer.

Because the writer is saying, hey, look, all of this is good. All of this is necessary. Jesus made it possible. And then he ends — no, this is the middle of the chapter — but he ends that portion by saying, let’s gather together. Don’t forsake it.

I’m telling you, it’s uncomfortable. Jay and I have talked about this freely, so I’ll say this, and then I’m going to be done. We have these barriers. I used to be very self-conscious about our house, because we didn’t have the latest and greatest. And I remember when we got a new couch — it was our first couch we ever bought — I was so excited, because I thought this couch would open the door for people, and I’d feel more comfortable with people coming into my house. Well, guess what? After we got the nice couch, I’m like, oh, our kitchen’s kind of old. It’s never going to be enough. And most people aren’t going to come in and look. But there are these barriers where we allow the lies to prevent us from gathering: “Oh, they wouldn’t want to spend time with me,” or whatever it might be. Whatever the lie is, again, the enemy wants to keep us separated. The invitation is, no, I want you to gather, even more so as the Day approaches.

So I’m going to pray over us, and then I have a benediction for us. My heart and my hope is that you take this word, and that’s between you and the Lord. If there’s something that you feel stung you, ask Him to show you what it is. But our heart is that we would be a church and be a people who make space for other people. That we’d be a church where God’s presence would continue to dwell, and people would experience the freedom and the hope that’s found in Jesus. That’s it.

All right, so let me close, and I’m going to declare this benediction over you. If you would like prayer at the end, we’ll have people available to pray for you. But this is my benediction: May our God, who can keep us from stumbling, have our attention this week. May you be aware of the exceeding joy that you bring Him. We serve a God who is wise and glorious and present, who has dominion and power over the places that we surrender to Him. So I pray that He would be glorified in your life. Would you walk in mercy and peace, and would His love be multiplied to you this week.

Lord, we give this word to You. Lord, we ask that it would bear much fruit in our lives. Lord, we thank You for sending Your Son, Jesus, who gave us full access, who crushed the wall of separation so we don’t have to be separated, but we would have full access to You. We thank You that You are the only God, that You are the true and living God. We thank You that Your Word is alive and living and powerful. Lord, I pray that as we declare, as we read Your Word this week, as we pray, we would feel Your nearness, and that we would continue to have the victory that is found in You. We thank You for all these things. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Transcribed from the message recording and lightly edited for reading.