Home • Preaching the Word • Hebrews
Look, Encourage, Partake
Preached August 11, 2010 at a Mission in Downtown Birmingham, AL by Jake Hanson.
Tonight we come to a passage that I intended to preach over a month ago, but felt uneasy about the timing and the message. But tonight, I feel that this message is ripened to be preached.
This is a passage that burns within my heart, because it speaks of a reality of our sinfulness that is all too real to me and to so many of you. It speaks of the real potential each one of us has for falling away from our God.
A few years ago, my wife and I were a part of a small group of couples who gathered weekly for fellowship, prayer and study. We were shocked to learn that for several months as we were meeting together, an extramarital affair was happening right under our noses. The affair destroyed the two marriages which were directly involved in the affair. But Satan’s attack on the group was not complete with the destruction of those two marriages.
There was another young man in the group who was deeply hurt because he had been stabbed in the back by his good friend. What I observed in him in the next few weeks was a downward spiral. At first, he yearned for others to come around him and help him make sense of the situation, but he became increasingly bitter as the leadership in the church we were attending did not come to his aid, and even made decisions which were very hurtful to him. His bitterness continued. He withdrew from the remnant of the group that remained, and stopped going to church. Several months later he divorced his wife for another woman, which was an indication of how his heart had been hardened.
On my way home from work today, I turned on the radio to hear someone call into a Christian radio show and share that her husband had been a pastor, had gotten into pornography and other sexual sin, and he had left his wife, and left his church, leaving the wreckage of his sin behind him.
Why do I tell you these stories? We could add more. I tell it to you, because in those few months in my small group, I made some realizations. I had entered into that group of young couples with optimism and hope. What I left with was the realization that within all of us is the very real potential to fall away from the living God. So what are we to do? Let’s look at our passage for tonight which gives us instruction in how to prevent this happening to us.
12Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. 13But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,
Three simple words I want to look at tonight for you to take with you: Look, Encourage, and Partake (or Share). Look, Encourage and Partake.
First, Look. From verse 12. “Take care” it says in my translation, or “look [or observe], brothers, that there not be in any one of you an evil unbelieving heart.” We are commanded by Scripture to look, to examine to test ourselves, as well as our brothers.
We have been taught just the opposite in our world today, haven’t we? We are told to overlook other’s faults and sins. We are told not to judge. We are told to mind our own (curse word often inserted here) business.
But Christians are called to something deeper, something richer. We are not looking at each other in a spirit of condemnation, hatred or even in a critical spirit, though Christians often can be associated with condemnation, hatred and a critical spirit. But we are called to look at one another in a spirit of care and love for our brothers.
I had the privilege to go to Africa two years ago, to the country of Ghana. As we drove around the beautiful country, we saw some disturbing billboards that showed hurting people with open wounds, tumors and other obvious diseases. These disturbing billboards were a cry for help for the people of Ghana who needed medical care. Now imagine if one of your brothers here at the mission came in with a deep cut gushing blood, or a tumor growing out of them. You are likely to look at it, and then advise them to go see a doctor. But what if you didn’t? What if you just overlooked, and pretended you didn’t see it? And what if your brother bled to death, or died from a cancerous tumor? Would you have helped that man by overlooking his disease? NO! But that is exactly what we do when we overlook our brother’s sins in order not to offend him. We are letting one another bleed to death and be eaten up by the cancer of sin.
But still, how we look at our brothers and their sins is important. We don’t come with condemnation, or hatred, or as hypocrites. Galatians 6:1 gives us some good instruction: “Brothers, if any of you is caught in any trespass [or sin], you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted.” Restore each other in gentleness, not arrogance, or judgmentalism, but gentleness. And Galatians 6:1 tells us to “look at yourself.” Be sure that you are not becoming prideful or more susceptible to satan’s attacks on you. Be sure to purge yourself of the plank in your own eye before pointing out the speck in another’s eye.
But you might wonder why we should be on the lookout? Let’s look at verse 12 again:
“12Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.”
Any one of you. You see, in each of us—in our own strength—lies an evil heart. Jeremiah 17, the passage we studied last week, has these words, “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick.”
You see, the problem isn’t always just that we lie to others about our hearts. We lie to ourselves. We tell ourselves that we are better off than we are, more holy than we are, more in control than we are, and stronger to fight sin than we really are. We can fool ourselves, and we can fool others. But the Lord—who knows our hearts—He will not be fooled: Hebrews 4:12 tells us that
“The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword and … able to judge the thoughts and intentions of [your evil] heart.”
But there is a reality, and we see it in this phrase from verse 12: “that there not be in any one of you.” The reality is this: Any one of us is susceptible to fall away from the living God. It matters not how many chapels you have gone to, how many years you have been in the church, how godly your parents or grandparents were. It matters not if you are a preacher or a pastor, or a newborn Christian on fire for the Lord. You must be on guard, and you must be on the lookout for your other brothers. Any one of us can fall away from the living God.
The author of Hebrews gives us an example which we did not read tonight from verses 16 going into chapter 4. It is about the Israelites. They had been miraculously freed from their slavery to the Egyptians, just like you who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ have been freed from slavery to sin and death. They had experienced the Lord work miracles—perhaps the greatest miracles recorded in history when they came to the great Red Sea, and the Lord divided the water so that they could walk through to the other side and flee from the Egyptian soldiers chasing after them. And as soon as they crossed to the other side, the waters crashed down, having only been suspended by the hand of the Lord.
To have seen such a wonder, such a miracle, they must have been solid as a rock in their faith. There is no way they could fall. But they had the same problem you and I have. Within them was this reality—the reality of the wickedness of their hearts. So because of their lack of faith in the One who had delivered them, they tested the Lord—and though they had been delivered from slavery in Egypt, they did not enter into the Promised Land, but instead wallowed in the desert for an entire generation. So what is the point? The point is that If it could happen to them—those who saw such wondrous miracles—even to the chosen people of God—then it could happen to you and to me.
So what are we to do? What are we to do to prevent ourselves and our brothers from falling from the Lord? How to we counter-act this evil heart within our community and here at Brother Bryan? Let’s look at verse 13 again:
“13But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
Step one from verse 12 was to look. To be on the lookout for your brothers. Step two: Encourage—encourage one another.
What does it mean to encourage? In English, it means to put courage in another. In-courage. The word in the Bible is actually made up of two words in the original language: and the two words are: To call or invite alongside. To call alongside. It is to walk alongside a brother and ask him to walk alongside you.
If you have ever seen that great movie, Braveheart with Mel Gibson as the Scottish leader and warrior William Wallace, you will remember the great climax of the movie when William Wallace leads his small, meager Scottish army to face the much larger and fiercer English army. His men are scared, and some are ready to turn back from the fight for their freedom. One of the veteran fighters looks at the English army and says, “Fight against that? No, we will run, and we will live.” This man was ready to run from the freedom that was before him.
Then William Wallace stirs up the men with these words of encouragement: “Aye, fight and you may die, run and you'll live. At least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom?!” And with these words—words calling on the men to come alongside of him in the battle, the men had the courage to fight.
And this is what we are supposed to do. Not necessarily like William Wallace—though I wish I could give a rousing speech like him, and could use a few for myself. Encouragement can be done quietly, calmly, or excitedly and even when appropriate, loudly. But it must be done. This is a command of Scripture. Encourage one another! Call your brothers alongside of you to walk with the Lord Jesus Christ!
But notice what else the text says. “Encourage one another day after day [that is daily] as long as it is called “today” [It’s called ‘today’ every day].” Encourage one another regularly. Encourage one another daily. Encourage one another even sometimes hourly…I know I need encouragement some days hourly. Each of us has the capacity to fall away from the living God, therefore we all need encouragement.
Just think for a second about how this works. If I see one of you brothers fall down on the ground, and you can’t get up without my help, and I look and I don’t help you up, one day when I stumble and fall myself, what will you be able to do to help me from the ground? The very best you might be able to do is stick a knee or elbow up and break my fall, and I will throw an elbow back on my way down. But we will both be stuck on the ground together. But if I see you fall down, and I help you up, and I walk alongside of you, when the day comes when I stumble, you will be there with me to lift me up and we will stand united together. Two is indeed better than one, as Scripture says. But the encouraging body of Christ is even better than two. This is why the author of Hebrews tells us in chapter 10 to gather together as the body of Christ to stir one another to love and good deeds. We need the encouragement of each other. We need the truth spoken directly into our lives. Encourage one another.
But look at the rest of verse 13: “Encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”Notice how the author changes here from the reality that any one of us might fall from the living God to none of you. The desire of the Lord is that none should perish, that none should fall away and be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
We need encouragement because sin is so deceitful. Let me say this more forcefully. Sin lies. We talked about how our hearts are deceitful and wicked, but add to that the fact that sin is deceitful and you have a recipe for danger, and you begin to realize why we all need encouragement from our brothers.
Consider how sin lies and deceives us. The adulteress thrusts her hips and bats her eyes, enticing a man to sleep with her, and she promises—the sin of adultery promises—that we will “drink our fill of love until morning.” But you won’t drink your fill of love, you will have your fill of cheap, dirty sex and you will feel guilty afterwards, no matter what you tell your friends. And it ruins lives and marriages. “Many are the victims [adultery] has cast down,” Proverbs 7 tells us, “And numerous are all her dead.” We need to be encouraged to resist sin.
And drunkenness calls out to you: “A drink will take the edge off of you. Two will make you more fun and talkative. Five will give you the time of your life!” And you begin to believe the lies of sin and forget your hospital visits, and your wrecked family relationships, and your loss of work because of alcohol. Sin lies. Therefore we need daily encouragement to fight the lies of sin.
And drugs call out to some, and say, “Take me, and you will fly high as a kite, and life will be wonderful.” But man was not made to fly like a kite. Man begins to fly, and then drops like a brick to the ground. Sin lies and it deceives. We need to encourage one another to stand strong against sin.
And lest I become a preacher against sex, drugs and rock &roll, might I suggest one more sin that lies to us, and to this community here at Brother Bryan in particular? It is the sin of unforgiveness which leads to bitterness which I have observed in some men here, not to mention in my own life. This sin tells us that it if you just hold on to your complaint against another (whether it is a parent, an ex, your friends or brothers, or even leaders here at the mission), if you would just hold on to this complaint, you will feel better and somehow get the better of the one who hurt you. But the truth is that this bitterness and unforgiveness destroys relationships (with people and with God), it raises blood pressure, and causes depression and anxiety. Roots of bitterness, Hebrews 12 says, rise up and cause trouble and pollute communities such as this one at Brother Bryan. But sin lies and tells you otherwise. This is why we need to encourage one another. We need to call one another to the truth to counter the lies of sin.
So we have been told to Look or observe our brothers lovingly, to Encourage one another, and finally in verse 14 we are called or encouraged by the author of Hebrews to Partake. Look at verse 14:
“14For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end,”
The book of Hebrews is one giant encouragement. The writer of the book is continually calling on us to “consider Jesus” and inviting us to “hold firm until the end.” Here, we have the author’s great encouragement: “If you hold fast the faith, firm until the end, you have become partakers of Christ.” A Partaker of Christ. What does it mean to “partake of Christ”? It means to take part in. To share in (which most of your translations say). To be a companion with Christ. This word is often used in the Bible of food. We “partake” of food or drink. Or we eat food or drink.
And isn’t that what Christ is to us who believe? Has He not called Himself the “bread of life” who fills our souls to the brim? Has He not called Himself the “living water” continually gushing to refresh us and to give us life? Sin, you see, has tried to make the same claims. It lies and tells us that it will fulfill us, but it just leaves us empty and broken. But Christ, He fills that vacuum in our souls in a way that no person, thing or activity ever could.
But notice just this last thing before we leave tonight. Notice that in this verse, the author speaks of the future, “If we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.” But notice at the beginning of the verse, it is already a done deal for those who will walk with Christ until the end. We will not become partakers of Christ in the future. We have already become, and will always be partakers of Christ—companions with Christ, sharers in Christ, those who reign with Christ. We who will remain faithful are partakers of Christ now, today, tomorrow, and day after day. He will satisfy our every longing and our every true desire. So, I encourage you: Partake of Christ now! He will guard your heart—even your evil heart, and keep you from falling.
So this leaves us with these three simple words: Look (or observe) your brothers in the faith; Encourage your brothers in the faith; and Partake (or share in) the Lord Jesus Christ now that you might walk with Him forever. Look, Encourage and Partake.