Draw Near

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

I want you to imagine that when you showed up for church this morning, there was a line outside the door, and the entrance was being guarded by TSA agents with a full body scanner.

But they’re not looking for weapons. Instead, the scanner is pulling up a record of everything a person has ever done – every thought, every word, every action.

And you watch as one-by-one people step into the scanner and a big screen flashes in bold, red letters “Not worthy, not pure, not allowed.”

Would you have the confidence to come to church? Or would you run back to your car?

If you’re visiting today, or you haven’t been in church for a long time, this may be exactly why: you assume if God really saw you, He’d say ‘Not allowed.’ But no one in this room, myself included, would pass that test.

Hebrews 10 is our text this morning, beginning in verse 19:

[19] Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,

The ‘holy places’ were the most sacred part of God’s temple, where no ordinary person could go. Does that describe your current spiritual life? If you walked into the presence of God, would you have confidence?

What does God think of you? Today, right now, what does He think of you? Could you stand confidently in His presence?

You may start thinking of all the bad things you’ve done, knowing that God sees it all like that scanner. “Not worthy, not pure, not allowed.”

But according to Hebrews, there’s a way for us to approach God with confidence. By the blood of Jesus… He’s talking about Jesus’ death in our place, taking the judgment our sins deserved so we could be forgiven and welcomed by the Father.

[20] by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,

Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all tell us that on the morning of the Resurrection, the veil guarding the Most Holy Place in the temple was torn from top to bottom. That curtain was like a giant ‘Do Not Enter’ sign in the temple, separating people from God’s presence. But the way to God is now open through Jesus.

[21] and since we have a great priest over the house of God,

A priest is a mediator, someone who moves between God and His people. In our case, that’s Jesus. He reconciled us to God through His blood on the cross. And so…

[22] let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us draw near. God invites us in, not scared or timid, but clean and confident. In Jesus, you’re clean. In Jesus, we can approach God with confidence. Not swagger or arrogance, but the settled assurance that you are truly wanted and safe with God.

But you don’t know what I’ve done… you don’t know the dirt… you don’t know the failures… you don’t know the guilt and the shame I carry…

You’re right, but He does. And there’s still a way to be clean. There’s still a way to draw near to God.

[23] Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

This is a key verse. Our confidence, the reason we stay faithful, is because He is faithful. What Jesus did for us will not expire. He’s not backing out of the plan. He’s not letting go. That’s the basis of our confidence.

In other words, I am not the basis of my own hope in God. It’s not something I did or something I will do.

I’m not trusting my grip to keep me close to God. I’m trusting His grip. That’s what he means by the confession of our hope.

Draw near to God, hold fast to Him as He holds on to you.

[24] And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,

Stir up is an interesting phrase. It’s a Greek word referring to conflict, the same word used in Acts to describe an argument between Paul and Barnabas. And that’s the only other time that word is used.

So, Hebrews 10 shifts suddenly from our confidence in Christ to our life in the church, calling us to some form of “holy conflict” with one another because we have confidence in Christ!

I once heard a pastor say that change only comes through conflict – good change and bad change. I agree and I see it all the time. Most of the time, I don’t want to be challenged by other people for what I’m doing. But God also uses that conflict in my life to make me a better man.

I think that’s what the writer has in mind here. He reminds us of our confidence in Christ to setup a challenge. He’s about to stir things up! Are you ready? Here we go.

[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.

It was the practice of the early church to gather regularly on the first day of the week in remembrance of the Resurrection. And we’ve been doing it for 2,000 years.

In context, that was the most obvious way the people of God practiced the things Hebrews 10 commands them to do.

How do we draw near to God? How do we hold fast our confession? How do we stir one another to love and good works? We gather for worship!

The answer may be more than just corporate worship on Sundays, but it certainly isn’t less than that! In fact, I would argue that this is exactly the practical concern Hebrews 10 is about.

He’s building a case that we come to God together in confidence through the blood of Jesus and this should be a habit, something we don’t neglect.

How do we know that God is important to someone? That their faith is important? That God’s church is important to them? They show up! Now because they have to… but because they want to, or better yet, because they need to!

If the doctor tells you that you’re experiencing kidney failure and that you’re going to need dialysis three days a week to live, what are you going to do?

You’re going to show up for dialysis. It doesn’t matter if you’re tired or busy or stressed or just having a bad day. It’s a life-or-death appointment.

Corporate worship for the Christian is designed by God to be like that dialysis chair. It is the regular, God-appointed place where, together, we draw near to Him.

We don’t come merely because “it’s what Christians do,” but because we know that, spiritually, we cannot live without His grace. We arrange our lives around it. We don’t fit it in when we have nothing better to do.

And Hebrews doubles down on this. The second half of our text is tough to hear. I’m going to read some hard words, but they are written in love. Everything God says to His people is spoken in love. He’s going to stir us up. Let it hit you and stay with me to the end.

[26] For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

[27] but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

I want to be careful here not to say more or less than the text. But in context, he’s talking about professing believers neglecting the means of grace.

Missing church occasionally is probably not what he has in mind here. But deliberately neglecting the means of grace on a regular basis is a dangerous thing. That’s the immediate context.

We are sinning deliberately if we know the Gospel, we know it’s being preached, we know the church is gathering weekly, and we don’t make it a priority in our lives.

He’s not talking about people outside the church who don’t know any better. He’s talking about people who know the truth. But knowing the truth isn’t the same thing as loving God.

The devil knows more truth than we do, but he hates God. Knowing the truth and loving God are not the same thing. It is possible to hear the truth, claim it, but not actually be covered by the blood of Jesus. And Hebrews applies some scary language to people in that group.

[28] Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

[29] How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?

This is an argument from the lesser to the greater, which is common throughout Hebrews.

He’s not talking about atheists or pagans here. He’s talking about people who would claim knowledge of the truth. These are people who have heard the Gospel.

A lot of people will assume they are safe from God’s judgment because they wear the label of Christianity. They claim Jesus. If someone asked them their religion, they would say Christian.

But Jesus Himself tells us that many people on the last day will be surprised to learn that they are not part of His kingdom. And what’s interesting about that text in Matthew 7 is that those same people appeal to their works as evidence.

Did we not do many works in your name? Which is proof they never understood the Gospel, or they would be appealing to His mercy and grace. Listen to the final two verses.

[30] For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”

[31] It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

If you’re deliberately neglecting the means of grace, prioritizing everything else in your life and paying lip service to God only when it’s convenient, that suggests that you don’t understand your need for His grace.

And if you don’t understand your need for His grace, then it’s possible you are still living under God’s judgment…

If you’re hearing all of this and it’s making you angry or defensive in your heart, that’s not a good sign. Jesus said that hell is going to be a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth. People there will be angry with God, shaking their fists at him because they thought they deserved heaven.

But none of us deserves to be with God. And so, if your response to all of this is that you’re being humbled by it or convicted by it, that’s a good sign. That means you’re sensitive to the work of the Spirit. Something is calling you to repentance. God is calling you home.

And look, you’re here this morning. And even if you haven’t been here since last Easter, I’m not judging you for that. I don’t know your heart. We don’t even take attendance in this church.

And I know some of you have a hard time being here because you’ve been hurt by the church before. Or you saw things or heard things that didn’t line up with Gospel. But it’s time to try again, because Jesus loves His church. This is where He promises to be.

I don’t want you to be here because you feel guilty or because you feel like you have to be here. I want you to be here because you want to be here, because you need to be here.

I want you to be here because you need His grace regularly in your life just like I do. I want you to be here because you want to draw near to Christ and His people with us!

And you’re here at a good time, because over the next 7 weeks we are going to talk about what it means to draw near to God in corporate worship. We’re going to talk about why this is so important for us as Christians to devote ourselves, to commit ourselves, to practice the habit of regularly gathering and doing these things together.

And we’re going to talk about each part of the worship service, why it’s important to us, why it’s good for us, and I really want to encourage you to make a commitment to be here. Don’t let other things get in the way.

Draw near to God, hold fast the confession of your hope without wavering, because He who promised is faithful.