Get in the Game, Part 2, One-Anothering

‘One-another’
The Bible contains many instructions for Christians to ‘one-another’ one another! These include the following:

• Love one another
• Encourage one another
• Instruct one another
• Live in harmony with one another
• Welcome one another
• Greet one another (with a holy kiss!)
• Care for one another
• Comfort one another
• Agree with one another
• Serve one another
• Bear one another’s burdens
• Bear with one another in love
• Be kind to one another
• Be tenderhearted towards one another
• Be forgiving to one another
• Sing to one another
• Submit to one another
• Teach one another
• Admonish one another
• Exhort one another
• Stir up one another to love and good works
• Confess your sins to one another
• Pray for one another
• Show hospitality to one another
• Serve one another
• Show humility to one another

These ‘one-anothers’ are not lovey-dovey or soft, but robust. And they are not, ‘Its all about me’. Rather, they illustrate that Christianity is a team exercise. The aim of these instructions is that the body (the church) should be built up – the health of the body is always in view.

Today we are looking at a passage that emphasises the ‘us’ and ‘we’ of being a Christian.

Hebrews 10:19-25

Jesus Our Priest (vv19-23)
The writer to the Hebrews says we can be confident when we come to God. Confidence makes a big difference to performance. In sport, confidence is hugely important – who wins out of two roughly matched individuals or teams often comes down to which is the most confident. Confidence creates an atmosphere of freedom. Paul says something similar in Ephesians 3:12 where he tells us that in Jesus we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Because of what Jesus has down we are now free to enter the holy places. The comparison being made is between the old priestly system and the new covenant. Now we can come right into the presence of God, whereas before the people of Israel had to make animal sacrifices and were separated from the holy place by a thick curtain.

The blood of the sacrifice demonstrated the seriousness of sin. Sin is so abhorrent to God that it is only solvable by death. And Yahweh was understood to be so dangerous that people had to be kept out of his presence – just as you wouldn’t want to enter a nuclear reactor, no-one wanted to go beyond the curtain where the Ark of the Covenant was kept.

But Jesus turns everything upside down!

Jesus is our priest! He is the one who has stood in our place and been our substitute. He died for our sins so that we don’t have to. It is Jesus who intercedes before his Father for us. It is Jesus who makes it possible for us to come into the presence of God – with confidence! Now, we can come close to God because Jesus has cleansed us. He gets to work on us, body and soul, and makes us presentable to God, inside and out.

In response to what Jesus has done, and the promises he has made, we are to persist in our faith. As a community together we are to hold on to the faith and faithfully follow our great high priest. In fact, it is only possible for us to do this as part of the body – it is in the communion of God’s people that we are held in faith.

Provoking One Another (vv24-25)
What Jesus has accomplished for us has then to be worked out by the way we do life together.

The word that is translated as ‘stir’ or ‘spur’ in our English Bibles could also be translated provoke. The Greek word is ‘paroxysmos’, which only occurs in the Bible here, and in Acts 15:39. There is it used to describe the ‘sharp disagreement’ between Paul and Barnabus that led to them separating from each other.

‘Oxys’ means goad, so what the writer to the Hebrews is saying is that we are to spur/stir/provoke/goad one another into doing the right thing. He tells us that we are to consider how we are to do this – that is, we need to think about it!

The truth is that often we need goading into showing love and doing good deeds, because we tend to get passive, and we tend to be selfish. We all need the body around us, helping us to be healthy members of the body.

Because Christianity is a team exercise we have to meet together. If we are to provoke one another we need to be together in order to be provoked! I would say that coming on Sunday and attending a small group is the minimum amount of meeting together that any believer should do.

This a very clear instruction from the Bible: Meet together! Why do we need to do this? In order to encourage one another. Why do we need to do this?! Because life is tough!

Meet together; encourage one another; help each other to live for Jesus.

Application to Life Groups
How – practically – can we spur one another on to love and good works? How can we help each other be fruitful?

Life Groups will help us!

The first thing to understand is that pastoral care happens through small groups. Pastoral care doesn’t primarily happen by one pastor running around after everyone, but is an exercise in community. We are meant to care for one another, so if you are not in a Life Group it is going to be hard to look out for you.

There are many practical things we want Life Groups to do in order to spur one another on. It might be that someone in the group needs financial help, and you can give them some money. It might be that you encourage one another to invite your unchurched friends along to a Life Group social event, or to church on a Sunday. Life Groups will hopefully be places where there is honesty and a godly correction of one another. And we want spiritual gifts to flow in these groups – prophecy is very useful in encouraging and spurring us on!

We want our groups to be communities together on a mission for Jesus where together we help one another live faithfully for the gospel and the good of our neighbours.