[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 05:00 p.m. or Wednesdays at 07:00 p.m. if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, you can find us
[email protected] dot. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast Madison Church of Christ sermons thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
Good evening. Welcome to our midweek Bible study here at the Madison Church of Christ. We're glad you're with us. For those of you that are joining us online, we're glad that you're here as well. I'm excited for our speaker tonight, Mister Joey Sparks. He's the preacher at the parish church of Christ where he's been since 2014. He'll be speaking to us, continuing our study this summer on spiritual resilience. And Joey got to bring his family with him tonight, which we're excited for Amanda, his wife, and their two kids, Nora and Hazel. He's a graduate of Fried Hardman University, and he has master's degree in christian scripture and New Testament from heritage Christian University as well. A little known fact about Joey is that he has edited over 40 plus books, most of those brotherhood publications. And so he is definitely a guy that is in demand in a lot of different ways. He's got a very varied skill set, very creative, and a very good teacher. So I'm excited that we were able to have him come and speak to us tonight before he gets started. We're going to have a prayer, and then Jeffrey Peden will lead us in a song. So if you will please bow with me.
Father, we're grateful for the opportunity to gather in your name tonight, to be here to learn more about your scriptures, to be in each other's lives, father, to fellowship together. And father, we are so thankful for the opportunity and the place to gather. We ask that you be with Joey tonight as he speaks to us and teaches us from your word. Ask that you would open our ears and open our hearts to what you have to tell us. We love you, Father, and we thank you for hearing and answering our prayer in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: David Sharp was an engineer. An experienced mountain climber had scaled some of the world's tallest and most difficult mountains, had attempted to summit everest twice, both times having to turn back because of the weather and out of his desire to help some others come back down safely. So he had developed a reputation of not only having some skill but also some awareness and common sense and this mindset of keeping everybody safe.
So in 2006 he decided, I'm going to attempt Everest again.
He had a friend who was leading a group and that friend knew of his reputation and said, how about you come with us? I could use another hand in leading everyone.
Even offered a pretty steep discount for David to come along with him.
But David said, I really would like the freedom of going at my own pace.
So as the climbing season continued, the last kind of verified information from David's records and so forth was from May 13. They don't know the day in which he left camp four to attempt the summit but it would have been late the 13th or on the 14th. But they do know that when everyone was gathering themselves and checking back in at the night of the 15th, David was nowhere to be found. He was missing at check in.
And over the course of the day of May 1540, people had passed him as he sat in a cave and was shivering.
See, David had decided instead of going with his friend to buy one of the entry level base packages, this group would take care of his travel to a certain elevation. They would give him a few resources but otherwise it's very much you're just on your own and that's just not how Everest is climbed.
So it was there in that cave that David Sharp saw some 40 people at least pass by and talk to him and interact with him and he refused help when they offered to bring him down or offered to give him a little oxygen to sustain him. So it was there he succumbed to his conditions and died.
David sharp set out to do an extremely difficult thing all alone and that was the most significant factor in his death.
That's the tragedy of course.
To add insult to tragedy though is that no one knows if he even summited Everest before dying in that cave. They don't know if he stopped on the way up or if he stopped on the way back. So no one knows what his final few days looked like outside of a few minutes in that cave.
This life, and especially this life in Christ is far too difficult. It's far too dangerous and it's far too discouraging to attempt to do all by ourselves.
That's why when God had created Adam, he would say in Genesis 218, it's not good that the man be alone.
It's not in his design for the world or for mankind to live this life alone.
Proverbs 18 one says, whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire. He breaks out against all sound judgment.
I think the primary emphasis of this proverb would have to do with the fight response to fear. When you look at the context of all of proverbs, you see all these warnings about gossip and lying and backbiting, all these divisive ways of treating each other. The person who lives with those things, their selfishness, getting the best of them, will find time and time again. They are pushing away the people that are in their lives.
That's foolish. It's selfish and it's unhealthy. It would apply to the flight response just the same. Maybe the idea that we have in our minds of someone who is a loner or a hermit, someone who just has to get away, and so out of the fear and the nerves, we just withdraw. That's still at its core, a selfish desire. God intends for us to live together, to be together, and to help each other.
We're going to anchor ourselves tonight in Hebrews chapter three, but encourage you to turn in your copy of the New Testament to that chapter will be there shortly.
As you turn to that passage, I do want to say thank you for the invitation and thank you for your presence here tonight. It's always an encouragement to be with brothers and sisters across our great state, and I'm thankful to be here with you tonight. Thankful to see some of your ministers and to be able to catch up with them. Thankful to see several Walker county connections, several free hardiman connections when we were in school there, and so, so thankful for all the good that you do for the Lord and his work. And I'm thankful for this assignment. I've been blessed over the past few months to dive into this concept of resilience, and especially how God allows us and helps us to be resilient, and also our specific topic about isolation and avoiding it, because it does indeed hinder our resilience at the outset. I want us to start with five quick, just really brief kind of wisdom, perspective, wisdom, principle ideas about why this topic is so important before we dive into the text of Hebrews three.
So, number one, it's true that we can go through life, we can manage, handle the vast majority of our situations all on our own.
But just the very nature of our capacity means that once we meet the one or the two or the small number of things that we cannot handle all on our own when we face them, those are the things that are going to ruin us and we don't know going in if this is something I can't handle all on my own or not. Therefore, we need this pre existing support and pre existing relationships before difficulties arise.
Second observation is that when we find ourselves making foolish decisions, when we get caught up in sin, when we turn away from the Lord, we very well might go to someone, or multiple someones for help.
Can you help me? Can you help me work through this?
If we would go to them after having made those poor decisions, what if we flipped it and began to be a part of each other's lives and go to each other before we ever get caught up in those decisions? In the same way, we go to people and ask for their prayers. Would you pray for me? Would you pray this prayer and help me to walk in forgiveness and repentance again? If we would ask them for their prayers after falling victim to foolishness, what would change if we would instead go to them and have a life together, such that we're constantly praying with and for each other beforehand?
It's just a simple fact, self interest gets involved, that we can assess other people's lack of wisdom, the path that they're on. We can do that easier than we can ourselves. It's just much harder to look in the mirror on some of these things. So likewise, it's true that other people are often better equipped to see some of the decisions that we're making and how they are adding up to a potentially foolish or sinful situation before we can.
That leads to a fifth observation along those same lines. When we look back on a time of foolishness or a time of sin, a season of selfishness, if we look back on that time and we think to ourselves, I should have seen it coming, everything was there and I just missed it. I ought to have seen it.
That means that someone else almost certainly did.
Were those people in our lives?
Were those people close enough to us? Were we humble enough to have listened to them with those thoughts? Kind of setting the practical framework for our thoughts tonight we want to dive into Hebrews three, remembering that the primary audience of the Book of Hebrews, they needed this series on resilience, didn't they? They were beginning to fail some resilience tests. They had not fallen away yet.
But the author is really beginning to wonder, are they going to bounce back? I'm afraid that they may not prove to be resilient and so, out of his concern for them, he's writing all these great things, including some warnings, but also plenty of positive, uplifting things to remind them of what they have in Christ and what they share in Christ.
Hebrews, chapter three, beginning verse number one. Notice the emphasis.
Therefore, holy brothers, you who share, maybe circle the word, share in your mind. We'll come back to it. You who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession. He said plenty to this stage already about Jesus, but now he is shifting his tone. He's no longer describing Jesus. He's commanding that we think about that. We focus upon Jesus.
He's described Jesus the son, of course, as the one through whom God now speaks. In these last days, he's described Jesus as the one who brings many sons to glory. That's us.
He's the one who himself has been perfected by the suffering of death.
And it's through that suffering that he is now supremely and uniquely qualified to represent us before God.
But then notice that at the end of chapter two and how this now connects to our resilience, he is supremely and uniquely qualified to lend us help as we suffer, enduring our own temptations to give up.
So while the topic isolation hinders resilience, might quickly bring to our minds kind of our relational discussions, how much we need each other. That's where we're going to land, and it's where we're going to spend the majority of our time.
But we need not miss how vital Jesus Christ is, even necessary he is to our resilience.
If we could summarize Hebrews, we might use the phrase consider Jesus or look to Jesus.
So as he enters this discussion in chapter three, that's where he begins, and that's where we must begin tonight in our discussion. Memorably, of course, you know from chapter twelve, let us run with endurance the race set before us. Verse one, verse two, begins looking to Jesus because he endured the cross.
Verse three, consider him same language. Consider him who endured, who endured from such sinners, from sinners. Such hostility against himself. For what purpose?
So that you may not grow weary or faint hearted. That's resilience, and it's tied directly to us. Looking squarely upon and drawing from Jesus.
In Jesus Christ, we have everything we need for our resilience.
He is the source of our spiritual strength. He's the beginning point of a spiritual support system. He is the one who gives us a positive mindset and outlook by which we can view everything we face.
He's the one who's training and I and helping us, disciplining us to build healthy habits and skills and self control, to know what we can and cannot control. That's vital for resilience. He's also the one that when difficulties arise and challenges enter our lives. He's the one who directs our responses in those difficult times.
As necessary as each other is, each of us are to one another.
Jesus is most necessary for our resilience. And if we begin to isolate in such a way that turns us away from him, then we're doomed.
Paul knew of the experience of desertion, didn't he? After he would say that he has fought the good fight, that he's finished the race, that he's kept the faith, he would then say, I want to see you soon. Timothy Demas has deserted me in love with this present age. He would rewind his life in verse 16 and say, all deserted me at this point in my life.
But the Lord stood by me. The Lord strengthened me. Paul, how could you endure? How could you be so resilient?
His first answer is, not because of all the great people that kept me. His first answer was, it was the Lord who strengthened me.
Listen to that, that idea again. The Lord who strengthened me memorably, he says, Philippians 413. I can endure.
I can do. I can bounce back through all things, through Christ, who strengthens me.
So at the outset, we want to notice the vital necessity of Jesus being our source of resilience. How do we keep bouncing back? How do we keep enduring is through Jesus Christ. Even when we might be physically alone, even when we cannot find anyone to answer our calls or our texts, Jesus is still our source of strength for our resilience.
But we also start with Jesus for an important reason, in terms of our relationships with one another. And that is that it's he who brings us together.
Try to envision a giant funnel vortex of energy, and it's all focused upon Jesus, because we're all doing what? Considering Jesus, looking to Jesus.
And as that energy from my life and your life and all around this room and all around the church, that energy is focused on Jesus. As we draw nearer to him, we are also necessarily drawn closer and closer to each other.
That common, shared direction in Jesus Christ is the bond that brings us closer together so that we might help one another to remain and grow in our resilience.
Psalm 119, verse 63.
Psalmist says just two verses actually about after kind of complaining about the wicked, he says, here I have companions. I am a companion of all who fear you of those who keep your precepts.
When I feel alone, I remember that I can find companions. Because there are others out there who do fear God.
And because I'm drawn to him and they're drawn to him, we keep being drawn nearer and nearer together.
Before we dive into that common aspect, the bonds that we have in Christ, we need to respect the context of chapter three. Remember, he talks about the difference, the connection between Moses and Jesus. And then verse number seven of chapter three, he begins by quoting psalm 95. Let's look at verse seven. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years.
Therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart. They have not known my ways. As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.
So what the author is wanting us to do, what he needed, that original audience who was beginning to be weak and less resilient. What he wanted them to do was to look at this clear example of the Israelites and then to put their faith alongside it.
How does it stack up? How is it going to stack up? And since they had a great, faithful servant in the house of God and Moses, they still missed it. They were still not resilient.
Now that we have an even greater one in the house of God, we have the Son, not just a servant.
How will we respond to his leadership?
How will we respond to his teaching and his word?
If they could see the mighty works of God, if they could hear his words and still fall away, what happens?
We hear and see the mighty works of the Son and still decide to harden our hearts so they miss out on the rest. They don't get to enter.
They become isolated. They become cut off from God.
And it would be easy to say, well, the Israelites, they were an isolated people because they were in the wilderness for 40 years.
But this passage reminds us, God had prepared for them a place of rest.
They become isolated not because they're in the middle of a desert, but because God was actively leading them and they chose to reject listening to him.
They were cut off because they had stopped up their years. They were no longer willing to submit themselves to God because they did not know God. They did not get to enter the rest he had prepared for them.
That also reminds us of that isolation. If that's what we're trying to overcome, it's going to hinder our resilience.
That's not only a statement about physical location.
They were in a place where they were literally hearing from God, and yet they were turned away from God because of their hearts. So for us, we need the reminder that true connection, not being isolated, involves orientation just as much as it does location. I can be in the right place.
I can be with the right people. But if my heart and my energy and my actions and my attitude, my demeanor is against now I'm going to suffer from isolation.
How often are we in the right place at the right time, but with the wrong attitude? It means little to nothing.
That's where we begin to have some overlap and see a relevance to this discussion with our current culture.
Because connection is as high as it has ever been.
We are as connected as we've ever been, as many ways to be connected. We can be connected as quickly as ever in history.
And yet study after study and warning after warning reminds us we feel as lonely and as isolated as we ever have at any point in history, too.
So now the question for us in a discussion in a setting like this tonight is, is that loneliness?
Are those feelings of isolation? Are they coming from truth or have we been influenced by the world in that regard?
Are we being conformed to this world?
Or are we being transformed by the renewing of our minds? By seeking the will of God? It will start with orientation. See, looking to Jesus, considering Jesus, what did they miss out on the rest? Because they had turned away from God, they were no longer listening to him.
We also need to see the importance of this word today. There is urgency to what we're about to discuss.
The Israelites could have done something on a today, and today is the repeated word. When he keeps quoting from psalm 95, he keeps including that first part of verse seven. And you almost can envision the original audience thinking, why does he keep saying that today? Okay, we get it. And then in four, verse seven, he actually makes clear why he's been repeating that word, because he says he has appointed a certain day today.
What day could the Israelites stopped their isolation away from God today?
What day did the original audience of Psalm 95, when David's writing to spur the people of God back to faithfulness? They could have change their ways today.
And as we move into verses twelve through 14, in just a moment, we're going to see once again each and every one of us has today in order to do something to fend off our own isolation and to help others avoid the trap of isolation. Just the same, anyone who falls away tomorrow or any number of future tomorrows, it will have started on a certain today.
So that's why this solution in this text becomes so paramount. You can do something, something now, something today, and that should inspire with us, within us, great, great urgency.
So often we find ourselves putting things off with this phrase, I just don't have the time today.
But as we're going to see, because these are commands, they're imperative statements to us, we don't have a choice about whether or not we're going to be the family that God expects and come together in his love to help one another avoid this trap of isolation.
Let's look now at verse number twelve.
Take care. That's the first command in this section. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day as long as it is called today. See the emphasis on today. Right.
That none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, for we have come to share in christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. Into verse 14, there is our resilience language. We're going to hold on, keep bouncing back no matter what.
So look at the commands and the expectations of this section. Who does he have in mind? His burden is for every single soul.
Verse twelve. Take care, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart. Exhort one another. Verse 13, that none of you may be hardened. Drop down again to four. Verse number one. And he again says, let us fear, lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it.
Hebrews writer is not concerned or distracted by appointing certain people to be the ones who exhort. He's not getting caught up in that discussion.
He's saying, every one of you is important.
Every one of you has the same amount of value. Therefore, every one of you has a shared responsibility to exhort one another to keep this process of isolation from entering in among you.
But then he does tell us what to do. All of you are to do this. You are to exhort. You are to exhort one another. Some translations, maybe about half, use the word encourage. Sometimes they're interchangeable. I do kind of like that. The ESV uses exhort because I think in English, exhort can carry a little bit of a broader meaning. Sometimes. Maybe we think of the word encourage in almost a purely uplifting, maybe unoffensive way.
And yet exhort might carry a little bit in our minds, the possibility for some correction, for approaching someone with the goal of bringing them back. So I think in light of the Israelites especially, that's why exhort is a wise choice here.
That means for us that every conversation and every interaction, we really need to think soberly and seriously about how this comes from our connection in Christ.
Sports are great to talk about, and the weather and where we just ate all of those great things.
But how do our conversations difference from the conversations we have with people who are outside of Christ?
Exhort build up, if necessary, correct one another today because of that possibility for correction or expressing concern. That means that every single conversation will not always be pleasant.
But the aim of every conversation, every interaction ought to be positive for the sake of bringing us nearer and nearer to Christ himself. But then he tells us how often, according to the day, if it's a day, if it's today, then there's the responsibility to exhort.
That's the urgency today. Any day that we're alive, any day that we're awake is a day that I need to be encouraged in the Lord.
Any day that we're alive, that we're awake, is a day that someone else needs to be encouraged and lifted up in the Lord, as long as it is today.
This becomes sobering when you look back at the command of verse number twelve. Take care, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart. Well, how can we know if we're fulfilling that command?
What's contingent upon the command of verse 13? If every person is not exhorting every day, can we say that we are truly taking care?
Back to verse number twelve.
If I do not do the things that I expect other people to do when it comes to encouragement or reaching out, then it's not truly mutual, right? If I'm expecting someone else to be more encouraging than I am, then that's not going to work. That's not mutual.
I think the ideal would be that we recognize that as long as it's today, as long as there are people, as long as there are souls who are struggling, who are potentially discouraged, there is so much work to do. I don't have time to complain about who is or is not exhorting me and building me up or dragging me down.
We have plenty of work to do in order to encourage each other, exhort one another to keep that funnel energy toward Christ instead of allowing it to dissipate away from him.
But there is a purpose that you may not be hardened. Remember, that was the problem with the Israelites. Their hearts were hardened. They were in the arena of God's presence. They were hearing his words. They were seeing his works, and they were unphased. They were not changed. But what they saw and they heard. So they became hardened.
This is a reminder to us that each of us holds the power to keep our own hearts from growing hardened.
And this simple process of every person every day keeps us from growing hardened. It keeps us to being soft, malleable, in the will of God.
But then notice especially verse number 14. I went the longest time without realizing that verse 14 is the key to his argument. Goes back to three. Verse one. You who shared a heavenly calling. That's three, verse one. Now, 314, he says, for we have come to share in Christ.
Why does this exhortation matter so much? Because you're all in the same place. You're all in Christ.
And because you're partners and working together in Christ, you should never be okay with the idea that one of you might be growing isolated away from the rest of you and away from Christ.
Luke, chapter five, verse seven, is the only time this word for share is used outside of Hebrews. And it's there where the apostles are given that miraculous catch of fish. And it says they signal to their partners in the other boat to come help them. What a beautiful snapshot that is for the principle of our mutual relationships in Christ. Here we are on the same mission, and sometimes we need help.
So we signal to each other, I need help, because we're all focused in the same direction on the same savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
Do we truly believe that we share in this most special of bonds in Christ?
Do we let our circumstances influence negatively? Do we allow imperfections in our relationships to blind us to the beauty of what we do deeply share?
Do we quickly say that we love one another?
And yet, despite this common salvation, we sometimes act like we don't really like each other all that much.
He says, you build each other up. You exhort one another because you share in him.
But if you continue down in chapter four, he's going to talk about the Israelites again, beginning in verse 1516, just to remind us of how terrible it is that they fell away. But he pulls back in chapter four, verse one, while the promise of entering his rest still stands.
Let us fear, lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it, for good news came to us just as to them. But the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.
Pay attention to that. The Israelites had everything they needed from God, and they still refused.
And now to put a bow on the previous discussion about mutual exhortation. He also says the Israelites also had people among them who did get it, and they failed to join themselves to them.
Of all the things God gave them, he also gave them men like Joshua and Caleb who refused to be hardened.
This vast number of Israelites didn't join themselves to these faithful men, and therefore that contributed to them falling away and missing out on the rest. They turned themselves away from potential on ramps who could have been their connection back to trusting and obeying God.
One thing that's so beautiful about Hebrews is how he is able to intentionally repeat himself just enough to where it's not repetition for repetition's sake, it's building and it's intensifying along the way.
Notice two key, probably even more familiar passages than this one. In chapter three and four, notice how they reveal the same theme. It's in chapter ten. After saying, let us go to the throne of God, let us draw near with the full assurance of faith. For verse 19, let us hold fast to our confession.
He then says, verse 24, let us consider one another, how to stir up love and good works, 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. Stir up one another. Think of the stirring up process.
And now call to mind chapter three, verse 13, so that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. That exhortation keeps everything from settling and getting stale.
We keep being stirred up as we come together.
Interestingly, this word for stir up can also be translated provoked. You go back to the greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, and it translates proverbs 20 717, which says, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
It's the same greek word used here for stir up, so one man provokes another. So the beauty of God's process when we do come together and draw near the throne of God in worship is that we also get to consider one another's needs and stir up, sharpen, strengthen one another in Christ.
That, of course, is parallel to the phrase in verse 25, encouraging one another all the more as you see the day approaching again. Same word as three, verse 13, which is exhorted in the ESV. Now encouraging here, what's the opposite of not forsaking the phrase that's beginning of verse 25?
You'll notice he doesn't say, not forsaking meeting together, but attending, but being present.
He says, don't forsake the coming together of yourselves, but instead encouraging one another. The leading command is, consider one another. To stir up love and good works. The necessary conditions, the participles and the grammar, are to not neglect, but instead encourage one another, actively build up one another.
The first century church would have thought nothing along the lines of thinking, well, I went today.
I didn't really talk to many people. There were certain things that were entertaining, certain things that did appeal, certain things that did make me feel good. But some things were just, meh.
But at least I went today that would have been completely foreign to their mind.
They were beginning to fall away. They were beginning to prove to be not resilient.
And he's saying, the one thing you cannot let slip is being together in person and building up each other while you do it. But final passage for our consideration. Hebrews, chapter 13, verse number twelve.
So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp. Bear the reproach he endured. You see our resilience coming from Christ. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come away from Jerusalem, away from the temple. That's where you go find Jesus.
So what do you do when you're there with Jesus outside the camp? Verse 15. Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledged his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices or pleasing to goddess. You see the focus on Christ looking to Jesus as he suffers us bearing that same reproach with Christ.
And we're doing so collectively in what two aspects? Verse 15, worshiping. Verse 16, showing hospitality. Look back at your text. What's the common word between 15 and 16?
It's the word sacrifice.
We go to him, we suffer with him. Therefore, we recognize that nothing we do in this life as a Christian is supposed to be easy.
The one thing that we cannot do in a topic like this tonight. All right, Joe. We address isolation hinders resilience.
It would have been easy for me to come up here and say, well, just worship and just love one another.
There's no just about it. It's not simple. It's not natural.
But when we sacrificially submit to Christ and the life that he has chosen for us to live, that is also the same process by which we build our resilience, that we encourage each other, that we grow deeper in our faith. And keep one another from growing and falling victim to isolation.
The actions that bring God the most glory, the actions that please him, are also the behaviors that bring us together in Christ his son.
Let's pray together.
God Almighty Father in heaven, we are grateful to you, for you. We're thankful for your love. We're thankful for your son, Jesus.
We pray that our energy throughout each day will be focused squarely on him, also recognizing that that brings us together with all others who are focusing on him.
We thank you that you provide us everything we need in him to be resilient, and you also give us the beauty and the depth of these relationships in him.
Please bless us tonight while it remains today to reach out, to encourage, to exhorte, to stay a few minutes later after we dismiss, to reach out with a text message or a call or a visit, even tonight, in order to build up and exhort each other in Jesus, we thank you for the powerful example of the Israelites and how they failed to enter the rest because they turned themselves away from you. Help us to heed the warning that their life now represents.
We thank you for your forgiveness and we do thank you for your strength.
We thank you so much for all you give us. It's in Jesus we pray. Amen.
