The Habit of Fellowship

Good to see you this morning. My name is Stephen Combs. I'm the pastor of worship here at Eastgate Church. And you know, I gotta say, I've been. I've been working here for 20 years, and I think this is the first time ever that Pastor Gary and myself have been in this kind of tag team situation.

Usually it's me up here leading the music, and then he comes up here to preach. And so I think it's the first time he's ever done the greeting for me to preach. So this is just an unusually kind of cool day, though, you know, to have the privilege to preach up here in the pulpit and to continue this series that we started week called the Power of Spiritual Habits. And during this series, we're gonna be studying habits that have been passed down since the early church. And today we're gonna be diving into the spiritual habit of fellowship.

Now, if you were here last week, there's an illustration that we use that I think is gonna be a good consistent one to use throughout this series, and that is that in all of our pockets we have these smartphones that when powered up, are capable of things, but when their battery is dead or as good as a very expensive paperweight. And so with our phone, we've learned that there's a very important habit that we have every single day, and that is plug the thing in and charge it. And just as it is with our phone, it is with our spiritual life. And that we are built with a battery inside of us, you could say spiritually, that can only be filled by one source, and that is by that is through the Holy Spirit. And so the power cable represents the conduit of whatever habit that we are put in place.

So last week we put in the habit of devotion. And where we learned that it's through devoting ourselves to being alone with God and reading His Word and getting to a solitary place that he fills us with the Holy Spirit. And just like how we know when it comes to things like physical health, that it's not just one thing that's going to make you physically healthy. Like, for example, if I am trying to get healthy physically, if I am trying to maybe lose weight, I don't just work out. I've been the personal testament to what that can look like.

You'll get really strong but still have a big old belly on you because you didn't change your diet. And then maybe you're doing those two things, but you have a horrible sleeping habit. So there's things that we know that it's multi. And so I brought up something new this week and that is the surge protector. And this kind of gives us the symbol here that there is one power source.

And in our case, we know that we are powered by the Holy Spirit. But when it comes to habits, there's multiple ways of plugging into this. And so last week we talked about the habit of devotion. And so this week we're going to be adding another habit here of fellowship and whereby we will see that we can be filled and we can also be used by the Lord to fill others as well. It's because we're not meant to do this life alone.

Christianity is a team sport. But let's be honest with ourselves. Some of us have gotten out of the habit fellowship, and that's the way we like to put it. At least we like to say, I've just gotten out of the. I just kind of fell out of the habit of going to church.

I kind of fell out of the habit of going to a community group. But it's so much bigger than that. We haven't just fallen out of a habit, we've developed a brand new habit now of isolation. So that isolation itself is a habit that we run to. And it's because we're looking for a place to plug this thing in, but we've plugged ourself into a place that's not satisfying us.

We have our reasons. We have our triggers that push us into isolation. One of our triggers is that we feel emotionally overwhelmed. So when life feels like it's too much, like we have stress, we have anxiety, we have conflict. Another trigger that puts us in isolation is fear of rejection, judgment, the past hurt or social anxiety makes withdrawing just feel safer.

Another trigger is exhaustion and burnout. We feel physically or mentally drained. So avoiding people feels like a relief, shame or guilt. So this is like the negative self beliefs like, I'm just, I'm a burden to everybody. I'm not good enough.

And so we just drive ourselves right into withdrawal. And then another trigger might be the need for control. So retreating it gives you the sense of you're able to kind of build a barrier, build a boundary that you can control. You don't have anything unexpected happening when you're alone, whereas people, you never know what's gonna come of interacting with people. And so by these triggers and by diving into these things, we do experience some temporary rewards.

One of them is relief. Maybe you have the immediate escape from the pressure and the criticism or the conflict. Another temporary reward would be comfort. That solitude Just feels safe compared to the social risks. Maybe another reward that you experience is control.

Just the ability to manage my environment, to manage all the interactions. Another reward you feel is rest. It's a break from the stimulation and the demands. And finally another reward would be protection. You avoid potential rejection or failure.

And so it's these triggers and these rewards that have caused us to not just fall out of a habit of fellowship, but to dive into another habit of isolation. But if we're honest with ourselves this morning, this habit of isolation, those rewards are temporary. They're like a drug that is really great for a moment, but then it fades. And so we find ourselves over time in isolation, being driven to loneliness, depression, anxiety. We have weakened support systems and overall just a deeper disconnection.

The short term gain creates long term pain. And that's where some of us are this morning. But what we need, what we really, really need and what's going to give us a long lasting spiritual and emotional reward is fellowship. It's not isolation. And it's going to be the conduit in which the Spirit not only empowers us, but he's going to anchor us, he's gonna stabilize us for life's storms.

And so when you look into the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, you see this beautiful picture here where it's describing how now with Christ before God, he has taken us into the holy places with himself. And it's by his blood and his power and his works, his life and death and resurrection alone that we can now come with Christ into the holy of Holies, which in that time in that culture, the Holy of Holies would have been a place reserved only for the high priest to go once a year. But now by the blood of Christ, we get to go there anytime we want. What is the holy of holies? Is it an actual physical place?

No, it's a spiritual place. In that now, by Jesus sacrifice and by his adopting us as sons, we can come before the Father with assurance of our faith and to meet with the holy God. And not by our own works, but by his works and his will alone. So we're starting with this beautiful picture and then we're gonna see then this blending of a personal devotion, whereby last week we were talking about personal devotion and how it's your goal is to get alone with God and to talk to God, to hear from God. If you can do those two things, get alone and have a relationship with God, you've had a successful devotion.

Well now here this week, we're going to See this connection of this idea of fellowship. And so what the writer in Hebrews says is that when we draw near to God, hold fast to our confession of hope without wavering. And this is gonna be a combination of not just holding fast to Jesus alone, but it's gonna be also what we're gonna see in our text today is that the anchor in our storms, the thing that's gonna help us to not waver, is gonna be fellowship. So how can we come together and faithfully fellowship with one another in Christ Jesus? We're gonna see that the text gives us three ways to form this spiritual habit that we're talking about, a faithful fellowship.

So let's pray together. God, I pray now that your word would be spoken clearly. And we know, God, that when you speak, it pierces the heart. And I pray, Father, that as we open up your scriptures right now and as we look to the book of Hebrews, that we will be challenged that we would be changed and that no one present, whether they're here in person or watching online, that no one would be able to escape the power of your words. And I pray that you would change our lives.

And we do all this now in the name of Jesus. Amen. Friends, let's stand to our feet right now. We're going to open our Bibles to the book of Hebrews, chapter 10. Let's go ahead and stand up.

And if you don't have your physical Bible, you can always go to the church center app. We have an event there every single week where not only can you see the scripture, but you can see sermon notes looking at Hebrews, chapter 10, verse 24. I'm going to read 24, and then we'll join together for 25.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. Let's read this together, 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. Amen. God bless the reading of his word.

Amen. Amen. You can be seated.

So, as we said earlier, we see here in the Scriptures there are three ways to form the spiritual habit of faithful fellowship in Christ Jesus. And the first way we see right off the bat, stir one another up to love and good works. Stir one another to love and good work works. You'll find that all the points we're finding today come right off the page. We see here in verse 24.

The first thing that the writer says is, let us consider. Now this is the idea. It's not. This is, this is like an active consideration. This is a I'm going to fix my eyes on this thing.

I'm going to fix my mind on this thing. What am I fixing my eyes on? How to stir up. Now the word stir up here, the definition is this idea of to provoke, to maybe to prod, like with a shepherd's staff, it's to incite something. It even means to irritate something.

And so we have in view here a shepherd with a sheep. And that if you're trying to get them to go a certain way, you're using that staff to kind of to provoke them. That's the idea that we see here in view with this word stir up. And in fact, it's not even always used in a positive sense. Throughout the Bible we see that sometimes it can have a negative connotation.

Whereas you see the disciples sometimes having arguments with one another. But the arguments have a good outcome because there's corrections that are made through those arguments. And so I have in mind here when we read this Proverbs, chapter 27, where it says iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another. This is what stirring up is supposed to look like in that sometimes sparks fly when you're sharpening iron. But that it stirs us up and makes us better, it makes us sharper.

Now this is not a self stirring. This is not a standing and looking in the mirror and pointing the finger at ourselves and being like get right, you need to do this and poking and prodding ourselves. It says let us consider how to stir up what one another. And if you've been part of our church for any length of time, you know that our habit when we see the one anothers is that you cannot do the one anothers without one another. And so this isn't a self stirring.

This is something that you're now you're stirring up others, you're provoking, prodding for the purpose of love, which is we see in the Greek here it's the word agape, which is unconditional love. This is God's kind of love. This isn't a love that comes naturally to us in physical form because it's unconditional and certain other to love and to good works. So starting with this love idea, in John 13 it says a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I loved you. You also are to love one another.

By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. And that's A familiar passage maybe to most of us. And we kind of summarize it by saying the world will know you are Christians by your love. That's essentially what Jesus is saying here, is that the love that comes from the Father is unique. This is an unconditional love.

This is an attractional kind of love. And this isn't a passive kind of love. I'm mindful of who here. Maybe listen to D.C. talk growing up. And you remember the song Love is a Verb.

You familiar with that tune? Man, I remember like jamming out to that when I was in like sixth grade. And so this is. This is. It's a very intentional, it's a verb kind of love.

It's a when Jesus came to earth and died for me, even though I was his enemy kind of love. It's a loving despite who I am. And so I'm putting this love into action sense and then I'm stirring one another to love and to what good works. It says in Ephesians, chapter 2. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

These are not just good in the type of works that the world would call good. The kind of works that make you look good, the kind of works that just make you feel good. These are works that Christ had in mind for you to do whenever he freed you of your sin and made you into a new creation. These are the kind of works that he specifically is looking at you and saying, I'm gonna use these works to build my kingdom. So these are.

This is the type of thing we're stirred up to. And as I'm considering this idea of stirring up, it brings a movie to my mind that I grew up watching as a kid. Has anybody here seen the movie Hook before? Seen the movie Hook? That's a classic for me.

And just really quick summary. It's basically, it's story of Peter Pan grew up and he forgot about Neverland. He forgot he could fly. He forgot he was Peter Pan and he goes back to Neverland. And here in this picture here, the Lost boys are with him and they're trying their best to stir him up, to provoke and jog his memory of who he is and what he can do.

And so in this scene, he's in a slingshot and they're getting ready to launch him and just hope and pray he figures out how to fly again. And then later in the movie, you see this scene where he's sitting there at a dinner table with them and it smells really good to him. And then they begin to pass it out, and they open up the pots, and he looks at his plate, and it's empty. And everybody else around him is like, looks like they're really enjoying their meal. And he's just, like, dumbfounded.

Like, what is everybody eating right now? And then somebody turns to me, like, go ahead and eat. And he's like, eat what? Gandhi had more than this. And it's a funny scene, but the truth is, when we analyze this a little further and we look at our own lives, some of us this morning are looking at an empty plate.

Some of us this morning are looking at an empty bowl. And you're looking around at others, and you're like, what is this love that I hear the Word talking about this morning? What is this thing that y' all are stirring up? Because I don't have anything to stir. And, friend, here's what I would point you right to right now, is that if you don't have Jesus, your bowl is empty.

There's nothing to stir up because nothing has been stirred in. And so the best starting for you today, best starting point for you today is gonna be, you know what? It's time. I need to give my life to Christ. Because I'm that person who has that habit of isolation.

And I'm sitting here looking around and going, man, these Christians sure seem to love one another. There sure seems to be some amazing good works. People sure seem to be satisfied around me. But I'm sitting here with an empty plate. Friend, that plate can be filled by Jesus and his power in and through you.

And so what we'll find here is that this journey towards filling our plate is not just a personal one, it's a corporate one as well. So fellowship, it's not just for comforting one another. It's for calling each other to a higher purpose. It's that going into the holy of holies with Jesus and then going alongside my brothers and sisters and prodding each other along to become more and more like Christ. So how do we do this?

Well, here's some practical ways. Be intentional with your fellowship. Don't just hang out when you're together with the believers. Ask questions that matter. Ask one another, how's your walk with Christ?

Ask them, how can I pray for you? What's one step of obedience that you're working on today? This is commonly called accountability, is how can we hold each other accountable to doing the things that are gonna make us more like Christ? Because I've got that in view Maybe you speak words to one another that spark action, the things that I say to you. I have it in mind that I wanna motivate you because I'm seeing in you what Christ sees in you.

Maybe it's just a matter of modeling love and good works yourself. And you're looking at your life right now and you're like, are you analyzing your heart right now? And you're saying, do you have love in your heart for one another? Do you have God's kind of love for your brothers and sisters in Christ, which loves them unconditionally? Are you doing good works that others would look at you and be motivated by seeing your life?

And then finally, here's a really, really practical step that we'd encourage you to take this morning. And that is, you see I'm wearing one of these come as you are green shirts. When we leave this service this morning, if you go out to the lobby, Mike Laramie's gonna be out there wearing one of these green shirts. Go find him. And he's gonna help you get connected.

We have lots of small group shepherds that are gonna be kind of hanging out with him. He's gonna help you get connected. And through small group, you're gonna find that it's a great starting point for finding fellowship through making that weekly commitment to being together. And maybe your youth age. This morning.

I encourage you to come to youth group tonight. We meet at 4 o' clock right here in the hub. If you're young adult ministry, I encourage you to come to their service on Thursday. That's. These are going to be some really, like, you can't say I didn't give you a practical next step.

That's a very easy one to say. I'm going to say yes to. It's a really. Sorry, it's not an easy step. It's an easy way of finding that fellowship.

So stir one another up to love and good works. Second way to form the spiritual habit of faithful fellowship in Christ Jesus is stay devoted to one another by gathering together. Stay devoted to one another by gathering together. Now, the writer of Hebrews in 25 says, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some. And so we have these words, not neglecting.

What does it mean to neglect something? It means to forsake it, to abandon it, to desert that thing. And the antonym of neglecting is to cherish something, to look after something, to care for something. So what is he saying? Don't neglect what?

To meet together. So meeting together. And when he's saying this, he has in view that this is an example of the meeting together, that coming together on Sundays as the church, coming together during the week, and meeting in one another's homes, small groups, or any of the other various ways that I just described to you. Don't neglect meeting together. And then here comes the hammer, as is the habit of some.

Now this word, habit, here is the word ethos. And we actually saw this used last week. We were talking, we were using the story of Jesus to help understand this habit of devotion. And one of the scriptures we read last week was Luke 22, where it says, and Jesus came out and went, as was his custom. Well, guess what?

The Greek word for custom is ethos. So Jesus had this habit that was making him more like it was bringing him in relationship with his Father. And it was a characteristic of his life. It was a way that people saw him. And how many of us this morning have not just fallen out of the habit of fellowship, but you actually have a habit of neglecting it.

You actually have a habit of avoiding forsaking meeting together. And it started to change who you are. And it's not a good thing. When you look in the mirror, you're seeing, this is not a good direction for me. Are you looking more like Christ?

Well, Jesus had the habit of devotion, but he paired it with. I mean, just look at him. He had to pry himself away from his disciples many times because he stayed in fellowship all the time. I look at his life and I'm like, man, how? How did he do that?

So for some of us, it's saying, I'm going to stay devoted to not just not neglecting meeting together, but I'm going to do the opposite. I'm going to cherish meeting together like the early church did you see in Acts 2:42, and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. This is a passage that if you've been a part of one of our community group systems, then you're very familiar with this. This is because this is what we base our community group system off of those four things that they devoted themselves to. And one of those is fellowship.

And then you read on in verse 46, the results of this. And day by day attending the temple together. So, like, this would be an example of attending the temple and breaking bread in their homes. What did I say earlier? Getting together in your homes.

They received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to Their number day by day, those who were being saved. I love this picture. So much of them just getting together, eating good food and helping one another out. And does it say that they added to their number themselves, the people who were being saved?

No, it says God added to their number day by day, those who are being saved. So you mean to tell me that just by doing the opposite of neglecting me together, if I would cherish this time, that God will build his church? He did it. We've seen him do it. I've seen him do it in my own life.

So what can this look like? Well, we see the psalmist write In Psalm, chapter 122, I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. And here we are standing inside your gates, O Jerusalem and the tribes of Israel. The Lord's people made their pilgrimage here. They come to give thanks to the name Lord.

That's the kind of heart that I want to have when I come together with the people of God here on Sundays. That's the kind of heart that I want to have when I come together on Wednesday nights with my small group is saying, man, I was glad whenever I said, let's go, let's go, and let's meet together. Let's give thanks to the name of the Lord.

So as we consider this idea of neglecting meeting together, what we're actually finding here this morning is that it's so much worse than neglecting the meeting in our minds. That's what's allowed us to kind of justify it, is that we had our triggers, like we said earlier, and you've got your temporary rewards that are causing you to dive into isolation. And maybe Covid was a real big trigger for you that you kind of got in a spiraling down in isolation that started five years ago, and you're still stuck in it. But here's what we're seeing that's even worse than that. It's not just neglecting meeting together.

We're actually neglecting the body of Christ with the gifts that Christ has put into us. And so as we consider the systems of the body, like this chart right here, we know that they come together to make one functioning system. I'm thinking about, like the nervous system, for example. How many times have I wished I could just hit a button and turn my brain off because it's keeping me up at night. But the problem is, if I say, stop with the anxiety.

Let me just turn this system off. Well, guess what's not happening now. The auto system that's breathing for me, the auto system that's digesting my food. This would be a bad thing for us to even fathom turning one of these systems off. It's so easy for us to understand how that would be really bad and stupid.

But how often do we look at ourselves and be like, well, man, you know, the gift God gave me, I'm a big toe. I look up there at the head and I'm like, why can't I be one of y'? All? You know, that looks really great up there. I'm down here in the dirt, man.

And how far be it from the eye to look at the hand and say, I'm so much more sophisticated than you look at. Look at you, the calluses on your skin and the things that, you know, we self judge and we think we don't belong. We judge others and we think they don't belong. But Paul says in First Corinthians 12, Every part of the body is indispensable.

And so, friend, this morning, maybe you are a big toe, but have you ever met anybody that doesn't have a big toe? Balance is a real problem.

And so just accepting the fact that's the part that he gave me, I'm going to stink and be the best big toe you've ever seen in your whole life.

And if anybody's ever had an injury, I've had two knee surgeries, I've had a wrist surgery, I've had a cyst cut out of my middle finger. I've had wisdom tooth cut out, had some surgeries. All it takes is one of these systems to be failing for me to realize just how important that system was.

And so I think that we understand this about our own body, but we don't See the bigger picture here is that when we neglect meeting together, we're neglecting the church body of a part that our redeemed saved by grace, by the blood of Jesus, the new creation that he wants us to be. The good works he wants us to do is meant to be a body part that your absence is neglecting the church of and how much of a difference it would be if you just were here. So how do we take this step then of doing the opposite? We're in this new habit now of isolation. If I'm gonna cherish meeting together, what do I do?

I plan for it. There's a saying that goes around a Sunday morning worship is a Saturday night decision. It's you actually saying, I'm going to go to bed at a reasonable hour. So that way even the 11am service doesn't feel early to me the next day that I don't crawl out of bed and go, oh, well, kind of sleepy. And then you just don't go.

Maybe small group itself, maybe yam, maybe youth group, because your schedule is so busy. Maybe that's bigger than a night before decision. Maybe that's a week before, maybe it's a month before. Because what do we know about ourselves? If I've got a hole in my schedule, there's a vacuum that just wants to suck something into it.

And so in order for me to put the important pieces into my life, like fellowship, like community group, sometimes I have to plan in advance, far out in advance, and make it happen. And not only make it happen, but then protect it. And to guard those habits, friend. I can't tell how many people I've come across that they'll be in community group. And then they'll say, man, you know, I just got a lot going on right now.

And they quit community group for. They say it's just gonna be for a season, but what happens is they quit. And then what's one of the first things that starts happening whenever you start breaking away from the fellowship and you get alone? There's this little voice and maybe he's not so little, maybe it's a big old voice. And I think, you know, sometimes it comes from the exterior, but a lot of times it comes from right in here.

They don't even miss you. You don't even really matter that much. You were kind of annoying them by being there anyway. You're the egr, you're the extra grace required person, so they're better off without you.

And then our enemy, the evil one, has us right where he wants us. He's put you on a pathway away from fellowship into isolation, where the short term gain is a long term pain. And maybe that's where somebody's finding themselves this morning. So don't give at all, don't give an inch. Because one little small little drift down the road might be a ways off from the destination that God calls you to be.

And then participate fully. Bring your worship. Just attend. If we're singing songs, be the loudest voice in the whole room. Because I'm not singing for the people that are on the stage.

I'm singing for the audience of one. And I have a part to play in this. And it may not be the best notes coming out of my mouth, but it's going to be like a football game if it's got to be where I'm in the stadium and I'm bringing this crazy loud noise because that team is worth praising, that team is worth being excited about. Amen.

And then our third way of to form the spiritual habit of faithful fellowship in Christ Jesus is strengthen one another with encouragement. Strengthen one another with encouragement. So verse 25, what does it say but encouraging one another. Now the word encouraging here is the word parakaleo, which is really similar to the Greek word for Holy Spirit, which is parakletos. And what is the Holy Spirit's, what is one of his roles?

I mean, he empowers us, but he's known as the great encourager. So we see this idea here in this word encouragement of coming alongside with somebody. It's almost like somebody coming alongside and putting their arm around you. Tell me there's not a whole lot better feelings in the whole world than to have a good friend walk up and put their arm around you and look in you, in the eyes and just that feeling. Am I right?

There's something about that. And so coming alongside. And then it says, but encouraging. What are the two words after that? One another.

You can't do the one anothers without one another. So I'm not, once again, I'm not in the mirror going, all right, Stephen, you got this, man. Encouragement, encouragement. Encourage yourself. You know, we can do this.

This is you now saying, I'm not just coming into the. What just happened? I'm not just coming into the fellowship. This water bottle, this happened last week. You think I would learn from this?

I'm not just coming in the fellowship to be encouraged, but I'm seeing that there's somebody over here who needs my encouragement. And maybe all they need me is just to come alongside with them. And he says, and all the more. So this is this idea of like, do it so much more, so much bigger and greater and longer. Why, as you see the day, this is the capital D day right here.

What is that in the church? It's the day of Jesus Christ's return. So as we know that that day's coming, it could be today, friends. We don't know. It really could.

It's a day only that he knows. But we know that this morning I'm one day closer than I was yesterday to that return. It may not happen in my lifetime, I don't know. But the writer of Hebrews is saying, with that in view that time is not unlimited. Encourage one another, come alongside one another.

And so what can this look like? What is encouraging? One Another. What are the effects of it? Well, in Galatians 6, we see he says, carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Maybe you're here this morning and you're like, stephen, I've been carrying. I've been trying to carry these burdens by myself, and you just don't know the weight of it. This has been so awful. Maybe your eyes are open in this moment. Maybe you didn't had even done a self evaluation.

You just now realized how many burdens you've been carrying alone. But to enter back into the fellowship, or maybe for some, to enter into the fellowship of Christ for the first time, you'll find that we can carry one another's burdens, come alongside one another and encourage one another, and that there is great power in that. And then it says in Hebrews 3:13, but encourage one another daily as long as it is called today so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. Remember the voice we were talking about earlier? It's a real voice, and it's tied to sin.

It's tied to deceit. What is our enemy's main goal? Well, shoot, he's got a lot. But what would he call success in us? How do I isolate that person from Jesus?

How do I make them a nobody? How do I make them produce nothing and be completely worthless? How do I make them a powerless paperweight?

Well, he'll do that if he can get you alone. But if we will come together and encourage one another, it'll break through that hard shell. We'll not only have the encouragement of the comfort of coming together as believers, but what did we say earlier? The stirring up will actually encourage us as well. Not just to lift my spirits, but to look at my life and be like, man, Stephen, there are some things that you need to work on, dude, maybe I need somebody else to kind of, kind of be my eyes sometimes, because I might be walking down a path that I don't even realize myself, what I've done and maybe how I've veered away from Christ.

So sometimes it takes that encouragement. Ecclesiastes. And that's actually on the inside of my wedding ring. It's a passage that you hear a lot of Weddings, Ecclesiastes 4. It says, Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.

If one person falls, the other can reach out and help, but someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated. But two standing back to back can conquer three are even better.

For a triple braided cord is not easily broken. And here's what he's pointing to. Check this out. The third person. Matthew 18.

From where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. He's saying, I'm going to be that third cord. I'm going to make you so strong by you coming together. He says, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am. Now I know, look, I know he's with me.

There's a reason why in devotion I can find the Lord. I know that he's there. But whenever I need encouragement, whenever I need someone to lean on, when life inevitably gets hard and is ready to smack us upside the face as soon as we walk out those doors, don't walk alone. He's saying that. Lean on one another and guess who's getting ready to join the party.

And I'm gonna make you stronger than you can imagine. I said earlier that Christianity is a team sport. I'm excited right now because my favorite time of the year is upon us. Football season. College games have started up on Saturdays.

NFL games are on Sundays. And it reminds me football is something that it was my favorite sport growing up. This is a picture of me, number 60, back in high school. And I've got my. My team right there.

I think that's a picture I pulled from my yearbook right there with my teammates there. And when I think about football, I think about how hard it was at times, how we would have to do two practices, we called it two a days. Two practices a day in August and just so hot and muggy and just, you know, bloody and pain and all the stuff that you're going through, but the being able to. And I was an offensive lineman and so being able to look to my left and to my right and see buddies on either side that were in this together. And if I get pancaked and knocked on my back, I've got a friend who's gonna walk up and stick his hand out.

I'm not getting up alone. I've got my teammates to help me get up. If I go out in the field and I've got my running back chasing behind me and I plaster somebody, then the people that I'm looking for the most encouragement is not the people in the stands. I'm happy they're there, but I really want to hear my teammates when I'm in The weight room, and I've got that humongous weight on my chest, and I got that guy over top of me. You got it, you got it.

And then you get it up, and then the whole room just cheers in an uproar. There's some special things to me that I think about football that come to my mind. And, friends, your life is not all that different, I think, than some of the things we face in team sports, that you're going to face loss. There's not a person in history that was ever that played professionally. I'll make it clear that never lost one single game their entire life.

And so learning how to overcome adversity is not something you do alone if you're on a team sport. And friends were saying, Christianity is a team sport. So what we need is, I need a teammate in the spiritual sense. I need someone who's gonna come alongside me and pick me up whenever I've been pancaked by the issues I had that day. Or maybe, Maybe it's not even something that happened that day.

Maybe I've had a loss of a loved one or a loss of a job or just some burden, some debt that I'm in. But I need that teammate who's going to come alongside and encourage me. But they're also going to point me and say, man, here's where we're going. Remember that today is temporary. But, friend, remember where we're going.

You might have lost a lot here, but we're getting ready to gain a whole lot when we get to heaven one day. No matter what happens here in this life, sometimes I need that voice to come along me and remind me the truth to encourage me. And so how can we encourage one another? One easy step, just show up. Just the fact that you came and with a smile on your face.

It says in Second Corinthians, God, who encourages those who are discouraged, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus. This is Paul talking from experience. Just by Titus showing up, I was encouraged. And we know Paul went through a lot of hard things. So just by Titus presence, he was encouraged.

How many of you in my life do I get encouraged? Just when I see your face on a Sunday morning, when I shake your hand. Somebody here this week is in isolation. And just the simple gesture of a handshake, that physical touch is more physical touch than you've had all week. But that person who showed up this morning and shook your hand, you encouraged you just by that act.

And then another step in this would be making encouragement. Make this something that you're doing intentionally. I'm not always going into the fellowship. Me, me, me, me. Give me, give me, give me, give me.

I need all the encouragement I can. Like, you're like Eeyore on Winnie the Pooh.

This is you. You looking at it and going by Christ's power. I believe something's been stirred up in me. Something's been stirred into my life. And I'm gonna.

If I only got a little bit of encouragement there because it's been a hard week, I'm dumping it out on this person because I want them to experience the encouragement that I believe is bigger than me. I believe it's an encouragement that Christ himself has given me. And I believe that when I connect through him through this act of fellowship, that this conduit is not just flowing into me by the power of the Holy Spirit, but that this is a really cool habit, because now I'm going to actually flow out as well, and I'm going to let that power almost be cyclical. That the more that I. More power I receive, the more I'm going to give, and I want to experience that flow that you see Pastor Gary making this symbol.

How many times have you seen him on a Sunday saying, I want to receive from God and give to others. That flow is incredible, isn't it? To receive and to that constant just receiving, giving, receiving, giving. Who here today would stir one another up to love and good works, would stay devoted to one another by gathering together and would strengthen one another with encouragement. Let's pray, Father.

This is a familiar topic today to many of us, this topic of fellowship. But I pray, God, that just as we know that your word does not return void, that somebody here, well, all of us would be seeing something in our own life right now that you're challenging us on seeing something in our own life that you're stirring up and something that we need to correct. And in speaking to my friends here, if you're here this morning and you're recognizing in your own life that you have neglected the habit of meeting together and you've actually formed a new habit of isolation, would you pray along with me? Jesus, forgive me for my isolation. Forgive me for seeking the temporary rewards that came from it.

Forgive me for running away from your body and neglecting your body of the gifts that you put into me to use for your body and with your body. I pray, God, that you would help me to not only get back in the habit, but to ditch the habit I've got of isolating and help me, God. To have something in me that's stirred up so I can stir it into someone else and help me to be an encouragement to others as well as I myself am encouraged. Maybe you're here this morning and as we just reminded ourselves of this stirring up, you know, that you're the one that's got the empty plate. You know, you're the one here this morning that is looking around and going, I don't have the love, I don't have the satisfaction that I see around me by these believers in Christ.

And maybe you finally come to the breaking point. This morning you've said, enough's enough. I'm tired of doing it alone. I want to receive the satisfaction and the power and the life and the forgiveness that comes from Jesus. Would you pray this with me, Jesus?

I surrender. I'm not doing this alone anymore. It's too heavy. The burdens are too strong. And I need you to carry this weight.

But there's a weight that only you can carry and that's the weight of my sin. And I need forgiveness. And I ask you, Jesus Christ, forgive me of my sin. Turn me away from my dark path. Make me the kind of person that you want me to be.

Be Lord of my life. I confess you as my Lord and my Savior.

We ask all these things in Jesus name, Amen.

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