Preparing for Sunday - The Church He Builds pt. 2

Sunday we're in Hebrews 10:19-25, a letter written to a people who were coming apart.
Spend a few minutes in the text before you get here.
Critically Think

1. Read Hebrews 10:19-25. Verse 19 opens with "Therefore," and that word is carrying nine chapters behind it. Back up and read verse 18 first. What argument has the writer just finished, and what does he say is left on the altar?
2. Verses 19-21 give two reasons before a single command shows up. Write both of them out. According to verse 20, what did it cost to open the way in?
3. Verse 21 says we have "a great priest over the house of God." Turn back to Hebrews 3:6. How does the letter define its own word? What is the house?
4. Verses 22, 23, and 24 each begin with "let us." List all three. Then read verse 25 and ask yourself whether it's a fourth command or a description of how to do the third one.
5. Verse 22 asks you to draw near "with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience." Who does the sprinkling in that phrase? What does that settle about who's qualified to walk in?
6. Look hard at verse 24. Our translation reads "consider how," which puts a method in front of you to study. In the Greek the thing sitting in that slot is one another. Now find the only other place this letter uses "consider," in Hebrews 3:1. What are the two things Hebrews tells you to fix your eyes on?
7. Read verse 25 alongside Hebrews 3:12-14. What reason does chapter 3 give for exhorting one another "every day"?

Prayerfully Meditate

1. Verse 19 says the way in is open, and verse 20 says a body was torn to open it. Where are you keeping a polite distance from God right now because of something you did, or something you keep doing, and quietly believing you ought to get cleaned up a little first? Read verse 22 again and notice whose work that is.
2. Some of us have been drawing near right on schedule for thirty years and stopped expecting anything to happen when we do. Is the approach a routine for you now? Ask God to show you where it went quiet, and when.
3. Verse 23 tells you to hold fast without wavering, and then hands you the reason: "he who promised is faithful." Your grip isn't what's holding you. Where have you been less sure than you've admitted to a single human being, and who could you say that out loud to this week?
4. The word behind "neglecting" in verse 25 is the word Paul used from a prison cell about the day nobody came for him, and it's the word Jesus cried from the cross in Mark 15:34. Three chapters later God says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." Same word, opposite direction. He was forsaken so that you never will be.
5. Verse 24 assigns you people, and there's no filter on it anywhere. Who in this church would you never have picked? Nobody holds on alone, and that includes the ones you find hard to be around.

Intentionally Act

1. Read Hebrews 10:19-25 once a day between now and Sunday. It's seven verses. Read Hebrews 3:1-6 and 3:12-14 alongside it at least once.
2. Put a name on verse 24 before Sunday gets here. The man who's dreading Monday morning at his job. The widow whose hardest hour of the week is the one right after the service lets out. The person you've sat four rows behind for nine years and have never once asked a real question. Text them, call them, or go see them.
3. If you've been one of the some, come back this Sunday. The spot has been empty and we noticed. Nobody is going to make you explain yourself at the door.
4. Parents, settle what Sunday morning looks like in your car before Saturday night. Your children are learning this week whether the gathering is optional, and they're not learning it from a sermon.
5. Look over the songs below and learn the ones you don't know yet, so you can sing them with us on Sunday instead of reading them for the first time.

Songs for Sunday

• Living Hope
• A Thousand Hallelujahs
• Christ Be Magnified
• Because He Lives