Here’s my longer sermon notes from this morning’s Metro Christian Centre, Bury & Whitefield service (dated 25th June 2022), continuing our new series ONE ANOTHER. You can also catch up with this via MCC’s YouTube channel.
Just in case you didn’t know, there’s always endnotes to my sermon notes. Strange? Yes. But they’re always full of extra info for provoking the brain cells and stirring the heart. Enjoy!
UNDER PRESSURE
We’re continuing our ONE ANOTHER series, examining the Jesus-like life that is to be expressed among us. This morning we’re going to look at Hebrews 10:24, ‘Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.’ (ESV, bold and italics mine)
I’m not going to spend any time looking at how we can stir one another up, because we stir up one another all the time. All humans are extremely gifted at this! We irritate, we grate, we tick each other off. We stir up gossip, bitterness, suspicion etc.
How isn’t the issue. The real issue is directing this stirring “ability” to its proper use.
However, before we explore those words, it’s important to see them in their setting. So we’re going to read the whole of Hebrews 10.
I make no apologies for reading a long passage. However, I am pastorally aware that there is a lot in Hebrews 10 that is complex and that can and has caused confusion; statements that have generated huge debate in church history; verses that have been used abusively when pulled out of the logic of the author’s argument.
As I said in the first week of this series; abusing one another is not one of the New Testament ‘one another’ statements.
So please journey with me. We will get to verse 24, but it’s important we wrestle with what this passage is and is not saying. Although, I won’t cover everything.
As a little bit of background (while you find Hebrews 10):
Hebrews is a controversial book. For those who study how the New Testament came together, Hebrews had a rocky road before being accepted as part of the New Testament canon.
We don’t know who wrote Hebrews. The author never introduces who they are (unlike what we see in the other New Testament writings of Paul, James, John and Peter etc.,). Suggestions of who the author is vary from Paul, Barnabas, Apollos, Luke and even Priscilla.
I would personally love it to be Priscilla!
Hebrews is not a letter: it’s a sermon, written down and sent as a letter. As theologian, Daniel J. Harrington expressed it, ‘[Hebrews] is arguably the greatest Christian sermon ever written down.’[i]
I’d agree. I don’t think we Christian’s have begun to grasp how revolutionary the message of Hebrews is.
As well as not knowing the author, we don’t really know who it is addressed to, either. Although, best guesses are that it is to Christians living in Rome around the AD 60’s.
We do know, based on the contents, that it is written to Jewish Christians; ethnically Jewish people who had embraced Jesus as the Messiah. We do know that they had already experienced a time of gross mistreatment and marginalisation (as hinted to at the end of Hebrews 10). Not because they were Christians, per se, but because they were Jewish.
Avoiding a history lesson, life as a Jewish person living in Rome, in the AD 40’s, during the reign of a Roman emperor called Claudius, was not pleasant at all.
At the time of this letter, Jewish Christians were facing difficulty again. We can only speculate, but it seems that they were facing pressure not only from Roman society but also from other Jewish people. Whatever the reason, there is a real temptation on them to ‘abandon the new-found [Jesus] movement with all its strange claims and take up again a position of living under [] the law given through Moses.’[ii]
The pressure was such that some had stopped meeting with other Christians (as Heb. 10:25 indicates). Not because they were lazy or had forgotten that Christianity is a ‘one-another’ life, but because, in the midst of persecution, it’s simply safer not to turn up.
It takes boldness in such circumstances—which is possibly why Hebrews mentions that word a number of times.
The writer of Hebrews intimately knows their audience and is most likely Jewish, too.[iii] And so, following their own advice in Heb. 10:24, they preach to stir up the Jewish Christian’s continued faith in Jesus.[iv] The writer of Hebrews (to quote the title of a good book) wants these Jewish Christians to know that, Jesus + Nothing = Everything.[v] [vi]
Bearing that in mind, and remembering that we are eavesdropping in and out of a part of this sermon, let’s read Hebrews 10.
READ: HEBREWS 10 (NIRV)
PHOTOS, BOXES, SIGNS AND SHADOWS
On my desk is photograph of my wife, Steph. The photograph is not my wife; it’s a picture of her, nothing more. Steph, on the other hand, is the real deal. I can either look at the photograph of Steph, pining for her, knowing that the presence of the photo speaks of the absence of something more, or I could be with the real Steph.
Can you conceive how ridiculous it would be for me to turn around to the wonderful reality of my wife and say, “I’d rather be with the photograph.”
Or imagine a child getting a nicely wrapped present, and instead of playing with the present, they play with the box and wrapping paper. I know—this happens all the time. But imagine that, in this case, as the child plays with the box, they are pretending it is the toy. They are sad every time they play because the empty box speaks of the toy—the toy that is on the floor right next to them.
Or imagine you’re travelling somewhere, you’ve followed all the road signs that have directed you along the journey, and you get to the last road sign that says your destination is around the corner, but instead of carrying on, you set up camp at the signpost. Worse, you go into your destination, walk around, then leave and stay at the signpost, moaning ‘are we there yet?’
You have to admit, they would all be silly situations.
Why would you cling to photograph instead of embracing the person? Why play with a box, hoping for the toy, when the toy is right there? Why stay at the signpost when the destination is at hand?
This is the point Hebrews is making.
The law is only a shadow of the real and good things that have now come in Jesus, so what’s the point of clinging to a shadow?
Hebrews makes this point in several ways, throughout. But in the section we read, it does so by looking at the sacrificial system in the Law of Moses.
At first glance, it can look as if the writer of Hebrews is critical of the sacrifices—but they’re not. The writer knows that sacrifices had a limited function. According to the Old Testament itself (as quoted by Hebrews), the sacrificial system was not the ultimate purpose, but simply a means of assisting humanity in its progress.
In other words, they were not the destination, but a signpost.
REVOLUTIONARY SIGNPOSTS
The picture of a signpost is helpful.
We know how signposts work: signposts meet us where we are and they point us in a direction. Like a signpost, Moses’ sacrificial system met people where they were culturally, and at the same time, it made a radical statement about somewhere else in the midst of that culture.
Signposts meet us where we are and they point us in a direction. Like a signpost, Moses’ sacrificial system met people where they were culturally, and at the same time, it made a radical statement about somewhere else in the midst of that culture.
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We may not realise this from our modern perspective, but, in the ancient world, Israel’s sacrificial laws were revolutionary.
In the ancient world, every ancient religion practiced sacrifice. The other nations all had “gods” that were thought to be distant, detached, demanding and constantly needing to be appeased or calmed down. They were emotionally all over the place. And if your gods are emotionally all over the place, so will you; you will never know were you stand with them.
So ancient people sacrificed, and generally what motivated them was fear and the felt need to attempt to control, bribe and appease the gods.
This wasn’t the message or motivation behind Israel’s sacrifices. There were numerous differences to their sacrifices[vii], and we won’t look at them all, but the basic motivation behind Israel’s sacrifices wasn’t fear but love.
The word offering in Hebrew, for example, is the word Corban (Korban), and it means to draw near, to come close. You could draw near to this God.
In fact, according to Israel’s story, God had already drawn near to them. God had already rescued them from bondage in Egypt; God had already shown that he was faithful; God had already made a covenant with Israel before asking for any sacrifice!
In other words, unlike the pagan rites, the Mosaic sacrifices were not about trying to control God or get God’s attention—they were a response to God’s care. They made the statement that God was already involved, was already attentive, was already near. So, Israel’s sacrifices were not about humanity having an effect upon God; they were to affect us, by changing the way we think about God (and, by extension, each other).[viii]
I want us to see this: Through Israel, God meets humanity were they are at, and uses and subverts what the culture is familiar with in order to show them that he is different from the gods around them.[ix] Think of it like an ancient version of culture jamming. Like a signpost, these sacrifices pointed them away from where they were towards somewhere else.
And the message on this subversive signpost is powerful, it reads: God cannot be controlled, bribed or appeased by sacrifices.
That may come as a shock to some of us. Bear with me, because this is revolutionary.
But in the cultures around ancient Israel, you could do something really nasty to someone and then make a sacrifice to bribe a god to let you off the hook. In some cases, doing something nasty to someone could be part of the sacrificial rite. But this concept does not exist in Israel’s sacrificial system.[x]
In that frame of mind, it would be easy to fall into the trap of sacrificing animals and doing religious things, but actually not embodying what God is like towards one another.
Sadly, the people of Israel do eventually fall into this trap. It is what the Hebrew prophets of Isaiah (1:11-13), Amos (5:21-24), Jeremiah (7:22-23), Hosea (6:6) and Micah (6:6-8) get so frustrated at, as the people offer sacrifices whilst oppressing and neglecting one another. ‘What distressed [these prophets] so deeply was the [absurd] idea that you could serve God and at the same time act disrespectfully, cruelly, unjustly, insensitively or heartlessly toward other people.’[xi]
This absurd idea is what the Law was pointing away from, not towards.
Again and again, Israel misses the revolutionary message of this system, and the prophets have to knock the people’s heads together to remind them that God wants ‘lovingkindness, mercy, and a knowledge of who God is, not sacrifices.’ (Hosea 6:6)
We know this, we have heard it before. We know that the whole of the commandments, the law—including sacrifices—can be summed up in the command to love God and love each other (Matt. 22:37-40, Gal. 5:13-15).
As Hebrews 10 reminds us by quoting Psalm 40, it’s vital that we understand that God’s ultimate goal is not us offering sacrifices forever and ever. The direction God is inviting us to follow is us offering our bodies to express the very nature and beauty, justice and goodness of God.
It’s a strange conundrum that the Bible presents: Getting people to sacrifice, getting people to do rituals etc., seems to be straightforward. People are fine with doing this. They still are! Getting people to love one another, however, to express their worship of God through their love and good works to others, is the challenge.
This is why, in contrast to other ancient religions, there was no sacrifice for deliberate or wilful sin in the Law of Moses (This is what the writer of Hebrews is referring to Heb. 10:26, btw). The sin and guilt offerings you read about in Leviticus and Deuteronomy were regarding ‘unintentional’ sin only.
And the reason for this is pretty straight forward. For example, in Leviticus 6, if you stole from your neighbour of extorted money from them—there’s no sin offering for that. You don’t make a sacrifice; what you are required to do, is go and put it right with your neighbour.
Jesus echoes that same principle, by the way, in Matthew 5:23-24, when he says that if you are in the middle of presenting an offering, and you realise that you have done something against someone, you should leave the offering at the altar and leave to put it right with the other person.
It’s a pretty neat idea, isn’t it? It was novel, too, in ancient world. The law, when understood correctly, would not allow you to use sacrifice as a means of avoiding acting in love towards others.
The law, when understood correctly, would not allow you to use sacrifice as a means of avoiding acting in love towards others.
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Within the Israelite sacrificial system, that ancient loophole was effectively eliminated. And it was revolutionary.
At this point, our eyes are lighting up. It’s starting to make sense. We can see how these sacrifices are saying things that are different from the surrounding ancient culture and we’re starting to like this signpost.
Maybe we’ll stay here?
But, in more extreme cases, because of the absence of this ‘loophole’, the Law of Moses was pretty bleak. As the writer of Hebrews points out (Heb. 10:26-31), in reference to the old sacrificial system, at the word of two witnesses, depending on the offence, the outcome could be death.
PURSUED
Don’t be quick to jump to conclusions—the sacrificial system was not legitimatising the death sentence!
Remember, the sacrifices were a new step forward, but regardless of how revolutionary they were, they were not intended to be the destination! They pointed elsewhere, to something more, to something beyond a sacrifice’s capability to grant and beyond our own ability to control: they point to our fundamental need for God’s love, grace, forgiveness and gift of life.
As a signpost, the sacrifices work well. But, if you believe them to be the destination, well, all they do is condemn.
To paraphrase the Apostle Paul’s treatment of the same subject matter, within the letter of Romans; The Law is a great guide, but an incapable saviour.
‘The Law is a great guide, but an incapable saviour.’, The Apostle Paul, Romans
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That’s the point Hebrews is making in verses 26—31.[xii] The writer appeals to what his audience already knows; they know, as Jewish people, that the sacrificial system just leaves you with fear and uncertainty. As Hebrews tells us, in verses 1-3, and it’s only expressing what the Old Testament implied, the blood of goats and bulls never dealt with the rebellious human heart.
They weren’t meant to. That’s God’s work—the work of Divine love and grace. The sacrifices pointed to our need to be acted upon by God.
And as Hebrews 10:18 beautifully and powerfully puts it—and it’s a statement that proves true in the Old Testament, and even more so in the New Testament—‘When sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer sacrifices.’ (NLT)
When God acts, human action is not required—we’re supposed to receive and let what we receive act upon us.
I’m reminded of something that American pastor, Preston Sprinkle writes in his book, Charis: ‘Too often, we think of our relationship with God in terms of how we are pursuing Him. If someone were to ask you, “How are you doing spiritually?” you would probably answer in the light of how many hours you have spent praying or reading you Bible (or not), how many times you’ve witnessed to your coworkers, or how many days it’s been since you’ve looked at porn. All of these are important, yet they all focus on you and your pursuit of God.
‘Grace, on the other hand, means that God is pursuing you. That God forgives you. That God sanctifies you … Grace means that your spirituality is upheld by God’s stubborn enjoyment of you. So we should learn to speak of our spirituality in the passive voice—not as someone who acts but primarily as someone one who has been acted upon by a God who defines Himself as the One who “justifies the ungodly” (Rom. 4:5).’[xiii]
Again, this message was already declared in the Israelite sacrifices. But now, in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension—all God’s acts, by the way—it has been fulfilled.
You see, for the writer of Hebrews, God has done it all for us in Jesus! The shadow of the law already pointed towards the fact that God would and that God had to.
In Jesus, you are forgiven! You don’t earn this, you can’t add to it—you cannot and should not assume that something you have done has affected God to do this for you.
Your role is simple:
As Hebrews 10:19-25 tell us, if God says you are forgiven, then take God’s word on it. If God says you can come into God’s presence, then with boldness, trusting in who God is and what God has done, rush into the open arms of God.
Let God act upon you! As you do, you’ll discover that God creates a new heart within you.
REVOLUTIONARIES OF LOVE
You may wonder how any of that solves the problem of a rebellious human heart.
And I have two answers to that:
Firstly, and quickly, a rebellious heart is one that attempts to control God or hardens against God, not a heart that allows God to act upon it.
Secondly—and here’s where I risk sounding controversial—I’m not entirely convinced that God wants to remove our rebellious side: What if God wants to put that rebellious nature to its original and best intent?
I’m not entirely convinced that God wants to remove our rebellious side: What if God wants to put that rebellious nature to its original and best intent?
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The reason I suggest this is because of what Hebrews 10:24 tells us: It says that we are to ‘stir up one another’. Your translation may have the words encourage or motivate. But the Greek word is paroxysmos (παροξυσμός)—and it means to incite and provoke. It’s actually derived from the Greek word for rebellion (that Hebrews also uses in Heb. 3:8, 15 & 16).
In other words, this is the language of rebels, the language of revolution, the language of insurrections and uprisings. We are instructed to consider how to get one another to riot!
However, this is not like the riots humanity used to performing. This verse is not telling us to incite aggression or hate, jealousy or discrimination. This is not a riot that produces violence and oppression, chaos and destruction.
Hebrews instructs us to consider how we can start a riot of love and good works.[xiv]
This is what God has wanted all along: for our hearts to break for what breaks his. It’s what the prophets prompted us towards, for us to act justly, love mercy, walk humbly. It’s the life that Jesus gave his humanity to modelling perfectly. As products of grace, as people of faith, hope and love, we are learning to give our bodies as signposts of the beauty and goodness of the Kingdom of God.
As Andrew Murray, the reformed South African pastor, once said, ‘Our entering into Holiest is mere imagination, if we do not yield ourselves to the love of God in Christ, to be filled and used for the welfare and joy of our fellow-men.’[xv]
In other words, because of the revolutionary love of God, we are called to be revolutionaries of love.
“The discipline of the Christian disciple is not to master anything, but rather to be mastered by the Spirit”
— Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ[xvi]
[i] Daniel J. Harrington SJ, What Are They Saying About the Letter to the Hebrews? (Paulist Press, 2005), p. 1.
[ii] Tom Wright, Hebrews for Everyone (SPCK, London, 2012), p.6
[iii] As evidenced in the masterful hermeneutical use of the Hebrew Scriptures within this great sermon. As an aside, the author is also masterful in the Greek language; as a number of literary studies and commentaries show, Hebrews displays the best use of the Greek language in the whole of the New Testament.
[iv] For a great introduction to Hebrews, see Introduction to Hebrews in Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Hebrews, James and Jude.
[v] Jesus + Nothing = Everything, is a book by Tullian Tchividjian.
[vi] As a better summary of Hebrews; ‘The Epistle to the Hebrews focuses mainly on … the way Scripture confirms the events of Jesus’ life and how those events give meaning to Scripture. Its argument could be summarized thus: God, in times past, spoke to us in shadows and enigmas, but the sacrifice [life, death and resurrection] of Jesus, his Son, has now made his meaning plain. The men of the Old Covenant were, like us, pilgrims, moving toward their goal and final resting-place, but never quite reaching it. We, on the other hand, now know our goal and are in a position to reach it. That is why a letter like this is needed, to comfort and encourage those who might, through fear or laziness or both, be falling back, losing faith, refusing to see the obvious truth. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the people addressed in the letter have all the evidence before them and have even at moments understood, yet their eyes still tend to be “holden.”’(The Literary Guide to the Bible, Edited by Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, Harvard University Press, 1990, p. 507)
[vii] To name but a few: we could talk about the fact that sacrificial acts were limited to one place (the Tabernacle), how it was limited to a certain group of people offering the sacrifices (the Priests) and how the items to be sacrificed were also limited (i.e. sacrificing other humans was prohibited, for a start). If you take the time to consider just these few things alone, it would surely help us to see that the amount of bloodshed, though not eliminated (yet) was dramatically limited in comparison to the surrounding cultures. We could also mention that the sacrifices were meals!
[viii] For some wonderful Jewish insights on the sacrificial system, see the following articles from the late Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: On Sacrifice; Vayikra: The Prophetic View of Sacrifice; Vayikra: Understanding Sacrifice. Of course, it goes without saying that like everything else in biblical studies, there is a huge amount of debate and difference of opinion out there about the sacrificial system and what it ‘achieved’.
[ix] Suggesting the sacrificial rituals were something God appropriated is not a new, radical theology. As a few examples: Justin Martyr (AD 100-165), posited that God accommodated the sacrifices to keep Israel—who were used to a culture of sacrifice—away from sacrificing to false deities and practicing idolatry (see, Dialogue of Trypho 19, ANF 1:204). Gregory of Nazianzus (AD 330-390) argued that God adopted the primitive religious behaviours that the people were accustomed to and gradually moved them through several changes that moved away from the necessity of sacrifice (Orations 5.25, NPNF2 7:325-26). The famous French physicist, mathematician and Catholic theologian, Blaise Pascal (AD 1623-1662), commenting on Jeremiah 7:22, insightfully noted, similar to Justin Martyr, that it was not until the Israelites had sacrificed to the Golden Calf that God appropriated the sacrifices, in an attempt to put ‘an evil custom to good use’ (Pensées, 713, Brunschvicq ed.). The Jewish philosopher, Maimonides [Moses ben Maimon (1138–1204 AD)], in his The Guide for the Perplexed, also commented on the gradual change intended by the sacrificial system. He wrote; ‘It is impossible to go suddenly from one extreme to the other; it is therefore according to the nature of man impossible for him suddenly to discontinue everything to which has been accustomed . . . The custom which was in those days widespread among all people, and the general mode of worship in which Israelites were brought up, consisted in sacrificing animals in temples which contained certain images, to bow down to those images and to burn incense before them . . . For this reason, God allowed these kinds of service to continue. He transferred to His service that which had formerly served as a worship of created beings [i.e. idolatry] . . . By this Divine plan it was effected that the traces of idolatry were blotted out, and the truly great principle of our faith — the existence and unity of God — was firmly established. This was achieved without deterring or confusing the minds of the people by the abolition of the service to which they were accustomed and which alone was familiar to them.’
[x] As Rabbi Sacks words it, ‘The thought that “if I bring a sacrifice to God, He will overlook my faults”—In effect, the idea that I can bribe the Judge of all the earth—turns a sacred act into a pagan one… It turns worship from a way towards the right and the good, into a way of easing the conscience of those who practice the wrong and the bad.’ (Vayikra: The Prophetic View of Sacrifice)
[xi] Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Ibid, [brackets mine]
[xii] Sadly, these verses have caused untold problems. They still do. Some have unfortunately disconnected these verses from the writer of Hebrew’s overall argument regarding the incapability and futility of keeping the sacrificial system in the vain hope that in provides forgiveness and cleansing of sin. When the author of Hebrews writes this letter, they are writing to people who want to neglect the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross as sufficient for our sins, and return to reliance upon the Levitical Law. In numerous warnings (Heb. 2:1-4; 3:7-19; 5:11–6:12; 10:19-39; 12:14-29), the author of Hebrews tells his readers that if the life, death, resurrection, and High Priestly ministry of Jesus is not sufficient, then we have no hope, no forgiveness, no grace, no mercy, and no eternal life. It’s imperative we see the rhetorical equation that the author is posing to his audience! Hebrews is not saying, ‘if you deliberately sin, even Jesus can’t forgive.’ Hebrews is stating that there is not a sacrifice for sin, there is no forgiveness, and there is no eternal life within the old sacrificial system. If forgiveness is not in the Law, and by returning to the Law, they announce that forgiveness is not in Jesus, then “no sacrifice for sin is left.” Where can they go to receive forgiveness?
[xiii] Preston Sprinkle, Charis: God’s Scandalous Grace for Us, (David C Cook, Colorado, 2014), p. 76
[xiv] Time doesn’t allow, but I find it fascinating that Hebrews chooses this word. Could there be deeper echoes here? Could there be an echo of Jesus himself being accused (falsely) of causing riots by the religious leaders in Luke 23:5? A charge that led him to be executed by a Roman form of punishment that was specifically reserved for leaders of revolts, namely crucifixion? Additionally, for those facing persecution, for those on the receiving end of incited hate, exclusion and beatings, Hebrews is stirring them to meet it as Jesus did. Meet that hate with love! Don’t allow the way you are being treated provoke you into a violent reaction, but instead, incite one another to love and good works. Hebrews makes this point more explicit in Heb. 13: 12—13, ‘So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make his people holy by means of his blood. So let us go out to him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace he bore.’
[xv] Andrew Murray, The Holiest of All, written 1894, (Marshall, Morgan & Scott, London, 1976), p.895.
[xvi] Henri Nouwen, The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life (p.70)
TRISTAN SHERWIN 
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