Seeing the Day Approaching
By John Piper
Hebrews 10:23-25 When you get up in the morning and look from the beginning of the day to the end of the day, what do you want to happen because you have lived? What difference do you want your life to make? If you say, I just get up and do what I've got to do, then you are cutting yourself off from a basic means of grace and a divine source of guidance and strength and fruitfulness and joy.
Aimlessness is akin to lifelessness. Dead leaves in the back yard may move around more than anything else, but they have no aim whatsoever. They are full of motion and empty of life. God did not create humans in His image to be aimless, like lifeless leaves blown around in the backyard of life. God means for us to aim consciously at something significant in our days. He wants us to live with a purpose. This is implicit in our text, Hebrews 10:23-25:
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.Consider with me what God is teaching in this passage about the aim of our lives as Christians. May God use it to bring crystal-clear focus to your life, giving you a lucid, spring-
morning clarity to the aim of your days.Hold fast to our faith
First, verse 23 says, "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised)." Now that is not something you do where anyone can see. Yes, you profess your faith with your mouth, but holding fast to that profession is an affair of the heart. You embrace your faith in Christ, holding fast to your trust, and be a hope-filled person.We can hold fast to our faith because God has made promises to us and He is faithful in keeping them. Here are a few of the promises found in the Book of Hebrews alone: "I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them (10:16); "No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby" (12:11); "(God is) working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight" (13:21); and "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (13:5).
Now, having faith by itself would not be visible to others and hence would not bring public glory to God's power and wisdom, goodness and trustworthiness. God created us believers first to hope in Him, and then to glorify Him by displaying that faith in our life.
Consider one another
And this brings us to verse 24:
"And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works." Here is the focus for our life. Here is what we are to aim at throughout the day.Notice carefully that it does not say: Let us consider how to love each other and do good works. That, to be sure, would be Biblical and right. But it's different. God wants us to consider how we can provoke or stimulate one another to love and good deeds. He wants us to focus on helping other believers become loving people, and to aim at stirring up others to do good works.
Of course, the implication would also be that if other believers need help and stirring up, so do we ourselves. And so, we should be responsive to exhortation from others to live a godly life. In short, the aim of believers is love and do good deeds, and inspire other believers to do the same.
Observe. But let's be more precise and see what God specifically wants us to do when He tells us to consider one another. The word "consider" is used one other time in the Book of Hebrewsthe opening verse of Chapter 3. There, we read: "Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus." There, Christ is the direct object of the verb "consider". When we consider Jesus, we look at Him, think about Him, focus on Him, study Him, and let our mind be occupied with Him.
The grammar in Hebrews 10:24 is the same: the direct object of the word "consider" is "one another." So, literally God's call on us is: to look at one another, think about one another, focus on one another, study one another, let your mind be occupied with one another; and the goal of this focus on others is to think of ways of stimulating them to love and good deeds.
Now, there is a reason to live every day that will never be boring. Every day is new and different. People change. Their circumstances change. You change. But the call remains the same: consider the people in the family of God that you will come across today, and consider how you can best spur them on toward living a God-glorifying life.
Form the right habit
Where am I to stimulate fellow believers? The first part of verse 25 answers: "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another:"When I was growing up, I heard this text referred to most often as an argument for regular attendance at worship services. "Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together; come to church regularly." That is not a wrong application of the text, since one of the most important kinds of encouragement and exhortations that we get is from the preaching of God's word in the power of God's Spirit.
But in the context, the kind of assembling in view seems to be one in which the members interact with one another, not the pastor preaching from the pulpit to the congregation. The "one another" implies that there is one encouraging another, and another encouraging one. Such interactions typically take place in small groups.
So, where are you in verse 25? There are two groups: those who gather to encourage each other in small groups, and those who have formed the habit of not gathering. See that little phrase "as the manner of some is"? Non-participation in a fellowship group can be habit-forming. God is calling you through this word to break such a habit of non-participation and develop the habit of participating in them so that you encourage one another.
Recognize the time
Finally, we read in the second half of verse 25: "and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching." What day? The last day, Judgment Day, the Day of the Lord. It's the day when Christ returns to gather believers up to heaven, and to condemn the unsaved to eternal punishment.We are now living in a period when that day is indeed approaching. God says in II Thessalonians 2:3, "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." That a massive falling away of churches from the truth is clearly evident in our time.
Speaking of this time, Jesus says, "Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved" (Matthew 24:12,13). The love for God and for one another has indeed grown cold among professed Christians. It is all the more important, therefore, that we assemble in small groups and encourage one another unto love and good works.
Back to faith. How do we stimulate one another to love and good deeds? This brings us back to verse 23: "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised.)" The key to love and good deeds is hope rooted in the faithfulness of God. Embrace your hope! Cherish your hope! Because God is faithful. He keeps His promises.
Without this kind of hope sustaining you day by day through all the disheartening frustrations and crushing disappointments, you would not have any strength or energy or joy to stir anybody up to love and good deeds. Conversely, if you bank on God, you always have something encouraging and hope-giving to say, namely, "God can be trusted. I have no strength of my own, but I can trust God to sustain me."
True example. The Bible gives us an illustration of what is being taught here in verses 32 and 33:
But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used.Coming under great persecution, some of the early believers had to endure a great many afflictions. As the objects of insults and oppression, they were publicly humiliated. But they found encouragement from other believers who dared to openly become their companions. The latter maintained fellowship with the small group that had been so badly treated, relieving them in distress.Where did those loving believers get that courage in such a hostile environment? The second half of verse 34: "knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance." That is, because you held fast to the confession of your hope. Verses 35-37 then conclude:
Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.This then is the instructions and assurance God is giving you and me and all other believers living in these end-time days. oDr. John Piper is the Senior Pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, 720 13th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55415.