The Impact of Community

Bracing for Impact

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Feb. 6, 2022

The Impact of Community

If you have your Bible turn with me to Heb. 10. Bracing for Impact is the series we’re in. The word impact isn’t found in the Bible but the concept of impact is found throughout the Bible. Merriam Webster defines impact as the act or force of one thing hitting another OR a powerful or major influence or effect.

We’ve looked at the impact of the gospel, the Holy Spirit, prayer, and the kingdom of God. This morning let’s consider the impact of community. Specifically the community of faith.

The context leading up to our passage in Heb. 10 speaks about Christ as both our high priest and our sin offering. In the Old Testament the priests offered sacrifices for the people’s sin in the temple all year long but once a year the high priest entered into the Holy of holies to offer a blood offering for his sins and the sins of the people. Jesus is the high priest who entered the true Holy of holies, not made by human hands, to offer his own precious blood as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. The high priests in the OT had to enter the holy of holies every year, but Jesus’ sacrifice was a once for all offering, covering the sins of his people once and for all, cleansing us perfectly and completely from all our sin. Hallelujah!

That’s the context, let’s pick up in verse 19:

¹⁹ Therefore, brothers, (because this is true) since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰ by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, ²¹ and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²² let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. ²³ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. ²⁴ And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, ²⁵ 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. Heb. 10:19-25

This is a passage written to a community as a community. In the Old Testament, the people would gather together as the high priest went into the holy of holies. It was a community event. The writer of Hebrews is carrying that imagery into this encouragement. There’s no “I” or “you” or “me” in this passage, it’s all “us” and “we” and “our”.

Something we learn from this passage and the entire Old and New Testament is that God deals with us as a people. We love individualism here in the US but individualism isn’t a huge thing in the Bible. In fact, picking up the “kingdom” motif that we looked at over the past two weeks, Graham Goldworthy defines the kingdom of God as “God’speople in God’s place under God’s rule.” God’s purposes from the very beginning was to redeem for Himself a people.

When we get into the New Testament we see that discipleship is a team sport!

One of my favorite football quotes came after the Patriots lost to the Giants in the 2011 Super Bowl (great game!). Frustrated by the many dropped balls the Patriot receivers had in the game, Tom Brady’s wife Gisele Bundchen, after being heckled by a Giants fan, said her husband can’t throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time.

No matter how good an athlete is, no football player can win a football game alone. No one player can cover the whole field. It takes a team to move the ball forward.

The same is true with gospel impact: it takes a community of faith to move the gospel forward in an effective way. Jesus calls us to love one another, forgive one another, forbear with one another; be patient with one another; exhort, encourage, and serve one another.

It won’t work for you to throw your love and catch it too. Or throw and catch your forgiveness. When Jesus commanded us to serve, he didn’t mean us catching our own serving. That’s called “self-serving” and It’s not what Jesus had in mind.

We need each other. We need community. There’s no such thing as a Christian so strong, so mature, so powerful in the Spirit that they don’t need the church to have an impact for the kingdom. Jesus didn’t even do it alone – he built a community of followers around him. Paul wasn’t alone. Billy Graham had a team of loyal friends working with him. If we think we can have a significant kingdom impact alone we’re deceiving ourselves.

There is no perfect church. But that’s the point. Jesus didn’t die for perfect people, he died for imperfect people and thank God he did or none of us would make it! Impact is the force or act of one thing hitting another. In the church, we are to bang and bump and influence one another by loving, forgiving, being patient, serving, listening, caring, in order to help each other grow in Jesus.

Sometimes we need to catch the love, sometimes we need to throw the love. But we can’t do both at the same time to ourselves. Discipleship is a team sport!

Let’s consider 3 “let us encouragements” found in our passage.

1. Let us draw near Jesus in full assurance of faith

²² let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 

Of course as believers we can and should draw near to Jesus individually, and we can do so confidently because of all Jesus has accomplished for us, but the context comes from the imagery of the people of Israel gathering together as the high priest made sacrifice for their sins in the holy of holies. They didn’t stay in their tents and say, “I don’t need to be there.” They drew near together. Over and over in Acts we see dynamic power as together the disciples draw near to God in worship and prayer and fellowship and bible study.Jesus tells us when two or more agree in prayer that prayer will get results. Jesus said where two or three gather in his name, there he is in the midst of them. Does that mean Jesus isn’t with the individual Christian or that he doesn’t hear his or her prayers? Of course not! What Jesus is saying is that our prayers and his manifest presence is multiplied in power when we gather in his name.

2. Let us hold fast to our confession of hope for Christ is faithful

²³ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. 

We are to hold tightly to our confession of hope in Christ, not letting it go. Our hope is built on God’s promises and God will be faithful to fulfill those promises. Our hope therefore is certain.

But again, we so often hear this as an individual encouragement but it’s really a community encouragement. He doesn’t say, “be sure to hold onto your hope”, he says “let us hold fast the confession of our hope…” The word “confession” tells us he isn’t talking about a private hope, he’s talking about a public hope. Confession is speaking out loud what’s in our hearts. A confession made in private has little confessional power.

Not only do we need each other to publicly confess our hope, but sometimes we need each other to help us hold fast our confession of hope.

I was talking to someone this week who was really struggling with her sense of hope in Christ. It’s not that she didn’t believe in Jesus, or that she was tempted to deny Jesus as Lord or Savior. Her struggle was where hope intersected with her life. Sometimes we can believe that every other Christian is forgiven and accepted by Christ but we struggle with believing that we are forgiven and accepted by Christ because we know our sin and our failure up close and personal. It was my joy to encourage her with how much Jesus and the Father loved her, accepted her, and was committed to her.

Sometimes we do waver and need help sometimes to hold fast to our confession of hope.

The third “let us” is actually three in one.

3. Let us motivate one another to love and good works

²⁴ And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, 

Try doing verse 24 alone. Can’t be done. This isn’t telling you to love and do good works. It’s telling you to help me love and do good works. It’s telling you to help that person sitting next to you to love and do good works. This is the impact of community!

There are people in this church who inspire and motivate me to be more caring. You’re

better at it than I am, and you inspire me. You reach out to people with care. Someone

recently had a financial need and someone said, “we want to take care of that.” There have been service opportunities and you show up. That is such an encouragement. I could name names, but there are too many. Just know that your good works and love are seen. Thank you!!

Having said that, churches don’t always do love and good works perfectly. This verse wouldn’t be needed if churches always did love and good works perfectly. Consider how – give thought, do some planning – we can stir up in each other love and good works. Team sport! How can we encourage each other?

²⁵not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some

I want to be clear here: this verse wasn’t written with covid in mind. Over the past two years we have encouraged people to take the precautions they feel they need to for their own health and safety and we still do. That doesn’t look the same for everyone. We understand that.

But these past two years have made it harder to connect and easier to disconnect from the church, so someone might be thinking, “do I really need to be a part of a local church?” The Bible unequivocally says “yes”. Doesn’t have to be this church, but it has to be a church.

but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near

The train of thought here is not neglecting meeting together but rather encouraging one another and all the more as we see the Day drawing near. He’s talking about the Day of the Lord – which is not a 24 hour period of time but a climax of history that will be the worst time in history until Jesus interrupts it with his return. I think we may be approaching that Day faster than we know.In a couple weeks I am going to be starting a series on the Last Days.

No predictions, but I am certain of this: we are closer to the Day than the writer of Hebrews was. If he thought the Day was approaching, how much more should we.

We are going to need to encourage one another in our faith all the more because it will be a terrible time (2 Tim. 3:1). There will be deceptive spirits so convincing that Jesus said if possible even the elect would be deceived. People won’t have time for biblical doctrine because they will prefer hearing what they want to hear for their itching ears. Many will fall away from the faith. It will be terrible times. Maybe we’ve entered them. Maybe we haven’t. Either way, let us stir one another up to love and good works. Let us not neglect getting together. And let us encourage one another in Christ.

The impact of community is accumulative. It’s not what you do. It’s not what I do. It’s not what the person next to us does. The impact is when you add up all those things together that the gospel ball gets moved forward. That’s the impact of community!