The Cross and Christian Community | Sermon (Jan 30, 2022)

Gray Gardner

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Scripture Reading

Our focal passage today is from Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19-25. If you are able, will you please stand for the reading of God’s Word.

Brief pause as people stand.

19 Therefore, brothers, 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.

Hebrews 10:19–25 (ESV)

This is God’s Word. You can be seated.

Brief pause as people are seated.

Community in the Age of Authenticity

Part of what I like to do is help you make sense of the cultural water you’re swimming in.

Ask a fish: How’s the water?

Fish: What the heck is water?

If I asked you: How’s the expressive individualism treating you?

You would probably respond: What the heck is that?

The Age of Authenticity (Philosopher Charles Taylor)

We’re living in what philosopher Charles Taylor calls “The Age of Authenticity.”

You might recognize some of the core beliefs of our culture through these popular phrases:

“You do you”

“Be true to yourself”

“Follow your heart”

“What’s true for you is true for you, what’s true for me is true for me”

Australian pastor and social commentator Mark Sayers summarizes "The Age of Authenticity” in these statements:

1. The highest good is individual freedom, happiness, self-definition, and self-expression.

2. Traditions, religions, received wisdom, regulations, and social ties that restrict individual freedom, happiness, self-definition, and self-expression must be reshaped, deconstructed, or destroyed.

3. The primary social ethic is tolerance of everyone’s self-defined quest for individual freedom and self-expression. Any deviation from this ethic of tolerance is dangerous and must not be tolerated.

4. Humans are inherently good.

5. Forms of external authority are rejected and personal authenticity is lauded.

This is a complete reversal of the beliefs of the great ancient cultures which have shaped Western civilization for thousands of years.

It would have been taken for granted in the ancient world that people are intricately enmeshed with other people — that we are the product of our relationships, the community around us. That your identity is not something you create or curate based on “following your heart” so much as it is something that is given by the authorities external to you.

We are two thousand years and many more thousand miles removed from this original context: the context in which the author of the letter to the Hebrews was writing.

In other words, we’re swimming in different water.

What happens to our notions of community, of relationships, in this cultural setting?

In our current cultural context, having a tight knit community isn’t really necessary, but it’s a nice addition to your life if you can find it.

You can do life just as well on your own if that’s your thing!

You can become the best version of yourself with or without other people around you.

In fact, if you do it alone, we will celebrate you as the self-made American man or woman - the vision of the American Dream!

In other words, community is not a necessity but more so a commodity.

As such, in our age of authenticity, community - if you have it at all - tends toward becoming a place where you are never disagreed with, but only affirmed in who you are and what you already believe and do.

After all, who has the right to disrupt or disrespect my individual pursuit of self-expression and self-actualization?

Anyone who would ever question my desire to be true to myself must not actually care about me.

What do you do with people who don’t care for you — who sin against you by interfering with your ability to “just be yourself”?

Call ‘em toxic, drop ‘em, and move on.

Committed relationships in the age of authenticity are hard to come by.

This is the water we’re swimming in. You’re swimming in.

This is the air you’re breathing. It’s around us. It’s in us. It’s forming who we are and our thoughts towards community. It’s not just “out there” — it’s influencing all of us.

In some form and at some level, each of us is effected in our relationships to other people (or lack thereof) because of these cultural tides.

And yet — I don’t have to tell you what you already know: we’re drowning.

Rates of isolation and loneliness have become endemic in the global West — to the point that the United Kingdom, one of the most powerful nations in the world, was prompted to start a loneliness task force.

Suicide rates amongst teens are at all time highs.

It’s nearly a law of the universe that depression and anxiety increase as our relational connectivity decreases.

We should affirm what is taken for granted in our cultural moment: that we are all individuals uniquely made and loved by God, with a unique identity and purpose and calling on our lives.

However, we also need to see this morning that while we were all created unique individuals, we were never created to be isolated individuals.

We were created to live in a web of interdependent relationships.

This is being proven over and over again in the fields of neuro-biology and -psychology, and even in sociology. Our brains develop by attaching to other people. There is no healthy development or growth as a human being without other people.

But we see this especially as we consider our souls. We are made in the image of God, and God has eternally existed in community. The Trinity.

“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

Genesis 2:18

Before sin ever entered the world, and there was perfect harmony through all of creation, perfect peace for Adam — there still was a sense of ... loneliness?

An individual human created in the image of a Triune - hear: eternally communal - God must have community.

Prior to the creation of Eve, Adam could only look out over the animal kingdom and say, “Not like me.” No relationship. No shared experience. No vulnerability. No intimacy.

With the creation of Eve, Adam exhales a sigh of relief, astoundment, and joy: “This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”

There’s no escaping this fundamental aspect of being human: we need deep relational connections to other people.

Purpose of Today’s Message

My goal today is to convince you that God’s will for your life is that you live in authentic, Christ centered, grace-saturated, biblically encouraging, love-oriented biblical community with other believers.

That’s my primary goal. As a part of that goal, I also want to do something else:

I want you to consider how you might participate in cultivating this kind of community by joining a Bridge Group (what we call small groups) at Forest Hill Church.

No surprises. No bait and switch. That’s what I’m doing today.

But in talking about community today, because of the cultural waters I just described, I feel compelled to go about it a certain way.

You see, it would be easy for me to also get swept up in the cultural tide.

What question do we expressive individuals tend to ask when faced with an invitation to do something new or challenging?

What’s in it for me?

It would be really easy for me to just give you the benefits of community and lead you to the sign ups page. Up the ante on my salesmanship up and just pump sunshine about how much happier you’ll be in community, how much healthier you’ll be.

And there’s merit to that approach. These things are true:

One researcher named Robert Putnam has concluded from his studies that if you have horrible health habits (bad food, no exercise), but have great relational connections, then you are less likely to die than someone who has great health habits but is isolated.

As my friend Scott says: “It’s better to eat cake with friends than kale by yourself.”

Putnam says that if you make no other changes to your health, but join a small group of people in the next year, you cut your odds of dying in the next 12 months in half.

Which led John Ortberg to quip: “Join a small group or die!”

That could work!

But I don’t think we get to the vision of Christian community envisioned by Jesus and described in the New Testament by presenting you with “your best life now” takes on community in the church.

I think the only way we get to the kind of community Jesus desires for His people is through the cross.

And that’s exactly where the author of Hebrews takes us: to the cross.

I want to show you two big ideas that are emphasized in this passage from Hebrews 10.

———

1. The cross of Christ is a bridge between you and God. (vv. 19-21)

Hebrews 10:19-21

What we have:

“Confidence to enter the holy places”

“A great priest over the house of God”

The implication: Once we didn’t have confidence to enter the holy places, and we didn’t have a great high priest over the house of God.

How we now have it:

“By the blood of Jesus”

“By [the new and living way that he opened for us] [through the curtain, that is, through his flesh]”

In other words: We have it through Jesus’s death on the cross (blood, flesh) and his resurrection (living way).

To understand the cross, you have to understand the Old Testament sacrificial system.

Holy places = places in the temple where sacrifices were brought

Curtain = veil that separated the normal part of the temple from the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant rested and the Spirit of God dwelt

Priests = those anointed by God to offer sacrifices to God on behalf of the people, and to offer God’s forgiveness to the people on the basis of their sacrifices. They stood as mediators between God and the people of God

Why all the sacrifices? = sin = not just doing bad things, but doing things that are contrary to God’s will for a flourishing world. We live in a state of sinfulness. It’s a sickness, not just individual actions. It’s a rebellious affront to God’s holiness.

Constant sacrifices, without ceasing.

What do you do if you offer a lamb or dove, you’re forgiven, then on your way out of the temple someone cuts you off and you respond in an angry outburst - either in reality or in your imagination? Or an attractive person walks by and you lust after them? You’re already back in the red!

How many bulls and goats does it take to fully atone for the sin of a person over a lifetime?

That’s why in Hebrews it says that Heb 10:4 “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

Day of Atonement = Once/ year, the High Priest would go into the Holy of Holies and make an offering on behalf of all the people.

Tradition says that they would tie a rope around the high priest’s waist and place a bell on his robe, in case he died due to coming into the presence of God in sin. They would hear the bell stop ringing, and pull him out with the rope. It was that big of a deal.

There’s no confidence in this system. If the High Priest can’t even go into the Holy of Holies but once a year, and at great risk to his life, then what confidence in approaching the holy places could the average person possibly have?

So there’s no confidence to go near the presence of God.

There’s also, clearly, no great priest who can offer one sacrifice and be done. It’s constant work, and there’s always another sacrifice to be made.

Jesus’s death on the cross is the true and better sacrifice, the true and better priesthood, toward whom the old orders were pointing.

Jesus sacrificed his flesh, his body, by dying on the cross that was reserved for sinners - for criminals and murderers and insurrectionists.

In dramatic irony, he - the spotless Lamb of God, innocent and sinless - substitutes himself for the actual insurrections — you and me, rebels against God’s good and perfect rule.

He did this because his heart burned with such love for us that he determined to rescue us.

On the cross, he absorbed the cost of sin in his flesh, and by his blood, sins are forgiven.

When he died, the old order of sacrifices became obsolete. Matthew even tells us from his eye-witness account that the curtain separating the holy of holies tore from top to bottom in the temple at the moment of Jesus’ death, indicating that God’s Spirit would no longer be found in a building, but in the hearts and midst of His people wherever they gather.

Jesus opened a “new and living way” to the heart of God, and it’s no longer through a curtain in a stone building in Jerusalem, but through his very flesh.

He was buried, then on the third day he rose again, defeating the power of sin and death and freeing all who would believe in Him from the bondage to sin which required constant sacrifice.

He ascended back to heaven, and now sits by the right hand of the Father, constantly interceding on our behalf as our Great High Priest.

Great reasons for confidence:

We are forgiven for all the wrongs we have done (and will do) against ourselves, others, and primarily, against God.

We are brought into relationship with the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A community marked by love and joy and delight.

We are free to be honest about our failures to God because we live in light of the cross. No more masks! We can run to God when we sin instead of away from him, because our sin doesn’t separate us from God any longer — the cross has bridged that separation on our behalf in the flesh of Jesus.

We have hope that one day we will be brought into full community with God, seeing him face to face forever, and that our sins will be forever removed from us — we won’t struggle or mess up or fail ever again — because Jesus not only died, but rose again and is victorious over sin and death.

We have Jesus constantly mediating between us and the Father, joyfully allowing his sacrifice to speak over our sins as we continue to fail. The Father isn’t an angry divine needing placated by the Son — He eternally delights to receive the sacrifice of the Son so that we can be His sons and daughters.

To put it real simply (bridge illustration):

There was a chasm between us and God because of our sin.

We could not cross it on our own, no matter how hard we tried.

Jesus, on the cross, bridged the chasm for us.

Now, through the cross - through faith in Jesu’s work on the cross on our behalf, we can be restored in relationship with God.

The cross of Christ is a vertical bridge between you and God.

2. The cross of Christ is a bridge between you and other believers. (vv. 22-25)

Faith in Christ does not just unite you eternally to God, it also unites you eternally to other believers.

We don’t have to “create” this community, we simply have to participate in it.

You are already on the Jesus team if you’ve put your trust in Jesus’s saving work for you on the cross. If the vertical bridge has been made between you and God, then you are already eternally bonded to every other person who’s ever professed faith in Jesus.

It’s like being on a sports team: I didn’t have to try out every year to determine if I was on the team. I was on the team, which meant I had teammates. That wasn’t up for debate.

The question was: Will I recognize my role on this team as a teammate? I had to do a better job of becoming a better teammate, helping the team, encouraging my teammates to be better — even as I was trying to get better in my own personal role.

In a spiritual sense, Christian community already exists for you and will exist forever.

But you must choose to participate in it in the here and now.

Biblically speaking, there is no such thing as a Christian living apart from Christian community.

Walk through and emphasize the plural aspects of the passage:

Hebrews 10:19–25 (ESV)

19 Therefore, brothers [and sisters], 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.

God’s vision for redeeming the world has always been about saving a people, not individual peoples.

It is easy for us to slip into thinking about our faith with 21st century Western minds, through the lens of the Age of Authenticity. We tend to think individualistically rather than communally.

BUT the normative pattern of following Jesus we see portrayed in the New Testament is of individual believers gathered together in small communities called churches, worshiping God together, loving one another, and encouraging one another in the faith.

In other words: While your faith must be personal, it cannot be private.

You must embrace Jesus in faith personally as the bridge between you and God. But you have to recognize that that decision is not private — it forever unites you with every other believer who has ever lived.

We are all united together in the “household of God” through faith in the cross of Christ. v.21

Imagine if we approached other relationships like some of us do our faith:

[Be lighthearted here, not judgmental or condemning.]

Marriage: “Honey, you’re the love of my life, you’re my everything, but I like to just keep that between us. I just don’t think anyone else needs to know that we’re married.”

Are you in this? What are you hiding? Are you seeing someone else? Trying to keep your options open?

Teens with parents: “I know you guys are technically the reason why I exist and have everything I have, but I’d really rather act like you don’t exist when I’m outside the home.”

This is almost every teenager ever! Teens, be gracious to your parents, they genuinely want what’s best for you. Parents, be gracious with your teens, they have a lot going on.

Sports: “You guys, I know we’re technically on the same team, but really this is about my personal relationship with the game, and I don’t really want or need you guys in my business.”

What a horrible teammate!

Belief in Jesus is a team sport. It’s football, not golf; baseball, not tennis.

If you’re more the music type: It’s a choir, not a solo.

How many of us have seen the cross as a bridge to God but have completely missed that it is also a bridge to one another?

Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God's Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 23

So how can a Christian community walk in this biblical vision?

1. Cross-shaped community pursues God together in a culture of grace. (v. 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.”

Hebrews 10:22

It’s embodied, personal, incarnated — not just abstract or theoretical

Vulnerable, authentic, open with our struggles and sins - because God has forgiven us

Truth of the gospel: We experience the mercy and grace of God when we come with our true selves. We come before God clean, even though we’re not. He treats us with grace. We’re loved as we are, and this love changes who we are.

Truth of Christian community: We can experience the mercy and grace of God through one another when we help rather than condemn one another in time of need. We love each other in Christ as others are, and this love changes us as we mediate the love of Christ to one another.

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Ephesians 4:32

Christian community is always risky. It requires vulnerability.

Address those who have been hurt in the past. You may have to withdraw from certain relationships at times if they are toxic or harmful. But you can never withdraw completely from Christian community.

2. Cross-shaped community strengthens each others’ commitment to Christ. (v. 23)

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

Hebrews 10:23

We hold our confession to Christ together.

Wavering happens when we are isolated. This is the strategy of the evil one.

Everyone I know who has walked away from their faith first walked away from Christian community who knew them and loved them and helped hold them accountable to their confession of Christ.

Address those hurt/burned by the church: Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

We hold our confession together not because we are faithful or because the community is faithful. We hold it together because “he who promised is faithful.”

3. Cross-shaped community encourages becoming more like Christ. (vv. 24-25)

“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.”

Hebrews 10:24-25

It requires intentional thought about how to “stir up” one another towards love and good works

It requires getting in proximity to one another to actually do it

You can participate in cultivating this type of community at Forest Hill by joining a Bridge Group.

Bridge Groups are small groups of people who gather during the week for Bible study, worship, and prayer.

We’re going to give you some more details specific to groups in a minute, but first, I’d love to give you just a taste of what life in a group could look like.

Here’s a story from a couple who found community by joining and eventually leading a group at Forest Hill. Check out this video.

[Video Testimony]

Bridge Groups: Practical Steps (w/ Suzanne)

Introduce Suzanne

Tell us about what Bridge Groups actually do — what they look like

Tell us about the process for getting signed up

Closing: Pray a blessing over our people

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