Pt4: Support Matters

June 24, 2018                NOTES NOT EDITED
Pt4, Church Membership Matters:  Support Matters

Hebrews 10:19-31

SIS—The Church is the Bride of Christ, bought with His blood, and deserving of the passionate, sacrificial support of every member.

When one thinks of something, “expensive,” the picture that comes to mind is usually something solid, like gold or silver, or a red Ferrari.  But, some of the most valuable commodities in the world are liquids, not solids.  Gasoline, for example, is one of the most expensive liquids we consume each day.  Who doesn’t complain about gas costing $4 a gallon!  Yet, gas is cheap compared to say, printer ink, which we all also use regularly.  Printer ink typically costs about $2700 per gallon!  We ought to be thankful our cars don’t run on printer ink!  Blood is also something most of us consider pretty valuable.  It is also much cheaper than printer ink at only $1500 per gallon.  Of course, there is always a slight upcharge for someone to put it into our bodies when needed.  Blood seems expensive at $1500 per gallon, but you’d probably be surprised to know that Channel No. 5 perfume comes in at over $2600 per gallon!  That’s almost twice the value of blood.  As the announcer has oft been heard to say, “But you ain’t seen nothing yet!”  Scorpion blood comes to the table at a whopping, $38,944,206 per gallon!  Scorpion blood is used to treat a variety of autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and multiple sclerosis. With my time living in the high desert I suspect I squashed about a trillion dollars or more in scorpions! (https://www.scienceabc.com)

Each time we purchase anything, we are faced with the question, “What’s it worth?”  We associate the “expense” of something with its value.  But, we are inconsistent in our valuations when it comes to spiritual matters.  Consider Church for example.  Most people—by their actions, or inaction—place very little value on the church.  Yet, how much is the blood of Jesus Christ worth.  The Bible says (Acts 20:28):

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock that the Holy Spirit has appointed you to as overseers, to shepherd the church of God,  which He purchased with His own blood.

If scorpion blood that can treat—not even heal—disease is worth almost $39 million dollars a gallon, how much more is the blood that provides our salvation and establishes the Church worth?  It is worth infinitely more!  Yet, does church really matter that much to most people—even people that attend church occasionally?

As we examine the idea that Church Membership Matters, today we will look carefully at the theme, “Supporting the church matters.” The Church is the Bride of Christ, bought with His blood, and deserving of the passionate, sacrificial support of every member. Let’s read a text that emphasizes the importance of supporting the Church.  Hebrews 10:19-31.  We support the testimony of our church in three ways:

1.  By Attending Church Faithfully and Consistently.

²⁵ Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (NIV)

The Bible teaches that Church participation is important for three very important reasons.  First, as we noted, the Church was purchased with the very blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The other two reasons church attendance is important are:  community and eternity. 

First, Paul associates “let us meet” with “let us encourage.”  Mutual encouragement is the essence of fellowship.  Many studies have shown the correlation between church participation and emotional well-being, or even physical well-being.  One such study concluded:  Those who don’t attend church are four times more likely to commit suicide than those who attend frequently. In fact, lack of church attendance correlates more strongly with suicide rates than any other risk factor, including unemployment. (Larson & Larson, Forgotten Factor, 76-78).  Being in a community promotes well-being.

Mamie Adams always went to a branch post office in her town because the postal employees there were friendly. She went there to buy stamps just before Christmas one year and the lines were particularly long. Someone pointed out that there was no need to wait in line because there was a stamp machine in the lobby. "I know," said Mamie, ’but the machine won’t ask me about my arthritis." Bits and Pieces, December, 1989, p. 2.  Church  provides love and encouragement.  You don’t get that from a T.V. preacher.

A second consideration in regard to the importance of church attendance is implied in the words, “the Day approaching.”  That is a reference to Judgment Day.  Judgement Day IS coming and one of the mattes God is going to judge is one’s support for the testimony of His Church as evidenced by church attendance.  Every decision in this life should be made with consideration of eternity.  All money or time invested in this world, ends at the grave.  “Tis one life will soon be past.  Only what’s done for Christ will last.” 

It was Jesus’ habit was to go to "church" (synagogue) on Sabbath (Sunday). What makes us think that we are any better than Jesus, so that we don’t need to be in church in Sunday? 

And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day (Lk. 4:16).  The same thing is also said about Paul (Acts 17:2).

It is a lie from the deepest recesses of hell to say that a person can be a bonafide, blood-bought, born-again believer and not attend church enthusiastically, expectantly, and consistently.

A preacher once diagnosed the typical church like this:  “the average church is often like a congested lung with only a few cells doing the breathing” (AJ Gordon).  Excuses for missing church are nearly endless, and most always worthless.

It takes so little to keep some people from church.  Somebody once said, “It takes 90 gallons of water to baptize a person and only 9 drops of rain to keep him home from church.”

The Bible says, “Jesus loved the Church and gave Himself for it” (Eph. 5:25).  How can we claim to follow Christ and not love what He loved?  We can’t.  That is simply, a lie.

Church attendance is commanded and non-attendance receives harsh judgment.  The Hebrews 10  text clearly associates the lack of faithful church attendance with “deliberate sin” (v26) and then connects deliberate sin with “a terrifying expectation of judgement and the fury of a consuming fire” (v27).

Staying away from church is a sure and certain indicator of spiritual decay in the life of a believer, or the state of lostness altogether.  Non-attendance is a way for a carnal person to hide his or her carnality from the bright lights of accountability of the fellowship.  

The lack of attendance creates a generational landslide into a ravaging abyss of sin.  We see it throughout the Bible.  God visits the sins of the parents upon the children to the third and fourth generations (Num. 14:18).  As one writer accurately expressed, “The man who attempts Christianity without the church shoots himself in the foot, shoots his children in the leg, and shoots his grandchildren in the heart.”  Kevin DeYoung

Every believer must support the testimony of the church by attending faithfully.  Also, every member must support the church by

2.  living righteously

Go back to verse 25 and notice the words, “as some habitually do.”

The word for “habitually do” is what the KJV translates, “manner.”  The word (ethnos, ἔθνος), from which we get “ethnic,” refers to an identifiable way of life.  In other words, one’s character can be identified by the way a person lives, that is, his manners and customs.  In other words, people can easily recognize what “manner of person” one was by how they speak and how they act.

Our speech and our actions should be such that people readily identify us as devoted, loving, sacrificing followers of Jesus Christ.  In the Old Church Covenant that was often found glued to the flyleaf of many hymnals, there is a line that says, “We also engage to walk circumspectly in the world; to be just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment.”

Deportment refers to how we “carry ourselves in the world.”  In our deportment we must “walk circumspectly in the world.”  I love that old word, “circumspectly.” It is a good, ole’ sanctified KJV word.  In Ephesians 5:15-16 (KJV) it says, “¹⁵ See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, ¹⁶ Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Circumspectly literally means, “watching all around you.” I picked up this bit of advice from one writer:  Circumspectly could also be translated “watch your step.” It describes the actions of an army scout behind enemy lines as he looks closely at everything in the vicinity. A good example of walking circumspectly would be a soldier “watching his step” to avoid landmines.  The Greek word literally means, “with exactness, or accuracy” (akribōs, ἀκριβῶς).  Obviously, the “un-Christlike manner” of many in the church was obvious, to both Paul and the Church members, and presumably those in the community.  Nothing hurts the witness of a church more than a person who identifies with Christ but lives like the Devil!

How we live matters as much as what we believe—in many ways, it matters more because it validates truth of our belief in the eyes of others.  The most powerful testimony is that in which a person’s words of grace are validated by a lifestyle of holiness.  Jesus said,

Mt. 5:16: Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

The old adage is appropriate, “Actions speak louder than words.”  Perhaps it is better to say, “Actions make your words speak louder.”

We support the testimony of our church by attending faithfully, living righteously, and by

3.  Giving Generously

Nothing raises more anxiety and generates more negative comments among people than the issue of “giving money to the church.”  I have never draw back from preaching on the spiritual discipline of giving.  It is found everywhere in the Bible.  Look again at Heb. 10:19-20:

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way He has opened for us through the curtain (that is, His flesh ).

In order to understand what it means to be a “generous giver” we must comprehend the image of God as the “Greatest Giver.”  Here in our text Paul calls his readers to reflect on the holiest day of the year in Jewish culture, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  Year after year this day commemorated God’s great gift of mercy and the salvation it brings to his people.  On this day—and only this day—the High Priest—and only the High Priest—would pass through the large, purple veil that separated the Holy Place of the Temple from the Holiest Place, or the Holy of Holies.  Behind this veil was the Ark of the Covenant.  The High Priest would sprinkle the blood of a sacrificed bull on the Ark of the Covenant.  All of this was a “drama played out to prepare the Israelites to receive the Ultimate Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.”  At the moment Jesus gave up his life for us the Bible says, “the curtain [veil] of the sanctuary was split in two from top to bottom” (Mt. 27:51).

This is a picture of God “removing the veil [top to bottom, not bottom to top]” that had separated man from His Presence.  Now, all believers, at any time, “have boldness to enter the sanctuary” (v19).

The model for our generosity is found in the Greatest Giver Giving the Greatest Gift Ever Given!

When we draw back from our responsibility to support the testimony of the Church by giving generously, we are “drawing back from God.”  Look at verse 38:

³⁸ But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back,

I have no pleasure in him.

Bold faith pleases God.  The lack of faith displeases Him.  Heb. 11:6, Now without faith it is impossible to please God.  Supporting the testimony of the Church through generous giving is an “act of faith that please God.”  If you view it in any other way, you will not give in faith in a way that pleases God, but you have “drawn back and receive His displeasure (v38).

Now, lets’ talk about the specifics of our faithful giving.  Let me share a couple verses with you.  First Leviticus 27:31:

“Every tenth [KJV, tithe] of the land’s produce, grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the Lord; it is holy to the Lord.

The first ten percent of every dollar that comes into your pocket belongs to the Lord.  In fact, it all belongs to the Lord but the first ten percent is designated as “holy to the Lord.”  When you touch that first ten percent and take it for your own purpose, you have “touched that which is holy.” The penalty in the O.T. was death! (2Sam 6:7).

Jesus honored the gift of tithing as a part of God’s moral Law.  Look at Mat. 23:23:  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You pay a tenth of mint, dill, and cumin, yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice,  mercy, and faith. These things should have been done without neglecting the others.”  Underline, “these things (tithing) you should have done.”

Every believer is instructed to begin giving at ten percent.  But, giving must not end with ten percent.   On the first day of the week,  each of you is to set something aside and save in keeping with how he prospers (1Cor. 16:2).  Giving begins at ten percent but for most of us, giving only a tithe is not giving in faith according to “how we have prospered.”

The famous Baptist preacher, W.A. Criswell, spoke of an ambitious young man who told his pastor that he’d promised God a tithe of his income. They prayed together for God to bless his career. At that time he was making $40.00 per week and tithing $4.00. In a few years his income increased and he was tithing $500.00 per week. He called on the pastor to see if he could be released from his tithing promise, it was too costly now. The pastor replied, "I don’t see how you can be released from your promise, but we can ask God to reduce your income to $40.00 a week, then you’d have no problem tithing $4.00."

Giving must be proportional to blessing.  The more God blesses, the more we should give. Most people neer even reach the O.T. standard of one tenth, and many more completely ignore the N.T. principle of giving in proportion to how God has blessed them.  Most people “draw back when it comes to the matter of giving.”

Someone has said, and it is a great verbal picture, “The largest dollar bill in the world can be found in a church offering plate!” It is so much easier to spend a dollar at Disneyland (and you will spend many of them) than it is to spend it in church?  Yet, it is the same $1 bill—but it just looks so much bigger in the church offering plate.

Let me summarize our study of supporting the testimony of the Church.  Jesus purchased the Church with His own blood.  The Church deserves our support, and the Bible demands we support our church by attending, by living a godly life, and by giving.

Church Membership really does matter.  We must protect Her unity, Take responsibility for Her ministry, Serve faithfully, and Support Her generously with our time, talent and treasures.