Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.

Hebrews 10:24

What an interesting invitation – to provoke one another to love! This verse intrigues me because we don’t usually associate being provoked with love. Being provoked is usually seen as a negative thing. We are provoked to anger, for example. We might warn someone not to provoke us. 

Our world seems to be very good at doing that these days, provoking one another, but not very good at provoking one another to love and good deeds. So I think this is an important topic to consider this morning. 

How do we provoke one another to the right things, to love and good deeds? Let’s take a closer look at this reading (Hebrews 10:11-25) and see what that author of Hebrews has in mind. 

Grounded in the Gospel

And the first thing to notice is that the invitation to provoke one another to love is actually the conclusion of this passage. It comes at the end, not the beginning. So what comes before it? 

Before it, we hear about Jesus offering a single sacrifice for sins. We hear about him sitting down at the right hand of God. We hear about him waiting for the day when “his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” We hear, in other words, the gospel. The good news that Jesus died for us. That he intercedes for us. And that he will come again one day to make all things right. 

The gospel comes first, in other words. Before we can provoke anyone to love, we must root ourselves in the good news. 

To put it another way, this invitation to consider how to provoke one another to love is not the gospel. It is our response to the gospel. 

The gospel is always about what God does. Our response is about what we do. And for our response to be pleasing to God, it must be rooted in the gospel. If we are not rooted in God’s love, we will still be able to provoke one another, but not to love and good deeds. 

Because … Therefore … 

The language in Scripture that helps us to see this is the language of “Because” and “Therefore.” You have heard me say this before, but it is so very helpful to remember. 

Everything that God asks us to do, or commands us to do, is in response to everything that God has already done for us, and continues to do. Because God has done these things, therefore let us do these things in response. 

In this passage (Hebrews 10:11-25), we have a very clear “Because” and a very clear “Therefore.” In fact, verse 19 literally opens with the word, “Therefore.” And what we find before it is a reminder of the good news, that Christ has died for us, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. 

Mark 13:1-8

He doesn’t promise that it will be easy before he returns. Today’s gospel reading (Mark 13:1-8) is a sober reminder of that. We will hear wars and rumors of wars. Nation will rise against nation. It won’t be easy. 

But, Jesus says in this gospel reading, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is still to come. And the end is good. It is a good ending. A happy ending. An ending where all evil is vanquished. It will happen. Jesus promises it. And he is faithful, and always keeps his promises. 

All of that is what you might call the “Because” of this reading from Hebrews. And that brings us to the “Therefore.”

Therefore, My Friends … 

In this particular reading, we see three ways for us to respond to the gospel, three specific things we can do until Jesus returns. The last of these is to provoke one another to love. But to do this one faithfully, we must also do the preceding two: We must have faith, and we must hold fast to our hope. 

Faith

First, faith. In verse 19, we read: 

“Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us … let us approach 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.”

So, how are we to live now? First and foremost, we are to live it “in full assurance of faith.” We are to live our lives with confidence, trusting that Jesus has opened a new way of being in this world. A way that is rooted in faith, and that is driven by prayer. 

We are invited to enter the sanctuary, which means to enter into the presence of God, by the blood of Jesus. (Hence our red doors.)

And in this sanctuary, we remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. We remember his promise to be with us always. We remember his undying love for us and for all the world. We remember this, and dare to believe it. We confess it together, to help us hold onto our faith. And by doing this, we hold fast to the confession of our hope. 

Hope

Verse 23 of this passage puts it this way: 

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

As Christians, we are called on to be hopeful people. We are hope-filled because we are Christ-filled. And because we know and believe that God is faithful, God so loves our world that he has given his son to die for it, to redeem it, and ultimately to put an end to all evil in our world. 

Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. That is not a threat, but a promise. He is Lord of all, and one day all the world will know it. That is his promise, and that is our hope. And we don’t waver from that hope. We hold fast to it, as Hebrews reminds us. We hold fast to the confession of our hope.

The world can be a discouraging, even frightening place. There are “wars and rumors of war,” as Jesus says in our gospel reading. Nations rising against nations, earthquakes, famines, and all manner of things that frighten us. 

But as people who believe and trust in the promises of God, we hold fast to our hope, and nothing in this world can take it away. We hold fast to it without wavering. 

The Anchor of Our Soul

Why? Back in Chapter 6, the author Hebrews tells us exactly why: 

“We have this hope, a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain.” 

Our hope, in other words, is anchored in heaven, and nothing in this world can take that away. 

The news, as I have often said, is always just a footnote to the main story, the story of our salvation in Jesus, the story that a place in heaven is being prepared for us, the story that serves as our anchor when the storms of life hit. And because it is anchored in heaven, nothing in this world can take it away.

That’s not to say that we hide our heads in the sand, and think only of heaven, and ignore the news and events in our world. We don’t do that. 

We live in this world, and we pay attention to this world. But we also remember that nothing that happens in this world is more important than what happened on the cross. And we remain hopeful, because we know that the one who this world could not kill is coming again, to put a final end to death, and to suffering, and to evil, forevermore. We know how it all ends. How can we not be hopeful?

Love

We are almost back to love. We have been reminded in this passage to approach this life rooted in the gospel, trusting and believing this good news of God’s love. We have been encouraged to anchor our lives in hope, “holding fast to the confession of our hope without wavering.” 

And when we do all of that, then we are ready to do what I mentioned at the outset of my sermon. We are ready to “consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” 

The truth is that we shouldn’t even try to do this if we don’t have faith and hope in the God of love. Without these, the provoking that we do will not lead to love. 

It is not hard, remember, to provoke one another. We do it all the time. Everyone, it seems, is good at this. 

But to provoke one another to love? There is the challenge. And to do that, we have to really trust in God, and we have to anchor our hope in God. Only then we are ready to provoke one another to love. 

The importance of our faith and our hope in order to provoke one another to love might explain the very next verse. 

Closing – Meet Together and Encourage One Another

Verse 25 of this passage reminds us that we are able to provoke one another to love and good deeds by:  

“not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Now, I think it is interesting that even in the days when the New Testament was being written, there were people who were falling out of the habit of going to church. I can’t decide if that is discouraging or encouraging. 

But, at any rate, this author reminds them of how important it is simply to meet together, as Christians. Our faith, our hope, and our love can be weakened, if we are not careful. 

It is important to come together each week to get away from the news of the day, and the challenges in our lives, and to encourage one another. 

I know that I am “preaching to the choir” right now, because all of you are here. But there it is, right in this reading. It is so important to do this: to get together, and to worship, and to pray, and to encourage one another, and to be reminded of the good news that is at the heart of our faith. 

So, are you ready to provoke one another in this way? I hope so. And may it so fill our world with love and good deeds that all may come to believe in God’s love for us all. Amen.