Belong in Biblical Community

My name is Joel. I'm on the pastors here, and we're going to be in Hebrews chapter ten. If you want to make your way over there in Hebrews chapter ten. And you know, as we're doing that, I had a conversation with my oldest son not too long ago. And and it started it it started out with just a few questions, but then it led us to a conversation about how many people might have the same name as either one of us.

And that led us to a website, and it's a website called like, how many of mes.com are there? Or something like that, and you can check it out after the sermon. All right. Because some of you are like, that's on. Pretty cool. I'm gonna do it right out. No, you're not allowed to, or God will smite you and there'll be one less of you.

And so. But but there's this website. It tells you approximately how many people have your name. And I am pleased to tell you that I, Joel Hastings, have reached the legendary status, according to the website, because there's only 22 of us and, and and so it gives you a proximate numbers of how many people are in, like in America with your exact same name.

And, and I don't know if you've ever met somebody, if you're not a junior, then you probably haven't ever actually met somebody with your exact name. But think about it like that's the only other person in America that can reach out and say, hello, I'm Joel Hastings, right? And so it's like, I wonder what type of connections that we would have.

And and after I went to that website, I went to another, like I just googled. I was like, man, I haven't done this in a while. Like, I just googled my name to see, like, who are the other Joel Hastings? And first one, what up? Was a classical pianist that looked very accomplished. That Joel Hastings is killing it, making the rest of us look bad.

And then then there's me. And then the third one was a British murderer. You know, it's like, that sounds like a bad joke, right? Like a pianist, a pastor and a murderer walk into a bar and. But but yet, like I started to look at that and was like, yeah, well, in reality, those those Joel Hastings in this Joel Hastings seemingly have absolutely nothing in common.

Now, if that is true for somebody that can literally say, I am Joel Hastings and I have nothing in common to them, then it had me start to think like, what does it actually mean to have something in common with somebody? What does it mean to actually live in a community with somebody? Because it doesn't necessarily mean just because I have something in common with somebody, even something as close as my name.

It doesn't necessarily mean that I actually have a community with those individuals, does it? And even further, all for us as Christians, we call ourselves a community. But what does it actually mean to live in community? What does it mean now? And this is the whole point of today, is what does it mean to belong in biblical community, belonging in biblical community.

You know, right now, in this month of September, we have introduced some new things for our church, and we just want to go back and read, ground ourselves, remind ourselves of the things that's most important. And for oftentimes if you come into a church, one of the questions that you you rightfully can ask is like, okay, but what is expected?

What is the church want me or expect me to do? Like what? What is success look like? And we're trying to answer that. And one of those things is to belong in biblical community. The other two is to become like Jesus and to live sent to the nations in your neighbors as well. And and for us now, as we start to look at all of it, we want you to say, you know what?

I know what it means to belong in that biblical community. And I and I live in this. This is where I dwell. This is my whole entire life is wrapped up in this. And it when it is, it will change the rest of your life. So we're going to be in Hebrews chapter ten today, Hebrews chapter ten, starting in verse 19.

If, if you wouldn't mind, let's go ahead and stand up for the honor of reading God's Word together.

Hebrews ten, starting in verse 19, says, therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened up through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with the true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering.

For he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is a habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. We're going to go back up to verse 19 and start there.

It said, therefore, brothers, so we talk in here to Christians primarily. And what it means to be a part of a biblical community is some level of faith here. And so he's talking primarily to Christians. He says, therefore, brother, since we have. Now, this passage is actually very easy to outline because there's a couple repeated words in the first section, and there's a few repeated words in the next section.

But you'll see here this first section that's repeated is since we have. So we say we have something since we have confidence to enter the holy places. And in the Old Testament, now is what the book of Hebrews largely draws on. And so it's this imagery of what the temple is going to look like, the Old Testament temple that was still around whenever Hebrews was written, the Old Testament temple, it was this big building.

There was a large curtain and behind a large curtain that nobody got to go to except for the priest one time of year, the presence of God's wealth. And so he's saying now that we though have confidence, the ability to walk inside this holy place where the presence of God dwells. The word confidence. I don't know if you struggle with confidence or not, but for this context here, here's what that confidence is talking about.

It's the ability to walk in a room and feel like you belong there. And if you want to know what that looks like, you should really talk to my two year old daughter right now. Did you turn into in a couple of days? And she has just recently been able to reach up and grab a door handle. And so you know what that means?

That for the last two weeks or so, she walked into confidence confidently into every room in her house. It doesn't matter if you're in the bathroom. She's like, hello? Like you have been waiting for me. Haven't you? Like, that's the idea that it's saying that we have confidence that we are able to walk in somewhere and feel like and act like we actually belong there.

But here's the crazy part. He's saying that we can walk in with confidence to the holy place where God Himself dwells. We should not be able to do that. In the Old Testament. If a high priest were to go inside there and he was not ceremonially and like cleansed in every single way, the rumor was that he would die on the spot like we had no right to go in there.

But it says, by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened up through the curtain, that is, through this flesh. So the idea here is, you might remember whenever Jesus died on the cross, there was an earthquake that happened. And literally inside the temple, God then ripped that giant curtain from top to bottom.

And when that happened, it symbolized this that we now do. Gentile man, woman, whoever you are, has access into God. Why? Because the blood of Jesus has made a way. So we have confidence now to come inside there and through this through his flesh. And since we have there's that second since we have, since we have a great priest over the house of God, a priest was somebody that would go between you and another person or go between you and God.

And so the idea here is that Jesus Christ has gone between us and he has invited us in. I don't know if you've ever been somewhere where you're like, you know what? I really don't belong, but I know somebody that does like, I know somebody that's important. I remember not too long ago, whenever we live in Florida, we were at a baseball game, a rays MLB baseball game, where they were playing the White Sox.

We bought tickets and the tickets were like in the upper, upper, upper balcony. Like, you might be able to see the field if you're lucky type of tickets. Right. And we were going up there and we thankfully like we had our little baby like strapped up on on Bethany's chest there. And we were about ready to go to the escalator up into heaven and, and right as we were about ready to go up on the escalator, somebody stopped us and was like, hey guys, are there like two of you in the baby?

And we're like, yeah, there's there's two of us. And he's like, hey, I got seats down by the dugout, would you like to sit with us? And I'm like, yes, Lord, yes, yes. And so, like we walked down there, it was season tickets. We were like literally like one row up from the White Sox. I was like, you know, yelling at them.

And and then after a while he was like, hey, we actually like, we're season ticket. If you want to go up there, that up in like the owner's lounge, they got like free snacks. You guys can just go up there with us. And I'm like, yes, I didn't I didn't even know that there was a type of ticket that you got free snacks.

And so like we were saying nothing like we had no business belonging there, but because we knew somebody, we had access into that place in the same way, Jesus is saying, you have no business getting into the holy place, into the very presence of God. But you know somebody, but you know somebody that that is now welcomed you in into a holy place, into this brand new house of God, into this home.

You are welcome in. And so here's what it means to belong that we have a home. You have a home. If you belong in biblical community, it means that you have a home, a place to belong to, a place to come back to.

You have a place here. There's always something sweet whenever I go back to my parents house. Thankfully, I have a good relationship with them. There's always something sweet whenever I get home, right? Because I get to walk home. Even though I'm a man in my mid 30s, I'm walking home, I'm opening up that fridge and I'm like, mom, was the dessert?

You know, where's the where's the good stuff? Like, I can put up my feet. There's something good about being able to come home. And when we belong in a family of God, a church body, we have a home. But let me ask you, and this is a if I can just take a little bit of a sidestep from the passage itself, because we talking about belonging in biblical community.

But what then do we do whenever somebody comes into this body that might not claim to be Christian, right. Like, let's say a muslim comes in here and and they visit with us for a while, or, or a Hindu or Mormon or whatever it might be. And they say, you know what? I'm not a faith, but what do we do?

Well, in the same way that on occasion we will get a guest in our home, right? Like we will invite our neighbors over, we own people over. And when they come over. Guess what? They are loved. They are cared for. They are the guest of honor. Like they're not doing the dishes. They're not doing the laundry. They're not doing any of that.

Even if they stay overnight, like we are going to take good care of them as our guest of honor. But at a certain point, and if you've ever had a guest out, stay there. Welcome. Like, you know that like at a certain point, it's going to start to get uncomfortable for both them and for you if they still stay on the outside, like at a certain point, if they love this family long enough and we love them long enough, then they should say, you know what?

Either I am going to join this family and be a part of this family and contribute to this family, or this isn't my home and I need to go find another home. And that's that's okay. But that's the idea here, is that we show hospitality to every single person. They are our guests. They are welcome here. We want to know that they are the most loved that they will ever be.

Whenever they walk into a congregation, whenever they walk into a small group. But at a certain point, either they are going to be brought to saying, you know what, I want to join into this. Or they're going to say, I can't be a part of this and walk away, and we're going to continue to pray for them until they come back.

But for all of us that are Christians, we now have a place that is is home for us more than our moms home more than our grandma, more than anything else. We have a place that is a home for us. We have a family of God that surrounds us. And so what do we do with all that? In verse 22 it says, so let us draw near.

Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of the faith, full confidence with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and the bodies washed with pure water. In the Old Testament, the priest, before he could go into the holy place, he would then kill a lamb, and he would take some of the blood, and he would sprinkle the blood, either of the bull or the lamb, onto things, and it would wash it clean.

And that's the imagery here. Is that Jesus Christ, whenever he died on the cross, he got that blood, and he now has washed us clean so that we can go in together. But notice those very first two words. You're going to see this phrase repeated a few different times. It says, let us, let us and doesn't say let you.

It says let us. That's a collective word, right? It's a plural word. It means that collectively, together, all together. Now we draw near with the true heart. We draw near to the Holy place. We come home together, not as individuals, but as a corporate body together. See, because we follow Jesus personally, but not privately, you have to make a personal decision to actually follow Jesus, but it should never be private, meaning that you should never try to hide it from other people.

But also more than that, it's not just something that you make by yourself, but it's something that you enter into another family. Oftentimes, whenever I'm talking to a new married couple or a newlywed, I will tell them. I will remind them that you're not just marrying each other, you're marrying into each other's family. And every single family always has that one crazy uncle, right?

Or that one crazy cousin. If you don't know who it is, it's you.

But yet we enter in. And as you enter into this body, if you say you know what grace point is where I belong. Grace point is the place that I that that I call home. Then you are entering into this family. And we got a few crazy uncles too. Like we got a few crazy ones. And yet you're welcome here.

So if you are welcome here, then don't just stay on the outside. Don't just live on the outside of the porch here, but actually come inside. Be a part of this. It's not just a private. We don't just follow Jesus privately. There's no Lone Ranger Christians, but we actually need each other. And we need this body of Christ.

Because here's what happens in verse 23. It says, let us there's a second. Let us. So let's let us. First one was draw near. Second one is let us hold fast. Hold fast. That means to hold on tightly to the confession of our hope without wavering. The word confession in the Greek is actually like homo. It means to to say the same thing.

Homo means same means. It's the words. And so it's literally that we are saying the same words as each other. And what are those words? What is the confession that Jesus Christ is Lord? And it's something that we get to say together. Could I, I didn't give you a warning, but. Matt, can you come on up here?

Hey, would you please welcome one of our new elders up here? Matt shouldn't have volunteered to be an elder, bro. I'm just going to call you on stage. Here's what I want us to do. This is the idea of what it's saying. Will you hold on to that tight? Like, scoot over there for just a minute. All right.

So. So hold on tightly here. So so here's what happens oftentimes like confession is something that we believe that. And it says to hold on tight hold on fastly to it. But in reality here's what happens whenever life sometimes gets a little bit more difficult. Matt, I'm stronger than you, bro. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.

He's strong than me. But in reality. In reality, whenever, when life is coming at us hard, whenever we're not expecting it, this is what happens. Life starts to get. And we drop it. We drop our faith. We drop our. We drop the things that we believe. And it's really hard sometimes to hold on tightly whenever life starts to give you that struggle.

Hey, Corey, could you come on up here? Help a brother out here real quick. Hey, welcome up Corey to.

But when life starts to come at it and we start to be able to hold on together, they're actually trying to pull me down right now. I can feel it. And.

Now you won't be moved. Why? Because there's more than one person holding on to the end of that rope. And here's the beautiful thing about it is, too, is that, like whenever you are over here and if I'm holding on and I can't hold on to any more of this here, maybe you're in a situation where your life is like, I don't know if I can hold on.

Well, maybe I can at least hold on to Matt. Maybe he can hold on for the both of us. And so this is the beauty of our relationship with Jesus. Hey, thank you guys. You kind of have a seat here real quick.

See, what it means to belong as this is that we have shared beliefs. We have shared beliefs. That's what it is to belong in a Christian community. But the beautiful part about having a shared belief is that even when there's those moments where you're saying, I don't know if I can believe this, I don't know if I can, if I can hold on for any longer.

There's also going to be other people that are holding along with you. So when you can't preach it to yourself, God gives you people who will preach it to you. Those same words, that same confession. And that's the beauty of what we have here, is that we have a confession. We have something that you can hold on to, but only if you're actually involved in this community.

If you you can't have literally impossible have a confession of faith by yourself because it's saying the same things as other people are saying as well. And so for all of us, for every single one of us, who are the people in your life that are holding on to this with you? Are you involved in a small group?

Are you involved in community? Are you involved? Are there people that know your name that actually care enough about you? That whenever you're in Fayetteville at two in the morning and you're like, I don't know how to get home like a car broke down, do you got somebody that says, I will be there? That's the that's the type of community that says, I will sacrifice.

I will get up in the middle of the night. I will care for it. Now, the problem is, for a lot of us, like we really want that community for all of us. Like every single one of us says like, no, I would love it if I had somebody in my life that treated me like that, but I don't.

And you say, man, I've been trying to come to church and I've tried this church out, I've tried other churches out, and I just can't find nobody stepping up to like that. If you are in that situation where you're saying, you know what, I want that people to surround me. I want to be in that community. I want to be loved, but nobody's doing it.

You know what you should do? Be that for somebody else. Because the moment that you say, you know what? Even if they don't reciprocate, even if they never do it for me, I'm going to do that for them. I'm going to be there for them. I'm going to be the one watching their kids. I'm going to be the one helping them out.

I'm going to like the moment that we actually do that for other people. You would be surprised at how quickly you start to find your community of the people surrounding you as well. And so in the same way that oftentimes we'll talk to married couples and say, like, hey, even if your spouse is feeling like they're dropping the ball like you do what you're called to do in this church as well, you do what you are called to do.

Goes on to say in verse 24 and 25, the main part of this it says, and let us consider, let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. So it says, let us draw near the first one. Let us hold fast as a second one. And lastly, let us consider how to stir up one another.

That word stir up literally means to poke or to prod. In the Greek. In every single week I see exactly what this looks like, usually on Sunday mornings, because here's what happens. There's there's always there's a there's something in our relationship that some of you don't know that we like. I know some things about you and some of you don't know that I see you fall asleep every week.

And, why do you think I yell at the end of my sermon? I gotta wake you up before you leave. And, like, in 98% of the time, it's always a husband in this situation is usually the one that that's struggling, like, very rarely does. Does a wife actually fall asleep? But like, I frequently, almost every single week see something and it kind of looks like.

Like right. And then you know what? The next thing I see is I see that wife give a little bit of a stir up of encouragement of bam, you know, it's like it's like, Amen. And, that's what it is like. That's the idea is that you are stirring up or poking or prodding if you've ever had or if you're if you're like in my family, if you have any backseat drivers in your family, right, saying stop, stop, turn.

Did you forget your turn signal? Right. Like every single time that I miss a turn, I have to do you turn. My oldest son is like dad. Did you miss your turn? Like I'll drive ten extra minutes not to have to do what you turn anymore to avoid that. But the idea is this is that as a community of God, we come together.

And when we come together, we get to poke and prod, not as a condemning thing, not as a way to beat each other down. But notice it's like stir up, like encouragement is the tone of this. Here he's like, consider how to stir up, encourage one another, and to love and good works. The idea of love what is love is a gape love.

Unconditional love. Literally, in the first John it says A God is love. And so what he's saying is encouraging each other to look a little bit more like Jesus, not neglecting to meet together as a habit of some, but encouraging one another all the more as he see the day drawing near, not neglecting, not neglecting. See, we need each other and it's so easy in this day and age in the year 2026 to say, you know what?

I can? I can watch church on TV, I can get all I need. I can read books and audiobooks and podcasts, and I can get everything that I need to. And those are great resources. I'm not telling you not to do any of that. But here's the deal. None of those people know your name. None of them know how you treated your wife for your husband.

None of them know your struggles. And that's what church is about. If you want to watch good preaching. Yes, there's way better preachers out there. I can give you the name of some after the service if you just want to worship. There's there's great bands that you can go on the Apple II or iTunes or whatever, like there's all sorts of things that you can get all of this, but the one thing that you cannot get is somebody that actually knows you, that knows your family, that's going to be praying for you, see, because for all of us, what it means to belong is that we have a shared goal of becoming like Jesus.

And we can only do that when we're together. The only way to start looking more and more like him is when there's other people. That's also saying, hey, I'm going with you and brother. I saw the way that you treated your wife. I saw what you were looking like a brother or sister. Like, I know that you've been in a bad spot lately.

Can we walk together? That's the only way that that can happen. And if you don't have somebody in your life that's like that, first of all, be that for somebody else. Be it. See, the greatest tool that Jesus uses in sanctifying you is others. The greatest tool that he uses is others. And it would be real easy right now for me just to kind of wrap up this sermon in such a way that says, and that's why you should always come to church.

And oh, by the way, community groups are starting and and we have all these other things that we want you to be a part of. And and don't get me wrong, you should come to church and you should be a part of community and you should come to equip night and you should do all of those things like these are just the structures, but but reality, all of these things just serve the purpose of allowing us a moment in time, a moment each and every week that says we will come together for the encouragement of one another, that we get to stir each other up.

So we look a little bit more like Jesus today. This is that's a day approaching when it said that in the verse 25. That means that whenever Jesus comes back and I know that you guys might not necessarily consider yourself Bible scholars, but are we closer or farther away to Jesus coming back right now? We're 2000 years closer.

And he said, all the more as you see that day approaching. So all the more as this world gets crazier and crazier, all the more do we need each other. And so the point isn't just to come and sign up for something, but the point is to be a part of a community of God. And until you take that next step, until you actually say, I want to be a part of something, and I'm going to be vulnerable enough and I'm going to be real enough, then I'm going to step into this.

Because here's the beautiful part is that you do have a home, no matter how far you feel like you've ever run, no matter what you feel like your story is. My mind goes over just to Luke chapter 15 and the story of the prodigal son. You know it well. That young man who had a home runs away. He runs away and runs away and denies his father, takes his inheritance, goes away into finding himself literally eating pig's food before he comes back and says, I bet even the slaves in my father's house are better off than this.

And he goes and he runs back. And as he runs back, when his father sees him far away, his father runs to him and he picks. He takes off his coat and wraps it in that sun, and he brings him back home. And the older brother, as he know like that, that older brother, he's like, hey, but what about me?

Regardless of which situation you find yourself in, it's an opportunity now for every single one of us to encourage each other to look more like Jesus. And if I could be so bold. I've only been here about a year, but one of my jobs as a pastor is to try to help lead people towards Jesus. And so that means making certain, try to try to be observant over things, try to make observations about what what is it that that our community maybe struggles with.

And I don't think this will come as a surprise to you, any of you guys. But but for me, like whenever I look around, and I look at Bentonville, like I think of my, like, here's a community that probably really one of the biggest struggles that I think that all of us probably have is this, this struggle of saying, I want to look good, right?

I want to I want to have it all together. I want to make sure that I drive the right car and I live in the right neighborhood. I want to make sure that I go to church and I look religious enough, because that's kind of still expected here in the South. But I don't want to be so religious that I'm kind of like a weirdo or fundamental, like, I don't want to go that far.

And so everything in our life sometimes is so calculated that we want to continue to put off this image that says that we have it all together. But here's the problem. None of us do. If I'm being honest, I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I feel like my life is a mess. Sometimes I feel like I got sin I can't overcome, and now it feels like, man, when I walk into church, everybody else seems like they got it together except for me.

And I feel like I'm never going to belong in that because it seems like all the staff, all the pastors, all the other people, they got all their other perfect lives. But I don't think I will ever belong to that.

And for us to learn how to belong in biblical community, it means then, that we need to be real and honest with each other enough to say, you know what? I was the prodigal son. I'm the one that ran away. But God has welcomed me back, you know, first Corinthians chapter six. I'm almost done here. First Corinthians chapter six.

There's a list of people, a list of prodigals, if you will.

And it's a pretty confrontational verse, if I have to admit it, because it says, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? He's saying that these people are the ones that aren't welcomed, essentially, is what he's starting out by saying. He's saying, do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral. Those of us that might have done things before we got married, that's what that's talking about for the for the single people or those that maybe made mistakes when you were single, nor nor idolaters.

Whenever somebody that has made something else a little bit more important than God himself, that you have raised something else up, whatever that might be. Oh, then he goes on, says nor adulterers. That's for unfaithfulness. After you have gotten married, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, have you ever stolen anything, nor greedy, nor drunkards? If you have gone too far with alcohol, or whenever you're greedy and you wanted more things for yourself, nor revivals.

That's people who argue all the time and start to start conflicts and fight. Or swindlers. That's people who have. Have you ever taken advantage over somebody? None of them will inherit the kingdom of God. And here's the problem can I be real? I know we're not supposed to be honest in church.

I'm on that list more than once.

And for that it says those people will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now, thankfully, there's another verse which I'll get to in just a moment, but right now it's saying that these people, if you're on that list and I'm on that list, it means then that you're a sinner that needs saving. And sometimes, especially here in perfect Bentonville, it's really easy to say not me, not me.

And whenever we get into that spot, we start to feel like maybe I'm the only one that's not going to belong. But I'm going to ask some of you to be brave for just a second. It's about to get wild in here in just a moment. If you look up on that list and you say, I'm also on that list, I can pinpoint at least one thing on that list that has been true of me in my life.

In just a moment, I'm going to ask you to stand is going to get real awkward if I'm the only one standing, I got a lot more work to do. If that's going to be the case, some of you are going to be tempted to say, you know what? I'm not going to stand up until I know other people stood up.

And so it feels all right. But like, I'm just going to I'm going to count to three. And on the count of three, like, if this is you, I want you to stand up for me, all right? So if you if you are here and you've been sexually more if you've been adulterer, if you've been practicing homosexuality, you've been a thief.

If you've been greedy, if you've been a drunkard, if you've been a revival or a swindler, or if you've been trying to take advantage. If this is said of you, if you are on this list on the count of three, I want you to stand up. Ready? One. Two. Three.

Hey, welcome. Welcome to church. Because here's the beautiful part of it. Here's the beautiful part of the gospel story is this was true for every single one of us, whether we realize it or not. But that's not the end of the story. The end of the story says in the very next verse in such words some of you, but you are washed by the blood of Jesus, you are sanctified, you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of God.

And so for every single one of us we belong because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. The story of the gospel is not that you got to be good enough to make your way in here. The story of the gospel is that Jesus Christ was good enough and he covered all of our sin. He has given us a new family.

Look around. This is your family church. This is your home. These are your people. We care, we love. And this is the invitation now to actually be a part of this family.

Because you are washed, you are sanctified, you are justified, and you've been brought home. Hey, can we end off this? I'm going to pray and we're going to sing a song together. Father, Lord, we love you. I thank you that all of our story is one that is centered on you. Every single one of us. Lord was not good enough, and yet we are able to draw near because of the blood of the lamb.

Every single one of us was able to come to you. So I pray that we hold on tightly to this truth of the gospel today. And whenever we fall short, we grab on to somebody who's still holding on. Lord, I thank you for this family. I thank you for this church. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.