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Hebrews chapter ten. We’re going to be in verse 19 to 25. You’re going to camp out there for a few minutes. I’m going to set a background to the text as we get there. So when we arrive to that text, your mind will be ready to understand it as as it is communicated in the book of Hebrews. So Hebrews chapter ten and verse 19, camp there, and we’ll see in just a second. Right. We’re on a series together called One Another. And when we talk about one another, the Bible has all sorts of phrases as it relates to the believers and what God desires for you to do. It’s coupled with the phrase one another before it’s given the thought. This is what God’s desire is for you as a body of believers and reflecting Jesus in this world. Last week we looked at the foundation to one another, which is which is love. Love is kind of a fluffy word in our society today, but in biblical Christianity it is a difficult, hard word because love has nothing to do with you as an individual. Love is about giving itself away. When we exercise love, love is seen as a verb. It thinks not of self but of others well-being as it’s described in First Corinthians 13. Love sets the foundation for understanding all the other one another statements in Scripture, because it’s through the idea of love that we begin to understand these other thoughts of of one another as God desires for us to live out in this world.
As for example, today we’re talking about encouraging one another. God’s desire for us as a body of believers is to be an encouragement for one another. I’m going to tell you that sounds so. Makes me feel warm inside, right? You come to church on Sunday and you see you’re just being encouraged to each other, you know, like, yeah, let’s do that. We’re going to do a big bear hug at the end, right? But when we talk, that’s not what we’re doing. When we talk about encouraging one another, I don’t know anyone that’s going to say, you know, sign me up for being the biggest discouragement life has to offer. That’s me. Discouragement. No one wants that. Everyone. When you start with the thought of encouragement, we we, we look to be encouraging in our lives. We don’t want to discourage anyone from from hopes and dreams, but there’s an important way to view encouragement as it relates to Scripture, and we’re going to look at that in just a moment. The Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter three, which happens to be the book that you are in, but encourage one another daily in chapter three and verse 13, God’s desire is not that you simply be an encouragement that you daily and be involved in one another’s lives and encouraging them. It’s not enough guys to encourage someone once and be done with it, but we always want to be encouragement to to one another.
Everyone needs encouragement of her to ask once, how do you know if someone really needs encouragement? The answer that I heard was this if they are breathing, there is not a person in this world that’s not going to go through a difficult time where they need encouragement. As a matter of fact, as people were created for relationship, we’re created for God, relationship to him. And in light of that, living that out with others. God never intended us to be people about task primarily, but about relationship. And through that, honoring him through the things that we do encourage one another. If you’re not discouraged at this point in your life, chances are you know someone who is. We live in a society that’s broken emotionally, spiritually, relationally. We. We need a hope that sustains. Warren Wiersbe, in his book Be Confident, records a story by a doctor named Doctor Victor Frankl. That’s that rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? I wish that were my name, Victor Frankl. He was an Austrian psychiatrist who lived as a prisoner in Auschwitz and other concentration camps during World War Two. Doctor Frankl experienced unimaginable horror during his years of captivity. Warren Wiersbe went on to write, yet during that time he was able to discern the reasons why some people survived the camps and others did not. In his book Man’s Search for meaning, Doctor Frankl writes about how hope was the key factor to a prisoner’s ability to survive.
He says for the prisoner who had lost faith in the future, his future was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold. He let himself decline and become the subject to mental and physical decay. Hope is important. We as people are created to be an encouragement. One of the ways that we’re designed to be encouragement is through the idea of hope, something brighter on the horizon for us, something that matters more than just today. Something that that will last. We we know we need to hope in something that will endure. Second thought I would just add to this encouragement of hope is the idea of love and relationship. Some people would argue that that our society today is more advanced than it’s ever been, and I would say yes, to some degree it is, but not in all degrees. As a matter of fact, I think one of the things that we struggle as we gain all these new forms of technology and social media platforms within our society, one of the things that we have lost our grab or our hold on is, is the depth of relationships in society today. We are more transient than past generations where you lived among your family and friends all of your life, and the quality or the depth of your relationships continued to go. Our social media outlets teach us to have 1000 Facebook friends and talk to three of them.
We’re good at spreading out a mile wide, but only going an inch deep. And our design. I think that God’s desire for us is not only to understand the length that relationships can go, but also the depth through which we can experience them. According to the article on the BBC news, they said today, British and Americans, people don’t feel as happy as those who lived in the 1950s. A recent survey said 52% of the people in 1957 indicated that their lives were very happy. Today, only a third of Americans have the same feeling. An Italian research journal said this Americans are less happy today than they were 30 years ago, thanks to longer working hours and deterioration in the quality of their relationships with friends and neighbors. Not only is encouragement important by way of hope. So it is by way of love. And in fact, when the Bible describes it, it not only mentions hope and love through relationships, but Paul oftentimes said this within the Bible. He coupled this thought of faith, hope, and love together. He said in first Corinthians 1313 but now faith, hope, and love abides these three but the greatest of these is love. In regards to faith, hope, and love. By way of encouragement, faith gives us an identity from the past and what God has accomplished for us. By faith, we’re able to look at those things and understand the important questions of life, of of why I exist and and why I’m here and where I’m going.
Hope gives us a glorious future, knowing that as our faith is secure, so our hope rests. Secure because the one who secured it is trustworthy. And when our faith and hope is secure, it helps us to appreciate the moment in love. Regards to faith. It’s no wonder we struggle as Americans today with finding less joy. We don’t have much to put trust in today, because we’ve been taught to divorce ourselves from topics of religion as if they are taboo. However, there is no greater discovery one can make than discovering their own purpose of existence and identity and meaning for life as it relates to Christ. You need something reliable to put your faith in. In regards to hope. It’s no wonder we struggle. We aren’t taught well to look much beyond the temporary pleasure of today into the hope of what we can build with tomorrow. So the certainty of a hope. It’s insecure. In regards to love. We struggle in relationships not only because we’re transient and relationships. We’ve learned to have multiple relationships, but not the depth of relationships. When we talk about the idea of love, the way that society defines it as one that is self pleasure absorbed. Seeking to only love as it’s benefited me. But yet when we come to Scripture, as the Bible describes the opportunity of encouraging someone, you’re going to see this in Hebrews chapter ten verses 19 to 25.
This thought of faith, hope, and love is important by the way of encouragement. As a matter of fact, if you look in verse 22, verse 23 and verse 24, you’re going to see Paul starts. All of these statements in a similar phrase is going to say, let us, let us, let us. And each one of those phrases, verses 22, 23 and 24, is going to say, let us in faith, come to him. Let us in hope, come to him. Let let us in love. Encourage one another. We talk about encouragement. It’s important to understand these words faith, hope, and love. But it’s also important to understand that the very word of encouragement finds its root in Christ. When I say to you this morning that God calls us to encourage, I’m not saying just go to someone and make them happy. As a matter of fact, when it comes by thought of encouragement, sometimes to encourage someone, it’s important to talk about something that’s not always positive, to get to the solution that rests in Jesus. For an example, the gospel. You think about the gospel, it’s important to understand that you have a need for Jesus because you’re a sinner before you come to Jesus and need. It’s not always about being positive. But what encouragement is about is finding itself rested in Christ, because I hope that sustains a faith that endures, and a love that lives the way it was designed only finds itself rooted in Jesus, because he is the hope that endures.
He. He is the life of faith that’s been given to us. He is love as it’s been demonstrated. Encouragement. Isn’t just about making happy. Encouragement is about pointing people to Jesus. True encouragement happens in Christ. In fact, that’s what the book of Hebrews is. Hebrews is written to a Jewish body of believers who were wavering in their faith in Christ. And I say, Paul wrote it, and you can be wrong if you disagree with that. But when Paul wrote Hebrews. He gets to chapter ten and verse 19 and he hears a very important phrase or word. He says therefore. And all of Hebrews up to chapter ten, Paul has listed the glory of who Jesus is in our lives and what it means. He’s built our foundation in Christ. And he says to us when he comes to verse 19, therefore this is the response that you get in Christ. Let us, let us be confident in the faith, in the the hope and in love. Meaning when Paul gets to the point in verse 25 and 24, he says to encourage one another, he’s resting all of this encouragement solely on what Jesus has done. I mean, when you think about hope and believe, if if your hope and belief isn’t rooted in anything, what is it really worth? There was a campaign when I used to do ministry in inner city Baltimore.
People were sticking these stickers everywhere that said, believe, believe. Believe in what? Believe and believe. What power does believe have? And what if I believe it? Is it really going to sustain me? But Jesus. He does. So when we talk about encouraging someone, we’re not just saying, go to them and just say, you know, it’s in Jesus. So you’d be good over there. It’ll be it’ll work out. What we’re saying is when we encourage someone, we come to them in faith, hope and love. It’s rested in Christ. And and just as Jesus spent time in you, shaping you and loving you so he can use you to go to someone else’s life who’s discouraged and not just surpass their suffering, but love them in those moments, but ultimately, ultimately, in all of that. We point them to faith and hope in Christ. When the Bible describes Jesus in this passage of Scripture. Jesus is more than just just a help for your life. Jesus is a complete rescuer to your life. Jesus didn’t come to your life just to make you better. He came into your life to rescue you from the destruction that was at hand, and reshape you and give you a total new identity in him, an understanding for which he has created you. It’s not just to help, it’s a it’s a reshaping of who you are as an individual in light of who he is.
And so when the writer comes to Hebrews verse 19, and he’s describing how we encourage one another, he starts in verse 19, just describing the goodness of Jesus. And he says, therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that his flesh. And since we have a high priest over the house of God, I’m going to end right there on that thought. But he’s describing what God has done, because real encouragement that lasts is found itself, and a hope that endures and that hope is in Christ. Real encouragement that lasts is found itself in a faith that secure. And that faith was secure in Christ, proved by his resurrection. Love. Love like no other is found in Christ. Jesus is here. Because everything else is broken and will fail. No matter how much you want to believe and believe. Or have faith and faith. It fails. But Jesus. Jesus came for a complete rescue. And so this morning, as we talk about the word encouragement, don’t let your mind separate it from the thought of what Christ intends to do in it and through it. Paul then explains that as let us verse 22, let us in verse 23, let us. And verse 24, all because of what Jesus has done in securing us both in faith, hope and love, we get to move forward.
And so he says in verse 22. Let us draw near with a sincere heart and full of assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let me go back and read this thought together for us, because it ended open openly in verse 21. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil that is his flesh. And since we have a great high, a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Paul’s describing something in Hebrews in this passage, or whatever your author is. He’s describing to the Jews the Old Testament picture of coming before God, and when in the Old Testament they would come before God, they would go to the temple and worship to come before God. In the temple there were only two rooms in this entire building. There was an outer courtyard and two rooms, the inner inner court and the Holy of Holies, the inner room and the Holy of Holies. These two rooms and one of those rooms was in the very back, and it was cubed, shaped, and it was used for one day of worship only. It was on the Day of Atonement, and during that day of worship, only one guy could go into that room.
He was the high priest. He could only do it if he didn’t have sin in his life. He would go into this room, and he would sprinkle blood upon the altar for the forgiveness of the nation of Israel. On the Day of Atonement, he would go behind a veil and sprinkle this blood. And what Paul is saying in Hebrews in verse chapter ten and verse 19 is this description of what used to take place now saying this is open to every believer. No longer are we gathering to the temple to worship for one person to enter behind this veil, to sprinkle the blood, but rather all of us who are in Christ have the opportunity to go to Jesus any time. Because the purpose of the temple, everything that took place in the temple, ultimately was to point to the coming of the Messiah who would die for the sins of the world, reconciling their relationship with God. And they would go behind this veil. And as Jesus hung on the cross, it tells us in the Gospels that the veil was torn, signifying to us as believers that God’s Spirit no longer dwelled there, but to those who put their faith in Christ. Anywhere you go, you can worship Jesus. First Corinthians 316 and 619 tell us that the Spirit of God dwells within you. You are the temple now.
And Paul paints this picture of what Jesus has done. And he says to us in this passage that you now can draw near to him. Carrying the thought that you can come to God with some real grit in your life. And I said earlier some true grit because I know some guys like that, right. You get to come to God with some true grit in your life, and it’s not because you’re strutting your stuff because you’re great. You get to do it because Jesus is great. You draw near to God with with the grit in your life. Knowing this opportunity not available in the Old Testament now made available to us as believers, we have this opportunity to draw near to him in faith. Let’s encourage one another in the confidence that we have in Christ. Just as Jesus made the way known for us, demonstrating it through his resurrection. So he has opened the door for you and me, no matter what, to draw near to him, to be encouraged in what we face in this world. And he says that we’re to do it with a pure heart. That we come to God with a pure heart, meaning we don’t go to God like he’s a genie in the lamp. We don’t treat God like God. You’re the sock puppet that does what I want. I come to you and I tell you, and you do it. And there’s no difference between you and a servant.
Or we don’t come to God trying to impress him with the heart that we have. Rather we come to him in simplicity and purity. Winning. Our desire for coming to Jesus is to draw near to Jesus. It’s to let go of the things that we found so important, to hold to the encouragement that is, which is faith in Christ. When Paul talks about this faith in verse 22 and verse 23 describes it differently, and in both verses, depending on what translation you have in verse 23, you might note that the word that we have on the screen for for hope. The word hope is there. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope and other translations. It’s going to say faith. And let me, let me tell you why. Let me read both of these passages together. Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope, our faith without wavering. For he who promised is faithful. What Paul is signifying here is the distinction between the exercising of faith and what is the faith in Christianity. Meaning Christianity is not about an invitation to believe whatever you want, right? Jesus came for a reason, and Jesus’s reason is to rescue you. And that is that is the faith. The faith of what Christ has done is what we pronounce on Sunday and hopefully within our lives to one another.
It is the faith. But what’s important is that as you understand the faith, you place your faith upon it. And so in verse 22, what he’s saying to us is there is the faith. And then, then we have our faith that brings us hope because of the faith that Jesus has brought. There’s the security of what Christ has done in faith. So let us draw near and be encouraged by faith and encouraging one another in the faith by resting upon him in our faith. And when we rest upon on him in our faith, we hold fast to the hope that we have because of the faith that Jesus has demonstrated to us by overcoming the grave. That no matter how dark the day may be, there is no suffering that will ever be in vain in Christ, because Christ ultimately gets the victory. There is hope. And so we hold fast to that hope. When the Bible talks about hope. The Bible means more than just wishful thinking. Sometimes within our culture today we say hope like like we’re just really wanting it to work out, but we have no clue if it’s going to happen, you know? I sure hope so, guys. You know, it’s kind of kind of one of those thoughts I, you know, when I wake up in the morning, I like raisin Bran cereal. And so I wake up in the morning sometimes I don’t know if everyone ate it.
And I’m very hopeful that it’s there. I don’t I don’t know why I like it, but I do. And so Raisin Bran, there’s the hope in my head, but I don’t know when I open the cabinet. But when it comes to Jesus and Jesus is talking about hope, there is this. There is this certainty that comes along with it. It’s an expectation of certainty. It’s a it’s a hope that’s guaranteed. It’s not just wishful thinking. And the evidence of that hope rests in the security of the faith through which Christ has pronounced as we place our faith in what he promises to us. To encourage one another. Cannot be done apart from Christ. Because what we end up doing and encouraging each other is selling each other a bag of goods. In the end, do not play out. It’ll all perish. One day this life will pass. And only what’s done for Jesus will last. So we talk about encouragement. It rests in Christ. And it could be. It could be as simple as Jesus. But as Jesus demonstrated in his life that as he carried that message, he also spent time with people in their need. That they should see the practicality of how Christ relates to their lives. Let us have faith and let us come in hope. In verse 24 and 25 says this let us love. System 24 and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
This word consider means plan. It means you don’t just show up and kind of wing it, but you have you have a conscious thought that when you gather together, you are planning to be an encouragement, as God has called you to in the world, pointing, pointing people back to him, or on Sunday, or whenever you’re with individuals to give them something that lasts. And it uses the thought of stimulate one another. When we we gather on Sunday morning, we don’t ever want to paint the picture. That Sunday morning is just this. You come for some music, you hear a message and you’re happy and you go home. The church is more than just a music and a message, but there’s also this important piece that’s set in Hebrews that we stimulate one another. Meaning we don’t just look at the stage, but we’re also looking across the pews and we’re thinking to ourselves in a plan, how can I encourage what God desires to do in their lives, the way that God has encouraged me in my relationship with him? How can I be faithful? Faith, hope and love. Stimulate one another in Christ. Builds us up the way that Jesus desires. One of the reasons we maybe take we don’t take security and faith.
It’s because we look at our pasts and we’re just not sure that it can rest in the Lord, not knowing that Jesus said it is finished. Sometimes as it relates to hope. A second reason we don’t know if we are worthy of a future, or have thoughts of a future, is because we’ve never found the security of really what Jesus has to offer. Or in the idea of love. We live in a society that’s always taught us to earn the love that we deserve, never having a love given to us that we didn’t married but lavished its goodness upon us. Thinking about the well-being of another. This is where we as a church get the opportunity to say one another. Your past has been removed in Christ. Your future looks bright in Jesus and at this moment he is ready to embrace you in love. Just draw near to him with some grit. And a heart that’s pure. I love when we look at passages like this as related to encouragement, because I recognize within our church body, God is is doing something great here. But the body of believers in the book of Hebrews, as God was doing something great in the lives of people, came to a place where they felt as if, as if they wanted to give up. And so he says in the book of Hebrews, not forsaking our own assembling together in verse 25, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
Listen, life is going to press you into a mold contrary to Jesus, and the thought of encouraging one another is is important and vital to the life of the church. And the church in itself doesn’t rest on the well-being of just one individual, but all of us collectively working together for what God has called us to do. Meaning on Sunday morning when I gather together with you, and you gather together with me. And we’re all just one big family. When we do that, we’re not coming to. To church on Sunday. Just become. Just to come to church because that’s what you do on Sunday. If that’s what church is, man, I am not going there. I come to church on Sunday because my desire is to see what God wants to continue to work in my life, and for me to draw near to him. And as God draws me near to him, I get the opportunity to encourage one another. It’s about what God wants to do in us. And come to church. To come to church. If you come to church to come to church, you’re going to live. Verse 25 out. You’re not going to see the need for it. No, you’re not going to see the need for it in your own life. You’re not you’re not even going to begin then to think about what it can mean for other people.
It’s not about guilting if you feel guilty. Forget that. What’s important is to recognize what Jesus wants to do in you and through you. There’s not something significant about gathering together with Jesus’s bride through which he gave his life. For that, you could come here and be an encouragement for what Jesus wants to do in it and through it. There’s there’s something unhealthy happening inside. God’s called us as a church that’s on a mission. Saying to us, don’t just set it on cruise control. I like to picture the church like this rather than a cruise ship. It’s a battleship. Rather than just sit back and let everyone serve me. But it’s about me participating with each other in stimulation, about what God wants to do in us and through us. Because Jesus died for this. For him, it meant everything in the world and for me to just despise it or not even want to participate in it, but claim him as contrary to what Jesus is about. So we gather together and we don’t forsake it. But we. But we encourage one another. Not. Not as a cruise ship, but as a battleship. And I just want to be clear when I say that, when I, when I’m when I call us a battleship, I’m not asking you to punch your neighbor in the face this morning. Because the Bible says this, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
So your war’s never been with people. Just as Jesus came to this world to rescue not just help, but rescue. So he’s called you into this world to be the people through which he rescues. As we gather on Sunday, we’re encouraging our church, knowing that we are a body that is about rescuing. That others are looking for encouragement, but the encouragement will run dry. Faith, hope and love in Christ is what sustains. Don’t set it on cruise control, but look at the battle God has called you to. And that whole battle, the success of all of it, rests and the identity of Jesus. As it said in verses 19 to 21 of Hebrews. Her battle’s never been against people. But rather to look at those people as prisoners of war. To look at us as people who go into the world, and we face discouragement and we face hardships, and our hearts break, and we need reminded of the things that give us strength in Christ and do it together. Let us, let us, let us. And as Jesus does it within us, we go out into the world not fighting against people. It’s never been about proving right and wrong. It’s always about reaching hearts for Christ. And it’s arrogant, but I’m going to say it anyway.
Not only in Jesus you have this confidence. You’re right, you’re right. But if you go into the world and all you try to prove is that you’re right and they’re wrong. Never reach the heart that God desires for you to reach. It’s not about proving I’m right and you’re wrong. It’s never been about I’m better than you. It’s always been about the grace of God. And what he has given to me. And so when I look at it in verse 19 to 21, seeing the grace that God gives me the opportunity to draw near to him, it gives me this confidence not only in the faith that I have resting in him, but the hope that secure and the love that I can enjoy. Because when your past is taken care of and your future is looking secure, it gives the opportunity just to live in the moment, the way that God has called you to. Our battle is not against flesh and blood. And so as a church family, it’d only be fitting that maybe we end with encouragement since this passage is on encouragement. I don’t want to be contradictory to this, but just think about what God is doing and you just pause Sunday morning and think not just not just in this moment, but beyond today. What God has, has done here. Lives being changed, people being baptized to Christ coming, coming to know him. A church is being built all in six years, from a living room to storefront after storefront and now to a haunted house.
Right? Welcome. Just sit back and think. Now the beauty of what God is doing. And so if you’re here this morning, you have the opportunity to find a place of rest in the in the faith that Christ has given to you, to come to him with some true grit, to be honest before the Lord and empty your heart and go to him in faith and hope and love, and let him fill you. And as he fills you, you look for what God wants to do in you and through you as you stimulate others towards Christ. If we put a tagline to our morning, we should say This Alpine Bible Church are people of true grit. We come to Christ in faith, hope, and love. In being secure. We can live in the moment and loving others because of the security that we have in Jesus and the hope of security that we have coming in Christ. Not to just help. But to rescue. From pew to pew this morning. Stimulating one another. Not just in this building, but outside of this building. Be an encouragement to each other’s needs. And as we’re strengthened in Christ, we think beyond ourselves. To the world that God has called us. As a battleship, not fighting against people, but against the spiritual forces, and offering to them a true hope that really lasts in Jesus. To use the word encouragement for what it’s intended for.
Something that endures as it relates to Christ. We’ll never finish the work that God has called us to dependent upon 1 or 2 people. It’s all of us in this together. Considering how God can stimulate us. So let me encourage you by way of stimulation this morning. If you notice when you walked in this morning, we have some envelopes available on our information table. I’m going to encourage you to take take some of these in just a minute. Let me tell you why it’s there. When when we built Alpine Bible Church, this is what we believed. We believed a Protestant evangelical church should exist within the city of Lehi. In fact, my desire is to see one, a mainstream Christian church in every city in Utah. And today there are over 24 cities that remain without one. As a matter of fact, when we started Alpine Bible Church here in Lehi, the reason we picked this location is because when you traveled east and west of any direction, we started our church. There wasn’t a church. Alpine Highland Cedar Hills. No mainstream evangelical Christian church. Saratoga Springs has nothing to this point that I’m aware of. And Eagle Mountain has a church that meets there in a storefront. You think about living in America with that statement? Never in your life are you likely going to live in a city where you can say, there is no mainstream Christian church building? A year and a half or a little over a year and a half ago, we were able to purchase the first building ever exists in this city that a mainstream Christian group could own and worship.
The importance of what God is doing here is significant for us to recognize, but only just recognize to participate and in our participation being an encouragement to each other as well as to the future of what God’s called us to. I want to see a place that outlives me. I want to know that whatever happens to me or to you, 50 or 100 years from now, if the Lord hasn’t returned, that there is a place existing where people can come for faith, hope, and love in Christ and gathering to worship, to not just think about me, but to think about the children and their children’s children and the importance of this message. One of the things that brings me such joy when I walk out of church on Sunday is Stacy and I will get with our kids. All those boys now just turn four and we’ll be doing things together. And he just he just talks about Jesus. We? She fixed a meal the other day that for some reason, grace and love was probably like macaroni and cheese or something, and she yells out the window, God, do you see this? Jesus, this is awesome! It’s not just me. It’s not just you. But it’s to recognize that God has us as a people to make a difference.
Not not just upon us, but for generations of people around us and on into the future. We bought this building a couple of years ago. We had to raise over $200,000 to purchase it, renovate the inside. And this is what happened. We ran out of money. You know that every time you pull in the parking lot, they. What do they do with their money? You know, it got lost somewhere on the walls and on the floor and and the roof that we had to redo and all, all of that stuff. But we want you to pull into a place on Sunday morning that says, these people love what God’s doing here. Every time I look at this building, like we’ve moved from down the street now, they got a bigger building, a little scarier now. But what’s on the inside is what matters. And then that we do the outside and thinking, man, God is doing something great there. I want to come and be a part about of that. And this is where we get the opportunity to do that. On the information table. And I think on the back table, as you leave, you’ll see these envelopes. These envelopes are a campaign for us as a church family to participate in finishing the work the city of Lehi has given us to the end of the year. They were gracious enough when we bought this building to give us a few years to finish the renovation work they’ve given us at the end of the year to finish the outside of the facility.
We waited on starting a campaign a little bit because when we got this building, we worked ourselves so much that everyone was worn out. So we took a year break. But now it’s time that we finish the outside of the facility. And so if you pick up an envelope, you’re going to notice on the inside one of these important things. You might have one of these in your bulletin this morning. This gives you an idea of how we’re going to approach this campaign together, to create a church that continues to encourage in future generations these thoughts of praise, share and give. That’s what we’re going to do. It looks really confusing, doesn’t it? But the outside we want to fix up with landscaping sidewalk, you know, fix up our building up. We’re trying to raise $100,000 and we’ll go with it on the outside. It’ll help us finish everything the city is going to require, and then we’ll just keep using the funds until we can complete as much as possible out there. But you have you’ll see one of these cards maybe in your bulletin, if not there on the information table. It says this ways to get involved. Pray, share and give $100,000. I don’t have a money tree in my backyard. I’m guessing you don’t either.
That comes by the Lord. The Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills. People who want to honor God and see your work finished praying about it is always important, inviting the Lord to be a part of that. And so we want to encourage you to take one of these. Hang it on your fridge just like that. So when you walk by, you think about your church family. You can pray for this. As we we get we get through this together. As we raise these funds, we want to give God the glory along the way. Second thing is this share this need. If you grab one of these envelopes, there’s all sorts of information. The first being this that tells people that you may mail this to pray, share, and give. Here’s the cool part about this. On the bottom of these you have a blank spot. So when you mail these to people, you can write a personal note and just say, hey, this is what our church is doing. This is why it’s awesome. And if you want to think about being a part, here you go. I’m sending this to you because I know you love the Lord and you want to help out. And when you send them a packet of information inside of it as well will be a return envelope. A card that asks for them to commit in a certain way if they would like to help, and a letter describing what’s happening here in the city of Lehi and why we’re doing what we’re doing.
So it gives you an opportunity to to send those out. I’m going to encourage you as a church family, we have put rubber bands around these envelopes. They’re coming coming in groups of five. We have a thousand that we’ve ordered of these packets. If every family in our church sends out ten, then we we can send out one 1000 of these envelopes. And I want to encourage you as you send them out, that the people that you send them to, if you think about someone that you know, would like to participate with us, to call them and let them know ahead of time, hey, this is coming, and I just want to give you a heads up so you’re not surprised by it. But this is our need and I just wanted to share it with you so at least you can pray about it. And if the Lord leads you, you can even give to it. Not only can you mail these out to individuals, but we have a website called the two percent.org. You can link our website to your Facebook to help people be aware of what we’re trying to do as a church family, to build the first freestanding church within our our city. And so you can pray for our needs. You can share the needs with others. And last is this you can give.