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The River ChurchSermons

Let Us Stir One Another Up!

Gary Wright · Sunday, 23 August 2026 · 41:57 · 5,287 words

Listen to this message

Based on Hebrews 10:24‑25, the speaker calls believers to be “stir sticks” that provoke one another to love and good works. He warns against a consumer attitude and stresses that gathering together provides the community needed to combat feelings of abandonment. The message urges listeners to consider who needs encouragement, to know fellow believers’ struggles, and to contribute actively rather than simply receive. It also reminds that true faith leads to hope in Jesus’ return and invites anyone to trust him as Savior.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

stir 41 provoke 14 devoted 11 abandon 10 coffee 10 stick 11 design 9 alone 14 gather 19 community 15 draw 12 zone 5

Topics

Faith 7 Atonement & Sacrifice 1 The Holy Spirit 1 Prayer 1 Unity 1 Salvation 1 Hope 1 Sin 1 Obedience 1

Scripture referenced 9

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Hebrews 10:19-23 4:27 Hebrews 10 8:22 Philippians 2:4 16:10 Philippians 2:24 17:01 Matthew 5:16 23:21 Hebrews 10:25 26:18 Acts 2:42-44 35:49 Romans 6:23 41:07 Romans 10:9 41:38

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

So today, if I were going to title my sermon, it would be, Let Us Stir.

Let us stir one another up, okay?

But before we jump into our message today, let's ask God to be in this.

Because without him, this is all useless, right?

So, Father, we just come to you and we praise you.

We thank you for who you are, our creator.

We thank you that you provided salvation through your son.

And, Lord, we just ask you to be involved in our hearts today.

Show us the area where we need to grow today as we study your word.

We thank you for your word.

We thank you for the truthfulness of it.

And we ask this in Jesus' name.

So the book of Hebrews, just a little review.

The book of Hebrews is written to a, it's a letter called an epistle in the scripture.

But it's a letter written to a group of Jewish believers.

Believers, okay?

And these Jewish believers have been converted from Judaism,

which is where they had to do the sacrifices and all that, the Old Testament type things,

to Christianity, where Jesus was the perfect sacrifice.

And they've been going through some persecution.

There's even a threat of more persecution coming.

But in the area of persecution that I think relates to us the best,

and that they were going through,

is they were feeling,

They had been, you know, they're Jews,

and their own countrymen had abandoned them because of their faith.

And that, we experienced that at times, I believe.

And even their families were abandoning them.

So my question, or what I want you to think about this morning,

have you ever felt abandoned because of your faith?

Have you ever felt abandoned by your friends, your co-workers, classmates, because of your faith?

Have you ever felt abandoned?

Have you ever felt abandoned by your own family because of your faith?

I know I have felt that way in my own family and in all these areas.

But because of these things, because they're struggling with their faith,

and they're thinking of going back to their old lifestyle,

they're going back to Judaism,

and abandoning their faith in Jesus.

That's what the writer is writing to them about.

He's encouraging them to stay in the faith.

But have you ever felt abandoned to the point where you think,

man, it would just be easier just to go back to my old lifestyle.

And sometimes we can get beat up so bad, we may think that way.

In our society today, a lot of folks say they're Christians.

A lot of people will say they're Christians.

A lot of people will say they believe in God.

But when we truly are followers of Jesus,

and we're saved,

and we're standing on his truth,

and we are living by his truth,

and we are living his ways,

that's where the persecution and the abandonment happens.

Right?

We can say we believe in God, and that's well and fine.

But when you say, I'm a follower of Jesus,

and I can't agree with the things that's going on in this world,

oh, look out.

That's where the abandonment's going to happen.

Look, the Bible says, in James 9,

2.19,

that even the demons believe in God.

It's a different thing to have faith in Jesus Christ,

and to live for him.

Okay?

So in Hebrews, our passage today is verses 24 and 25,

but in verses, in Hebrews 10, 19 through 23,

the author of Hebrews is reassuring these Jewish believers of their faith.

Okay?

And he's saying, we can have confidence,

or you can have confidence,

we as believers today can have the same confidence.

We can have confidence in our faith,

because of Jesus' work on the cross,

and through our faith in him,

and in that work on the cross.

And we have,

full access to God that scripture says in one of these verses I believe it's 23 it says we let us

draw near let us draw near to who to God because we have open access to God through our faith in

Jesus in Judaism only the priest could go into the presence of God once a year in the holy of holies

in the temple okay but we because of Jesus being the perfect sacrifice and because of our faith we

have full access to God that means if we're believers if we're struggling we can go Lord

I need you we can be anywhere anytime and pray and the Lord will hear our prayers that's that

is amazing and just a beautiful gift from God right there

and believers uh we can also have hope we can have hope it's in uh in one of these earlier

verses verse 24 it says let us hold fast that means we have a God who keeps his promises

and we can have hope hope is not like what you think in our world today where

oh man I hope that that happens hope is confidence in faith

we can trust that our God is faithful because he's always kept his promises and that's the hope

let us hold fast we and let us draw near to God when we feel abandoned okay that's that's how the

uh verses this starts off but then we go on well I do want to share this with you first

the passage I want you to notice what it says it doesn't say let me

draw near to God or let me hold fast it says let us that's where we're getting our passage from

let us church we're invited as a body of believers to to hold fast to draw near together in a

community that's how God designed things the Christian life was never meant to be lived alone

can't live it alone

and be faithful to God when believers are not part of the community or the gathering we call it

their faith there's a song by casting crowns called slow fade we are going to slowly fade

back into our old lifestyle if we're not around other believers I love what Jim said this morning

he said he came in it was a rough week and he was encouraged by who by us that's why we need

the community that's why this writer is writing and he's writing and he's writing and he's writing

to these believers that are struggling Hebrews our passage today Hebrews 10 24 and 25 speaks

into this truth in 24 it says and let us consider how to stir up one another in love and good works

not neglecting meeting together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another

and all the more as you see the day drawing near

Jesus is not a private spiritual journey it's a community in community in a community you're

gonna feel support you're gonna feel accepted because we have the same we are different people

with different backgrounds but we have the same common focus and that is living for Jesus and that

is where we are going to feel accepted in the community okay and we're invited in this passage

to look beyond ourselves and to invest in the spiritual well-being of others and we're called

to consider how to stir one another up in love and good works in our passage today

We are invited, or we're going to talk about three ways that we're invited to be this church,

to be this community that God has designed us to be.

And that brings us to the first point.

The first point is this.

The writer says, let us stir one another up.

Let's read verse 24 again one more time.

It says, and let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works.

The word stir means to provoke into action.

And today when you came in, you got a stir stick, coffee stir stick.

How many drink coffee in here?

How many can't function unless you have your coffee in the morning?

I know some of you personally that can't function without it.

So that's one over there, right?

If I ask her to do anything...

She's like, I'm not done with my coffee yet.

Right?

But why the stir stick?

You know, when we get a cup of coffee, I like my coffee without cream and sugar or anything in it.

But I do like ice in mine because I don't like it hot.

Like if it's so hot, I can't drink it.

And Jim understands.

He's a man after my own heart.

If it's too hot to drink, what good is it?

I got to have it cool down a little bit.

So I use the stir stick to stir that up.

But some of us like cream.

Some of us like cream and sugar.

Some of us don't like the taste of coffee.

And we got to add this stuff to make it so we can get our caffeine down, right?

So it tastes good.

But we use a stir stick, what?

To blend all this together.

To provoke this into action.

We use this to move the coffee.

Guess what, Christians?

You are called to be stir sticks.

You are the stir sticks.

When you follow Jesus,

God is calling you to be

the stir sticks to provoke, all right?

The word provoke usually is negative.

I hate to tell you this,

but years ago, I had a terrible anger problem.

And if I got upset with somebody

or got in an argument with somebody,

you know what I did?

I can remember clearly doing this.

I would say whatever I could

to make that person mad too.

I would provoke them to anger

or do everything I could to do it.

That's usually what it means to provoke.

That's usually what it means to provoke.

That's usually what it means to provoke.

Provoke here is not negative.

It is a positive.

Believers are called to provoke others

to do the things of God,

to love and good works.

And it's amazing to me when I read this,

these believers are struggling.

They're struggling.

They're the ones that need provoking.

But the writer's saying,

he's not saying go to a gathering

so you can be provoked.

He's saying go there

so you can provoke other believers.

Be the example.

Warren Wiersbe,

I know some of you are familiar with him,

but he's a Bible scholar,

a Bible commentator.

And he writes this.

It is interesting to know

that the emphasis here

is not on what a believer

gets from the assembly,

what the believer gets from coming to church,

coming to a gathering.

That's not the emphasis.

The emphasis is on what he or she

can contribute to the gathering.

Sometimes we come to a gathering

with the attitude of a consumer.

When we go to a restaurant,

when we go in there,

what do we want?

We want somebody to serve us.

And we want somebody to make

what we want them to make.

It better be hot.

It better be on time.

Or guess what?

We write a bad review.

And we may not even go back.

And that is the attitude

that some of us have.

us sometimes come to church with. We come to the gathering with what can I get from this? The church

was never designed to be that way. It was never designed to be that way. John F. Kennedy, one of

our presidents, I'm sure all of you are familiar with John F. Kennedy back in the 60s. He said this

famous quote, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Instead

of having the consumer attitude believers, this is the attitude we should have in our community.

What can I do to provoke people to the works of God? Instead of coming to the gathering asking

this question, what can I get? We should be asking what can I contribute into the lives of those who

are here? Philippians 2.4

says this, let each of us look not only to his or her own ways, but also to the interest of others.

Paul wrote that passage in what he's doing. He's saying, look beyond yourself and look at what

somebody else needs and how you can step into their lives. And that actually brings us to

the second point. The second point is, well, the first point is this,

that we need to move our coffee. We need to stir people up, right? But if you notice at the

beginning of the passage, let's read verse 24 one more time. It says, and let us consider how

to stir one another up to love and good works. Let us consider one another. The word consider

means this, to observe fully or understand deeply. It means think about who you can stir

up and how to do that. And I suggest this, you may be sitting here thinking, okay, how do I do that?

I would ask God to show you who that is. Reveal to me, God, who can I stir up? Who needs me to come

into their lives and to speak truth into them and to put my arm around them and pray with them today.

And when God reveals that person to you, or even if he doesn't,

show up early enough to be that person to stir them up. If you come in at 1035, you missed it.

You missed it. And I know some of us have children and they're hard. It's hard to get out of the

house. And look, I'm not trying to beat you up here, but if we want to stir people up, we got

to be here with them, right? So it says to think about this, think about it, consider it, ask God

what, how do we know what people may need? And my suggestion is this, get to know the people,

get to know them. Look, there's people in here all over. There's new people in here that you

may not know. Go introduce yourself. Stirring people up takes something. It takes us getting

out of our comfort zone, right? A lot of us don't like talking to people, but if we want to

really find out how we can help people, we have to know them. We have to know their circumstances.

We have to know their struggles, their needs, their challenges in life. If we don't know that,

how do we pray for them? How do we help them? We need to get to know them. That's my first

suggestion. Second, encouraging people to pursue the things that God requires us to live as examples,

to live by showing the love of God in our

selves. When we have, when we have faith in Jesus, Jesus says, I will send you a help.

I'll send you the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit makes this possible to love like God when we

choose to do that. We can love sacrificially. We can love selflessly like Paul just wrote about

and we can love expecting nothing in return. Love. So the scripture says stir them up in love and

good works. That's love. The good works part of it is this. Through our good works, through knowing

Jesus, we should want to be obedient to him. If we truly know him, the Holy Spirit's going to

convict us to live like Jesus. There may be people, let me tell you some good works things. There's a

lot more than this. Maybe there's new people in the gathering and they're sitting by themselves.

Have you ever thought about sitting with them? Introducing yourself, sitting with them.

My mother-in-law is great at that. When we know them and we know what their burdens are,

we bear one another's burdens. That's good works. We pray with them. We pray with them not only today

but during the week. Maybe you just send them a message or a phone call. Hey, how you doing?

We come alongside people when they're dealing with something heavy. Maybe we help them when we can.

Help those in need. Building people up.

Christ, again, requires something we don't like to do. Stepping out of our comfort zone. But I have

a little secret to tell you. If we're going to serve the Lord faithfully, he is always calling

us out of our comfort zone. You think I ever dreamed of being a pastor and standing up here

and speaking every Sunday? I would have, if somebody would have told me that in high school,

I would have fell over and said, yeah, there's no way, right? But as God worked in my life,

he took me.

From one comfort zone barrier to another to another and years later, here I am. God brought

me here. And he will do the same in your life. When our family and friends and others, even

non-believers, see the love of God and the works that we're doing, they're going to be encouraged

by that. It stirs them up. And people outside that aren't even Christians,

will be like, what is wrong with this person, right? Nothing seems to faze them when we're

living for the Lord. And they see us doing things for people and expecting nothing in return.

It stirs them up. In the book of Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount, this is Matthew 5, 16,

Jesus says this, in the same way, let your light shine before others so that you may see,

they may see your light.

Let your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. You want to stir

people up? Be the example. Get out of your comfort zone. Get to know people. Do what

God's calling you to do. Ask him, who can I help? And I want you to notice one other

thing in this passage. Who is the writer speaking to? Is he speaking to only pastors? Is he

speaking to only teachers or deacons? Absolutely not. He's speaking to us.

Every believer is called to this. Let us, church, imagine how God could use us if we prayed about

how we, who and how we could stir people up. This might, this is going to be hard to hear maybe,

but imagine instead of complaining about what the church is not,

or what we're not doing as a church,

we need to become the stir sticks

that God's called us to be, right?

All of us come in, we can think,

man, I wish we would do this, I wish we would do that,

but guess what?

Sometimes we can't, we don't have enough people to do it,

and I can't handle it all by myself.

So why do we not do what God's called us to do, right?

God called us to be stir sticks,

stir each other up to love and good works,

live for me and show others and motivate others to do it.

The church is not simply a place where we come to receive,

it's a place where we come to give, serve,

encourage, and build one another up.

And that's why us gathering together is so important.

Brings us to the last, the third point.

Let us gather together.

Let us gather together.

Hebrews 10.25 says,

Many years ago, my wife worked,

she took a job in the summer,

she was a bus driver back then,

and she also worked in the kitchen at the Swartz Creek Schools.

So she was familiar with all of that.

Took a job down in Heartland at a church,

a church camp as the cook.

And her schedules didn't conflict.

I worked at the county then.

I had a regular job and our schedules conflicted.

So by the time I got home from work,

she was already gone down to the camp.

And at night, I might see her for a minute before I went to bed,

but I had to go to bed so early and she got home so late.

But I thought going into this,

I'm thinking, you know,

this was going to last like a month and a half.

I'm thinking,

this is going to be great, right?

It's going to be awesome.

I get, I'm going to have some alone time.

But you know what happened?

After three or four days,

I was miserable.

I was tired of being alone.

I missed her and I missed her company.

I missed her encouragement.

I missed her making me laugh,

which she does all the time because she's a nut, right?

But sorry, honey.

So what I didn't realize is how much she motivated me.

And my,

my own walk, right?

It's true for the church.

It is true for the church.

We can't do it alone.

We need each other.

Look, I'm going to stand right up here and tell you the truth.

I need you.

I need you.

And whether you like it or not,

you need all of these people too.

And even me, I'm sorry.

All right.

God never intended for us to walk with Jesus alone.

Nowhere in scripture does it say,

hey, stay home today.

Don't be in the community.

Just be, just live for me on your own.

It doesn't say that.

It's always fellowship, community.

That's how God designed it.

Remember what, what, how does this passage start off?

We can draw near to God.

But guess what?

We need each other too.

That's what the passage is saying.

You can't do it alone.

You're, you're going to feel rejected.

There's something that happens when we gather together with other believers.

We encourage one another.

We strengthen one another.

We pray for another, one another.

And sometimes just being here and praising God together

and hearing the word preached encourages us to go through the week.

I know if when, when Jason writes about this in the book,

when COVID happened and we couldn't have,

gathering I don't know about you but I was miserable

awful it was like when kim was working at the camp down there because i wasn't getting that

encouragement during the week or on sundays to get through the week we need it there's a tv show or

used i don't know if it's still on it was called alone and there was what they would do is they

would take these people out in the wilderness and these people volunteered there was if they were

the last ones to to make it to be out there they won like a million dollars or something but you

know what took most of them out being alone being without their families that's what took most of

them out because being alone is not what we're designed to be gathered gathering together if we

want to be a healthy christian it's not an option it's part of god's design kent hughes another

bible scholar that i read a lot he says we meet christ in a special way

in corporate worship it is true that a person does not have to go to church to be a christian

that is true but he does not have to go home to be married either in both cases it's going to

affect your relationship it will and there are plenty of reasons plenty of excuses that we have

to not coming to a gathering hey i'm going to tell you this some of them are legitimate so

don't get me wrong if i mean if you're going on vacation or you're sick or what

i understand that but we should be here on a consistent basis there's plenty of excuses we

look use maybe we're struggling with something maybe we're discouraged maybe tired we didn't

have our coffee yet get your stir stick out but what do we do when we feel this way what's the

first thing we want to do is to isolate ourselves we do we want to be alone but god designed us

to be together it can be

hard it can be difficult but when you come here just like jim today he was encouraged just being

with you another reason we miss a gathering i i don't know how to say other than you don't

people don't want to be in the gathering people show up to serve and then they're not here any

other time or not very little and they're missing what god has for them they're missing the whole

community look we can watch online preaching and i'm not bashing online preaching because i listen

to it often there's some awesome speakers on there but online speaking online preachers

in no way replaces the gathering it doesn't because you're missing the whole community part

of it you're missing the part where you can have conversations where you can put your arm around

somebody who's hurting

or they can put their arm around you where we pray for one another and we can't do these things

sitting at home on the couch watching somebody preach on youtube it's not going to happen

you're missing out what god's design is we're going to stir one another up to love and good

works we must be together and how can we stir how can i stir you up or how can somebody in this room

stir you up

up or you stir them up if you don't ever see him and i'm not um i'm also not taking away from phone

calls and text messages because those are great but it still does not replace this we need each

other kim thought of this i told you she's a nut so i would have never thought of this she told me

She told me the word alone, and she told me the word community, and she said it's interesting

that in the word alone, the number one is in there, right? Alone, one. Guess what's in community?

Unity. You guessed it. Unity. We need each other. We need each other, and we need to be focused on

the same thing. Look, we're going to have disagreements. You know why? And you know why

there's no perfect churches? Because we're all messed up, and we need Jesus. That's why we're

here. There's going to be some disagreements. There's going to be some spiritual warfare that

happens, but it doesn't change the great things God's doing. Let's look at the early church here.

Acts 2, 42 through 44, talks about the early church, the first church. It says,

and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, and the fellowship, to the breaking

And prayer, and the prayers, and all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being

done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. Look,

they were devoted and obedient. Devoted and obedient to what? The apostles' teaching. Guess

what the apostles' teaching is? It's all written down right here now. We should be devoted to this.

They were devoted to fellowship.

They were devoted to being with one another. They were devoted to breaking of bread. They did

communion together. They did the things of the church together. They did the things of God that

God called us to do in the church together. And they prayed for one another and everything that

was going on. And they saw God doing wonderful signs, and they saw God moving. And guess what?

We may be sitting here, and you're like, we don't see these awesome signs. We don't see these awesome signs.

I beg to differ with you. How many people have gotten saved this year at this location? How many

people have gotten baptized? How many kids made professions of faith at camp? Look, God is moving

here. He's moving. We just ignore it, or we take it for granted. These are blessings from God. He's

moving in people's lives. I've watched families. We've married several folks,

a couple of them are here this year, who decided to get married and make things right with God.

God is moving. Is there spiritual warfare? And is there negative things going on sometimes?

That's always going to be the case, but God, that doesn't mean God's not moving,

or that there is not fellowship going on here. Look, if we're going to stir one another up,

we need to take the example of the early church.

need to be right. We can look at these things. They were devoted to each other. They were devoted

to God's word. They were devoted to prayer. They were devoted to the things of God.

Our heart needs to be right if we're going to stir people up. At the end of our passage,

I want to, if you're here this morning, and you feel that you need to have a conversation with

the Lord about where your heart is, I'm going to offer you, when the band's playing, to come up

here and take a knee.

We'll come up and pray with you if you would like. Or if you're not comfortable with that,

you can stop and talk to me at the back after. But look, the heart needs to be right.

We need to be, maybe we need to refocus and really consider what the things of God are and

what we need to do to stir one another up. At the end of our passage in Hebrews, it says,

find it here. Sorry, I don't have it marked. It says, not neglecting to meet together is the habit

of some.

But encouraging one another and all the more as the day drawing near. The day drawing near?

We should be focused on what's important.

Jesus is coming back.

The day drawing near, he's coming back

for those who have put their faith in him.

My question to you, my second question to you this morning

is, do you know him as Savior?

If we don't know him as Savior,

first of all, we're not gonna be able to stir people up.

And secondly, he's not coming back for you.

Do you know the Lord?

The Bible says we all have sinned

and fall short of the glory of God.

We all are rebellious against God.

And because of that rebellion, we're separated.

The scripture says the wages of sin is death.

That means separation from God.

If we die in that state,

we are gonna be eternally separated.

But if that's the bad part of that scripture,

that's Romans 6.23, the good part is this.

So it says the wages of sin is death,

but the free gift of God is eternal life, Christ Jesus.

You can draw.

You can draw near to God when you have faith in Jesus.

You're separated because of your sin,

but through faith in Jesus,

you can have a relationship with God

and you can spend eternity with God.

And how do we receive that?

Romans 10.9, because if you confess with your mouth

that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, faith,

believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved.

You will be saved.

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