Better — Part 6 | Draw Near, Hold Fast, Stir Up
If you have been walking through a long season of waiting (a diagnosis that will not resolve, a prodigal who has not come home, a marriage that feels stuck, a prayer that God does not seem to be answering), you know how quietly the cave can start to affect your inner life. You stop drawing near to God. You loosen your grip on what you believed. You isolate. In Part 6 of Better, Pastor Jess DiSabatino opens Hebrews 10 and pulls out what feels like survival instructions for exactly this kind of season. Because the finished work of Jesus is not just a doctrine to admire. It is a doorway to walk through.
Series: Better
Scripture: Hebrews 10:19-39
Pastor: Jess DiSabatino
Date: August 9, 2026
Key Takeaways
Survival instructions for spiritual caves and waiting. In 2010, the San José copper mine in Chile collapsed and trapped thirty-three miners half a mile underground. For seventeen straight days there was total silence, no contact with the surface, no signal that anyone even knew they were alive. They survived sixty-nine days because they did three specific things together. They kept drawing near to the borehole where any help might come. They held fast to hope, rationing two days worth of food across seventeen. And they gathered every single day so no one gave up alone in the dark. Hebrews 10 offers exactly this kind of blueprint for spiritual survival. The greatest danger in a long season of waiting is not the wait itself. It is that we quietly stop drawing near, we let go of our convictions, and we isolate.
The "therefore" that changes everything. For nine chapters, Hebrews has been laying out one massive theological argument. Jesus is greater than angels. Greater than Moses. Greater than the Levitical priests. Greater than the sacrificial system. Then in Hebrews 10:19, everything pivots on one word: therefore. This is where doctrine stops being an abstract concept and becomes daily life. Because Jesus opened access, we are called to walk through it. The temple veil that separated humanity from the presence of God was no small barrier. Historical accounts from Josephus describe it as roughly four inches thick, woven from seventy-two cords, and heavy enough to require three hundred priests to lift and hang. When Jesus died, Matthew 27:51 says that veil tore in two. From top to bottom. Not bottom to top. That direction matters. God tore it open Himself. This was not humanity climbing up. This was heaven reaching down.
Draw near with Parresia. The first invitation of Hebrews 10 is to draw near with full assurance. The Greek word behind it is Parresia, an ancient political term that described a free citizen's right to stand in the public square and speak openly, without fear of censorship or punishment. You were not a slave monitoring your words at the door. You were a citizen with the right to speak freely. This is the posture we are invited into with God. Not sneaking in. Not carefully worded prayers designed not to bother Him. We walk in as sons and daughters, with our heads held high, through the torn body of Christ Himself. Pastor Jess shared her own turning point on this. In the early days of pastoring, her prayers about the church were small and self-protective, mostly asking God to help them cover the mortgage. She realized she was praying slave prayers when God was inviting her to pray Parresia prayers. So she started asking God for citywide impact. This year, the City of Calgary reported that between January and August, fewer than fifty people were successfully housed through their specific city initiatives. Thirty-nine of those forty-something people were housed through Journey Church's day space programs. That is what happens when a church stops praying to survive and starts praying to see the Kingdom move.
Hold fast by professing truth over feelings, and stir up one another. The second invitation is to hold unswervingly to the hope we profess. The Greek word Katecho means to grip something so tightly it cannot slip. But the strength of the grip is not the strength of your hand. It is the reliability of the One who made the promise. And the way we hold fast in practice is by professing. Speaking. Vocalizing God's Word out loud until it becomes the loudest voice in the room, louder than the anxiety, louder than the diagnosis, louder than the silence. John Bunyan spent twelve years in Bedford jail in England for preaching without a state license. His family was scattered. His ministry was shut down. Instead of sinking into bitterness, he used those twelve years to write The Pilgrim's Progress, which became one of the most read Christian books in history outside of the Bible. That is what holding fast looks like. And the third invitation is to spur one another on toward love and good deeds, to gather together, to not neglect it. The Greek word here is Paroxysmos, which means a sudden, intense agitation. God is not asking for polite, clinical church small talk. He is calling us to actively agitate each other into faith, into good works, into showing up for one another. In an increasingly isolated culture, gathering together is a defiant act.
Do not shrink back. You belong to those who preserve their souls. Hebrews 10 also contains a serious warning. If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left. This is not describing a believer who stumbles and repents. It is describing a settled, willful decision to permanently walk away from Christ as Savior. If you are worried you have crossed that line, the very fact that you are worried is evidence that the Holy Spirit is still actively at work in you. The chapter closes with a call to remember. Recall the former days when you joyfully endured hardship because you knew you had something greater and lasting waiting for you. Do not throw away your bold confidence now, at kilometer forty-one of a forty-two kilometer marathon. And then the closing line lands with declaration, not question: we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and preserve their souls. That is who you are. Not a slave hovering at the door. A son or daughter walking through it.
