Well, we won't endure alone. We need one another. And the book of Hebrews is very clear on this point in Hebrews 3, verses 12 to 14. There we are commanded to "take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God.

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin; for we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end." That's a great text, important point. If we are to endure to the end, we need one another as we fight to see Christ as better than all the false promises of this world.

Here's Pastor John applying this text. If the essence of deceit, sin, hardness, unbelief, falling away, eternal destruction, if the essence of the deceit is "God is less to be desired than blank," what are you going to say? He's better. He's better. Christ is better. His way is better. And a thousand experiential and biblical ways of showing that he's better, that's what you're going to say, right?

And if that's right, and Hebrews 11 illustrates it with, "Even the reproaches of Christ are better than the pleasures of Egypt," chapter 11, verse 26. Even the reproaches of the Christ are greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. If that's the positive things we're going to say, the negative also true.

You're going to die if you don't turn around. You're going to say, "The pleasures of Egypt are fleeting. Don't go there. You will perish in the Red Sea. If you go there, you'll die in the wilderness. If you go there, and we will warn them." I have a letter here.

This is sent to me. I love to save letters. This is back when people wrote letters, 1992, handwritten by a young woman who was going here in the '80s, and she was living in fornication, and her conscience was bothering her, and she came to see me. I threw that out, and after a little while, I said to her, "You know, don't you, that if you continue in this, you'll go to hell," is what she wrote seven years later.

1985, so it's written in '92. 1985, I wonder whether you remember a very much younger me sitting in your office and telling you I was afraid God would have to use a car accident or some other awful event to get my attention. You pointed out that the consequences of my deliberate choice to continue sinning would be nothing short of hell itself.

No one had ever before told me I was headed for hell, missionary kid, that I was "saved" at age six. It was a turning point in my life, and I have wanted to thank you and tell you that ever since. I assured Mom that a warning such as that in 1985 conversation made me feel the more loved after I heard what you really think of it in listening to your message.

That you cared enough to tell me a stranger at the time means more than ever with the echo in my ears, your compassion came through to me. You say he's better, and you say, "If you don't turn and fight this, you're going to perish." You say that to your roommate.

You say it to your child. Maybe one more story and a closing word. I've seen Tom sitting back there, I love Tom Steller. Few people have strengthened my hand in the Lord more than Tom for 37 years, longer actually. We've done a lot of things together. You'll remember this one, Tom.

There's a woman in the 80s again who was struggling with such terrible depression, and she was suicidal, scary so. We were young, we didn't know much, but we made her promise us, we were in this together, we made her promise us, "You will not hurt yourself without calling us." Can you promise?

I promise. All right. So late one night, I get a call, "Tom, no." I say, "Look, you must promise me, promise me right now, I'm going to call the police. Promise me that you'll meet us at the church within 15 minutes." We both lived close by, so did she, to church, she did.

The building is gone now, but I can picture where we sat in the 1914 building. And we sat with her, how long, Tom? Two, three hours? The darkness in that room, spiritually, was awful. You could just see it was like a huge, heavy, wet, dark blanket. Everything about her was oppressed.

And we exhorted her and gave promises to her and prayed with her and sat in silence with her, and God lifted that darkness. You could see it lift. That woman is in this church ministering today. And I believe, Tom, we saved her. We did. God Almighty used us with words and prayer to save her, both from physical and probably spiritual destruction.

Leave you with one picture of what you're called to do. In 1 Samuel 23, David's life is in the balance. The people of the town of Keilah have betrayed him, and the prophet tells him, "They're going to betray you." So he escapes and leaves Keilah. At the end of the chapter, the Ziphites treacherously tell Saul quietly where David is, and Saul comes after him.

David finds out, he escapes by the skin of his teeth. I've tried to imagine the pressure of doing ministry like that. Pressure, stress, tension, discouragement. And you want to say, "Is it worth it to be the Lord's anointed?" And you will say that. "Is it worth it to be a Christian?

Is it worth it to be a pastor?" How are you going to survive in those moments? How did David survive? Well, I think the chapter is arranged this way, between the betrayal and the treachery, right in the middle here is verse 16, "And Jonathan, Saul's son, rose and went to David at Horash and strengthened his hand in God." You got a friend like that?

Be that for each other. Be that for each other. We can't survive without God's mercy horizontally mediated to us. So exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

Serious. It's a glorious calling. Amen. That is a glorious calling. As we carry for one another, as we seek to hold our original confidence firm to the end. This clip is from John Piper's sermon titled, "We Need Each Other. Christian Fellowship is a Means of Perseverance." A sermon on Hebrews chapter 3, verses 12 to 14, preached on April 12th, 2017.

This entire message is available right now at DesiringGod.org. And this clip was submitted by a longtime podcast listener named Richie, who lives in Chandigarh, India. That's in northern India. In Chandigarh, India. Thank you, Richie, for sending it in to us. Clips like this one are crowdsourced. You tell us what bits of Piper's sermons catch your ear, and we share that clip with the APJ audience.

If you've got one, email me. Give me your name, your hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in the sermon audio, and tell me how it impacted you. Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

That's an email address, AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. I am your host, Tony Reinke. We are rejoined in studio with Pastor John on Friday. Faith is really important, and next time we're going to look at the question of why does God allow suffering in our lives, especially the kind of suffering that may harm our faith in him.

It's a significant question. You won't want to miss it. That's up on Friday. We'll see you then. We'll see you then. You You