Well, last I heard from Eric,
seems like the pain is less and the healing continues, but things
like that don't go quickly. So might be a few more weeks
before he's able to put Weight on the leg, I'm not the doctor
and I don't have an official notification, but I know these
things take time, both from experience and from observation with others. So let's continue to remember
Eric and the family in our prayers for healing and let's go to the
Lord in prayer before we have the preaching here in a
moment. Gracious Father, we come before
you, not worthy to do so, but by virtue
of what Christ has done, we are bold to stand before you, not
in our worthiness, not in our strength, but in your strength
and in your provision. Lord, we pray that in these days
and weeks and months and even years of trial and trouble, Lord,
that you would help us to see Jesus there with us along the
way. We pray that especially for those
who've recently suffered loss and who are just dealing with
the outworkings of that. But we also pray, Lord, that
you would help us in this hour to see you and see your grace
and mercy towards us, the undeserved grace and mercy that we receive,
those of us who are your children by grace. Lord, help us, encourage
us, comfort as only you can. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, if you can make your way
to Hebrews chapter four, we're gonna take a look at that passage
again, that section of scripture, I should say. A couple of weeks ago, I came about
Hebrews 3 and 4 via Psalm 95 and was wondering what I should
teach, even on the way back from church last week. And I had a
suggestion given to me not by the highest authority, but by
a high authority, that it would be good for me to continue in
Hebrews. And I agree, there's definitely
some wonderful words here for us to consider. So I'm gonna
focus on the last part of Hebrews chapter four, but I'm gonna read
for us beginning at verse one, and I'll read down through the
end of the chapter. So Hebrews four, beginning with
verse one. Therefore, since the promise
of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of
you be found to have fallen short of it. For we also have had the
gospel preached to us just as they did, but the message they
heard was of no value to them. because those who heard did not
combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter
that rest, just as God has said, so I declared on oath in my anger,
they shall never enter my rest. And yet his work has been finished
since the creation of the world, for somewhere he has spoken about
the seventh day in these words, and on the seventh day, God rested
from all his work. And again, in the passage above,
he says, they shall never enter my rest. It still remains that
some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel
preached to them did not go in because of their disobedience. Therefore, God again set a certain
day, calling it today, when a long time later he spoke through David,
as it was said before, today, if you hear his voice, do not
harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them
rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There
remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone
who enters God's rest also rests from his own work just as God
did from his. Let us therefore make every effort
to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following their
example of disobedience. For the word of God is living
and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates
even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes
of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden
from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid
bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Therefore,
since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens,
Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one
who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was
without sin. Let us then approach the throne
of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find
grace to help us in our time of need. So as I thought about this passage
and thought about the various emphases that we could look at
in it, the one thing that kept coming back to me was just that
last bit of verse 16 and the emphasis on our need
and his grace. If I had to summarize Christianity
to somebody who didn't understand it or who thought they did in
a religious way, I would say it's about our need and his grace. When I thought about teaching
from this passage, I've taught from it before. I don't know
that I taught it exactly the same way in the past. I looked
at my notes and they didn't help me, but when I started thinking
about this, I didn't think about This week, last Sunday, I didn't
think about the week upcoming as being a memorial of September
11th, I guess the 24th year of that coming on, and I didn't
know the events that would transpire during the week, and certainly
There are people who they have a need. They're grieving based on those
events or other events that we could speak about. And I don't
wanna downplay those events. I don't wanna downplay the help
that people can provide for those things. In fact, I think it is
a need that we need to address without trying to be too redundant
there. But that isn't the need, that isn't the great need that
we have. Again, not diminishing anything
that somebody might be feeling this morning related to any recent
events, but our great need is our lostness in Adam and our
sinful nature that without remedy would cause us to perish eternally
under the judgment of God. So when we talk about our needs,
certainly God is a God who meets our needs and he's gracious to
us even in mundane things. I know I don't know which sin I should
confess to my impatience on the road or other things, but God
was gracious to us this morning. He met a need for us to be here
on time in spite of traffic and detours and everything else,
and God is gracious in that way. But if that's all God did for
me in this world, if all I had was some sort of slight benefit,
I think somebody liked to talk about, you know, God is more
than a God who helps you find your keys when they're lost.
If that's all we had, if that's the only sort of need we had
met, we would be, as Paul said, of all men most miserable. So when the writer of Hebrews
says here that we can find grace to help us in our time of need,
he's talking about the ultimate need. And if you recall, or if
you know from other reading on the book of Hebrews, you can
recall the fact that they were very discouraged and under persecution,
a persecution that I don't believe that any of us have faced in
our life, a persecution of Jewish Christians by other of their
countrymen who wanted them gone, they looked at what they believed
as an aberration, as an abomination, not understanding that the Messiah
that was being proclaimed was fulfillment of their scriptures. And yet, in that time they were called to persevere.
And you know one of the most difficult things to do is when
you don't feel like something And when the way that it would
be easier for you in life would be to just give up and give in
and go along with what's going on, that pressure, that temptation
would be a difficult thing to face. If you haven't faced that
sort of temptation, I would say probably all of us have at a
certain level, but if you haven't, understand that this wasn't,
they just felt, you know, they got up on the wrong side of the
bed one morning and said, you know, I'm gonna give up on this
whole Christianity thing and I'm gonna go back to the old
ways. No, they were being persecuted. And the writer of Hebrews' desire
is to show them that Jesus is greater than any of the so-called
greatness of their religious upbringing. Even today, I and
my wife were both raised in Roman Catholicism, and there are those
who say, well, evangelical Christianity, you know, all they have is a
Bible, all they do is sing a few songs. There's no grand pageantry
involved with that. There's no mystery. There's no
pomp and circumstance. Well, they would have the same
sort of temptation here as well to go back to those things. And what I would say is none
of that is gonna provide what you need in life. That which
outwardly appears to be significant is not God's way. So beginning to look at Hebrews
chapter four, verses 11 through 16, I just wanted to start with
that last bit there, approaching the throne of grace to find grace
and receive mercy to help us in our time of need. That was
the writer of Hebrews' encouragement to them in all that they were
going through. But I wanna go back to verse
11, and I think there are three exhortations that, and I keep
wanting to say Paul, and I'm probably gonna say it at least
once, but the writer of Hebrews, since we don't know 100% who
it is, or even 2%, There are three exhortations
that are given. And when you listen to people
teach or preach on this passage, there's a tendency to make these
as some sort of hurdles to get over to earn what's at the end. And that's why I said it's important
for us to begin this passage with the end in mind, because
I don't read in the words receiving mercy and finding grace, something
that I need to do. And yet, for me to be able to
apprehend in this world and appreciate the
rest that God has provided, these exhortations are there. It's
kind of like somebody saying to you, that truck stop in Worthington
is a good place to stay. You could do worse than to go
there for food. They're encouraging you. They're
telling you to do something. Or look out, there's a speed
trap in such and such a town. They're not trying to to bind
you up in those exhortations. They're showing you things that
will make it go easier for you or better for you to encourage
you in those ways. And I think the writer of the
book of Hebrews is doing this to those who are struggling with
these things. issues with people persecuting
them because they are no longer following old covenant pageantry
and liturgy and and so on. So in verse 11 he says, let us therefore, in our translation
if you have a NIV, says make every effort And I do need to
say something about that translation. It's not as bad as it could be.
There's one translation that says, do your best. And all I
could think of is Joe's voice coming in my mind, yeah, do your
best and go to hell anyway. Because if that's what this is
about, doing our best, we don't have much hope. But I believe
that the new King James gets a better sense of what's intended
here when it says, be diligent. And three times in this passage,
there's this combination of what's called a subjunctive and a connecting
word that can be translated as therefore. And in many English
translations, you have let us, therefore, and then the exhortation
or encouragement. So you have that let us, therefore,
and I'm gonna argue that it should be Be diligent. And then in verse 14, you have
the wording, let us, and here we have hold firmly or hold fast. And then in verse, I believe
it's 16 here, yeah, let us then or therefore approach the throne
of grace. But this first one, let us be
diligent. The word in the original means
to make haste. And I remember a saying of a
friend who had a name somewhat hard to pronounce. I can't really
speak, my last name isn't always easy to pronounce, but he would
say, call me anything you want, Bernie, just don't call me late
for supper, he said, or at least that's what grandma said. If
you're hungry and you know there's a good meal, nobody has to tell
you to make haste, to be diligent. And what is he calling us to
here in verse 11? What is he saying that we need
to be diligent to do? It's to enter that rest. Which rest? not a rest that they
provided for themselves, not a rest that they earned by virtue
of their own efforts, but a Sabbath rest that came about only because
of the finished work of Christ. He says, be diligent, make haste
to enter that rest. Because when we have doubts,
when we have needs, when we're discouraged, the best thing we
can do is to be diligent or to make haste to go to Christ. He's the one who can show mercy
and provide grace in our time of need. He's the one who calls
us to this rest. We need to be diligent. And again, our translation a
little bit, I would say misleading, not horrible, but it says so
that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience. Well, again, just gonna quickly
go over it, but what was the example of disobedience? Well,
you had God leading the nation of Israel out of Egypt, out of
severe persecution, and he leads them out of Egypt, God provides
for them. People give them things and they
leave. They give them a lot of wealth
and provisions and they head out. And if you remember one
of the first things they're stuck. with the Red Sea in front of
them and the army behind them, and God leads them through that,
and God provides for them. He provides food and He provides
water, but there's two tests that come about related to water,
one at the beginning of their journey and one at the end, and
they're kind of a bookend to how the people of Israel acted
under pressure. So in spite of the fact of God
miraculously providing for them, in spite of his goodness and
mercy in their behalf or on their behalf, in their sight, they
complained. You know, are you gonna starve
us out here, Moses? Are you gonna lead us out here
just for us to die? And they grumbled, and God said
that he was angry with that generation because of their unbelief, their
failure to believe in God. And all they needed to do, and
I'm not saying this as they needed to do this to earn. I'm saying
this as what God was calling them to do is just believe. to stop trusting in their own
efforts, to stop trying to engineer something else because they couldn't
see what God was doing, but to trust Him. Be diligent to enter God's provided
rest, and don't follow those who fall or fail because of unbelief. And the writer of Hebrews is
writing to people he doesn't know, he assumes based on the
fact that they're reading the book, that they have a profession
of faith, he doesn't know whether or not they possess the truth
and he assumes that some of them do. And he's just saying, you
do not want to be like those who through unbelief failed to enter
the promised land, but you want to be like Joshua. And when he says that, there's
this almost disconnected phrase here or set of sentences in verses
12 and 13, but they're very important to the passage and actually fit
with the context. So when you look at this, there
are some people who can make a very good outward religious
show. They're very good at hiding their
real feelings. They're good at putting on a
facade and Maybe they think they're fooling God, even. And yet we read here in verse
12, the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any
double-edged sword. It penetrates to the dividing
of soul and spirit, joints and marrows, and it judges the thoughts
and attitudes of the heart, and nothing in God's creation is
hidden from his sight. So, in this situation, original
readers and current hearers of the book of Hebrews, in this
situation where you have a need and you're tempted to try to
fix it on your own, Don't think you're fooling God. The word
of God, and I think, and I hadn't thought about this before I came
across it, but I think it's actually a good understanding. He's very explicitly saying the
word of God that I've just cited from Psalm 95, the one that says,
I swore in my wrath you won't enter my wraths, that that passage in Psalm 95
and its entire context, I think that that's the direct application
to them. But it's true that scripture,
both in spoken form and in written form, is alive. Not in the sense
that our Bibles are going to get up and walk around on their
own, but because they're God's Word and because they're provided
by God, they're imbued with a liveliness, to use an old word, they're imbued
with life through the Spirit of God bringing them to bear
on us. And he uses this analogy sharper
than a sword and there's some. debate on exactly what type of
sword he was talking about, but clearly it's just a picture here.
What sword can cut through between a soul and spirit? I wouldn't
even know where to start. I mean, even when I was younger,
I don't know that you would trust me like you might trust others
to butcher animals. I would have a hard time cutting
in the right spot. But even with some skill and
capability, there's no ability to do that. I confess I don't
understand why the writer then going from, I would say, an impossible
idea to one of joint and marrow. Those two don't touch. I don't
think the point is that they touch. I think the point is it's
difficult, if not impossible, to truly cut out these things. And yet the word of God is likened
to that in that it can cut out something that no mere physical
device could do. And to know that it's more than
just the scripture but even Christ himself is included in this,
it talks about it judging the thoughts and attitudes or intents
of the heart. We know from the prophet that
our heart is desperately wicked and who can know it, but we know
that God is the only one who can truly judge our hearts. It's a sobering thought, to say
the least, to be in the place where there's nowhere for us
to go, but that's the idea behind this. I won't speak for you, I'm so
good at wanting to fix things on my own. I'm so good that in
my head I can see or I think I can see if I do this, that'll
happen and everything else. God wants us to come to the end
of ourself and understand that he is all that there is for us. Unless we think that we can deceive
him, he knows our heart in a way that even we do not. He's able to get to the core
of the matter, and as it says, everything is uncovered and laid
bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Everything. It's a sobering thought. And if it wasn't for the receiving
mercy and finding grace part here at the end, I can see how
passages like this could be used as a way to guilt people in,
you know. We were listening to Joe on the
way in, and he was talking about the song, Be Careful, Little
Hands, What You Do, and the father up above is looking down in love.
Well, those songs, at least in my experience, aren't used that
way. They're used as a way to try to guilt children into being
better than maybe their nature would cause them to be. And certainly
a passage like this could be used in that way. But yet if
we know that God is a great physician and we know that we have the
cancer of sin in us, we want him to operate on us. In this life, there's still the
flesh and the spirit are together. Until we die or we're taken to
heaven at the end of all things, we will be fighting those things. But don't think, I pray to God
that he doesn't let me ever think that I'm getting away with something,
that I've somehow fooled God. Be diligent, make haste, be speedy,
love and pursue what you know is right, and that is the rest
of God found only in Christ. Then verse 14, he says, in the
middle of it, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. And once again, I think there's
this idea of you said, at one point, this is what I believe.
This is my confession. And I realize that confession
can be a dirty word, and our translation doesn't say it there,
say it that way, but that's, a good translation of what's
here. Let's hold firmly to the same
word, the confession. I didn't grow up in reform circles,
so I didn't have the misfortune or whatever word you want to
use to people proudly saying, you know, I'm confessional. Growing
up in Roman Catholicism, confessional was where you went to tell somebody
your sins, not to tell them your doctrine was all right. But the
idea here is you are agreeing with the truth. You're speaking
the same word. In fact, where it says the word
of God, the logos of God is active, here where it says the faith
we profess, it's based on the same Greek word for word, the
same word. Let's hold to that same word.
How can we do that? Well, the writer of Hebrews here,
and I thought Paul in my head, God knows I thought Paul in my
head, but the writer of Hebrews here has talked to them about
how Jesus is greater than the angels. Jesus is greater than
Moses. Jesus is greater than Joshua,
even in our context here, because the rest that he took them to
wasn't a permanent one. And probably the vast majority
of the book of Hebrews from this point on depends on who you talk
to, but for at least seven, six, seven, eight chapters is talking
about how Jesus is greater than Aaron or greater than the priesthood
of Judaism. And notice what he says here.
How is it that we can hold fast to our confession or to our faith
that we profess? Therefore, since we have a great
high priest. So we have a great high priest. Not just a priest. not a high
priest, but a great high priest. And here it says, who has gone
through the heavens. Where did Jesus come from? Well,
he's a son of God as well as son of man. He came down from
heaven. And we read at the end of Luke
and into Acts that he went back up into heaven. He's our advocate
before God. He sits on the right hand of
the Father to intercede for us. Since we have a great high priest
like that who's gone through the heaven, then let us hold
firmly to the faith we profess. You go, well, what does he know? Well, the writer of Hebrews here
says, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with
our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every
way, just as we are, yet without sin. A lot in that phrase, but if you
think about it, if you're struggling to be able to have somebody who
said, you know, I was able to make it through this, and who also was sympathetic,
who didn't just say, you know, rub some dirt on it. You know,
get up, quit crying. Don't be so soft. No, that isn't the idea here.
Jesus was tempted, and yet he didn't
sin. He lived as a man. He hungered. He thirsted. He was tempted by
Satan to take spiritual shortcuts. You know, Jesus, if you did this,
God would do that. And Satan even quoted scripture. Well, how is it that we can hold
fast? We can hold fast because we have
a high priest who is able to sympathize. And I guess from an English standpoint,
Give the writer demerits here for a double negative. We do
not have who is unable, but the idea of that is it cancels itself
out and it's a way of emphasizing it. We have a high priest and
he is able to sympathize because he was tested and tempted
in every way and yet was without sin. So be diligent. Hold fast. And then he says, come boldly. And I believe all these build
on each other. And he wants them to understand
that what he's calling them to is not some sort of empty slogan. It's not some sort of pep rally
to try to get them hyped up enough to do what's called for here. But he says, let us then approach
the throne of grace, and our translation says with confidence,
but boldly approach the throne of grace so that we may receive
mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. You know, in Judaism, with temple worship, you didn't
just go waltz into the temple and present your petitions in
front of the mercy seat. In fact, people who tried to
do things apart from the order that was given were punished. either by human means or by divine
means, they were punished in their, what's the word that I'm looking
for, in their audacity in thinking that they
could just do it. And yet, here's the writer of
Hebrews saying, essentially by inference, in your religion,
You have to scrape and bow and be afraid of what'll happen if
you don't do things in a certain way. But for the people of God,
for the elect of God, Christ is approachable. And he has a
throne. Jesus is a king. But the throne that we approach
as believers is not a throne of justice. It's not a throne
of vengeance. It's a throne of grace. Throne of grace. I know it's not a complete definition,
but I think it is helpful to think of it. God's riches at
Christ's expense. Grace is both an attribute of
God and his action towards us. He, even though we sin constantly
and continually fall short of him and fall short of his righteous
requirements, we have the boldness through Christ to approach this
throne of grace. And we don't approach it in a
way where we're like, I'm good, I'm just gonna go check in and
see how things are going. No, we go because we have a need. As long as we're in this life
and as long as we're in these bodies and as long as we sin
and we continually sin and fall short of the glory of God, we
have this ability to come boldly before God and find mercy and
grace to help in any time of need. Now, I am probably the last person who
should talk to anybody about how to pray. But I believe as
Don Fortner said, he hadn't read any good books on prayer, not
really good books on prayer, and I would say I feel the same
way. He said there is at least one
good book, right? And I would say in this passage,
you definitely have the essence of what prayer is. our need and his fullness, our
unworthiness and his mercy and grace, our concern if it's too
late, and his ability to help us in our time of need. Now we can come boldly receiving
mercy and finding grace in our time of need because of what
the Lord Jesus has done for his people. Now I didn't look to
see if this, and I'm not advocating changing what we sing, even if
it is there, because chances are that the tune that we have
in our hymnal would not be a familiar one. But I just want to read
in closing from a hymn written in the 1800s, perhaps you heard
it, that is based on this passage. And I think it captures all the
elements well here. Says, come boldly to the throne
of grace, ye wretched sinners come, and lay your load at Jesus'
feet and plead what he has done. How can I come? Some soul may
say I'm lame and cannot walk. My guilt and sin have stopped
my mouth. I sigh, but dare not talk. Come boldly. to the throne of
grace so lost and blind and lame. Jehovah is the sinner's friend
and ever was the same. He makes the dead to hear his
voice, he makes the blind to see. The sinner lost, he came
to save and set the prisoner free. Come boldly to the throne
of grace, for Jesus fills the throne, and those he kills he
makes alive, he hears the sigh or groan. Poor bankrupt souls
who feel and know the hell of sin within, come boldly to the
throne of grace, the Lord will take you in. James.