Thank you, Missy and Terry. If you have your Bibles, turn to Hebrews chapter 4. And our focus this morning will be on 11, 12, and 13. But I want to read the verses prior to that also again. So if you're able, stand with me as we read God's Word. Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For the good news came to us, just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, as I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. Although his works were finished from the foundation of the world, for he has spoken somewhere of the seventh day in this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. And again in this passage he said, they shall not enter my rest. Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, And again he appoints a certain day, today, saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. Whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works, as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sword of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the vision of the soul and of the spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Let's pray. Again, Father, we do thank you for your word. And Father, we thank you that Jesus has sent to us the Holy Spirit. He has come from the Father and from the Son. And he is the Spirit of truth. And Jesus said he'll lead us into all truth. And also Jesus said he will bear witness of me. Father, your truth always brings us to your Son, Jesus Christ. who he is and what he's done for us in his life, death and resurrection and exaltation and promise return. So Father, our prayer is that your Holy Spirit will take your word this morning and send it forth into our hearts, into our minds with power. Father, the power to save initially, but Father also the power to bring sanctification into our lives. So Father, that's our prayer, that the Holy Spirit will be free in our hearts to point us to Jesus. We ask it in his name, amen. You may be seated. Actually, I didn't think about this until this morning. Can you guess what my favorite John Wayne movie is? Chris knows, but I don't know if you can guess. Pardon me? The Cowboys? No, not The Cowboys, The Searchers. Anybody ever see The Searchers? Well, the searchers, this group of Texas Rangers are pursuing a band of Indians because they had raided John Wayne's brother's house and his brother and sister-in-law and nephew were killed, but they had taken the two girls and so they're pursuing them. But they get caught up in Here comes the Indians riding on both sides of them. They're in this middle column. Here's these Indians. And they rush to the river, cross the river. But I guess his name, I think his name is Nesby. He gets shot. And they get across the river. And they set up to repel the charge of the Indians. And the captain of the Texas Rangers is also a preacher. So he takes out his Bible and gives it to Nesby and says, hold that. It'll make you feel good. while they're under Indian attack, and they're trying to repel them. Now, what I would say to you is know this, not just hold this, but know this word, and it will transform your life, not just make you feel good, it'll transform my life and your life. So it's not just holding the Bible. I think I read something on Facebook a while back. Preacher went to the home and had dinner. And he left. And the wife says, I think he stole, I think, one of our spoons or one of our forks, one of our silver forks. And they were very upset about it. But they kind of let it pass. A year passes by. And he comes back and has dinner again. And so he was asked about that missing utensil. He said, well, I didn't take it. I just put it in your Bible. And so for a whole year, they didn't crack their Bible open. So I probably have enough Bibles that would be tall. If I stacked them up, they'd be taller than me. And I've studied Bibles. I have different translations. But I've always tried to encourage people to have a Bible that fits your hand. When I was a boy, I remember getting my first ball glove and breaking that glove in. And I was breaking that glove in to fit my hand. So that whenever the ball came to me, and I was able to catch that ball, that glove would just snap shut because it fit my hand. It wasn't too big. It wasn't too small. It was broken in to fit my hand. So when the ball came, it closed. And I could either catch the ball. I remember my dad was a semi-pro soft, fast-pitched ball player when he was in his mid-20s and early 30s. And he was our coach for our fast pitch softball team at Watertower Baptist Church for about five or six years. And because he was the coach, I was able to go to practice when I was still eight. You couldn't be on the team until you were nine. But I was eight years old. I could go to practice because my dad was the coach, you know? And so I'm out there in the outfield shagging fly balls while they're having batting practice. and here comes this fly ball mountain deep center field, man, it's coming, it's coming, and I'm getting it, I'm anticipating it, and I'm right there where it's coming down, and it went right through me, hit me in the stomach, and knocked every breath out of me, and I'm laying on the ground. My glove was broken, but my timing wasn't, okay? But you need a Bible that fits your hand. I'm serious about this. You need a Bible that fits your hand. Now this, I've been trying to break this Bible in for probably the last seven, eight years. I spent 20 years with the Bible my mom and dad gave me on January, or August 22nd, 1971, when I was licensed to the ministry of Ruby Gardens Baptist Church. They gave me a King James, Cambridge Bible, very good quality Bible. And, I used it for 20 years, and basically it's just falling apart. But somebody said, if you have a Bible that is falling apart, you probably have a life that isn't. And so I graduated after about 20 years to an NIV Bible, a thin NIV Bible. And I think I probably, not quite 20 years, but I think I used that for 18 years at least, and it's falling apart. And so then I've graduated to the ESV, Translation and I'm trying to break this a study Bible. So it's a little bit bigger it's a little bit bigger than I usually like to have in a pulpit, but it's it's a good Bible and So I'm breaking it in Now this is how you know that your Bible is being broken in to you. I that you'll remember a scripture. You don't quite remember chapter and verse, but you can, in your mind's eye, you can see where on the Bible that verse is because you've become so familiar with that one Bible that it's been broken in to fit your hand. And don't be afraid to underline or highlight or even to write in your Bible. Don't be afraid to do that. And, but break in a Bible that fits your hand, that is becoming so familiar to you, that again, you can visualize on the page where you're remembering that verse is. And so you can kind of fan through, you kind of know it's, say it's in, you know it's in. I'll illustrate this. I know the verse of scripture when Jesus feeds the 20,000 in John six. And he sends the crowd away because they want to make him the Messiah right there to kick Rome out of Jerusalem and establish an earthly kingdom. He didn't come to establish an earthly kingdom. He came to establish a spiritual kingdom in the hearts and minds of those who would believe in him. And then when he returns, he's going to establish that final kingdom. So he sends them away. He sends the disciples away. He goes up in the mountain to pray. Disciples are laboring about four o'clock in the morning and Jesus sees them and comes down and delivers them to get back on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. People wake up, they're looking for Jesus. Some other people came from the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee over to the west coast of the Sea of Galilee. And they said, did you see Jesus? And he said, yeah, he's over there on the other side. And so they go around and find Jesus and they're looking for another meal. I preached a message on this when I was at Manchester, and the title of my message was, Full Bellies and Empty Hearts. They were looking for another meal. And Jesus said, that's all you're looking for. You're looking because I fed you. And here's my point. I knew that when I got to the page that the verse I'm going to talk about was in this section. So you need to break in a Bible to fit your hand that you become so familiar. It'll take time. It'll take one year, two years, three years, four years, five years, six years. Wear it out. Wear it out where it falls apart. Because again, if you have a Bible that is falling apart, you probably have a life that isn't. And so this is what Jesus said to them. Truly I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill, the loaves. Do not labor for food that perishes, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has set his seal. Then they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, this is the work of God. that you believe on Him whom He has sent. And so that's how you break your Bible in to fit your hand. That was all free. That's not even in the sermon, okay? That was just a commercial. Basically, I want us to look at striving in the Word of God, studying the Word of God, and submitting to the Word of God. Those are my three basic points. Striving, because that's what verse 11 says here. I touched on it a little bit last week, but it's in the context of verse 12 and 13 where he says, let us therefore strive to enter the rest that no one may fall by the same sword of disobedience. They heard the word, but they disobeyed the word. So, striving in the word of God. This word, It's a very intense word, so I'm going to use some words to try to describe what it means to strive in the Word of God. First of all, it means with an eagerness, with a desire. Now, I've talked about this before. In a new creation, when God recreates us in Christ and we are regenerated and we are created in Christ, And using the picture of Ezekiel and Jeremiah from the Old Testament, particularly Ezekiel, where God says, I'm going to take that heart of stone, that dead heart, that hard heart that has no light, only has darkness. I'm going to take that heart of stone that dwells within you, and I'm going to replace it with a heart of flesh. I'm going to make you alive in Jesus Christ. And I've told you many times, I'm a church kid. I've been in church all my life. But even as a church kid, I had a heart of stone. And I needed to come to Christ in saving faith so that God would make that, I talked about it Wednesday night in St. Corinthians, where God performed that miracle of making me a new creation in Christ and giving me eternal life. Again, I've told this to you several times since we've been here, as many years as we've been here. When I was a kid, I thought eternal life was pin the tail on the donkey, okay? Now, my birthday is going to be Wednesday. I'm going to be 71 years old. So in 1953, July 10th, I was born. Really, I was delivered. I had Independence Day, OK? I was already alive in my mother's womb as a separate individual. I wasn't part of her body. I was attached to her body, but I was not part of her body. And so really, I've been 71 for the last nine months. But on July 10th was my liberation day. See, July 4th, our celebration of our independence in America. July 10th is my celebration of my independence from my mother's womb. So we'll just say July 10th, 1953, here's my life. That day that's appointed, the man wants to die, whenever that day comes, and I step from this life into eternity and the presence of the Lord. When I was a kid, I thought that's when eternal life began. Like pen and tail on a donkey. Here's my life, 1953 to whatever, and then I have eternal life. But as I've learned the scriptures, that's not true. When I came to Jesus Christ in December of 1960 as a seven-year-old boy, that's when I experienced and I have forever and ever eternal life. That's the only type of life that God produces in us is eternal life. And so I have eternal life. I've had it since 1960 when God took that heart of stone and made a heart of flesh. Now part of that heart of flesh The prophets tell us that God said, I'm going to write my law upon your heart. And Paul says in his struggle there in chapter seven of Romans, I think it's, I usually say it's verse 21, but I think it's really verse 22. He says in my inner man, I delight in the law of God. Why? Because God wrote it upon his heart when he saved him on the road to Damascus. And so in our new creation we have a delight in the Word of God. That's why we should have an eagerness for it. Now the flesh doesn't want to have anything to do with the Word of God. Because one of the ministries of the Word of God is crucifying the flesh. It's putting the flesh to death. And so our flesh doesn't want the word of God, and that's, many times, that's the reason we neglect the word of God, because the flesh has no appetite for it. But who we are in Christ as a new creation, we have an appetite, we have an eagerness for the word of God. And how refreshing, how, you know, when you have those times of desert in our lives, and our spiritual thirst is parched, Can anybody give me a kind of a hand raise or an amen that when you come to the word of God that parchness is relieved? Is that true? That's true. So striving in the word means we have an eagerness for it. We have an alertness for it. We want to have our ears on. We want to be asking God, and this way we should come to the word all the time, Lord speak to me. Now somebody said, well I want God to speak to me audibly, well then stand up and read the word of God out loud if you want to hear it audibly. God's primary means, I would say 99.999% off the charts, is the way He speaks to us is the Word of God. Now when you hear these guys on radio or on TV, says God gave me this Word. If that Word, if that Word lines up with the Word of God, it's unnecessary. If that Word does not line up with the Word of God, it is to be rejected. Okay? God has, that's what Peter says there in 2 Peter 1, God has given us sufficiency. In his great and precious promises, we don't need anything else except his word, and to fill our hearts and minds with it. And so there's an alertness. We want to be alert. We want to be asking the Holy Spirit to bring that illumination. See, the Holy Spirit, as we'll see in 2 Timothy 3.16, the word of God is God-breathed. It's inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one that worked in men, As Peter talks about in 1 Peter 1, moving along in men, or actually when I just read chapter 1, 2 Peter, moving in men, the Holy Spirit is the one who brings inspiration, but the Holy Spirit is also the one who brings illumination. Can you ever be reading the Bible and all of a sudden something jumps out at you like the light bulb comes on? That's not you, it's not me, that's the Holy Spirit illuminating the word for our understanding. And that's what Jesus said, as I said in my prayer. Jesus said the Holy Spirit, who's the spirit of truth, is gonna take the word of truth and lead us in that truth, and that truth always leads us to Jesus Christ. And there's an urgency. There's an urgency to be diligent You know, Paul wrote to Timothy. Now in King James language, it translates, study to show thyself what? Approved where? Unto God. A workman that what? Need not to be ashamed. Now, ESV, and I checked it with the Holman Standard Bible, and I think the same with the NIV, In verse 15, 2 Timothy 2.15, do your best to present yourselves to God as one approved, a workman who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. And so in 2 Timothy 2.15, there's an urgency that we need to be diligent in our approach to scripture. You know, John writes in 1 John, and he wasn't trying to put preachers out of business, but he says, you have no need of anyone to teach you because you have this anointing. Now, what he's talking about is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life, that he's the one who's the teacher. I'm just a mouthpiece. I'm not necessary. You know, when Jesus was entering in Jerusalem and the religious leaders were saying, tell these people to shut up. As they were saying, Hosanna, blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord. And Jesus said, if they're quiet, what's gonna happen? The rock's gonna cry. See, I can be replaced by a rock, okay? So I know the perspective there. I'm just a mouthpiece. It is the Holy Spirit who's the teacher. It is the Holy Spirit that takes the word of God and transforms our lives. Oh, where'd that go? There it is. And we need to come to God's word with expectation. I read one, well, I think it might've been Al Mohler. When God speaks, God acts, okay? When he speaks to us through his word, we can have faith that he's faithful, In fact, I refer to this many times in chapter one of Jeremiah. God says, I watch over my word to perform it. We don't have to worry about God being faithful to his word. In fact, I think it's in Hebrews here. There's at least one thing that God cannot do. He cannot what? Lie. He cannot lie. So when God speaks, he speaks truth. All truth that we could ever find anywhere in all of this universe has its center in Him. And so there should be an expectation. I think we should have an expectation that God answers our prayers. We should have an expectation that God can and will transform us. That He can change our thought patterns. That He can give us strength. That He can encourage us. That He can convict us. and lead us into all truth. We need to have an expectation. And I hope that you have an expectation when you come to Sunday school that God's gonna speak to you. I hope you have an expectation, not because of anything that I am, but because of his word, that when I try to preach the word of God, God's gonna speak to you. Now I've been in circumstances where the preacher just, I just wasn't connecting. But where I kept my focus on was the Word of God. Because that's where God speaks to us through, is the Word of God. So in some reality, the preacher can be boring. He can be dry, mundane, whatever. But the Word of God's not boring. The Word of God is not mundane. The Word of God, as we'll see in this next verse, is alive. The Word of God is powerful. And we can trust God to speak to us through His Word. And by the way, all preachers everywhere are just the type of preacher that their people pray for. That's just a little side comment. Now studying the Word of God, We need to acknowledge its source. You can talk to a lot of people and they'll say, why do you read the Bible? It's just full of myths. It's just man's book, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But we believe what the word of God says about itself. 2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. That literally means, as many of you know, it means it is God-breathed. God was moving. The Bible we have, from Genesis to the Revelation, came about in a period of 1,500 years, basically, from the time of Moses in the 16th century BC to the end, basically, of the first century AD. So a period of 1,500 years. We just celebrated America's birthday. We're 248 years old. 248 years old. 1,500 year period from Moses to John. 40 different individuals, men. Shepherds, kings, prophets, fishermen, Pharisees, brought this into existence. But again, as the Bible says, it was the Holy Spirit moving all through that time period, moving through those 40 different individuals to bring about his word that has a common theme of redemption, that has a common theme of Jesus Christ. I can still hear Aidan Rodgers say, no matter what you're reading in the Bible, if you don't find Jesus, you're not reading it correctly. And so we need to acknowledge its source. This is God's word. That's why it is alive. Verse 12, in chapter three, the preacher says, let me get back to chapter three here. Verse 12, take care, brothers, lest there be any of you, an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. The Word of God is alive because God is the living God. He's the true and living God. We anticipate His purpose. What is His purpose? Redemption, reconciliation, restoring our relationship to that true and living God through His Son, Jesus Christ. Here's our confidence in the gospel. Again, Romans 1, 16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, For it's the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So the gospel is sufficient for salvation, but it doesn't stop there. It is the gospel. What God has done in Jesus Christ through his life, death and resurrection and exaltation is sufficient for our sanctification. And that's what the preacher here in Hebrews is going to be unpacking as we go through these chapters through the end of this epistle. That what God has done for Christ is sufficient for salvation, but it's also sufficient for sanctification. And we need to assimilate his power. The way we assimilate the power of the Word of God is by obeying it. As we obey the Word of God, that's when we're experiencing transformation. I think this is true. God's revelation to us will go no further than our obedience. Hear what I'm saying? If I fail to continue to obey God's word, God is not gonna give me any more light. He's waiting for me to obey the light that he's given me. And if I want more light, if I wanna know God more completely and fully and truly, now in a sense, we can't know God fully, but we can know him truly, because he's infinite and we're finite. But if I want light, I think it's verse 105, Psalm 119. Thy word is a light unto my path, right? And so if I want more light, I've got to be obeying Christ. I think it's verse 11, Psalm 119. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not, what? Sin against God. And so we assimilate the power of the word by obedience. And it's not power that we exercise, it's power the Holy Spirit exercises in us to transform us from the inside out. Now we can all put it on, right? I think most people here right now, we've all been in church long enough, we know how to put the act on. Someone was talking about this last week. You ever get in the car, things aren't going well, someone's running late or someone did this, and you're on your way to church and preachers say, I confess, this happened to us. I'm not throwing stones at anybody but myself. And there's a little discussion going on in the car on the way to church. And as soon as we pull up onto the parking lot, And we turn the car off, we get out, man, smiles break out. God's power changes our heart and changes us from the inside. Again, we can kind of put the facade on. But what did Samuel say to Saul, King Saul? God desires obedience rather than sacrifice. And we need to be approved by the diligent study of God's word. We went with God to, I think kind of this way, when my children are doing what they should be doing, it brings a smile to my face. And I think as God's children, when we're doing what we should be doing, I think it brings a smile to His face. It brings approval and affirmation in us. How quickly? Submitting to the Word of God. We come humbly before the Word, the Lord. We don't come arrogantly. We can come confidently. That's what we'll see in the preceding, or the subsequent chapters. In fact, the writer of Hebrews says we can come boldly into the throne room of grace, but it's not with conceit, it's not with confidence in ourself. We can come boldly because Jesus has paid the way for us. In fact, this writer says it's through the veil of his flesh, through his death on the cross, that we have access to the Father. We come contritely. David understood this. He said, a broken and contrite heart you will not despise. And so we come humbly. I think there's a little bit different nuance between humble and contriteness. Contriteness is saying, I have nothing to offer except my sin. as I confess it before you. That's the promise of 1 John 1, 9. If we confess our sin, God's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us. And so we come humbly and with a contrite heart before God. And David understood it. God, he said, you won't despise that. Now, what Peter and James both say, quoting from the Proverbs, God resists the proud. People say, why come to God when I want to? God's got his hand against you and that proud heart. If you want to ever come to God, you must come humbly and with contrition in your heart, because he won't despise that heart, but he despises a heart of pride. And we need to come joyfully and glory in the inexhaustibility of the world. That's why I've been preaching since I was 15 years old. Now, I'm not saying it was very good when I was 15, but it was my best. I believed the Bible was the word of God. I preached it like the word of God. I had confidence in it as the word of God. I cut my teeth preaching in a nursing home there in north St. Louis County on St. Cyr Road right off of Bell Fountain. Our church had an afternoon service at 2 o'clock. And a really good guy, Bill Owens, was kind of leading that ministry up. And a couple of the girls played the piano, and me and a couple other preacher boys, we'd go over there. And if we weren't preaching, we were leading the singing, and the girls were playing, and we'd sing specials. And then we'd preach for about 15 minutes. That's where I cut my teeth in preaching, was in a nursing home. Loving these people, going by and shaking their hands and talking to them. and just loving them and just trying to share the word of God with them. And there's no way if I lived another 500 years that I could exhaust the treasures of God's word. I tell you when I pray, I don't think I've ever preached to Hebrews. I taught on Wednesday night a couple of years ago during COVID. I taught through it on Wednesday night. But when I started this message and started this series several weeks ago, I started at step one. I didn't look back at any of the notes. I didn't look back at anything else I've done previously. When I come and preach the book of the Bible, I start over right there. Now, I've got notes written in my Bible, and those remind me of some things. I recall some things. But when I come to God's word, I'm just like a fresh a fresh pile of sinking gold and silver and precious stones. And I just get my shovel out and start digging and try to preach the word of God because we cannot, you cannot exhaust it. No matter how many times you read the same passage over and over again, God's word will bring life to you and joy to you. And we need to consistently feast at the table of God's word. Only Christ, I said this, I think I said it yesterday, we had a service for the burial of Nolan's ashes out there in the country cemetery. No one, no man, no woman can meet the deep need of our heart that we've been made to be in relationship with the true and living God. The only one that can fill that void and fill that gap and bring satisfaction and peace is Jesus Christ. What I said yesterday, Chris and I are gonna celebrate our 50th anniversary, as you know, on the end of the month, 27th. We were married July 27th, 1974. Our first date was July the 4th, 1972. We walked over. I was staying with a family in Jennings while I was still in college. And we walked from there up to Northland Shopping Center. Some of you folks know where Northland is. And we watched fireworks. So that's been our anniversary of our first day activity is watching fireworks. Unfortunately, I don't think I got outside last night or Thursday night and watched any fireworks, so I fell down on the job there. But even these 52 years, these 50 years, I cannot meet the deepest need of Chris's heart, and she cannot meet the deepest need of my heart that can only be met in Jesus Christ. He's the only one that fulfills that need in our heart. Now then we branch out into the relationships. And when we found those relationships on Jesus Christ, they're proper relationships. They are fulfilling relationships. And they are true relationships. Now, this is my second wedding ring because a couple of weeks after we got married, I helped a buddy of mine on a youth float trip down on the Hoosaw River. And I stuck my hand in the river and my hand, and the ring just got ripped off my hand. And some bass has been, ate that ring, I think. So I had to go back and get another wedding ring. But when we got our initial wedding ring and this wedding ring, we had a cross engraved in our wedding ring. Now, these 50 years, this is getting worn down. I have to really look for it at times. But the reason we did was not to show other people. The reason we did it was to remind ourselves. My ring gets turned around like all rings do. And so I'll flip it around so that my cross is on top. to remind myself that our marriage is based upon the Lord Jesus and his word. We've not had a perfect marriage. We've really not discussed divorce in seriousness. Homicide once in a while, but not divorce. But it's only by the grace of God as we come back to Jesus. And it takes both of us to come back to Jesus. to bring fulfillment in our marriage. Not our children. We have five kids. Not our 12 grandchildren that we love immensely. I think we love them more than our children, but it's Jesus Christ. And the way we find him is right here. And so we need to strive in the word of God. We need to study, be real students of the Bible. and we need to submit to the Word of God. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for giving us your Word. Thank you for those, Father, who brought that, your Word, into our language, and those that are doing that even now, translating your Word into language and dialects of hundreds of people around this world. so they can read the Bible, they can hear your word, and your Holy Spirit can bring salvation to their hearts and minds. So Father, help us to be striving, studying, and submitting in Jesus' name. Amen.