(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Thank you very much. You 257 look and live Alright folks, it's about that time. We're gonna go ahead and get started this evening Welcome to steadfast Baptist Church if you will grab a seat and find a hymnal our first hymn for this evening will be 257 look and live hymn number 257 257 look and live I message from the Lord The message unto you It is recorded in his word It is only that you look and Look My brother Look to Jesus This recorded in his word Is only that you look and I've a message full of love Hallelujah a message on my friend for you It's a message from above Jesus said and I know it's true Look at me my brother Look to Jesus It's recorded in his word It is only that you look and I It's offered unto you eternal life my soul shall have If you only look to him Look to Jesus who alone can say Look at me my brother Look to Jesus It's recorded in his word It is only that you love I will tell you how I came To Jesus when he made me Oh Was believing on his name Hallelujah, I trusted and he saved my soul Look My brother Look to Jesus now and It's recorded in his word Hallelujah Amen will open this evening with a word of prayer Heavenly Father, we just thank you for This night to gather together to sing praises unto you and to hear preaching from your word God I just pray that you would be with us for the service that everything would be done decently And in order and I know there are many families that are out That have been ill these last a couple days or this last week And I just pray that you would be with them and strengthen them and help heal them so that we can we can greet them once more when they show back up and just know that you know, We miss them and we pray that you would just bless them and whatever they're dealing with at this time Lord I just pray that you would be with pastor this evening for The preaching that you'd be with us also for the song service and incline your ear to us as we continue to sing praises to Your name we pray in Jesus name. Amen All right for the next hymn this evening turn if you would to 404 win the battles over 404 win the battles over another fan favorite tonight 404 Let's see The cross And To speak his name And when the battles over we shall wear a crown yes, we shall We shall wear a crown man in the battles over we shall wear a crown in the new Wear a crown Wear a crown Wear a bright and shining crown And when the battles over we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease While others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas And when the battles over we shall wear a crown Yes, we shall wear a crown Yes, we shall wear a crown And when the battle's over we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem Wear a crown Wear a crown Wear a bright and shining crown And when the battle's over we shall wear a crown In the new Jerusalem Sure I must fight if I would break increase my courage Lord I'll bear the toil endure the pain supported by thy word And when the battles over we shall wear a crown Yes, we shall wear a crown Yes, we shall wear a crown And when the battle's over we shall wear a crown Yes, we shall wear a crown Yes, we shall wear a crown And when the battle's over we shall wear a crown In the new Jerusalem Wear a crown Wear a crown Wear a bright and shining crown And when the battle's over we shall wear a crown and shiny crown. And when the battle's over, we shall wear a crown in the new Jerusalem. Amen. Good singing this evening. Thank y'all so much for being at Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, Brother Cameron or Brother Ferk can pass you one. On the front we have our Bible memory passage, 1st John 2, and inside we have our service, Soul Winning Times, and the church stats. Also, the 5th Sunday Fellowship, November 6th, is a barbecue. So if you'd like to bring a dessert or a side to share, that would be encouraged. Also, continue to pray for the reeds who are expecting. Pray for upcoming events. We have the Mid-City Soul Winning Marathon, also November 5th, and it's going to be meeting at Ray Trent Park. Also, the details are kind of layered as far as where you're meeting, what time, and Soul Winning and lunch and everything like that. So if you'd like to participate, Wednesday, November 23rd, we're not gonna have our normal Thursday service. Instead, we're gonna have it on Wednesday. And so if you'd like to participate, it'll be a pie fellowship. Make sure to just kind of tell everybody or remind them, Wednesday, November 23rd, we're gonna shift that service. Friday, December 9th, is the Christmas caroling. Upcoming guest preaching. I'll be preaching Thursday again, December 1st. So, and that's probably gonna be the only other time I'm coming for the end of this year. So just for this year, did want to try and make up for some pastimes. I've been coming a little bit more often, but at the beginning of the next year, probably kind of go back maybe out a six-week rotation or something like that and mix it in with some Sunday mornings, some Thursday evenings, and everything like that. But it's definitely been nice coming up here on some Thursdays and getting to see you guys and preach for you. I heard that there was a lot of hot air here recently with your chili cook-off, but everybody did survive and so that's good. And congratulations to the Reeds for winning. So that's exciting, all right. But I did hear there was beans in the chili, so obviously the judges were corrupted and hopefully one day they'll learn. But other than that, it's exciting to be up here and see you guys. We do have our prayer list, it's a separate thing, and so we just kind of go over that and just pray for those that are mentioned. We have the Gillham family, if you just pray for them. Pray for Elizabeth Dechseimer, who is Brother Reed's mother. Ms. Hall, we're praying for her medical testing. Brother Cartwright, praying for him and his family. Praying for Kelly Paul, who is Ms. Emily's aunt. She has a surgery to move mass on lungs. When is that surgery? Just we're not sure, just sometime soon maybe. Okay, so we'll be praying for her surgery. Also pray for the Quodges, who are planning on moving soon. Pray for the Dillmans. Ms. Dillman is recovering for surgery. Pray for Brother Pendleton, he's a friend from another church, Faith Ward Baptist Church, and he's been struggling with brain cancer and so we've been praying for him and his family, his several little children, and so we're praying for him. Pray for Brother Hall for his leg. Praying for Jim Bushfield, which is James Perry's boss. He's been really wanting to get this guy saved and so we definitely want to keep praying for him. Pray for our foreign evangelists, Matthew Stuckey and Brother Kevin Sepulveda. Our church has helped out Brother Stuckey a few times and he's out of Verity Baptist Church. He's in the Philippines. I think he has multiple churches that are going there, but I know Brother Matthew Stuckey. I've met him and he's a friend and a really good guy. Someone that really loves the Lord. A lot of zeal and so it's definitely somebody that we should be praying for. They definitely have some hardships over there that we don't have to experience and I know COVID was really hard on people in the Philippines. They made a lot of restrictions, made it where people can't leave their houses and stuff like that and so they've definitely had it harder but continue to pray for them and they get a lot of people saved. The Philippines is a very receptive area and so they're getting a lot of people saved and it's great to just continue to pray for them and appreciate also prayers for your pastor and in our family. We're doing really good. Wives doing great, kids are doing really well and so definitely thanks for praying for us as well. We'll let's say a quick word of prayer as a church family for those that we mentioned. Thank Heavenly Father for this evening. Thank you so much for giving us this time to meet it together, to sing praises unto you, to hear the Word of God being preached. I pray that you would just bless our church services, bless our family here. Also please help our church family that's not be able to make it here tonight. Please help our church family that's struggling with health concerns. I pray that you could just help them, just deliver them, give them peace during their affliction, give them a speedy recovery. Please help our friends and family that need to be saved, that you would just soften their hearts, that the Word of God would ring in their ears and that they would have a desire to be converted and that some soul winner would be brought in their life to preach from the gospel and that they could believe. I pray that you'd also just help our friends from abroad that are trying to reach the laws of the gospel, that you'd give them open doors, they'd be with them and strengthen them as they make sacrifice to serve you in a foreign country, that you would be with them and strengthen them and help them to understand the importance of their work and to see many people saved. I thank you for all that you give us and in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Let's go to our third song. 224 showers of blessing. Song 224 showers of blessing. All right, 224 showers of blessing. Get there myself. 224, 2-2-4, there shall be showers of blessing. Let's sing. There shall be showers of blessing. This is the promise of love. There shall be seasons refreshing, sit from the Savior above. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we meet. Mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we bleed. There shall be showers of blessing, precious reviving again over the hills and the valleys, sound of abundance of rain. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we meet. Mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we bleed. There shall be showers of blessing, send them upon us oh Lord. Grant to us now a refreshing, come them now on earth I've heard. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we meet. Mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we bleed. There shall be showers of blessing, oh that today they might fall. Now as to God we're confessing, now as on Jesus we call. Showers of blessing, showers of blessing we meet. Mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we bleed. Amen. As the offering plates are being passed around turn if you would to Revelation chapter number three. Revelation chapter number three. We begin reading in verse number one. The Bible reads and unto the angel of the church in Sardis write these things say if he that hath the seven spirits of God and the seven stars I know thy works that thou has to name that thou livest in our dead be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to die for I have not found thy works perfect before God remember therefore how thou hast received and heard and hold fast and repent if therefore thou shalt not watch I will come on thee as a thief and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments and they shall walk with me in white for they are worthy he that overcometh the same shall be clothed in white raiment and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life but I will confess his name before my father and before his angels he that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches and to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write these things saith he that is holy he that is true he that hath the key of David he that openeth and no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth I know thy works behold I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it for thou hast a little strength and has kept my word and has not denied my name behold I will make them of the synagogue of Satan which say they are Jews and are not but do lie behold I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and to know that I have loved thee because thou has kept the word of my patience I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth behold I come quickly hold that fast which thou hast that no man take thy crown him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God and he shall go no more out and I will write unto upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God which is new Jerusalem which cometh down out of heaven from my God and I will write upon him my new name he that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches and unto the church and unto the angel of the church of Laodicea of the Laodiceans write these things saith the amen the faithful and true witness the beginning of the creation of God I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot I would thou work cold or hot so then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot I will spew thee out of my mouth because thou sayest I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and know is not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve that thou mayest see as many as I love I rebuke and chasten be zealous therefore and repent behold I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me to him that overcometh while I grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame and am set down with my father in his throne he that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches let's pray definitely father lord I pray at this time that you would just fill pastor Shelley with your holy spirit or you would help him to preach with boldness lord I pray that we uh the the congregation here's would keep distractions to a minimum that we'd be attentive to the word of God and we believe here with the mentality to to change things that need to be changed and we love you and thank you for all that you do do you stand pray amen amen so we're here in this song in revelation chapter number three we have the second grouping of churches here listed and there's seven churches which are in Asia that the Lord Jesus Christ wants John to write to and kind of give them different instructions and in the middle section there's a church the the church of Philadelphia that he's writing to and something kind of really stuck out in this chapter to me as I was reading with my children I we read a chapter of the bible most evenings every evening basically that I'm there before we go to bed and we were in revelation and we were reading revelation three a couple nights ago and there was a phrase here that kind of just stuck out to me but I want to kind of read a few verses here and we'll kind of talk about it says in verse seven again and the angel of the church in Philadelphia right these things say of he that is holy he that is true he that at the key of David he that openeth no man shutteth and shutteth and no man openeth I know thy works the old I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it for thou has a little strength and has kept my word and that's not denied my name now you know as you read the bible over and over and you you you see different things throughout your life I feel like God sometimes allows you to see things differently based on your life circumstances and as you experience Christianity and you're a doer of the work certain things are going to jump off the page at you a little bit more than others and the phrase that jumped off at the page of me as I was reading this to my children is where it says thou hast a little strength and and why that really jumped out to me is just there's just days you know and especially of late where sometimes I just feel like I just only have a little strength you know and really where does that come from it's kind of like just the idea of just being it's kind of tired or weary or faint or just you feel like you've been putting a lot of effort or energy towards something but it's just not going the way that you expect it or or things are taking longer than you wanted them to take and and so through that experience your strength can somewhat lessen or weaken so to the point where you have less strength than you had before you know you started out maybe with more energy more strength but over time going through the battle going through the race going through the fight you get to a point where you have a little strength so I don't think that he's he's trying to say anything negative here he's not saying like oh you guys are bad because you have a little strength or you're weak or something like that it's kind of more in the context of you know you've been in the fight you've been you've been battling you've been going through hardships and as a result of that you only have a little bit of strength right now but what he wants them to do with that little strength as we keep reading it says in verse 9 behold I will make them of the synagogue of satan which say they are jews and are not but do lie the old I will make them to come and worship before thy feet and know that I have loved thee because thou has kept the word of my patience I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth the old I come quickly hold that fast which thou hast that no man take thy crown and what I what I see here is he's saying hey I know you only have a little bit of strength here but just what you do have what strength you do have just hold that fast you know what you do have just just cling just hang on so that nobody takes your crown no one can get that away from you now of course we understand that the crowns are a symbol of reward in heaven it's it's not going to heaven you know going to heaven was a free gift going to heaven was not something you had to hold fast to going to heaven was not something that depended upon your works effort or being faithful into the end that according to the scripture is different of course the bible instructs us to strive to enter you know strive to please the lord and and of course to work hard and he's not forgetful to forget our work and labor and love and and god's not unfaithful to forget our work and labor and love as hebrews chapter six says so of course there's a lot of instruction of enduring into the end and working hard and working out your own salvation these type of concepts but that's for a reward that's not for going to heaven but of course when we're talking to a church we're talking to a group of people that are already on the way to heaven we're talking to everybody that's already saved so he's saying hey there's something else on the table here not just heaven we're talking about crowns here and in order to get that crown you need to hold that fast and not let someone take that crown from you now of course when they take that crown from me it's not like they get it it's simply in the context of the fact that you're allowing the enemy to stop you from attaining unto the goal that the lord has before you the the reward that god wants you to have and of course we in the bible are commanded to hold fast in a lot of regards but one of those is simply really to get this crown that god wants us to get look at verse 12 him that overcometh will i make a pillar in the temple of my god and he shall go no more out and i will write upon him the name of my god in the name of the city of my god which is new jerusalem it's coming down out of heaven from my god and i will write upon him my new name he that hath an ear let him hear what the spirit saith unto the churches so he's saying you guys if you can stand strong now i'm going to make you a pillar in the temple in the new heaven and the new earth and and a pillar is kind of a representative something that supports holds things up is a critical element of the foundation and so he's saying you do this now you're going to be greatly rewarded in heaven you're going to be put in a position of high importance and of high value because if you can stay strong now of course he's going to want you to be in that position think about if you're going to build something you don't want your columns to be weak you don't want your columns to buckle under pressure you know what's the point of a column is to be able to hold things up whenever there's a lot of weight put on them and so kind of this picture is if you can hold on now even with whatever little strength you have i'll make you a pillar in the kingdom of heaven and you're going to get that crown and so there's a a correlation here to you being faithful now and what you're going to end up receiving in heaven now let's look in this chapter still because there's other places i want to look but the title of my sermon this evening is just hold fast look at verse three hold fast remember therefore how thou hast received and heard and hold fast and repent if therefore thou shalt not watch i will come on thee as a thief and thou shalt not know what hour i will come upon thee now this is the church in Sardis and he's trying to commend them on some things but you know at the same time he's saying ultimately they have a name that they live but they're dead so they used to do some great things in the past but now they're kind of a dead church but he's trying to tell the people that are still there hey you know what you still need to just hold fast but what are they holding fast to verse three remember therefore although has received and heard so what is it that they're really holding fast to it's they're holding fast the things that they've received and heard and and what is that that you've received and heard well it's it's doctrine you know it's going to be the word of god it's going to be the beliefs that you have and of course doctrine is a really important thing for a church to hold on to go backwards to chapter two and look at verse 25 chapter number two and look at this but that which you have already hold fast till i come now what's the context look at verse 24 but unto you i say and unto the rest and thyatira as many as have not this doctrine and which have not known the depths of satan as they speak i will put upon you none other burden but that which you have already hold fast till i come so he's rebuking this other church in thyatira and he's saying hey you guys have this bad doctrine in your church but the people that don't have the bad doctrine the ones that have the good doctrine you guys need to hold fast to what you have you need to stick with what you've got what you've been instructed what you've been taught and if if there's seven churches not shortly after jesus christ was on this earth already having all kinds of problems and doctrinal issues and everything why would i think 2 000 years later we wouldn't have doctrinal issues you know they're having document issues this close to when christ was on the earth and they're not even removed from the very apostles that gave them the doctrine and they're already screwed up then how much more likely is it that churches today would have doctrinal issues the churches the day would have fights over their beliefs and the doctrine and people would bring in false doctrine and and the churches are trying to be told hey you need to hold on to that doctrine you've already received you need to hold on to what you've been given go to second timothy chapter number four second timothy chapter four so i have three points this evening of things that the bible is telling us to hold fast to but first was just doctrine we need to as a church hold fast the doctrine and of course you know at times this could be something you have a little strength on in the sense that you're just so frustrated having to tell people the same thing just over and over and over again and you're just like why do we have to keep bringing this up you know why do you always have to bring up the trinity here you know why do you have to preach another sermon on salvation by faith or why do you have to preach another sermon on the king james bible or why do you have to preach another sermon on men and women roles or why do you have to you know it's like why do you have to just constantly do this and it's like because there's a real fight out there and even if i only have a little bit of strength it's like i feel like i've already preached this a thousand times i don't want to preach that again it's like just do it anyways just hold fast now what does it mean to hold fast anyways means to remain securely adhered to remain securely adhered or to remain determined stalwart and unyielding i like that unyielding it's like hey when are you going to change doctrines pastor shelley never oh man are you going to preach on the sodomites again yes when are you going to change on that i'm unyielding it's like you know what about the jews unyielding you know it's funny to me it's like elon musk recently took over twitter and he had gone on all these interviews he's talking about how it's going to be this free speech you know platform and he loves absolute free speech and uh he like criticized uh i think it was hillary clinton hillary clinton had posted something about this like paul pelosi shenanigans or whatever and he like fact-checked it and he's like well here's an article saying something different well then like a few hours later he just deletes it and then because twitter has been taken over there's all these people expressing unpopular opinions about the jews okay and and so all these jewish organizations are freaking out and they got on there and they said hey if elon doesn't start censoring this he's going to face dire consequences and then you know what he did he like had a conference call with all the jews and said oh we're going to make sure everything's fine and of course you know the the main person that's in charge of his content moderation some guy like y'all roth or something i don't know what you call it he's a homosexual jew so i'm like i'm sure that twitter is going to change real good you know it's going to become a real reach for each platform new ib content shared everywhere i mean this stuff is this going to be every it's like it's a joke folks and you know he's not unyielding you know the only platform that seems to be unyielding at this point is gab which i don't know if torba the owner of that saved or not but at least he just said like i would rather shut down gab than ever take orders from the adl and i was just like amen he said and he called them the synagogue of satan too he used the right name for them you know not their little acronyms it's interesting how the devil always likes acronyms you know adl aids you know cia fbi whatever it's just like all of their little acronyms lgbt whatever it's just like why do you always like acronyms you want to hide from who you really are the synagogue of satan the sos all right that's what the real acronym is but to be hold fast the whole fast means that you're not going to change you know here's a good word for it steadfast right but again being steadfast you know doesn't always give you the same imagery as holding fast you know and fast can mean like tight or close that's kind of what the meaning of fast means to hold fast means you're you're on something close tight secure you're not going to get away from it so it's like we want to be hold we want to grip tight on all the right doctrines we want to have a tight grip on this renedi we want to have a tight grip on salvation by faith we want to have a tight grip on this king james bible you know we don't have a tight grip on all the doctors no matter how little strength we have all of it we want to just put on the right doctrine second timothy chapter four look at verse three for the time will come when they will not what endure sound doctrine why is it important for us to hold fast in the doctrine because many people want to let go of doctrine why do they want to let go of doctrine because it's a fight doctrine there will always be a fight on doctrine and of course the people that have let go the biggest are the non-denominational churches i mean the non-denominational has basically said we don't want to hang on the doctrine whatever just let it go and we'll just all come worship together you got an niv hiv whatever you know we'll just all come together and we'll sing kumbaya and just make sure you tithe you know that's that's pretty much the only doctrine that they're really strong on you know as long as you got you're feeding them the money bucket in fact we're going to pass around a couple times because we got the tithe and then we've got the offering and then we got the building offering and then we got the extra special bonus offering if you want to do that you know if you really feel really special you know and we got a tithing booth outside and the coffee shop buy a coffee and buy a t-shirt and come to our conference it's 25 bucks to get through the door you're just like what is what is this place you know it's not church what's the one thing they're emphasizing money and of course you see you reap what you sow if our church only focuses on money and and buying stuff and whatever you know we'd have a giant huge beautiful building i mean hey they're reaping what they sow what is it they sow money money money money and then what do they have they have the beautiful building giant campus i mean everything you could ever want from a financial perspective they got but that's that's the only thing they're going to reap they're going to only reap a vain building filled with vain people that care about nothing other than money and you know that's not the christianity that we want we want to go to a church that's holding fast the doctrine not your pocketbook not to the tithe not to making sure hey this this person is rich but causing problems in our church we got to keep him around it's like no no no i don't care how much money you're bringing into the church get out if you're not going to hold to the same doctrine that we're going to hold to go if you went to titus just uh to the right or you might even be on the same page titus chapter one look at verse number nine holding fast the faithful word as he had been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers so according by one of the instructions into a pastor is someone who's willing to hold fast the faithful word as he's been taught and that reminds me of that church when it talks about what you've received and heard because you know when it comes to doctrine we don't have to go and invent the wheel you know the wheel's already been invented we simply embrace the wheel we simply embrace the doctrine you know our church is not a church that just we're going to discover all these new doctrines and these new philosophies every i don't know our church is based on the stuff we've already been given and we just received it and we just want to hold on to what we've received we're not here to do something different we're not here to do something new i know sometimes our church gets labeled a new ifv church and i struggle with that term because honestly a lot of it's not i'm not really trying to do anything new i'm trying to hold fast to what was already been done but i don't mind the name because you know a name it is what it is right we're we're trying to reinvent ourselves that's fine and we're trying to do some things that are new but they're not really new in a timeline since they're only new because no one else has been doing it for a while you know it's new to us it's like a used car it's new to you but it's still a used car right and it's like this might be a new doctrine to you but it's a used doctrine it's something that's historically been passed down and given from generations generation from baptist to baptist and now we have it and so so faith cometh you know faith is delivered from faith faith you know and we put our faith in the doctrines that have been handed down i don't believe there's any doctrine that i believe that did not exist before i was born there's no there's no teaching that i have that i could say you know what no one's top this no one's ever taught this before pastor shelly i don't believe that i'm unaware of that and i wouldn't even believe it if you told me every single thing even things that i thought you know that's kind of unique new and then i would look it up and like oh other people believe that you know i i was studying out the timing of the passover a long time ago and then i went and looked online tons of people had the exact same information i did i'm just like okay well you know i'm not i'm not reading a different bible than they're reading you know it's we all have the same holy spirit we all have the same king james bible and and the truth is not limited to one person's private interpretation we should all be able to come to the same conclusions based in scripture what's important is not you know trying to figure out what to believe it's hang on to what we've already been given you know it's not really hard to figure out what's right what's hard is is some people deciding to cling to that which is right you know it's like it's not hard to figure out the king james bible is the only legit bible you should be using in english but a lot of people want to let go of that fight a lot of people don't want to adhere to that oh it's it's archaic you know it's not archaic oh the speaketh and mean vowels and these and whatever it's just like okay we'll learn a few new words right i mean at some point you have to learn a few words anyways even if you use an miv what is sirta sands you know i've never walked up and down the street and people are telling me what sirta sands are or sheol or in these other words that the the modern versions use they always they always bring up oh the king james has hard words what about your hard words you know why why is your hard word list better than my hard word list and in fact pretty much every modern dictionary you can find every king james bible word in i mean they're going to be in effect you know i was doing some vocabulary research i was looking up like words that they have in the sat or these something a lot of them are king james bible words when i was doing research for our spelling bee and you look at the hard words that they're using for some of those it's just a lot of bible words that they're using and i'm just thinking like well it's because this is the standard this is like an english vocabulary standard grammar standard literature standard i mean this is the standard folks why wouldn't you just adhere to it and a lot of people use vocabulary that's only found from a king james bible so it won't even just help you in the spiritual sense it'll help you in an everyday sense because people are constantly using king james type language concepts all of the idioms of our language are typically coming from a king james bible and so you know it's really a piece of literature that should be studied and understood apart from even believing the bible because it's just such a superior piece of literature and work whereas the niv the esv and the north american standard bible these things are intellectually inferior they're they don't have the same majesty and of course they don't even have all the same words if you take a king james bible and you take an niv niv has approximately 55 000 words less than the king james bible and i think it's funny that people tell me they're the exact same i'm just like that's a pretty big difference 55 000 words what if i said hey we took 55 000 words out of the constitution and have a new constitution kind of sounds like the one they're using in dc right now right like they just took it all out right this is first amendment who needs that second i don't know fourth fifth none of these apply anymore but the same is with the bible and then you find that churches they aren't holding fast the doctrine they don't even have a bible that's holding fast the doctrine because they're not clinging to it first john five seven is gone so now they're not hanging on to the trinity as much anymore they're not hanging on to salvation by faith because now their bible says repent of sin or something like that the nlt you know and so it's important that we as a church that wants to be faithful into god and wants to be pleasing to him is going to hold fast all the doctrines we've already received and we're not going to change we're unyielding we're determined we're stalwart we're not going to let go of it go if you would to proverbs chapter number four go to proverbs chapter number four you know the bible also says in second timothy hold fast the form of sound words which thou has heard of me and faith and love which is in christ is you know i could show you a lot of verses on this but the bible is just saying over and over hold fast hold fast the faithful word hold fast to the sound words you know hold fast about what you've heard and received and as a christian you need to take the instructions you hear in church and the things you read in the bible as something that you need to hang on to and you need to cleave to and constantly remind yourself i think that's why honestly the bible repeats itself so much the bible is very repetitive you're going to find the same concepts you're going to find the same doctrines you're going to find the same type of story just over and over and over and over again and it's because we we need that and of course everything you've learned everything you know how to do it's through repetition knowing how to eat you know you don't learn how to eat one meal it takes lots and lots of meals to learn how to eat you know and of course having little children you learn this you know they have to learn how to use that spoon they don't know how to use that spoon at first it's messy and they don't know how to eat very well they get it all over their face and you have to teach them how to hold a spoon how to feed themselves and you learn how to tie your shoes by tying your shoes over and over again learn how to dress yourself by putting your clothes on tons and tons of times every single day you learn how to play a song on the piano by playing it over and over and over ask my wife okay it's like if you know any song that i've learned they've heard it a thousand times and the first 500 were rough you know it's it's like it slowly got better over and over and over time because you learn to do something through repetition you know people that play sports why are they good at sports repetition i mean the people are the best free throw shooters it's because they've shot 10 000 free throws in their life the people that are really good at baseball it's because they've hit baseballs just thousands of times they've thrown baseballs thousands of people that are good at golf they hit so many golf balls just over and over and over and over and they just get that muscle memory and they just get that repetition and you know in the christian life it should be no different that we should have lots of reps of the exact same thing just hey we we've heard salvation sermons just tons and tons of time we've heard salvation sermons you know a million times going out soul winning you know frankly speaking you you want to get good at the the gospel go out soul winning i mean you're over and over and over and over and over right and the best soul winners of people that have done it just tons and tons and tons of times just all just over and over you get to the point where you can memorize that thing i mean you don't even have to have a bible you could just give your whole gospel presentation without looking you know upside down i mean you could just you could even do it while eating uh chili with beans in it i mean you could you know no matter what's going on you got it pat man i could just tell you everything you know i could tell you all these different doctrines why because i've heard it at churches over and over and i'm holding fast to it and and that will be good for you but the bible tells us that we need this type of philosophy in every area of life look at proverbs chapter 4 verse 13 take fast hold of instruction let her not go keep her for she is thy life now i think this is an important verse for americans simply because most of us are raised in a society and a culture that stops learning beyond high school or college where it's kind of like instruction is kind of like this process that you go through and you're learning every single day as a child you're learning how to read you're learning mathematics you're learning history you're learning sciences you're learning um maybe a musical instrument you're learning a lot of different things and it's like as soon as you graduate high school and you graduate college it's like okay now i'm done learning just whatever but that's kind of a foolish attitude because you should still learn you should get a job learn how to do that job and learn the ins and outs of the industry and learn you should really try to be a lifelong learner where you're always learning you're always challenging yourself you're gaining more and more information and as the bible says hold fast take fast hold of instruction let her not go keep her for she is thy life what's going to keep you healthy in every area of your life is is constantly trying to learn mentally physically it'll keep you in a good position in your life church is a great place to constantly learn and frankly speaking people that don't go to church they just become stupid because they're not challenged to learn anything they're never exhorted to grow or to get any new information i mean you could almost look at church as similar to a classroom lesson right you go to school and you have a teacher to present a lesson and you learn information take notes i mean that's similar to what a church service is like and and think about how many people are just missing out they don't go to a fundamental baptist church i mean a fundamental church you're getting three lessons every single week that adds up quick i mean that's 150 plus a year and you know that's a ton of information hour-long sermons i mean in a short period of time you know in just a few years i mean you're gonna have 10 000 hours plugged into this christianity and they talk about being an expert takes 10 000 hours but it's like man you spend five ten years in a fundamental baptist church you're going to be an expert in the bible in doctrine and knowing a lot of these things and it's going to make you wise it's going to give you a lot of benefit in your life and whether you like it or not i guarantee you've benefited a lot from church there's a lot of things you know that you just learned to church learn about life you learn about family you learned about children you learned about the bible you learn about god and it helps you in every area of your life helps you to raise your children better it helps you on the job it helps you in relationships it helps you in your marriage and and sometimes it's hard because we don't really piecemeal all of the information you know bouncing around our head to a particular source so you you think you're you have a certain level of wisdom but you don't necessarily know where all that wisdom is coming from you wouldn't necessarily attribute it but it's like a lot of that's coming from the church and so sometimes people like well i don't need church but it's like yeah but you're so much smarter because you were going to church and you have so much better information because you were you're not realizing what you're forsaking here you're not realizing what you uh what gave you all that information that you even have and we need to hold fast to it even if oh i've already learned everything okay well how about holding fast to it you know even the best athletes still needed to practice just to maintain that level of excellence you can't just say like well i shot one free throw and i made it so i never needed to shoot free throws again no because you'll end up deteriorating you get worse you know in order to stay at a high level you have to constantly get lots of reps and and what will help prove this to you memorize any chapter of the bible memorize any chapter of the bible and then quote it the next day but then don't quote it for a long time and then try to you'll you'll realize this wow the day after i had memorized that i could quote it like this it was real sharp but two weeks later when i haven't been working on it i forgot it and i lost it you know it could be old phone numbers you know maybe women are better this i don't know but like i forget all kinds of stuff i've forgotten even just old addresses i was like trying to remember the other day like my address from when i lived in phoenix and i'm just like i couldn't even remember it i thought but when i lived there yeah i could i could tell you my address of course right but it's been a few years and now i'm like i i struggled to even remember that address why because when you're not using it you lose it and the same is with christianity the same as with doctrine if a church isn't constantly preaching all these doctrines and holding fast to what we've already been received you know we'll start losing it it'll start slipping and it won't be the same the bible's telling us we need to hold fast of instruction we need to always constantly be getting instruction constantly hearing stuff learning stuff reading stuff going and being challenged and trying to learn more and more and more the bible wants us to constantly grow in knowledge and wisdom and you know it's really the principal thing therefore get wisdom you know and with all that getting get understanding you know we're supposed to just strive for more and more knowledge and more and more understanding more and more wisdom and never be satisfied with the level of knowledge we have never be satisfied with where we're at with the instruction that we have but constantly trying to get more and more go ahead to first timothy go back to the new testament go to first timothy my first point this evening is that we need to hold fast to doctrine and and my second point is that we need to hold fast to our profession and it's going to come here from first timothy chapter number six look at verse number 12 the bible says fight the good fight of faith lay hold on eternal life wherein to thou art also called and has professed a good profession before many witnesses now the bible says that timothy has professed a good profession before many witnesses and i want to kind of explain this word and then we're going to go to a verse that talks about holding fast to this but if you think about a profession and especially in this context it's more like a public thing isn't it that he's kind of stating he says thou has professed a good profession before many witnesses so again when we think about a profession of faith it's kind of usually in the context of a public event or a public statement you know to me a good uh example of this is just baptism baptism is something that's kind of a public profession of your faith you're letting everyone else know hey i believe in jesus christ and hey i want to serve christ with my life and of course baptism often done among witnesses you know it's done in a public sphere in a public situation you know a profession could also be in the context of hey i'm i'm saying i believe in jesus christ right and of course you know the bible says whosoever shall call upon the name of the lord shall be saved i believe we need to profess to be saved but that could even be an internal thing theoretically you could pray in your heart and be saved you don't have to necessarily audibly say the words but that profession is kind of in this context specifically more of that you got saved but then you're telling everybody else you're saved hey i'm a christian hey i'm following jesus hey i'm a badness that that public profession is something that he wants you to hold fast to because while of course you being saved is not something you have to hold fast to you're in jesus hand he holds on to you and then the father holds on to you and you know no man can pluck you out of their hand but but you being public about your faith and you saying you're a christian is not something that is automatic that's something you want to hold fast to that you're always professing you're a christian you're always professing that you're a badger professing that you're going to serve god with your life think about peter when he's being called out by this little maiden and saying like hey you were with him did he profess a good profession in that day in that evening no no no he says i know not the man you know i don't know i don't know what you're talking about he's like your speed variety you know it's like hey you sound just like this guy you got a hick accent you know it's whatever it is right i'm sure everybody had all the good people had texas actions but no i'm just kidding go to hebrews chapter 3 whatever whatever their accent was it was obvious this guy's been with jesus because he's like hey you're a galilean you know you're with this guy you know you you've obviously been around him or something like that you all have the same dialect and he didn't profess a good profession that night so one of the instructions for us though is that we need to hold fast our profession and look what it says in hebrews chapter 3 verse 1 wherefore holy brethren partakers of the heavenly calling consider the apostle and high priest of our profession christ jesus who was faithful to him that appointed him also as also moses was faithful in all his house so he's saying hey who is the the person of our profession it's the high priest jesus christ okay go to chapter number four now and look at verse 14 seeing then that we have a great high priest that has passed into the heavens jesus the son of god let us hold fast our what profession so he said hey who was the profession about it was about jesus we learned that timothy was also had professed a good profession in front of many witnesses but then the instruction hebrews chapter 4 is that we need to hold fast that meaning that we're not going to go back to the world we're going to stay christian we're going to stay badness we're going to stay a servant of the living god we're not just going to do it one day serve god for five minutes and then go back on it no we're in it for the long haul i'm going to keep professing christ i'm going to keep showing that i want to be a servant of the lord jesus christ and that i'm his and that i'm here to serve him so it's not that i have to do that to be saved okay i could i could just go back to the world and just pretend like nothing happened and i would still be saved inside but you know that would be pleasing to the father and that wouldn't be me holding fast for that profession you know we need to hold fast to our profession you know there's some people that get so backslidden they're just like i'm not even babes anymore and of course that person would still be saved if they believe on jesus christ but they're just really in a bad spot because why would the bible even give us this instruction if it's automatic you know not everybody's going to stay zealous not everybody's going to stay with the right profession if peter can deny christ then any of us could have a bad day any of us could get to a point where we're just so jaded or against church or something like that that we're not really professing good profession anymore but we want to be people that are always professing it i i showed you in chapter 3 and verse 1 again notice this holy brethren partakers of the heavenly calling these people are obviously saved so someone not holding fast profession it's not like they're not still a holy brethren it's not like they didn't still take partake of the heavenly calling it's just that they're just a bad christian they're just a bad example and so the instruction is that we need to hold fast unto this okay holding fast unto our christianity go to chapter 10 and i'll show you another example of this hebrews chapter number 10 verse 23 hebrews 10 23 let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering for he is faithful that promised so he's saying hey you know how we're we need to hold fast our profession and without any kind of wavering meaning that we're not even like i don't know if i'm a christian today you know i don't know if i'm a baptist i don't know if i'm here to serve god or not no no no it's like i'm here to serve god today just as much as it was the day that i got into water and i allowed someone to dunk me i mean think about this from an atheistic perspective right i mean from an atheistic perspective like what is the benefit of you getting into water and letting another person just dunk you in water you know there's no physical benefit from that in fact it's kind of weird or embarrassing if it had no real spiritual connotation right it'd be awkward you know think about mormons who are baptizing each other for the dead we look at that and laugh and mock and that's silly because it's stupid right but we don't think of baptism is silly it's not an embarrassing thing to us it's something that is you know special it's reverend it pictures jesus christ death barrel and resurrection it has spiritual significance and if we're willing to go through such an activity such a ritual for the lord jesus christ that day we should take that same fervor that same zeal and apply it to every day of our life and say hey i'm willing to get in some water and get dunked if that's what i have to do right like whatever it is i have to do today i'm on board with serving god today my life is about him it's not about me it's not about my wife it's not about my children it's not about my family it's not about my job i'm not here today at work because i'm an employee i'm here to serve jesus today at work i'm here to to do everything for the lord jesus christ i'm going to keep professing a good profession and i'm going to hold fast unwavering meaning it's not like i wake up in the morning and i'm like i don't know what to do today no i wake up in the morning it's like it's a day for me to serve god today i have another opportunity to follow god's commandments to follow his get more instruction more learning more wisdom do more things for him you know every single day is an opportunity to serve the lord it's not an opportunity to serve the flesh it's not an opportunity to serve a person it's an opportunity to serve the lord jesus christ in heaven and so what we must do is we must take that same fervor and zeal and say you know without wavering i'm just going to serve him notice for he is faithful that promised and if you go back to chapter three and i know i'm just bouncing around here but i'm wanting to get these contexts look at chapter three verse one again we're four holy brethren partakers of the heavenly calling considering the apostle and high priest of our profession christ jesus who is faithful to him that appointed him as also moses was faithful in all his house for this man was kind of worthy of more glory than moses and as much as he who had built the house had more honor than the house so he's saying moses was a great guy why because he was faithful in all his house in every area of his life he's just he's doing that which is right and he's he's giving it to the lord and of course jesus is even better than him because he's not just faithful in the house he built the house and our profession faith is is the same manner of we're professing christ and we want to serve him and so we want to live up to that profession not someone that's just you know a christian on sunday but a christian on monday and a fundamental baptist on tuesday and a fundamental baptist on wednesday and a fundamental baptist on thursday and if i don't every single day of my life every single moment of my life i am professing a good profess profession go back to hebrews chapter 10 and look at verse 24 now we read verse 23 he said let us hold fast a profession what's a good way to do that verse 24 and let us consider one another to revoke and love and good works not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together you know how could you say you're professing good profession when you're just not even going to church right like church has got to be at the forefront of your christian walk because that is in essence professing a good profession you know and and not just saying well church was important to me at some point in my life no it should be important to you the same every day of your life you know and you're just constantly saying hey i'm here to serve god now admittedly all of these things and everything in your life is typically easier at the beginning and what i mean by that is it's it's it's easier to be excited and have a lot of energy and a lot of strength for these activities the at the beginning of them right if you just start getting into church or a new church or whatever it's it's like more fun it's there's more energy it's more exciting you know there's kind of that honeymoon phase of this event and and because of that it's just easy to go whereas you know you don't you don't have to hold fast to it at first at first it's just fun but then over time what happens your strength starts to wane you don't have as much strength for that activity and so then you're committed hey you got whatever little strength you have just hold fast in that activity you know what are other activities like this how about marriage and and of course you know i relate this just as a marathon i i've only run one 5k in my life and i would like to do it again sometime but i've only ran one okay and and let me tell you something about running a 5k the it's a 3.1 mile approximately journey and the first mile is the easiest mile okay in fact i had been practicing for this thing and um it was a big competition because like i worked for a bank and all the banks were competing with one another so the top three from the bank and this other bank was a lot better than everybody so it's like a lot of pressure that maybe i would do well because you know they had some really good runners and we only had like one and so i'm like okay i'll try you know whatever i failed but why but anyways i was practicing for this thing and a couple weeks before i got really bad shin splints so i wasn't um i i didn't ever press myself and know exactly what my limitations were so i go into this event and i just took off the last of the first like several weeks before so i haven't been running at all and i'm like you know i have no idea how good i'm gonna do but i said there's a lot of adrenaline and stuff like that so i'm just gonna go as hard as i can we'll just see how it works out right so i just get the front of the line they hit the gun and i just start running and i was running with like all the people that are actually good at this okay i'm not good at this i don't even know what i'm doing there's like eight people and it's just all of us we're just running and i mean they're running like full speed basically and so i'm just kind of running full speed and the first mile of this 5k is all downhill so we're just kind of we're just running and then like i don't know what our pace was exactly but i would estimate that it was around a five six minute mile because you're just we're just running straight downhill and this is the fastest i mean several hundred people in this race right it's all like you know 16 18 year old cross-country runners and stuff like you know college kids and stuff like that and i'm just kind of like running with them well then mile two hits and it's all uphill and boy did it hit hard now they just kept running i finally hit mile two and i'm like dead you know when it says little strength i don't even know if i had that i wasn't even running anymore like i was it looked like i was running but i wasn't i was kind of it was kind of it was really like it's the pace of walking but i was like using energy that looked like running and all of a sudden you know being in like fifth to eighth place it was just like old ladies are walking past me you know it's just like hundreds of people just start passing me just like and just just giant hordes of people passing i never stopped running okay so that was the only good thing that i did in this event but man the next mile and the next few miles it just got harder and harder and harder and it was just it was bad like i felt like i was gonna die and and i just kept thinking like i can't just quit how embarrassing it'd be to just quit but so i did finish the race but let me tell you something that first mile it was easy i had no problem it was fun we're just running i'm like oh man i'm better at this than i thought it was just like no i'm not okay then i got i get hit with a ton of bricks i think my total time was like 25 minutes so i didn't do very good it was like that's an average of about eight minute mile so it wasn't you know and it was like the first was five the second was probably like 12 you know it's like so it was just like it was rough but i say that to say this is how everything is you know when i first got married it was like that first mile you know it was just like this is all downhill we're just sprinting and it's no problem and then just somewhere in marriage you know you you find an uphill track and you're just like wow this is different you know whoa but you know what you don't give up on the race you don't quit running just because it changed and you know raising children this frustrates me but i see a lot of people that it seems like they quit raising their children once they become teenagers it's like well you know we we did it was fun at the beginning it was easy at the beginning and admittedly it is easier because you know when they're five six seven eight nine ten let me tell you something about children they believe everything you tell them in fact it's very hard for them to even understand sarcasm children can't have a hard time understanding these type of concepts because they believe everything that they hear when they become a teenager they believe like nothing that you tell them it's like a completely it's just like what happened it's like you were just this precious little kid that loved me and wanted to sit in my lap and you know i could just if you're upset i could just tickle you and be over you know and you you didn't even understand sarcasm you just believe everything i told you now that you're a teenager it's like you're skeptical of everything i say and you're moody and you think you're smarter than everybody when you're not and it's like so then what happens is a lot of times because it's a more difficult trek more uphill people just stop you know what as a parent you need to hold fast to parenting and never stop parenting your children no matter how hard the track gets no matter how little strength you have and of course you're gonna have littler strength because you're getting older you've been doing it for so long it's more frustrating or whatever you know what you just keep doing it anyways you just keep running even though it's like walking you know you just keep doing it you just keep moving don't stop and it just it just upsets me when i look at parents and just seems like you know they just checked out it's like oh they turned 13 and they're giving me some resistance so whatever nuts to you just do whatever you want no no you still beat that kid in submission you still parent them like they've needed it all along you don't stop you don't stop fighting with them you don't stop telling them what to do you don't stop giving them rules you know i've had a pastor friend of mine tell me he said i thought when they turned teenage and they were like 15 16 that we give them less discipline he's like it's way more it's like they're way worse and i'm thinking like well amen at least you're doing it you know they need that and you know i was a 14 15 16 17 18 i need a lot more discipline than i got okay i should have been getting a lot more discipline than than i received and it's not a time to check out those kids are impressionable and they still need parents to raise them and you know what never stop raising your children never check out never just let it go hold fast onto that child keep instructing them keep teaching them keep sitting them down keep telling them no wow i'm tired of saying no say no you know don't ever give up on them keep instructing them keep teaching them you know in marriage it can get rough at some points in your right you know marriage is not easy like i think that some people have this idea like if they marry the right person it'll be easy that is a lie hollywood believes this and they can never stay married why because they just they sing about how they have their heart throb and i want to be with you forever and whatever if you don't feel like you want to be around the person at all times it's okay it's called marriage it's called real life no one wants to be around another person all the time 100 of the time sometimes you drive each other insane it's okay that's fine if you think you love your spouse 100 of the time god bless you okay but i'm just telling you it's not real it's not realistic to have that expectation on everybody sometimes you just get annoyed with each other and you want some space and that's healthy you know marriage is a difficult thing you know if you've ever been friends with someone and then you room with them like you did in college it'll ruin your relationship i've roomed with people and i thought we were good friends and boy wow that was brutal you know it's brutal the relationship because you know when you live with someone you start seeing all their flaws and all their issues and and people have severe issues you say who everyone everyone in this room has some bad issues okay you stink right we all stink we all do weird stuff we all like weird food you know some people want beans in their chili i mean can you imagine that some people like indian food some people don't like cheese it's like where are you i can't even imagine that you know or there's all kinds of diets out there god bless my wife for liking good food because there's some weird diets out there that if you know my wife liked it'd be like this some serious marriage issues you know you know and even though me my wife she has some weird i mean she likes coffee and ranch and tea and all this stuff i'm just like gross but you know we make it work she likes these weird enchiladas and stuff like that i don't like it but she no she she eats enchiladas on thursday night because i'm not there and it's like praise god you know all the kids get super excited i was telling them like i'm gonna start a hill more on thursday nights and they're all like disappointed because it's like my wife makes all these really good meals on thursday that i don't like i guess or whatever and they have popcorn and hot chocolate and they're like you're gonna be home on thursday i guess i can leave you know like whatever but what i'm telling you look you know life is complicated it's not always gonna be fun it's not always gonna be easy sometimes you just gotta hang on and you know what marriage sometimes you just hang on to marriage because and i'll tell you this while that second mile was all uphill the third mile was all downhill again so i was like okay it got easier so it was the hardest mile was actually mile two it was not mile three and by the time i got all the way to the end and i could see the finish line i actually sprinted again all the way to the finish line because i was just so i was just like hey i'm here i know i'm gonna make it so i might as well sprint there and you know that can even just be your life life at the beginning is just easy being a kid being young it's fun i mean you got all this energy you got all your life ahead of you you know it's just a lot more enjoyable in general as you age and as you get older things get harder and probably admittedly in life the second mile might be the hardest because you know as a man you gotta you gotta go out and work and provide for a family you don't have as much experience so you're not earning as much you got a lot of little kids and that's like a card and of course you know the first kid you have is like the hardest thing you've ever done and then you get two and you're like whoa one was so easy and then you have three and you're like wow how did i you know two wasn't even hard at all and then just keeps going you're just like i can't do it you know i'm drowning but you just hold on you just keep pedaling you know you just keep just going you don't just give up you gotta hold fast just like and it you know christianity it's kind of fun at first then it's gonna get hard you know you just keep hanging on to christianity we just keep hanging on to church you know going to church there's gonna be times when it's not as fun and i always try to tell people this you know especially like i came here and i preached for the first sermon i'll be honest that was a more fun that was like a more exciting night than tonight the first night i mean there was like 100 people here we all went out to eat everybody's excited and jazzed up and we're like yeah new church you know thursday night three years later it's like eh you know it's not as cool it's okay to admit that right just like let's be honest wasn't your honeymoon night a little bit more fun than tonight probably okay i'm just gonna tell you it might have been a more maybe you had a bad honeymoon i don't know but i'm just saying like i guarantee that first week of marriage was probably one of the greatest weeks of your marriage it's okay that it was it was one of the most enjoyable time you know being in college or being young or maybe you played a sport or you did something that might have been one of the funnest weeks of your life that's okay but you know what you need to just hang on to the things that you've been given you know getting saved might have been more enjoyable more fun than days in the future when it comes to christianity but we hang on to what's been given us and we want to finish that race you know you know it's really fun being done with the marathon you know the first mile was was fun you know it's way more fun when i cross the finish line i could stop running you know that that was way better and of course i didn't do great or anything like that but what if i won that would be even better right i mean that's when it's really fun is when you finally won and let me tell you something the really fun stage is when we go to heaven we're not there yet but you know what makes it really fun that you finished the race if i had gotten to the third mile and there's point one left and i just fell in the ditch and started throwing up it wouldn't have been that much fun i don't know why did i even run and frankly it would have avoided all that at the time you know if i get married to my wife and i stay married for 15 years and then we get divorced it's like i'm going to regret that other 15 years i'm going to you know you don't give up you know if i raise a kid for 15 years and then i quit i'm going to be so mad at myself for having done 15 years of hard labor and then just giving up at the last minute and just letting them just ruin their lives or something you know it's like we're so close let's just get to the finish line let's just hold fast to what we've been given and just keep going and you know when it comes to christianity it's like i've already been doing this thing for a long time let's just keep going let's just hold fast and we have and you know there's gonna be ups and downs there's gonna be times when you're going uphill there's gonna be times when you're going downhill you know what we want to just keep holding fast bible says prove all things hold fast of that which is good go back to hebrews chapter 3 and let me show you one more thing so point one is hold fast to the doctrine point two is hold faster profession here's point three hebrews chapter three look at verse eight harden out your hearts as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness when your father's tempted me prove me and saw my works 40 years when i wherefore i was grieved with that generation and said they do always err in their heart and they have not known my ways so i swear in my wrath they shall not enter into my rest take heed brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living god but exhort one another daily while it is called today lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin for we are made partakers of christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end so notice what he wants to do he wants you to hold on to what your confidence unto the end so according to the bible the you know the children of israel are kind of a picture of this how they were not someone who was holding fast was not steadfast unto their confidence now this is a great picture that the bible uses they got saved as a picture of the passover get the pass over the blood sprinkled on the door the death angel passed over and they've been passed from death unto life right what a great picture what's the next step in the christian walk baptism they walk through the red sea they got the cloud above them they got the water on both sides they pass through the sea picture of that baptism now what's the wilderness picture pictures of the christian life but what is it that they're going for what is the goal to get to the promised land what is the promised land picture of heaven they lost that confidence of what they were getting to what their goal was and so they ended up just quitting in the wilderness and not having the faith to really do that and so they end up losing out on a lot of reward and really that's what the the essence of hebrews is hebrews is just really constantly talking about how you need to constantly endure and and press towards the mark and and can continue to labor to get to that end goal of the reward but when you start losing confidence in the reward it allows you to not be steadfast allows you to not hold fast holding fast on your confidence will keep you going to that end me knowing hey i got to just keep going i got yeah i've done a couple miles but i got a little bit more and i know i can finish i know what's at the end of the line so i'm just going to what stay confident and just keep going and just keep taking steps and i realize where i'm headed now govy went to luke chapter number eight luke chapter eight he said the deceitfulness of sin and they hardened their hearts and then they departed from the living god you know this is what a lot of christians were going to do in in this world a lot of christians are going to allow the deceitfulness of sin to harden their heart and then through the hardening of the heart they're going to lose confidence in the things of god and they're going to just walk away from christianity and and of course i'm not saying that they're not a christian i'm saying they're not going to be practicing christianity they're not going to be going to church they're going to soul winning they're not going to read the bible they're not going to be doing the things of god that doesn't mean that they're not saved it just means that they produce no fruit this is what you have in the parable of the sower look at luke chapter 8 verse 14 and that which fell among thorns are they which when they have heard go forth and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life and bring no fruit to perfection you know there's a lot of christians that are just going to allow the pleasures of this life to stop them from ever doing anything for god and and of course why because they end up forgetting or losing confidence the fact that god is going to reward them you know if i don't think god's going to reward me in heaven why would i serve him you know what is the motivation to serve god false prophets teach us to get to heaven but we know we don't have to work our way to heaven so when that's taken off the table why would i serve god then and of course people will ridicule us for this they'll say like oh well you're you're giving people a license to sin or you're encouraging people to not have to serve god or something like that no no no obviously there's a consequence to sin regardless of if you go to heaven or not based on faith but the consequence is not always is is immediately understood you don't always realize it immediately in the sense that you know you serve god with your life you're not going to necessarily get to enjoy that right away it's kind of like a meal you know i cooked brisket the other day and brisket if you do it correctly takes a long time and i i smoked a brisket my my wife bought me really nice uh smoker for my birthday but for father's day i can't remember one of those and i finally got to use it and in cooking this brisket it took me like 20 hours something like that so you know i'm cooking it like 200 degrees fahrenheit just slow and slow just steady wins the race and here's the thing if i had cooked that brisket for one hour and then pulled it out it would have tasted like trash you know if you cook if you could cook a brisket in one hour it will not be very good it would be tough it would be it would be chewy but you know when you cook it for 20 hours and you put a fork and it just falls apart it just like crumbles and it's just like it's so tender and it's just delicious but you know what you had to you had to wait to get there and the same as with the christian life in the sense that you know you want that really brisket type reward you want that just perfect tender juicy great meat you know what it's going to take a lot of time a lot of effort you serve god with your life you know you're not going to get that good brisket right away but you know what at the end of your life you're going to get all that juicy you know tender meat that you desire whereas the people that were looking for all these quick fixes they have to eat garbage food their whole life and then they're going to have nothing to enjoy later they're going to reap what they truly sow and and people that are constantly losing their confidence in christ they will not see it this side of heaven they'll see it when they get to heaven and you say well how how do you know that then pastor shelley hey you know god is going to reward those that diligently seek him but it's by faith and we have to believe that he is and a rewarder of them that diligently seek him you know of course how could god reward you by faith if it took sight you know of course god's going to reward you in heaven by telling you exactly what's going to no no he wants you to know it through faith he doesn't want you to know it by sight he's not going to lay up a bunch of bricks of gold on your front porch and just say hey here's what you're going to get he's not going to send you a mail slot and say like here's what your house looks like in heaven if you keep serving me no no you just have to serve god by faith and then you're going to get rewarded later just like them walking the wilderness did they really know what the promised land looked like did someone show them on tiktok you know is there these tiktok videos of the k night's dancing and they're like wow that looks really nice they didn't know they didn't know what it looked like they didn't know what food was there they didn't they just heard it was a land flowing with milk and honey they just had a general idea same like us we don't really know what heaven's like we don't really know exactly what the rewards gonna be like you know what it's gonna be great and i know that i just need to strive towards that goal and i need to hold fast my confidence my confidence what that soul winning works my confidence that going to church is important my confidence that serving god faithfully is going to reward me in heaven whereas you know people that want to be carnal and look for the things of now say well i want to enjoy things now go for it you know pulling the brisket out of the smoker after one hour is a dumb decision folks keep the brisket smoking you know you want to get you want to wait and say like this is not the time to enjoy you don't enjoy the brisket for the first 20 hours you wait until it's done and you know what this life is not the life to enjoy the next life and you say what how do you know that i have confidence through faith in the word of god go to first john chapter number two i just have a few verses left i want to show you first john chapter number two people will be a forgetful here people are going to forget that you know it's important to serve god people are going to forget about the rewards people are just going to lose faith people are going to lose confidence they're going to let the deceitfulness of sin and the cares of this world and these things enter in and choke the word why is it choking the word it's because the word was what was giving you the confidence the bible is what's encouraging you to keep going but you know what when you start choking and suppressing the word and not hearing the word you're what not reading it not going to church not singing it all of the cares this world is constantly you know drowning it out and the music of this world the tv of this world the busyness of this world and the money of this world you know then they start forgetting and just start enjoying whatever is going on and look there's plenty to enjoy i mean you can enjoy all kinds of sporting events you can enjoy your your work you know i enjoy work some people don't i mean i'm just saying like i actually enjoy work some people enjoy building their business people enjoy making money building their houses getting their boats going out and doing whatever you know people enjoy doing all kinds of things hiking climbing obviously in oklahoma you kind of have like cow tipping that's about it right some people might like that i don't know but there's still probably fun things to enjoy in oklahoma i don't know what it is but i'm sure there's something to do i guess you just smoke weed right that's the one thing y'all have but there is pleasure in this life it's not like you can only have pleasure in church you know you can have pleasure doing all kinds of different things but it's not a real satisfaction it's not a real good it's not the brisket that you want to eat you know you can go to spring creek barbecue or whatever they have it's like trash okay you got to go to the heim's barbecue in texas right first john chapter two look at verse 28 and now little children abide in him that when he shall appear we may have confidence and not be ashamed before i'm at his coming notice that we have to have something confidence we need to hold fast our confidence we hold fast our doctrine we hold fast our profession we have to hold fast our confidence too you know what god is going to reward us god is coming i am going to see him and that's an important day you know much more important than any day i have right now you will stand before god and what are you going to say well i had a good time that's embarrassing well i enjoyed my life thanks it's like what are you going to say when all your works burn up and all the stuff that you did is meaningless and worthless you know what are you going to stay for you know you know what happened when um peter saw jesus after he denied him three times he wept bitterly and how are you going to feel when you have to stand before jesus and you just didn't do anything you'll probably be sad probably weep and you'll be you'll be mad that you didn't serve god with your life go to hebrews chapter 10 go back there and uh and then go to galatians 6 those last two places i want you to turn real quick galatians 6 and hebrews chapter number 10 there is a heavenly reward that you're going to get and you need to keep that through confidence hebrews 10 verse 32 the bible says but call to remembrance the former days in which after you were illuminated ye endured a great fight of afflictions partly whilst you were made a gazing stock both by your approaches and afflictions and partly while she became companions of them that were so used for he had compassion of me and my bonds and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods knowing in yourselves that you have in heaven a better and enduring substance cast not there away therefore your confidence which have great recompense of reward so he's saying hey don't cast away your confidence what is he wanting you to do he's wanting you to realize that you have a better and enduring substance and there's a great recompense of war so let me explain what he's saying in this passage there's a group of christians and they're losing their livelihood they're losing their house they're losing their money they're losing everything that they have and he's saying don't don't let that discourage you because you have a more a better and enduring substance in heaven and don't let this carnal life cause you to end up losing your confidence that god's going to reward you and stop serving him because what will happen is you know elon musk is like well my stock price will go down if i offend the adl so i bet well i better just you know be careful right you know a lot of christians a lot of churches might be like well if we preach that doctrine we'll lose people but i have a better substance in heaven than this church oh well if i tell people i'm a christian i could lose a job and you might but you know what i have a better job in heaven and i don't want to lose that job i could be a pillar in god's temple you know what you could lose that job you know if i'm going to get fired from a job i'd rather get fired from a job here than from in heaven i have a better employer up in heaven you know i could lose a house but i have a better house i could lose money but i'll better resources in heaven you know i could lose a relationship but i'll better relationships up there you know it's it's like everything that you could lose here is to try and stop you from what having confidence that you have it up there because when you have a hundred percent confidence up here you don't care about what you lose here and that makes you a dangerous person to who the enemy because the enemy is wants you to be in their control they want to control you this is why i always say people like alex jones are controlled opposition and people misunderstand what i mean by that i'm not saying he's a double agent i'm not saying that he secretly works for the government what i'm saying is as soon as he goes and does something they don't like they'll squeeze him in the right place to get him to comply oh you're talking about the jews too much don't talk about that or don't talk about this or whatever you know they'll always grab and just kind of squeeze and they'll control you you know what truly the only people that are uncontrollable are christians that have confidence in god the shadrach meshach and abednego say hey we're not careful dancing this matter throw us in the furnace throw our goods in the furnace burn the house you know burn my money burn whatever you know just who cares about that kind of stuff i just don't want to lose my confidence i'll lose my possessions but i don't want to lose my confidence in the lord jesus christ because i have a great recompense of reward in heaven you know moses had to give up everything moses had to say you know what i'm i'm a prince of pharaoh in the sense like i'm a son of a pharaoh obviously through his daughter and everything like that he's a ruler in egypt has all the pleasures of egypt he has everything he just throws it away for what for christ the apostle paul had everything as saw of you know of the pharisees this guy was like a chief of the pharisees this guy's got it all and he said i can't all but god that i may win christ you know you have constant people in the bible just have to throw it all away you have abraham just leaving you have elisha he just like hey all these oxen we're gonna have a good barbecue but then i'm out of here you know it's just like hey we're gonna slow roast this don't hear me wrong but then as soon as we're done i'm out of here you know it's like sometimes you just got to realize like this stuff is is not that important what's really important is your confidence in christ go to glacians chapter 6 the last place i'm going to return and of course this applies to all of us and you know i think it even applies to the elderly the most because you you could be the people you say i have a little string well don't give up now start sprint towards that finish line hey you've gone three miles you got 0.1 left just just keep going you know you've already got through a lot of hard stuff but whatever you have just hold fast and just keep going and keep clinging glacians chapter 6 look at verse 7 be not deceived god is not mocked for whatsoever man soweth that shall he also reap for he that soweth his flesh of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting and let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not notice he says that we're going to reap if we think not remember hey let no man take thy crown from me there is no guaranteed reward in heaven and you can lose out on a full reward as the bible describes now any reward that i believe that you've earned already you're not going to lose that you can't lose or already earned reward but there is a certain reward that's a completion reward that you will not receive unless you complete and god wants us to be faithful unto the end to get that crown of life you know be thou faithful unto death and then he's gonna give you the crown of life you know there's a lot of things that we have to do in order to get these crowns and one of them just being faithful into the end god wants christians that are willing to just put it all on the line and say here my lord send me i'll go in the furnace i'll i'll go wherever you want me to go that's what gives god really a lot of honor and glory is having christians that are going to hold fast and be steadfast unto the end unmovable they're just clinging to these things and we need a constant reminder i need this because some days especially recently i feel like man i just have a little strength well that's okay be leas are though and just cling to that sword and just keep slaying and just let the lord of god get a great victory in your life he doesn't necessarily say have a lot of strength he just says put it all in him you don't have to have a lot of faith even the faith the grain of a mustard seed you put it all in him move mountains right so so even if you feel like you know what i don't have a lot of strength right now it's okay just hold fast for the lord let's close and pray let's close in prayer thank you only father for this church thank you for giving us an opportunity to serve you thank you for giving us doctrine thank you for giving us salvation and thank you for giving us a hope for reward in heaven i prayed that we would hold fast to these things we would hold fast to the doctrines you've given us we'd hold fast the professions that we've made that we'd hold fast to the confidence we have now and the reward that you're going to give us and that we wouldn't let the storms of life we wouldn't let the pressures of this world influence us and cause us to believe weird stuff or to lose sight of who we truly believe in and who are serving and that we wouldn't lose sight of the reward that we can see through faith and i pray that you would encourage our faith you would strengthen our faith through the words of god and that we would just continue to endure under the end and that we could receive that crown that you have for us in jesus name we pray amen let's go to 27 the old rugged cross song number 27 the old rugged class cross he's going to cling to that cross they can receive a crown right on 27 all right 27 the old rugged cross great follow-up to that message really think about the words this evening as we sing this final song lift up your voice in praise 27 the old rugged cross the emblem of suffering and shame oh and exchanges oh for the dear lamb of god left his glory above to bear it to dark calvary so i'll cherish the old rugged cross till my trophies at last i lay down i will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown in the old rugged cross same with blood so divine a wonderous beauty i see for it was on that old cross jesus suffered and died to pardon and sanctify me so i'll cherish the old rugged cross till my trophies at last i lay down i will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown on the last to the old rugged cross i will ever be true it's shame and reproach gladly there then he'll call me someday to my home far away where his glory forever i'll share so i'll cherish the old rugged cross till my trophies at last i lay down i will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown