Finding Help in Times of Need: Insights from Hebrews 4:16

The book of Hebrews.

Let me see if I can get out of this.

You glad you came so far okay.

That's a good sign.

You know, Jesus said there would be wires and rumors of wires.

That's why I got hung up there.

Are you in the book of Hebrews?

Well, this is a verse that you know and you heard and you've read so many, many times.

Chapter 4 and verse 16.

We'll read that in just a moment.

Most of us, if we heard someone right now, maybe behind the baptistry wall or the door or by that door, someone stuck their head in there and said, help, please, somebody help.

Most every one of us would turn right.

Some of you men that would jump up immediately.

Some of you ladies would help me, please.

Most of us would stop whatever we're doing and run to see who needed help.

God does that too, with his children.

God listens.

And you know, it's interesting.

I did a lot of reading today.

I went through all the Bible where you find the word help a lot of times.

But there were several times in prayer.

One of them, David was praying and said, he didn't say, dear Heavenly Father, thank you.

He said, help, Lord.

You ever prayed a prayer like that?

I have too.

I have too.

I mean, what else could you say?

Help.

Sometimes God doesn't help us the way we expect him to help us.

His ways, as we know in Isaiah, are higher than our ways and wiser than our ways.

And the Bible says he giveth grace.

In Hebrews, chapter 4, verse 16, it says, Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help.

Mercy and grace to help in time of need.

God never needs our help.

I'm glad about that.

Sometimes I am tempted to help him and plan and do some things the way I think they ought to be done and then ask God to bless it.

I'm probably the only one in here that does that.

But I confess that to you, God doesn't really need ever need our help.

He can use us, but if he can't, he'll use somebody else.

All he wants from us is those two words we sing in the hymn book, trust and obey.

Trust me, I can do anything but fail.

God says, I just want you to trust me and obey.

Follow, There's a text that I, or actually a quote that I was sharing today with someone.

And it goes like this, and I think you may have heard it.

When we get to the place where God is all we have, only then will we realize that God is All we need.

We know God's all we need, but we don't realize it until we get to the place that he's all we have.

It's called our wit's end.

We've been through all of our hoarded resources, and a lot of times, a lot of the problems and troubles in testing that we go through is God trying to get us to that place.

You just say, okay, Lord, I'm out of time, out of money, out of help, out of this, out of that.

Here I am.

God says, took you a while to get to that place.

We all need to get to that place.

Preachers need to get to that place.

And even churches, church families need to get to the place and say, Lord, we've.

We've done everything we know to do.

God is always testing and he's always teaching and he's training, preparing us.

I think we're gonna even see greater things because he's preparing us for the last days.

Now, I don't believe the Bible teaches that we're gonna go through the tribulation period.

I believe we're going up out of the tribulation period before the tribulation starts pre rapture.

I believe that.

But when things get out of hand in this nation and in this world, it's not gonna happen overnight.

We're not gonna wake up in the morning and see everything in a mess.

It's gonna be gradual.

And we've seen that for many years in our lifetime.

Things we thought we would have never believed if somebody had told us.

And God's preparing us, and God prepares churches because churches are going to be tested in the last days.

Jesus one time had a lot of people leave when he was preaching.

They kind of crowded in on the miracles, but when it came to preaching, they kind of scattered.

And Jesus said to Peter, will you also go away?

And he said, lord, to whom shall we go?

You ever thought about that?

If you didn't have God, where would you go?

Who would you go to if you didn't have the Lord?

I Remember in Matthew 14 when Jesus walked on the water and Peter wanted to walk on the water, and so he did for a little while, and then he began to look around and, man, this is bad water.

This was rough.

And the Bible says he began to sink.

It doesn't say he sank.

Oh, yeah, that's when Peter sunk.

No, he didn't.

He began to.

There's a lot of people.

Sometimes pastors can watch.

They see things and they see people and they see a change, and they say, you know, it looks to me like they're beginning to sink.

But the Bible says that Jesus took him by the hand.

Simple thought, isn't it?

He didn't.

Peter didn't.

I don't think Peter hesitates, said, well, Lord, let me pray about this.

I think he grabbed his hand, but he held out his hand because he was beginning to sink.

You remember I preached, I think, a month or so ago about staying the boat.

The boat.

In Acts 27, Paul was a prisoner.

And there was a great, great storm.

In fact, they even named that storm in the Bible.

And everything was really looking bad.

And Paul said, except ye abide in the ship, you cannot be saved.

He wasn't talking about salvation.

He was talking about being saved from drowning.

He was talking about, help, help.

I am his, the Bible says, because he bought me and he is mine.

He's my Savior.

What more do we need?

The psalmist said, why art thou cast down, O my soul?

And why art thou disquieted in me?

Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

Psalm 46.

God is our refuge and strength.

A very present help in trouble.

Not down the road, not the other side of town, but a very present help wherever you are.

Psalm 63.

Because thou hast been my help.

Therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I Rejoice.

Psalm 79.

Help us, O God, of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name, and deliver us in Psalm 119.

Let thine hand help me, for I have chosen thy precepts.

I think maybe in one or two times in all of my ministry have I preached an acronym.

You know what an acronym is?

Most of you do.

A little girl came home one time and asked her daddy, he says, or told her dad, he said, we learned synonyms today.

No.

How is it the opposite?

Antonyms.

Yeah, antonyms.

And he said, well, how many did you take?

He said, like vitamins.

He didn't know what they were.

But she said, no.

It's when you say one thing, you know, deep, shallow, black, white, up, down, down.

The opposites.

And the little girl said, what's the opposite of loss?

And she said, saved.

And the teacher said, no, honey, no, that's not true.

The opposite of lost is found.

And she said, well, my daddy said, when you get saved, you've been found.

Amen.

But an acronym.

And I want to.

It's very simple tonight.

But if you take notes and an acronym, you want to put your first letters up and down, not sideways.

We're just going to take the word help.

So put an H, an E and an L and a P. And then I want you to connect those as we go along.

And the first one is so simple, but yet sometimes we overlook it.

If we want help.

I'm talking about help.

Help.

When's the last time you said, lord, help, Help us.

What are we gonna do?

Help.

And the first.

The letter H stands for him.

H, I, M, M. Him and him alone.

Alone is not him.

Plus vain is the help of man.

The Bible says, you know, I need.

I'm like you.

I need all the friends I can get.

But sometimes my friends can't help me.

But God can.

Sometimes we may need money, but there's some things money can't help with.

Money can't fix.

Amen.

I remember show you how old I am.

Some of you know how old I am.

But I remember back when I was a little boy, the Texaco gas stations and the attendants wore hats and it said Texaco and it had a star.

They had a whole uniform.

And they waited on you.

They did everything.

Polished the windshield and all that.

And that commercial, I remember.

I could see it now.

Trust me.

Your car.

To the man who wears the star.

Well, I want to tell you tonight, trust your life to the one who made the stars.

He made everything.

And he's holding us together.

The Bible says He's holding us.

Did you know that if he let go, we'd all fly apart?

We're in his hands.

And sometimes we feel alone.

But we're never alone.

Alone, but not alone.

And that's why the Bible says that we're to endure hardness as a good soldier.

Because he doesn't just send us into battle, he leads us into battle.

I was sharing this with somebody a while ago.

I forgot who it was.

I was reading in the Scriptures today.

Was it you?

I was talking to Daniel this morning, and it was a battle going on with Israel.

And I don't remember who the other the adversary was, but it said of Israel, it says, faint yet pursuing.

Faint yet pursuing.

You ever feel faint yet?

Feel tired?

Feel a little wobbly?

Maybe not in your legs, but maybe in your heart.

Sometimes you feel that way.

Faint yet pursuing.

A lot of times we get to the place, well, now what do we do?

Faint yet pursuing.

Faint yet pursuing.

So when Christ comes, we're doing exactly what it told us to do.

You see, everything must revolve around him.

And one of the greatest challenges is to not be distracted.

The world is very distracted, of course, but don't Be distracted.

Satan is a deceiver, we know that.

But one of his most effective tools is to distract us.

That's why I like that hymn, Jesus, keep me near the cross.

I've never got discouraged near the cross it's when I get away from the cross I never have doubts at the cross it's when I get away from the cross the devil is constantly distracting you from the Bible, from the prayer, from the church, all kinds of things.

If he can just get you to look over here for a moment.

Isn't it amazing sometimes how when you're driving along, you can.

I mean, in less than a second you'll look over and see something.

And when you look back, you're either off the road or fixing to run right back into the back of a car.

It still amazes me how quickly that can happen.

I mean, I always thought I was a pretty good driver and keeping the distance and all that kind of stuff.

But you just get distracted just like that.

And you got a problem.

Now I want you to take the letter E, H is him.

H, I, M. And the letter E. Expectation.

Expectation.

What do I mean by that?

Well, faith is expecting God to do what he said he would do.

That's what faith is, expecting it.

Amen.

We talk about faith so much and we sing faith about faith and all that kind of stuff.

But write this down.

Faith is a refusal to panic.

Faith is a refusal to panic.

Things can happen so quickly and you can get a little panicky.

Oh, no, Are you kidding?

What?

You know what I'm talking about.

But faith, your faith, if it's tied to Christ, you see, it's not so much the size of your faith, it's the object of your faith.

You can have a little faith in a big God.

You don't have to have a big faith in a little God.

Cause God's not little.

Okay, But a lot of people don't know what God can do.

Cause they don't read the Bible.

They don't know a lot about God's attributes and how much he loves us.

And promises and cares and protects and provides, and on and on and on.

I was reading in Romans 4, it says he, speaking of Abraham, staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving God the glory and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was also able to perform what he has promised.

Could you write down 10 of the promises of God?

I mean, just immediately, without having to think about it.

Could you write down 20?

Expectation.

Expecting God.

This is not presumption.

It's just saying, lord, if you said it, it's gotta happen, whether it happens, when we want it or how we want it.

But to live on the promises of God.

Do you expect God to help Heritage Baptist Church?

Do you expect it?

Or are you just hoping there's a difference?

Do you expect it?

After all the things that already we've been through and who knows, God still may not be through.

But are you expecting.

It's his church, and he's sovereign and he's in control and he cares and he loves us.

Do you expect him to give the victory over the devil?

Boy, we've seen a lot of the devil, haven't we?

Do you expect eventually.

I'm not talking about the end of the world.

I'm talking about right now.

Do you expect a victory?

Do you expect God to glorify himself through this church in spite of everything?

Can God bless and help this church even without a school?

Is that even possible?

Or are we down for the count?

I'm just asking because that's part if we want God's help, we got to look to Him.

Only vain is the help of man.

And then we've got to expect God to work it out.

A new beginning.

Are we the remnant?

I don't know yet.

Are we a remnant who choose to believe God and press on regardless of the cost?

Are you willing to suffer for the cause of Christ?

Are you willing to take the mockery and the disdain of the general public?

Do you think you're ready for that?

Can you do that, you say?

Well, so far.

Do you expect God to step in?

What do you expect?

The Bible says, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst, in the middle of it all.

Am I a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb?

And shall I fear to own his cause or blush to speak his name?

Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease While others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face?

Must I not stem the flood?

Is this vile world a friend to grace to help me on To God Sure I must fight if I would reign Increase my courage, Lord, I'll bear the toil Endure the pain Supported by Thy word.

Hymn E Expecting God to move and to work and then the l look up, you say, well, that's for first graders.

We all know how to look up.

No, we don't.

Things go wrong, we start looking down.

Then we start looking around.

Who can we blame?

And very few even go.

The third one is to look in.

Is it me, Lord?

But it seems like we don't look up until we're either flat on our back or we can't look anywhere else.

Or God gets our attention and we get alone with him.

Not the last resort to look up, but the first response.

The psalmist said, I will look unto the hills from whence cometh my help, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

You know, the Bible talks about banners.

They were banners in battle, the flags, the.

The ensigns that they would carry.

And I was reading In Psalms chapter 20, I don't know how quickly you can get there.

You can jot it down on your notepad maybe, but it's interesting.

In psalms chapter number 20, it says, in verse five, we will rejoice in thy salvation, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners.

The Lord, fulfill all thy petitions.

Set up the banners.

In psalm chapter number 64.

Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee that it may be displayed because of the truth.

There's a royal banner given for display to the soldiers of the king.

As an ensign fare we lift it up today.

And as ransomed ones we sing Marching on, marching on for Christ Count everything but loss to crown him King.

Toil in sing neath the banner of the cross.

Last of all is the letter P. I want you to write down the word priority.

Now, I need to remind us all tonight that we are his priority.

But is he your priority?

Is he first?

Matthew 6:33, if you know it.

Matthew 6:33.

Seek ye first.

First the kingdom of God.

That means if there's a kingdom, there's a king.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Do the right thing, even if you're the lone ranger.

And his righteousness.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

And all these things shall be added unto you.

Keep Christ first and everything else will fall into place.

Let me say that.

Let me add something to that.

Put Christ first in every single thing you do, and he.

Everything will fall into place that's important to him.

Everything may not fall into place the way we thought it would or the way we.

Oh, we love it when everything falls into place the way we wanted it, and we can smile and breathe, but our things we put in place may be out of place to God.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

All these things shall be added unto you.

Help will come for thy name's sake.

O Lord, help us.

Robert Louis Stevenson.

Most of you have heard that name.

And as was pretty common, a storm came.

But this was a little more than common.

It was a treacherous, life threatening storm.

Robert Louis Stevenson, the author, with his father and all the passengers huddled together below deck and praying and crying for fear of their life.

And Robert Louis Stevenson clinging to his father.

He said, daddy, are we going to die?

His father put his son's hand in another person's hand that was beside him and he said, I'll be right back.

And he climbed up the stair to the deck and he fought his way through the wind and the waves and the lightning and the thunder and to the captain who was standing at the helm and he shined his lantern in the captain's face and he immediately ran back down below deck, took his son in his arms and he said in a loud voice so that everybody could hear, no, son, we're not gonna die.

I just looked into the captain's face and he was smiling.

When's the last time you looked into the face of God?

God never panics.

God never frowns on when he.

I mean, he's in control.

Amen.

We know that, everybody knows that.

But we don't live like it.

Now what are we going to do?

God's control.

Oh, I know he's in control, yeah, but now what are we going to do?

God is in control.

And I believe God is getting ready soon to wrap this thing up in the world and everything.

I think it's getting close.

I think Jesus seated at the father's right hand is getting ready to stand up and his father's going to say, it's time, it's close.

He's going to come to help.

And he's helped us this far, hasn't he?

Have you been helped?

Sometimes we forget kind of quickly what happened last year or three years ago or five years or ten years when God helped.

Nobody understood it as much as you understood it because it was you that he helped and nobody else could do it but you.

Well, we got to live that way.

We got to live by faith in the promises of God.

I never get tired of that song.

Standing on the promises I cannot fall Standing on the promises I cannot fail I feel like I'm failing I feel like I'm falling.

I. I feel sometimes confused and afraid and worried.

But I have to remind myself.

Feelings come and feelings go, but God never changes.

We live by faith, not by feeling.

Would you stand with your heads bowed and eyes closed for just a moment?

There's a hymn.

We're not going to sing this hymn.

They got a hymn ready.

But I think I mentioned this not too long ago because I'd been in the hymn book forever and I never saw.

Does Jesus care when my heart is pained too deeply for mirth and song when the burdens press and the cares distress and the way grows weary and long oh, yes, he cares I know he cares his heart is touched with my grief when the days are weary and the long night dreary I know my Savior cares We're gonna have some music and just sing for a verse or two and invite you to come.

And I'm still hoping that you're praying for the revival.

And maybe you would want to come tonight and pray for the revival.

Maybe you just say, lord, I sometimes forget that you're the one and the only one who can help.

Sometimes I think I can help or somebody else can help, or the preacher can help, or my best friend can help.

And Lord, I pray you'd help us to recognize and realize and understand that we can only go so far.

But you are unlimited and your love is unlimited and your grace is unlimited and your mercy is unlimited.

And so, Lord, help us to be touchable tonight.

Draw us closer to you.

I pray in Jesus name.