Bible Study

So we're in Hebrews 12. In order to create the context of what we're going to cover tonight, let's just think a little bit about what we covered in chapter 11. Of course, chapter 11 is the faith chapter. And in this chapter, there's this enormous amount of encouragement to look back at the people who have gone before us, the people that were used by God, the people that went through sometimes amazing miracles, intervention from God, and the people who suffered greatly, suffered greatly, which part of the end of this chapter 11 talks about people who were sold in half, and people who suffered persecution, and people who suffered in poverty, all because they were obeying God. So this faith chapter is very important in understanding where the rest of this argument is going to go now into the rest of the discussion, into chapter 12. It changes directions a little bit as we go through here, but it's setting up a whole other series of thoughts, if you will. Which brings us, of course, to chapter 12, verse 1. And let's read what was read last time as we go into what is covered here today, because it's a little different subject, and yet it's tied into what the writer had been going through, through the previous what we call chapters and verses. Of course, the writer of Hebrews didn't put chapters and verses in there. That's something that was added later, which helps us. But sometimes it also will break up the thought processes that we can see in what the writer was doing, where God was inspiring. But verse 1 says, therefore, we also sense we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, tying it back into what we call chapter 11, this group of people that we see that has come before us. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race set before us. So, as was discussed last time, setting aside sin and looking at this course that God sets for us. Now, the word course, I think, is very important in understanding where this race is. This race has a plotted course. This race isn't just, okay, go run as far as you can, as long as you can, until you drop dead. There's a plotted course in this race. And he wrote in a time when the Olympic games were still going on, the ancient Olympic games. And running races was a common thing. And so they understood there were races, and there were beginning lines and finish lines, and there was different training you had to do for these races.

Looking unto Jesus, verse 2, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and set down at the right hand of God. So he says, look at this great cloud of people, collection of people that God used, that we could use as heroes, we could use as men and women who inspire us. And they should inspire us. And many times what inspires us is the fact that they were just as weak as we are. We can see their weaknesses. God, it's amazing how so many people in the Bible, he knows, he knows, and he shows their strengths. He shows their weaknesses, because he wants us to see that it was through him that these things happened. But he also wants us to zero in on Jesus Christ.

Our greatest witness, central to who we are, that he is the Son of God. He came to this earth, he died, he returned to where he was, and in that life of death and resurrection, God gives us the greatest hero. So verse 3 says, for consider him, speaking of Jesus, who adored such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed striving against sin.

So part of what he's talking about is endurance, and part of what he's talking about is striving against sin. And I want you to really zero in on those two issues, because those are the primary issues of what are being talked about here. Endurance and striving against sin. So then, we'll pick it up now in verse 5. So that's sort of where it was left off. Mr. Meyers left off last time. Verse 5, he says, and you have forgotten the exhortation, which speaks to you as two sons. Now, I want to stop there in the middle of that sentence, because there's something profound in that sentence. First of all, he says, you have forgotten something.

Okay. Well, what are the symptoms that lead to this forgetfulness? Okay, how would you know you have forgotten something? Well, we go back, and it's because at the end of verse 3, we find ourselves spiritually weary, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls, because you haven't yet strove that hard against sin, is what basically verse 4 says. So what we find, he's talking about here, okay, if you find yourself spiritually weary, if you find yourself spiritually discouraged, if you find yourself not resisting sin the way you sin, there isn't a sin that can't be overcome by God.

The problem is, we're not submitting many times to—well, any time we sin, we're not submitting to God's power. He says, this is where we're going here. He's talking about endurance, resisting sin, and he ties his back, and you've forgotten something. Well, how do I know I've forgotten something? Because you're weary, you're spiritually weary, you're spiritually discouraged, and you're just not fighting sin like you used to. So when you find yourself in that place where life is overwhelming, when you find yourself discouraged, when nothing seems to be working out, when, you know, whether it's your job or your marriage or just your health or the fact that you wake up and realize you're getting older or the fact that your friends moved away or you think of all the things that make us weary, or you're just serving and serving and serving and nobody seems to care.

You're giving to others and you're just burned out, and you find yourself weary and following God, wearying and doing what you're doing. And all it ever does is seem that everybody complains anyways, right? Why serve? Why help? All everybody does is complain. And you're discouraged means without courage. You just don't want to go on. And so you find yourself sort of compromising, you know, the edges of your life. You're compromising with sin.

Oh, you're not overtly committing adultery. You're not overtly out there working on the Sabbath. But you're letting little things just infringe ways of thought, ways of feeling, little actions. He says, so when you find yourself like that, you've forgotten something. And you have forgotten, notice what he says, that he speaks to you as sons.

That's a remarkable statement. You have forgotten that you are the children of God and that God treats you like His children. Now, you think about, I mean, if you could really think about what it would mean, and I've thought about this in my own life, if I could ever capture that and hold on to it every second of every day.

I mean, I have times when I know I'm a child of God, I know I'm His son. There's times I'm acting as His son. There's times I'm relating to Him as His son. Now, those are usually pretty good times. No matter what else is happening, and that's saying they're good times and physical things happening or other things, but there's just this power and this peace and this direction and this purpose to life.

Because, hey, I'm a child of God. I'm acting like a child of God. I'm fulfilling God's fulfilling His purpose in me. I'm being a child of God. My future is to be in that resurrection and be a child of God forever. But boy, that's hard to hold on to. You can hold on to that until you go to work and your boss just treats you terribly.

Or you can hold on to that until you get a really bad cold. Or you can hold on to that until your husband or wife is having a bad day and takes it out on you. And all of a sudden we forget. And in life, it's easy for these things to get to pile up and pile up. And the more discouraged you become, the more weary you become spiritually, the easier it is to stop resisting sin.

When you're on fire for God's way, resisting sin is a whole lot easier. Why? Because God's Spirit is working in you. When you're weary and discouraged, you're just not...it's not that God's Spirit isn't there. It's just you're not submitting to it.

So, He says, okay, when you're in this state, you've forgotten something. You've forgotten who you are and how God's going to treat you. He's going to treat you like a son. He's going to treat you like a daughter. So then He goes to the book of Proverbs and He quotes, My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him. For whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives.

So He says, in those hard times in life when it's easy to get discouraged, are those times in life when you have a hard time resisting sin, when you're just weary, why should I even try? You know, it's the alcoholic that's struggling and saying, you know, I keep doing what's right, I keep doing what's right, I haven't had a drink for 10 years, and they just fired me for my job, and it wasn't fair, and it was on a false accusation. So God, if you're going to let that happen, I'm going to go have a drink.

And you say, wow, when they do that, we've all done it in one way or another. We've all ended up in that emotional loop and that thought process that because of weariness, because of discouragement, we stop resisting sin. And He says, when you're in that place and you've forgotten that, you need to remember that God will chasten you. It's like, oh, so I'm doubted out and God's going to beat on me. Boy, that's encouraging news. He says, yeah, but remember, God only loves you if He beats on you. Right? Verse 6, for whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives. Now, the word chasten, we'll go through in a minute, I can't soft-pedal the word scourge. Okay? Against soft-pedal that. So we're going to have to remember, this running the race analogy is how this discussion begins. Or we can get into a wrong concept of what God's doing here.

So, He chastens us. It's an interesting word here that Paul uses, the word chasten, that comes out in English. You know, chasten is a word that we don't use in modern English so much. So what's that mean? Well, it's punishment. But it really had a greater context. It literally means that it has to do with the training of children. It has to do with the training of children. In fact, it's interesting, in the New King James, that word is translated a lot of different ways, depending upon the context. It ends up being chastened here, which has the concept of punishment, because the word scourge is used. You know, anytime you're a translator, you have to figure out what synonym do I use here, right? So they use the word chasten, which has an implication of punishment because of the word scourge. But it was translated different ways, even in the King James. Let's go to Titus 2, show you how they translated this word to try to capture the fullness of it, because it has to do with the training of children. Titus 2, verse 11, once again, I'm in the New King James here, it says, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, teaching, chastening us. So you see, the word has a concept of taking children and guiding them and teaching them. And yes, punishment is part of it. 1 Timothy 2, verse 24.

1 Timothy 2, 24.

No, I think I want to go to 2 Timothy 2. No, where do I want to go? 2 Timothy 2, 24.

So here we have ministers instructed to correct, same word, those who are in opposition to the truth. We have 1 Corinthians 11.32. 1 Corinthians 11.32. And this word is used throughout the New Testament. I just picked a couple to show you the ranges of how they had to translate this in order to capture the meaning of it.

2 Timothy 2, 24.

Now, that means chasting can mean simply giving you instruction. It can mean giving you formal education. It can mean taking you to the Scripture. But many times it means something uncomfortable. And the writer of Hebrews is obviously using this word in the context of being uncomfortable.

So let's go back and look at verse 5 now. 3 options in 85.

But He does have a purpose. And to understand this, we have to see ourselves as children who trust in the love of our Father. We have to see ourselves as children who trust in the love of the Father. For whom the Lord loves, He's going to correct, and scourges every son who He receives.

Verse 7, If you adore chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a Father does not chasten? Now, once again, He's zeroing in on the relationship. Remember, this is about being discouraged. This is about being weary. And this is about not resisting sin, just sort of letting it eat away at the edges of your life. And He says, when you're like that, you've forgotten you are a son. Because when you're like that, nothing's going right in your life.

If things were going right, you wouldn't be discouraged. If things were going right, you wouldn't be weary. And if things were going right, you wouldn't be sort of compromising with sin, you see? So things are bad. It has to be bad for this to make sense. Those things are bad in your life. And He said, why is it bad? God, why are you doing this to me? Why are you allowing this?

Why won't you fix this? And He said, but wait a minute, you mean this God is punishing me?

It's not God who made you discouraged. It's not God who made you weary. Remember, the whole thing leading into this is, look at all these others He worked with. Look what Jesus Christ did. Don't be discouraged and weary. But if you are, you've forgotten who you are. If you're compromising with sin, you've forgotten who you are. So at that point, God intervenes. And when God intervenes, you start to get corrected. I can only tell you from my experience, I, boy, I've been through this more times than I wish to talk about. Wery, discouraged.

My life is sort of on the fringes, just not being careful about sin.

And once again, it's not the overt breaking of the letter of the law. It's the spirit of the law that we begin to compromise with. It takes a lot of time for that to eat into the letter of the law. So it's coveting and it's pride. It's all these other things that begin to eat away.

It's greed. And they eat away at our lives. And then God says, I can't allow that to happen, so I'm going to correct you. Well, I'm discouraged. Where are you going to correct me? Well, you're discouraged because you need correction. Oh, so you've got to go through the reasoning here, what's happening? Or you think, man, he just kicks me when I'm down. It is because you're in this state. He says, okay, now I have to correct you. If you adorn this correction, God deals with you children as sons. What His son is there whom a father does not correct, does not chasten. But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Well, that's a strong statement. He says, all the children of God partake of correction.

And if you have no correction, then you're not a child of God at all.

The scary time in life is when God no longer corrects you. He just lets you go on the course you're running. Remember the analogy. The analogy is you're running a race, and this is a marathon, this isn't a sprint. And in this marathon, you have to stay on course. And if you get off course and you're now discouraged and you feel lost and you're weary and you're compromising with sin, He says, God's going to come along and do what? Well, He's going to just put me down. See, people think in terms of God that way. He's just going to... He's punitive or He's just mean. No. He's going to put you back on the raceway. He's going to put you back on the course.

See, you carry through the thought. You see where He's going here. We get back on the course. That's the reason. So we don't end up condemned like the world.

Verse 90 says, Furthermore, we had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid their respect.

Shall we not much more readily be subject to the father of spirits? Our fathers corrected us for a lot of reasons. I look back as a father. I corrected my children because I wanted them to learn God's way. I wanted so much for them to learn to be moral and to grow up and be productive adults. And sometimes I corrected them because I was tired. You look back and think, ah, there's times I did it for the wrong reasons. Or I corrected without teaching.

So then they were discouraged. God is never going to correct us without teaching. Now, sometimes we don't want to hear the teaching. That's something different. If you don't want to hear the teaching, you're just going to get more discouraged, more weary. And you're going to sit on the fringes of your life. That's what's going to happen if you aren't willing to listen. But He's always going to correct us. The difference between punishment for punitive reasons and punishment for correction. When you begin to understand God's chastening for correction, sometimes you realize it's not punishment at all.

It's not punishment at all. We've just gone off the racetrack and He's pointing us back on the course. Stephen Covey told a story. I always thought he illustrated this so well. He told the story of two battleships that had all the cruisers and everything with them. They were out on maneuvers and its heavy fog came in. And the one battleship got separated from the fleet.

And so the captain came up onto the bridge because this is heavy fog. He needed to be there. All the watch is around. I mean, this is really serious. And they see a light in the distance. And he asks, is that light coming towards us dead on? And they say, yes. Well, that's bad because that means you're headed towards a collision course, right? So he gets the signal guy with his light to signal out, we are on a collision course. Please turn 20 degrees. And he gets the signal back. This is, yes, we are on a collision course. Move. You move 20 degrees. And the captain says to send back, I am a captain. Change your course 20 degrees. And the signal comes back.

I am a midshipman. Change your course 20 degrees. At this point, the captain's lost his goal.

And he says, we are not going to change our course direction. We are on a proper course. He says, you send a signal to him that says, I am a battleship. Change your course 20 degrees. So they do. And they get back, I am a lighthouse.

It gives a whole new meaning to changing course, doesn't it?

Changing course is like a really good idea, because that lighthouse cannot change its course.

Now, when you think of what God is doing at times, it feels uncomfortable for Him to change course. But He's not even doing it. I mean, there's times He will punish us. He will scourge every son that's His. Okay, it says that. But there's many times when that changing of that course is not done by God at all for the purpose of, okay, I want to punish you. It's always done. I need to get you back onto the raceway. I need to get your course back on the way, because if you keep being discouraged, you keep being weary, and you keep letting sin eat at the fringes of your life, one of these days you are going to steal. One of these days, you are going to commit adultery. One of these days, you are going to give up the Sabbath. You see what I mean? One of these days, you're going to fall headlong into the breaking of the letter of the law, and then your life is going to be a real mess. So He says, before you do that, let me get you back on course. The more sensitive we are to God guiding our course, the more we let Him be the captain of our life. We let Him be the navigator of our life, the less difficult it is when course changes come, and course changes will always come to everyone who is following God. You know, Hebrews 2. Let's go back to Hebrews 2. This word is a little different in Hebrew, but it can't be translated this way. But what we're talking about here is just, it makes a point. I'm not sure the writer of Hebrews was connecting Hebrews 2 with Hebrews 12, but I'll do it. Hebrews 2, verse 10, For it was fitting for Him, speaking of Jesus Christ, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things. So here He is. All things were made for Him, and God made all things through Him in bringing many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. The next verse says, and because of this, He's not ashamed to call us His brethren. You think about that Christ, saying, Oh yeah, that's my brother. That's my sister over there. Know her real well.

And He's doing this because He's your captain.

If I let Him be the captain of my ship, I'm not going to get off course, am I?

The problem is, we're all captains of our own ship. We like being captains of our own ship, and we're always trying to take that ship where we want it to go. And when we do, we can end up being spiritual shipwrecks. We can end up being spiritual shipwrecks.

You can't know your course until you know what the finish line is.

You can't know your course unless you know what the finish line is.

So God tells us that's what Hebrews 11 is. Here's the finish line.

The country that they all sought, the kingdom of God that they all looked for, that's your finish line too. The problem is, we don't know how long it's going to take to run this race, and we don't know how hard it's going to be. We just know it's going to be hard. That's all we know. But we know what the finish line is. We know we have to stay on this course. Some of you may have some kind of nautical background, but there's a term that sailors use to lay a course. You lay a course. When you lay a course, you don't zigzag. You just stay the course. You have to stay on that course.

You know, if you were an ancient sailing ship and you were out going from Europe to the New World, and you got off by one degrees, can you imagine where you would be months later? It doesn't take much. If you're off just by a little bit over the course of time, you're in a different place. You say, why is God being so tough? I'm only off by one tenth of one degree. And God's saying, you know where you're going to be five years from now.

You know, I was sending you to the New World, the colony in Virginia, and you're going to end up someplace in Brazil. That's what happens when you're off by just a fraction of one degree.

So these course corrections are going to happen all the time. The farther you're off course, the harder it is. The more energy it takes, the more pain it takes to get back on course.

But that is God's purpose. It is to discipline us to get back to He's laid a course. And we've got to run that course. I'm mixing my metaphors here, okay? Running the race and the ship, okay? But we have to stay this course. And when we get off of it, He'll bring us back. Look at verse 10.

For they, indeed, for a few days, talking about our physical fathers, chastened us as it seemed best to them. But it wasn't always what was best for us. I mean, I look at my father who was a great dad and tried to do what was best for me. I know he didn't always do what was best for me. My kids know I tried to do what was best for them. I always didn't do what was best for them. But he, speaking of God, he, for our prophet, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Here's why he does what he's doing. He doesn't do it because he says, ooh, do I like causing them pain. He doesn't do it because, you know, I've talked to many women over the years who say, my two or three kids drove me crazy. And finally, well, today I just exploded, and you know, all of you go to your rooms, or I am personally going to rip you apart, limb by limb.

Fortunately, God never punishes us because we drive Him to that point.

We are not capable of driving Him to that point.

Fortunately for us, He can't go to that point. Can you imagine God losing it?

You know? Can you imagine Christ? I can remember when my kids were little, sometimes they'd come home, open the door, and my wife said, they're yours! Can you imagine Christ going to the Father when they'd say, they're yours! I don't want them anymore! Just take them! See, they can't get to that point.

So everything they do is to keep us on course. And sometimes that means hitting us awfully hard. He will.

God will never punish you because He's mad at you and just wants to get you. He never will punish you to hurt you because He's vindictive. But He will punish you because you're so far off course, you're going to miss the Kingdom of God. And He will hit you as hard as He has to. And remember, He's saying, when you're discouraged and weary and sin is at fringes of your life, you've forgotten who you are and therefore you will be punished. And now He's telling you why. He's telling us why. We will be punished so that we end up back where God wants us to be because He wants us to be partakers of His holiness. That's a remarkable statement. He does this so that you and I can become holy as He is holy. We can become what He wants us to be. We become like Him. We become like Him. When He says children, He means children. He doesn't mean that we're like pets. There's a whole different relationship between a master and a pet and a father and a child.

And a father and a child. A totally different relationship.

Verse 11 says, Now no chasing seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Those who have been trained by it. In other words, something happens. I've known people who look at everything bad in their life and believe that God's doing it to them. God's mean. God doesn't love them. He's holding them back. Now God is holding me back from what I want. And the result is they're miserable. Miserable people. Here He says when you are trained, you let this happen. You submit to these course changes. You get where God wants you to be so that you can finish the race and end up where all the people in Hebrews 11 ended up. Because this is still part of that same subject. He says you end up there like they did, which is what God wants for you. You'll be trained by it. Course corrections sometimes aren't always negative. You ever have that rare experience in life where you're going away from God, but it's not really willful. You're drifting away, and He comes along and corrects the course, and you're like, Whoa! I'm sure glad He did that! Usually we're not because we're sort of like the direction we're going in. But every once in a while, we'll be sensitive enough to know, Oh, I'm glad He did that. I'm glad He intervened in my life where He helped me or sent somebody, or I found this in the Scripture, or He just awakened my conscience because boy, where I was going was bad. He came in and intervened to keep you from where you were going to end up really in a bad situation.

And He realized, Wow! He did that! He changed the course here. I was going here, He changed it. And you feel elated by it. See, all course correction doesn't have to take scourging. It just depends on how far we've drifted, and how much He has to do to get our attention, and then how much we resist the course correction, and then how far we drifted, because boy, the farther you drift, the harder it is to get back.

But He'll get us back there because He wants us to finish that race. He wants you to finish that race. The NIV translates this word, chasten as discipline.

I want to read from the NIV, this passage, to give it a bigger context now and use the word discipline, because discipline doesn't always mean punishment, does it? It does sometimes.

But, you know, to learn a discipline. That child needs to learn discipline doesn't mean you always punish them.

We talk about, well, that person is really good at playing the piano. The person says, yeah, well, I had to discipline myself to learn how to do that, because I had to put in hours and hours of practice, training, which we've seen that word. Here's how the NIV says this, starting back in verse 4, if your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood or in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted the point of shedding blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons.

My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline. Do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.

Endure hardship as a discipline.

There's been times in my life where I went through something, and it just went harder, and it went on, and on, and on, and then I realized I'm learning some discipline to this. There's something I'm learning that God didn't cause it, but he'll discipline us through it. We'll learn it. Have you ever had any... I remember blowing out my knee at age 38, and I had reconstructive surgery. And I kept saying, God, why didn't you just heal me?

Of course, he's saying, why are you still playing sports at 38? But I heard that later when I was 52 and stopped playing sports. It was like, oh, I got it! I was supposed to quit back then, but I blew out my knee, and I couldn't figure out why. I really had to say, why didn't you just heal me? I mean, I annoyed people. I watched them get healed. Why didn't you heal me? And it wasn't until I had to go through six months of my life to go through six months of rehab, and in doing so, I learned to appreciate certain things.

And it wasn't long after that I saw a man trying to get out of a wheelchair into a car, and he was struggling to do it, and his wife said, don't help him.

Or he said, I don't want any help. And someone went over to help him, and I stopped him and said, don't.

He says he doesn't want help, not because he's being stubborn. It's because he knows if he doesn't do it, they'll reach a point he won't do it. It was a discipline he had learned. I only knew that because I had to do the same thing. I had to actually ask people, do not help me, or I will limp the rest of my life.

It was an interesting discipline. I look back now and say, wow, thanks for teaching me that. Next time, can you find an easier way to teach me that?

It has to be an easier way.

But I really look back on it as a very positive experience in terms of what I learned, or what I had to go through.

He says, endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as sons, for what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined, and everyone undergoes discipline, then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we all have had human fathers who disciplined us, and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live? Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best. But God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

So what seems like a passage of, God's going to beat up on me, was not intended to be that. What launched this was weariness, discouragement. You're not resisting sin, not the way that you should. And that's what launched this, so God will bring you back on course to find encouragement in the discipline. So he leads to verse 12 then, Therefore, strengthen the hands which hang down in the feeble knee, and make straight paths for your feet, so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. In other words, so get back on the path. Get back on the running lanes. Get back into the marathon. Stop running all over. You know, a marathon is a long run. What is it? 20... 26? 26.2. Okay, 26.2 miles. Now, what did you think about this? God says, okay, it's a marathon, everybody. I want you to run 26.2 miles. And it's going to be hard along the way. Bad weather is going to come up. Some of you are faster than others, and some will get left behind. But you know, you all will end up there. But what we do is we run about five miles, and then we go, hey, there's the McDonald's. So we run two miles over to the McDonald's.

And God comes along and says, what are you doing? Well, I'm eating some fries.

And God says, well, you got to run two miles back to get back in the race. Oh, I'm so discouraged. I don't feel good. Well, come on. But I don't want to go back in the race.

Well, yeah, because now you've got to run 30.2 miles, because you've just added four miles to your run.

So He forces us back, and we're back running again. And then there's a Dunkin' Donuts.

Oh, I'm going to go over there, and off we go. And God comes along as we're gorging ourselves with donuts. And He says, this is very poor training, you know. Oh, yeah, but these are good. Okay. Well, when you're done, let's get back in the race. So what we do is He's dragging us back into the race. Man, I want to go. And He gets us back in the race. We're gorging ourselves on this spiritual junk food, and we've got to leave the race to go get it. And then we're upset with God for bringing us back on course. And say, yeah, you can't train this way. This is bad. And then halfway through, you know, we've run 12 miles, and we're sick as a dog, spiritually sick as a dog. Well, yeah, look what you've been eating while you've been running spiritually, see? Well, look where you're ending up. Stay the course. There's a course laid in. And when we do, we're back on the right path, and we're being spiritually healed. Now, what's interesting here is the next few verses, he's actually going to lead into another subject, but I want to cover the next few verses because the way he gets there is fascinating to me. Pursue peace. Here he is. He's talking about the straight path now. We're back on the path. We've adored our chastening. God's corrected us. He's got our correction, you know, back. Course is set in. And here we are, and he says, now, pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Now, this shows that Christianity isn't a passive experience.

He didn't say, so now that you've received Jesus, just bask in the love of God and you've got it made. He says, pursue it. Now, remember, you're running a race. That's the analogy. You've got to chase this. You've got to keep running. Christianity was never meant for us to be called by God, crawl into our homes, and simply wait for Jesus Christ to come back while bitterly despising everybody else because they were called by God. That's not a Christian that's not Christianity was never that.

Christianity is an active lifestyle. It is a relationship with God and Christ that affects everything we do. And we have to run after it.

We have to run after it, pursue it, because if we do not, we will not see the Lord. That's what it says. And remember, there's a theme that runs all through Hebrews that is picked up here in verse 15. Looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God. Now, you remember, I gave a Bible study before the feast here where we were going through in Hebrews 10 the unpardonable sin, where people actually bring shame on the spirit of grace. He says it's impossible to renew them. There's this theme in this whole book about running, about moving, about not giving up. It's a driving message in this whole book. And through this whole book, we cannot give up because we can fall short of the grace of God. Now, God's grace is not short. God's grace is not the issue, the issue is we won't grab it. We won't take hold of God's grace. This favor, this mercy, this love that He gives us, we won't grab hold of it. And what we read in Hebrews 10, it was because we want to sin willfully. What He's doing in 11 and 12 is saying, before you ever get there, where you're sinning willfully, let's go and look at all the people God worked through, all the great witnesses you have. Look at Jesus Christ. And when you get discouraged, when you get weary, and sin starts just eating away at the edges before you're ever to that place, let God correct you. Let God put you back where you're supposed to be. Submit to that, and you will bear the fruit of righteousness. You will have peace. You will be trained. You will be going in the right way. Or, you'll run this race, and you'll never reach the end. You'll never reach where God wants us to go. He says in the rest of verse 15, let's go, looking carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled. He's not talking to the world. He's talking to the church.

Lest many become defiled. And how are they defiled? Because they have a root of bitterness.

That's a very interesting concept, and it's a whole other subject. Bitterness is when we become angry and negative to the point where we just feel frustrated and angry and bitter all the time. We never can experience joy. It's like the old, you'll see people say, well, that person can only be happy when they're unhappy. You can't experience the goodness of God, the fruits of God's spirit. And you may be keeping the letter of the law, but you hate it while you do it. Or it simply makes you feel hateful towards other people. Yeah, you see, I keep the Sabbath and you don't keep it as good as I do, so I'm better than you. I mean, it's like you don't enjoy anything. Nothing is good. Everything is evil. Everything is angry. You see life as a victim. The root of bitterness. It's interesting. This actually comes from a passage in Deuteronomy where it talks about the bitterness that would come into Israel if they followed other gods. It says, if you follow other gods, you will get a root of bitterness.

And he says, we can fall short of the grace of God because of bitterness. I find that interesting because bitterness of itself isn't a specific sin. It's an emotional state. It is an emotional state in which you are angry and vindictive and in which you despise others, which you feel like a victim, which you believe that God somehow doesn't love you. You obey Him because He's mean and you have to. And you say, well, I'm a good Christian, but I don't want anything to do with that word, love. Bitterness is a dangerous place to be because it begins to move us away from running this race with the grace of God.

And because of this, He says many Christians at that time had become defiled. In fact, He goes on and really makes this into a very graphic statement in verse 16, lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. One morsel of food sold his birthright. You go back. Esau did not value the birthright God had given to him because He did not value it. He sold it for a bowl of lentils. And then he became bitter and wanted to kill his brother for taking it. And he believed that God had mistreated him. And he wanted to repent. He wanted his birthright. He goes to his father Isaac and he says, please, I mean, you go read through that. Here's a grown man crying. I mean, a tough man who's known as a warrior and a hunter. And he's just crying. He says, Father, don't you have a blessing for me? And he says, I can't give you the big blessing, the great, I can give you a smaller blessing. I can't give you the greater blessing because they gave it to your brother. I can't take it back. It's bound by God.

What even Isaac didn't realize is God had realized that Esau was going to be a bitter man.

He realized that he was going to take his birthright for granted. Running the race towards his birthright didn't mean anything to him. It was owed to him. He could sell it, do whatever he wanted with it. And the result was he lost it. And he wanted it back, but it says he could not repent. It also says he was a fornicator, which is interesting. In other words, he also became a very immoral person along the way because he didn't value his birthright. He didn't value his birthright. Now, if we go back to Hebrews 11, think about what it says, these people saw a different country. All of Hebrews 11 is about let's be encouraged by these people because these people saw a different country. These people saw the kingdom of God. These people understood their birthright. And they went through all kinds of things, but they ran the race to its very end.

The grace of God took them where God wanted to take them, and they ended up at the very end. And they're coming up in that resurrection. And at the end of chapter 11, he says, but they won't come up without us. That's what I find so interesting about chapter 11.

They won't come up without us. They are waiting for us. Why are they waiting? Because you and I have the same race to run. Our race isn't any different than theirs. It's our time. It's our time to become the saints of God. It's our time to run the race. It's our time to stay the course. It's our time to let God make all these course corrections. It's our time not to become weary and discouraged. We'll fight it. It's our time not to let sin come in. It's our time to end up where God wants to take us and not become like evil. Verse 17 says, for you know that afterward when He wanted to inherit the blessing, He was rejected, for He found no place for repentance, though He sought it diligently with tears. Diligently with tears. That's the warning.

Hebrews is one of the most, to me Hebrews is one of the most fascinating books in the Bible. It ties in the Holy Days to Jesus Christ. It explains that Jesus Christ was not an angel. It explains what the unpardonable sin is. There's a lot of encouragement in it. It is one of the greatest instructions on faith in all the Bible. But throughout this entire book there is, but remember, God will get you there. But you have to run the race and you have to stay on course. If you get off course, you can remove yourself from the race. You can get so far away that you're no longer in the race. And that warning is through here. And here is another strong warning, because remember Esau. Now verse 18 seems to change direction. So I don't want to read on through verse 18 because there's so much in the rest of this chapter that changes direction some. But there's sort of like this huge, parenthetical section in here about Jesus Christ being the firstborn of the church and we're the church. But it's interesting. Remember, if you see, therefore it means, okay, this sums it up. This takes us where we're going. And now let me get down to making my really important statement. So if you end in verse 17 and you look through all this sort of parenthetical statements he's going to make on a little different subject, and we skip down to verse 28. Therefore, he's talking about Esau. He's talking about Esau who did not receive his inheritance because he did not value it. Hebrews 11 is about people who did value it. Hebrews 12 is about how Christ came to show us an example and to die for our sins and how when we get off course, God's going to correct us and it's going to be unpleasant. But that's okay because remember what he's doing. He's taking us on this course. There's an end to this. Don't be like Esau to remove yourself from the grace of God. Just relieve the race and go out and say, I'm not going to run this anymore. God says, why? I'll get you there. I'll drag you along. I'll carry you. I'll train you. I'll correct you. I'll do whatever it takes. Just stay there. Just stay on this course. I don't want to anymore. He says, remember Esau did that. He says, therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom, he says, remember what we're supposed to receive. Remember what the end of our race is. We are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken. Let us have grace. Stay in God's grace. Stay in God's mercy. Stay in God's love.

And when you're in God's love, he's going to correct you.

He's going to correct you. When you're in God's love, he's going to train you. When you're in God's love, he's going to discipline you because his parent loves their child. They will train, discipline, and sometimes correct their child. If they love them, they will.

To let a child grow up without direction, without training, well, you end up with a criminal. Did you really love that child?

So God says, I'll keep you there. I'll get you there. I'll pay whatever price it takes to get you there. Jesus Christ already showed he'll pay whatever price. What more does he have to prove? God, the Father, Jesus Christ have already proven we'll pay whatever price to stay in my favor, stay in my direction. Therefore, since we have received a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. Stay serving God with reverence, worshipful attitude, and with godly fear, realizing that to leave the course is to become shipwrecked, spiritually shipwrecked.

Well, I covered more than one verse. Who has it next time? Mr. McNeely?

Or you do?

How many verses do I do? You'll beat that. You'll do a half a verse next time.

Okay. Well, thank you for coming out. And next time, probably be Mr. Meyers. We'll continue with the Book of Hebrews.