Hebrews 12 and we're going to read verses 14 through 16. Hebrews 12 verses 14 through 16. Pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 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, lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau who for one morsel of food sold his birthright." The only people on the face of the earth that experience peace to any degree are those that have put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The only people. You see that the spring from which peace flows into any life, into any community, into any nation is the relationship between a person and God. And God says that when we sin, when we break His law, we offend Him. We break His law. We become criminals in His sight. We become rebels to His kingdom. There is no peace with God for such rebels. And that's what we all are by nature. And yet Jesus Christ came to bear that sin, to bear the punishment of that sin, to bring reconciliation between man and God. And those of us who have put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His work on the cross, We have been reconciled to God. We have peace with God. Of all those on the face of the earth, those of us who have come to Christ in that way know peace. And yet, to those very people, the author here of Hebrews 12 makes what statement? pursue peace with all people. We are, if we belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, we are the people of the Prince of Peace. We have peace with God. We are called to peace. We are to be peacemakers. And yet we have a command here to pursue peace with all people. According to my Random House College dictionary, peace means a state of harmony, freedom from disorder, cessation from any strife or dissension. Sounds great, doesn't it? But it's not so simple. We may have peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, And yet, peace with all people, to use the words here in verse 14, is an elusive quality. Hard to find. Even harder to maintain. Because, you see, when it comes to finding peace with all people, when it comes to maintaining peace with all people, all of us start out with two strikes against us. Strike one, each of us is a sinner living with other sinners in a sin-filled world. And sin always hurts. And so, as a sinner, I hurt you. As a sinner, you hurt me. I misunderstand another. Another misunderstands me. It's certainly not a formula for peace, is it? It's a formula for conflict. And this formula applies just as much to Christians as it does to non-Christians. We're sinners living with sinners in a sin-filled world. Someone has likened Christians to a bunch of porcupines in winter. We huddle close to keep warm, and then we jab and pinch each other, and so we flinch and scatter only to go cold again, and so we huddle again, and you get the picture. It goes on and on. Anytime sinners live in close quarters, whether it's in a home, or in a church, or in a workplace, peace is hard. Because we're all sinners. That's strike one. Strike two, as Christians, as believers, we face avowed enemies every day. The world, the flesh, the devil. The New Testament flatly declares that our relationship with these three can be summarized in one word. Warfare. I can't think of a better antonym to peace than warfare. How does the old hymn writer put it? Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease while others fought to win the prize and sailed on 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. As Christians, we have peace with God, but we have no peace with the world, the flesh, and the devil. And that's strike two. So it's against this backdrop that we read Hebrews 12, 14, which instructs all of us, pursue peace with all people. Now, this text that we read a moment ago not only tells us what to do, pursue peace, but also tells us why we must do so. This passage not only outlines the goal, but what happens if we fail to reach that goal. And we're going to talk about both in great detail this morning with the help of God's Now, I have emphasized to you already just in the introduction to this message that pursuing peace is no easy matter. The author here summarizes the difficulty in one word right there at the beginning of verse 14. He uses the word pursue. Now, the word pursue is a very strong word in the original language. It means to hunt down. In fact, whenever you see the word persecute in the New Testament, it is this word. We could translate verse 12 here, persecute peace, because what do you do? What did they do? What did Paul do in New Testament times when he was persecuting the Christians? He was going to foreign cities to hunt down Christians. He was going to great lengths to hunt them down. That's the idea in this word. We must go to great lengths. We must put ourselves out to hunt down peace. We live in a sin-filled world. We bump up against sinners every day. We ourselves are sinners. And because of all of those things, peace with others – hear me please – peace with others never happens naturally. We must pursue it. We must go to great lengths. It doesn't just happen. It takes work. We must hunt it down. Let me put it this way. If we do what comes naturally in our efforts for peace, I can just about guarantee that we won't find it. Pursuing peace means hard work and in particular it means the hard work of running counter to our feelings and counter to our impulses and counter to what we want to do and instead doing what God in his word tells us to do even when we don't feel a bit like it. I see so many people, I've seen so many people in my pastorate who want peace desperately, but time after time after time, they do what actually makes matters worse. The relationship goes from bad to worse. Because you see, the only people who find peace in their relationships with others are those who are willing to invest the effort to pursue peace. Those who are willing to do the soul-grinding work of saying, I'm not going to do what I feel like doing here, but I'm going to follow the path laid down in God's Word, even though it seems difficult, even though it seems impossible. This is why Paul in Romans 12, 18 says, if it be possible, as much as lies within you, it will take as much as lies within you and I to live peaceably with all men. So as the people of the Prince of Peace, as people called by God to peace, we must attach great value to peace. Peace is so precious that we must be willing to do almost anything to attain it and maintain it. But notice I said almost anything because our text here goes on to place a limitation on our pursuit of peace. Because it says that you and I must pursue peace and holiness. Matthew Henry, perhaps the greatest commentator on the Bible, said, peace is such a precious jewel that I would give anything for it but truth. You see, the implication in this verse is that the only way to have peace with certain individuals is to compromise our allegiance to Jesus Christ and His truth. The only way to have peace with certain people is to be willing to violate the principles of holiness. And so I want to make clear here at the beginning that I am not commending that we go to that length. For the sake of peace, we must do much. We must do all that lies within us, Paul says. But we cannot cross a certain line. We cannot cross the line of holiness. We cannot give in to those who would have us deny Christ or deny His Word in order to have peace. You see, some men must always remain our enemies because they're the enemies of Christ. But I would plead with you, if a man is not the enemy of Christ, then this limitation rarely applies. And you and I must pursue peace. We must hunt it down. We must go to great lengths. As much as lies within us, we must put in to the effort. Now, that we have defined the goal and how far we must be willing to go in order to attain it. Verses 15 and 16 here go on to outline the consequences if we fail in this pursuit. Verse 15 begins with the words, looking carefully. It's as if the author says at this point, pay attention. These words speak of a careful examination, like a doctor would give, a medical examination. We must pay careful attention to the path of peace, because it's littered with obstacles and difficulties. And these verses list three of them. You'll notice that each of these difficulties, each of these dangers, begins with the word, lest. The author lists them out here. He says, pursue peace, and if you don't, three things may very well happen. First of all, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, he says. Now the key word here is the word that's translated fall short. The old King James Version uses the word fail. Now to fall short or fail of the grace of God, I first of all want to make clear, has nothing to do with losing your salvation. That whole concept is foreign to the context here. The word fall short or fail literally means to fall behind the pace. to fall behind the pace. You say, well, that doesn't make sense. Well, yes, it does. If you read the general context, I've taught you many times that the key to understanding almost any passage in scripture is to read the context around it. Let's go back to the beginning of this chapter. To verses one and two verses that are familiar to many of you, and you'll get the idea here. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." So the author here has a race in mind, and particularly he has a marathon in mind, a long-distance race in mind. And so when he says here at the beginning of verse 15 that some people are falling behind in grace, the idea is that they're falling behind the pace in this race which is the Christian life because they are not using the grace that God has given them. That's the idea here. You know, somebody, you see it from time to time. If you watch sports, you watch a marathon, and you'll see somebody before the finish line, they can't go another step. They've run out of energy. It's depleted. It's gone. They're done. They stumble off to the side. Sometimes somebody has to take care of them. That's the same idea here. Grace, as it were, is the spiritual energy for the Christian race, for the Christian life. And at times, we fall behind in using that grace. Now stick with me here, because I'm going to get real practical for a few minutes here. We're talking about peace. Talking about the pursuit of peace, okay? Now, we have all admitted, or at least I've admitted for you. We'll talk more about this in a minute. We've all admitted that we're sinners. We live in a sin-filled world. And because of that, we hurt each other. We are constantly doing to one another that which shatters peace. on a personal level. But we need to understand that it's even in such times and even in such circumstances that we are still under the government of God. We are still under His providence. Even in those circumstances where we sin against another or another sins against us. When someone sins against us, when someone wrongs us, when someone hurts us, it's not because God was on a picnic at the time. And when he came back from the picnic, he said, hell no. What's going on here? God foreknew that this person was going to hurt me. God foreknew that this person was going to hurt you. You say, well, preacher, you wouldn't say that if you knew what this person did to me. Yes, I would. But I'm not finished yet. You see, God allowed it. And then when it occurred, He made available to you and I the grace to deal with it correctly and biblically. Part of that grace is described in 1 Corinthians 10, 13. I don't want you to turn. I want you just to listen carefully. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it. You see, when God permits us to be hurt, when he permits others to sin against us, He also, in any of those kinds of circumstances, makes a way for us to grow by that. For us to do what is right and positive, even in that hurtful situation. Plus, he sends the motivation and the spiritual energy, as it were, to use that way of escape. Okay? So I've set the context. Now, stick with me. Here then is the first great danger in our pursuit of peace with others. Some of us fail of this grace. We're in a circumstance and someone has hurt us. They've sinned against us. And it hurts. And naturally we want to respond in anger. But at the same time, God backs up his dump truck of grace and dumps a load of grace on us. That's what this says. He says, I have told you in my word the way of escape and I have backed up my dump truck and I have dumped grace on you so that you can do what's right here and you can grow by this. And many of us fail of that grace. We fail at that very point. You see, we refuse that grace. We fall behind in the race because we're not using the grace that God has given us. You need to remember what grace means. I think so many Christians have the idea that grace only has to do with salvation. No, the word grace is an extremely broad word. It basically means whatever we need from God that we don't deserve, and we don't deserve anything from God but hell. So what we need from God in that circumstance where someone has sinned against us and wronged us, God says, I will give you that. And so in the context of a problem with another person, he gives us the direction. He says, this is the path of peace. This is the path of reconciliation. And then he gives us the motivation and the energy and the courage to follow that path. Now, I keep talking about this, this direction, this way of escape when we're in that kind of a circumstance. What is that way of escape? You'll notice 1 Corinthians 10, 13 said the way of escape. We don't get to make this up, folks. The way of escape is given to us by God in his word. And there are numerous passages in the New Testament that describe the way of escape, that describe the path to peace. in this kind of a circumstance. I intend to preach, this is a whole other message, but I just want to list briefly, I guess I want to steal my own thunder, and I just want to list briefly, you know, what I'm talking about here. Matthew 18, verses 15 through 18 indicates that, well, it describes the steps that we need to take in great detail when someone has sinned against us, when someone has hurt us. Matthew 7, Verses 3 through 5 indicate that we need to pull the log of sin out of our own eye before we ever try to deal with the speck of sin in somebody else's life. So before we can ever go to Matthew 18, we have to go to Matthew 7 and make sure there's not sin in my own life. And then James 5.16 teaches us that we are to confess our sins to one another. Now there are other passages as well, but you get the picture. We are sinners living with other sinners in a sin-filled world. And if that is true, and if I hurt you, and if you hurt me, and if I misunderstand you and you misunderstand me, then why should it be a rare thing that I confess my sin to you in that circumstance? And you talk to me about how I've hurt you. Why should that be a rare thing? We fail of the grace of God in the pursuit of peace. Now, how does that happen? How do we fall behind that grace? I think it's for one of two reasons. Number one is pride. We get into that situation and I've been hurt, or you've been hurt, and it all becomes about me. It all becomes about retaliating. Where it all becomes about if I'm the sinner, if I'm the one that sinned against you, it all becomes about defending myself and rationalizing and excusing what I've done. And when we get that focus, God backs up the dump truck of grace and we don't even notice. Because I'm so focused in here. I'm so focused on my hurt and my anger and the need to retaliate and the need to get even or the need to justify what I have done and to refuse to tell anyone that I'm a sinner. Let me just talk to you for a minute, and I'm going to quit preaching and just talk to you for a minute. I have preached the principles of reconciliation in churches for 20 years, and I have seen them not work so many times. I think the average Christian is afraid to do, and that's the second point here, there's a fear factor. The average Christian is afraid to do what God tells him to do here because he feels like if he does that, he's going to lose a friend or things are going to blow up in his face. And that's because so often, I believe this is the root of it, folks, in my life and in your life. The root of it is that you and I respond in these situations so often like Pharisees. We say, thank you Lord that I am not as other men are. I don't ever really sin against other people. And so there will never ever be a need for me to confess sin to another person. Do you believe the Bible? Do you? Do you believe you're a sinner? Do you? Really? Do you believe you sin against other people? Do you? Really? Then why should it be strange that you need to confess on perhaps a daily basis, I sinned against you, forgive me. But I don't see that in the church. To our detriment. We fail of the grace of God. And because we fail in that way, others who need to confront us, who need to say, you've sinned against me, you've hurt me, they won't do it. They're afraid. Now, this has come home to me because. A few months ago, somebody started working with me at Bob Jones University. He is, in fact, my colleague, he's on the same level. Of all the people at Bob Jones, I work most closely with him. And he practices this, folks. There's rarely a day go by that he does not confess sin to me in our personal relationship. They're normally small things. Forgive me, I was late for the appointment. But he doesn't apologize. He says, forgive me, I was wrong. Now the counterpart to that is that he will rebuke me as well. The first time he did it was in front of my boss and I was rather taken aback. But I had to say, you're right. I shouldn't have done that. It was wrong. It's a lot easier to take it from somebody who constantly says, I sinned against you, forgive me. A lot easier, isn't it? The other night at the board meeting, a couple of the men rebuked me for something that had to do with my preaching. You want to talk about stabbing to the heart. I get a little loud sometimes. They told me that. They were right. Now, that wasn't my initial response. I was hurt. I wanted to retaliate. I wanted to argue. I wanted to rationalize. I wanted to justify myself. I had to sit there for a few minutes before I finally said, you're right. Thank you. I'll seek to change. Do you really want peace? This is a two-sided thing. You and I must be willing to say, I sinned against you. Forgive me. And we must be willing to say, you sinned against me. And we'll talk a lot more about it. It takes care when we do that. We need to be careful in how we approach it and when we do it and why we do it. And in the near future, Lord willing, I'll preach about all of those details. But understand, it's the attitude that makes this possible. And I don't ever see this attitude. We fail of the grace of God here in the pursuit of peace. And when we do, you know what happens? You ever heard of peaceful coexistence? detente, that's what they used to call it. Who abides in peaceful coexistence? What? Enemies. So you can have peaceful coexistence, you can have detente, but that's not what this is talking about, folks. That's not what it's talking about when it says pursue peace. Perhaps you think it's no big deal to reject God's grace when something like this happens in your life or mine. Just do nothing about it. I don't need to do anything here. But if you look at what these verses say, they build on each other. First of all, it said, lest any of us fail of the grace of God. But then it goes on to say a second thing. It says, when we reject God's grace, we open the door to a second problem. Let's read on in verse 15. It says, lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble. When we fail of God's grace in the middle of an interpersonal problem, we plant the root of bitterness, to use the phrase here in verse 15. Now, in the New Testament, bitterness is usually connected with relationships. In Colossians 3, it speaks of the danger of bitterness in the context of marriage, which is the closest human relationship. Ephesians 4 speaks of how bitterness affects, or in the context of how we talk in our relationships. It says, let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you. Ephesians 4 and 5 is all about relationships, and it talks about bitterness in that context. So obviously, bitterness somehow has to do with our relationships. But what exactly is bitterness? Dave and I were talking about this. This is one of those difficult concepts. It's not really spelled out in the meaning of the word. The word bitter simply means sharp or pungent to the taste. Now, I know Darren very well. He likes things that are sharp and pungent to the taste. We go to Zaxby's, Dave gets wimpy, I get honey mustard, and he gets nuclear. That's not what this is talking about, okay? Because, see, beyond the idea of being sharp or pungent to the taste, both the Old Testament and the New Testament equate bitterness with poison. You see, the easiest way to think about bitterness is in terms of emotional poison. So when we refuse God's grace, in the middle of an interpersonal difficulty, when someone has sinned against us, or we have sinned against another person, and God backs up the dump truck of grace so that we can reconcile that thing, so that we can pursue peace, and we say, no, I'm not going to do that, we refuse to do it for whatever reason, then we allow poison to begin to work its way through our emotions. there comes a point when there's enough emotional poison in a relationship that we see every little thing that that person does in a negative light. That emotional poison poisons everything that has to do with that person in our life. Let me paint a scenario here. Here's Burt Bert has been having a lot of arguments and disagreements with his wife. And now, in reality, if you were a fly on the wall and you were overhearing these disagreements, they're not really serious. Many of them are nobody's fault, really. Circumstances, stress, miscommunication have set off a lot of these arguments. And then the couple's sinful, angry responses to each other have done the rest. But in any case, Bert carries around a lot of unresolved anger until one day he reaches his limit. At some point, his emotions cross a line. Now, when he was engaged to this woman, he could not see anything but how wonderful she was, how wonderful everything was that she did and she said. And now it has totally changed that emotional poison has done its work and everything that she does and says he sees in a negative light. It's as if he has taken off one pair of glasses and put on another pair of glasses and he sees things totally different. And so no matter what his wife does now, good, bad, or indifferent, he sees it negatively as another cause for anger because the poison of bitterness has done its work. Now the text here states that the root of bitterness does what? It springs up. We don't normally use that terminology in English. When we see a root coming up, we call it what? It's growing. So get the idea here. The author is talking about bitterness as something that grows naturally. We don't have to cause it to grow. This happens on its own. The growth of bitterness is natural. Or let me put it to you another way. When we do what is natural in the midst of interpersonal conflict, then bitterness usually grows. Just as weeds grow naturally given the chance, bitterness will grow just as naturally when we don't use the grace and the direction that God has given us for handling that interpersonal problem. And one last point here from verse 15, the last phrase of the verse says that when this root of bitterness springs up, it defiles many. That is to say, the consequences of bitterness, the consequences of this emotional poison will affect many. As I was meditating on it, this was the picture that came to mind. Again, when you and I are unwilling to say, I sinned against you, I was wrong, forgive me. When we're unwilling because of fear to go to others and say, you sinned against me, you need to repent. I want to reestablish our relationship. When we're unwilling to do those things, it is the equivalent of systematically planting poison ivy in your yard. Now, that's a ludicrous mental picture, but I want you to think about it for a minute. I know many of you have planted grass. Dave planted sod, you know, in his front yard after he bought his house. Now, I want you to think about if you were to systematically plant poison ivy sod, and then it begins to grow, what would happen to your children? What would happen to your neighbors? What would happen to your pets? I don't know. Do dogs get poison ivy? We'll talk about that some other time. I don't know. There are good things about being a dog. They eat and sleep. What else do they do? They don't get poison ivy. Do you get the idea? When we're willing to let that poison grow up in our emotional lives, then other people are going to be poisoned by it as well. That's the picture. When a mother and father refuse the grace of God and they refuse to follow the path of peace that God has laid down, then their children are going to be affected. When two church members refuse the grace of God, when they refuse to follow the path of peace, then other church members are going to be brought into the quarrel. And how many times in my ministry have I seen people leave a church rather than follow the path of peace and use the grace that God has given and follow His direction. When two workers at a workplace, at least one of them being a Christian, refuse the grace of God, then that poison spreads to other workers and perhaps even affects the product and affects the customers. The poet said, no man is an island, and that is certainly true when it comes to bitterness. When bitterness invades one relationship, its roots spread out and affect other relationships as well. And then there's one last thing, and it's the worst thing. As I said, these consequences here seem to build. And in verse 16, the final warning, if we will not follow this path of peace, He says, lest we end up like Esau. The author says if we will not follow the path of peace, if we will not take God's direction, and we will not use the grace that He gives here, then we'll end up like a certain individual like Esau. Now the passage, verse 16 here, uses the word profane. to describe this type of individual. Now normally when we think of the word profane, we immediately think in terms of profanity. We think of someone who is rude and crude in their speech. But that's not really the basic idea here. The basic idea in the word profane is someone who has no regard for what is holy. has no regard for the spiritual, has no regard for the eternal. It's not someone necessarily who is antagonistic toward God. It's just someone to whom God doesn't really make any difference because his life is wrapped up in the pleasures of this life, in the common things of this life. That's why the word is linked here in verse 16 to fornication. The Old Testament doesn't give us any evidence that Esau actually committed sexual immorality, but he was the kind of man whose life was totally wrapped up in the here and now. I mean, after all, what kind of person was Esau? This is a great point to make at this point in the year, in the annual calendar. What kind of person was Esau? Yeah, a rugged outdoorsman. He was a hunter. And I mean, for most men, what could be better? I'm going to spend my whole life hunting. That's what his whole life was wrapped up in. And in fact, his whole life was so wrapped up in it that he was willing to do what? Sell his birthright. Do you get the picture of this man? This man who was so wrapped up in the things of the here and now that he could not see eternal values. And he said, sure, I'm so hungry. Give me a mess of that pottage. You can have my birthright. And you say, OK, preacher, I get it. How does that have to do with pursuing peace? I'm glad you asked. Just this. You've heard me say it time and time and time again. The horizontal relationships in our life can never be divorced from the vertical relationship in our life. And the idea here, please get this, the idea here is that when you and I refuse the grace that God gives us, we refuse the path of peace, And that poison begins to work itself through our horizontal relationships. It also cools our relationship with God. What a horrible thing. This is why Jesus said, if you come to the altar to worship and you remember that that someone has a problem with you, that you have a problem with someone, go take care of that because you can't enter in to the fullness of this vertical relationship until you've taken care of that. And so the final consequence of failing of the grace of God, of failing to pursue peace in the way that God has directed, is that you come to the place where you really don't care that much about the things of God anymore. You become an Esau. You're willing to sell your birthright, your daily time with God, begins to decline. Your interest in the church and in service for God wanes. Your desire to win souls, you don't care about that anymore. It's all negatively impacted. And it all is a ramification of refusing the grace that God gives us to handle any interpersonal hurt with another person. Whichever side of that we're on, And so you and I must pursue peace. We must hunt it down. But the hunt for peace is different than most hunting. You know, often when you're hunting, whether you're hunting for game or whether you're hunting for your car keys, you don't really know what direction to take, do you? I mean, that's the whole point of hunting for your car keys, at least if you're like me. But you see, it's not like that with the hunt for peace. Because God has told us very specifically what direction we need to go. The hunt for peace has much more to do with the difficulty in taking that path. But God gives us the grace for those difficulties. He's not only told us what to do, what direction to take, but He backs up the dump truck and gives us the grace to follow that path. Could I have every head bowed, pleased, and every eye closed? I believe we need revival here at MidwayBibleChurch. And the Lord has been laying on my heart messages that I believe speak to that issue. How can we be reinvigorated by the Spirit of God? How can we know His reviving power? And this is the first thing that comes to mind. Some of us need to pursue peace. Not peaceful coexistence, not detente. We need to pursue peace to where there's full reconciliation with every person in this where we're certain that emotional poison has not brought us to the place where we see everything that that person does in a negative light. And that's how you can evaluate this morning whether I'm talking to you. If there's someone here at Midway, and when you look at them, everything that you see in their lives is negative, then you need to pursue the path of peace today. If you can't say, well, there are some good things here I see. I see the Lord using this person in this way or that way. Some of us, before this day is over, need to find children or spouses or church members or perhaps co-workers and find peace. If that's you, then you need, by God's grace, to take that step today. You deal with the Lord Jesus about it. We're going to have a time of silence. Make that commitment and then follow through on it. No sense having a down-the-aisle invitation. The invitation for this is what happens in our relationships. Let's pray together. You pray in your heart, in that secret place, and you deal with the Lord about this, and then we'll close.