So God has been informing us that how we have to run the race with endurance. That the Christian walk is not intended to be easy. We have the picture of Christ who went to the cross, who was beaten, he was scourged, he was mocked. He did everything right. He walked in perfect holiness. But yet, he was hated and despised by men. And that promises to us, as well, that the world will hate us. All that desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. The prosperity gospel that is very widely believed is that God is there to bless you, and you're the one that's holding back. You're the one that's preventing the blessing. Which is true, if you understand what the blessing is. The blessing is to be holy. because without holiness no one will see God. The blessing is to walk in a way that brings honor to God. The blessing is to be a proper reflection of your Father's house, even if it means torment in this life, in this world. And we know to get there in the physical world, to train children, to train our physical children It requires much training. It requires teaching them the way that they should go, and that requires much chastisement. And we shouldn't think that God did not, or that we should recognize that God created that situation. He created that so that everybody understands that children need much discipline. to get them to walk in the way they should go so that we can understand that this is what we should expect in the Christian life. We should expect discipline. We should expect chastisement from God so that we can become the proper bearer of the name of Christ. God has to train us. He has to scourge us. He uses trials and He uses affliction to turn us from our sin so that we run the race with endurance so that we stay on the narrow path. We run the way that He wants us to run. Which brings us to this week's passage. Because this is, that's what God is doing. How He's preserving us through trials. How He prevents us from wandering astray. How He causes us to not give in. But we have a responsibility too, not that it's contrary to what He does, but that it's a means that He uses to accomplish what He does, because He will cause all that are His to persevere to the end. But we still have a responsibility to persevere through the trial. We still have the responsibility to not grow weak. We still have the responsibility to take the chastening and recognize the chastening for what it is, for God working to make us more productive for the kingdom, for God working to make us walk in greater righteousness and greater holiness. This week's passage is about how our response to trials needs to be to run harder, not give up when it's more difficult, but to push through in running a marathon The way you run to the end is that you have to persevere. There's a point that's called the wall, where your body just wants to give up, where your hands drop down, where your knees become weak, where you go, I can't take another step. And to finish the race, you have to run through the wall, and you have to keep going. And that's the picture of the Christian walk. There'll be times where you go, I just want to quit. And even though God will make it so you don't quit, your responsibility is to keep running. Your responsibility is to say, now's when I need to pick up my hands. Now's when I need to pick up my legs. Now's not when I just start to shuffle along. Now's when I keep running. So God's the one that makes it so that we will run the race with endurance, but that doesn't change our responsibility. Our responsibility is when we hit that point where we say we can't go further, you have to go further. You're not allowed to quit. And all those who are truly his will go further. They won't quit. But we need to recognize our responsibility and the attitude that we need to have in order to not quit. So verses 12 and 13. Therefore, strengthen the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make straight the path for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but rather healed. Therefore, This is where he starts. This is the foundation that allows us to use trials. So that instead of beating us down, it caused us to rise up. Instead of just going, well, I quit. This is too hard. It's to say, no, this is when I need to push harder. This is when I need to run more fervently. It's by understanding that God did it for our good. that God is doing it because he's chasing his children, he's training his children. That's the means that's there for us because of what God is doing. He wants us to be partakers of his holiness. That's why when we get that point where we go, we just want to quit, that's how we pick up our feet. That's how we pick up our arms. Is we go, I understand, I trust, I have faith in the goal of why God is doing this. And that's how you persevere. So this is a conclusion from what God just said that he was going to do, that he will scourge every son he receives so we could be partaker in his holiness and have the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Every parent, when they discipline their children, if they're a good parent, it's the purpose of making them a better person, making them, their sin to be constrained. And the child who truly accepts that and truly believes that, they can look through the pain of the discipline and they can say, this is good for me. When I come out of this, I'll be better than I was when I went in. And we do this with human parents. is that a child looks back, usually they don't see it in the moment, but they look back when they're 20 and they go, it's a good thing my parents spanked me. It's a good thing my parents constrained my sin. I'm a much better off because of it. And God is saying, you're supposed to get that now. As a Christian, by faith, you understand that now, that God does this because he knows what is the right thing for you. He knows the trial that you need. He knows what you need to turn from. He knows it all. And he knows perfectly how to get you to do it. So in that moment, when we're looking at those difficulties, when we're looking at that challenge, when we're looking at the chastisement, we can say, this is for my good. not because we see it, but because we see the God and we know God says it's for good. Children almost never, physical children almost never do this. That's why they have to be disciplined over and over again. But as immature Christians with the perfect Father training us, we're supposed to look through that. even immature, and as you mature in the faith, you need to be able to look through that and say, no, God has a real purpose for this. This is good. We count it all joy, like it says in James 1. Count it all joy when you fall into verse trials, knowing this, that the testing of your faith produces patience, and let patience have her perfect work. That you can be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. This is what God is doing, and we look at the chastisement, we look at the trial, and we say, I don't understand what God is doing, but I understand that God knows what he's doing. And that's how we persevere. That's how we strengthen our hands. When we think of hands in scripture, they're usually representing what they're doing, but I think in this case, it's back to the context of running the race with endurance. That's the picture. The picture here is not just having stronger hands, but it's how you use your hands in a race. The people, when they get too tired in a marathon so that they can barely take a step, their hands drop. Their hands drop down. They don't have enough strength to continue to pump their arms as they run. And I think that's the picture here. Their hands hang down when they reach the point of exhaustion. Because using your hands makes you run more efficiently. So hands hanging down is a sign that you're more stumbling along than actually running. And how strong you use your hands, when people sprint, they pump their hands far more vigorously than if they're running in a marathon. But they still lift their hands. They still use their hands when they run. So the picture of strengthening the hands is the picture of getting back in the race. It's a picture of get moving. It's a picture that you don't stop because of the trial. You don't give up. You don't let your feet drag. It's a picture of not just staying in the race, not just shuffling along, but actually picking up your hands and actually saying, I'm going to make progress. I'm going to move forward. and the feeble knees. Again, when somebody's having trouble running a long distance, their knees become weak. It feels like they're going to collapse. But if we have the right attitude, it doesn't work like that. Faith is what should change that attitude. Instead of going, I can't do this anymore, say, I can overcome all things through God who strengthens me. That's how we can strengthen our knees when we grow weary is that it's not God stopping us from receiving eternal life, it's God chastening us so that we run on the narrow path so we receive eternal life. We can strengthen our knees when they grow weary by remembering it's God who will give us strength. God's not doing it. God doesn't put trials in the life of a Christian to knock them down, to beat them down. He puts trials in the path of a Christian so that they can be partakers of his holiness, so that they can run the race with endurance, so that they don't go astray, so that they go in the way that they should go. So strengthen your hands, make strength, strengthen your knees, and make straight paths for your feet. Again, when we think of the race that we're to run, it's really easy to think, when we think of races, most of us think of racing on a track, but a running track is a very modern invention. That's not how most people ran. Most people, when they ran, they just ran from point A to point B. They didn't have a nice, smooth road with rubber on it so that you could go faster and all these other things. So we should be thinking of this like a cross-country steeplechase. which is a run where you just start at one point, and you pick a point off in the distance, and you can go however you want to get there, but whoever gets there first, whether they're climbing over hedges, whether they're running through a stream, whether they're having to fight through a woods, whether they climb a mountain to do it, it doesn't matter, you can do it however you want, it's just who gets there fastest. And that's more the picture of this race. It's a race that doesn't have a nice smooth track. It's a race that's a rough race. It's like a rough cross-country race, where the point is you just have to get there. And there'll be obstacles in the way, and you have to get over that obstacle. So when you think about that, when you think of a race on a nice track, obviously you just stay in your lane. It's not nice and easy. When you think of the race that's the picture of a Christian race, it's running across country and there's obstacles in the way. Do you go around the obstacle? Do you go over the obstacle? Do you go under the obstacle? Do you go through the obstacle? Making the proper, the right path, because that word straight is really ortho, which is right. Making the right path, that can be hard to see. That can be hard to understand. What's the right way to go? But God is training you so that you can see, hey, if I go this way, that's the right way. I can't go over here. I can't just run around this. I can't ignore it. I actually have to climb over it. That's what it means to make straight paths for your feet, is you go, okay, so how would God have me to run this? How would God have me to do, what would he have me to do in this situation? Rather than just going, this is what I wanna do, this is what I think's right. God trains us, He disciplines us, He uses chastening rod so that we run on the right path. And so the more we understand that God scourges us, He scourges every son He receives, the more eager we're gonna be to say, okay, show me where the right path is. Where would you have me to run? Where should I be going? That's what it's talking about when it says make straight paths for your feet. Pick the right path. when we're running the race with endurance, it's really important to be on the right path. If you get off on the wrong path, you can just veer off and all of a sudden you're not headed to the destination, you're not headed to eternal life. And so God does scourge us, but when we recognize that God scourges us, it should cause us to say, what is the path God would have me to take? Not what's the easy path, not what's the simplest path, but what's the right path? What's the path that will get me where God wants me to go? We're to be choosing the path that gets us to eternal life, the path that is about holiness, the path that is about righteousness. And that path, it doesn't mean that it will be the easiest path. It's very easy to just go, well, this way is hard, so I'm gonna go this way. But it doesn't get you where you're going. And running the race with endurance means you choose the hard path because you want to get to the end of the race. You want to get to the goal. You don't care if this path is easier because it will take you off in the wrong direction. You go, this is the way to get to where I'm going. And that's what God chastens us to do. That's what he uses his scourging to do to cause us to be on that path that will get us to the goal of eternal life. So that what is lame. So God uses another picture here. The word translated lame, and that's a fine translation, but it really means to halt. If you've ever watched many lame people, somebody who's not lame, when they walk, they walk smoothly. When somebody's lame, they stop because they have to do something with the leg that doesn't work right. And so what they'll do when they walk is they'll take a step, and then they have to halt and drag their other leg around. And then they take a step, and they halt and drag their other leg around. So the term halt is a frequent term for lame. And so if you're running a race, and every time you take a step, you have to drag your leg around. It's really easy to get off course, because you have to drag your leg around so that you keep walking in a straight line. It's extra work. It's difficult. And that's the picture here. When you're lame, it's hard to walk on the straight path. And this is a picture of the spiritual lame as well. It's easy for them to get off the right path, to get off the path of righteousness. And so what is lame, this isn't just about what you're supposed to do. This is also talking about what we're supposed to do for each other. And I think it's true for the other ones, too. We're supposed to come alongside one another and bear one another's burdens. We're supposed to help the one that has weak knees to encourage him to keep running. Help the one whose hands are dropping down to say, you can run the race with endurance. We have a duty to one another, but especially in the picture of the lame. Because the lame, the person whose leg is dislocated, they may not even realize that they're just walking the way that they know to walk. And those who are their brothers and sisters need to come alongside them and say, no, this is the right path. You're lagged at this thing, that this misunderstanding, this burden that you're bearing, this sin that you're partaking in, that this is driving you off the right path. And you have to be on the right path. Someone who's lame, they need some kind of help. They need a crutch. They need other people to come alongside them. They need aid if they're gonna run a race. And so we're supposed to do this for one another. We're not just supposed to run beyond them. We're not just supposed to go, well, at least I'm running my race. Tough luck for them. Instead, we have a duty to one another. the church is to care for one another, to make sure that those who are crippled in some area, that the brethren comes alongside them, and helps them, and corrects them, and rebukes them, and is even the scourging rod of God, he uses church to do that. But what they don't do is just let them go, they're lame, so they can't run the race. Instead, they deal with the person being lame. That may not be dislocated, So the other choice is that if you don't help what's lame, if you don't bear their burden, if you don't work on them to get them to run on the right path. they can be dislocated. That dislocated, when we think of a limb, it's kind of a bing out of joint, but here, the dislocated is much more literal. It means it's deflected off. In other words, you're supposed to run on the straight path, but if you start running over this way, you're dislocated. If you're running off the path, you get off a few degrees because you didn't want to drag your leg around for the next step, and all of a sudden, you're wandering off the path. And that's the picture of being dislocated. The person who's lame that doesn't keep walking the right path, doesn't keep walking the narrow path, but they start to be deflected off. It's the picture of when sin is not dealt with. You start to stop walking on the right path, stop walking on the narrow path, and it usually starts small and it gets bigger because it's just that idea that you deflect it off. And soon you're not headed to where you should go at all. You're wandering off in the woods somewhere. Because other people didn't go, you're lame. You need help. You have sin in your life. We need to confront you in that sin. We need to help you run the race with endurance. So not be dislocated, but rather healed. When Christians won't deal with sin in the church properly, this is what happens. People get deflected, they get off, and they start running down that path, and people don't come alongside them and go, stop it. This is sin. This is how you're spiritually healed from lameness, is you're confronted in your sin. You get the leg back in the right shape, you get the things that are, the joints that are dislocated, you get them fixed. And the church is supposed to do this. So when it says, so what is lame may not be dislocated but rather healed, we should recognize this as a responsibility towards one another. To not let people just wander off. That's not the responsibility of the church. God gives us real responsibility to confront each other in our sin. So that those who are off a little bit don't just get further and further off. Because that's what can happen so easily. verses 14 and 15. 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. So pursue peace. So now the writer shifts fully towards how to deal with others. is often a whole group of people can go astray. It's going to use the word for a mob later. So we have real duties towards one another. And the first duty is to want peace. Romans 16, 17, and 18. Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause division and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learn and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. Those who walk in the flesh, they're those who just want to argue for the sake of arguing. That's not what the church is supposed to be like. The people in the church are to pursue peace. We're not supposed to pursue arguments. We're not supposed to pursue dissensions. Instead, we're supposed to pursue peace with all people. there should be a desire in the church that peace with everybody else in the church not just everybody else in the church everybody in the world remember the crisis a picture this he came in a he'll all kinds of people he'll all kinds of sickness he came doing everything he could to produce peace with the exception of one thing is he wouldn't sacrifice holiness were to pursue peace, but we can never pursue peace at a sacrifice of holiness. Christ brought a sword and he created divisions, not because he wasn't pursuing peace, but because his holiness was offensive and created divisions. And we're supposed to do the same thing. We're supposed to pursue peace with all people. This should be our desire. This should be what we should do. But we can never sacrifice walking on the right path. We can never sacrifice running the path that God would have us to run in order to have peace with other people. Christ ran the race with endurance. He was the picture in Hebrews 12 verse 3. The picture of what we're supposed to do when we run the race, or verse 2, when we run the race with endurance. And what he did was pursue peace with all people, but he did it with holiness. And that ended up causing his death. That ended up causing all the people to turn around against him so that everybody rebelled against him. Everybody yelled, crucify him. He didn't produce peace, but he pursued peace. And that's what we're supposed to do. And again, but never at the expense of holiness. that has to be through holiness. Peace with God, which means walking in holiness. We can never rate peace with men above peace with God. Peace with God is I'm going to do what God says, and that's all I can do. We should desire to have peace with each other, but we can never sacrifice peace with God. That's far more important than peace with people. So we should be working hard. We should be desiring it. We should be working hard for peace. So that in our lives, the only thing that destroys peace with other people is our holiness. That's how we're supposed to be. That's what it means to walk like Christ walked. Is that we pursue peace, but never at the sacrifice of holiness. What disturbs the peace that we have with others around us has to be because they're offended because we're walking in righteousness. Because we won't do things according to the ways of the world. Jesus said in John that the world will hate you. But it should never hate us because we're rude. It should never hate us because we're pushy. It should never hate us because we don't care. It should hate us because we want to walk in the righteousness of God and they love the things of the world. That's why they should hate us. And we should expect all those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. We should expect them to hate us. We should work really hard to make sure that the reason they hate us is because we're walking in righteousness and not because we're contentious, not because we want to cause strife, not because we aren't showing love towards them. Instead, we're to love our enemies. And holiness is clearly more important than peace because without which no one can see the Lord. No one will see the Lord. Peace with God requires holiness, and we can never sacrifice it for the sake of peace with men. Because without holiness, no one will see the Lord. Psalm 24, three through five. Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully, he shall receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Only those who approach God with holiness, only those who have clean hands and a pure heart, only those who are dealing with their sins, only those who run on the right path, only those who run on the narrow path, they're the only ones who will run with endurance and receive the prize of eternal life. Unless you walk in holiness, unless the power of sin has been broken in your life, unless you're walking in the Spirit and not in the flesh, you will not see God. It's that simple. If it's broken in your life, if the power of sin is broken in your life, if you have Christian liberty so that you can now obey God, and now the Holy Spirit is causing you to walk in His statutes and His judgments, that's how you can see God. That's how you can ascend the hill of the Lord. That's how you can come to heavenly Mount Zion, which is what it goes on after these verses to say. It's those who have clean hands and a pure heart. It's those who have turned away from idolatry. It's those whose yes is yes and their no is no. It's those who walk in righteousness. It's not those who just pursue peace. We should always pursue peace, but never at the expense of holiness. That's what Christ did. He pursued peace, but never at the expense of holiness and were to do the same. So looking carefully, again, this is not just about us individually. We're to be watching, not like spying on each other, but out of real concern, out of real care. We are to be our brother's keeper. That means we have a duty to watch each other. That looking carefully, it's episkopos, which is, it means to oversee. And an elder, a pastor is an overseer of the church. And there is a real responsibility that is different for a pastor, but the term here is saying everybody has a duty to oversee. It's not just the pastor that has a duty of overseeing. It's not just the elder. And through Latin, it becomes bishop. The bishop is not the one that oversees. The one who oversees is each one of us, but the elder has a special duty that they have to answer to God for the state of the soul of the people in their flock. but all of us have to be our brother's keeper. People have delegated it to the pastor in certain ways, but they can't delegate all of it. You know, you look at Matthew 18 where it has to be brought before the church. Well, that implies that the pastor's involved. but going to your brother if he's offended you, going to your brother if you see sin in his life, that's overseeing, and that doesn't require the elder. That's what we each have a duty towards each other. We're supposed to be looking carefully lest anyone fall short. If we see something that appears to be wrong, you have a duty to go to your brother and to speak to him. You have a duty to care about their soul so that they don't fall short. want to make sure we should we should be making sure that there are other people in the church and our church or other churches other people that we know that they're not wandering astray that they're not gonna fall short when you think in the lame and they they start out there walking the right path but they slowly defect deflect off the sooner that you can confront them the sooner that you deal with the send the easier it is to get them back on the right path It doesn't have to be so obvious that everybody sees it. If you see it, you have a responsibility to look carefully to make sure that no one falls short. You have a responsibility to pursue it early and not just kind of go, well, I'll see if it develops. No, by the time it develops, they could be way off the path. That's not what you're supposed to do. We're supposed to be looking carefully. We're supposed to be considering. We're supposed to be paying attention, lest anyone fall short of the glory of God. and falling short of the grace of God, excuse me, the grace of God, not the glory of God, falling short of the grace of God could mean that they didn't receive the grace of God at all. Sometimes when you rebuke someone, they prove that they love their sin more than they love God, and they'll keep winding off that path, and you know what, where they were deflected a little bit, all of a sudden they turn, make a complete turn, and they run from the path of righteousness and the path of holiness. and they've fallen short of the grace of God. But it could also mean for the believer that they fall short of the grace of God, meaning not that they have no grace, that they have no salvation, but what it means is that they lose the blessings of God. The person who's grieving the Spirit, like it says in our confession, it could be a period where the Bible becomes dead to them, their prayer becomes dead to them, they fall short of the grace of God. God promises all these blessings to those who obey Him, and instead what they do is just feel the chasing rod of God over and over again. That's also falling short of the grace of God. We should desire neither of those. We should desire not to let that person wander astray. We should also desire that everybody feels the fullness of God's grace and receives the fullness of His blessing and that we turn aside the scourging rod from people by going to them and saying, do you see this? Do you see what you're doing? This is sin. This is hurting your walk with God. This is hurting the blessings that God has for you. So we're to speak to them, to exhort them to righteousness so that they receive the fullness of the blessing of being in the favor of God. By faith, we understand that them dabbling in their sin will produce difficulties because God will chase in them. So we should want to intervene. We should love our brother enough to go, don't do that. It's going to not turn out well for you if you do that. You think that that little sin doesn't matter, but that's going to cause you all kinds of problems. We're supposed to be, you know, you look at like in children, in your family, you really hope that the child, the younger child who's going to disobey, that her older sibling or his older sibling says, your parents aren't gonna be very happy if you do that. Mom and dad are gonna get mad. Why don't you stop before you get spanked? We wanna see that in our home. And we should recognize, we should wanna see that in the church. The same thing, God put that in the picture and parents are happy if an older child or a younger child warns the older child, don't do that or you're gonna get in trouble. And that's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to care for each other in the church enough to go, don't do that, there'll be real consequences. God uses a chasing rod. He scourges every son he receives. Don't do that or you're gonna receive scourging. That's what, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we're supposed to do for one another, just like we would want our physical brothers and sisters to do, or our children to do to each other. That's how we're supposed to be. We're children of God. And as children of God, we're supposed to be warning one each other. We're supposed to making it so, desiring them not to receive the scourging rod by dealing with their sin when we see it, by being overseers. By faith, we have to understand that God will scourge them, so by faith, we go to them and say, don't do this. Don't do this. Then there's another picture, lest any root of bitterness, like the lame man that gets deflected off the path, and the next thing you know, they're way off the narrow path that leads to life. Here, the picture is that the small things that we don't do anything about, that they get planted and they produce a root of bitterness. That seed of bitterness, that little act, whatever it is, as it gets bigger, it becomes a root, and it's just below the surface. Sin plants the seed that becomes the root of bitterness, so we need to watch out for the seed in one another so it can be uprooted before it destroys, before it creates all kinds of problems, before many are defiled by it. When I say sin, it's not necessarily just a sin of commission. It can be a sin of omission, too, where they're not doing something that they should be doing. And it also could just be false doctrine. False doctrine is always a seed of bitterness. True doctrine is a blessing. False doctrine is a seed of bitterness. And it's very easy to walk around and just let people walk in false doctrine and go, eh, it doesn't really matter. Understand that's not how it works. Most church splits that I've seen, they're because somebody walked in with some little false doctrine and everybody went, ah, he doesn't take that as seriously as he should. And soon, all of a sudden, it bursts out in a root of bitterness. And all of a sudden, many are defiled by it. So we should not just think of this as overt sin, but also false beliefs. They're a seed of bitterness. because they're against God. And God is love. And what's against God is bitterness. And so we should recognize false doctrine really does matter. So when false beliefs are brought to the light, we should be dealing with them, we should be confronting, we should be talking to people about it, we should be having the debates. These things are important if you don't want roots of bitterness to be springing up That picture springing up is that you have the seed of bitterness that gets planted and then it develops into a root underground. And then all of a sudden it bursts forth and it bursts forth because it has all the energy of a plant where the root system is taking in all kinds of energy. But you don't see it and then all of a sudden it bursts forth and it bursts forth and it has real strength because it's been growing for a while. And that root of bitterness often you don't even see it in yourself. So we need to watch for it. We need to look carefully. Not just going, oh, well, no. The reality is we can have a root of bitterness that all of a sudden you don't see it until you get into an argument and you go, why'd I just say that? Why'd I bring something up from two years ago? Well, the reason you did is you let it be planted as a root of bitterness. That's why you bring up something from two years before that you weren't even thinking of until the argument. Because it was there. It was just waiting to spring up. and because we can be have them hidden from ourselves we need to be looking in our lives and making sure we don't have bitterness making sure it's not there and we're just ignoring it that we're just we're just peepering over and pretending like it's not there is the day will come when it will burst forth we have a duty to do it in ourselves and we also have a duty to look at it be be looking carefully to make sure it's not happening in other people Ignoring issues is not the way to stop the root of bitterness. We actually have a duty to pursue peace and not just close our eyes to differences. We have a duty to pursue peace with God, which is holiness, and we have a duty to pursue peace with each other so that you don't just let it sit there and fester, because this is how many get hurt. actively pursuing peace that's how you stop the root of bitterness actively pursuing peace in yourself to ask if there's people that you're not at peace with why am I not at peace with them and don't let the root of bitterness grow in the other people that you see around you if you see them acting out a bitterness you have a responsibility to say something to do something because if you're that's that's what it means to pursue peace with all people is deal with the root of bitterness before it grows up and becomes a major problem because it will spring up and cause trouble that were translated cause trouble it almost means like produce a mob it's like getting a group of people together it's not just causing trouble but it's like it's like it it it expands and gets a group of people involved in the trouble It will cause a group of people to be infected by the bitterness. This is basically the form of all the church splits I've seen, but I think most other church splits. They almost all work the same way. And God used it to show who's approved. God used it to create divisions in His church. He has a purpose for it, but our desire should be to stop it. What usually happens is somebody has some small sin. Maybe they get confronted with it, but it doesn't actually get dealt with. Maybe other people don't care that they have a doctrinal error. And then they go around and they try to stir up other people. They get other people to agree with their false doctrine. Then all of a sudden, boom! It breaks out. And it ends up being a church split. And it causes a mob. Because that root of bitterness is still putting forth little feelers and putting forth little roots all under the surface. this is why we have when you see it when you see the seed being planted you have to deal with it because it can do so much destruction cause trouble and by this it does it causes more than just that person it causes more than the person that has a root of bitterness to be affected by this many are become defiled People that are part of the mob, they all become defiled. But also the mob, when you think of a mob, when you think of a riot, it hurts a lot more than the people that are rioting. And that's the picture. That's this picture of if you let the root of bitterness come, it produces a mob that will just tear things apart and create all kinds of destruction. So what we're supposed to do is look carefully. And what we're supposed to do is deal with it, make, heal the lame, heal the person so that you don't just have this, that sin that's sitting there and is just growing and it's just festering under the surface that all of a sudden bursts forth and everybody can see it and lots of people will be hurt by it. Roots of bitterness have a large effect. We need to work to remove them from ourselves first and then from others around us. verses 16 and 17. Lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. For you know that afterwards, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears. And God is saying, do this. Or this is what can happen. if you won't deal with the problems, if you won't confront sin when it's small, or false doctrine before it becomes acceptable. There can be people like Esau there, that look like they're a child of faith. He was a child, he was the firstborn of Isaac, the son of promise, but he was a fornicator. When we think of Esau, he did have three wives. But it's not even recorded in scripture that he had the wives because he was driven by sexual lust. It was actually he was driven by approval of his parents. Genesis 28, 8, and 9. And Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan did not please his father Isaac. So Esau went to Ishmael and took Mahaloth, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's sister, the sister of Nabajoth, to be his wife in addition to the wives that he had. he wouldn't add another wife just because he was trying to please his parents not because it's it's not saying he was driven by loss and the specific example in this passage is him selling his birthright to satisfy his hunger that word fornicator is porno so it is related to to sexual but it can have a broader meaning and sexual I think it's used in a broader meaning here this is someone who's controlled by his flash That's the picture of Esau. This is someone who's controlled by his flesh. Or a profane person. That word translated profane is really about taking a step over a threshold. It's those who will cross a line that should never be crossed. That's who Esau was. He was somebody who was controlled by his flesh, so he crossed lines that he should never cross. He was profane. He crossed the line. He sold his birthright. You know, later he wants a blessing. Even though he had enough faith to believe that God would answer the prayer of Jacob when he did a blessing, he still lost his birthright. He still went to hell because he was walking in the flesh and he crossed lines. He clearly testified that physical things were more important to him. than spiritual things. For one morsel of food, he was hungry. Genesis 25, 29-34, Now Jacob cooked a stew, and Esau came in from the field, and he was weary. And Esau said to Jacob, Please feed me with the same red stew, for I am weary. Therefore his name was called Edom. But Jacob said, sell me your birthright as of this day. And Esau said, look, I'm about to die. So what is this birthright to me? Then Jacob said, swear to me as of this day. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and a stew of lentils. Then he ate, drank, and arose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. That was the crossing of the line. He would have survived if he didn't eat. If he would have wanted to go hunting for another day, he probably would have gone another day without eating. But he comes in and he sees the food and he goes, I have to eat, I have to eat now. He's a slave of his flesh. He's a fornicator. Doesn't need to be sexual. He's a slave of his flesh. And so he crossed lines. He said, satisfying my flesh is more important than having the birthright. And so God says, you crossed the line, so you won't inherit the blessing. He sold his birthright, that's how he was profaned. He treated the blessing of God of being the firstborn, of being the rightful heir of Isaac, as worth nothing, because he was hungry. His flesh drove him so he couldn't value spiritual things. Remember, this is a picture, this is a picture of Adam in the garden, this is This happens all over the place. This is the picture of the person who's unsaved. They can't control their flesh because they think the fleshly things are more important than the spiritual things. Salvation has got opening your eyes so that you see that spiritual things are more important than physical things so that you have power over your flesh. If you don't have power over your flesh, you are not saved. Esau didn't have power over his flesh. His flesh controlled him. His flesh caused him to cross a line where he said, I'd rather have food now than be the heir of the kingdom of God. So he sold his birthright. Spiritual things were secondary to him. Physical things were primary. And for that, God says, you won't inherit my kingdom. If you know afterwards, you see the results with Esau. He lost his birthright. It had ongoing effects. When he wanted to inherit the blessing, even though Isaac wanted to give Esau the blessing, he realized that he couldn't. Genesis 27, 32 through 35. And his father Isaac said to him, who are you? So he said, I'm your son, your firstborn Esau. Then Isaac trembled exceedingly and said, who? where's the one who hunted game and brought it to me I ate all of it before you came and I blessed him and indeed he shall be blessed when he saw heard the words his father he cried with an exceedingly bitter great bitter cry said to his father bless me also my father but he said your brother came with the seat has taken away your blessing look at the story of Jacob and putting the the goat for on his hands and all this stuff And the picture of it is, Jacob said the spiritual things were far more important than the physical things. And Esau said the physical things, when he sold his birthright for some lentil stew, Esau said physical things are more important than spiritual things. And God is saying that's a line that you can't cross. It's a line that you can't cross. If you know about spiritual things and you say physical things are more important, Don't think you can then turn around and repent. So God's saying, watch one another. Watch out. Make sure that there aren't people like this. Catch them before they start walking that way, before they're going, I can't do anything else. I'm controlled by my flesh because of their sin. Instead, deal with them when their sin is small. Confront them when you see their sin. Confront them when you see the errors in their doctrine. Deal with things. Don't just sit back and go, oh, it doesn't matter. or they'll be a slave of their flesh. Now, obviously, if God saved them, then this will never happen to them. But this is about our duty, not what God is doing, because we still have a duty to not be like Jacob and try to get Esau to say physical things are more important than spiritual things. Instead, we have a responsibility to be righteous and tell Esau, do not forsake eternal life, because you're hungry right now. because you want to sin. That's the responsibility that we have to confront people and say, don't do this. This is a bad exchange. This is an exchange that will cause you to burn in hell for all eternity. Don't make this exchange. That's the responsibility that we have. Jacob with all his deceit, he still fundamentally had the testimony that spiritual things were more important than physical things. That's why he made the stew to sell to Esau for the birthright. That's why he did all these things, because he kept testifying, and God looks at Jacob, the deceiver, and goes, this is the person that has the right attitude, not Esau, who wasn't trying to deceive Isaac, who was trying to receive a blessing. But God still looks and goes, no, he won't be blessed. And Isaac looks and goes, yeah, he's not gonna be blessed. Yeah, I'll give him a different blessing. I'll bless him with physical things on this earth, but not the eternal things. Make sure that you're looking for that seed of bitterness. Make sure that you're looking for the person who's lame that's walking off, that's being deflected and wandering, so that you stop them before they become like Esau. So he was rejected. Isaac rejected his appeal. It's a picture of God rejecting the appeal of someone who isn't caring about the things of God, isn't caring about walking on the narrow path, isn't caring about holiness, isn't caring about righteousness. All they're worried about is this life. They see the cost of walking on the wide path and there might be a point where they want to return and God will go, no. Doesn't mean God has to let them. Esau sought it with tears, but he found no place of repentance. He couldn't return back to the narrow path. So we're supposed to tell people early before they're so far off. Those who are adopted children of God, God will let them return. But if they're a fornicator, unable to control the lust of the flesh, if they're profane, not caring about the boundaries that God put, they're not an heir of God. and they shouldn't expect God to take them back. It doesn't mean that they won, that God won't. It means that they can't control it. If you've been adopted by God, you can return. God will always let his children return, but the person who thought he was a child of God wanders off to think he can return. That's just dreaming. Esau couldn't return, found no place for repentance. person who's a fornicator, the person who's profane, the person who's not an heir of God, they can't just come back to the narrow path whenever they want. He sought it. He really tried to get his father to relent. He cried with a great and exceedingly bitter cry, but he lost his birthright. And God goes, I'm not gonna let you get it back. Sought it diligently. Tried to get restored to his father. just at that moment but also going and marrying a descendant of Ishmael because he wanted to please his father he wanted he wanted to get back in the good grace of his father's and God says no Isaac representing God no Jacob would receive the blessing Same word as in Hebrews 11.6, about diligently, but without faith it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. To diligently seek him is to sacrifice earthly things. You must give up your life if you want to gain it, that's what Christ said. You must lose the life of this world if you want to gain eternal life. You have to diligently seek Him, and to diligently seek Him is to strengthen the knees. It is to strengthen the hands. It is to turn onto the right path, the straight path. And you can seek it, and God doesn't say, I'll let you have it. Esau sought it with tears. The mourning over it wasn't enough. He loved the present world. And so even though he knew the promises, even though he knew the blessings, even though he understood those things, he sought repentance with tears and could not find it. Because God said, no, you're a man of flesh rather than spirit. I'll give you some applications. First application, when we're disciplined by the Lord and not just chastened, but whenever God does something that causes us to change our ways, It can be a conviction from God's Word. It can be that somebody exhorted us to love and good works. We always need to be diligent to put it into practice. God calls us to be doers of the Word, not hearers of it. When we're taught something new from God, we have a duty to pursue it. We have a duty to pick up our legs, to swing our arms, to run the race, to go on that straight path. When God points out, not this path, but this path, we have to pursue it, and not just try to forget about it. Another application, so much of running a physical race is mental. When you anticipate the finish line, that's where you think that you're gonna stop. So your legs get more tired as you get close to it, That's your arms start to hang down, where you start to go, oh, I couldn't go another step. So much of it is mental, because you've drawn this boundary of where the race ends. And it's true for running the spiritual race as well. God uses the pictures of the knees becoming weak, because that's what happens when you say, I can't take another step. Or in the Christian walk, where you say, I just can't do this. And then you find out that you can. So it's easier if you anticipate a long race to begin with. You anticipate this is running a marathon, not a sprint. This is running a marathon over cross country where there's all kinds of obstacles. That's the Christian race. If you recognize that, you run the race differently. So it takes longer for your knees to become weak. It takes longer for your hands to hang down. but in a regular race you get more tired. And in the Christian race, because it is God scourging you, it's He's training you, you actually get strengthened as you run. And so when you look at your hands hanging down, when you look at your knees becoming weak, you go, God will strengthen me. God brings you to greater and greater holiness so that you're able to run a race that you couldn't run before. Human runners train, they separate training from running the race, but that's not how Christians, that's not how the Christian walk works. It's God's training us in the midst of the race. And he gets us to be stronger in the midst of the race. We're able to run further in the midst of the race. And so some of it is when we say we can't do it, just recognize, just persevere through that, and God will make you stronger so that you are ready for the next thing. It's so easy for us to think that, you know, this trial, it's so hard. The reality is, is God gives us trials to make us stronger so that we can deal with the next trial better. And so there is parallels to running a physical race, but it's not the same because God is actually making you partake in greater and greater holiness, greater and greater. You have the joy of the peaceable fruits of righteousness. And as that happens, you have greater and greater strength to run the race. So when we run the Christian race, we should not expect to get weaker like a runner does, where they expect to run out of energy. Instead, we should expect to get stronger as we run, because God puts off the burden of sin that so easily entangles us. We're able to set it aside so that we don't have to carry that weight. And that's what God is doing in the training is he keeps making us sloth off weight so that we keep throwing things away that is slowing down the race if we go back earlier in Hebrews chapter 12. That's the picture. And so the race gets lighter and lighter. We can run faster and faster because he's strengthening us and he's causing us to carry a lot less baggage. And so we have hope when God scourges us. Another application, this picture of running the race with endurance is a picture of running on the narrow path that leads to life, rather than the wide path that leads to destruction. God disciplines us to walk on the right path. The narrow path, the straight path, it's all talking about the same thing. Taking the path that's righteous, taking the path that's about holiness, rather than taking the path that the world chooses. For all this, we have a duty to work so that others also take the right path. We have a duty not just to ourselves. Throughout these chapters of Hebrews, or this chapter of Hebrews, it's not just about you strengthening your hands. It's about strengthening the hands that hang down. It's not just about your knees being weak. It's about strengthening other people's knees that are weak. We have a real duty to exhort one another. That's what the meaning of the church is, that when you gather, it's to exhort one another to love and good works. Let's make sure that we're strengthening each other's hands and strengthening each other's knees. so that no one turns off the narrow path that leads to life. The chastening of the Lord is so that we walk on the narrow path, and we have a duty to participate as a church to the other people that we're covenanted with, but to other people outside also, to call people to go to the right path. We have this responsibility to our brethren. Another application, other people, often people think church discipline runs people out of the church, But it's at its best, that's not what happens. What it does is cause someone to recognize that they're lame. Somebody who's blind to how serious their sin is, when the church does discipline, whether it's rebuke, whether it's removing them from positions, whether it's barring them from the table, whether it's excommunication, it's all about, not all about, but one of the aspects of it is to try to get them to be back on the narrow path. How they can be healed. how the lame can not continue to be deflected off, but start to come back and run the way that they should be running. Sometimes it shows their heart, and you find out that they really don't want to be on the narrow path, and they leave, but that's fine, because we should be willing to rebuke people because we actually desire them to be healed. We actually desire them to walk on the narrow path. We always need to be willing to love them enough to rebuke them when it's deserved, because through that rebuke, God might discipline them so that the lame is healed, so that they start to walk in the narrow path again that leads to life. Don't let people wander off thinking you're being a blessing to them because you're not confronting them in their sin. You hate them because you don't confront them in their sin. Another application, we should be careful never to be contentious for the sake of being contentious. And young men have a tendency to do this. And it's never right. It's always about the flesh. It's always about pride. There are times where it's right to contend for the gospel. And the church has gotten pretty lukewarm about that. But contending for other things is considered acceptable. Who would argue about doctrine? That's terrible. But arguing about politics, what's wrong with that? As opposed to God says just the opposite. We're supposed to contend for the faith. but not be contentious. Be careful about the things that you'll fight for. The only thing worth contending for is truth, but it should never be for the thrill of the argument. Another application were to follow in the footsteps of Christ. Christ pursued peace with all men in more ways than we could ever do it. He healed the blind. He raised the dead. He fed the hungry. He did things that are more than we could ever do in terms of pursuing peace. But He would never sacrifice truth. He would never sacrifice holiness, because that's more important than peace with men. He walked in perfect holiness. He pursued peace, so they hated Him and killed Him. in order to do the same. We're supposed to pursue peace as Christ did, by making real sacrifices for others, but never sacrificing the truth, never sacrificing holiness. Peace with God is always more important than peace with men. That's proven by Christ when he said in Matthew 10, 34 through 37, Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth, I did not come to bring peace with a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And men's enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." Jesus Christ came knowing that He would create war, knowing that He would create division. So he came pursuing peace, knowing exactly what his holiness would produce. He knew it would produce division. And so we should pursue peace, but walk in holiness. And we know at the time, at times, that will cause the world to hate us. We can never sacrifice our relationship with God to have peace with people. Another application, we have the duty to be watchmen. that are willing to blow the trumpet and warn of the dangers to come. You know, it's easy to take a passage like Ezekiel 33 where it talks about that if you see the destruction coming and you don't blow the trumpet and warn them, that you stand with their blood on your hands. It's easy to think about that and put that in the context of evangelism. But I think this passage is putting it in a broader context. or to be overseers of one another. If you see sin in other people in the church and say nothing about it, you're failing as a watchman. It's not just outside. We have a responsibility to carefully look and oversee one another. If we see someone going astray, we have a duty to warn them of the path that they're going and what the result of that path will be. We have to be willing to confront and speak about small sins so that they don't become large sins. that end with destruction. We're to be watchmen inside the church and not just outside. Another application, examine yourself. I do have quite a few applications for this, just to warn you as I continue. Examine yourself, make sure there's no root of bitterness that's growing. It's really easy to let it happen. And if that starts happening, go pursue peace with that person. If you look at somebody in the church and you go, ah, you know, I don't really like him. Figure out why, because that's really an easy way to have a root of bitterness go up. Go pursue peace with that person. If it's their sin that's bothering you, then have you exhorted them, have you rebuked them in regards to the sin? And if you have and they won't respond, there's a point where you just let it go. You don't respond with, how come they won't hear me? That's how you get a root of bitterness. Instead, you pray for them. You pray that God opens their eyes. You pray, you have pity on them that the sin is hurting them, because all sin does damage. So that we don't get a root of bitterness growing up. We should pity someone who's a slave to sin, who can't overcome it. Those who are blind to even see it. That's what our response should be, and not let bitterness grow up. That's what we have a responsibility to do. When we've done what we can do, is we just have to turn it over to God. and say, God will deal with it. We don't have the right to. We don't have the right to go, look how great I am. I have the right to be bitter towards this person. God says, love your enemies. You don't have the right to be bitter towards anyone. And always remember that the person who's hurt the most by a root of bitterness is the one who's growing it. People hold anger towards someone, and they think they're hurting the target of their anger. They're not hurting the target of their anger. I've had people come to me that go, I've been angry with you for 10 years, and I'm like, I had no idea. The root of bitterness doesn't hurt the person that you're bitter towards. It hurts you. That's what happens with the root of bitterness. It always hurts you. Now, when it springs forth, it can cause lots of damage around. But the person who's always damaged the most by root of bitterness is the person that's holding on to the root of bitterness. Don't accept bitterness in your life. Deal with it. Don't accept the damage that comes from being bitter. Another application, people who have the root of bitterness, they try to get others on their side. They start with that seed and then it grows as a root and it tries to spread out and they try to go behind the scenes, not out in the open. where the bitterness has already sprung forth. So they try to get people to see it their way, whether it's about a person or a church or a doctrine. Every church discipline case I've been involved with, I've always seen this. They always try to get other people hidden in the dark. They always try to call other people. They always try to recruit other people to their side. This is how it works. The root of bitterness tries to get a mob to go with it. There's always that attempt. And frequently, it has nothing to do with the original offense. They just use whatever they can use to get other people riled up so that other people share in their bitterness, even though it has nothing to do with why they started. They just wanna get a mob on their side. That's why roots of bitterness cause so much damage, because they try to feed others, and they try to feed that bitterness to others so that it grows and it gets bigger. Another application, if you blow up a church through your root of bitterness, don't think you can come to God later and receive forgiveness, because you seek it with tears. God loves His church. The picture of Isaac and Esau is to relate to us about how God works. You can't treat the church of Jesus Christ as a minor thing, as something that's not precious, and then expect later to come back into the good graces of God. If you abuse the bride of Christ, God says, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. You should expect to be like Esau, where you can seek it with tears and you won't find it. It doesn't mean that God can't do it. It's not an unforgivable sin. But if you treat the church of Christ like Esau treated his birthright, this is what you should expect. You should expect to be like Esau approaching Isaac and Isaac goes, no, it's not gonna happen. That's what you should expect from God. Don't love your flesh more than the church. If you do, don't think God will just let you repent whenever you want. And the last one is don't lose your birthright. The birthright of the second birth is eternal life. That's the promise of the second birth. And those who are truly saved cannot do it because it's God that will cause them not to lose their birthright. but from our perspective, from our looking at it, it looks like I have this promise of eternal life, but then because of your love for things of the flesh, because of your desires in this world, because of the physical things around you, because of your pride, because of the way other people are treating you, because you don't want to have to run the race with endurance, because you don't want to walk in holiness, you can sacrifice eternal life. There's nothing in this world that's worth the sacrifice of eternal life. And we can look at Esau and go, how could he be so stupid? For some bean soup, he sold his birthright. How could he be so stupid? And understand how easy it is for us to do the same. Those who walk in the flesh will not inherit the kingdom of God. Esau walked in the flesh. Make sure you're not Esau. Don't sacrifice eternal life for anything temporal. It's not worth it. Let's pray. Oh, Lord God, we do thank you for this passage. We pray that we learn the things that we should from it. Lord, open our eyes to how it should apply to us. Open our eyes, especially, if there's any bitterness that we have. If there's any root of bitterness that's growing, let us uproot it. Let us remove it, because it causes so much damage. Now, you use it for the good of your church. We trust that. But at the same time, let us make sure that we're removing it before it destroys us and others around us. We thank you that you are a kind and merciful God that does cause us to walk on the narrow path through your scourging. Lord, let us be faithful to walk in accordance with your ways. We thank you that you have given us your Holy Spirit to convict us and to guide us and to lead us to truth. May we walk in righteousness and holiness, because without holiness, no one will see you. Let us look towards the prize.