And if you will, please, your Bibles at this point may automatically open up to the book of Hebrews. I don't know. It's been a while. But we're in Hebrews chapter 12 again. Last week, I only read three verses of it. I'm going to read a little bit farther here. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 through 14. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 1 through 14. Wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not resisted unto blood striving against sin, and ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, illegitimate children, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore, lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." God bless these words to us this morning. And we started last week, and our main theme here in the warnings, the warning is that people have a tendency, and this can be any Christian, even the so-called successful ones, people get their eyes off of Jesus Christ and become weary of the race that is set before them. This passage, this place here is one of the main reasons I wanted to do this series because I see a time of weariness in people like I have seldom seen. Now we haven't gone, well I'll speak for most of us, we haven't gone through things like world wars and horrible depressions. Some here maybe have, but we are having a type of war In some places in the world, it is with guns and missiles and bombs and all of that. But in another sense, it's a war not of the worlds, but of the words, the strife of tongues. The ideologies of men are conflicting, and the spirit of Antichrist is rearing up and challenging some of the most basic things you wouldn't think could be challenged. And there's a civil war, or call it an uncivil war, going on in the hearts and minds of people, and society can't even get along because of so many issues. And I see it wearing down the saints. In the book of Daniel, we were told that would be one of the Antichrist's goals, is to wear out the saints of the Lord. And oh, we can get weary and get our eyes off our target. I like that word you used today, John, target. Christ is the target. You get your eyes off of that, You know, I remember I was a fairly good dart thrower. I never went to places and played tournaments, but I had a dart board, and I loved to throw. And I thought I was pretty good, if I do say so myself. And I was by myself most of the time. But I remember where we had the dart board was right where the stairs from up above came down. And my mother was down in the basement doing things, and I'm throwing my darts, and I'm doing fine. And then she went to go up the steps, and I was going to stop. And I did for just a moment, but the problem is she stopped too, and she turned around. She was looking at something, thinking about something, and I thought, oh, I want to keep throwing. I'm on a roll here. And the thought came up, I don't want to hit my mom. I don't want to hit my mom. I don't want to hit my mom. You know what I did? Stuck her right in the back. Stuck her right in the back. She was pretty nice to me, all things considered. But you know, it's like when they teach drivers for night driving, don't stare at the headlights coming towards you. Instinctively go toward. Remember Peter. You know, he sees Jesus walking on the water, and he had the faith to say, Lord, I want to do that too. Now the rest of them stayed in the boat, so don't pick on Peter. He's got the world record for walking on water with the Lord. But anyways, he stepped out, but the wind and the waves got to him. Instead of looking at Jesus, he's looking at that, and guess what? Sinking away. And he didn't have some big formal liturgical prayer, like, we thank you, Lord, for this beautiful Thursday evening, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, Lord, save me! Okay, and just like that, he was up, and Jesus didn't carry him back to the boat, they walked together back to the boat. And I'm telling you, we get our eyes off Jesus, it's just like that, get him back on. get them back on, you'll be walking with the Lord on water or whatever it is. And so this is a very important lesson. And what I found is that I've taught on the first three verses of Hebrews many times. I've even taught on the next group there, verses five through 11, many times. But the study for this has caused me to look at the entire chapter. You know, Paul or whoever wrote this had a lot of concentration and they saw big pictures. I get caught up with that too. And what he is saying in the first few verses is elaborated upon, referred to in the rest of this chapter. So I'm taking time and here's our second week to do it. I hope this is it though for now. The entire chapter of the book is needed to express this thought about looking unto Jesus. I've seen books written on that topic, and they can bring in so many wonderful things. But we're trying to just concentrate on chapter 12 of Hebrews. You might notice verse 5 and verses 24 and 25, we've got this thought, they refuse his heavenly counsel and correction. And then later, verse 28, they become ungraceful, ungrateful, and irreverent. Now I'm going to talk about what that means a little later, but I'm trying to show you that the thought is developed on and on. What's the danger? What's the tendency? If we don't watch out, we'll get our eyes off Christ. And if we get our eyes off Christ, we'll start doing other things. We'll start going other ways. We'll get weary. We'll faint. We'll give up. We'll get sidetracked. So, notice there's a basic division in half of this chapter. Hebrews 12, 1-13, we need to run our race continually looking unto Jesus. We probably talked about that quite a bit last week. But then you get over to the next page, Hebrews 12, 14-29, we need to follow peace with all men and holiness fearing the Lord. Now, if we carefully note this, map this out, we start looking at how we can work towards prevention and restoration when we get our eyes off Christ, when things start going wrong. These are like two main divisions in this chapter. Now, back in that first division where it says we need to run our race continually looking unto Jesus, we didn't get all through this, but we have two subheadings here. We need to see Christ our example. And then next, we need to see Christ, our coach. Now, running the race, I thought I'd get athletic about here. I can call him the captain of our salvation. I can call him the king. I can call him a whole lot of other things, but let's call him the coach today. And back to the thought, Christ, our example, I had stopped in the references that supported this, and I said to myself, I'm going to give you one more about Christ, our example, from Ephesians chapter 5, verses 1 and 2. The book of Ephesians, chapter 5, verses 1 and 2. There are many other references, but here we go. The first two chapters of Ephesians 5, be ye therefore followers of God as dear children. and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor," or aroma. Okay, we need to become, Jesus told us this, he converted and become his little children, Matthew 18, one of a few places. So we gotta do it with the right mindset. We're here to follow God. And then God says, you wanna follow me? Follow my son. This is my son with whom I'm well pleased. Hear him, follow him. And so what is it here that's pointed out? Love. He was possessed of such a great love, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." I could also say, for Christ so loved us that He did the will of the Father, gave Himself for us. And that's what it says here, that He gave Himself for us. Now, I'd like to point out, and I don't know what other translations say precisely here, but it does not say in my Bible that He gave Himself to us, for us to handle. There's a sense in which we have to do something with Jesus. We've got to respond. But Jesus didn't come and say, here I am if you need me. He's saying, here I am, and I'm going to do something for you. Because he actually makes himself a sacrifice to God. And I think there's a benefit here for us to learn that as we try to serve the Lord and we try to serve people, some of us, and I'm really big on this one, we get so wrapped up in people, we give ourselves to people. People don't do well when you just give yourself to them. They don't manage this well. They weren't made for it. We have to give ourselves to God for them. That means God's in charge of how we're sacrificing and how we're giving. So it's done in love though, consumed with the love of God. It is for the sake of others, but it's an offering directly given to God. And many a time I talk about things that I do, and I'll say, I made that an offering to the Lord. Whatever the people do with it, I made it an offering to the Lord. And I think you'll find, if I can get to all my passages I do want to share today, is that the Lord is pleased with such sacrifices. Jesus came from the Father to do not His will, but the will of the Father who sent Him. And we need to feel sent also. Jesus says, as the Father sent me, now I send you. So we need to go out in love, which means we're not expecting to be rewarded by people, honored, applauded. We're not necessarily expecting the responses we want. To some we're the saver of life unto life, and to some we're the saver of death unto death. But it's God who's sufficient. God is our sufficiency. and His word will not come back void. And what He sent us to do, if we do that, we triumph in all places. Yeah, that's good stuff from 2 Corinthians 2. We triumph in Him. And so, a great, powerful place here. The example of Jesus is gonna help us run our race well. Because you know one thing about love? It doesn't fail. It doesn't quit. It doesn't give up. But make sure you're doing it in love and service to God, because people, if you do it for them, they'll ransack you, use you up, chew you up, spit you out, and you'll be all discouraged. That was my problem as a young minister. People say, oh, why'd you go into the ministry? And I'd like to tell them, because I love people. I want to work with people, which was very true. But I found out I had to fine tune that. Because if the love for people calls you, then the way people act will destroy you and wreck you. But if you do it primarily love for God, and I understand God loves people more than anything, but if my motivation is God's love, then I won't be fizzling out every time people disappoint me. And hopefully you won't get fizzled out if I ever disappoint you. So anyways, Christ our coach. Oops, nope, I'm sorry. I had one more here. Top of the next page. Hebrews 12, 15. You will notice there's some overlap here, like laying bricks on a wall. Hebrews 12, 15 comes up like three times in these notes. It has that depth of application. But Hebrews 12, verse 15. Looking diligently. Now you remember it said there in verse three, looking unto Jesus. It's kind of like we hit a pause button and we're back at that. Now we're looking diligently. We're looking unto Jesus, but we're looking diligently. But we're not just looking at Jesus. We're also looking around at others. for their needs. Now the way my Bible says it, lest any man fail of the grace of God. So we're not looking unto man, but we're looking out for him. That's the point. And if we don't look out for others, we're liable to see that people are slipping right through our fingers, and people are going off into the ditches, and we weren't paying enough attention. Another translation says it this way, see to it that no one fails of the grace of God. See to it. Boy, that's a lot of responsibility. Now, ultimately, we know this is between them and God. But my job is to be my brother's keeper, my sister's keeper. I'm a watchman, you're a watchman. And we're here to not just say, oh, here, there you go, take it or leave it, and move on and not pay attention. In some way, we try to have follow-up. Now, sometimes in evangelism, you never see a person again. But local church ministry, we tend to see people again and again and again. reaching out to family, reaching out to neighbors, reaching out to workmates or schoolmates. For different reasons, we bump into people, and there's nothing like that follow-up. Oh, you remembered. I asked you to pray for something. You actually asked me how it went later. That's great. So in one way or another, we need to look diligently and carefully so that others do not fail or fall short of the grace of God by becoming bitter and defiled. We don't have to be psychologists, but in a sense, we can be soul doctors. As we pray for people, as we search the scriptures, God can reveal things to us and we can get, not become the strong, opinionated person that tells everybody what to do, but the person who says, I'm concerned. I'm noticing. Check up on him. How you doing? Do you want to talk? Howard Hendricks once said, every now and then, people need to have a good listening to. And so it's things like that that are implied here. And by the way, in context of Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 24, Hebrews 10, 24, it says, and let us consider one another to provoke unto loving to good works. Now, if you don't like that old English provoke, you can probably have the word encourage. You know, we're real good at provoking people, right? In our context, that might be a very negative thing. This was meant in a very lovely way. You're here to gently move people along. The word exhort, for example, it means to call somebody alongside you to join you. And so in one way or another, we can encourage people. Two primary things, love, which Ephesians 5 was telling us, and good works, which a lot of other scriptures tell us. But this is gentle, this is benevolent, this is goodwill. But I must watch out because embedded in Hebrews 12 are many sermons, many wonderful things to dig into, and I have to move along. That's a hard thing for me. But I would take you to Philippians chapter two, the first four verses. Philippians chapter 2, verses 1 through 4. Now, my Bible has the word if here. Your Bible may have the word since. Since means we have something that is definite, and because of that, we should respond accordingly. It's not iffy, like, oh, maybe. It's a certain if, a since there is. If there be, or since there be, therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies. And so you understand that whole verse is saying these are things that are realities and you mustn't forget it. And in view of these four things that were just mentioned in verse one, Paul says in verse two, fulfill ye my joy that you be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind, let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. And watch out for verse four, it's tricky. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. I think there's a translation that put it out there on the wealth of others. You're not here to be busybodies, but it's like this. I'm not just here for me. I'm not just here to proffer and prosper and we four know more. It's rather saying, I care about how other people are doing. So I take time and I look around. Now you have friends who will be involved with you if they have time. But the friends you really want to have are the people that will make time. for you. They'll stop what they're doing and make time for you. You want to be that person too. So in view of the consolation in Christ, in view of the comfort of love, in view of the fellowship of the Spirit, in view of the bowels and mercies, I know we're, you know, our culture doesn't do well with the word bowels, but it has to do with tender affections and compassion. In view of all of that, then be like-minded, same love, one accord, one mind, no pride, no competition, and everybody ought to just be looking out for each other, make sure we're all okay. You know, that's what I hear constantly about military units. They have to depend on each other. They develop a trust and a trustworthiness, a camaraderie, and they get out there on the battlefield, they are all looking out for each other's backs. And we are fellow soldiers. And we should be looking out for each other's backs. I'm not competing with anybody in this room. I'm competing with the world, the flesh, and the devil. And I'm looking out for my brothers and my sisters. And assembling as saints allows us to do that very carefully. We're around each other. Let's stay around each other. So it's very important stuff. And while we're at it, verse 17, Paul gives his example, and he's talking about the faith that he's seen amongst the Philippians, but he says in chapter two, verse 17, yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. Now this idea of service here, he's talking about being a drink offering poured out. a drink offering from the Old Testament picture, but I get poured out for you, and it helps your faith. Amen. I'm happy. That's my pleasure. How many times has someone done something for you, and you hear them say, it was my pleasure? Do you ever wonder if they meant it? Or do we just say that? Have you said it? Do you mean it? Is it your pleasure? Do you get joy in this? Because Jesus, it says in Hebrews 12, to the joy that was set before him, he endured all this stuff for us. He actually found joy. He despised the contradiction of sinners against himself. He despised the sufferings and the things that were laid upon him on the cross and all those sins, but it was joy of the Lord that made him do it and glad he did and he never regretted it. I hope we can have that. I hope we can have that. Now, in the sense that it says, that we are to see to it that nobody else gets caught up in this bitterness and this other stuff. I've got a complementary verse for that that I just must round this off. Romans chapter 16. The last chapter of Romans, which is chapter 16, verses 17 and 18. These don't get quoted as often. But it says in Romans 16, 17, Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them, make note of them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. And that's called looking out for your brothers and sisters. In Air Force terms, I got your six. The plane's behind you watching your back end. And that's what we need to be doing. And that means sometimes we've got to find troublemakers. My goal is to be a gentle shepherd, but I've learned over the years that if I smell a wolf, I go wolf hunting. I protect the flock from bad influences if I can. Or if I see someone getting wayward, they've picked up on a bad influence, there's something going on, I will, as kindly as I can, confront it. But there are ravenous wolves that will try to enter the flock. Paul warned them in Acts 20, the Ephesian elders, ravenous wolves will enter the flock and not sparing the flock and you got to be good shepherds and get rid of them. Not the happy news you want to hear, but you'd be much less happy if you didn't have shepherds that do it. And if you look at some of the Old Testament statements, particularly in the book of Jeremiah, God over and over refers to shepherds that are false, shepherds that are unfaithful, shepherds that don't visit the flock. And he wants Israel to be a habitation of shepherds. I think that'd be a great thing to put also on the church. It's not just the pastor's job. We all should be shepherding in some way. Someone wrote a book on rearing children, and they called it Shepherding a Child's Heart. What a great concept. All the qualities of a shepherd that we see, let's apply that to our life. We have different spheres. different flocks perhaps, whether it be our physical children, or our neighborhood, or our church, but we're shepherding, we're looking out. And like I mentioned before, my wife was a lifeguard, and she says, you never turned your back on the water. Whatever you did, you kept your eye, because out there's where the people are that may need you, and a split second can make a huge difference. So we've got to keep our eye on each other. Well, that was worth the attention, folks. I invested quite a bit of time there, but I got to move on to Christ our coach. And here's where I might seem a little out of the ordinary, because we got verses 5 through 11, and let me just quickly read them again so I can allude to them at least. But in verse 5 of Hebrews 12, you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If you endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, or illegitimate children, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? Prevarily, for a few days, they for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Now, we typically look at this passage, and it's a quotation from the Proverbs, and we think of God and we might think the Father, since it's spoken to children. Well, Christ speaks to us at many levels. We're spoken to as brethren, we're spoken to as followers or disciples, we're spoken to as servants, we're spoken to as friends, we're spoken to as sheep. But I want you to know that Christ can speak to us as a father to his children. And I thought I'd just take the time to document this because you might not be used to this, but I'm not making it up. Hebrews chapter two, verses 11 through 13. Hebrews chapter two, verses 11 through 13. For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one. For the witch cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. And verse 12 says, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while I sing praise unto thee. Now, citing Old Testament verses and applying them to Christ, let's go to verse 13. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, and this is the one that grabs me, behold, I and the children which God has given me. Jesus here can be like a father to us. I think it's quite appropriate to call Jesus the father of spirits since we have to be born of his spirit, washed in his blood. So here, I and the children which God hath given me. This, by the way, gets into that beautiful realm of Trinitarian thinking. You know, I told you before in the book of James, the half-brother of our Lord makes references to the Lord so much that sometimes, oh, that's the Father, oh, that's the Son, and sometimes you don't know which one it is, and it doesn't matter. He's one, and you can enjoy this, the Father and the Son and the Spirit all being one. Romans 8, 9, great explanation there, but I'll diverge. But Isaiah 8, 18 had this reference, I and the children whom thou hast given me, Isaiah 9.6, we won't turn there right now, but it's of the different names. His name should be called Wonderful Counselor. It says the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, as well as the Prince of Peace. He's called the Everlasting Father. Now in John 21.5, and it's interesting because some translations varied here. Children, do you have any food? This is a resurrection moment here. He's gonna eat something. Children, do you have any food? Now, in translating, we got a problem because some wanna go very much grammatically literal. And if you did, you'd get the word children. I'm just gonna be a little extra careful here and look that up one more time. John 21, five. Then Jesus saith unto them, children, have you any meat or food? And they answered him, no. Okay, so that expression literally translated children. But other translators deal with what we call cultural equivalency. In other words, how about we say that today? There's some things won't make as much sense if it's said in the vernacular of 2,000 years ago in another culture, another country. So they try to upgrade it. So there's some translations, they're going to say, hey boys, You know, that's not exactly translating it, but it is carrying the idea. It was a term of affection. Boys, do you have any meat? And so we struggle with translation sometimes because they try to make it so it makes sense to us, but it may not be literally what was said in those words. So that's why I took the time to show you King James Version, New King James Version, New American Standard, and the ESV all say children, but the NIV uses a different word, which I didn't write down, but it's the boys one probably, or fellas and things like that. But I'm saying children because I want you to see that Jesus thought in a fatherly way towards his own, and he called them his children. Okay? Though this is a quotation from Proverbs 3, 11 through 12, and you're used to thinking of God the Father, you may still think of that, but you can also think this, that Christ addresses us as children or as sons, encouraging us to respond to His correction with humility, faith, love, and submission. Now to kind of cinch the nail, Revelation chapter 3, verses 19 and 20, As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me. So those rebukes spoken of in the Proverbs, spoken of in Hebrews chapter 12, they can come from our Lord Jesus Christ. So he's our coach. He sees what we're doing. And again, in Isaiah 9, 6, he's called the wonderful counselor. So all of this can apply to the Son of God as well as God the Father. Now having said that, verses 12 through 14 of Hebrews 12, I have to make sure I get you back to the right chapter. Sometimes I get going and I forget to do that. Hebrews chapter 12 and verses 12 through 14. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down in the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God. See to it that no one fails of the grace of God. Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled. Oh, I'd love to talk more about this root springing up. I got to stop here and keep it basic. Christ seeks a positive response to his coaching, his counseling, his correcting. You see, that's the difference between the Lord when He's dealing with His children and the Lord when He's dealing with His enemies. The motivation of the Lord towards His enemies is vengeance. Vengeance is mine. I will repay. And if people stand before Him one day without Christ, they're going to be treated as enemies. And the motivation is hatred. The goal is destruction. But to His children, The goal, the motivation is love, the goal is correction, and better results, better qualities in that person. And so we must not despise when the Lord gets on us. And I've had times when He certainly has. Where much is given, much is required. And if a pastor's worth his salt, he'll be dealt with more strictly than maybe anybody else because of the responsibility he bears as a representative of Christ to the other sheep. And so I know what correction means. That statement where those stars in the palm of his hand. I see a privilege and closeness, but I also see the squeeze. the squeeze, if my heart goes astray, if my feet go astray, if my words go astray, I get pinched harder than maybe many others. Christ seeks a positive response to his coaching, his counseling, his correcting. We should, as Psalm 105 verse 4 says, seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face evermore, seek his face continually And we have a great amount of references here that talk about how, for example, in Ephesians 5, 4 through 17, Awake thou that sleepest, and rise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. That's a call to wake up, straighten up, get to him. It's a call. to make things right. Jesus is seeking positive responses. Let's give those to Him and not recoil, not despise it or forget it. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me. Be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus. And I don't have time to look it up, but Matthew 7, compared to, that's 7 through 11, and Matthew, excuse me, Luke 11, verses 9 through 13, both are talking about a similar thing, about a son asking his father for bread. Will the father give him a stone? He asked for an egg. Will he give him a scorpion? And if you put those two together, you get a very complete statement. Because in Matthew, he says, will not God the Father give good things to them that ask him? And in Luke 11, it says, the Holy Spirit. Will not God give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? Now, asking for the Holy Spirit, I don't want to get into a Pentecostal sidetracking issue. If you put the two together, good things which are from the Holy Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace, you know, all that list in Galatians 5. You want to be seeking that the Lord give you those things. And sometimes you'll say, well, I need to do something before I can give that to you. Your cup's dirty on the inside. We're going to have to wash it out before I put something good in there. And so wanting that fruit of the Spirit, wanting that Christ-likeness, we will respond when we realize that's what God's doing. A child has to sit still and let the dentist do what he's doing. I fell off the porch one time into a barberry bush. You may not even know what that is. That was down in Maryland. And just little red berries and lots and lots and lots of thorns. And I fell off the porch into it. I was suspended in it. I had thorns stuck in me everywhere. And I had to stand afterwards on that porch and let mother take a needle and just take them out, take them out, take them out. Oh, I hated that. But she says, if I don't take them out, they'll get infected. They'll work their way in deeper. We've got to do it. But my mama was loving me. And it hurt like, well, it just hurt a lot. But the motivation was love. The outcome was good. No chasing seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterwards, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby." Now, just grant me a few minutes here. I may have to do part three. I don't know. But I want to at least tell you what's happening. We get to Hebrews 12, 14 through 29. We can't read all those verses right now. But catch with me, if you will, verse 14 through 15 again. Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, see to it that no one fails. Look around you, because what could happen is the root of bitterness could spring up and trouble you. and many are defiled." So let me just mention these statements here, that we must not forget that as we're running our race, as the first verses say in chapter 12, as we're running our race, it involves caring for relationships with men and God. We have to be looking out for one another. Now, you don't see it in running so much, But bicycling, teams of bicycles will get together, and they form a little line. And there's one in front taking the wind straight on, and the others are behind him. They're jet streaming. They're dragging, whatever they call that. But they take turns. I'm told the geese do that. You know, you see the big V formation as the geese are migrating? And what we don't get to see is that after a while, the ones back here move up to the front, the one up front gets to move back, and they're very organized. And in some way, we need to know how to take it for our brothers and sisters, and then other times, they take it for us. And so we've got to think like a team, even in this race. I'm not competing with my brothers and sisters, but I can help them in our competition together. And so, peace with all men, as much as I can. Peace, especially with the brethren. Peace with God is the source of being able to have peace with anybody else. And holiness. My holiness matters to somebody else. I won't get to elaborate on this, but holiness here is not that position you have when Christ has saved you from your sins. I'll talk about that more next week. But this holiness is the practical, hands-on, carrying out what God says to do and not do. Christ living his life in me. This is a practical holiness. People need me to be the example. Since Jesus isn't here physically to do it, that gets to be my job and your job. representing Christ to others, they got to see it. We are epistles known and read of all men. They got to see what this looks like to be a Christian, to be a follower of Jesus. Our example, we should be peaceful about it, which is not a very good accomplishment with most religious people, being peaceful. But we need to learn this. We need to learn the ways of peace. Again, embedded here are so many other sermons I'd love to expound on, but we've got something that wants to get after us. And you understand weeds a little bit? You know, you mow your lawn. I didn't mow my lawn for a while, so the weeds started getting a little bit visible. My problem is I like some weeds. They're unwanted flowers. Indian paintbrushes and things, I love them. My wife says, cut them on anyways. But you know, you mow them, and guess what? That's not the end of it. They'll be back. They'll be back. There's something underneath trying to get up. And maybe next week I'll have the time to tell you about why these roots spring up. I got something to say. I'm gonna just say for now is that we gotta always look perpetually for trouble, for things that can make us or others bitter, for things that can defile us. We can be doing so well and then something pops up and we didn't expect it, it took us by surprise, and we aren't checking ourselves, and we're not looking diligently, and here it comes, some root of bitterness, some troubling thing. Something that defiles. Until we get out of the body of this death, we're going to be stuck with that perennial dealing with the weeds and the bad roots that pop up. And so we have to keep our eyes on Jesus. Now, I'm stealing my thunder a little bit. I'll do this again later, but Hebrews 13, verses 20 through 21, I just feel like ending on this. Hebrews 13, 20 through 21, this is one of those great benedictions, and I apply it to the looking unto Jesus theme that we're on. Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will. working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Will you stand with me, please? Thank you, Heavenly Father. for revealing your will to us, but in your will you also revealed your son, the law being our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Now we have Christ, and he's our great shepherd, our chief shepherd, our wonderful shepherd. He's the great shepherd here, Lord. And through the blood that he shed for us, and through his presence as a living, ever-living Savior, and counselor, and high priest, all those things, He's in the process of perfecting us, getting us to grow up, get stronger. Help us to patiently listen to Him, abide in Him, yield to Him, so that we can bring you that glory forever and ever, Lord. Help us, Lord, because we're in a body of flesh that doesn't want to do it. We're in a world that doesn't want to promote it, often doesn't like it if we do, and tries to persecute us. But may we keep our eyes on Jesus, and may we see Him as the Father of our spirits, and be just delighted, delighted to have fellowship with Him, please Him, become like Him, so that we ultimately will live forever with Him and each other. Please give faith where it's needed, Lord, for the needs of each person in this room and anyone who hears this message. I ask it for Jesus' sake. Amen.