We're going to turn to the book of Hebrews through chapter 12. We're going to begin reading with verse 1 of this chapter. I am thankful for each one that the Lord's blessed to be able to come and to be in the service. I do need and desire your prayers as we try to bring the thought that the Lord's placed on our heart. I pray it could be a blessing. Before I begin the reading, if you would bow with me in a word of prayer. Dear holy God, as I bow once again this day before thy throne of mercy, It's again, dear God, I'm thankful that I can call upon thy great name. I'm thankful that we have a God, that we know a God, that can see, that can hear, that knows about us better than we know ourself. You know what each one is going through in life, dear God, and we ask you to bless. Dear Father, the request of prayers has been made this morning, this evening, We ask you to bless those. And dear God, most of all, I pray for those that don't know Christ, that you'd burn their hearts and they, by faith, could trust in your son. I ask you, dear God, that you'd be with me now as I stand, for I know that without the leadership of the Holy Spirit, dear God, it would just be spoken words. But I know, dear God, that When you take those words and by the Holy Spirit, you can convey them to the hearts of each one here. And I pray that you bless the reading and the preaching of your word this evening. I pray to God that you'd bring back to my memory the things we've read and studied. And we can preach a message that can bring glory and honor to your great name. Forgive me my sins, for it's in Jesus' name I humbly pray for he is worthy, amen. Book of Hebrews, chapter 12, verse one. Wherefore, seeing we also are compact about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and these sins do so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endeared 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 you be worried and faint in your minds. You have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and discourages every son whom he receiveth. If you endure chastising, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the Father chastens not? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then you are bastards and not sons. Furthermore, We have had fathers of all flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to 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 seems to be joyous, but grievous, Nevertheless, afterward, it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. I'm going to stop reading right there. I'm gonna kind of go through these scriptures a little bit that we read this evening, and I think when the writer was writing here to the Hebrew people, as you read the scriptures we read, they kind of build one upon another. A lot of times if we read and study the Bible, and I know I have throughout the years, I'll read it and I'll really miss what he's saying. Read it again, I still miss what he's saying sometimes. Well, he had started off and reminded us, we're foreseeing we could pass about with a great crowd of witnesses. He talked about those in the 11th chapter. The things that they had done by faith and what they had accomplished by faith in life. And that, you know, we can look at people and especially examples in the Bible, but maybe even some in our own life, we say, they done it, I can do it. If he can do it, I can do it. If she can do it, I can do it. And we see people that through hardships that serve God. And that We look at different things. I mentioned this morning, I'm not gonna go back and re-preach that, about faith. And I mentioned about the trying of our faith. God's got a purpose in things. And a lot of times, as we go through life, we don't see his purpose. We don't understand, why's this happening? Just, I don't know. And I wanna bring out just a little bit of that, maybe it's something he mentions here, and some of the purpose in that. Some things that God does, you might not see it right then, but later on you can see the purpose in that. So we can look at them, and we have that behind, you might say, we can look at those people, what they've done, and they completed their race. He said, let us lay aside every weight, and these sins which do us so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. So we have a race to run. And every one of us has got a race. Paul said, I think, right in the Corinthian church, run that you may obtain. I think it was the Galatians church, and he told them, you did run well. Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? In this first verse, he's kind of taking what we might call an athlete today, somebody running a race. And that they can't run if they're weighted down. And something that would beset them, something that would get in the way. We let a lot of things get in our way as the children of God. as we run this race. It can be some of the minor things in life. Things that really don't matter. We'll let things irritate us sometimes that probably shouldn't irritate us. Let things that irritate me. I tell some of the men I work with sometimes, I guess they get tired of me complaining, I say, you know, there's certain things that that y'all do that just, it just irritates the stew out of me. I think it was Thursday morning I went in and there was some stuff, it was just a mess. And you'd have to know some about what I do. We got these screens to see if they run this dirt through. And when you get through doing that, they're supposed to be clean when you get through, because if there's still dirt in there, that meant it was supposed to be in this over here, this sample. And the weight of that goes into a figure that this engineer is figuring to design something with. And every little gram, even one point in this point here, two five, that five over there matters. And I've got to clean all this stuff up. I know it should have been there, so I just put it in a pan. I weighed every one of them, these screens, got all the stuff that should have been in something else. I don't know where it goes now. And two men come in, I said, look, I want to talk to y'all. I said, there's no sense in this. And I said, what we do here is important. And my boss come in, so I wanted him to see it, too. And I said, now, look, I done talked to these two men, but I want you to see what's happening here. I mean, you figure something, and all of a sudden, that ain't in there. And you build something that's multimillion dollars, and it collapses. People get killed. It's important. I told him, he said, nah, this is important. So then he explained a little more to them. The thing that irritated me, they left a mess. And the thing that sometimes we can get aggravated with, we shouldn't sometimes. It just shouldn't aggravate us. And I understand that. And that's why he's talking about this beset us, things that in life that We're not focused like we need to be when we get aggravated. And that's what BNB said, just you're kind of getting off course. It's like driving down the road, I've told people that's watching me drive. I know George took a chance to go with me one time, he can tell you about it. But Kevin Hartford used to tell me, he'd be behind me, he'd get on his phone and call me. He says, I knew I was behind you, you're going all over the road. I said, yeah, and I've been pulled over all my life by policemen because they pull me over, come to the car, and I said, you know why I pulled you over? I said, man, I ain't got a clue. Handed him my license. He said, well, you was driving all over the road. I said, have you been drinking? I said, I got a coffee bar. I drink coffee. No, I haven't been drinking. What you thinking about? Well, you drive all over the road. And I told one of them one day, I said, look, I want to tell you something. I just naturally do it. If I look this way, I go that way. If I look this way, I go that way. My wife has a nervous wreck riding with me. Well, that's what happens to us in life as Christians. We get beset. We look over here and we look over there. I know I've got to wear now. Somebody said, you see that? I said, no, I'm trying to watch the road. That over there is not important to me. That don't matter. I said, I need to watch the road. And then he talked about, of course, the first thing he said, laying aside every weight. And then these things. So, you know, sometimes we just get weighted down, don't we? I see a lot of people in life and they're just so weighted down. You can tell by looking at them. There's something going on, they're weighted down. And yes, I realize that I use the term life is hectic sometimes. But that's what he's warning us here, that as we're running this race, just as a runner in a natural race gets rid of all those things that get him weighted down, and just as he would not be looking all over the place to get beset, and then he said, let us run it with some patience. The race that is set before us. And then he tells us what to look at, looking under Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. So the one we need to be looking at, not over here, I know we need to be concerned about our brothers and sisters in Christ. And yes, I believe that just like he was talking about in the early part of the sixth chapter of the book of Galatians, he said, brethren, if you see one overtaking a fall, you with your spirit shall go to such one in the spirit of meekness, that they might be restored, maybe not just an exact quotation, but we need to be concerned about those that's overtaken in a fault. And I understand that. And I think sometimes we even fail in that. So sometimes that people, they see somebody going through something, something's happening in their life, and they don't know that I need to talk to them, that I need to stay out of their business. But I'm persuaded that when you go to someone and it's because you care, they know that. They know the difference between you just getting in their business and that you really care. It makes a difference. I've gone to a few people in life and I've let them know, look, I'm concerned. You ain't gotta tell me, I just think something's going on and sometimes they'll sit down and tell you. I've had some get, one boy got fighting mad with me about three years later, he come back and he thanked me. He said, look, he said, I'm glad that you and the church done what y'all done. But we get our eyes off Jesus. That's what happened to the Apostle Peter when he began to seek. And he tells us, just look at Jesus, and he's the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, there was something set before him. Now, if you go read the gospels, one thing about Christ, and you think about the joy that was set before him, He wanted to get back to his heavenly father. He knew what he had with the father. And he said he done something. He endured the cross, and just as Jesus endured some things, and that's what patience is, patience is enduring. There's gonna be some things that we've got to endure as we go through life as the children of God. He despised the shame and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. So he got back to where he belonged, sitting down at the right hand of the throne of God. He's sitting there, and look, he ain't just sitting there idling by. He's there making intercession for us to God. He's our mediator. between us and God. And don't think that when you're going through life and you're facing these trials and that when you get weighted down that he don't care. Remember what he done for Stephen when they began to stone Stephen? And Stephen could look up fastly in the heaven and he saw Jesus standing. Stephen had Jesus's attention that day, didn't he? He said, well, Stephen was something different. He was a child of God, just like we are. You might be surprised at the times that he stood because of you. So it said, consider him that endeared such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest you be worried and faint in your mind. I want you to keep this last part of this verse unless you get wearied and faint in your mind. You got to keep your eyes on Christ. You got to consider him as you're running this race because there's a possibility. People don't like to hear about possibilities. Oh, that wouldn't happen to me. You'll never see me do that. You'll never see me get there, but he can. And you faint in your minds. And when you faint as a child of God, I don't know just how to put this. I don't want to say you're not good for nothing, because you are. You still got a child of God. Well, let me just put it this way. There's not a lot of work getting done when you get to that place. The things that really need to be done, the things that God wants you as an individual to do. And so it's a place that we don't want to be at. And he tells us different things in the scriptures that can cause us to get to this place. And also, When we do do that, he tells us what can happen. If you were to go to the book of Genesis and you were to read about Esau and Jacob, and I'm just going to read a few verses. In chapter 25, very familiar verse of scripture, in Jacob's side pot, verse 29, Esau came from the field and he was faint. So Esau comes to Jacob, he's faint, and Jacob has something he wants. And Esau said to Jacob, feed me, I pray thee, with that same red polish, for I am faint, therefore is his name called Edom. He said, I'm fainting, I need something to eat. You're my brother, I've come to you. You think your brother would just give it to you. It don't always work that way, does it? I might've mentioned this before, I had my brother Billy, he dead. There wasn't no hard feelings about it, I had a truck that I thought the motor was going out of it. Two or three people said the motor was going out of it. I asked him about, I give him the truck. I got another truck. I said, it needs some work done. You do this work and I'll give you this truck. And I said, I think I can make it till you get this one going. Well, he's pulling a transmission and he's putting a clutch and another transmission. He took a three-speed out and put a four-speed in it for me that we got and fixing the brakes and a whole lot of other things. And the truck just, I mean, it just would go. Joy knows the man I'm fixing to mention, J.P. Anderson. So I saw J.P., I asked him about the truck, could he do anything to get it going? Basically, no, the motor's going out in it. You'd have to love J.P. to understand him. He was a good man, he'd been good to me all my life. Okay, well, about three weeks later, I just went to the parts house to get something, and it's even worse. I said, J.P., the only thing you do to this truck, you just hold on a minute. He went behind the counter at the Napa store. He pulled some hoses out. He went back out. In about three minutes, man, he had that thing running like a saw machine. It had a vacuum leak. I took it to my brother. Now, we done made a deal. And I said, Bill wants to come out and enlist in this Toyota truck run. He said, hmm, somebody found the vacuum leak, didn't they? I said, you knew that? Yeah. Why didn't you tell me? He said, if you want to sell the truck and pay me, I said, no, no, I'm going to deal with you. I'm going to stick to it. But I said, here's the thing. You're my brother. You should have told me to get going. I'd still make the deal with you. And so sometimes, you know, people know. They don't say. I'm not saying he just took advantage of me. We never had a problem about it. I'll just say that. So the Lord blessed. But here he's come. He said, you got something for me to eat, and I need it. And Jacob said, sell me this day thy birthright. He had something he wanted to see. You want something to eat? Sell me your birthright. Well, the birthright was very important. And Esau said, behold, I am at the point to die. And what profit shall this birthright do to me? It can do me no good now if I die. Dixit swore to me this day, and he swore unto him, and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils, and he did eat and drink, and rose up and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. Now what this done, he despised his birthright, and the same chapter 12 that we were reading in, we didn't read all the way through that chapter, but he talks about Esau, and that Verse 15, he said, looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness bring up trouble to you, and thereby many be defiled. And just as I mentioned about my brother, you know, they could have been a root of bitterness, but they wasn't. And they could cause me to be defiled. It wasn't gonna hurt him, it was gonna hurt me, see. Lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you know how the last one, when he would have inherited the blessing, He was rejected for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. You know, this is something that just stayed with him the rest of his life. He sold the birthright and he did not receive the blessing. And so, if we get to that point, see, I think we can look at this, that was maybe naturally, but it can happen to us spiritually. And we get so weak as we go through life and we get to that place that we're about to faint. We might do something as a child of God that we'll look back on in life and that we can never repent of. There's some things we can do that you're not gonna change it. I know we can repent, I know God's a forgiving God. But there's some things you do that you can't redo. Today we was eating dinner, and I don't know how we got on the subject, but I think talking about somebody having a kidney stone, I was telling Jackie about cutting my fingers off. Of course, we was all having a good laugh about it. But you see, I can't repent over that. It's not coming back. It's history. And that was a weak moment in my life, me sticking my hand in a lawnmower. I mean, people said, why'd you do that? I said, I don't know. But I did it. Well, spiritually speaking, we have those weak moments. And we do something, and you're not going to recover from it. And so he's giving us a warning here, this can happen to us. And so in verse four, he says, you have not yet resisted, and the blood strives against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord. Now he says, don't you despise God's chastening. Nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. You see, sometimes when people go through life, and you know, whether it might be A child still living at home, or it could be a grown child sometimes. Somebody that you care about. It could be an employee. And you might rebuke them, and you might even chastise them. And don't let that discourage you. There's a purpose in it. My daughters are in their 40s. I think both of them are in their 40s. I can't keep up with their age. I know, I think, I'm pretty sure they are over 40. But anyway, they're not listening to this this evening. So Andrew gets real upset with me because I can't remember. But there are times that if they do something I don't think's right. He'll say, y'all, keep your mouth shut. I'm not going to do it. They're my children. I love them. And I don't mind telling them something. I know you need to slow down a bit. And maybe you need to think about what you're fixing to do, and I'll even tell my son-in-law that at times. Now look, buddy, you might need to just slow down and maybe wait on God about these things. I've had people in life tell me the same thing, that, look, this ain't the end of the world, and just back up a little bit and get focused, and we need to get focused back on Jesus. And he said, don't faint when they all rebuke to him. You know, a lot of times the people just, they're like the dog. You've seen a dog when you scold a dog, they just drop their head and they go off and they're so sad and pitiful acting just, you know, you hurt the dog's feelings, I guess. I didn't know dogs had feelings, but they must. And they just mope around and just look at you with them old sad eyes. What they want you to do is pat them on the head, tell them, well, you know, I didn't mean it. I'm sorry I got on to you. There's a reason that the Lord chastises us. I think it was David in the 119th Psalm talking about adversity and how he mentioned how it was good for him to go through some things out of that quotation. Because the things he had been through that had brought him closer to God. And that's what God wants. He wants us to be close to him. He wants to have a relationship with us. And he wants us to know that he loves us. And just as he explains in these scriptures here, and he said, don't you faint when you're with him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and discourages every son whom he receives. He said, where he is. And he loves us. What he's telling us, he loves us. If you endure chastising, God dealeth with you as with sons. For what son is he whom the father chastiseth not? All of them. You know, if we're not careful, we'll get upset that when God begins to steer us back straight. And chastisement is not always somebody taking and putting a bullwhip to you. I was talking to a fellow the other day, I believe, I've been yesterday, we were talking about how we was raised and we worked hard. And you know, I said, when our fathers told us to do something, I said, we done it. He said, that's right, you done it because if not, you're gonna have some of them marks on you that wasn't birthmarks. And he said, you just done it. And this boy was just like me, he said, I'm glad my daddy done that to me. I'm glad he chastised me. But sometimes they don't do that. Sometimes they just sit down and give you a talking to. Explains to you what can happen. You don't need to do this again. You need to be careful. And sometimes we don't like to hear that. I know what I'm doing. Well, when it's God rebuking us and correcting us, we need to listen. Because if you endure it, God deals with you as with sons. For what sons he chastises not. But if you be without chastisement, well, all are for takers, then you are bastards and not sons. If you don't get it, you're not a son, you're not his child. If you can go through life and live your life any way you want to, and nothing ever, you've never dealt with by God, what he's saying, you don't belong to God. And that's Bible. That's just not my idea. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the father of spirits and live? I want to go out on down a few more verses. Verse 11, now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. He said, it don't seem to be great. It ain't something you just enjoy. And that's true. Nevertheless, here's what it does. Afterward, It yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. I can't remember right now offhand if it's Galatians or if it's the book of Ephesians. He tells us about the fruit of the Spirit. It's the fruit. It gives us a list of what it is. Those things are wonderful to have in your life. So, as we go through life and we think that we're weak, we think we're about to faint, Maybe God begins to deal with us. I want you to see that God's got a purpose. I believe it's in the book of Galatians chapter six where he says, don't be weary in well doing. For in due season, you shall reap if you faint not. He don't want us fainting. We're going to reap. We're going to reap the blessings of God. if we don't faint. So I believe he tells us here in these scriptures. He gives us a process. He tells us the good that's gonna come out of this. He gives us a warning sign, what we can look for, and the reason that he does it. There's gonna come a time that we're gonna yield the peaceable fruits of righteousness. I want to encourage everybody in this building this evening to know the Lord Jesus Christ. When you become weak, go back to God. I believe it's in the 18th chapter of the book of Luke. In the first verse of that chapter, he was teaching about prayer. He said, for this cause men ought to always pray and not to think. So when you get to that place, Brother Freddie, you feel like this is it, I can't take no more. Just look up to God and talk to God. And it'll help more than anything else. May God bless you. This is a thought and a message we want to put on our heart. We'll ask for a verse or song.