Hebrews chapter number 12, while I get myself situated here, Hebrews chapter number 12, hopefully we didn't go too long with that, hopefully it was a blessing to you. Very simple thought tonight, again church I appreciate just how welcoming you all have have a wonderful church, you have a wonderful spirit in the church. And sitting in the prayer room this morning and then also had lunch, had breakfast yesterday morning with a few of the men. And I will say this, as a pastor it has been refreshing to hear the men talk about how much they love and appreciate and just want to figure out ways they can help serve with their pastor. Never lose that, never lose that. I encourage you to continue to pray for your pastor and his family. There are things that a pastor's family goes through that not everybody else does. And I know that sounds a little self-serving when I say that, but it's true. And so you continue to pray for him, and I pray that God's been able to use him while he's been gone preaching, and pray for him when he gets back. And so next time, Lord willing, if there is a next time, if you even want to see me again, my children will get to come with me. And I've neglected to mention this this morning, my wife was born in Fort Worth. So, that's the same reaction I get out of everybody. I was born in Ohio. I don't, you see, again, I am from Ohio, but all of my heritage is south of that Ohio River, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, which is probably why I sound the way I do. But anyways, every time I've been to Texas And we end up meeting new people and talking with people. They'll, well, where are you from? And they'll ask my wife where she's from. And she'll say, well, I was born here. And they look at me and say, well, brother, you'll be all right in life then. Evidently, I'm okay because I married a Texan, I guess, I don't know. So, I told Brother Flores and his wife yesterday, I jokingly, not so jokingly, pray that if God ever moves me anywhere, I pray it's Texas. I love everything about the culture. I can ride my motorcycle almost year round. And I don't know what it is about Texas. I've just, we've got some great friends here in Texas. Brother Locke, I've known him for many years. I've known Brother Jerry Power over at Friendship Baptist and Hearst. I've known him for many years. And so it's just a blessing. My deacon's oldest son lives in Sulphur Springs. And so we've got a lot of friends, a lot of family out this way. And so it's always a joy to get to come see everybody. And now Brother Boo Jack's out here. And so that just adds to our friends list that's out this way. And right now, I told my wife, I said, it'd be real easy to move to Texas right now. Because we're in the middle of building. We're turning a barn into a barn dominium. And I live in a 36 foot bumper pole camper. while building. All I got to do is hook up and go and just have a place to park. That's all I need. But, but anyways, Hebrews chapter 12, we're going to read one verse and pray, and then we will get into the message. And I promise I will do my best to, to make this brief. And Hebrews chapter 12, verse number four, it says, ye have not yet resisted unto death, unto blood, striving against sin. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity, yet again, to be in your house tonight. What a blessing it has been all day. Lord, I thank you for, Lord, the opportunity, the ability to stand in this pulpit. And Lord, I never, ever wanna take it for granted. But Lord, I pray that you'd be with Brother Bujak as he is away. I will bring him back safely. I pray that you've been able to use him and the services over there and that you've worked. And Lord, I thank you for what you've done in our hearts this morning. And I pray that you would continue to work in our lives tonight. Lord, I pray that you would empty me of self, cleanse me of sin. Lord, use me as a useful vessel in your hands. Lord, fill me with your spirit. Let everything that's said and done be for your honor and your glory alone. Lord, we love you. And it's in your name we pray, amen. If I was gonna give a title to this message, it would be, you have more fight to give. You have more fight to give. There are some aspects of biblical truth that run so contrary to our culture today that even many churches find them extreme. There are churches that are turning aside from preaching the gospel. There are churches that are leaving things out of the gospel because, well, We want the sanctuary to be full. We want the classrooms to be full. We want to tickle the ears and keep them coming back. I learned this many, many years ago from a older preacher that I grew up around. And he said, son, let me tell you this. He said, what you get them with is what you keep them with. And there are so many churches that have attracted people based on the programs and not on the gospel. Folks, we ought to be careful what is preached behind this pulpit. It ought to be something that is prayed over. Every time a man of God gets up behind this pulpit, it ought to be the scariest moment of his life. The reason I say that is because one of my fears has always been to say something unintentionally that would lead somebody away or down a path they don't need to be on. So my prayer has always been that I will stick close to the Word of God. I tell our people at church all the time, if you ever hear me say something contrary to the Word of God, I want you to sit me down and talk. And if you can't straighten me out, and if I can't be repaired, if you will, and put back on the right path, you better find yourself a new pastor. Because we ought to be sharing the truth of God's word. But to this world, to this culture, God's word is radical. It is mind-boggling to people why we come in on a Sunday night. Well, you went Sunday morning, you'll be all right. Listen, God only asked for one day a week, didn't he? Just one. He didn't ask us to take every day. Now, I tell our church all the time, we talk about, well, it's Wednesday night or Thursday night, whenever you have midweek service, and people will whine and complain, well, I'm so tired, and I'm so this, and I'm so that, and there's so much going on. I understand life gets rough sometimes. And there are those times when Okay, it is understandable why you're not at church. I get that. But if I told our church not long ago, I said, if we went back to doing things like they did in the book of Acts, we'd be in the house of God every day. We'd be together every day for several hours a day preaching and teaching the Word of God. Now people will, we like the programs and the lights and smoke machines and I don't, but we like smoke machines and we like program this and program that and we're so programmed, we program God out of the service. God begins to move and it's almost as if, oh, we don't want that because It goes contrary to our lifestyle when the Word of God begins to speak against our lifestyle and we get convicted, well, we don't like it. We don't like it. And so I encourage you to stay close to the Word of God. The author of Hebrews here is admonishing the readers about resisting sin. Well, preacher, what is sin? Can I explain it to you real simple? I'm a simple fellow. I am from a small town. I'm a country boy. I am not a scholar, okay? If the Bible speaks against it and calls it sin, it's sin. It's pretty simple. If it's something that Christ said to stay away from, if Christ died to it or died for it, we ought to stay away from it. If it's something that God says you ought not to have that in your life, get away from it. We got the 10 commandments. Listen, we can't separate. I've often heard here recently that the Old Testament is obsolete today. No. The Old Testament is our schoolmaster on how to live a holy life pleasing to God. You can't separate it. Even in Christ's teachings, when He was on this earth, He would refer and go back to the Old Testament. Listen, this book gives us all things for life and godliness. He had already told them that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. And so in saying that, he was talking about justification, but in chapter number 12, he uses a similar phrase concerning sanctification there in verse number four. And he says, ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. I am not going to pretend, and we don't even have to argue tonight, that we know that standing for Christ can be difficult. It can. I told the youth group this morning, and young adults, I told them, I said, look, you, I'm only 36, but the world they're growing up in is different than what I grew up in. They're facing struggles I never did. You know, We got everybody, probably almost everybody in here, almost everybody in here, has probably got one of these in their pockets. It's a computer in the palm of your hand. There is so much access to anything and everything right here. When my first phone was a flip phone, and the only game that it had on it was Snake. Y'all, teenagers, I predate Google, think of that. I was alive before Google was invented, and that sounds weird to say to me. I work at the coffee shop and I work with several teenagers. And there was one Saturday, the boss was off, needed off for a doctor's appointment or something, or he was out of town. And he said, hey, would you mind, I normally don't work on Saturdays, but he said, would you mind just coming in, it's all the teens, just come in and make sure the morning shift goes good. You don't even have to open up, just come in about eight o'clock, you can leave about 11. Okay, so I went in. But I quickly realized that I was old enough to be almost all their dads. And they were using terminology that I did not understand. I am on that top end, I guess, of the millennial group, but I was raised like a Gen X. And so I think I was born in the wrong generation, if you will. I worked from daylight to dark. I grew up on a farm. And so I, you know, it's just, it's a different time. And it's getting harder and harder to stand for Christ. It's getting harder and harder to be, to be what we ought to be for Him. There's temptations to go back the other ways that present themselves when opposition and adversaries come at us from every side. But sadly, some of those adversaries come out of church. Listen, if there is someone here, if there is someone in this church that is on fire for God, don't tell them to calm down. Get behind them. Encourage them. Pray for them. Try to help them in any way you can. Sadly, there are so many churches that when somebody gets on fire for God and in a church, they just, you know, calm down, man. You just, you're too excited. I think churches would be a whole lot better off if we got a little bit more excited. This morning, I started laughing a little bit during congregational as y'all were singing Love Lifted Me. and you go up on your toes. We do that too. I am so glad we're not the only ones that do that. We'll be singing that song in church and the whole church will be doing this number. But it's really bad. A few years ago, I started going back to the gym. It's really bad when it's like the day after leg day. And then you start singing that song and ow. Folks, there are so many temptations that come against us. The problem is that we rarely, rarely are as strong as we think we are, spiritually speaking. We are rarely as strong as we like to make ourselves out to be, and we tend to want to shrink back under the lightest difficulty. We think, oh, Lord, you never said. Well, as a matter of fact, He did. He never promised that this life was going to be a bed of roses. He never promised that it was going to be sunshine every day. As a matter of fact, He told His disciples the exact opposite. He said, they hated Me, they're going to hate you. And folks, it's no different today. The world outside of those doors does not care at all for what we do in here. I guarantee you there have been people past the church today, whether this morning or this evening, and they have said, them people are wasting their time. I don't understand why they would just continue to go. I don't understand what they're getting out of it. The tendency to be timid is why after listing many, many great saints there in Hebrews chapter number 11, some who even gave their lives, the Hebrews chapter number 11 is considered the hall of faith. And you have person after person after person that God used in a mighty way and because of their faith they either lived a long life in faith or were martyred for their faith. And it didn't bother them. Listen, verse number four, it says, ye have not, look back up in verse number three. It says, for consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. How often you get on fire for God, and then God begins to work in your life, and you see Him doing things, and you get excited, and then the smallest difficulty comes, and you go, well, I didn't sign up for this. I don't know if this is really where I wanna be. What if, can I ask you this question? God lays something on your heart, no matter what that is. Listen, it doesn't necessarily mean that God's calling you to preach. It doesn't mean that God is calling you to missions. It doesn't mean that God's calling you to teach a Sunday school class. It may be that God is just speaking to you about reaching someone in your life. And you make up every excuse you can as to why you can't. What if Christ, as He was walking up to the cross, got halfway there and said, you know what? These people rejected me. I'm not doing this anymore, and didn't go. What if hanging there on the cross, or as they was getting ready to drop the hammer to drive the first spike, He said, this is useless. What if? Well, preacher, that's not a fair scenario. That didn't happen. I know it didn't happen, but he followed through. You realize he sweat great drops of blood, the Bible says, in the garden before he went to the cross. Do you know that you can actually do that? That's a real medical condition. The body, when it is under extreme stress, extreme stress. You will sweat as if it were drops of blood. He went through that for you. He let them beat Him within inches of His life. You realize that any other man, any other man would have died before he ever got to It was a very, very rare occasion that anybody ever survived the scourging, the cat of nine tails. They very rarely ever made it through that far because the pain was so great they would literally pass out and then bleed out. But Christ survived all that. suffered more pain than anybody on this earth will ever be able to stand. Why? For you. That's why I say you got more fight to give. We've all struggled with that thought of, I'm just gonna give up. It's someone else's turn. I've gone long enough. I was having some conversations with a couple of our older men in the church, and I understand as you get older, your capabilities change. I get that. But it doesn't mean that you should stop. It doesn't mean that you hang it up and just quit. Find a different area to serve, pass on what you've learned throughout the years to the next generation, get behind them, help them, teach them. You've got more fight to give. And then when you physically just can't do anything anymore, pray. Just pray. Pray for your pastor, pray for your church, pray for your families, pray for your youth groups, your kids groups. Folks, there are all kinds of things we can do even when we physically can't do anything else. you've got more fight to give. He's encouraging the readers to continue on. The author of Hebrews says this concerning our struggle with sin, but what does it mean? How do we struggle with sin? Well, I'll finish up with this. There's two ways. that we struggle with sin. First, we strive against our own sinfulness. The Bible says that we wrestle with the flesh. Paul said, I wrestle with the flesh daily. Listen, Paul was the greatest, other than Jesus Christ himself, I would consider the apostle Paul to be the greatest missionary to ever walk the face of this earth. And as close as he was to God, he said, I struggle. I wrestle. The things He wanted to do, He said, those are the things that I don't do and the things I don't want to do, those are the things I find myself falling back into that rut. We strive against ourselves. Sometimes we want to walk away from the Word of God because, listen, sometimes we want to walk away from the Word of God because we desire something the Word of God forbids. Why do you think they start taking words and entire verses out of these new translations? Because it goes against what they desire. Listen, this Bible is going to rub the flesh the wrong way. It's going to, because it is the words of life. Don't give in when you have those desires that war against your soul and stir you up. And some people are willing to give their lives for Christ and we can endure the emotional distress of resisting unfulfilled internal sinful desires in God's strength and we have more fight to give. It amazes me the amount of God's people, the amount of Christians that struggle over and over and over again. And honestly, one of the biggest reasons is we're here too much and not here. It honestly is. We fill our minds with so many things that we don't need. I tell our church all the time I have a rough time using that word or calling myself a Christian. Because I'm not. This is what I tell them. The book of Acts, it says they were called Christians first at Antioch. Why were they called Christians? Because the outside world was looking into the church and they said, those people aren't just teaching and preaching, they're living Christ. They said they are Christ-like. So it was not a self-proclaimed term. It was the world calling them Christians because they were different. They were that different. So I can't call myself a Christian. You know why? Because there are times in my life, and if you're honest, there are times in your life you don't fit that definition. There are times we don't fit that definition. Let me give you an example on when we don't always fit that definition. Start driving down the highway, you'll find out real quick how Christian you are. I kid you not. I've been to Texas many times and I have watched the Metroplex change many times. I got turned around the other day going somewhere and it's a new ramp and I don't know, looks like a spaghetti bowl to me. I don't know, it's just what it looks like. I get turned around, I don't like city driving, I just don't. I was showing Brother Flores this afternoon, we live out in the country where the slowest traffic we deal with is a tractor. I love it, love it. Sunday morning, there was one Sunday morning, I went up to church early and my wife calls me and it's five minutes before church. We lived about 15 minutes away from the church there at the time. And she says, I'm going to be late, I think. Why? You're the pastor's wife. You're not supposed to be late, right? She sends me a picture. She can't go anywhere because there's a combine and a truck behind it on the way to church. And she literally followed it. all the way to church. And they don't move very fast. And there is no room to pass. I love it out there. I was telling the Flores boys that we live far enough out in the country, I can go skeet shooting in my backyard. It's great. Walk out in the woods, disappear for a while. Nobody knows where I am. It's great. You go back far enough in the woods and my phone stops working. That's even better. Folks, I can't always call myself a Christian because I don't always fit the definition. Secondly, we struggle against sin with the sin of others. We watch people. Sometimes we allow the wrong people in our lives. Sometimes, and listen to me when I say this, be careful who your friends are. Young people, can I tell you this? Who you hang around is who you're gonna be like. It is. Be careful with your friends. And I tell you that because as a young man, I got a few friends that weren't necessarily great people. They weren't horrible people, they just weren't great people. Raised up in church all of my life, grandpa was a pastor, mom was a Sunday school teacher, my other grandpa was a deacon, or was, he passed away several years ago. Grandma was a junior church teacher, mom a Sunday school teacher. I couldn't mess up. But yet, I said, that'll never happen to me. Don't ever let those words escape your mouth. Because that's a challenge to the adversary. Oh really? And then he starts throwing things in front of us. But who we hang out with, who we allow in our life, eventually will influence us to the point where we begin to be like them. We don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but the Bible says against principalities and powers. Listen, one of those powers is the law of sin at work in other people, and indwelling sin is what causes others to come against us as Christians. So in whatever form it takes, an individual can, or an entire sinful, an entire sinful system set up by the prince and power of the air, that is what is at work and can cause the real trouble in this life. Some followers of God have lost homes. Some have lost jobs. Others have suffered mockings, and some have suffered floggings. Some have been in chains, and there have been those in imprisonment. Jump back to Hebrews chapter number 11 real quick. We're gonna read verse 36 down through verse 38, and this is where we'll stop tonight. Verse 36 says, And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonments. They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and in caves of the earth. And these, all having obtained a good report through faith, receive not the promise, God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. you realize you're blessed to live in America. You are. I'm not saying I agree with the way our country is right now, but we are blessed to have the freedom that we have tonight to sit in God's house. We're blessed to have men and women that have surrendered their life to service to give us those freedoms. I'm thankful for them. But folks, At this present time, I don't think any of us are getting ready to be sawn in half. We might take a mocking here or there. Somebody might poke fun at us. There might be times that you may lose a job for your stance on the things of God. But you know what? You continue standing for God, you continue walking with God, and God will show you what he's capable of. God will bless. The next time you think sin's getting the best of you and you just wanna turn back, remember you have not yet resisted. Like it says in verse four, chapter 12, ye have not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin. We haven't even started. We haven't seen the worst of it. we've not yet been to the shedding of blood. And through the Holy Spirit, never forget what's happened in our history. Never forget Hebrews chapter 11. Never forget those that have literally given their lives for the cause of the gospel. Folks, because of them, It ought to encourage us to tell someone at school. It ought to encourage us to tell someone at work. It ought to encourage us to tell somebody at the gas station, at the grocery store. It doesn't take much. It really doesn't. Just a simple handing off of a track saying, hey, when you're on your break, would you give this a read? Just simply asking, have you ever Considered what comes after this life. Just opening up a conversation with people or simply sharing your testimony can be such a great tool in leading somebody to Christ. Remember Christ himself who went willingly to the cross. He shed his blood for your salvation and in his strength you have more fight to give. I am weak. but He is strong. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for the day You've given us. Lord, we love You tonight. Lord, I thank You for the opportunity to speak today. Lord, I pray that the messages that have been given, Lord, You would use in their hearts and lives, would use in our lives as we walk through this week, or may we be encouraged to fight. May we be encouraged to do more for you. Lord, we love you. We have the invitation. Lord, you work in the hearts and lives as you see fit. It's in your name we pray, amen. As we stand all over the building, what page? 162. Page 162. Lord, I'm coming home. If you need to come for any reason, you come. Do business with God. I've wandered far away from God. Now I'm coming home. The paths of sin too long I've trod. Lord, I'm coming home. Coming home, coming home Never more to roam Open wide, thine arms of love I've wasted many precious years. Now I'm coming home. I now repent with bitter tears. Coming home Coming home Coming home Never more to roam Open wide Thine arms above I'm tired of sin and strength, Lord. Lord, I'm coming home. I'll trust thy love, believe thy word. Coming home, coming home Never more to roam of love. Lord, I'm coming home. My soul is sick. My heart is sore. Now I'm coming home. My strength renewed, my hope restored. Lord, I'm coming home, coming home, coming home, nevermore. of blood.