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Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Amen. Great singing. Brother Ramon, you want to open us with a word of prayer? Let's turn to page 114. The Great Physician. Page 114. The Great Physician. Music Sing it out loud along with those. Music Music Music Music Good evening. Welcome to Sure Foundation Baptist Church. Let's take our bulletin to go through some announcements. If you need a bulletin, would you lift up your hand? And I think we have a few bulletins left. Brother Sean will bring you a bulletin here in just a second. On our front cover of the bulletin we have our verse of the week. It says her children arise and call her blessed. Her husband also and he prays with her. Proverbs chapter 31 verse 28. And of course we had a great Mother's Day last week. At least I hope you did. And our service times are 10 30 a.m. for our morning service, our morning preaching service. Sunday evening service is 3 30 p.m. We'll be in Exodus chapter 17 this week and Thursday Bible studies at 6 30. We're in Hebrews chapter 12. I'm going to finish the whole chapter tonight and we'll be one more chapter to go after that. And then soul winning times, our list of blows. We did have soul win today. Brother Robert, do we have any salvations? No salvations. All right. Lots of sweaty people and no salvations. There's a hot one out there. Anyway our praise report. You can see the salvations and totals there on the stats. We had two salvations on Sunday. And let's see we had a baptism Sunday. So praise God for that. And if you are a mom and you didn't get your Mother's Day gift you can just come see me after service. I'll make sure you get one. And let's see this the next coming thing is our church workday. It starts at 10 30 a.m. this Saturday. So if you don't mind just giving up some of your time to come down and help we'd appreciate that. So we definitely want it to look nice. If you didn't notice the building's a different color on the front and there's no more red. So it's all gray and looking nice. So it looks great out there. So and of course the inside is just looking better every time we come here. So I think it looks really cool and we're getting close to having everything complete here. So if there's anything that you want to help with I know that Brother Ramona and Miss Bobby have been doing a lot of the decorating and stuff in here and if you want to help out I'm sure that they could find something for you to do. But that King James picture of me just didn't look right. My head is not shaped like a pear. It's more like a block. I'm just kidding. But it was kind of funny. But anyway so speaking of that the King James Conference coming up this week Pastor Shelley will be preaching for us at seven o'clock on Thursday. Of course we do have sowing at three o'clock. We're going to have a meal at 5 p.m. here. We're going to have hot dogs the first night and they're not just the cruddy all different parts of chicken hot dogs. It's beef hot dogs. Beef is what's for dinner. Okay. Costco hot dogs. All right. And we'll probably have some Polish dogs too but that's kind of the main thing. I got some some chili with beans and since Pastor Shelley's gonna be here I got I had to get a can of chili without beans because you know you know how he is. So I was thinking about doing Indian food for that night but I decided I probably shouldn't do that. All right. So and then so Pastor Shelley's gonna preach. We're gonna have a Q&A afterwards. Friday night's Pastor Anderson and he'll be preaching at 7 p.m. Also same thing we're gonna have hamburgers on Friday night. So we're gonna we're getting a grill and we're gonna grill burgers. We're gonna grill the dogs and we'll probably have some seating outside that's available. So that's why it's so important we get the front all this cleaned up because I just want to make sure that everything's clean and tidy for us to be able to be outside. And let's see Pastor Mendez will be preaching for us Saturday morning at 10 30 a.m. There'll be a quick Q&A and I think he has to jump on a plane right after that. We're gonna serve lunch and it's gonna be nachos. So nachos will be after the Q&A and after Pastor Mendez leaves and then we're gonna have a bounce house set up for all the kids to play in. So that'll be after lunch so everybody can puke after the after they eat by bouncing around on I don't know the kids probably won't even want to eat if I know kids well like like oh yeah you know let's run to the to the inflatable thing. So it's gonna be a bounce house that'll be inside the fenced area and you'll have to access it through the back door because I don't want people coming in and out of this gate. We're gonna have a little area sectioned off back here and we're gonna have a mechanical bull riding thing. So that I don't want any string beans on that because I don't want to get thrown off or something but the guy that runs the company he's gonna be here to make sure things don't get out of hand. I don't want brother Eli you know taking care of the bull riding part so especially if I'm on it because I'll go flying or something. So but anyway I thought that'd be a fun thing to do. So there will be soul winning available that day if people want to go there'll be maps available. That's kind of what we're doing in the afternoon on Saturday just kind of having a fun day for the family and then Sunday Pastor Jones will be preaching at 10 30 a.m. and we'll have a Q&A of course and then we're gonna have pizza here after for for lunch. We will have soul winning then I'll be preaching the Sunday service and then I'm going to be ordaining brother Daniel Koutsar as the evangelist in Spokane. So I'll kind of just work that ordination sermon in the middle of the comp my conference sermon somewhere but we have like basically the whole Spokane church is coming here so really excited about that. We'll have our evangelist from Canada, two of our evangelists from Canada will be here brother Weeb. Brother Weeb's not an evangelist yet but he's going to be and brother Wynn and his family are going to be here. I think we have a couple other people from those churches that are coming so it's going to be a great conference and the RSVP is pretty much still in effect but there's got to be a time to cut it off so but I put a little notice in there for any of the sizes over extra large for the ladies yeah you needed to tell me by sundown if you don't get one sorry you should you should have responded that'll just be your fault but I've gotten hats out to some of the guys and so if you haven't gotten a hat yet and you're a guy let me know I'm going to try to wait to probably this weekend some of the time I'll give out the shirts for the ladies in our church that have signed up or whatever even if you haven't but I do need to set aside the ones that have RSVP'd first so anyway so that's going to be the conference it's going to be a great time looking forward to it hopefully everybody's going to be here and everything goes well so if there's anything there's lots of things we need to do I'll have sign up lists for certain things that we need help with we're definitely going to need help with cleaning so for feeding everybody that means food's going to be around that means we have to clean up the food and then for the service what I'm really worried about is a Saturday we just need to make sure that everything's buttoned back up before church on Sunday so so and I think that's I mean we got other stuff going on but I'm going to just go forward and not do a 20-30 minute announcement this time but all the information for the rest of the schedules are there on the bulletin if you've read them and then that's all I have for announcements if you have any questions about anything that's going on the the conference or whether where you can help we definitely still need people to help with certain things so just see me after the service and we'll I'll line you out somewhere okay all right let's sing another song we'll receive the offering all right let's open our green hills page seven page seven we're gonna sing I gave my life for thee page seven I gave my life for thee so you're not allowed on the first I gave my life for thee my precious blood I shed that thou my ransom be and quicken from the dead I gave I gave my life for thee what has thou give for me I gave I gave my life for thee what has thou give for me my father's house of lie my glory circle thrown I left for earthly night for wandering sad and low I left I left it all for thee as thou left out for me I left I left it all for thee as thou left out for me I suffered much for thee more than my tongue can tell of interest agony to rescue thee from hell I'm born I'm born in all for thee what has thou born for me I'm born I'm born in all for thee what has thou born for me on the last and I have brought to thee down from my home above salvation full and free my pardon and my love I bring I bring rich gifts to thee what has thou brought to me I bring I bring rich gifts to thee what has thou brought to me and great seeing everyone at this time we're going to have our ushers come forward to receive the offering for us brother Alex can you bless the offering please and I ask that you bless this offering both the gift and the giver and you put it to work so all right we're gonna go through the prayer request real quick here remember to keep our church plants in prayer and especially our new church plant in Seattle which is doing really well we've had 38 salvations there so far and we had seven first-time visitors on sunday so praise god for that and we had two first-time visitors last night during our services as well so just pray that god continues to have his hand on that church and that we would grow spiritually and numerically and let's see for brother Stuckey our missionary to the Philippines and also pastor Warringah are we off rylan were you offline as far as the oh okay sorry all right you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you good evening would you please turn with me to the book of hebrews chapter 12 the book of hebrews and chapter 12 hebrews chapter 12 in hebrews chapter 12 the bible reads 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 he be wearied and faint in your minds he have not not yet resisted unto blood striving against sin and he 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 you bastards 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 looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of god lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled lest there be any fornicator or profane person as esau who for one morsel of meat sold his birth rights for ye know how that afterward when he would have inherited the blessing he was rejected for he found no place of repentance though he sought it carefully with tears for your ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire nor unto blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words which voice they that heard entreated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore for they could not endure that which was commanded and if so much as a beast touched the mountain it shall be stoned or thrust through with a dart and so terrible was the sight that moses said i exceedingly fear and quake but ye are come unto mount zion and unto the city of the living god the heavenly jerusalem and to an innumerable company of angels to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven and to god the judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to jesus the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of able see that ye refuse not him that speaketh for if they escape not who refused him that spake on earth much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven whose voice then shook the earth now he hath promised saying yet once more i shake not the earth only but also heaven and this word yet once more signifies the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made that those things which cannot be shaken may remain wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve god acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our god is a consuming fire brother alex will you pray amen all right we're in hebrews chapter 12 and we're chugging right along and we're going to be finishing this book not this coming week because of the conference but after the coming week here and last week i preached about the hall of faith and how the bible is very clear that anybody that pleases god must have faith you can't please them without faith and we went through many of different people that were obviously saved by faith including old lots of old testament characters which that alone destroys dispensationalism and this belief that you're saved in different ways in different dispensations but at the end we're kind of this chapter 12 kind of goes off the back of chapter 11 and that's why the first verse says wherefore seen we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses talking about the people in the previous chapter there let us lay aside every weight and sin which does does so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us it's very powerful verse there and the bible is basically alluding to the fact that we are compassed about with witnesses what does that mean well they're seeing what we're what we do and when you think about that the people that have gone on before us that are in heaven are able to see the things that are going on and so we're compassed about with this great cloud of witnesses and some of those people are very famous people in the bible people that we've read about people that you've read about multiple times and and their faith should be an inspiration to us to carry on the christian life and see the things that they went through and you know if they can get through those things then we can get through them too and that's the trial of our faith there's hard times as christians yes it's great we're saved hallelujah for that but the christian life is also very difficult at times and that's when people will quit they'll fail and they'll drop they'll dip out of the race and it says right there there's a great cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every weight now it says and the sin which does so easily beset us so you know when it's when it's talking about weight you know sometimes weight is considered something that is like you know it's attributed to sinfulness but what about just weight of things that have you entangled in this world like brother josh preached about those dogs a couple weeks few weeks ago and he talked about how when that last dog passes on and you're free from the shackles of of being constrained by some animal like oh i can't go sewing because i got this dog or i can't go on this trip because i got this dog and that's just a stupid example but it's like yeah when you let go of some of the weights that are restraining you from serving god it does feel relieving like the chains have broken off of you and we had several dogs and our dogs just lived to be that old roy just sustained them and gave them almost eternal life it seemed like and all these people that are you know getting these zions and all this other weird different kind of i don't know if that's a brand but you know that puppy food that's just like super it's like you know 100 a bag or whatever i don't know it's probably more than that now but people feed their dogs like the ultimate stuff and we're just like here's some walmart old roy and it's just like they live forever you know but it was relieving to not have dogs anymore because they were holding us back we'd always have to get someone to watch them or whatever and then the older they get you know they're going to the bathroom so you don't want to leave them for too long and then you come home and it's just all over the floor it's it's a nightmare that's just one like i said one silly example but there's lots of things in our lives that can be a weight that we need to let go of you know there's a lot of entanglements in this world that we hang on to for no reason you hang on to your stuff you know you hang on to you know bad jobs animals um your your personal property that you just care about so much but you know all that stuff's gonna burn anyway so like why be restrained in your christian life from anything that's going to stop you from serving god and so obviously i'm not saying quit your job so you can serve god full time unless that's something that you know you feel like you can do but you know you really do got to be able to support yourself but what i'm saying is like maybe it's a job that's you know it's it's it's stopping you from reaching your full potential as a christian it's stopping you from coming to church it's stopping you from serving god is stopping you from sowing and we got to lay aside those weights if we're going to run the race and the race is a lifelong race it's a race unto the end like paul said you know i've run the i've finished the course you know and he he ran his race he finished the course he kept the faith the bible says so and that's what we want to say on our final day is that we never quit we never gave up we got rid as much sin in our life as we possibly could and we lived a good life we we uh we raised good children we had a good marriage we got a lot of people saved in the end that's really what it's gonna what's gonna matter in heaven is what you've done here on earth now obviously just being saved is all you need to go to heaven and have eternal life i'm i'm you know but but the having a productive and good christian life is a lot different than having a weighed down handicapped christian life because sometimes we handicap ourselves sometimes we stop ourselves from being able to serve we think something's going to be a great decision and it really isn't and when it says in the sin which thus so easily beset us and so people talk a lot about this this besetting sin and you know some sins are we have a proclivity to commit more than others something that you've already just had a problem with you're probably going to struggle with those things as a christian too but we should work our best the best we can and obviously the holy spirit is the one that gives us power to overcome these things and we don't believe in repenting of your sin to be saved but yes you should repent of your sins as a christian when you are saved so two different things we don't believe you have to just repent of your sins and then you can come to jesus that's garbage it's it's just not true it's a false doctrine it's damnable heresy in reality if people are saying that people are preaching that and they dig in on that specific topic and you show them where it says something different and they just dig in that's that's damnable heresy you're sending people to hell by preaching that message so we want to try to live the best life we possibly can as christians not weighed down getting sin out of our life and it says to run the race with patience run with patience the race that is set before us because i mean once we get saved we automatically become part of the military we become part of god's army we become soldiers of the lord men women and children that are saved we're all enlisted the moment we get saved but we also enter into a race and you might not have realized you entered into that race the moment you got saved but but you did and if you think about it and paul likes to to to talk about these specific things about races and and athletic things like that to get to help us to understand what the christian life is really like because who's ever run a race in here before who's ever ran a marathon it's hard like i i knew a guy that he did like a marathon and he did it in the desert or something and he had like one of those wickening shirts on and he said that like his nipples were rubbed raw from running with that shirt on like they were bleeding and like he was walking around like this all day at work and i was like what's wrong with you it's like i ran a marathon i'm just like wow like it's just friction against your body and if you're running for that long of a time it's gonna mess you up so i mean you got to be prepared for stuff like that i guess but when i was in fourth grade i was the fastest kid in my school and that's when the first year that we ran the mile i don't know if anybody ever ran the mile in school or whatever but i was the fastest kid in the school and i was also the fastest time in the mile and i remember that the teacher would say you have to pace yourself you know you don't have to shoot out like a like a cannon and just if you try to sprint a mile you're going to get tired and you're going to quit you're going to grow weary and you're going to quit and so when you're running a race you have to learn what pace you can run at that's not so fast that you're going to tire out and quit but also not so slow that you're not effective and actually finish the race or win the i mean the goal right is to win the race and we all win when we finish that we kind of all get the trophy if we finish kind of you know what i mean obviously you get more trophies for doing more works but i think that the ultimate message of this chapter if we when we when we go through it you'll see what i'm talking about the ultimate message of this chapter is don't quit that's what it is and so that's that's where he starts off he says get rid of the stuff that's going to weigh you down because you know if you say you run with a backpack on that has 50 pounds in it are you going to be able to to finish a race faster than someone that's just as fast as you just as strong as you has just as much stamina no because that weight is going to weigh you down and make you slower so that's why you're saying get rid of the weights they're good for training you know you take the weights off and then you're like you know you're just shot out shot out like a cannon because you've trained with those weights to get stronger but once you take those weights off it makes you faster have you ever seen people that train you know they'll put different weights on them they'll run with them but that's what he's saying you need to get rid of that weight and the sin so because the sin is going to hold you back from completing the christian life because there are certain sins that if you get into them they'll ruin your life there are certain sins that if you get into it's going to take you out of the race and so the apostle paul is saying to us hey he's like hey you got to you know we're in a race run with patience there's sometimes in a race where you're running faster than other times you know and you know yourself don't get so uh don't push so hard that you're going to blow up like a roman you know that that roman kindle christian or they just want to get in and do all this stuff and then like they just they kind of just explode and fizzle out you know we don't want to be we want to you know our race is run in decades our race is run in multiple years and we got to take our time but you know i i would say this don't be like the you know the the harem the tortoise like the tortoise won because of whatever but we don't want to be like the tortoise necessarily where we're just running as like we're jehovah's witnesses you know how they walk really slow to the first you know the next door don't run your race that slow i mean we should push ourselves you know that's why paul says we press towards the mark so you're still supposed to press towards the mark but just know yourself and know what you can and can't handle and you know the first step is getting rid of all the weight and the sin that does easily be beset you so the besetting sins are the ones that we need to really get a grasp and a handle on first so let's look at verse number two it says looking unto jesus the author and finisher of our faith and so jesus it says that jesus is the author and finisher of our faith that means he made up what faith is he made up what faith we had to have and he said this is how it's finished who finished it jesus finished it for us he made up what we had to do to be saved you know he he made up faith he's the author you know when the person that writes the book is the author right and that author is jesus and he finished his book and he finished the course that he was set on the one that the father gave him when he sent him here he finished what all the all the things that he was supposed to do and he even said on the cross that is finished but of course you know he paid for our salvation and he said he he makes the prerequisites for what people have to do to be saved so and this is what's so bad about false religion is that they think that their faith or multiple faiths all are basically the same and and it's kind of true in a way what they think i was talking to a muslim lady yesterday i think she was recording me or something like i think she was trying to school me or something but she didn't school me but anyway she uh she's basically saying well we believe in jesus too so we're good you know we're gonna we're gonna make it to heaven because you know you said all you have to do is believe in jesus well we believe in jesus i was like yeah but you believe in another jesus you believe in a jesus that's not in the bible and so i said jesus said i am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the father but by me and you have to believe that he's the son of god you have to believe that he is god and that's not what they believe so they don't believe the right thing see god's the author of faith it's not muhammad the pedophile it's jesus the son of god the king of kings and lord of lords he's the one that decides what our faith is going to be and he's the one that invented it he's the one that made it he's the one that made the way to heaven he's and he told us what we have to do it's kind of like last week i was talking about the manna the children those the mixed multitude was upset because they're like all we have is this manna before our eyes and they're just like spitting on the gift of god that was basically that it sounded to me like it was good it's like you know well the texas roadhouse has those little those sweet rolls you know i'm talking about that's kind of what i imagine manna tasted like because it tastes heavenly right it has that like sweet taste and that little butter that butter that you can dip it in you know i'm talking about anyway i'm starting to get hungry but anyway but they're upset about something that they got for free from god it's a gift just like jesus is a gift and it's and it was sweet it was nourishing and it it nourished their life and so you also have to accept jesus on the terms that he sets forth so they didn't like that bread they wanted something else but see that's what a lot of people do in religions today i don't want that bread i want this kind and that's why they go to hell because they're not picking the right faith they're not picking the truth i just told her i said i said look you've got to be there's only one truth they can't all be true not all religions can be true and i said do you believe that you have to repent of your sins to go to heaven and she said yes i do i said you know what that's what every religion believes except for christianity that's what the buddhists believe that's what the hindus believe they all believe that even buddhists believe it even though they don't believe in heaven they believe you have to repent of your sins so that you can become nothing or whatever you disappear and vanish or whatever and don't come back as anything else or something well you cease to exist you i mean that doesn't sound like heaven to me but anyway but they believe that if you look just look at their websites they all believe the same thing and that's what the devil wants them to believe they want them to all the the hindus and the buddhists are so spiritual you know and they know kung fu or something like come on who cares like or they you know i mean these hindus they worship demons folks literal demons like i think there was this one guy who ate they like they eat human flesh too wasn't there like a reporter or something that was doing some kind of interview and then like they did they trick him or they tell him it was human flesh i can't remember but he ate it i was like ugh i mean that's not what that's not what we believe folks we don't have to do some kind of cannibalistic thing or stand on our leg with our arm in the air for 30 years and have it wither into some like string or you know what i'm talking about these these weird people jesus is the one that authored our faith he's the one that finished our faith and he's the one that tells people how to be saved it's in this book for us to know it's been preached for thousands of years it's the truth so it says that 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 set down at the right hand of the throne of god so he for the joy that was set before him he knew what great joy was going to be in the future because of what he had to do so he's enduring when you're running a race aren't you enduring you are you're enduring and you know maybe you don't finish first place or whatever and it's a little bit shameful but the shame that jesus had to put up with was people mocking him people spitting on him people maligning him and lying about him and bearing false witness but he he he he endured all that stuff for us so that we could be saved and the bible says he sat down at the right hand of the throne of god so and it's kind of like you know when you know something's going to be a hard and torturous day in your work day you like tomorrow you know that this is what you have to do it's going to be a really hard day it's going to be hot you know i'm just speaking as a man here doing construction there's some days that are just like hotter than other others some projects that are harder than others you know at the end of the day your back's going to be wrecked your feet are going to hurt you're going to be exhausted and you're going to be baking in the sun all day and you just kind of have to you kind of have to just have something inside of you that says i know that this is going to be a hard day but you know what i'm going to endure this because i have to this is my job this is what i got to do and so that's kind of what jesus had to do he you know when we know we're going to have a hard day i mean i'm sure people have had this same feeling like there's days where we have we had to follow paving machines and that that that that asphalt is 300 degrees when it comes out and your shoes aren't built to to deal with that they do have heat heat related shoes that but that's still the asphalt destroys them you're you feel like you're cooking at the end of the day you feel like your legs have been cooked like halfway up that's kind of what it feels like and it's not fun but if you know you're going to have to do some 12-13 hour day on asphalt you're dreading it the day before it's like you know so i mean that's the only way i could liken to how jesus felt the day before he was going to die he knew you know he was he knew and that's way worse than any work day that you could ever endure but that's just kind of his mindset that he had to have and so it's the same thing for us though when we endure the hard things of the christian life because the bible says we're supposed to endure hardness as soldiers right god jesus called us to be soldiers in a war he called us to run a race and he doesn't want us to quit he wants to finish the race with patience so the race is set this is what you're supposed to do live the christian life endure the hard parts of it and in the end you're going to come out as gold and you're going to feel good about the fact that you stuck with the christian life and you did what was required of you and yes there was hard days yes there was hard weeks yes there was hard months but you endured those things knowing that you're going to have to endure them see candyland churches are like churches that like nothing bad ever happens no protesters ever come to their church they never have to go out on a hot day and go soul winning they never have to go out on a day where it's dumping buckets of water on you while you're walking around and nobody wants to answer the door those are hard days in the faith hard days with your family you know tragedies happening there's just all kinds of things that in the in the in the christian faith that are really hard but we're called to endure those things jesus endured those things and guess what we're supposed to take up our cross daily and follow after him right so you know and and when you you know you know those days when you don't get enough sleep like you toss and turn all night and you got like three hours of sleep and you have something really important to do the next day those days suck don't they it's just like ah but you can't call in you'll get in trouble you you know yeah you can't fake sick that day you know that like the boss is counting on you or whatever or you know just whatever it is and you just have to buck up and do your job and that's what jesus did for us but like a thousand times more extreme than what we have to do so verse number three says for consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest you be wearied and faint in your mind so he doesn't want us to get weary and faint in our minds for consider him that endured such contradictions of sinner against himself so we don't we need to consider those things and we don't want to be weary and faint that's the point he doesn't paul that's why i'm saying the point of this whole passage is really to get us to understand the the worst thing we could do is quit the worst thing we could do is drop out of the christian life drop out of the christian race drop go awol from the lord's army so i was going to read a couple quotes here that i liked um but uh here's something that our coaches used to say when we play football they'd say most people quit something quit in their mind well before their body ever gave out because our mind says oh it's okay to quit oh you know no ever is going to understand you know this is a good excuse and this is like you'll you know and when things start to get hard when you're exercising or you're working or whatever doing something physically strenuous your mind gives out well before your body does because i know there's been times i was like i can't do i can't bend down one more time or i'm done and then i bend down one more time and i wasn't done because i mean what well i'm going to have somebody carry me off or something you know but i like i put in some hard days in construction and there's days when i just my first day that i ever worked for the water barrel i got heat exhaustion so bad that i drank like a whole igloo cooler of water and it was like 95 degrees outside and it was my first day i'd never done it and they said we're going to just throw you guys in the fire and see how you do normally you go through like a month of training to learn how to you know mega lug all the bolts together there's a lot of training that goes into it and they're just like come on jump in there you know it's just like the the crew leader i had you're supposed to tighten these mega lugs for the the joints with the uh with the pipes and stuff like that they have these things and they're like you know it's like on your car when you when you're trying to undo the bolts well you have to tighten the bolts to a certain torque and break them off so do that you know multiple times with the sun just beating on you and it i just i was toast when i was driving home i was my body was involuntarily cramping everywhere like i was trying to call my wife to say hey my arms were like cramped and i was like holding the stairwell like this but like that was such a hard day that it permanently affected my ability to be out in the sun because i don't know if you've ever gone through heat related training before but if you get heat exhaustion you're going to get heat exhaustion easier the next time it happens so when i got heat exhaustion any time the the clouds rolled away from the sun if it was 69 degrees 70 degrees if the clouds rolled i was just like dreading i was like please just stay overcast all day it's like that one summer i just wanted to stay overcast and as soon as the sun would come out my legs would instantly start cramping and it's just like i had to fight through that whole summer like that and so like it permanently affected me so anytime i'm out like on a hot day and i haven't been out on a hot day in a long time it's like i got to really be careful that i'm not going to get heat exhaustion anyway i don't know why i'm telling that story but yeah because we don't want to be weary and faint in our minds i made it through that day barely i probably should have gone to the hospital and got an iv but uh i didn't quit i didn't faint and there was many times i was just like what have i gotten myself into like i'm not ready for this but we faint in our minds before our body will give out in a lot of cases and have you heard the term when the going gets tough the tough get going some people will wilt and and and fade over any kind of adversity we have not to be christians like that we're going to go through hard times and we got to buck up and be ready for it vince lombardi said winners never quit and quitters never win so it's kind of true if you quit you lost right so and he was like this great football coach or whatever for the green bay packers but anyway let's turn to galatians chapter 6 verse 7 galatians chapter 6 verse 7 and we don't want to get weary and living the christian life we don't want to get weary of helping people and being friendly to people because in especially in a christian church like our church like the the the enemies are many you know and people that we thought were our best friends stabbed us in the back and left us or used things that we said to them in confidence against us publicly and things like that it's just really wicked and that kind of just a lot of people they just will be like i'm never trusting anybody again after stuff like that and obviously we can learn lessons from that to how much we trust people with things in our personal life our personal things about ourselves i would i think we should have discretion on some definitely some things that we you know there's some things you just shouldn't share with people because they're going to hold it against you and if they're a bad person they're going to wait and hold it against you later on so but look at uh galatians 6 7 it says be not deceived god is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap and so a lot of people say this is karma but we don't believe in that that's some hindu false religion saying but we believe in the concept of reaping and sowing or sowing and then reaping if you sow good things in people if you sow good things in your life then you're going to reap good things back and so that's a principle in the bible that you see play out over and over and over again look at verse 8 it says for he that soweth to his flesh shall reap of the flesh of the flesh reap corruption so if you're worldly if you're just don't care um you're you know you're a christian but you're like i don't care i'm going to go back to my old life or this or that you're going to reap corruption it's going to reap corruption in your life and what is corruption it's rotten right we don't want our lives to end up as some rotten corruption even as christians i mean think about lot lot ended up in a cave with his two daughters and a bottle of wine i mean he was was he saved he was saved was he righteous he was righteous the bible says that he vexed his righteous soul day to day in both seeing and hearing what was going on in sodom so we can get to a point where we're reaping to our flesh when we should be reaping things in the spirit it says but he that soweth to the spirit shall reap of the spirit reap life everlasting so when we do things in the spirit when we do things that are good and and we do good works and we go soul winning and we help people and we make friends and we welcome new people to our church and we give them a chance and trust them that's good we don't have to stop doing that even though we've had multiple people you know turn out to be ungodly wolves in our lives but don't let that ruin what god wants you to be like because you can't control what other people do all you can do is control what you do what kind of life you live how you treat other people and don't let some phony baloney judas iscariot you know stop you from serving god and that's what they want to do they want to disrupt your life they want you to quit i mean why does satan send agents into people's churches because he wants them to quit he wants them to get other people to quit and he wants to disrupt the work of god from going on and it says in verse nine and let us not be weary in well-doing for in due season we shall reap if we faint not and in this chapter in hebrews that's what it's talking about don't be weary in your minds don't faint don't stop let us not be weary and well doing what doing good things doing good works it says that we're going to reap if we faint in due season if we faint not and it says as we have therefore opportunity let us do good unto all men especially unto them who are of the household of faith so we're supposed to do good to all men but especially people that are fellow christians so you know we're around each other a lot and you know we start to see the moles and we start to find the things that irritate us about people and things like that but those are things we should be able to pass over and you know we should give people a chance we should still treat christians good and hey maybe that's not your best friend but maybe you know you could still be nice you could still do nice things for people it doesn't say do good unto others that that you know is going to do good unto you you do it so that because that's how you want to be treated right so we want to treat other people like we want to be treated but sometimes they don't reciprocate that but we can't control that we just have to do what god wants us to do in those areas so i mean i i seem it kind of seems to me like you know if if we quit the christian life we basically are losers i mean what happens if you don't finish a race do you win i mean not everybody that finishes a race is the winner of the race but finishing is meaning that you went all the way and completed the goal that you were supposed to get to so the only way to become a loser is to quit so don't be a christian loser and quit don't quit the faith don't quit the race don't go awol don't go back to egypt you know what's waiting for you back there yeah the leaks and the garlic and all whatever all the great things that you thought were so cool about it but in the end it just leads to nothing it just leads back to where you already were why did you leave that in the first place so you could just go back there no we we left it we left that life of sin and that bondage for a reason so that we could go on and serve jesus christ so we could go on and i mean obviously we want to live a better life than what we were living before we used to have this kid at our church and he was our our uh our youth group and anytime anything got hard this is what he'd always say my wife's laughing back there because she knows exactly what i'm about to say the kid he was just every time things were hard he'd go you know what i'm done i'm just going to quit i'm going back to my old life that's exactly what he would say he said that so many times and he would but then he would come back you know but that is the mentality of a lot of christians when anything gets hard then they're like hey i'm just going to go back to my old life it wasn't that hard but then when you go back there you're like it is harder and you know what when you're saved you're not going to get as much enjoyment as you did when you're unsaved there are pleasures of sin for a season but you know ultimately you're going to reap that corruptible fruit and that's not what we want right so turn back to hebrew chapter 12 if you're back in hebrew chapter 12 the bible says you have not resisted onto blood striving against sin so in most cases in this room none of us have ever really been attacked physically for our faith jesus was attacked physically for his faith wasn't he and the apostles were and there are people that have to endure these types of things but most i don't think anybody in this room has ever resisted onto blood unto torture i remember last chapter they're sawing people asunder they're torturing them and refusing to you know basically it was kind of like it sounded like the catholic inquisition was going on with these people and and the catholic inquisition the spanish inquisition was a really wicked thing where they were torturing christians to death and you know i mean obviously torture has been they get pretty inventive there are some things that people have had to endure just for reading the lord for memorizing the lord's prayer in english or daring to transport bibles in english so people the common people could see what the word of god says but uh go ahead and turn to matthew chapter 10 verse 34 or yeah matthew chapter 10 verse 34 i'm going to read john 6 33 it says these things have i spoken unto you that in me you might have peace in the world you shall have tribulation but be of good cheer i have overcome the world so jesus has overcome the world for us yes we're going to have tribulation i mean don't don't show this to a pre-tribber because they just don't believe it but yes we will have tribulation in this life and tribulation is persecution for our faith if you're living godly in christ jesus but you know those people got a better remember in the last chapter it said they refused because they wanted a better resurrection they didn't give in to the torture they just allowed themselves to be killed or tortured not they didn't want to give up and say recant or something because that's what they want you to do they want you to renounce your faith when they're torturing you in these kind of ways and you know maybe we're our world's headed there again i mean the bible talks about it in the book of revelation but things are going to get bad there's going to be a great tribulation such as never seen and and it never will be seen again like that so and we may be in that that time period we don't know but jesus said be of a good cheer i've overcome the world at least we're saved at least we're going to heaven you know we might go through tribulation we might get killed or whatever happens but at least we're saved you know where they're going when they drop dead these reprobates they're going straight to hell they're going to hell now look at matthew chapter 10 verse 34 it says think not that i am come to send peace on earth i came not to send peace but a sword for i am come to send a man a variance against his father and the daughter against her mother and the daughter-in-law against her mother in law and a man's foes shall be they of his own household he that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me and he that taketh not his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me he that findeth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it so what is jesus saying this life can be hard and we're going to lose family members people that loved us possibly your own parents possibly your own children possibly your own parent i mean just it it goes through the through the list here and in other lists like this it talks about your friends betraying your own children rising up and putting their parents to death that doesn't sound like fun it doesn't sound like a good time does it but like i said the christian life can be hard sometimes and there might be a time when this happens with us and you know we have to be able to endure these things even though it's hard that's what being a good soldier is that's what finishing the race is is that you don't give up no matter what happens to you and so you have to decide in your mind as a christian and as a member of this church like what is it going to take to get me out because that's what you have to you know that hard day i was talking about that's what you have to prepare yourself for the day that like i don't know if if this happens i don't know if i can stay if this happens i don't know if i could keep being a christian those are the things we have to just like you know we know that the joy is set before us and we have to endure those things because the devil's going to throw those things your way if that's what you fear then that might be the test that you get and so you got to prepare your mind for these things you've got to prepare your heart for even like i said your own children turning against you your own parents turning against you the mother that that weaned you and and you know taught you and and loved you when you believe in christ that could be an instant division with that person for the rest of your life are you willing to endure that are you willing to endure people mocking you at work because you're a christian are you willing to put up with that for 30 years at a place that you work because those are the types of things that we have to endure as christians you have to endure like a good soldier so look at verse number five in our text it says and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children my son despised not the chastening of the lord nor faint when thou rebuked of him so here here's more things that paul is saying like this is another hard part that you're going to have to learn to deal with as a christian because the fact is that we're going to sin the fact is we're going to fail in some areas of our life and god is going to punish us for those things you know we tell these people we tell people when we're solely we go to these verses here and we say hey you know you don't have to you're never going to have to go to hell but god might punish you but you know what we're we're going to be punished also the people that are telling them this story because it's the truth we're going to have to endure these things also right because look what it says it says despise not the chasing of the lord nor faint when thou art rebuked of him see the word faint there he's got this theme going on in in chapter 12 and it says for whom the lord loveth he chasteneth that means he chastises them corrects them and it says and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth now notice how it says every son that means every child of god that's ever been saved and ever will be gets spanked and some kids get spanked more than others and that's why paul is saying hey put these things aside try to live a life of holiness try to get the sin out of your life because the more you do that the better you're going to run the race the less you're going to get chastened the less spankings you're going to get and we tell people this at the door when we get the gospel to them and then we get smacked around that same night for doing something else that we weren't supposed to be doing you know because it says he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth every son and that's why these people that believe in sinless perfection and all this other stuff they're they're just idiots it says if you endure chastening getting punished correct correction god deal with with you as with sons for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not there it is again for you in plain english you know every person is going to get spanked and i know it's saying things in the male pronouns here but that includes you ladies yes your your hind ends are going to get spanked too just like anybody else it says but if you be without chastisement where of all our partakers see that word all then are you bastards and not sons so if you never get corrected by god you never get spanked by god you never endure hardship from god because of the life that you're living of the sin that you've committed then you're not god's child you're a bastard you're not part of the family and so this is a warning to those people who are like well you know i never seem to get punished for anything well you sin don't you that you're going to get punished for something but here's the thing you know god is rich in mercy and long suffering toward us and look if we fall on him for mercy he will he's going to give us mercy he's going to be tender with us he's not going to punish us as hard as he would punish us if we were just like well i don't care i'm going to just live with this person if i want to like someone that just wants to you know live in fornication like i don't i don't care what the bible says well then you're going to get beaten and you're going to get beaten with many stripes and god is going to punish you for having that rebellious attitude because what kids do you correct more the ones that give you the most grief and the squeaky wheel gets the grease the squeaky squeaky gets the grease it's a fact like the kid that's just causing those problems they're going to get the most attention right and sometimes kids just want that attention you know that's not healthy to want negative attention but some kids are like that you know some people are like that and we're like that so but it says furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us that's you know human fathers of course and give and we gave them reverence shall we not rather be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live for they verily for a few days chasing us after their own pleasure i think that's interesting because sometimes you know it is a pleasure to spank kids i'm not gonna lie well they've been really bad you're just like you've had this coming all day you know and you just give them a real good licking you know sometimes i i admit i mean i i'm a sinner just like everybody else is but i'll admit that i've taken pleasure in a couple spankings okay and especially when they're making me chase them that's when i really get mad one time remy made me eat the dust he did he put a juke move on me out of the park when i was trying to catch him and i fell but i just laughed because he got he got me pretty good he juked me pretty good but you know my kids would climb under stuff to try to get away from me climb under beds i'd have to like rip beds oh you know i mean apparently i was a pretty bad spanker i guess i don't know they just didn't want to get spanked you know so that just made me take pleasure in it when i spanked him actually i'm confessing my faults to you and apparently youtube he beat his kids and he enjoyed it but look what it says but he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness so god doesn't correct us and punish us for his pleasure like your parents do but he's trying to help you he's trying to make us partakers of his holiness he's trying to correct the bad behavior because sin is bad behavior and so that's why you know that father or that parent child relationship is likened unto god and that's our biggest teaching tool to help us to understand how god is because you know god clouds up and rains on people sometimes and you know what dad's cloud up and rains on their kids sometimes too and it's just but we should listen to me you need to correct your children though so god does correct his children he does it for the right reason but sometimes people don't correct their children at all and that's what's going to turn them into the world's biggest brats in the face of the planet and they're not enjoyable to be around they're not enjoyable to raise and we don't want to raise children like that if you're a christian and you're not spanking your kid you got a problem you're not you're not right with god and you're teaching them that you don't love them and you're you're training them to just go to hell later on seriously how many people have you been giving the gospel to and that person when you ask them have you ever been spanked before said no a lot of people will not get saved if they've never been spanked i've noticed that that's a truth because they don't understand the correction process they've never truly taken a licking and kept on ticking they've never truly gotten punished for something they deserve to be punished for i mean i look back and you know something my dad would my stepdad would would go over the top with his spankings he would hit me with anything handy you know rubber hoses axe handles two by fours and he would spank me with all kinds of stuff fishing poles sturgeon poles i mean he was he was a piece of garbage you know he really was but there are some times that he spanked me when i knew that i deserved it and i deserved the implement that he punished me with the worst part is walking down a half mile to the willow trees picking that willow tree off i mean you know you think that that's something that never really happens it's like some kind of lore no it really did happen i mean i'm sure his dad did the same thing and if you picked the skinny one that broke really easy on the second swing or something you'd have to go back and get one bigger and so you might as well just pick one that's semi-thick that's not going to break after a couple lashes but there's times that i did stuff that i deserve to get spanked and the punishment fitted the crime and i and i was thankful for the fact that he did punish me for the things that he did and we should be thankful to god when he corrects us and helps us because and we we really need to start tuning into what is going on wrong in our life and maybe there is something that needs to be fixed and you're just not paying attention you know what i mean like there's something in your life that god is correcting you on and you keep going through this same similar punishment you're like why is this happening well you might want to take inventory on your sin life and fix some things that you have going on and you know see how that works you know see if you get tuned up next week and then you know things you know you know you kind of dialed in that sin that you need to get rid of so it says no now no chasing of the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous nevertheless afterward it yield at the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby and this is so true when you we know sometimes we don't want to spank our kids i don't know why we feel that way we just don't want to do it obviously they cry and they're cute and whatever and they they give you the little sad face and they make it make it seem like you you know just violated them some way that they didn't deserve but when you do spank them and they get it good there's some there's something that happens and then there's like a connection that that you get with your your child after that spanking and they're that when they say they're sorry you give them a hug you tell them you love them and that's what it's talking about because that's what god does when he spanks us he still loves us he's never going to throw us into the oven he's never going to throw us in hell but he is going to punish us and he wants us to know that he's punishing us you know have you ever gotten a spanking and someone said i'm doing this because i love you i've said it it's true though i i was doing it because i love him because i don't want to spank it's not like i just want to go around with a stick just slapping my kids all the time that's i mean it's not enjoyable and obviously you should wait until you're just not angry before you do it i mean sometimes it's you just you know things happen but but i mean it's something that passes between you and your child when you when that happens see how it says no chase it says nevertheless afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness and so where it's where they kind of realized that they did something wrong and now they understand that they needed it onto and so it says it's it's peaceful fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby and that exercise thereby is talking about the punishment that you received for some reason it just kind of corrects the whole situation you know obviously it kind of depends on how it's done it depends on because you know obviously the bible says we're supposed to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the lord it shouldn't just be all discipline we need to be well balanced with our children and yeah i mean you can give them grace god gives us grace you can give them mercy god gives us mercy but beware if you're that parent that's just the total strict disciplinarian that never gives mercy never gives long suffering never gives a break never gives a chance never gives any grace think about god dealing that way with you and you're not going to like that so there is times to be merciful and i would i would just say well you're getting a grace card this time but you know you do this again it's going to be a bad day for you so turn to proverbs chapter 3 verse 11 it kind of deals with this it's the same concept here proverbs 3 11 says my son despise not the chastening of the lord neither be weary of his correction for whom the lord loveth he correcteth even as a father the son in whom he delighteth see the lord love who the lord loveth he correcteth if he didn't love you he wouldn't correct you he doesn't go around correcting other people's kids you don't go around spanking other people's kids i hope but god loves us and because he loves us he's going to correct us and this is a quote of what paul's quoting in the word chastening is sub is is the same word for correcting you're correcting something that someone's doing wrong so and john 112 obviously says but as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of god even to them that believe on his name so who are god's children it's not the mormons it's not everybody it's people that have believed on his name and once you believe on his name and you become his child then he just be prepared that he will correct you and so the better life we live the better i mean the better life we're gonna live if that makes sense the better we live as christians the better our life is going to be when it comes to dealing with god because but if you're the spoiled brat that is always rebelling against him then he's going to correct you more than he corrects others and it's not going to feel good but that's he doesn't want you to despise that correction because the correction is necessary so back to hebrews chapter 12 verse 12 it says wherefore lift up your 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 should fail of the grace of god lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you and thereby many be defiled he's kind of given us some tips here about how to live this christian life you know to make straight paths with your feet to not be turned out of the way being turned out of the way that's what you're you're quitting you're getting out of the race that you're supposed to be in you know let's try to be peaceable with all men that's what the bible says we're supposed to be like it says and holiness so you know what is holiness well it's being separated from the world it's being separated unto god and it says lest any root of bitterness verse 15 springing up trouble you and you know when you're a christian you're bitter that is that can take you out of the race also that can take you places that you don't want to go it says many be defiled because you start getting that root of bitterness and then you start everybody everybody's bad you're better than everybody in the church you're the most holy then you become what the holier than thou that you never wanted to be and god doesn't like holier than thou he does i mean obviously he wants us to be holy but if you're so holy that nobody else compares to you in this in this room everybody else is not as good as you that's a dangerous place to be and i've seen people that have that mentality i'm just like i know you how are you holier than everybody else in this church you forget that i've known you for all these years like what are you talking about how how are you holier than everybody else how are you the only one that's not fake it's just like people just and that's where the root of bitterness can can spring up in you and it says and thereby be defiled and it says lest there be any fornicator or profane person as esau for one morsel of meat sold his birthright so it brings esau into this equation and it says lest there be any fornicator or profane person as esau how do i read that well i read that as esau was a fornicator and a profane person that's how i read it but uh i know that there's people that believe differently about this but that's fine but it but here's the point that paul's trying to make whether you believe esau was saved or whether you believe he wasn't here's what paul's trying to say he steered from the path because of what he was doing he was you know and if we're fornicating if you're not married if you're fornicating or you're profane so it's not talking about that you cuss okay i know that people call cussing quote-unquote cussing profanity but profane means that you're just not it basically means that you're not holding things that are holy holy you're taking words and think the things of god and acting like they're just a common thing and that's what esau did right his birthright was he was the first one born and jacob was better than him because jacob wanted those things and esau despised his birthright esa turn to go ahead actually i won't have you turn there yeah i will turn to genesis chapter 26 but in genesis the bible doesn't call esau a fornicator it says he was married but who did he marry look at the genesis 26 verse 34 if you don't want to turn there i'll just read it it says and esau was 40 years old when he took to wife to wife judith the daughter of biri the hitite was he supposed to marry a hitite no he wasn't and bashamath the daughter of elon the hitite so he's marrying hitites that are not part of the the family that god wants him to marry into and it says which were a grief of mind unto isaac and to rebecca so they they didn't like the girls that he brought home but let me ask you this were the hitites were they like chaste virgins or something or were they known to be ungodly people that didn't care about stuff like that so i mean if esau is profane do you think he actually cared about being a virgin when he went to the marriage altar he probably didn't and whether you think esau was actually a fornicator or not it doesn't matter but if he was you know he i mean the bible that's what the bible says in my opinion that's what it says so i'm not going to apologize for it but you know it was a grief of mind to his parents and so isn't marriage a sacred thing it is a sacred thing right and you know many of us have you know probably made mistakes that we wish we hadn't made or you know did things that we wish we hadn't done but the point that paul is trying to make here is that isa didn't care about the things that god cared about he didn't care about the blessing he didn't care about being the leader later on that would pass on that line of of the messiah he didn't care he the bible says he despised his birthright so um you know and and what do we know about esau he was impulsive he made stupid decisions he didn't care about the things that he was going to inherit as a blessing from god look at chapter 25 verse 29 if you're in there in genesis chapter 25 verse 29 so it says that and jacob sawed pottage and esau came in from the field and was faint and esau said to jacob feed me i pray thee with the same red pottage for i am faint therefore his name is called edam so edam was harry he was red and then he liked the red pottage apparently but he got this nickname of edam but his name is esau right and jacob said sell me this day thy birthright and esau said behold i am at the point to die and what profit shall this birthright do me and jacob said swear to me this day and he swearing to 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 look what it says here at the very end thus esau despised his birthright esau didn't care about what he was inheriting and so if you compare this to our christian life when we get out of the way and get ourselves defiled and off into these wicked sins it is like despising the heritage that we have been given from god and it's going to put us out of the way like it did esau and god was angry with how esau was living his life and jacob was called the supplanter right that's what it means because he was grabbing onto esau's heel as he was born as he's like no i want to be first like he's like getting pulled out of the womb holding on to his brother's heel and at every turn jacob's trying to get what esau want what esau was was born you know just because he was born first he had this birth right but he despised it he despised that mantle that was going to be passed on to him that spiritual leadership that was going to be moving on through the family through being the first born and you'll you'll notice that that's a trend in the bible that a lot of times the people that are first born you know end up not being the most favored son because of decisions that they make like jacob's sons anyway so he's painting you know and and here's the thing esau is always painted in the bad light in the bible i mean what positive thing can you think of besides the fact that he didn't kill jacob when he met up with him all those years later after he'd had his family i mean what good thing did he do i guess he went to his dad's funeral i mean other than that he's not talked about in a positive light whatsoever do i think it's possible he was saved i think it's possible he was saved do i know for sure no i don't know for sure but what i do know is that paul is using this picture for us that we don't get fall into these traps and despise the things that god has given us and despise the christian life like well you know i just don't want to live this christian life i want to do what i want he he despised his birthright and children don't despise the family that you've been born into you're like well i just want to be like everybody else well look what happened to dina because of that you know we don't want to despise our christian heritage children if you're born into a christian family you should be uh you should be very happy about that you're blessed beyond measure i went to sunday school one time at a assembly of god church when i was a kid and that was my only exposure besides going to my dad's cult that that i ever experienced i didn't understand true christianity i went to and and learned a lesson about jonah and the whale ate some candy and and that was it and i was never allowed to go back to church after that and then you know just when my dad would have me every once in a while he was in some kind of charismatic you know talking in tongues and saying i just laughed at that like i just thought it was so funny and the preacher would always be looking at me like this i'm just like i'm 14 years old just busting up laughing because they're all talking in tongues and stuff it's weird it's weird that's what the bible says too people are going to think you're mad yeah that's what i thought i thought it was funny too but anyway but kids you're in a good church you have parents that love you that are bringing you to church don't despise the heritage that you've gotten get say if you're not saved kids get saved believe on the lord jesus christ and you're going to live a much better life than kids that are born like i mean if you guys go soul-winning kids you i know you do you see some of the doors that we go to where the parents obviously don't care too much for their kids you could have been born into a way worse situation so don't hold the things of god that you've been provided in your life because esau was just he was born he didn't decide where he was going to be born he was born into a great family right he was born of isaac and he was born with with a special heritage and he despised it and how did his life end up well he wasn't the son that inherited everything he was the son that despised the birthright and he's written about in the bible as someone that was a fornicator and a profane person we don't want that right so verse 17 back in our text says for you know how that afterward when you would have inherited the blessing when he would have inherited the blessing excuse me he was rejected for he found no place of repentance though he sought it carefully with tears and remember when jacob stole his blessing from him and he was so angry and he was so mad he was crying oh don't you have anything left for me father and he was just whining right well maybe you should have thought about that when you sold your your blessing when you sold your birthright for a bowl of soup a bowl of jewish beans lentils right you just sold it and didn't care you walked out and it says he despised his birthright and you know what when jacob supplanted him with the blessing that's god that was god's will isn't that what it's saying right here he was rejected he was rejected because he didn't care about the things he just wanted the blessing he didn't care about being the spiritual leader he cared about the blessing and he got that taken away from him too because he profaned the things of god it didn't hold them as sacred things his sacred position he was born into he despised it so and even though he he tried to cry and whine about it it didn't help him did it he did get a blessing but it just wasn't the blessing that jacob got jacob got the huge blessing let's finish off here uh through the last verses here verse 18 says for you're not common to the mount that should be that might be touched and that burned with fire nor under the blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the sound of and the voice of words which voice they that heard and treated that the word should not be spoken to them anymore so this is talking about when god was going to give the law and they're at mount sinai and they can hear the voice of god they can hear the rumbling the earthquake the fire they saw this stuff and it terrified them and they're like they told moses like just stop him from talking to us stop him from saying you know we'll do whatever you want we agree to the covenant we want to be part of this just make him stop right you guys if you if you've read the bible you understand that story but this is what it's referring back to and it says for they could not endure verse 20 that which was commanded and if so much as a beast touched the mountain it should be stoned or thrust through with the dart so remember he said you know don't let anything come close to this mountain for it's holy anybody or any animal that comes through it's going to be killed so god was showing his terrible might and his wrathful anger and but he you know he loved the children of israel but the covenant they were getting involved with was the covenant of the law the law of moses we are in the new testament and so it says and so terrible was the sight that moses said i exceedingly fear and quake but you're come unto mount zion so we're not we don't go to mount sinai we come to mount sion and unto the city of the living god the heavenly jerusalem and to an innumerable company of angels to the general assembly and church of the first born so this is going to be the whole church in heaven right everybody's going to be together and there will be one church so and it says which are written in heaven and to god the judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to jesus the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood of sprinkling and the in the speaking that speaketh better things than that of able see that you refuse not him that speaketh for if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth much more shall we not escape and look what it says if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven you see he's just he's just kind of hammering this home with us that the ultimate point of this whole chapter is that he doesn't want us to turn away from him and that we listen to that voice we are in the new testament jesus christ has spoken to us with his own words god manifested the flesh came down we have his words in the bible and we're not going to hear a voice from heaven necessarily in the way that they heard we're going to hear it in this book the book that was preserved and kept for us and it says if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven whose voice then shook the earth but now he hath promised saying yet once more i shake not only the earth only but also heaven so what they saw was a was like a local shaking a local you know basically volcano that he was you know he he set on fire they couldn't come close to him god was too holy for them moses and aaron had to intercede for them they had to have the tabernacle and all these things and god couldn't communicate with man like like we can communicate with god now it's different but it says he shook the earth but he's going to do it again when's he going to do it again well the book of revelation talks about how the earth is going to shake it's going to it's going to roll away like a scroll everything's going to be moved out of its foundation every building's going to be destroyed every place that's worldly and wicked all this world system is going to crumble to the ground and you know what's going to be left the kingdom of god it says whose voice then shook the earth but now we have promising yet once more i shake not the earth only but also heaven and this word yet once more signify at the removing of those things that are shaken as of things that are made that those things which cannot be shaken may remain and you know what that is that's the kingdom of god look what it says where for we receive we receiving the kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve god acceptably with reverence and godly fear the opposite of what isa was doing he he's calling us to holiness he's calling us to righteousness he says that we may serve god that's our that's our duty is to serve god it's our reasonable service isn't it with reverence not profane not profanity but with reverence and godly fear we ought to fear god and keep his commandments it says for our god is a consuming fire now we're never going to be consumed in the in the fires of hell but there's a lot of people in this world that will be there's a lot of people that died and went to hell and hell is enlarged itself hell is moving hell is a is a place where god's consuming fire is going to consume them forever and ever and it's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of living god look the people were afraid and didn't even want to look at god or talk to god or hear his voice they were terrified but that's not where we're at now we're in you know god has given us his grace and we have more of a responsibility than they did to serve god we have more of a responsibility to serve god than they did because we have a lot more things in our toolbox than they did we have the whole word of god we have it in our hands we have it on our phones we have it in any place in the house but let me ask you this what will shake you what's it going to take to shake you because god's talking about shaking everything else in the world but what's going to take to shake you in this life because look whatever it is the devil's going to pinpoint it so wherever we're weak then we need to to focus our energy on getting stronger in those areas because we all have weaknesses we all have chinks in our armor we all have problems and and and things that we don't see but identify those things and then when those things come you're bristled and ready for that attack you're there to take it on and the bible says that god is a consuming fire so you know he's going to consume the wicked he's going to consume the wood hay and stubble in your life but he's never going to consume us in the way where we're going to burn in hell or anything like that so don't be shaken serve god live a holy life let's pray lord we thank you so much for this great chapter in your word lord i pray that you would help us to implement the things that have been talked about here in this chapter lord and and lord it's really clear the the the places that you're steering us in this chapter lord i pray that we take this stuff to heart and lord it's not just another sermon but it's the word of god pray you'd help us to implement holiness and serve you with fear and lord that we would never quit the race or quit running in jesus name we pray amen all right let's sing our last song let's turn to page 355 we'll sing what a friend we have in jesus page 355 in your green hymn hymn books what a friend we have in jesus page 355 sing it out loud on the first what a friend we have in jesus all our sins and griefs to bear what a privilege to carry everything to god in prayer oh what peace we often forfeit oh what needless pain we bear all because we do not carry everything to god in prayer on the second have we trials and temptations is there trouble anywhere we should never be discouraged take it to the lord in prayer can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share jesus knows our every weakness take it to the lord in prayer on the last are we weak and heavy laden and precious savior still our refuge take it to the lord in prayer do thy friends despise forsake me take it to the lord in prayer in his arms he'll take it now we'll find a solace there amen great singing thanks for coming out tonight we'd love to see you back here sunday morning and evening brother sean collin can you end us with the word of prayer you